83: Chapter 82 She saw a scene she would never forget for the rest of her life.

Director Lin Su also smiled and chimed in: "That's right, Chief Zheng, you should relax occasionally. You haven't closed your eyes since the beast tide began; if you keep tense like this, your body won't be able to take it."

Zheng Yuanshan did not respond, his gaze still locked on the nautical chart.

However, his tightly furrowed brows had indeed relaxed slightly compared to a few hours ago.

The atmosphere in the command cabin became increasingly relaxed.

Some were already using their smart terminals to estimate the total merit earnings for the night, others were enthusiastically discussing the distribution plan for the post-battle treasure chests, and some were even joking about holding a victory banquet on the ship once the beast tide ended.

Director Zhou Ming even had an attendant open another bottle of champagne and pour a glass for everyone.

"Come, come, the second glass!" He raised his glass, face glowing with radiance, "This one is to our Yanhuang Civilization—united as one, invincible under heaven!"

"To Yanhuang Civilization!"

"Cheers!"

Laughter, the clinking of glasses, and conversation intertwined, and the entire command cabin was filled with the joy of impending victory.

And then—

"Beep—beep—beep!!!"

In everyone's minds, as well as on the projection of the highest-grade magic sea compass in the center, a shrill, extreme red-alert warning sound rang out simultaneously.

The sound was so piercing it felt as if it would tear one's Soul apart.

Director Lin Su's hand, holding the wine glass, froze in mid-air.

The smile still hung on her lips, but her eyes had already frozen over.

Director Zhou Ming was just opening his mouth to say something, but his voice was cut short as if someone had grabbed his throat.

Director Sun Zheng's fingers hovered above the smart terminal, motionless.

The smile was still on the face of Elder Chen of the Inspectorate, but the corners of his mouth had already begun to twitch slightly.

Everyone looked as if they had been hit by an immobilization spell, maintaining their posture from the previous second, unmoving.

Only Zheng Yuanshan suddenly lifted his head, and from those eyes that had always been as steady as a reef, two streams of terrifying, sharp light suddenly burst forth.

The air in the command cabin seemed to have been drained away.

No one spoke, no one breathed.

They turned their heads sluggishly, looking through the command cabin's massive bulletproof portholes and the live front-line broadcast on the big screen toward the sea area directly ahead.

The surface of the sea began to change.

It was not ordinary waves, nor the kind of splashing when sea beasts surfaced—but a slow, heavy, eerie bulge as if the entire ocean were rising upward.

First, a crack appeared on the sea surface.

It was not a crack in the waves, but the seawater being pushed aside to both sides, revealing a pitch-black abyss beneath.

Then, a black ridge with an area comparable to a football field silently pierced the surface of the sea.

That ridge was covered in bone armor of unknown thickness, the surface of which was riddled with honeycomb-like holes similar to volcanic rock, and from every hole emanated a dark red, pulsing light—just like the pores of some ancient behemoth breathing.

Immediately after, rows of "pillars" slowly rose from the ridge.

No, not pillars.

They were bone spurs.

Each one was over a dozen meters high, with a base diameter exceeding three meters, and tips sharp enough to pierce the sky.

The surface of the bone spurs shimmered with ghostly blue energy patterns, pulsing in and out, alternating with the dark red pulsation, eerie and terrifying.

Seawater continued to pour down from that massive body, forming dozens of small waterfalls that crashed onto the sea surface, emitting a deafening roar.

The head of that sea beast finally lifted from beneath the surface.

It hadn't even fully surfaced—the part exposed above water was already like a moving island.

Its body length was visually estimated to exceed three hundred meters, the width of its back over two hundred meters, and every piece of bone armor was like a fortress wall forged to defy the gods.

Its head was an inverted triangle, the top covered with a bone crown several meters thick, inlaid with six fist-sized ghostly blue crystals that looked like six closed eyes.

Its mouth was long and narrow like a crocodile's, but on each side grew three rows of outward-facing gill-like structures; with every breath, those gill slits would spew out scorching white steam.

The most chilling part was its eyes.

Two vertical pupils as huge as cold moons slowly opened.

The iris color was a dismal golden-yellow, and the central pupil contracted into a fine line.

Those two gazes looked down from a high vantage point at the Revival Society flagship in front of it.

It had actually bypassed the outer defensive lines tens of miles away to strike directly at the Revival Society's main nest.

No screeching.

No roaring.

No superfluous movements.

Merely the change in water pressure from surfacing and that terrifying, tangible pressure caused hundreds of escort ships around the Revival Society flagship to be capsized by the waves—steel hulls slightly caved in under the invisible force, and portholes developed spiderweb-like cracks.

In the command cabin, there was a deathly silence.

The previous hundred-meter-tall giant beast hadn't been so shocking when watched via live broadcast from outside the defensive line.

But now, the sense of shock from this behemoth, at least five times larger than the previous one, appearing directly a few dozen meters away, struck straight at their Souls.

The champagne glass in Director Lin Su's hand slipped from her fingers.

"Clang—"

The glass smashed onto the floor, shattering into countless crystalline shards.

Amber wine splashed onto her boots and pant legs, but she seemed to have completely lost all sensation, unmoving.

The wine glass in Director Zhou Ming's hand also dropped.

He didn't go to pick it up.

He stood with his mouth agape, eyes wide, staring at the behemoth on the screen that blotted out the sky, unable to say a single word.

Director Sun Zheng's fingers finally moved—but not to operate the terminal; instead, he pressed them powerlessly against the tabletop, his knuckles turning white.

The corners of the mouth of Elder Chen of the Inspectorate no longer twitched, because his entire face had already frozen stiff.

Even the usually rock-steady Zheng Yuanshan had stopped tapping the table at this moment.

His fingers hovered in mid-air, his face pale, his lips trembling slightly.

On the screen, the super-giant sea beast slowly lowered its head.

Those two cold-moon-like vertical pupils precisely locked onto the direction of the Revival Society command cabin.

A thought exploded in everyone's mind simultaneously—

It is looking at us.

It knows where we are.

From the very beginning, its target was not those escort warships—but this flagship, this command cabin, and them.