137: Chapter 137 The Phantom on the Yangtze River

The fleet continued forward on the river of sorrow.

Behind them, the city of Jinling gradually became a blurred, bleeding silhouette amidst soaring flames and billowing thick smoke.

The river wind wailed, like the weeping of three hundred thousand lost souls.

The survivors on the boats had long since cried their eyes dry.

They huddled on the small sampans, their faces etched with numbness and deathly stillness.

Home was gone.

The nation was broken.

The last bit of hope that sustained their will to live collapsed the moment they witnessed their hometown turn into a sea of fire.

This "ark" carrying the seeds of civilization drifted thus upon the despairing river, unsure of where it was headed.

The atmosphere in the Livestream room was also suppressed to the extreme.

The bullet chat became sparse, no longer filled with the usual banter and passion.

【I... I'm speechless.】

【I only saw words in history books before. Today, I finally know how much pain lies behind every single word.】

【Farewell, Jinling... I only hope the people on the boats can survive.】

【Master Xi, please, you must lead them to survival!】

Chen Xi did not look at the bullet chat.

He just stood quietly at the bow, his gaze piercing through the pervasive gunpowder smoke, staring at the dying city.

There was no expression on his face.

But in those eyes, two clumps of never-extinguishing flames seemed to burn.

(I will come back.)

He made a vow in his heart, to himself and to this city.

(Next time, I will return in the posture of a victor.)

Right at that moment.

An anomaly occurred without any warning.

The river wind that was just wailing suddenly stopped.

The river water that was still slowly flowing also suddenly became static.

In just a few seconds, the entire river surface became as if instantly frozen, without even a single ripple.

It was like a massive black mirror, reflecting the eerie clouds dyed red by the firelight in the sky.

The sound of weeping that had been echoing across the river just now also came to an abrupt halt.

Everyone was stunned into silence by this eerie, sudden quiet.

【What's going on?】

【Is it lagging? Why isn't the image moving?】

【No, look, the boats are still moving. It's the wind and water that stopped! This is so damn eerie!】

The next second.

From beneath the sampans, a massive, unnatural dragging force surged!

"Boom!"

The calm river surface exploded without warning.

An unimaginably huge whirlpool appeared out of thin air in the middle of the fleet.

The whirlpool was bottomless, as if leading straight to the entrance of hell, erupting with terrifying suction.

Dozens of small sampans, like helpless fallen leaves, were instantly sucked into it and began to spin wildly.

"Ah—!"

The screams of the survivors were completely swallowed by the sound of the massive water flow.

Panic instantly replaced sorrow, becoming the only emotion on the river.

However, Chen Xi's attention was not on that terrifying whirlpool.

On his retina, the system's piercing red warning had already filled the entire screen!

【Warning! Ultra-high-spec energy fluctuation detected! Source: Riverbed!】

【Warning! Energy Type: Unknown! Unable to analyze!】

【Warning! Danger Level: Extremely Fatal!!! Please stay away immediately!】

(Ultra-high-spec energy? Extremely fatal?)

Chen Xi's heart sank abruptly.

He had experienced countless battles, and the system had issued various warnings.

But this was the first time he had seen the "Extremely Fatal" level.

This meant that the thing below had an energy level far exceeding all the black-tech weapons he possessed!

"Hold on tight!"

He roared at the people on the boat, but his voice was completely drowned out by the roar of the whirlpool.

A sampan lost its balance in the violent rotation, tilting high up, looking as if it was about to be swallowed whole.

The people on the boat let out despairing screams.

In that very instant.

Through the turbid, churned-up river water.

Chen Xi, and several survivors on the boat with just the right angle, saw it.

They saw an... indescribable sight.

At the deepest part of the whirlpool, an unimaginably massive, mountain-like pitch-black shadow flashed past from the riverbed at an incredible speed.

That shadow was too big.

So big that the sampans were not even worth a speck of dust in front of it.

It merely passed by underneath, and the energy aftershocks it dissipated created such a terrifying natural disaster in the Yangtze River!

At this moment, the Livestream room completely exploded.

【Holy shit! What was that?! Did you guys see it?!】

【I saw it! A black shadow! It's so damn big! Like a train swimming in the water!】

【A train? Who are you looking down on! That thing is bigger than a damn mountain!】

【Mon... Monster! There are monsters in this game!】

【This isn't a damn history game! This is a damn Cthulhu Call of Cthulhu session!】

Almost at the same time the giant shadow flashed past.

A strange, low hum that couldn't be heard with ears but acted directly on the brain swept over everyone present.

The feeling was like someone using a cold iron rod to stir inside your brain matter.

Everyone felt a brief shudder and dizziness from the depths of their souls.

Even Chen Xi was no exception.

He let out a muffled groan and almost knelt on the deck.

And right after this low hum swept past.

Something even more bizarre happened.

The terrifying whirlpool, the fatal suction, the towering waves—all disappeared within a single second.

It was as if someone had pressed the pause button.

The river surface once again returned to a deathly calm.

As if the world-ending scene just now was merely an absurd hallucination.

The survivors on the boat gasped for breath, many slumped at the bottom of the boats, their faces filled with the daze and fear of having survived a disaster.

Everything that just happened had completely exceeded their scope of understanding.

Chen Xi's expression also became unprecedentedly solemn.

He looked at the glaring red notification on his retina.

【Unknown high-energy signal has disappeared.】

For the first time, he developed deep doubts and a hint of... wariness regarding the truth of this "game" world.

Was this place really just the 1937 Dragon Country that he knew?

What exactly was that thing that flashed past the riverbed?

Was it a "god" or "demon" that originally existed in this world?

Or... another "player" outside of the system?

Endless mysteries, like the massive whirlpool just now, sucked his thoughts in together.

However.

Reality did not give him much time to think.

A survivor responsible for keeping watch suddenly stretched out a trembling hand, pointing toward the morning mist gradually dispersing in the distance.

"Ship..."

He cried out in despair, his voice carrying a sob.

It's... it's a Japanese gunboat!"

Everyone looked in the direction he pointed.

They saw a black silhouette flying the Rising Sun flag on the river under the morning light, breaking through the waves like a shark smelling blood, heading toward them at high speed.