Chapter 25: Interception in the Deep Sea

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Late at night, the moonlight was dim and shadows flickered along the coastline, where low-ranking security personnel from the Rapid Response Unit patrolled back and forth. Several large vessels on the sea hosted containment operatives, able to resist some electromagnetic interference and pulses, ensuring that the ships and salvage equipment operated normally. But the lower-tier security guards had to abandon electromagnetic firearms, switching instead to old-fashioned powder rifles; even their communicators and walkie-talkies were useless, leaving them to enforce a blockade by standing guard and patrolling.

This labor-intensive method of sealing off the area had persisted for days. Once the salvage ship successfully captured the core of the forbidden object, vigilance along the coast sharply declined, mainly to prevent vagrants from the safe zone from wandering in.

“What are you doing here!”

The beam of a flashlight wavered, and the clatter of a rifle bolt echoed. A solitary figure emerged slowly from the darkness of the coastal forest, hands raised to show he meant no harm. Li Nanke pointed to the identity badge hanging from his chest, feigning anxiety as he said, “Sir, I’m from the Foundation’s rescue team.”

The flashlight focused on Li Nanke’s face, then shifted to his badge.

“Sir, I lost my flashlight—it’s pitch dark and I got lost. Could I borrow yours?”

Once his identity was confirmed, the three security men relaxed their guard. One waved him off impatiently, “Get lost. This isn’t a place for your rescue team.”

Li Nanke could only turn away helplessly. The security guard spat after his retreating figure, disappearing into the forest, “Bah. Humanitarian rescue, my foot. Pretentious fools with nothing better to do.”

Each patrol had strict requirements for timing and routes. Li Nanke had delayed this group for only a minute, but he’d used similar tricks with another patrol earlier. The overlap widened the usual gaps in surveillance for a fleeting moment.

He raced through the dense woods, slipping unnoticed into the surging, deep sea during the interval between the two patrol teams.

…

On board the ‘Camellia,’ a super-large salvage vessel, within the bridge command center.

Through the observation window, beams from brilliant searchlights swept back and forth, but could not pierce the sea’s profound darkness. Only the outlines of floating auxiliary ships—semi-submersibles, dive support vessels, tugboats, barges—could be discerned.

“Have the researchers figured out the side effects of the forbidden object yet?”

“No, so it can’t be moved from the site. We’ll maintain preliminary containment measures for now, and only when we understand it better can a proper containment plan be devised.”

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The containment operative, Matthew, felt resigned. The core and larger fragments of the forbidden object had already been located and retrieved with sonar, accomplishing the first-priority task.

As for the remaining small fragments… the residual pheromone levels in those tiny pieces were too low to warrant priority.

The containment team struggled enough to keep the ship’s electronic systems running; they couldn’t spare more attention for the underwater situation. Divers would have to grope about slowly. After the main body of the forbidden object was removed, underwater robots and other devices could function normally, making retrieval of the small fragments much easier.

Compared to previous containment operations, this mission was remarkably straightforward—there was no bloody combat against biological forbidden objects, nor the paralyzing uncertainty of conceptual-rule anomalies.

This forbidden object was nothing more than an oversized electromagnetic disruptor plus an EMP. The side effect? Electronic devices couldn’t be used. Anyone with eyes could see that. Yet the researchers were still at it after days, hardly the most subtle way to siphon off extra funding.

Of course, Matthew kept these thoughts to himself.

“Matthew, I know what you’re thinking. Quit complaining—if you’ve got time to gripe, you’ve got time to make coffee for everyone.”

Faced with Captain Bastian’s teasing, Matthew could only sigh and rise to brew coffee.

Suddenly, alarms blared, and crimson warning lights flashed urgently.

“Monster! Monster… ah!” The intercom crackled with anguished cries, marred by severe electrical interference—voices of the researchers!

Containment operatives exchanged alarmed glances and rushed out…

…

On the seabed of the continental shelf, the underwater world was shadowy and deep, illuminated only by faint artificial lights.

The average depth of the shelf was less than two hundred meters—a manageable range for divers equipped with professional gear and biological prosthetics.

Here, the electromagnetic pulses were so intense even basic flashlight circuits malfunctioned. Divers relied instead on glowsticks, underwater flares, and radiation-lit tritium lamps.

Night-vision prosthetic eyes allowed them to barely discern objects on the seabed with the faintest illumination. Yet the bottom was thick with silt, and tiny metal fragments were often deeply buried, nearly impossible to locate.

Normally, underwater robots and a suite of electronic retrieval devices would handle these tasks, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Until the big object was removed from above, salvage work below would remain inefficient.

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Suddenly, a diver seemed to discover something. Holding a tritium lamp glowing green like a wooden staff, he fished a palm-sized metal fragment from the muddy seabed.

He was thrilled, raising his thumb to signal his intent to ascend. His companions responded with an OK gesture.

The diver dared not linger with the metal fragment. He quickly placed it into a specialized storage box and began his ascent.

Thanks to prior injection of deepwater agents, he didn’t need to worry about acute decompression sickness from dissolved nitrogen in the blood, so his ascent was swift.

When he reached fifty meters depth, he suddenly sensed a turbulent current behind him, as if a large fish approached. Instinctively, he tried to turn—

But before he could even look back, darkness engulfed him, and he lost consciousness.

Li Nanke took the tritium lamp, extracted the box from the diver’s belt, and opened it—a misshapen metal fragment lay inside.

Recalling the ‘visualization’ technique bestowed by the Great Other Shore, he carefully examined the fragment for traces of pheromones.

He had been lying in wait here for some time. The main quality, ‘Deep Sea,’ though not yet upgraded, could easily handle this depth for supernatural abilities.

He had not descended further simply because the darkness made it impossible to see. At fifty meters, one could occasionally glimpse the blurred glow of searchlights above; any deeper, it was utter blackness, impossible to even tell direction.

After a thorough inspection, confirming the presence of pheromone residue, he immediately ascended.

Surfacing, he saw from afar that the giant salvage ship was flashing urgent red warning lights, with faint screams and cries drifting over the water…

Li Nanke frowned, examining the metal fragment in the box once more, an ominous feeling rising in his heart.