Chapter 575: Hunting the Consciousness Stealer
Reality anchor.
It was given this name because in Chen Chen’s view, psionic energy was like a force that did not belong to reality. It could communicate with human consciousness, change its nature at will, and even bring people back from the dead.
This kind of power was far more bizarre than Field energy. If the Field energy that controlled electromagnetic force was a proper, established path in the universe, then psionic powers were like a marvelous shortcut.
After all, one would not need much training. As long as one killed enough people, one could gain instant success and even create dependents across thousands of people. What was this if not a marvel?
Due to its marvel and quick success, it had far more weaknesses than Field energy and it could even be restricted by technology.
This machine could stabilize reality and suppress psionic energy. In addition, its shape was like a giant needle, so it was named a “reality anchor”.
However, since there were technologies that could suppress psionic powers, would there be technologies that could suppress Field energy?
Chen Chen thought for a while but suddenly laughed.
It was impossible for Field energy to be restricted because the essence of Field energy was the manipulation of electromagnetic force. If one wanted to suppress Field energy, one must suppress electromagnetic force and electromagnetic force was one of the four fundamental forces of the universe...
According to fantasy, the four fundamental forces were the only four ultimate laws of the universe. Their high status was even above the laws of s.p.a.ce and time.
Therefore, it was impossible for the suppression of Field to happen.
These thoughts flashed through Chen Chen’s mind. At this moment, on the platform of the time machine, another container was transported over and as the Black Knight opened it, densely packed blue test tubes were immediately revealed.
These were 10,000 tubes of concentrated L compound.
In the past few months, Blacklight Biotechnology was able to produce 2,400 tubes of concentrated L compound per month. Besides a portion that was used on the B.S.S force and the bionic policemen and a very small percentage that was re-modified into a diluted version to be sold to the Earth Federation, most of them were h.o.a.rded by Chen Chen.
Now, all three months of inventory had been brought to the dimension of Doom by Chen Chen.
Chen Chen began to build an escape route for himself.
Chen Chen was targeting to use these 10,000 tubes of L compounds on the group of prisoners in Blacklight City’s prison.
These so-called prisoners were either captives from the Divine Fusion Empire or criminals from Blacklight City. As Blacklight City required a lot of labor, these prisoners were akin to slaves in ancient times.
However, Chen Chen picked out 10,000 people with the heaviest penalties including five hundred Chen family members and injected them with compound L.
Among ten thousand people, about one thousand died because they could not withstand the L factor in Chen Chen’s blood. Among the remaining people, five thousand fused with the L factor and gained a trace of psionic power.
All these people were sent out by ships and detained on an uninhabited island.
After all this was done, Chen Chen had an escape route. He once again sent over a batch of modern weapons from reality and then mobilized the entire Blacklight City fleet toward the central Pacific.
Everything was in place except for one last thing.
...
An old fleet departed from Greenland, crossed the Arctic Ocean, traversed the Bering Strait, and headed toward the Hawaiian Islands.
Although the Divine Fusion Empire on land was powerful, its technology was far inferior to that of the Joint Resistance Army, so the sea was still controlled by the Joint Resistance Army.
However, there was still a forbidden zone for the Joint Resistance Army fleet, which was the waters near the Hawaiian Islands.
As everyone knew, the Consciousness Stealer who destroyed the entire human civilization back then sank to the bottom of the sea and entered a state of dormancy for hundreds of years.
No one knew when the Consciousness Stealer would wake up and no one knew when it woke up again, and what path the remaining human civilization would take...
Still, what the Joint Resistance Army understood was that the Consciousness Stealer seemed to have reached a certain agreement with the humans of the Divine Fusion Empire, otherwise, there would be no human forces like the Divine Fusion Vatican that sided with the Consciousness Stealer.
It was just that the Joint Resistance Army had never figured something out — the Consciousness Stealer was like a super being at the top of the biological chain and humans were like a group of ants, so why would the Consciousness Stealer make an agreement with the ants?
On this point, only Chen Chen, who likewise possessed psionic abilities, could understand that the Consciousness Stealer was treating humans as dependents, like lambs to be raised.
At this time, Chen Chen was standing on the bridge of a huge cruiser. He stared at the golden sun and the azure sky, with no sadness or joy.
This was the twentieth day of the fleet’s departure.
Due to the brand-new equipment that Chen Chen brought from reality, the fleet was gradually showing new vigor. Although it was far less than a modern fleet with ultra-long-range strike capabilities, it at least had reached the level of the middle and late stages of World War II.
In addition, hundreds of nautical miles away from the very end of these fleets, a small aircraft carrier that could house drones was silently trailing behind.
This aircraft carrier was only a hundred meters long. Although it was huge among the battleship group, it did not have enough suppressive bulk. Nonetheless, it was the true trump card of Chen Chen’s operation.
This was because in the depths of the cabin of the small aircraft carrier, a cylindrical device was standing quietly. The power of the entire aircraft carrier was connected to this device and could be activated at any time.
They were less than five hundred nautical miles away from the Hawaiian Islands.
“According to the clues given by the Joint Resistance Army, the Consciousness Stealer fell asleep in this area of the sea in that year.”
Chen Chen looked around with his hands behind his back but only saw the endless blue sea, almost merging with the blue sky, making it difficult to distinguish where the sky ended and where the sea began.
His Field energy had also been expanded to the extreme and he was constantly monitoring all the abnormal fluctuations in the entire sea area.
Still, Chen Chen found nothing.
“Sir Commander, if we continue to move forward, we’ll soon enter the waters of the Hawaiian Islands.”
At this moment, the captain of the cruiser “the Raging Tide” came up behind Chen Chen and reported in a low voice. The weather-beaten face of this bearded man was a little uneasy because he knew that this sea area was occupied by the monster that had destroyed human civilization in the past. According to legend, any ship entering this sea area would be cursed.
“Keep going.”
Chen Chen did not even turn his head back as he directly issued an order, “Warrior, prepare for the first sound wave detection.”
“Sir, Sir Commander...”
The captain’s face was a bit distressed. “This is ‘His’ territory.”
“Hmm?”
Chen Chen turned his head stoically when he heard these words and a dark glint appeared in his eyes. “Are you defying my orders?”
The captain suddenly felt a chill in his heart. With just a glance from Chen Chen, cold sweat was streaming down his back. He quickly lowered his head and said respectfully, “Of course, I wouldn’t dare!”
Chen Chen turned around again and said with a resolution that could not be questioned, “Since you wouldn’t dare, shouldn’t you hurry up and get it done?”
“Yes!”
The captain gritted his teeth, turned, and withdrew.
“X-112.”
Chen Chen spoke suddenly.
“Sir Commander.”
In the headset, a girl’s voice that was somewhat similar to that of Little X came out. “What is your command?”
“Watch Captain Chen Fengxiao closely.”
Chen Chen said lightly, “If he behaves oddly in any way, use the Black Knights to kill him on the spot at once and take over command of the fleet.”
“Okay, no problem!”
X-112 replied.
After this, the entire fleet continued to steer toward the legendary forbidden sea area. Not only that, but sound waves were also sent out as they began to explore the depths of this sea area wantonly.
“Madness, it’s pure madness!”
However, under Chen Chen’s tyrannical command, several crew members in the cruiser’s cabin began to curse loudly.
“What are they thinking, they know that this is the forbidden sea of legend, but they would still send us to our deaths?”
A man in a white navy costume trembled and he cursed as he mentally fell apart. “Are they begging for a quicker death? And to use sonar to probe — aren’t they afraid that the monster will wake up again?”
“Richard, relax!”
His colleague on the side saw that his comrade was in a bad state and immediately comforted him. “Maybe it’s because they know some secret and came here on purpose? Or maybe that monster... Maybe it has been dead for many years, who can say?”
“How can a monster that can destroy humanity die so easily?”
The third crew member shook his head and looked a little anxious. “I hope we’re lucky and can avoid this battle. Otherwise, don’t you think that our fleet is strong because, in front of the monster in the myth, we’re just like an ant...”
“Hiss, hiss... Squeak, squeak...”
As the three of them talked, the topographic map of the seabed detected by the sonar was also scanned and formed into rows of data that were spat out by the printer.
“Huh?”
One of the crew members looked at the printed data and suddenly frowned. “What is this? All around us is a trench thousands of meters deep, but a few dozen nautical miles away, there’s a circular underwater island with a diameter of about ten kilometers. And this island is less than three hundred meters from the sea’s surface?”
The other two immediately looked over when they heard these words and the colleague who comforted Richard said immediately, “This isn’t a circle, this is a sphere... What a weird island. Can there even be an island of such a shape on the seabed?”
“Moreover, at three points of the island, there are three bracket-like parts... This is...”
The voices of the three of them grew smaller and smaller. They looked at each other and seemed to realize something. Everyone’s eyes widened and cold sweat dripped from their foreheads...
The atmosphere in the room became particularly heavy for some time.
It was because at this time, they had realized that that huge island was not an island at all, but...
...
“Sir Commander.”
X-112’s voice suddenly rustled from the headset. “We’ve found the Consciousness Stealer. It’s now located at 13 o’clock, 15 nautical miles away from us. The sonar detection results show that it’s in deep sleep.”
“Since it’s asleep, wake it up.”
Chen Chen nodded, still seemingly indifferent to everything. Only X-112 would notice that when Chen Chen heard that the Consciousness Stealer was within twenty nautical miles, his breathing quickened slightly for an instant.
“Yes!”
The voice of X-112 replied and then the entire fleet was given an order again. All the warships were to fire at the location of the underwater island!
The moment they heard this order, countless people exclaimed in fright. Some wanted to stop it immediately and some wanted to rebel, but before the people in these important departments had time to take other actions, the Black Knights that had been on standby rushed into the command room immediately, restraining all these people.
“Bang, bang, bang...”
Gunshots rang out. Those crew members who did not obey the order and wanted to rebel were directly shot dead on the spot.
The surviving crew members had cold sweat on their foreheads and they finally pressed the torpedo launch b.u.t.ton under the watchful eyes of the Black Knights...
“Swish, swish, swish, swish!”
More than a dozen torpedoes raced out of the ship’s body and their motors immediately ignited, rushing toward the “submarine island” less than 300 meters away from the sea’s surface!
“Boom!”
Two minutes later, gigantic spouts of water burst out across the sea dozens of nautical miles away!
“All partic.i.p.ating ships, get into formation quickly!”
It was like a sign that the battle had commenced. As seawater surged into the sky, the fleet of Blacklight City quickly lined up in a battle formation. At the same time, on the small aircraft carrier farthest from the ships, more than a dozen drones were also beginning to take off. They carried various types of bombs and directly pa.s.sed over numerous ships, also flying in the same direction.
The state of all these developments was extremely rapid and even the soldiers on most ships were still in the dark but at this moment, a long and booming call came from the bottom of the sea!
“Rumble...”
This voice contained a special kind of tremor, which seemed to come from the unchanging river of time, and it was also like the deep groan of some prehistoric behemoth. After this voice sounded, everyone suddenly felt confused and fl.u.s.tered.
“What’s the sound?”
“It’s horrible...”
“Is that a whale?”
Thousands of soldiers on the ships kept inquiring as they prepared for battle but since the upper ranks of the fleet were controlled by the Black Knights, no one gave them any answers.
“Rumble, rumble...”
As the seconds pa.s.sed by, suddenly, the sea level in the distance swelled up with great turbulence as if the entire ocean was boiling. Countless swimming fishes quickly fled this sea area.