from earth to abyss

What excited the man even more was that several ships had appeared on the previously empty sea. These ships had uniform gray paint, were of the same size, and looked like they were all of the same model.

“Are they from the navy?” The man was overjoyed and shouted loudly, “Oh—hey—there’s someone here—I’m here—”

But the current situation was that the man was too far from those ships, visually estimated to be at least a few kilometers away. No matter how loudly he shouted, they couldn’t hear him.

Thinking of this, the man became anxious. His first thought was to start a fire and use the smoke to signal for help. But after searching his entire body, he couldn’t find anything to start a fire with. Looking around, there was nothing suitable either.

It seemed that starting a fire was impossible. Now he could only try his luck by drawing a huge SOS sign on the beach, hoping that the aircraft in the sky would see it.

With this in mind, the man immediately took action. He ran into the woods, found a branch, and began to draw vigorously on the beach.

While the man was busy sweating for help, the ships on the sea did not stop their actions.

“Commander, Aifat reports that they have detected the sonar of an enemy reconnaissance boat! Located in the E7K8 sea area, depth 35 meters!”

On one of the ships, the communications officer was reporting to their fleet commander.

The commander glanced at the sea chart to confirm the enemy’s position, then issued an order: “Report the enemy boat’s position, then order Aifat to keep its distance from the enemy boat but block its path to the deep sea! Additionally, Longhai, Fugas, Jenny, and Yunying will maneuver to the west of the enemy boat to block its left flank; Mojadu, Mufasa, Yudanching, and Jinding will maneuver to the east of the enemy boat to block its right flank! The remaining ships will maneuver to the outer perimeter of the enemy boat based on their positions!”

“Yes, Commander!”

Soon, the man drawing the SOS on the beach heard an unusual sound. The sound was extremely muffled, like the rumble of an earthquake or landslide, but the ground did not actually shake. Moreover, the sound was not continuous but rather very short and irregular pulses.

The man couldn’t help but look up, trying to find the source of the sound. He quickly locked onto the target; the sound was coming from the direction of the fleet of ships on the sea.

“Report to the captain, our wire-guided ice torpedoes have been damaged!” On the Aifat, the mine officer reported to the captain with grief.

“Commander! Aifat has no means to attack the enemy boat, requesting permission to retreat!” The captain of the Aifat immediately reported to the fleet commander.

On the beach, the muffled, short sounds continued intermittently. As he heard it more often, the man could distinguish it more clearly. The sound had nothing to do with earthquakes or landslides because each sound was very short. It must be a huge object colliding with another huge object, and it should be underwater, which is why it was so muffled.

At this point, the man had finished drawing the SOS sign. Now he could only leave it to fate. More than his own rescue, the man began to pay more attention to the actions of the fleet on the sea.

He wanted to know what they were doing.

“Have the two aircraft in the sky responded to our request?”

“Report, Commander, they said their ice missiles cannot attack underwater targets yet. We need to force the enemy boat to the surface first.”

“Damn! It seems we have no choice. Order Aifat to block the enemy boat and not retreat. Clear their deck and prepare for impact. Additionally, the left flank ships, fire torpedoes at the enemy boat; the right flank ships, approach the enemy boat and deploy entanglement nets at the predicted position, each ship deploy five units! The remaining ships maintain their current distance.”

“Yes, Commander!”

On the beach, the man watched for a long time but couldn’t understand. He shaded his eyes with one hand and squinted, only roughly understanding that the fleet of ships had formed at least four columns, moving at high speed to encircle a certain sea area, and were throwing something into the sea, as if they were fishing.

But do fishing boats need to be equipped with cannons? The man clearly saw that each ship had at least two cannons mounted at the front and rear. Moreover, the overall design of these ships was like warships, with an outward-leaning bow and a towering bridge, completely unlike any fishing boat.

“Commander, the enemy boat is surfacing! 50m, 35m, 15m, it’s coming up!”

“What’s the position?” The commander couldn’t wait for the report and rushed to the observation deck on the bridge to look around.

A huge black “shark” burst out of the sea. It was at least 30 meters long, with sharp dorsal fins, a pointed head, wide triangular pectoral fins, and a ring of black tubes around its tail, similar to aircraft engine ducts. A large amount of seawater was thrown into the sky as it emerged.

This scene was naturally also seen by the man observing from a distance. When he first saw the “shark” burst out of the sea, he couldn’t help but exclaim: “Oh my god, how can there be such a big shark in the world?” But upon closer inspection, he found something wrong. Why did this guy have a big black cylinder on its tail?

Real sharks don’t have such things, and sharks swim by wagging their tails. This one’s tail didn’t wag at all, but it could still move forward, with a large amount of seawater being sprayed from the front of the black cylinder to the back.

“This guy shouldn’t be a real shark, it’s a machine? Man-made?” The man observed and thought quickly.

The huge black “shark,” which the people on the ships called the enemy boat, rushed towards the Aifat, which was closest to it, as soon as it surfaced. To execute the interception mission, Aifat was less than a hundred meters away from it. Even with the captain’s order to evade quickly, it couldn’t avoid the enemy boat within the seven seconds it took to rush over. The sharp head of the “shark” pierced deeply into the hull of the Aifat like a finger into a cake.

“Oh damn!”

The man on the beach and the fleet commander shouted simultaneously from different places.

The fleet commander waved his hands at his subordinates and shouted, “All units, fire! Close in! Close in! Quickly deploy the nets, don’t let it escape! Where are the aircraft? They should have seen it by now, tell them to attack immediately!”

On the beach, the man worried for the ship that had been pierced from the side: This is bad, the impact point is right near the waterline. I hope the damage control team on that ship can handle the situation, otherwise, it might sink soon. What exactly is this black shark-like thing?

“Received your instructions, we see it, preparing to drop bombs!” At this moment, the aircraft squadron that had been circling nearby finally began to fly towards the ships. The pilot reported to the fleet commander in a very calm tone.

The “shark” did not stop after inserting its head into the hull of the Aifat. Torrents of seawater gushed from the black cylinder at its tail towards its head, indicating that it was trying to pull its head out with all its might.

But the crew of the Aifat reacted faster. After the collision, they quickly threw two sturdy entanglement nets at the “shark,” with the other ends still tied to the ship. At the same time, the two turrets at the bow and stern of the Aifat began to spray supercooled water at the “shark” at close range. The entanglement nets gradually became covered with more and more ice, making it harder for the “shark” to escape.

Now, even if the “shark” wanted to sink back to the bottom, it would have to drag the Aifat down with it. But this was clearly not something that could be done in a short time, because the Aifat was a littoral combat ship as long as the “shark.”

“Prepare to drop bombs, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,” the pilot pressed the button on the control stick, “high-intensity cooling bombs deployed, subsequent attacks are up to you.”

Six 800-kilogram cooling bombs dropped from the diving aircraft’s pylons, with a sharp whistling sound, plummeting from 500 meters high, landing precisely around the Aifat and the “shark.”

From a distance, the man saw an increasingly dense white mist rising from the center of the sea area surrounded by the ships, accompanied by churning seawater. The white mist did not float higher into the sky but gradually spread to the surrounding sea area.

What are they doing??

The man was puzzled: Why aren’t these ships firing? Shoot it, quickly, can’t you see the “shark” is trapped?!

However, what happened next confused the man even more. He saw that instead of the cannons on the ships firing as they should, they were spraying curved streams of water, circling around the “shark” and the ship it had pierced, as if they were urinating in circles.

“Are those… high-pressure water guns? Wait, that ‘shark’ pierced one of your ships, and you’re only using high-pressure water guns? Don’t you have any offensive weapons? Machine guns? I can’t even hear the sound of machine guns firing!”

The man, completely unable to understand the situation, stomped his feet anxiously on the beach, like a gaming expert watching a novice play.

Meanwhile, the fleet commander watched as the “shark” gradually stopped spraying seawater in reverse, and more ice formed on its body. Although he felt more at ease, he still didn’t dare to relax.

“All ships close to the target, stay alert, keep the decks clear, and gradually withdraw from the central sea area. Use the entanglement nets to drag it to the shallow waters. Order Yunying to approach from the other side to rescue the crew on Aifat.”

Following the command, Yunying quickly moved to the other side of Aifat, throwing a large number of ropes at a distance of less than 10 meters, as if preparing for a boarding action. The medical personnel on Yunying climbed the ropes hand over hand to reach Aifat, as they needed to rescue the injured crew members immediately.

At this moment, the “shark,” which had been almost quiet and seemed to have given up struggling, suddenly started to rampage again. It appeared to activate a full reverse mode, with large amounts of sea ice being crushed and sprayed forward from the black cylinder, forming a deadly stream of ice shards that instantly injured all the personnel on Aifat’s deck who were preparing to evacuate, and even some of Yunying’s crew were not spared.

“Damn it, deploy the shields!” The fleet commander and Yunying’s captain ordered simultaneously.

This situation was completely unexpected, but fortunately, all the ships were equipped with magical shield generators. These shields could create significant resistance to objects passing through them during their activation, designed specifically to counter low-speed aerial attacks.

However, the shields didn’t last long, and continuous use could barely sustain them for a minute. Understanding this, the crew of Aifat and Yunying, despite their injuries, quickly got up from the deck and continued to evacuate. The lightly injured helped the severely injured, while the uninjured continued to rescue the deeper crew members on Aifat.

At the same time, the fleet commander immediately directed Fugas and Jinding to continue spraying supercooled water at the “shark” from the side where Aifat had been hit, to suppress its engine operation. They knew that the enemy boat’s engine couldn’t ignore the presence of ice, and forcing it to start would inevitably cause damage soon.

Sure enough, the suppression spray lasted only a few seconds before the “shark’s” engine stopped again.

“Our current weapons are still not enough to deal with this reconnaissance boat. We need weapons that can effectively destroy its engine…” The fleet commander muttered, clenching his fists.

After the aircraft dropped the cooling bombs on the “shark,” the dense cold mist made it difficult for the man on the beach to see what was happening on the ships. But one thing was very clear to him: the fleet had never fired any shots that would make a loud noise. From their actions, it seemed they wanted to capture the “shark” alive.

Completely unable to understand this kind of combat operation, the man’s confusion grew, making him wonder if he was in a bizarre dream, a dream without any logic. He squatted on the beach, staring blankly at the sky.

“Hey Mary, what’s that?” In the sky, a pilot called out to his wingman while still circling on standby.

“What? Which direction?”

“At our three o’clock, on the beach of Spice Island, there are some strange patterns.”

“Ah… yes, I see it too. What should we do? Should we go check it out?”

“Yes.”

The two aircraft turned towards the man, and the man and the pilots noticed each other simultaneously, even greeting each other at a low altitude of two hundred meters.

“Is that a person…?”

“Is he one of our crew…?”

“No, look at his outfit, he’s not one of our navy personnel.”

“He’s dressed so raggedly… my god, could he be a resident of Spice Island!?”

“If that’s the case, someone is going to be held accountable.”

“My god, how did he survive? Wasn’t there a massacre on Spice Island, and all the residents were killed?”

“Apparently not, there are still survivors on the island, and our search and rescue team completely missed them…”

Of course, the man on the beach couldn’t hear the conversation between the two pilots, but to survive, he still waved his hands high to get their attention.

In fact, the man didn’t know if this was the right thing to do. He didn’t even know if these people would be friendly to him, but in his current situation, he had no choice.

The man had been away from human society for too long. Now, he just wanted to return to the embrace of his kind.