Doomsday Jigsaw Puzzle

Chapter 417: Chapter 34: Going to Sea is a Man’s Romance

(The progress for the random additional updates for the Silver Alliance has reached 50/100. Halfway there!)

Inside the Hei Wu, the Evil Fallen are twisted amalgamations of humans and various creatures, the distortion giving them somewhat inhuman visages.

But distortion also brought forth great power. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

The immense Ark, having withstood countless artillery barrages, along with the naval fleet and the harbor’s defenses, initially thought the battle had ended.

But how could they understand what an indestructible scene was, or what a twisted region signified?

It was an independent black area, a mobile black area.

The strength of the black area lies in the twisted rules and powerful Evil Fallen.

For a cruise ship, the external rules, meaning the environmental regulations of each sea area, are the spices of a bland journey.

The internal rules are complex, outsiders without tickets boarding this cruise would have their memories wiped immediately.

Apart from the erasure of memories, the many areas within the cruise also have different rules.

Just as people describe it, a city upon the sea, this city’s various parts, each with different rules.

Overall, the distortion within the Hei Wu spread outward, but so far, no area beyond the Mist could compare with the level of distortion within the cruise ship.

It was indeed the most densely twisted place in the world!

Hundreds of fighter jets constantly bombarded from the sky. The harbor’s defense line also endured ongoing bombardment, and the warships at sea continuously released depth charges.

Bombardment from all angles did not damage the cruise. The only things capable of harming this massive vessel were a select few crew members aboard.

These crew members, if placed within the world Inside the Mist, each was a legendary character in their own right.

But if set loose in the World Beyond the Mist, they would be apocalyptic monsters. However, Wen Hao did not deploy these legendary crew members.

To confront the human firepower line ahead, the Ark did not need to show its full strength.

The waves surged tumultuously as if the ocean itself was starting to rage!

The carnivores below the deep sea had already been feeling fear these days, not just the people on land noticing the changes in the world, but marine creatures too.

Wen Hao picked up a mysterious horn, and the prolonged horn’s call was drowned out by the artillery, yet it penetrated to the deeps of the ocean.

In the seven hundred years, Wen Hao had accumulated many abilities, one of which was to control the tides and the monsters in the deep sea.

After the distortion descended, it became difficult for people to notice what was happening at the bottom of the sea, and as civilization regressed, the ocean once again became mystical.

The lifting of regional restrictions allowed many deep sea leviathans to arrive in new environments as well.

The once proud sovereigns of the ocean, in an instant, became prey. Various island countries were reporting sightings of sea monsters.

And the most terrifying of these creatures were gathered beneath the Ark.

At the call of Wen Hao’s horn, an enormous octopus extended its tentacles, resembling the ancient gods in Cthulhu mythology, with tentacles of untold length piercing the sea surface.

Amidst the endless artillery fire and mist, they penetrated through the thick hulls of warships! The menacingly huge tentacles of an octopus were one of the core sources of humanity’s fear of the ocean.

For thousands of years, human civilizations’ fears of the deep sea, and rumors of sea monsters, have always included giant octopuses.

Now, many saw tentacles so vast they seemed to touch the clouds in the sky, and when they thought of the even more dreadful creature beneath the sea’s surface—

The terror of the deep sea seemed to take physical form.

The powerful tentacles pierced through the warship’s hulls, and some even wrapped around the vessels, coiling, squeezing.

The horrific sea waves rushed forth. Hundreds of meters high, the waves seemed like a shield from the ocean itself!

Rocket-propelled grenades, incendiaries, armor-piercing rounds... these fearsome weapons seemed so insignificant in the face of true natural wrath!

Atop the giant waves that soared hundreds of meters high, Wen Hao held a strange fragment in his hand.

As the counterattack had just begun, if the hyper-gigantic sea beasts had overturned human imagination, then what happened next was a scene that left the brains of military strategists from various countries watching the battle from afar...completely blank.

The hundreds of meters of waves were just the beginning.

In the next instant, seaquakes tens of times more powerful arrived, and the last image humanity could see...

was the sea smashing into the sky, as if heaven and earth were reversing.

Warships were swallowed by the seawater, and the vast River Return Port...destroyed in an instant.

The Human Allied Forces, which had taken so long to prepare, were annihilated under the effect of a tiny fragment.

Wen Hao’s rage was appeased.

Those who had harmed his crew, all buried deep in the sea. The ultimate wave that could touch the sky, once it came crashing down, not even Jin Ze Country could withstand it.

But what followed...these waters, like living creatures, obeyed Wen Hao’s command.

They did not spread out to engulf the world, but changed their physical trajectory as if...returning to the origin.

River Return Port did not even have a single wreckage left behind, beneath the calm sea buried a chaotic battlefield, but above the surface, as if nothing had happened.

Only the enormous cruise ship, intact, loomed over the sea.

The long duration of human firepower...had caused it no harm, and the moment the monsters on the cruise ship made a move...

The allied military front of the nations...shattered completely.

This overwhelmingly vast disparity in combat strength left everyone who had witnessed this battle stunned.

They all thought the next second would be Jin Ze Country’s moment of great crisis...these monsters would vent their fury upon humanity, but soon...something incomprehensible to the monsters happened.

The massive cruise ship...turned around.

It did not head towards the Mist, nor did it continue towards Jin Ze Country.

Humans did not know the intentions of this ship full of monsters.

The universe is a dark forest, every civilization a hunter armed with a gun, who must tread without making a sound, even breathing carefully; they must be cautious.

Because all around in the forest are hunters just like him, if he discovers another life, there is only one thing he can do, shoot to eliminate the other hunter.

In this forest, any life that reveals itself will soon be eliminated; such is the image of cosmic civilizations.

This is the famous Dark Forest Theory.

In the eyes of humanity, the creatures from within the Mist are another civilization, and their existence can only mean the annihilation of their own.

Would a tiger discuss peace with a rabbit? This group of people clearly had stronger powers...but why did they not choose to continue their advance?

Standing on the topmost deck, Wen Hao looked at the sun, letting it sting his eyes.

"The weather here is really nice, cough cough cough...this sunlight...is truly comfortable," said Liu Bingshu, a core crew member.

Liu Bingshu was always sickly, but his power was enough to destroy human civilization.

For he represented something humanity had never truly conquered—Disease Demon.

All sorts of viruses gathered within Liu Bingshu’s body, and if he wished, he could infect a city with an unprecedented, bizarre disease concocted from a mix of many viruses, ensuring both an alarming infection rate and fatality rate.

"Yeah, the sun inside the Mist can sometimes rise to over ninety degrees—outrageous. I’ve almost forgotten what a normal temperature feels like, hahahaha," Jiang Zhu, a huge man with purple muscles, said.

Jiang Zhu too had immense strength, indispensable over the ocean; he could control another thing humanity never truly conquered—climate.

Or to put it another way, Jiang Zhu’s power was Calamity. Thunder, tsunami, gales, torrential rain, snowstorms...he could summon them, lasting a very long time and covering a vast area.

"Are we just going back like this? This world is a juicy piece of meat, so tempting," said the third person speaking, a woman with an eyepatch.

Her name is Li Xin. Although she looks like a beauty, after the Evil Fallen Transformation, the most accurate thing to say is... Li Xin is a mermaid, not a beauty.

It’s just that her fish tail is hidden by clothing around her waist. One wouldn’t notice she’s non-human just by looking at her face.

Li Xin also possessed a powerful thing that humans never conquered—desire.

The former Li Xin was a problem crew member who could provoke two unrelated and hardly interacting crew members to come to blows in an instant. She appeared intellectual, but in reality, she was the wildest and most aggressive.

Wherever she went, if she wished, she could draw out the deepest desires of people.

By comparison, Wen Hao, who controlled the seas, seemed rather unremarkable.

But combined, these elements formed a maritime empire enough to scare any force.

When Jing Wu initially contacted Bai Wu on Black Gold Island, he mentioned this cruise ship and asked Bai Wu to look for it. Bai Wu laughed it off and pretended to agree.

In fact, as an island, Black Gold Island had encountered this cruise ship before.

However, the forces of Black Gold Island could do nothing about the cruise ship.

On one hand, they couldn’t board it, on the other, this ship was like the vessel meant to save the world after the supreme god destroyed humanity, as portrayed in the religious culture of the Fuyue Twin Islands.

Calamities, human disasters, diseases, were enough to bring the world to the brink of destruction.

In the end, the endless ocean would inundate everything. Just like in the Book of Revelation where the supreme god destroys humanity.

Jing Wu didn’t care about these things, but although he was stronger than everyone on the ship, including the captain, he was not stronger than the ship itself.

The crew members and the captain, along with the ship itself, were essentially one and the same.

This was a special area. Battling with any one person on board was akin to battling the entire crew.

Jing Wu had extraordinary power, but he might not be able to suppress all the creatures on the Ark, especially at sea.

The Evil Fallen were restricted by their region and couldn’t move, but it was not the Evil Fallen that moved, it was the region itself.

Such a region—Jing Wu would not want to become its complete enemy.

Wen Hao looked into the distance and said,

"This world is very beautiful... but none of it belongs to us."

"Then let’s take it by force, Laoda. These people are very weak anyway," Li Xin was eager to act.

Wen Hao shook his head,

"Let’s wait and see. We don’t have to land, even on these seas, the breeze here is milder, almost like it was seven hundred years ago."

"Cough cough cough... Captain, aren’t you being too merciful?" Liu Bingshu was worried.

"We’ve shown great strength, but what if they provoke us again?"

What to do? Destroy humanity? Return to the Mist?

Of course, Wen Hao was not willing to return.

All the people on this ship were from Sheng Country, and seven hundred years ago, the citizens of Sheng Country were the first to endure the distortion for this world. He could refrain from landing for now, but there was no reason for him not to enjoy this gentler world.

"If they come once, we’ll eradicate them once. If they keep invading..."

Wen Hao didn’t finish what would happen if they kept invading, but the crew members below could hear the tone.

They even began looking forward to the foolishness and provocation of these humans, aggravating the typically calm but exceptionally ruthless maritime emperor when truly angered.

The colossal Ark, to the astonishment of the military leaders of various nations, headed for the distant horizon.

Humans didn’t know how to handle this, and suddenly someone among them regretted...

If there hadn’t been that bombardment, would River Return Port have a different outcome now?

Reality offers no hypotheticals, and quickly, these individuals reached a consensus at the transnational warfare council.

They decided to use satellite surveillance on the Ark megalith and, at the same time, designate the sea area it occupied as a forbidden zone.

"The world is experiencing human mutation everywhere, we’ll gather these mutants and use mutation to fight mutation, use monsters to defeat monsters," the leader of Fuyue New Island proposed.

The leader of Aulora Island said,

"We can give it a try. Most of these monsters aren’t humanoid, they must be very tired...we might even take the opportunity to organize again..."

"Enough already. Don’t you think we are being too arrogant?" The chief of Johnson Island thought they should not continue the offensive.

But the military commander from Meinan said,

"Arrogant? Let’s not forget the intelligence we currently hold, unknown to the average person. Do you not know either? This ship could very well be the source. If we resolve it, we might be able to solve all the mutations. Timewise, it’s all started after it emerged from Hei Wu, right?"

"Deeply agree."

"I think so too."

"That’s right."

"We definitely shouldn’t let them go."

National leaders and top military officials all agreed with this view, and those few who disagreed could only be overruled by the majority.

Thus, the latter part of the conference turned into a suicide meeting, as a bunch of people discussed how to assemble mutants and how to annihilate that damned Ark with the help of technology.

The plan was put into action quickly.

The claim that the Ark brought mutation, and that this monster-filled megalith held the source of mutation, became accepted without question.

Because the sudden onset of bizarre mutations and rules was inexplicable to all nations.

They desperately needed a lifesaver, a combat directive to face it all.

And indeed, it was only after the appearance of the megalith that the subsequent mutations occurred, so humanity could only pin their hopes on destroying the megalith.

There were more than a few who believed more details needed to be confirmed, but no one realized the consequences that would ensue once the idea of destroying that megalith translated into action.

Nations soon began to recruit soldiers and assemble forces in preparation to destroy the Ark.

During this time, the focus of the world’s elites was on the sea. They believed that once the enemy at sea was dealt with, everything would return to normal—an unfounded notion, but what else could they think?

Naturally, they overlooked some impending calamities on land.

The World Beyond the Mist, which had been calm for seven hundred years, was about to face two great disasters.

One invoked by humans, one by the mutants.

These events were yet to come, they needed a bit more time, but during this interval, within the sea Inside the Mist...

A mechanical ship bearing the emblem of the Eye of Colossus from Mechanical City was sailing toward the area beyond the Mist.

The man on the ship fiddled with a wristwatch that enabled Spirit Possession to transform a person into an Evil Fallen, basking in the sunlight. He was looking forward to the upcoming journey.

On another side, in a distant sea area, there was also a man setting out to sea.

This man’s setup was rather pitiful, as he planned to conquer the sea region with a mere wooden raft.

Especially since the man had his eyes closed, seemingly unable to see for some reason. If anyone witnessed this strange scene—

They probably wouldn’t pity this suicidal man, but rather the very cute little cat on his shoulder.

This was a strange cat, with a proud demeanor, looking at the clear blue sky and endless sea without fear, only pride and serenity.

Before the two great calamities beyond the Mist arrived, the two most powerful humans inside High Tower, as if by some telepathy, chose to set out to sea at the same time.