Zhuang Rui dared not let the "volcano" absorb his spiritual energy again. With the volcano's enormous size, it probably wouldn't be able to satisfy him even if it drained him dry. Moreover, Zhuang Rui vaguely sensed that the unusual nature of this sea area might be directly related to this underwater volcano.
"Brother Zhuang, Brother Zhuang, the radar scan detected that the smaller volcano seemed to tremble slightly. Could it be... could it really be about to erupt?"
Just as Zhuang Rui was preparing to conduct further investigation, Peng Fei's voice rang out, proving that Zhuang Rui had not been mistaken; the "volcano" had indeed "moved." It should be noted that the deep-sea radar equipped in this monitoring room represents the world's most advanced military technology. Although the radar cannot scan living things, it can clearly detect even the slightest movements of objects larger than thirty meters in size.
"Brother Zhuang, it...it's still moving..."
Upon hearing Peng Fei's words, Zhuang Rui rushed to the monitoring screen, where a huge dot of light illuminated the radar waves emanating from the screen towards the cruise ship below.
"Clyde, Captain Clyde, this is Zhuang Rui. I order the Xuanrui to turn around immediately, at maximum speed, and head towards Portuguese waters. Repeat, turn around immediately, turn around immediately!" Regardless of whether the seabed was a volcanic giant from a fantasy novel, Zhuang Rui was now certain that the enormous "volcano" was indeed a living entity; otherwise, it wouldn't have absorbed the spiritual energy he released.
At that moment, the Xuanrui was directly above it. This thing could not only not stir up trouble, but even if it just bumped the Xuanrui with its massive body, it could cause the giant ship to disintegrate instantly.
Compared to the vast treasure at the bottom of the sea, Zhuang Rui felt that his own life was more important, so he immediately grabbed the microphone and gave the order.
Although Clyde didn't know why Zhuang Rui had suddenly given this order, he resolutely carried it out. "Understood, Clyde understands. All crew members, take note: immediately turn around 180 degrees, start all turbine engines, speed 43 knots, full speed ahead..."
Clyde had long wanted to leave these waters; the old legends always gave the bearded captain a sense of unease.
Although the Xuanrui was not small, it was nothing in the vast ocean. Under Clyde's command, it quickly turned around and headed back to the area from which it had come. None of the crew members knew what had happened.
However, Zhuang Rui and Peng Fei in the monitoring room were staring nervously at the light spot on the screen, because they noticed that as the Xuanrui returned, the movement of the light spot seemed to increase.
"No...it's not a volcano, what the hell is this thing?"
Even with no common sense, Peng Fei could tell that this was definitely not a volcano. This guy had never heard of a volcano that could move.
“It’s not a volcano, it’s… a sea monster.” A bead of cold sweat dripped from Zhuang Rui’s forehead. Zhuang Rui, who had been observing the seabed with his spiritual energy, saw it much more clearly than Peng Fei. The enormous object, which was seven or eight hundred meters tall, was actually the body of a creature.
Moreover, it seemed that his own spiritual energy had disturbed this creature, which had appeared to be dormant, and it actually began to move. In Zhuang Rui's vision, countless thick "pillars" tens of meters long supported the seabed, slowly lifting the enormous creature up.
"A sea monster?"
Upon hearing Zhuang Rui's words, Peng Fei was dumbfounded. Could the two brothers' luck really be that bad? They had just escaped from the jaws of a giant African crocodile not long ago, and now they were encountering an even more outrageous creature in the ocean?
However, statistically speaking, the chances of this happening are not small. If prehistoric creatures can exist on land, it is not entirely impossible that some large species exist in the ocean, which humans still cannot understand.
However, the probability of Zhuang Rui and Peng Fei encountering such things one after another is extremely low. Observing the slowly moving light spot, Peng Fei thought that if he could survive this ordeal, the first thing he would do after returning to Beijing was to buy a lottery ticket.
Although all the thrusters on the Xuanrui were already running, Zhuang Rui still felt the speed was too slow, muttering to himself, "Faster, faster..."
According to Zhuang Rui's observation, the enormous creature on the seabed did not seem to have discovered the Xuanrui yet. If they did not take the opportunity to escape to a sufficiently distant sea area, once it detected them, they might be able to escape by helicopter, but the sailors on board would probably perish at sea.
Zhuang Rui would not choose to leave until the very last moment, because doing so would subject him to a lifetime of guilt.
Zhuang Rui had completely concealed his spiritual energy, not daring to let any of it leak out. He did not believe that his spiritual energy could appease the giant creature in the seabed, and if he were to release his spiritual energy at it, it might backfire and attract it.
Zhuang Rui and Peng Fei, standing in front of the radar screen, stared nervously at the dot of light. Beads of sweat rolled down their faces and onto the ground. By now, the backs of their shirts were completely soaked with cold sweat.
The monitoring room was deathly silent. The two were so tense that they could hear their own heartbeats. Time seemed to stretch on forever. Zhuang Rui wished his Xuanrui could grow wings and fly into the sky like a bird, so he wouldn't have to suffer like this.
"Zhuang... Brother Zhuang, it seems... it's not moving anymore..."
Peng Fei's voice suddenly rang out, startling Zhuang Rui so much that he involuntarily shuddered. Looking closely, he saw that the bright spot on the screen had indeed stopped moving, and as the cruise ship sailed away, the bright spot gradually dimmed.
Seeing the danger recede into the distance, Zhuang Rui felt his legs go weak and he involuntarily collapsed to the ground. Peng Fei, standing next to him, was in no better shape; his shirt was soaking wet and clung to his body, as if he had just been pulled out of the sea.
Despite the Xuanrui's impressive firepower, compared to the enormous creatures on the seabed, one or two torpedoes wouldn't be able to do much, probably not even a serious injury.
"Holy crap, what on earth is this thing?"
Zhuang Rui and Peng Fei exchanged a glance and asked the same question at the same time.
"have no idea……"
After asking the question, the two gave the same answer: it was impossible to tell what kind of creature it was from the radar scan alone. Although Zhuang Rui could "see" it with his spiritual energy, he couldn't identify what it was either. Apart from the dozens of thick "pillars" and its enormous body, Zhuang Rui knew nothing else about it.
In just over twenty minutes, the Xuanrui had sailed nearly twenty nautical miles away from its previous coordinates, exceeding Zhuang Rui's spiritual energy detection range. Now, even if he wanted to investigate, there was nothing he could do.
"Boss, what happened to you?"
After a hissing sound from the microphone on the control panel, Captain Clyde's voice came through.
Clyde knew that the monitoring room where Zhuang Rui was currently located was equipped with extremely advanced radar equipment. He wanted to know what had happened and was also curious as to why Zhuang Rui was changing his mind so frequently and why he sounded so nervous.
"Captain Clyde, continue at full speed. As for what happened, you'll find out when you come to the control room..."
Zhuang Rui's voice was filled with exhaustion; not everyone could withstand such a shock.
Chapter 1285 Speculation
"Boss, what exactly happened?"
After Peng Fei went over and opened the door for Clyde, the bearded captain came in and started shouting, while looking around the monitoring room.
As the captain of the "Xuanrui", Clyde had entered this room before, but he was not allowed to enter unless he had permission from Li Zhen or Zhuang Rui and Peng Fei. Therefore, Clyde was very curious about this monitoring room.
"Captain Clyde, take a look at this..."
Zhuang Rui handed a printed sheet of paper to Clyde. It had been automatically printed after the radar scan, and Zhuang Rui was confident that Clyde, as a professional, would be able to understand it.
"Is this a radar scan?"
Sure enough, Clyde recognized it at a glance, but his expression changed drastically as he pointed upwards and said, "Boss, what... what is this? Could it be... could there have been a submarine beneath our ship just now?"
Although there was marine radar in the captain's cabin of the Clyde, its surveying capabilities were far inferior to those of civilian products and could not compare with the radar in this monitoring room.
Clyde knew that any object appearing on this military radar screen must be something that could move on the seabed. Before Zhuang Rui gave the order, there was something moving in the seawater below the Xuanrui on the surface of the glowing dots on the scan map.
However, Clyde had lived at sea for decades, and the largest marine creature he had ever seen was a blue whale that was over thirty meters long. With his imagination, he couldn't connect the light spots on the scan image with the creature.
"No, even nuclear submarines aren't this big. My God, what... what is this?"
However, after looking at the data on the scanned image that indicated the size of the object, Captain Clyde immediately overturned his judgment. As a qualified captain, Clyde had a considerable amount of knowledge about ships.
Including nuclear submarines, the world's largest submarine is now the Russian Typhoon-class strategic nuclear submarine. This nuclear submarine, which is 172 meters long, is equipped with 20 missile launch tubes carrying SS-N-20 ballistic missiles with a range of 8,300 kilometers, allowing the Typhoon-class to strike any target in the same hemisphere as it.
The Typhoon-class nuclear submarine currently holds the record for the world's largest submarine in terms of size and tonnage, and the data in Clyde's possession indicates that the object beneath the seawater is over 700 meters in size.
Clearly, there doesn't seem to be a submarine that big on this planet. Not to mention submarines used on the seabed, even the world's largest supertanker, the Knock Nevis, is only 458 meters long.
“Captain Clyde, I suspect… this could very well be a living creature.” Zhuang Rui’s words made Clyde jump up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, waving his hands and saying, “Impossible, boss, there’s no creature that big in the world, not even a dinosaur…”
Zhuang Rui shook his head and said very seriously, "Clyde, there are too many things in this world that we don't know. Would you have imagined before that there were giant pythons living in the African jungle?"
Although Zhuang Rui couldn't bring back the entire skeleton of the giant python, he kept the snake's head, which was the size of a millstone, as a trophy. Clyde had also seen it with his own eyes.
"This...this is different. The radar shows it's seven or eight hundred meters in size..."
Upon hearing Zhuang Rui's words, Clyde was speechless for a moment. After glancing at the data in his hand again, he shook his head vigorously, refusing to believe Zhuang Rui's deduction.
Seeing the fifty-something-year-old captain's seemingly irresponsible behavior, Zhuang Rui felt much less apprehensive and said with a smile, "Then how do you explain the radar scan results? Captain Clyde, you're not going to say this is a volcano that grows legs and moves, are you?"
After thinking for a moment, Clyde said, "Could there be a problem with the radar? My radar monitoring is working perfectly..."
"Captain Clyde, this radar scanning system was removed from a Russian nuclear submarine. Do you think it might malfunction?"
If Zhuang Rui hadn't used his spiritual energy to sense the enormous creature at the bottom of the sea, he might have actually accepted Clyde's explanation. However, as the saying goes, seeing is believing, and Zhuang Rui had seen it with his own eyes, so of course he would stick to his own version of events.
"A creature that's seven or eight hundred meters tall... how is that possible?"
Clyde shook his head again.
“Nothing is impossible. If prehistoric giant crocodiles can appear in the forests of Central Africa, it’s not surprising that some mutated creatures exist in this vast ocean. By the way, wasn’t there a legend about a king squid in the ocean? Maybe this is a giant octopus…”
Zhuang Rui paused abruptly, an incredulous expression on his face. "An octopus? The dozens of thick pillars beneath that monster he saw before, could they be its tentacles?"
Clyde, oblivious to the change in Zhuang Rui's expression, continued, "Ahem, boss, that's just a legend, and its size is only fifty or sixty meters. It's nothing compared to this. In my opinion, it's probably a problem with the radar system..."
"No... it's an octopus, that's right, a creature from the seabed, it must be an octopus."
Zhuang Rui interrupted Clyde with some excitement, which drew puzzled looks from Peng Fei and the bearded captain.
"Uh, I guess that thing in the ocean must be a mutated marine creature. According to biologists, only creatures like octopuses can grow indefinitely..."
Zhuang Rui scratched his head and gave an explanation that dissatisfied Peng Fei and Captain Clyde. However, Zhuang Rui was thrilled. He finally figured out what kind of creature that monster was. "Brother Zhuang, that's too ridiculous. How can a small octopus grow so big?"
Although Peng Fei believed Zhuang Rui's theory about the creature, the fact that it was an octopus was unacceptable to him; a whale would have been more plausible.
"Yes, boss, those are just legends. Nobody's ever seen an octopus this big..."
Captain Clyde also wore a dismissive expression, still believing that the problem lay with the radar scanning system in the monitoring room.
"My kiss..."
Seeing that neither of them believed him, Zhuang Rui almost blurted out that he had seen it with his own eyes, but he swallowed the words back. "Honey... I'm so angry! Why don't either of you believe me?"
"I don't believe it!"
"I don't believe you, boss. You must be hallucinating."
Peng Fei and Clyde said in unison.
Zhuang Rui shook his head helplessly and said, "Alright, but that sea area is indeed dangerous. I think... it's the right thing for us to retreat first, isn't it?"
Upon hearing Zhuang Rui's words, Clyde nodded in deep agreement this time, saying, "That's to be expected. That area is indeed a devil's zone. Perhaps, what you saw, boss, was the figure of a devil..."
"Damn, can't a devil be an octopus?"
Zhuang Rui was so angry at Clyde's words that he felt like he was about to die. He should have just said that there was a devil down there instead of wasting so much breath arguing with this foreigner.
"cannot!"
Clyde and Peng Fei nodded simultaneously.
Zhuang Rui was amused by the two men and said, "Alright, once the ship is far enough away, we'll take a helicopter to that area again, and I'll show you what's down there." Zhuang Rui wasn't saying this out of spite; he also wanted to go back there and investigate more carefully. After all, he was quite flustered when the sea creature moved earlier, and he couldn't be sure that it was an octopus.
However, with such a huge creature hidden at the bottom of the sea, Zhuang Rui completely lost interest in the treasures in that area. No matter what kind of creature it was, with Zhuang Rui's abilities, he was helpless against it.
"Brother Zhuang, even if we go back, we still won't be able to lure that thing out of the sea, right?"
Although Peng Fei was bold, he was still wary of these creatures that should only exist in legends. After hearing Zhuang Rui's words, he couldn't help but back down.
"Just make a commotion, let a few bombs go in, the shockwaves will surely alert that guy down there..."
Zhuang Rui was confident that he could lure out the creature below. He believed that as long as he released his spiritual energy, he would be able to entice the creature to surface.
However, safety must be taken into account beforehand. If the creature really is an octopus, and its tentacles are long enough, it might just turn into a scene resembling a sea creature grandmother.
As Zhuang Rui moved further away from the marine creature, he observed that the number of marine creatures gradually increased, and the ocean, which nurtured human life, regained its vibrant appearance.
After a four- or five-hour voyage, the Xuanrui returned to Portuguese waters, and the patrol ship carrying General Lasco could be seen in the distance.
Only then did Zhuang Rui finally feel a huge weight lifted from his chest. He was now a hundred or two nautical miles away from the monster in the deep sea. He should be safe now, right?