A British naval commander with the rank of lieutenant general also looked very grim. The British casualties were similar to those of the United States, and he would have a hard time explaining this to Parliament when he returned home.
However, this is not General Lasco's fault. If his orders had been followed, the tragedy of the third helicopter squadron would not have happened.
General Lasco did not answer the lieutenant general's question, but instead whispered to his adjutant, "Go and fetch Mr. Zhuang..."
Lascaux knew that without the monster surfacing, their superior strength would be useless. At this critical moment, he remembered Zhuang Rui's astonishing precognitive abilities and invited him—a desperate measure, a case of grasping at straws.
The conference room was bustling like a marketplace. No one noticed that Zhuang Rui, who was sitting in the corner, quietly left the conference room, led by an officer.
After being led out of the conference room, Zhuang Rui asked his adjutant, "What does General Lasco want with me?"
"Perhaps they want to get your opinion. Please come with me..."
The adjutant didn't say much, and directly led Zhuang Rui to the command post, which was only a few dozen meters away.
The British lieutenant general was quite displeased that Lasco hadn't answered his question earlier. Seeing Zhuang Rui enter, he raised his voice and said, "General Lasco, is this the young man you've been waiting for?"
As for the once arrogant American major general, he had lost his confidence and sat quietly in his seat without interfering.
Lasco despised these armchair strategists from the bottom of his heart, and said coldly, "General Howard, he is one of the people who witnessed the monster firsthand. I would like to ask for his opinion on some matters. Do you have any good suggestions?"
"I...I..."
The British lieutenant general was speechless when asked by General Lascaux. In modern warfare, the British army has almost become a vassal of the United States. With the boss in a slump, what good solutions could he possibly come up with?
After hearing their conversation, Zhuang Rui understood a bit, and immediately gave a wry smile, saying, "General Lascaux, I saw what happened just now. You don't think I have any solutions, do you? I know absolutely nothing about military affairs..."
"No...no, Zhuang, I know you have a very keen sense of danger, otherwise we would have ended up like those helicopters."
Upon hearing Zhuang Rui's words, Lasco waved his hands repeatedly and said, "Zhuang, I was thinking... could you go with the bombers to that area of the sea and use your amazing sensory abilities to provide some assistance to our soldiers?"
Lasco was truly at his wit's end when he remembered Zhuang Rui's urgent request for the helicopter to gain altitude. He hoped that Zhuang Rui could once again miraculously sense the exact time when the monster emerged from the water.
It's important to understand that the thermobaric bombs on that B-2 bomber could only damage the monster if they directly hit it; otherwise, if they were thrown into the sea, they would at most just make a noise.
"I?"
Zhuang Rui was stunned upon hearing this. He hadn't expected that Lasco would take his casual excuse seriously. He quickly waved his hands and said, "No, no, General Lasco, I'm not Superman. I don't have any sensory abilities. It was just a feeling, something many people would have..."
Zhuang Rui dared not give in at this juncture, otherwise he might be kidnapped and dissected at any time. Besides, neither the United States nor the United Kingdom present were easy to deal with.
"This...sigh, we can't get the monster to surface, there's no other way!"
Lasco sighed and didn't force Zhuang Rui. He had approached Zhuang Rui out of desperation, and frankly, he didn't believe in any kind of intuition.
"Surface?"
Upon hearing Lasco's words, Zhuang Rui laughed and said, "General Lasco, it's very simple to make the monster surface..."
"Simple?"
The eyes of all the generals in the room widened.
Zhuang Rui nodded and said, "Of course, as long as we send a few more helicopters over and drop a few bombs, I believe that monster will go berserk again, right?"
Hearing Zhuang Rui's words, Lasco smiled bitterly and said, "But, Zhuang, you saw it yourself, the entire helicopter squadron was wiped out. We can't send any more soldiers to their deaths..."
"Hey, General Lasco, as long as the helicopter stays above 5,000 meters, that monster shouldn't be able to attack, right? That way you can lure it to shallower waters, making it easier to strike it..."
"Oh? Oh, how come I didn't think of that? Zhuang, thank you, thank you so much..."
Zhuang Rui's words jolted Lasco awake, and he slapped his thigh and jumped up.
As the saying goes, those involved are often confused while bystanders see things clearly. Due to the heavy casualties of the previous helicopter formation, which had a huge impact on their minds, none of the generals in the room thought of using helicopters as bait. However, after hearing Zhuang Rui's words, they immediately understood.
After clearing his vision, Lasco disregarded Zhuang Rui and grabbed the microphone, shouting, "I order all helicopters in the first squadron, numbers one through ten, to immediately return to the combat zone with their ammunition. Note, note, the flight altitude must be above five thousand meters..."
Even without Lasker's explanation, the helicopter pilots who had already received news of the annihilation of the third squadron would have pulled their helicopters to maximum altitude for their own safety.
After resupplying with ammunition on a warship in the shallow waters, the first squadron of 10 helicopters flew toward the area where the sea monster was located.
Meanwhile, B2 bombers waiting at a coastal base also took off. They needed to accurately hit the sea monster with thermobaric bombs after the helicopters lured it out.
For the soldiers on the bomber, the mission was not difficult to complete. The monster was nearly a thousand meters tall. If they couldn't hit it, they could retire and go home to take care of their children.
"What's going on? They've deployed helicopters again. Are they going to send them to their deaths again?"
The observers in the conference room, unaware of the conversation taking place in command, began to clamor after seeing the helicopters reappear in the sky.
Chapter 1295 The Power of Thermobaric Bombs
"Deep-water bombs should also damage the monsters. As for the loss of the helicopter squadron, that was purely due to poor command..."
"Yes, another wave of attacks should be enough to destroy that monster..."
"But be careful this time, the helicopter must be kept at a height far enough away from the tentacles' attack range..."
After seeing the helicopter take off, the people in the conference room were surprised for a moment before they realized that the coalition forces, lacking underwater attack capabilities, seemed to have no choice but to use the clumsy method of depth charges.
To be honest, nobody really knows how much damage depth charges will inflict on the monsters. But for now, all we can do is try our best and leave the rest to fate.
Deep in the ocean where the oil and gas blazes, the original volcano is now incomplete, its original height reduced from over a thousand meters to only two or three hundred meters.
The once flat seabed is now riddled with holes, revealing huge craters. It's unclear whether these were caused by bombs or monsters.
The shipwrecks that were originally on the seabed have all disappeared due to the explosion and the monster's turmoil. Only some broken decks are slowly floating to the surface.
Beside the volcano, which had been almost flattened by bombs, the monster still stood there, but the stench of blood filled the entire sea, turning the once clear waters red.
The strong smell of blood attracted a group of sharks from the distant sea. However, these man-eating sharks, which were more than five meters in size, were immediately wrapped up by tentacles and sent into a bottomless pit as soon as they entered the deep sea following the smell of blood.
If Zhuang Rui were near the sea, he would have discovered that the monster was not unharmed. Its original hundreds of tentacles had dwindled to just over a dozen, and it was still attacking the sharks that entered its territory.
The original ocean overlords were almost powerless against the giant tentacles' attack, one by one being sucked in by the suction cups and pulled into the monster's gaping maw, while the seawater became even more turbid.
The monster's massive body was riddled with holes, from which large amounts of blood gushed out, staining the surrounding seawater red. However, none of the bloody wounds were fatal and did not threaten the monster's life.
The monster's two eyes were also blown out. The remaining single eye was filled with rage, directing its tentacles to frantically supply energy to the sharks.
Having dominated the ocean for countless years, this monster had never suffered such severe damage before. If it weren't for its aversion to the sunlight on the sea surface, it would have already fought its way out.
Suddenly, a violent surge of water rose from the sea surface. The monster sensed it; it seemed to be repeating the scene from the earlier explosion. This enraged the monster, and its massive body rose towards the surface. ...
After the helicopter arrived at that sea area, it did not lower its altitude, but instead rose even higher. There was no need for aiming; it dropped depth charges directly from an altitude of over 5,000 meters.
Although these depth charges were modified, when dropped from a height of 5,000 meters, they exploded instantly upon landing in the sea, creating a massive wave on the surface.
"Hey, what's the point of this?"
"Yeah, dropping bombs from thousands of meters away, they explode when they hit the water, how could they possibly hurt the monsters?"
"What do you know? This is to lure out the monster..."
Upon witnessing this scene, the people in the base's conference room began to stir again. However, some of them were perceptive and could discern the commander's intentions from the number of helicopters and the method of bomb dropping.
Sure enough, just two or three minutes after the bomb hit the water, a huge tentacle suddenly extended from the sea surface and went straight toward the helicopter in the sky.
However, this time the helicopter in the air rose high enough to get far out of the monster's tentacle's attack range. After extending more than 3,000 meters above the sea, the tentacle drooped down helplessly.
The generals in the command post all showed a hint of excitement upon seeing this. The appearance of the tentacles proved at least two things.
Firstly, it proves that the monster did not escape this sea area. If it insisted on escaping, these people really couldn't do anything about it, because although the monster was large, it was insignificant compared to the vast ocean.
Furthermore, the method of using helicopters to lure the monsters proved to be effective, thus laying the foundation for the next step of the thermobaric bomb strike. However, everyone still dared not be careless and kept a close eye on the development of the situation on the sea.
"The tentacles don't seem to be as long as before..."
Zhuang Rui and General Lasco exchanged a glance; they had both noticed this situation. They knew that during their encounter, the monster's tentacles could reach a height of over four thousand meters.
This meant the monster had been damaged, and the depth charge attack hadn't been entirely in vain. This excited General Lascaux, who picked up the microphone and ordered, "Drop all the remaining bombs, then fly towards the designated area. Be extremely careful..."
When they realized that the monster in the sea posed no threat to them, the helicopter pilots became bolder and regained the confidence befitting eagles in the sky.
After dropping all the bombs on the helicopters, several helicopters actually lowered their altitude slightly and performed some fancy maneuvers, clearly provoking the one in the air to make a move.
Unable to attack the helicopter in the sky, and watching those tiny creatures drifting around above the sea, the sea monster became enraged. Its enormous body emerged slightly from the sea surface, revealing more than a dozen tentacles, and it flew towards the helicopter in the sky.
From satellite images taken from outside the planet, a strange sight appeared on the base's large screen: on the azure sea, more than a dozen huge, soft-surfaced objects, each ten or twenty meters thick, were chasing after more than a dozen helicopters in the sky.
If this scene were shown on a TV screen, most viewers would probably think it was a big-budget, high-production-value sci-fi blockbuster, right? Because the monster's bloody tentacles are just too realistic.
However, the monster's two longest tentacles had already been blown off by the bomb attack, and although the remaining dozen or so tentacles were flying all over the sky, they were no match for the helicopters in the air.
This enraged the monster even more. Its massive body gradually emerged from the sea, and it chased after the helicopter in the sky, moving rapidly towards a coastline.
"My God, is this... still a life form on Earth?"
"God, how could it survive such an injury?"
"Oh, kill it, or it will become everyone's nightmare." After the monster revealed its body, gasps of surprise rang out in both the conference room and the command center. The monster's enormous size and the wounds it had suffered were beyond their imagination.
"Attention, Number Two! Attention, Number Two! The target has moved to the designated sea area..."
General Lasco stared intently at the display screen. The monster had now left its lair, and the sea it had headed to was only a little over 300 meters deep, which meant that most of its body would be exposed.
What everyone fears most now is that the monster will turn around and leave, in which case everything they did before will be for nothing.
Fortunately, provoked by the dozen or so helicopters that seemed to be performing aerial acrobatics, the monster seemed to have lost its mind and chased after them recklessly. Ten minutes later, most of its body was visible on the sea surface.
The monster's body, covered in moss and seaweed, was riddled with wounds, and everyone realized that the previous attack had caused it enormous damage.
After arriving at the designated sea area, the helicopter began to circle high in the sky. The monster seemed to realize that something was wrong, because most of its body was exposed to the sunlight, which made it feel very uncomfortable.
After making a series of futile attacks on the sky, the monster's massive body suddenly turned around and fled back the way it came, making everyone watching tense.
However, at this moment, the B2 bomber appeared in the sky on the screen. Although it was not a fighter jet, its speed far exceeded that of these helicopters. Almost instantly, the bomber arrived above the monster's head.
The monster, which had been diving into the deep sea, seemed to hear the roar overhead. One of its tentacles suddenly sprang up and shot towards the bomber, a sight that immediately made everyone's hearts leap into their throats.
However, the monster underestimated the speed of the bomber. After its tentacles sprang up, the bomber had already roared over its head and appeared thousands of meters away.
But as the bomber took off, a cylindrical bomb, as big as a beer barrel, was launched from the plane, narrowly missing the monster's tentacles, and landed directly on the top of the mountain-like monster's head.
In the real-time audio and video transmitted back from the helicopter, people did not seem to hear a particularly loud explosion, but the moment the thermobaric bomb hit the monster, its body, which covered thousands of square meters, was completely enveloped by clouds of white mist-like gas.
Before anyone in the base could even understand what was happening, suddenly, thunder roared and the sea surged with towering waves. On the surface of the sea, which was the size of dozens of football fields, flames flickered. At that moment, everything in sight was a sea of fire, and the seawater within a radius of several thousand meters seemed to boil like water.
The monster's tentacles, covered in flames, danced in the air like fire dragons, a sight that everyone would never forget.
Chapter 1296 The Aftermath