Chapter 221 : Another Fight with Fish

Chapter 221: Another Fight with Fish.

One time, when Li Ye went to attend a meeting, he saw a sea of people filling the venue, and couldn't help but feel a little overwhelmed.

After all, he had once been just an ordinary white-collar worker on Blue Star, and now he had to face a scene like this.

“I really have to get used to this sooner rather than later,” he thought silently. “The family business of the Tomorrow will only keep growing.”

Snapping back to reality, he embraced Whiteman and sincerely spoke up.

“Thank you, Bishop Whiteman. I must say, you’ve done us a huge favor.”

“It’s you who helped us,” Whiteman replied. “To be able to absorb so many people at once and settle them all properly.”

After bidding farewell to Whiteman, Li Ye called his companions to discuss how to develop in the Polar Continent.

While the four of them were conversing, Li Ye’s walkie-talkie suddenly crackled to life, bringing chilling news.

Twenty-five nautical miles to the southeast, an enormous school of giant fish had appeared.

And they were swimming directly toward the Tomorrow Alliance.

It was a scouting plane dispatched from the Tomorrow that had made the discovery.

Fang Yong froze for a moment, his face showing a “just saw a ghost” expression.

“Damn it, I hate those things!” he couldn’t help but say.

Yang Zheng and Zhou Xing didn’t look much better either.

Li Ye let out a sigh.

Since they had gone to sea, this kind of thing was bound to happen sooner or later.

And that wasn’t all. The scouting plane had brought back another terrible piece of news.

Among the school of fish, there were three colossal cutlassfish.

Just like before, each was kilometer-class in size.

The expressions of the four turned extremely grave in an instant.

Kilometer-class cutlassfish posed a tremendous threat!

“We must take out those three beasts first!”

“Notify the troops to get ready,” Li Ye said. “We’re going to wipe them all out.”

With Li Ye’s order, the Tomorrow Alliance entered its highest alert level.

The Iron Whale accelerated toward the southeast, re-entering full city lockdown mode and preparing to activate the Giant Jaw Cutting Device.

The Peacemaker began loading its cannons, awaiting the order to unleash firepower.

The Tomorrow started deploying a large number of combat forces.

Shadow Falcon fighters, Black Rain bombers, and Vanguard gunships took off one after another.

The fleet set sail in succession, with the Starshine following closely behind.

This time, Li Ye did not go to the Watchtower, but instead headed into the cockpit.

Now, he no longer needed to rely on the tower for visual command, as the Tomorrow had already been fitted with a radar system.

Seeing A-Bai at the pilot’s seat, he was just about to ask why Tang Fang wasn’t there, but quickly remembered he had already assigned him to the Starshine.

Moreover, this Level 1 Assault-type City was packed with old acquaintances—Gunner Ning Wen and Lin Wu, who handled battle command.

Through the radar screen, he saw it densely packed with red dots.

Among them, three were particularly large and prominent.

Clearly, they were the three colossal cutlassfish.

Just as Li Ye was about to begin issuing commands, he noticed A-Bai was drenched in sweat.

Realizing something, he smiled and comforted him.

“Don’t be too nervous. This isn’t our first time fighting fish. With the strength we have now, we should be able to eliminate them before they even reach us.”

With that, he picked up the walkie-talkie.

—The scene shifted to the sea in the southeast.

At first, it was just a black line in the distance, like a stormcloud looming on the horizon.

But soon, that black line began to churn and swell, transforming into what looked like thousands of dorsal ridges cutting through the sea, surging forth with unstoppable force.

The giant fish crowded together, racing toward the mobile city in a mad rush. Their bluish-gray scales glinted with a cold metallic sheen under the sunlight, as if they were clad in natural armor.

The school charged forward like heavily armored cavalry. The leading giant fish breached first, their spindle-shaped bodies arching upward before crashing down, sending up white plumes of water dozens of meters high.

The fish behind responded in kind, the deafening slap of countless massive tails against the sea forming a thunderous rhythm. The ocean, crushed beneath their weight, groaned in protest and churned into muddy foam.

What was most disturbing were the eyes of these fish—dark yellow and the size of headlights. There was no emotion, no glimmer, only a fixed stare at their prey.

Just as the school surged ahead, a droning hum of engines echoed from the horizon.

Two Black Rain bombers roared into the sky.

Their bomb bays slowly opened, revealing a chilling array of metal honeycombs—racks of cluster bombs and high-explosive bombs.

The first wave dropped were the cluster bombs. As they fell mid-air, they burst apart, scattering countless submunitions like dandelions from the palm of a devil.

Just as the giant fish’s dorsal fins sliced through the waves, a rainstorm of steel shards came crashing down.

Fist-sized steel beads punched through their bodies, producing a sickening shattering sound. Countless giant fish were turned into sieves, and the sea erupted into scarlet fountains.

Next came the high-explosive bombs. As they struck the water and exploded in rapid succession, shockwaves vaporized tens of thousands of tons of seawater into towering white mushroom clouds. Numerous giant fish were ripped into pieces, their spines jutting out like snapped masts. Further away, others floated belly-up, their insides shattered, with dark red blood mist blooming across the waves like spilled paint.

At the same time, three destroyers joined the bombardment.

The hatches of their vertical launch units burst open. Flames flared in the missile silos before blazing missiles shot skyward like scorching white meteors.

Shadow Falcon fighters also bombed the fish from above.

Meanwhile, the newly armed Peacemaker unleashed its full firepower.

After one round of long-range bombardment, the fish had already suffered heavy casualties.

But Li Ye’s brow had yet to relax.

Compared to the tens of thousands of giant fish, what he cared more about was—

The camera shifted below the water's surface, where three silver-blue mountain ranges suddenly came into view.

They were precisely the three colossal cutlassfish.

At the moment, the trio was swimming side by side.

Yang Zheng’s voice came through the walkie-talkie.

“Alliance Leader, is there any way to get those colossal cutlassfish to expose their heads or bodies above the surface? That way, the Peacemaker can blast them with the electromagnetic railgun.”

Li Ye couldn’t help but freeze for a moment.

Once he regained his composure, he said softly, “I’ll try my best.”

At his command, a Shadow Falcon fighter jet began circling above the waters where the colossal cutlassfish were located, constantly stirring up commotion.

There were faint disturbances below the surface—seemed the colossal cutlassfish were being drawn in.

A few seconds later, the fighter jet suddenly dove from the clouds, its wings slicing through the air, trailing a long white contrail behind it.

It was like a silver sword plunging straight into the azure sea.

In that split-second flash—

The sea split open.

A colossal cutlassfish suddenly thrust its head out of the water. Its head was as massive as a mountain, its eyes the size of a small submarine. Silver-blue scales shimmered with a chilling sheen under the sunlight.

Seawater cascaded down its enormous head. Its pitch-black eyes locked onto the diving jet, pupils contracting into slits.

Its reaction was unbelievably fast—its giant mouth full of razor-sharp teeth suddenly opened wide, revealing a crimson maw like an abyss tearing through the ocean surface.

Startled, the pilot instinctively yanked the control stick. The fighter trembled violently as it pulled up, the cutlassfish’s sharp teeth scraping the tail fin, producing a tooth-grinding metallic screech.

Missing its mark, the massive body of the cutlassfish crashed heavily back into the sea. It lifted its head, gazing at the fleeing fighter jet, its eyeballs rolling, seemingly revealing an unmistakable expression of frustration.

The moment he escaped danger, the pilot immediately reported the situation and coordinates.

The next second, the electromagnetic railgun aboard the Peacemaker fired.

The barrel burst with a flare of blue-white arcs; the projectile was instantly accelerated to sonic speed. The air was ionized into a searing plasma trail, and the sea surface caved into a massive bowl-shaped crater from the shockwave.

The giant fish seemed to sense death approaching—but it was already too late to react.

The projectile struck its neck dead-on.

Tremendous kinetic energy exploded—scales the size of trucks instantly vaporized, and the shockwave tore a cavity several meters wide through flesh and blood.

The cutlassfish’s spine shattered into powder from the hypervelocity impact. Bone fragments sprayed backward in a radial pattern, sending up hundreds of blood-red fountains on the sea surface.

The neck and head that had surfaced were severed at the midpoint. The upper half of the skull continued to rise under inertia, arcing through the air, while the unsupported lower neck crashed back into the sea, raising a towering wall of waves.

Beneath the surface, the severed neck thrashed violently due to residual nerve impulses, and the gushing blood dyed the surrounding hundred meters of seawater bright red.

On the deck of the Peacemaker, the electromagnetic railgun was still billowing white smoke. On the radar screen, the light dot representing the colossal cutlassfish’s life signal dimmed rapidly.

Seeing this scene, Yang Zheng excitedly punched the air.

“Alliance Leader! We took it down!”

Just as Li Ye was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he suddenly realized something was wrong.

On the radar screen, he was shocked to find that the light dots representing the remaining two colossal cutlassfish were now speeding toward the Tomorrow Alliance!

“Why is this happening?”

For a moment, countless question marks filled Li Ye’s mind.

Logically, witnessing their companion get slain so suddenly, the other colossal cutlassfish should have fled in terror—

Or perhaps, attracted by the scent of blood, they’d start feasting, maybe even fight each other for the meat.

But these two colossal cutlassfish were acting differently—rushing straight toward the Tomorrow Alliance.

Just as confusion consumed him, Fang Yong’s voice came through the walkie-talkie.

“Alliance Leader, I have a theory.”

Fang Yong believed the giant fish were intelligent.

Previously, when the Iron Whale was engaging the fish swarm at the frontlines, several giant fish had leapt onto the deck of the Iron Whale, flopping about in search of “food.”

At that time, Fang Yong was hiding in the cockpit and had muttered that these fish were brainless brutes relying only on brute strength.

Then, one of the fish flopping outside suddenly stopped moving, turned its eyeballs, and stared directly at the hiding Fang Yong.

After hearing Fang Yong’s theory, Li Ye fell silent.

“So, what you’re saying is, these two colossal cutlassfish were enraged by the death of their companion and are now charging at us for revenge?”

Let’s rewind time a bit.

At the very moment the colossal cutlassfish was killed by the electromagnetic railgun, its headless corpse crashing into the sea—

The other two colossal cutlassfish froze for a second underwater, their silver-blue scales trembling slightly, as if grieving this loss.

Next, the two turned to face the direction from which the railgun had fired.

Then, they began charging at high speed.

Their muscles contracted in waves, their truck-sized scales standing on end, slicing through the water.

They no longer swam with graceful ease—instead, they became two furious silver-blue bolts of lightning, streaking straight toward the Tomorrow Alliance.

Their heads dipped low, barbel-like feelers stiffened like spears, and their eyes burned with icy killing intent.

They remembered the position of those steel monsters. Remembered the flash from the cannon’s muzzle. Remembered the crisp sound of their companion’s neck snapping.

The seawater on both sides rapidly receded behind them, pressure waves forming invisible barriers ahead—only to be smashed apart by their brute force.

Twenty nautical miles. Fifteen. Ten.

Yang Zheng stared wide-mouthed at the radar screen as the two dots closed in.

This time, no matter how the fighter jets dived to draw them away, the two colossal cutlassfish completely ignored them.

Li Ye couldn’t help but shake his head.

A cutlassfish over a kilometer long—their destructive power was simply overwhelming.

Ordinary ships struck by one would be scrapped on the spot.

Even massive mobile cities couldn’t withstand a hit.

“The fleet and aerial units—figure out a way to blow them up,” he said promptly.

Just then, Lin Wu’s voice crackled through the walkie-talkie.

“What if we coordinate a volley from the Starshine and Peacemaker’s frost cannons against the colossal cutlassfish?”

Li Ye instantly snapped to attention.

Frost cannons were already devastating above water. Now, the Starshine and Peacemaker had eight Level 3 Frost Cannons in total—they should be able to freeze a vast swath of ocean, maybe even form a massive glacier.

“Let’s test their power, then.”

As the Starshine and Peacemaker opened fire, eight frost shells traced parabolic arcs and fell toward the designated bombardment zone.

The moment they exploded, the surrounding hundreds of meters of sea instantly froze. Ice spread outward at astonishing speed. The splashes from the falling shells were frozen mid-spray, like icy sculptures.

A massive underwater glacier, hundreds of meters in scale, formed in an instant.

Caught off guard, the two colossal cutlassfish crashed headfirst into the newly formed glacier.

The scales on their heads made a sound like shattering glass. Their long bodies buckled from the counterforce, their spines exceeding stress limits with loud cracking sounds.

The glacier fractured into spiderweb cracks, then collapsed.

The collapsing ice slammed into the bodies of the colossal cutlassfish like guillotines. Hundreds of tons of razor-sharp ice blades wedged into their bodies through the fractured spine. High-pressure seawater rushed into their body cavities, squeezing their innards out through the wounds.

The front halves of their bodies were trapped atop the glacier, struggling violently from the agony and entrapment.