novelraw Chapter 367: Outsmarting the "Anchor"
Chapter 367: Outsmarting the "Anchor"
This was a precise "surgery" conducted five meters below the sea's surface.
The deck was covered in rough hemp ropes and waterproof tarpaulins.
Lin Jie wore only a thin linen shirt and trousers suitable for movement, with a tool-laden belt around his waist.
Behind him, William, Julian, and Evelyn were also ready to enter the water.
"Remember our core principle," Lin Jie was giving the final tactical briefing.
"Slow."
He extended a finger, tracing a slow arc in the air.
"Absolute slowness."
"This might sound counterintuitive to your instincts as warriors, but when dealing with parasitic anchors, speed equals death."
"Any explosive movement, any attempt to generate impact force through acceleration, will be detected by them."Lin Jie turned and pointed to the specially-made crowbar in William's hand.
It was a solid steel bar salvaged from the engine room, but its tip and pressure points were thickly wrapped with vulcanized rubber.
This was to minimize the faint tremors produced by metal impact.
"William, your task is not to pry it open, but to 'push' it away."
"Like pushing a rusty iron door, you need to apply pressure continuously, steadily, and slowly."
"During this process, your muscles must not tremble at all."
William nodded.
This veteran's hands had never shaken even when facing thousands of troops. Though this extreme demand for force control was harsh, he could do it.
"Julian."
Lin Jie looked at the scholar.
"You need to be our 'eyes' and 'fulcrum'."
"We can't communicate underwater. You need to observe the changes in luster on those creatures' surfaces to determine the nodes of their energy flow."
"When we apply force, you're responsible for finding the optimal lever insertion angle."
"Understood," Julian adjusted his glasses.
"Evelyn."
Lin Jie finally looked at the female inventor.
To prevent seawater from causing a short circuit, she had wrapped her glove in a translucent fish bladder coated with grease, exposing only the discharge contact points on her fingertips.
This made the high-tech glove look somewhat ridiculous, like a swollen specimen.
"You are the anesthetist for this surgery."
Lin Jie's gaze fell on the glove.
"Your current can't be too strong, or it will anger them; nor too weak, or it won't block their neural signals."
"You need to maintain a specific frequency, like giving them continuous electrotherapy."
"I've already adjusted the transformer."
Evelyn raised her left hand. Even through the fish bladder, faint blue light could be seen flickering inside.
"Output power is limited to five percent, frequency set at one hundred and twenty hertz per second."
"This is the data I recorded when interfering with the clockwork owls in that abandoned barn. It should be highly effective against the neural conduction of spiritual creatures."
"Good."
Lin Jie drew [Silencer] from his waist. This was the main surgical instrument.
Using this weapon's inherent anti-magic and cutting properties to sever those invisible spiritual bonds maintaining the parasitic relationship.
"Enter the water."
Lin Jie bit the breathing tube and was the first to flip into the sea.
This entry was more difficult than the previous reconnaissance.
Because they not only had to fight the water's resistance but also the psychological fear of the "abyss."
The four of them descended slowly along the barnacle-covered hull like four silent fish.
The underwater world remained a turbid gray darkness.
As depth increased, the viscous sense of oppression returned.
When they reached near the keel, the dense layer of [parasitic anchor clusters] appeared before their eyes again.
They clung quietly to the ship's bottom, like a layer of gray-white armor.
Compared to Lin Jie's last reconnaissance, this armor seemed to have thickened.
Moreover, that faint spiritual pulsation had become more frequent, as if they were conducting some silent celebration, cheering for the upcoming feast.
Lin Jie swam to a position near the propeller bearing.
Here was the largest anchor cluster.
It was millstone-sized, with a twisted polyhedral structure deeply embedded where the rudder connected to the keel.
This was the "lesion."
If not removed, the ship's steering gear would eventually jam.
Lin Jie hovered in the water, giving a hand signal to his teammates behind him.
Operation begins.
Step one: Anesthesia.
Evelyn swam over.
She cautiously approached the massive anchor cluster, her movements gentle as if touching fragile porcelain.
When her fingertips were still one centimeter from the cluster's surface, she stopped.
Blue electric arcs exploded in the water.
It wasn't a strong flash, but a spreading glow like a luminous jellyfish.
The current, using seawater as a natural conductor, instantly enveloped the entire anchor cluster.
"Zzz..."
Though no sound could be heard, Lin Jie could feel a tingling vibration transmitted through the water waves.
The gray-white keratinous anchor cluster contracted sharply upon contact with the electricity.
The pulsating light point inside it seemed frightened, dimming.
Its surface developed a strange bluish-gray hue, the rigid reaction of biological tissue after an electric shock.
Effective.
Lin Jie immediately followed up.
Step two: Sever nerves.
Lin Jie's target was the seam where the anchor cluster connected to the hull.
It should have been tightly fitted originally, but under Evelyn's electric shock, the cluster's muscle rigidity created a slight loosening.
Now.
Lin Jie's wrist was extremely steady.
[Silencer]'s blade slid into that seam.
This weapon fused with [Withered Cicada] fragments now revealed its terrifying aspect.
Lin Jie felt a subtle snapping sensation at the blade's tip.
Like cutting a taut violin string.
That was the feedback of the "spiritual connection" established between the anchor cluster and the hull being forcibly severed.
As the blade passed through, the anchor cluster clinging tightly to the keel suddenly stopped its rhythmic pulsation.
It became a true piece of dead flesh.
Or rather, temporarily became an ordinary stone.
Step three: Physical removal.
William and Julian had been waiting on both sides.
They slowly inserted the rubber-wrapped crowbars along the seam Lin Jie had cut.
This was an extremely patience-testing process.
If force was too strong, vibrations from the crowbar colliding with the hull would awaken this feigning-sleep monster.
If force was too weak, they couldn't budge this entity weighing several tons.
William watched Lin Jie's hand signal.
Lin Jie extended three fingers, then retracted them one by one.
Three.
Two.
One.
William and Julian exerted force simultaneously.
Their movements were excruciatingly slow.
This was pure, static force output.
No impact.
No explosion.
Only continuous, stable pushing force.
"Creak..."
Though no sound could be heard, everyone felt a twisting sensation from the hull.
The massive anchor cluster began to loosen.
But at this very moment, an accident occurred.
The anchor cluster seemed to sense danger. Though its "nerves" were severed, its biological instincts remained.
It began to resist.
Not through attack, but through "weight gain."
Lin Jie watched as the anchor cluster's color darkened at a visible rate.
That was a sign of density wildly increasing.
It was absorbing the weak flow of surrounding seawater, the vibrations from Evelyn's current, even the microscopic kinetic energy generated by William and Julian's applied force.
It was trying to turn itself into a black hole.
To completely crush this ship.
The crowbar in William's hand began to bend.
That was solid high-grade steel, yet before this terrifying weight, it was as fragile as a noodle.
The hull groaned under unbearable strain. The waterline, which had stopped descending, began to sink again.
And this time, the sinking speed was faster than before.
If it continued gaining weight, not only would this surgery fail, but the ship's keel would be directly crushed.
Speed must be increased.
But increasing speed meant greater kinetic energy, meaning it would become heavier.
This was a deadlock.
Unless...
A flash of inspiration struck Lin Jie's mind.
He remembered what Julian had said earlier: conservation of energy.
This thing absorbed kinetic energy and converted it to mass.
Then, what if it was given kinetic energy it "couldn't swallow"?
Or kinetic energy it couldn't comprehend—chaotic kinetic energy?
Lin Jie looked at Evelyn.
He made an extremely complex hand signal in the water.
That was their prearranged code: Overload.
Evelyn paused.
Looking into Lin Jie's determined eyes, she understood the captain's intention.
This was dangerous.
Overloading the [Tesla Coil] underwater could cause current to go out of control, even injuring their own team.
But she didn't hesitate.
Her other hand abruptly twisted the power dial on the glove, turning it directly to the red "danger zone."
"Hum!"
This time, a blinding blue-white flash exploded underwater.
High-frequency pulses, to create chaos.
The high-intensity current instantly electrolyzed the surrounding seawater, producing countless tiny bubbles.
These bubbles expanded and burst within an extremely short time.
This was the physics phenomenon of "cavitation effect"—countless microscopic explosions occurring on the anchor cluster's surface.
This was a massive, chaotic kinetic energy.
The anchor cluster wildly gaining weight was "stunned."
Now, it faced tens of thousands of microscopic impacts per second, coming from all directions, completely irregular.
The anchor cluster's weight-gain process experienced an extremely brief stagnation.
Even due to overload, its density experienced a reverse rebound.
Lin Jie thrust [Silencer] in his hand deep into the core seam of the anchor cluster.
Then, using this knife as the fulcrum of a lever, William and Julian simultaneously erupted with all their strength.
This time, it was an explosive pry!
"Crunch!"
A dull roar came from underwater.
The millstone-sized anchor cluster was finally completely stripped from the hull.
It plummeted toward the bottomless sea abyss, its speed astonishingly fast.
Within mere seconds, it disappeared from everyone's sight.
Immediately after, the ship jolted violently, a massive buoyancy lifting the Black Seagull upward.
Success.
But Lin Jie wasn't in a hurry to surface.
His gaze locked onto the spot where the anchor cluster had detached.
There, a fist-sized fragment remained.
That was the cluster's core, the part most tightly connected to the hull, left behind during the violent removal.
This fragment floated in the water, swaying gently with the current. Lin Jie swam over and reached out to grab it.
The feel in his hand was very strange.
It was heavy, heavier than gold of the same volume.
But when Lin Jie squeezed it with his fingers, it displayed astonishing elasticity.
It wasn't hard.
It was like extremely tough rubber, or solidified mercury.
Lin Jie tried waving the fragment in the water.
As his motion accelerated, the fragment's surface immediately hardened, becoming indestructible, and its weight surged.
But when he stopped moving and gently stroked it, it became soft and smooth again.
"Kinetic energy absorption and conversion."
Lin Jie silently recited this property in his mind.
This was a perfect material.
It could absorb impact force, converting it into hardness and weight.
If used as a shield when under attack...
Or, if used as shoe soles during high-speed movement to tread on air or water...
Air and water produce resistance when subjected to high-speed impact.
And this material could instantly amplify and solidify this weak resistance, turning it into a solid foothold.
This meant that as long as speed was sufficient, as long as kinetic energy conversion efficiency was high enough...
A person could step on it and run on any medium. Lin Jie clenched the fragment tightly.
His heart began to pound violently. He gave a hand signal toward the light above.
The four began to surface.
When they broke through the water and climbed back onto the deck, each gasped for breath as if they had just crawled back from hell.
Captain Deken was anxiously leaning over the railing.
When he saw the waterline had clearly risen a notch, he couldn't help but let out a cheer.
"Incredible! Absolutely fucking incredible!"
The captain rushed over, wanting to hug Lin Jie, but was forced back a step by the icy aura emanating from him.
Lin Jie ignored the captain's excitement.
He opened his palm, revealing the gray-white, slightly squirming core fragment.
The fragment refracted a strange luster in the sunlight, as if some living gravitational force was sealed inside.
"We've obtained what we wanted."
Lin Jie looked at William and Evelyn.
"There's plenty more of this stuff on the ship's bottom."
"But we don't need to clean it all."
"As long as the ship can run, that's enough."