117: The code name on the cliff! CVN-98! A sunken nuclear-powered aircraft carrier!

Two beams of pale white light.

Like a blind man's cane probing in the darkness, they slowly swept across the nearly vertical "precipice" ahead.

black iron had already ceased its advance, hovering quietly less than fifty meters from the target.

But even so.

Through the massive wide-angle porthole of the command bridge, the crew still couldn't see the full picture of this behemoth.

It was simply too large.

So large it exceeded the limits of their perspective, so large it instilled a sense of insignificance akin to facing an ancient mountain range.

"This... is this really something built by humans?"

Old Chen craned his neck, his gaze dull as he looked up along that "wall."

In the area illuminated by the light beams.

The once smooth and hard high-strength marine steel plates were now covered by a thick layer of deep-sea life.

Layers of grayish-white giant barnacles were stacked upon each other, as if cladding the ship in a layer of coarse scale armor;

Countless pale white tube Worms swayed with the current in the gaps, like some kind of white hair parasitizing a corpse;

And then there was the deep-sea moss emitting a faint green glow, crawling over every corner like mold.

It looked both like a man-made fortress and an ancient behemoth that had completely integrated into the deep-sea ecosystem.

"Look there."

Jiang Ran manipulated the searchlight, pressing the beam downward.

Near the seabed.

A black chain of staggering thickness dropped from the anchor hole at the bow, half-buried in the silt.

Each link was as tall as half a grown man, entwined with black plants that looked like kelp.

From a distance, it looked like a long-dead deep-sea python, pinned into the sand of the ocean floor.

"That's the anchor chain."

Jiang Ran's voice was low, echoing in the silent cabin:

"The weight of this single anchor chain alone exceeds a hundred tons.

In the old era, only a true hegemon of the oceans was worthy of such 'reins'."

As he finished speaking, the beam began to slowly move upward.

It swept past broken portholes that looked like blind eyes;

It swept past the flared, cliff-like anti-aircraft platforms;

Finally, the light beam stopped on a slightly smoother section of the side armor belt.

The biological growth there seemed a bit thinner, faintly revealing a massive patch of what should have been gray primer.

And on that primer were several huge white characters.

Though mottled and heavily corroded, they still exuded a majesty that once commanded the four seas—

CVN-98.

In that moment, the silence of the deep sea seemed to be broken by a historical echo spanning time and space.

"CVN..."

Su Qingyu looked at the designation, her pupils shrinking suddenly. "That's the universal hull classification symbol for nuclear-powered aircraft carriers from the old era."

"What we're facing is a sunken city on the sea."

"Constructing 3D sonar imaging."

At zero's command, the holographic projector in the center of the console lit up.

Countless green light points rapidly converged and arranged themselves in the air, finally outlining the full form of this behemoth.

When this complete "death portrait" was presented before everyone, even their breathing stalled.

It wasn't just sunken.

It had been cut in half.

This super-warship, three hundred and thirty-seven meters in length.

On that night of the world-destroying flood, it seemed to have suffered some unimaginable trauma.

It had snapped completely at the strongest part of the hull's midsection, the keel.

The fracture was hideous and jagged, like a dry branch snapped by a giant's hand.

The forward half, the bow, was deeply embedded in the thick silt of the seabed like a tilted tombstone.

While the rear half, including the iconic stealth island and the massive flight deck,

hung in a heart-stopping posture over the edge of an underwater cliff.

Even half of the hull was suspended in empty space, precarious above the bottomless trench.

It felt as if a single butterfly landing on it

would cause these tens of thousands of tons of steel ruins to slide into that even darker abyss.

"Found it, database match complete."

Su Qingyu looked at the old era color photo that popped up on the screen.

The giant ship in the photo was cutting through waves between blue skies and green seas.

The deck was crowded with lethal 'Lightning II' fighters, and behind it was an invincible carrier strike group.

Looking again at the sea anemone-covered carcass outside the window, the intense contrast evoked a sense of nihilism from the depths of the soul.

"old era Navy 'Gerald R. Ford'-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, ship number three—uss united states."

Su Qingyu spoke the name, her voice somewhat dry:

"Full load displacement of one hundred and ten thousand tons.

Once the most dazzling jewel in the crown of old era human industry, and the final pride of the superpower of that time.

It was supposed to carry six thousand crew members and eighty warplanes as an Ark for survivors in that apocalypse... but now it seems it didn't survive the first wave of the disaster."

"It died a miserable death."

Jiang Ran looked at the shocking fracture on the sonar map, his gaze sharp as a torch:

"A warship of this class was designed from the start to withstand saturated strikes from torpedoes and anti-ship missiles.

Ordinary storms or running aground could never have snapped it in half."

"Unless..."

He didn't continue, merely looking up at the pitch-black seawater above.

That used to be the sky.

"There used to be a city inside here."

Old Chen murmured to himself, looking at those dark, hollow hatchways. "Mess halls, hospitals, movie theaters, even a Starbucks... they say these ships had everything."

"Yes, a city."

Jiang Ran coldly picked up the thread:

"A dead city that now holds nothing but corpses, monsters, and radiation."

He turned around, no longer looking at the hologram, but directly at the physical entity in the abyss:

"And the thing we're looking for is hidden in the most dangerous heart of this dead city."

..."Recalibrating signal coordinates."

"Superimposing the spark signal source with the internal structural diagram of the uss united states..."

With zero's terrifyingly precise calculations, the green lines on the holographic screen began to shift rapidly.

The red light point representing the no.06 spark passed through the thick flight deck.

It passed through the intricate hangars and living quarters.

Finally, it stopped in the deepest and most heavily protected area of the giant ship.

"Target location confirmed."

"Below C-deck, aft of the third watertight bulkhead."

Su Qingyu looked at the location of the red dot, her face instantly turning pale:

"That's... the nuclear reactor compartment."

The moment she finished speaking, an independent gauge on the right side of the console suddenly began to flash frantically.

The originally intermittent "beep... beep..." sound abruptly turned into a series of rapid screams that almost merged into a single line.

"Zzzzzzzzz——!!!"

That was the Geiger counter roaring.

"Warning: External radiation dose has exceeded 50 Sieverts per hour.

Approaching lethal levels."

zero's voice remained calm, but everyone present felt a chill rush from the soles of their feet to the crowns of their heads.

50 Sieverts.

At this dose, a normal person exposed for just a few minutes would have their DNA strands completely collapse like yarn cut by scissors.

Then, within a few days, they would painfully dissolve into a pool of bloody water.

"Though this ship is dead, its 'heart' isn't quite dead yet."

Jiang Ran stared at the highlighted red patch on the screen representing the radiation source.

The red patch was like a spreading tumor, shrouding half of the hull:

"The uss united states was equipped with two A1B Pressurized Water Reactors.

Looking at this reading distribution... Reactor Two should have automatically scrammed when it sank and is in a safe state.

But Reactor One..."

His finger lightly traced the core of that red patch on the screen:

"Its core has melted down.

One could even say it's in an extremely delicate and dangerous 'sub-critical' state."

It was like a furnace of volcanic ash about to explode, smoldering on the seabed.

Though a sudden nuclear explosion hadn't occurred,

high-energy particle streams were continuously gushing from the ruptured pressure vessel, boiling the surrounding seawater into a radioactive toxic soup.

"The spark is right next to this damaged reactor."

Su Qingyu's voice carried a hint of despair:

"It's like a gem offered on a devil's altar.

Anyone attempting to approach it will be burned to ashes by that invisible death-light before they can even touch it."

"Not only that."

Jiang Ran added, his tone grave:

"That reactor is now an extremely unstable dirty bomb.

Any slight external disturbance—

even just a slightly larger vibration, could break its current fragile equilibrium and trigger a true nuclear explosion."

It was a perfect stalemate.

The treasure was right there.

But it was placed on a powder keg that could detonate at any moment, and the surroundings were filled with invisible, lethal poison.

"So... can we just be a bit more blunt?"

Old Chen looked at the headache-inducing red area on the screen, then at the weapon control console by his hand, and asked tentatively:

"Boss, don't we still have a few heavy torpedoes?

Since that reactor is below C-deck, can't we just blow a hole in the hull near there?

It beats wandering through a maze inside."

As a pirate used to solving problems with firepower, Old Chen's logic was direct: if the door won't open, blow up the wall.

"Absolutely not."

Before Jiang Ran could speak, Su Qingyu's expression changed drastically, and she almost screamed her rejection of the proposal:

"Old Chen, look closely at the bottom right of the sonar map!"

She quickly zoomed out the holographic projection's view, pointing to the stern section hanging over the edge of the cliff:

"This carrier is currently like a rock placed on the very end of a seesaw, maintaining an extremely fragile physical balance.

If even one heavy torpedo explodes near it,

the resulting shockwave—even if it only moves it a few centimeters—will completely throw off its center of gravity."

Su Qingyu's finger made a sharp downward slashing motion, mimicking a fall:

"The entire ship will slide down that underwater cliff.

Below is an extension of the Mariana Trench, over five thousand meters deep.

Once it falls, forget the spark, not even a god could fish it back."

"And then there's the reactor."

Jiang Ran took over the conversation coldly, his eyes fixed on the radiation source that pulsed like a heart:

"That sub-critical core is now an extremely sensitive powder keg.

The vibration from a torpedo explosion would likely destroy what's left of the control rod structures, causing the reactor to go prompt critical instantly."

"At that point, not only would the spark be instantly vaporized by temperatures of thousands of degrees, but at this distance..."

Jiang Ran pointed to the deck beneath their feet:

"black iron would be flattened into a pancake by the shockwave of the underwater nuclear explosion."

A suffocating silence fell over the command bridge.

It was like a mouse that had entered a porcelain shop.

You want to catch it, but you only have a shotgun in your hand.

If you fire, the mouse dies, but the room full of antique porcelain is finished too.

"This is just a complete dead end."

Old Chen somewhat dejectedly let go of the weapon fire button and scratched his hair in frustration:

"We can't use this, we don't dare move that.

We have a ship full of missiles and torpedoes for nothing; are we just going to stand here and watch?"

"Heavy firepower indeed cannot be used."

Jiang Ran shook his head, but the eerie blue light in his eyes didn't dim; instead, it became even sharper.

As if he had figured something out, he slowly stood up from the command chair.

"Since we can't use a hammer to smash it, we can only use a scalpel to cut it."

"This is a delicate surgical operation."

He turned around.

With his back to the massive porthole and the silent steel corpse outside, he walked toward the airlock isolation door at the rear of the command bridge:

"And on this kind of operating table, too many people just get in the way."

"black iron, full reverse."

Jiang Ran's voice was calmly cold, sounding exceptionally clear in the enclosed space:

"Retreat to safe waters two kilometers from the target and engage depth-holding hover mode.

Shut down all active sonar and maintain absolute silence."

"Boss?!"

Old Chen whipped his head around, his eyes wide as saucers. "What about you? If you're not using the ship, don't tell me..."

"I'm going over."

Jiang Ran simply spat out three words, then walked straight toward the airtight door at the back of the bridge that connected to the equipment room.

"This is crazy! That's eight hundred meters deep!

And there's enough nuclear radiation to melt a person!"

Su Qingyu tried to stop him, pointing at the frantically jumping red alarm data on the screen:

"And the electromagnetic environment there is extremely hostile.

Under interference of this intensity, if you leave the ship, we will likely lose communication.

Why not send an AUV?"

"It's useless."

Jiang Ran stopped and glanced back at the mess of interference waveforms on the screen:

"With that intensity of cherenkov radiation and electromagnetic storms,

an ordinary drone's circuit boards would burn out within five minutes, turning it into a pile of scrap metal.

As for living people..."

He looked at Old Chen and Su Qingyu and shook his head:

"Your bodies can't handle that dose of radiation; no matter how thick the lead suit is, it won't matter.

Only I can go."

With that, he offered no further explanation and strode into the deep-dive preparation room... *Clang—hum—*

As the heavy sound of Mechanical Arms operating rang out, a set of pitch-black, menacing heavy powered armor was slowly lowered from its rack.

It was based on the previously plundered "Titan" exoskeleton, a product modified by the nano-factory specifically for deep-sea environments—the Abyssal Walker Mark I.

The originally bulky hydraulic lines were removed, replaced by a denser, high-strength carbon fiber pressure shell;

The originally exposed joints were sealed and wrapped in multiple layers of flexible bio-alloy;

The back mount no longer held an ammo box, but a high-pressure oxygen circulation system equipped with miniature vector thrusters.

Jiang Ran spread his arms, allowing the cold mechanical components to buckle onto his body one by one.

The faceplate closed.

With a hiss of airtight pressurization, his vision transformed into a pale green HUD interface.

"System self-check complete."

"Internal circulation normal, pressure shield fully charged."

Jiang Ran flexed his armor-clad fingers, the metal gloves making a crisp grinding sound.

He felt a long-absent excitement, belonging to a lone hunter, burning in his veins.

Without the heavy guns of a warship or the support of a crew.

At this depth, in this steel city of death filled with unknown monsters, the only thing he could rely on was himself.

And the high-frequency Vibration Blade he had just sharpened.

"Open the flood gates."

Jiang Ran's voice came through the faceplate's speakers, carrying a hint of metallic reverb, sounding cold and distant:

"I'm going to give that ghost of the old era its final rites."