123: Extract the dragon bone! Dig out the furnace core! No. 06 spark obtained, glimpse the invincible fleet of the abyss!

As the Fission Sea Lizard's massive body collapsed, the turbulent currents in the deep sea finally began to subside slowly.

Jiang Ran floated in the murky water, the awe-inspiring dark-gold patterns on the surface of his body visible.

At this moment, like a receding tide, they rapidly dimmed, faded, and eventually vanished beneath his pale skin.

"Huff... ha..."

The violent energy that had supported him in battle like a god or demon suddenly withdrew as the fight ended.

Immediately following it was a violent backlash, like a landslide or a tsunami.

"Hiss—"

Jiang Ran let out a muffled groan, his body curling up abruptly.

Pain.

Indescribable, intense pain.

It felt as if tens of thousands of ants were gnawing on his muscle fibers, and as if every bone in his body had been shattered and then reassembled.

Forcibly devouring excessive nuclear radiation just now had brought him brief, invincible power.

But the scouring of his physical body by that violent energy flow had also imposed a massive burden.

Every single one of his cells was screaming, protesting.

The world before his eyes began to double, and waves of dizziness hit him, making it hard for him to even distinguish up from down, left from right.

Had it been anyone else, they would have likely fainted by now. But Jiang Ran did not.

He bit down hard on the tip of his tongue, using that metallic, sweet sting to forcibly maintain consciousness.

His eyes, though exhausted, remained startlingly bright as they stared fixedly at the massive monster corpse beneath his feet.

In the laws of the Abyss, the kill is only the first step.

Only when the prey is eaten, or turned into one's own armor and weapons, is the hunt truly complete.

"It's not over yet..."

Jiang Ran propped up his weakened body and picked up the high-frequency Vibration Blade that had fallen nearby.

The handle was cold, yet it gave him a sense of security.

"Wasting such good materials would be a crime against heaven."

He was like a greedy miser.

Dragging his heavy steps, he landed upon the charred and broken chest of the Fission Sea Lizard.

"Buzz—"

The Vibration Blade in Jiang Ran's hand let out a hungry hum.

He stood now upon the Fission Sea Lizard's chest, which rose and fell like a hill; beneath his feet were charred scales and wounds still seeping blue blood.

Even though this giant beast was brain-dead,

the biological reactor within its body had clearly not been completely extinguished.

Through the thick flesh, Jiang Ran could still feel waves of scorching heat conducting up through the soles of his feet.

"Let me see what your power source actually looks like."

Jiang Ran gripped the hilt with both hands, pushed the power to the maximum, and then stabbed ruthlessly into the very center of the monster's sternum.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—!!!

The bone, rich in high concentrations of lead and depleted uranium elements, was startlingly hard.

The moment it contacted the Vibration Blade, ear-piercing friction and dazzling sparks erupted.

But under the support of Jiang Ran's current terrifying monstrous strength, the hard sternum was forcibly sliced open like a piece of rotten wood.

Pfft—

As the chest cavity was sliced open, a high-temperature, murky torrent instantly gushed out, causing the surrounding seawater to boil and churn.

Deep within that mass of rolling white steam and blue blood mist, a breathtaking organ revealed its true form.

It was a heart the size of a basketball.

No, to be precise, it was a semi-biological, semi-crystallized 'furnace core'.

Its entire body presented a translucent ghostly blue, and its surface was covered in dense, glowing blood vessels that looked like a circuit board.

Every extremely slow and heavy throb would release a visible ripple of radiation into the surroundings.

It illuminated the surrounding seawater.

The [fission heart].

This was the ultimate secret of how this deep-sea overlord could generate energy through nuclear fission within its physical body and drive that massive frame.

"So beautiful..."

Jiang Ran looked at that organ, which emitted deadly heat and radiation, a hint of obsession flashing in his eyes.

In his eyes, which could see the flow of energy directly,

this was not just a piece of meat; it was a precise biological nuclear reactor carved by the uncanny workmanship of nature.

Without any hesitation, he reached his hands directly into that scalding chest cavity.

"Hiss..."

Even with a radiation-immune constitution,

the moment he directly touched this core, Jiang Ran's palms still felt a sting as if they were being corroded by strong acid.

But he remained as steady as a rock.

The combat blade in his hand precisely severed several main arteries and nerve cords connected to the heart.

Snap!

With the final ligament snapping, Jiang Ran held that heavy and scalding [fission heart] in both hands.

He slowly lifted it out of the corpse.

In that moment, the blue light intensified.

Jiang Ran was as if he were holding a blue sun.

He quickly took a folding, special lead-lined storage box from the tactical pouch behind his waist—

something he had specifically prepared earlier for collecting samples.

Click.

The lid closed, and the blue light vanished.

Jiang Ran patted the heavy box, the corners of his mouth turning up.

"The ticket to Lv6 is in hand."

Having stowed away that priceless heart, Jiang Ran was in no hurry to leave.

His gaze traveled down the charred back of the Fission Sea Lizard.

It finally stopped at the massive wound left where he had previously yanked out the main dorsal spine.

Deep within that mangled flesh, a section of grayish-white vertebrae was exposed.

Unlike the calcium-based bones of ordinary creatures, this section of spine actually reflected a cold metallic luster in the dark seawater.

It looked like a special alloy steel beam, tempered a thousand times and cast as a single piece.

"This thing has been devouring nuclear waste and the metal wreckage of sunken ships year-round; its bones underwent a qualitative change long ago."

Jiang Ran squatted down and lightly tapped that section of spine with his finger.

Clang—

The crisp sound of metal striking stone echoed in the water, the resonance lingering.

"As I thought."

A sharp light flashed in Jiang Ran's eyes.

This wasn't just bone; this was clearly a naturally formed, bio-active super alloy.

If he could take it back, whether it was used to forge an indestructible heavy combat blade,

or integrated into the black iron's keel to strengthen the hull structure, it was an irreplaceable top-tier material.

"Since I'm here, I might as well leave with no regrets."

Jiang Ran raised the Vibration Blade once more.

Along the muscle tissue on both sides of the spine, he cut down skillfully and coldly, like a butcher dismembering livestock.

Sizzle—

Tough muscle fibers snapped under the blade's edge.

Ten minutes later, Jiang Ran gripped the end of the exposed vertebrae with both hands.

"Rise!"

He let out a low growl, exerting force with his legs, causing the massive corpse beneath him to sink slightly.

Krrr-lak—

Accompanied by a harsh grinding sound,

that main spinal column, which ran through the monster's entire body and was over ten meters long, was pulled bit by bit out of the rotten meat by Jiang Ran.

Its entire body presented a steady lead-gray color.

Every vertebrae was tightly interlocking, possessing both the hardness of metal and the resilience of a biological entity.

The moment the entire spine was completely extracted, it swayed slightly in the water, looking like a dead silver dragon.

[Loot Obtained: Super Alloy Biological Spine]

[Evaluation: A mutated bone strengthened by high-energy radiation and heavy metal accumulation. Its strength is approximately five times that of an aircraft carrier's arrestor cable. It is an excellent biological forging material.]

"Good stuff."

Though Jiang Ran was panting with exhaustion, looking at this heavy 'loot' in his hands, the corners of his mouth couldn't stop turning up.

With this heart and this bone,

this life-risking trip was worth it... Having finished processing the massive corpse, Jiang Ran did not forget the true purpose of this journey.

He temporarily secured the heavy alloy spine to the external mounting point of his powered armor,

then turned and walked toward the reactor ruins that were still spewing blue light.

Without the Fission Sea Lizard's body blocking it, that hideous core rupture was completely exposed.

The violent flow of high-energy particles was like a pillar of light connecting heaven and earth,

stirring the surrounding seawater like boiling lava.

"Where is it..."

Jiang Ran squinted his eyes, searching for that hint of different color within that blindingly brilliant azure glow.

Finally, in a twisted gap at the reactor base, he caught a glimpse of an extremely weak yet exceptionally pure crimson light.

It was like a drop of blood on a blue canvas, looking out of place yet eerily enchanting.

"Found it."

Jiang Ran braved the radiation sting that felt as if it would char his skin and stepped forward one pace at a time.

He reached out his right hand, which was covered in dark-gold afterglow, and probed into that gap that was hot enough to melt steel.

His fingertips touched a cold, hard object.

"Buzz—"

The moment his fingertips touched that red crystal, Jiang Ran's brain felt as if it had been struck hard by a heavy hammer.

The world before him instantly collapsed.

The ghostly blue seawater, the shattered reactor, the massive monster corpse... everything vanished in this instant.

Replacing them was an even deeper, colder absolute darkness that seemed capable of swallowing even light.

It was the bottom of the Abyss—countless times deeper than the eight-hundred-meter-deep sea.

In this deathly silent void, Jiang Ran 'saw'.

Deep within that infinite darkness, massive black silhouettes that were breathtakingly large were arranged in neat rows.

They floated quietly in the void, the size of each ship far exceeding any warship in human history.

Their appearances were hideous and strange, looking not as if they were welded from steel plates,

but rather like giant beasts grown from some kind of black biological metal.

Hundreds, thousands of ships.

They formed a silent, deathly fleet, like an army of the undead that had slept in a tomb for eons.

No signs of life, no signals.

But Jiang Ran could feel that beneath this deathly silent exterior lay a terrifying power sufficient to destroy the world.

They were waiting.

Waiting for a signal, waiting for the awakening of a king, waiting for the day they would return to the surface and drag the entire world into the Abyss.

"Is this... the Abyss Fleet?"

Jiang Ran's consciousness was trembling.

This wasn't just an energy core that could upgrade a hull.

Hidden within this no.06 spark was a blueprint for ultimate military force, the prototype of an invincible fleet that could sweep across the seven seas.

"Beep."

The illusion receded like a tide.

Jiang Ran snapped back to his senses, gasping for air, cold sweat instantly soaking his undersuit.

And in his palm, that sharp-edged crystal emitting an eerie red light lay there quietly.

As if the heart-shaking scene just now had only been his hallucination.

But the palpitation originating from the depths of his soul told him it was real.

"So that's how it is..."

Jiang Ran tightly gripped the spark, his eyes flashing with unprecedented ambition and fanaticism:

"Is this the future you're going to give me?"

...Jiang Ran had just placed the scalding spark into the special lead box and hadn't even had time to fully recover from that shocking illusion.

The metal base beneath his feet suddenly gave a violent tremor.

Rumble...

That vibration didn't come from external sea currents, but from within this massive metal tomb.

It was like a beast that had been suppressed for a long time, starting a frantic roar after losing its final shackle.

Gurgle—gurgle—

The surrounding high-pressure seawater, which had been calm, suddenly began to turn frantic.

Countless tiny bubbles poured frantically out of that hideous crack in the reactor.

In the blink of an eye, they converged into thousands of massive white steam clouds.

The temperature here was soaring at a rate of dozens of degrees per second!

"Dammit... I overlooked one thing."

Jiang Ran's pupils shrank abruptly as he watched this sudden change.

He finally realized.

The reason that Fission Sea Lizard had been lying here wasn't just to feed.

Its massive body and unique energy-absorbing characteristics had served as a living 'cooling circulation system' over the past years.

It had absorbed the excess heat and radiation leaking from the reactor, maintaining the delicate balance of this damaged core.

And now, Jiang Ran had killed it, even digging out its heart and pulling out its spine.

The balance was broken.

Without this 'biological radiator', that already dilapidated A1B Nuclear Reactor instantly fell into an irreversible state of thermal runaway.

"Warning! Warning! Warning!"

"Detected core temperature exceeding 3000 degrees Celsius! Fuel rods are melting!"

"Cooling water flash evaporation has occurred! Steam pressure is about to explode at the critical point!"

zero's originally calm voice

now became a series of ear-piercing red high-frequency alarms in Jiang Ran's mind, the speaking speed so fast it was practically a scream:

"Commander! Run! This is a deep-sea nuclear steam explosion! Its power is enough to overturn the entire undersea mountain range!"

"Countdown: 180 seconds!"

"Only three minutes?!"

Jiang Ran saw that the gushing blue light had already begun to rapidly transform into a blinding incandescent white.

That was the precursor to metal vaporizing under extreme high temperatures.

The surrounding seawater had already begun to boil, and the white steam pillars were like a dancing white dragon.

In this dark Abyss, it looked exceptionally hideous.

An unprecedented sense of crisis instantly made his scalp tingle.

If a steam explosion occurred at the bottom of this eight-hundred-meter-deep sea,

the terrifying shockwave and instantaneous high pressure would be something even his current body definitely couldn't withstand!

"Go!"

Without any hesitation, Jiang Ran grabbed the heavy alloy spine, and the thrusters on his back erupted at full power.

He was like a black torpedo.

Chased by that white light behind him that was about to destroy everything, he charged frantically toward the exit he had come from.

Death was counting down the seconds behind him.