13: Lock signal: Top-of-the-line yacht

The world went silent in an instant.

Only the monotonous hum of static remained in the speakers, and the waveform on the screen turned into a dead, flat line.

One second, two seconds, three seconds... Jiang Ran's heart sank bit by bit, and his body temperature seemed to drop a few degrees along with it.

Could there really be no medical resources nearby?

It made sense; in a global flood like this, pharmacies and hospitals had long since sunk to the bottom. Who would be foolish enough to shout over a loudspeaker if they had medicine?

That would be no different from telling the city's hungry wolves: "There's fat meat here."

Just as Jiang Ran was about to give up and push himself to try his luck further in the city center— "Beep."

The waveform on the screen suddenly twitched extremely faintly.

From the speakers came an intermittent signal accompanied by heavy static interference.

It wasn't a human voice, but a rhythmic electronic pulse.

[Captured Automatic Identification System (AIS) signal]

[Signal source characteristics: Civilian maritime frequency band]

[Identification code: Seraphim]

[Type: Private luxury yacht (Sunseeker 131)]

"A yacht?"

Jiang Ran's eyes, blurred from the high fever, focused for a moment.

The Sunseeker 131 was a top-tier ocean-going yacht worth over a hundred million.

In an apocalypse like this, anyone who could afford such a boat was either rich or powerful.

And a rich person's boat was usually equipped with a top-of-the-line emergency medical bay.

Inside, there would be the best broad-spectrum antibiotics, potent painkillers, and even a simple operating table!

Immediately following the AIS signal, a faint human distress call was parsed by the system.

It was a woman's voice.

Though she tried her best to remain calm, her trembling voice still betrayed her fear and weakness.

"This is... the Seraphim... located on the northwest side of the bridge wreckage..."

"If you can hear this... please help us..."

"We can't hold out much longer... there's a... doctor on board... we can provide medical services in exchange..."

A doctor!

These two words were like a shot of adrenaline, instantly piercing through the grogginess in Jiang Ran's brain.

He had gambled correctly! A trapped top-tier yacht, a living doctor.

This was practically a "life-saving delivery" sent by God to a sick man like him.

Jiang Ran glanced at the radar positioning.

[Distance: 2.5 kilometers]

[Status: Signal source position fixed (suspected grounded or trapped)]

But then, Jiang Ran keenly caught another piece of information in that sentence— "We can't hold out much longer."

This indicated that besides the yacht, there were others there.

Maybe they were water ghosts, or maybe... fellow humans even more greedy than water ghosts.

"No matter who is after this boat..."

Jiang Ran slammed the throttle down, a trace of savage ferocity appearing on his face, which was flushed from the high fever.

"This medicine is mine."

"Anyone who dares touch my medicine will pay with their life."

"Boom—!"

The twin turbos and electric motors went to full power output.

The black iron fortress instantly tore through the water's surface, charging frantically toward the signal source.

For Jiang Ran at this moment, even if hell lay ahead, he would tear down the Palace of Yama for that box of antibiotics.

A distance of 2.5 kilometers.

Under the full-speed charge of the black iron fortress, it was only a few minutes' journey.

But to Jiang Ran, these few minutes felt as long as a century.

The side effects of the high fever were becoming more and more obvious.

His vision began to double.

With every breath, his lungs felt as if they were on fire, and the wound on his back throbbed with his heartbeat.

"Faster... even faster..."

Jiang Ran gripped the control lever tightly, his knuckles turning white.

In the dark curtain of rain ahead, a glimmer of light finally appeared.

It wasn't the light of a lighthouse, but the light of fire.

By the light of the flames, Jiang Ran saw the scene ahead.

Beside a massive pier of a broken bridge.

A luxury three-story yacht, about forty meters long and pure white, was listing to one side, seemingly grounded on underwater ruins.

Its sleek, elegant hull was now covered in scorched marks, looking like a white swan with broken wings.

Around it, three modified fishing boats and speedboats were circling like hyenas.

"Smash the door open! There must be supplies inside!"

"Damn it, still resisting? Burn them! Force them out!"

The shouts and curses of the thugs were mixed in the wind and rain, oozing sickening greed.

Several bare-chested men stood at the bows of the fishing boats, waving homemade Molotov cocktails and hooked ropes.

Attempting to forcibly board the yacht's second-deck.

Most of the yacht's portholes were already shattered, and a reinforced cabin door on the second deck was tightly shut.

Occasionally, a red flare was fired from a firing port.

Or dry powder from a fire extinguisher was sprayed, struggling to keep the thugs at bay.

That was the final resistance.

"Boom!"

A Molotov cocktail smashed onto the yacht's deck, and flames instantly flared up.

Although quickly suppressed by the heavy rain, the smell of smoke drifted over with the wind.

Seeing this scene, the fire of rage in Jiang Ran's eyes instantly erupted.

He wasn't doing this for justice, let alone to save people.

What he saw was—

This group of idiots was setting fire to his "pharmacy"!

If the fire got out of control and burned the medical bay inside, or burned that doctor to death, he would truly have no way out.

"A bunch of trash looking for death!"

Jiang Ran's brain, originally groggy from the fever, was completely taken over by ferocity at this moment.

He didn't sound a warning horn, nor did he slow down.

When he was still two hundred meters away from the largest modified fishing boat, Jiang Ran slammed down the "Berserk Mode" lever of the black iron fortress.

[Warning: Hybrid power at full output.]

[Power consumption rate: 200%] [Estimated impact damage: Extremely High]

"Vroom—Boom!!!"

The black iron fortress, which had been quietly navigating, instantly tore off its disguise.

The twin turbo engines and high-energy electric motors at the stern roared simultaneously, the sound like a clap of thunder.

The entire ship was like a black orca leaping out of the deep sea.

The bow rose high, carrying an overwhelming momentum as it slammed viciously into that fishing boat!

The thugs who were throwing Molotov cocktails finally heard the commotion behind them.

The leader, a man with a scarred face, looked back, and his pupils instantly shrank to the size of pinheads.

In his field of vision.

A steel monster, entirely black and emitting a cold metallic luster, was enlarging at a speed he had never seen in his life.

That heavy armored bow was like the scythe of the Grim Reaper.

"A boat! A boat is crashing into us! Get out of the way!!"

Scarface screamed shrilly, trying to turn the rudder.

But it was too late.

The twelve-meter-long black iron fortress weighed nearly 10 tons.

Combined with the kinetic energy of a full-speed sprint, this was simply not a physical blow a broken fishing boat could withstand.

"Bang—!!!"

A world-shaking crash drowned out the thunder.

It was like a tank rolling over a matchbox.

That wooden-structured modified fishing boat didn't even last a second against the ram of the black iron fortress.

The waist of the boat instantly snapped and disintegrated, as countless wood splinters and human fragments exploded into the air along with a massive splash.

There weren't even any screams.

Because the impact came too fast and too hard, the five or six thugs on the boat had their internal organs shattered by the massive force the moment of contact.

Or they were directly sucked into the vortex under the boat, becoming minced meat in a grinder.

"Splash—"

The black iron fortress crushed right through the wreckage of the fishing boat. Its speed didn't decrease but increased instead, carrying wood chips and bloodstains.

Like an unstoppable god of slaughter, it came to a steady stop between the yacht and the remaining two pirate ships.

"The medicine is mine."

Jiang Ran's voice echoed in the cockpit, as cold as the freezing wind of hell.