17: Devour the Beast King and gain self-healing!

"What hard teeth!"

Jiang Ran felt the violent shaking of the hull, but the look in his eyes grew even more fanatical.

The harder the monster's teeth and bones, the greater their value as materials after being devoured!

"Roar!"

Having missed with its first strike, the mutated black fish did not retreat.

Its massive tail fin slapped the water, and its enormous body moved as flexibly as a black lightning bolt.

It carved a bizarre S-shaped arc in the water, attempting to circle to the stern to attack the vulnerable propeller.

"Trying to flank? Dream on!"

Jiang Ran yanked the control stick hard while simultaneously engaging reverse thrust on a single propeller.

The black iron fortress performed an incredible stationary drift on the water's surface.

Not only did the stern not evade, it actively swung towards the direction the monster was charging from.

"Su Qingyu! Find its weak spot!"

"Even a tank has weak points in its armor!"

Jiang Ran roared while slamming his right hand hard onto the secondary console.

It was the control panel for the heavy-duty Mechanical Arm.

"Working on it!"

Although Su Qingyu's face was pale, she held onto the handrail tightly to avoid being thrown off.

But her eyes were fixed on the black behemoth rolling under the searchlights outside the window.

As a surgeon, finding anatomical weaknesses in living creatures was her instinct.

"The back is all bony plates... the belly is covered in scales..."

Suddenly, illuminated by a flash of lightning.

Su Qingyu's pupils constricted: "The gills! Attack behind its gill cover!"

"Every time it breathes, the scales there open. That's soft tissue leading directly to the brain!"

"Received!"

A cold glint flashed in Jiang Ran's eyes.

At that moment, the mutated black fish opened its huge maw, preparing to launch a second ramming attack.

Now was the time!

"Crane Arm, grab it!"

Jiang Ran shoved the control lever forward.

The rugged industrial Mechanical Arm mounted on the aft deck rumbled into action. The massive hydraulic pump roared.

The three-fingered alloy steel claw, like an iron hand descending from the heavens, predicted the monster's trajectory and viciously grabbed at its spine!

"Squelch!"

The steel claw did not pierce the thick layer of black scales.

But under the dozens of tons of hydraulic gripping force, it clamped firmly onto the monster's vertebrae.

"Roar—!!!"

Caught!

The mutated black fish went berserk.

It thrashed and struggled wildly, its terrifying eight-meter-long body unleashing astonishing brute force.

It actually dragged the twelve-meter-long black iron fortress sideways across the water's surface, tilting the entire ship nearly 45 degrees to starboard.

It was on the verge of capsizing.

"Warning! Mechanical Arm hydraulic load at 95%! Structural damage imminent!" The alarm blared like crazy.

"Want to compare strength?"

Jiang Ran braced himself against the console, steadying his body, a cruel smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

"Then taste another power of industrial civilization."

He input a string of commands on the console, directly cutting power to the living quarters.

He channeled all the electricity generated by the "Hybrid Power Heart" to the mounting point on the aft deck in an instant.

"High-voltage Electric Shock Mode—full power discharge!"

"Zzz—BOOM!!!"

A dazzling blue-white electric arc instantly lit up the pitch-black rainy night.

The current, following the conductive Mechanical Arm, instantly coursed through the captured mutated black fish.

Water conducts electricity, but the contact discharge from the metal grab bucket was even more lethal.

Thousands of volts of high-voltage current penetrated the monster's scale defense without hindrance, striking directly at its nervous system.

"Awoo—!!!"

The monster's roar instantly changed pitch, turning into a shrill, mournful cry.

Its massive body convulsed violently in the water, its once powerful thrashing turning into stiff spasms.

The smell of scorched flesh filled the air.

Although its outer shell was hard as iron, its internal organs were still carbon-based lifeforms.

Before such a terrifying electric current, its brain was instantly turned to mush.

Three seconds later.

The black fish stopped struggling. Like a huge piece of rotten wood, it floated belly-up on the water's surface.

Those fierce yellow giant eyes had now turned ash-gray.

"Huff..."

Jiang Ran let go of his sweat-soaked hands and cut the power.

The hull slowly righted itself, regaining stability amidst the waves.

"It's over."

He glanced at the still-shaken Su Qingyu beside him, flashing a white-toothed grin: "Looks like tonight we'll have not only gold but also fish soup."

...The rain continued to fall.

The corpse of the eight-meter-long mutated black fish now hung suspended at the side of the black iron fortress, tightly clamped by the giant Mechanical Arm like a derelict submarine.

The air was filled with the smell of scorching and a nauseating fishy stench.

Su Qingyu looked at the behemoth that had just tried to kill them, now only swaying weakly with the waves.

She wiped the cold sweat from her forehead, her heart still pounding with fear.

"What are you going to do with it?"

She asked: "Although this thing is huge, the meat... it's electrocuted, and those mutated cells... eating it might kill a person."

"Eat the meat?"

Jiang Ran shook his head, a flicker of fanaticism in his eyes: "For this ship, its meat is worthless."

"What's truly valuable is its 'armor.'"

He pressed the red button on the console once more.

"System, devour."

This time, it was no longer a hidden, underwater operation.

Under Su Qingyu's shocked gaze, several silver, fluid tentacles snaked out from below the gunwale like vipers.

They instantly pierced into the black fish's thick black scales and spine.

"Zzz—"

An eerie silver light erupted.

The mutated black fish, with a hardness comparable to alloy, actually began to rapidly "melt" under the envelopment of the tentacles.

Its sharp black scales and high-density bones did not turn to powder like ordinary metal.

Instead, they transformed into streams of thick, dark red liquid metal, madly pouring into the black iron fortress's body through the tentacles.

[Detecting high-strength biological calcified armor...]

[Detecting active cell metallization characteristics...]

[Extracting...]

As the devouring proceeded, Jiang Ran felt rhythmic pulsations, like a heartbeat, coming from the deck beneath his feet.

This was not merely a stacking of matter, but an endowment of life.

A few minutes later, only a pile of whitened rotten flesh and internal organs remained of the giant black fish, which Jiang Ran casually tossed back into the water—

That would become bait for other monsters.

Meanwhile, subtle yet astonishing changes occurred on the surface of the black iron fortress.

On the originally matte black, cold armor surface, a faint, fish-scale-like dark pattern vaguely appeared.

Jiang Ran tried making a cut on the gunwale with a machete.

A miraculous scene unfolded.

The scratch did not reveal the primer beneath.

Instead, the metal on either side of the wound slowly writhed and closed, like living muscle.

In just over ten seconds, the scratch completely vanished, the hull as smooth as before.

[Special material acquired: Bio-active Metal (1/1)]

[Trait gained: Primary Self-Repair (As long as energy is sufficient, hull damage can slowly heal itself).]

"It's simply... a miracle."

Su Qingyu, watching the automatically healing gunwale, muttered to herself.

This was beyond the scope of material science as she knew it; this was truly "living metal."

"Don't be amazed just yet. There's one last course."

Jiang Ran did not stop.

Since the goalkeeper was dead, the treasure behind the door naturally belonged to him.

Those silver tentacles dove into the deep water again, entering the already breached underground vault.

This time, there was no interference.

The tentacles, like greedy giant pythons, coiled around the heavy gold bricks on the shelves.

[Devouring high-purity gold...]

[Computing core reconstruction in progress...]

[Circuit transmission efficiency increased by 300%...]

As tons of gold were ingested.

The lights on the console gradually shifted from ordinary cold white to a more sci-fi-like, faint blue.

Countless complex data streams scrolled frantically across the screen.

[Condition 1: Hull structural steel (Achieved)]

[Condition 2: High-performance computing core (Achieved)]

[Condition 3: Biological special material (Achieved)] [All prerequisite conditions satisfied.]

[Initiate Lv3 promotion?]

[Note: Lv3 is the 'Intelligent Awakening' stage. This evolution will take a relatively long time (estimated 3 hours). The hull will enter a dormant state during this period.]

Jiang Ran looked at the constantly flashing golden button and took a deep breath.

Lv3.

This was not just an upgrade in tonnage and firepower, but a qualitative leap in "intelligence."

If the previous black iron was merely an obedient tool, then after Lv3, it would possess a true brain.

He glanced at the radar, confirming the surrounding waters were temporarily safe, and pressed the button.

"Dr. Su, find a comfortable place to sleep."

Jiang Ran leaned back in his chair, feeling the intense drowsiness transmitted from the hull, a smile of anticipation curling his lips.

"When we wake up, this world... will have changed again."

The rain continued to fall outside the window.

But the black iron fortress had retracted all its sharp edges.

Like a giant black egg, it floated quietly above the dead, silent ruins of the CBD, nurturing an even more terrifying life.