25: Optical stealth activated! A taunt from the ghost.

Jiang Ran wasn't angry, however.

On the contrary, the smile on his face grew wider, but it never reached his eyes, which remained like a pool of stagnant water.

"I see."

Jiang Ran spoke into the microphone, his tone leisurely as if he were just chatting: "Take my ship, confiscate my supplies, turn me into a laborer, and make my doctor a plaything... and you call this 'good fortune'?"

"Team Leader Li, your scheme is so loud I can hear it even underwater."

Li Sen on the other end of the radio was silent for a second, seemingly not expecting this survivor to dare to be so sarcastic.

Immediately, a roar of humiliated rage erupted: "Enough nonsense! In this world, being alive is the greatest blessing!

Don't be ungrateful when I'm giving you face!"

"This is the final ultimatum! Counting down from three!

If you don't come out and surrender, we'll sink you directly and salvage it ourselves!"

"Three!"

As the countdown began, the heavy machine gunners on the three assault boats cocked their weapons simultaneously, producing a series of metallic clacks.

The servo motor of the 30mm autocannon hummed, and the ammunition belt began its pre-rotation; a metallic storm of death was ready to be unleashed.

"Two!"

Jiang Ran set down his coffee cup, the bottom making a light clinking sound as it touched the table.

"zero."

"Present, Commander."

"Tell them what my answer is."

Jiang Ran leaned back in his chair, his gaze suddenly turning cold, like ice that hadn't melted for ten thousand years.

"One!"

Li Sen roared the final number, his finger about to press the fire command.

However, at that very instant.

The black warship, which had been locked down by three powerful searchlights, suddenly underwent an extremely bizarre transformation.

"The answer is: Get lost."

Jiang Ran's cold voice exploded across the public frequency.

The Bio-active Metal on the surface of the black iron ghost suddenly activated billions of microscopic pigment sacs, much like the skin of a startled octopus.

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, within those three blinding beams of light.

The twenty-meter-long behemoth actually seemed like a pencil drawing being erased by an eraser.

Its color, texture, and even its reflections of light and shadow synchronized perfectly with the surrounding dark river water and night sky within 0.5 seconds.

It became transparent, blurred, and finally... vanished completely.

"Wh... what?!"

Li Sen's eyes widened as he stared fixedly at the empty water ahead.

The beams of light pierced through the air and illuminated the turbulent river surface behind, kicking up white spray, but failed to illuminate the ship.

It was as if it had never existed.

"Radar! Where's the radar?!"

He roared in panic.

The radar operator beside him also had a look as if he'd seen a ghost, his voice trembling as he frantically slapped the monitor:

"Re... reporting Team Leader! The radar signal... has vanished!

The sonar can't hear any engine noise either! Only the sound of the current!

It... it turned into a ghost!"

Fear.

A fear of the unknown and the incomprehensible instantly enveloped this once-arrogant fleet.

What humans fear most is not a powerful enemy, but an invisible one.

"Fire! Blind fire at that position! It must still be there!"

Li Sen roared hysterically, trying to use firepower to dispel the chill in his heart.

"Rat-tat-tat—"

"Boom! Boom!"

Heavy machine guns spat fire, and the 30mm autocannon let out deafening roars.

Dense bullets and shells poured like a rainstorm toward the position where the black iron had been moored, kicking up countless water columns several meters high.

But, aside from hitting air and water, they hit nothing.

There wasn't even the crisp sound of metal colliding.

"Had enough shooting?"

A few seconds later, that nightmare-like voice rang out over the radio again.

This time, the voice didn't come from ahead, but... from directly behind them.

It carried a playful tone, like a cat toying with a mouse.

"Now, it's my turn."

"Damn it! Where is he?! Find him for me!"

Li Sen roared hysterically into the walkie-talkie, cold sweat mixing with rain and flowing into his eyes, stinging them.

Just a few seconds ago.

That massive black warship had completely disappeared, as if it had melted into the air.

The three assault boats formed a back-to-back defensive formation.

Six high-powered searchlights swept frantically across the pitch-black water like crazed lightsabers.

The heavy machine gunners gripped their triggers nervously, their knuckles turning white.

They fired blindly at every shadow that looked like a rising wave, kicking up rows of useless water columns.

"Radar has no response! Sonar is full of static!"

The soldier in charge of the radar spoke with a sob in his voice: "Team Leader, that thing... that thing really is a ghost! This isn't scientific!"

"Shut up! There are no ghosts in this world! It must be some kind of holographic projection trick!"

Although Li Sen roared this, the hand holding his gun was trembling violently.

As an elite action group of the Ark, he had seen mutated beasts and riots.

But he had never seen high technology that exceeded the scope of his understanding.

Even the most advanced stealth destroyers couldn't vanish into thin air under close-range optical searchlights!

...Just as Li Sen was still trying to comfort himself with so-called "common sense".

In the shadows five hundred meters behind him.

The black iron ghost, like a giant deep-sea shark only now revealing its fangs, floated quietly on the water.

The Lv3 bio-mimetic system was running at full power, and the color on the hull's surface flowed in real-time with the ripples of the water, perfectly deceiving the human eye.

Inside the cockpit, there was a deathly silent, eerie blue glow.

Jiang Ran looked at the three red dots on the holographic tactical map, which were scrambling like headless flies, his gaze as indifferent as water.

"Commander, the enemy formation is in disarray."

zero's voice rang in his ear, calmly calculating the death countdown: "The 'Ark-07' assault boat on the left wing has exposed a weak zone in its side armor.

Distance: 400 meters. The optimal ramming route has been planned."

"Then send it on its way."

Jiang Ran gripped the control sticks with both hands and pushed them all the way to the bottom. "Full power."

"Vroom—!!!"

The hybrid-powered heart let out a low roar.

But under the effect of the bionic silent thrusters, this roar was compressed to the extreme, sounding only like the whistle of wind grazing the water's surface.

The black iron ghost accelerated instantly.

20 knots... 40 knots... 60 knots!

The twenty-meter-long steel body, wrapped in a stealth field, split through the curtain of rain.

Carrying dozens of tons of terrifying kinetic energy, it turned into an invisible torrent of death, lunging straight for the assault boat on the left wing... "Left side! I have a feeling, it's on the left!"

The machine gunner on the Ark-07 suddenly felt a surge of palpitations; the chill of being stared at by a predator made his scalp tingle.

He suddenly swung his gun around to point at the pitch-black water on the left.

However, there was nothing there.

Only black waves whipped up by the fierce wind.

"Whoosh—"

No, that's not right.

Why would the waves surge against the wind?

Why was there such a massive wind pressure in the air?

Before his brain could finish processing this discordant information.

He suddenly saw the air less than ten meters in front of him fluctuate violently, like the surface of water.

That was the visual distortion produced by optical camouflage when approaching an object at high speed.

Immediately after, as if space itself were being torn apart.

A massive, pitch-black, sharp-angled steel bow charged out of the void!

On the black armor, traces of sliding rain remained, cold and despair-inducing.

"What is tha—" Before he could finish.

"Boom!!!"

The sound of metal tearing instantly drowned out all the gunfire.

Under the high-speed impact of 60 knots.

The ramming prow of the black iron ghost, reinforced with bio-metal, was like a red-hot knife cutting into butter.

It sliced into the midsection of the Ark-07 without any resistance.

Sparks flew, and steel plates shattered.

That 80-ton military-modified assault boat was actually snapped in two from the middle!

"Ah!!!"

The shrill scream had just begun when it came to an abrupt halt.

The seven soldiers on the boat didn't even have time to jump into the water before their internal organs were shattered by the massive impact.

Or they were sucked into the lethal vortex created by the collision of the two steel giants, instantly turning into meat paste.

"Splash—"

The black iron ghost continued its momentum, crushing directly through the middle of the broken wreckage.

At the moment the impact was completed, to protect the hull structure, the optical stealth system automatically overloaded and shut down for a second.

That black warship of death finally revealed its hideous true form in the thunderstorm.

But this was already the final sentence.