49: Immovable as a mountain

That playful remark about "festive fireworks" was still echoing between the damp, slippery rock walls on both sides of the canyon.

Jiang Ran, however, had already lost interest in continuing the conversation.

He extended a long, slender finger.

He casually flicked the audio switch on the console.

"Click."

A crisp mechanical closing sound rang out, and the red indicator light of the broadcast system instantly went out.

Regarding that mad old man at the top of the distant Tower of Babel, who was currently fuming with rage and waving a spirit level while howling at the air,

Jiang Ran didn't even have the desire to spare him another glance.

The feeling was like a passerby casually swatting a buzzing fly.

You wouldn't care what the fly was thinking before it died, nor would you listen to its last words.

Closing the mic after the rant.

This extreme arrogance and indifference was often more destructive to a megalomaniac's self-esteem than continuous insults.

It directly cut off the other party's channel of communication, forcing that hysterical rage back down their throat.

At this moment, the canyon fell into an atmosphere even more suffocating than before.

There was only the pitter-patter of heavy rain hitting the water and the distant, distorted screams of the "Dragon King."

The thugs of Dragon King Stockade were still waiting blankly for what would come next.

Waiting for the ghost ship's next move.

Or more verbal humiliation.

But the only response to them was silence.

A deathly silence.

The black iron ghost sat quietly, hovering over the pitch-black river surface, all its lights still cold and sharp.

It was as if the thrilling asphalt fire attack from moments ago had been nothing more than an inconsequential hallucination.

Inside the bridge, the faint scent of coffee wafted through the 24-degree Celsius air.

Jiang Ran leaned back into his comfortable command chair, picked up the lukewarm cup of coffee by his side, and drained it in one gulp.

His gaze passed through the holographic screen.

He swept his eyes one last time over that ugly and rickety trash dam, his expression revealing a sense of boredom from having seen through its essence.

The so-called post-apocalyptic overlords were nothing more than a group of scavengers occupying ruins.

"Boring."

Jiang Ran set down the cup; the porcelain clinked against the metal surface with a soft "tang."

In this silent space, that crisp sound was like the first toll of a death knell.

"zero."

Jiang Ran's voice returned to its usual coldness and rationality, no longer carrying a trace of human emotion:

"I don't like people blocking my path, and I like watching clowns dance even less."

"Clear the field."

With a light tap of his finger in the air, he delivered the final verdict:

"Deploy the main weapon."

As the command was disassembled and executed by the core optical computer in milliseconds,

The black iron ghost, which had been deathly silent like a specter, finally let out a dull and terrifying low growl.

"Clang—Boom..."

That wasn't the roar of an engine.

It was a much heavier sound of metal interlocking and grinding against metal.

Amidst the blinding beams of the searchlights and the torrential rain, the warship's broad foredeck suddenly vibrated violently.

Then, the originally smooth black nano-armor layer, which had seemed like a single piece, slowly split open down the middle in a straight line.

Accompanied by the harsh hiss of high-pressure hydraulic rods in operation,

Two half-meter-thick superalloy armor plates, like gates to hell, slid slowly to either side with unstoppable momentum.

"Pshhh—!!!"

A blast of scorching white steam mixed with rain gushed out from the opening.

That was the low-temperature white mist forced out by the liquid nitrogen cooling system while the internal precision machinery operated at high speeds.

In this cold rainy night, this rising white vapor looked particularly menacing.

At this moment, the ship was no longer a cold, dead object.

It was like a steel behemoth awakening from a deep-sea slumber.

Beneath the torrential night sky, it slowly opened its abyssal maw, capable of swallowing everything.

The once silent canyon was instantly filled with the mechanical roar of industrial violence.

All eyes were fixed on the opening deck.

Those thugs who were still holding spears and Molotov cocktails

Felt the rocks beneath their feet vibrating slightly along with the sound of metal grinding.

An instinctive shudder at the massive mechanical creation began to crawl wildly up everyone's spine.

They didn't know what was hidden beneath that crack.

But instinct told them it was the stage for Death's entrance.

Amidst the suffocating sound of mechanical operation,

A massive elevator platform carrying the "Truth" that had been hidden deep within the hull

Pierced through the rising white mist and finally revealed its form in the storm.

It was not a product that should exist in this era.

A dual-mounted electromagnetic railgun, full of cold sci-fi texture and extreme violent aesthetics, slowly rose above the deck.

Two ten-meter-long rectangular barrels.

They were not the rounded cylindrical shape of traditional artillery, but instead presented a sharp, cold-edged structure.

The cannon body was cast from an unknown dark gray, high-strength alloy.

The surface flowed with a near-matte, dense metallic luster.

The storm poured frantically onto the cannon body, but could not stay for a moment.

The moment the water droplets touched that special hydrophobic coating,

They slid off without a trace, as if even the forces of nature could not touch it in the slightest.

On the outside of the two long barrels, dense superconducting magnetic rail coils were arranged like sleeping blood vessels, extending to the muzzle.

Though not yet energized,

Those exposed complex and precise structures already exuded a scalp-numbing sense of industrial pressure.

It stood there quietly in the rain.

Precise, elegant, lethal.

Before this work of war art from the future,

The ugly "Tower of Babel" opposite, piled with scrap cars, rusty containers, and rotting corpses, instantly appeared ridiculous.

Like a toy a child casually built from trash.

This was not a weapon-to-weapon upgrade; it was a silent mockery by the peak creation of industrial civilization against wasteland primitive worship.

It was a dimensional reduction strike.

When the "click" of the massive turret base finally locking onto the deck sounded,

Everyone in the canyon involuntarily held their breath.

That cold, deep rectangular muzzle was like the eyes Death had just opened in the rainy night.

"Hum—"

A low yet highly piercing hum of electric current began to rise through the noisy rainy night.

This wasn't the loud bang of gunpowder, but a high-frequency tremor like a heartbeat.

The sound had a regular frequency, ignoring the barrier of the eardrums.

It drilled directly into the depths of everyone's bone marrow, causing physiological nausea and trembling.

As the energy valves of the nuclear fusion reactor inside the ship opened fully,

The cold dual-mounted railgun seemed to be infused with a soul, taking its first breath before destruction.

At first, it was just the superconducting coils at the base of the barrels glowing with a faint blue light.

Then, this blue light was like living liquid energy.

Accompanied by the increasingly high-pitched hum, it spread rapidly along the long parallel rails toward the muzzle.

"Sizzle—Sizzle—"

Blinding blue arcs began to jump, entangle, and collide between the two rails.

It was the physical manifestation of energy overflowing due to voltage overload.

The high-intensity magnetic field instantly distorted the air around the muzzle.

The cold rain that had fallen on the barrels was instantly ionized and vaporized before even touching the metal surface.

Clouds of white high-temperature steam rose in the blue light, painting the front of the ship like a hallucinogenic lightning field.

A strong, pungent smell of ozone quickly filled the air; it was the scent of an impending high-voltage thunderstorm.

This terrifying electromagnetic energy field even spilled onto the water's surface.

The murky river water within a hundred meters of the black iron ghost actually jumped slightly against gravity due to static electricity.

The trash and bloated corpses floating by the ship's side seemed to be pulled by some invisible giant hand,

Showing a spine-chilling ripple-like trembling.

In this pitch-black, deathly silent rainy night,

Those two barrels, flashing with violent blue light and constantly spitting arcs,

Were like two dragon eyes gathering strength, preparing to spit out a breath of destruction.

Each flash of the arc was a declaration to the world of Death's approach. No one had ever seen such a sight.

To the people of Dragon King Stockade, fire represented danger.

But this eerie, cold blue light that could distort the air represented... unknown despair.

"Clack—Buzz—"

Accompanied by the characteristic smooth hum of the precision servo motors,

The steel turret, already poised for action in the storm, began to rotate slowly.

The movement wasn't fast, but it carried a desperate precision and stability.

Two blinding blue beams of light, formed after air ionization, ruthlessly pierced the dark rain curtain like Death's searchlights.

The beams swept across the rock wall on one side of the canyon,

Leaving behind scorched marks.

Finally, as if pulled by a magnet, they locked firmly onto the top of that rickety Tower of Babel.

At this moment, time seemed to freeze.

Being pointed at by those two barrels filled with destructive energy,

In the throat of the "Dragon King" atop the tower, it felt as if a piece of red-hot charcoal had been shoved in.

All the roaring, cursing, and overbearing arrogance came to a screeching halt in an instant.

By the eerie blue electric light spilling from the muzzle, his cloudy old eyes finally saw what this thing was.

This was not any machine he had seen on engineering blueprints,

Nor was it something his ridiculous trebuchet could compare to.

Before fear could even arise, a sense of insignificance rooted in biological instinct instantly swallowed his reason.

This was a form of violence from a higher dimension.

"Run... Run fast!!!"

Not knowing who first cried out in the silence, a shrill sound like a chicken being strangled.

Then, the entire Dragon King Stockade position completely broke into chaos.

Even the most brutal thugs were scared out of their wits by this scene beyond their comprehension.

No one cared about the old madman's orders anymore, nor did they care about the dam or discipline.

The disciplinary squad that originally maintained order was the first to drop their machetes; the thugs threw away their equipment.

Like an ant colony doused with boiling water, they fled frantically over the slippery rocks.

Some knelt in the mud because their legs went weak, desperately kowtowing to the warship for mercy;

Some, in their panic, jumped into the rushing flood with screams.

The psychological defense line completely collapsed before the physical one.

And under those pairs of eyes filled with absolute terror,

Amidst the chaotic background noise, Jiang Ran sat in the comfortable, temperature-controlled bridge, expressionlessly watching the tactical screen.

In the center of the screen,

The red crosshair had completely overlapped with the top of the tower, flashing with a red light representing "lethal."

He had not a shred of mercy.

His long index finger slowly rose, then lightly rested on the bright red physical launch button.

The moment of judgment had arrived.