65: Returning with a full load

In the murky water,

the mountain-like corpse of the Crab King had completely lost all signs of life.

Only its broken pincers remained, swaying powerlessly in the undercurrent.

The originally violent pressure vanished into thin air as its life signals dropped to zero.

Inside the cockpit, Jiang Ran didn't relax at all after the battle; his gaze swept coldly across the radar screen as his hands quickly pushed the control levers.

The mecha's engine let out a low roar, the thruster nozzles micro-adjusting their angles as the massive frame nimbly approached the corpse in the water.

Hydraulic transmission devices pushed the Mechanical Arm to suddenly lunge out, its alloy fingers precisely inserting into the hideous, blasted-open crack in the Crab King's carapace.

"Up!"

Accompanied by the sound of cracking bone, the Mechanical Arm violently pried upward.

Crack! The thick carapace was pried open by brute force.

Eerie blue blood instantly gushed out, like a cloud of ink exploding in the deep sea, staining the searchlight's beam with a strange hue.

He ignored this, controlling the Mechanical Arm to reach into the still-twitching cavity of flesh as the scanner instantly locked onto the core area.

Mechanical fingers brushed aside shattered internal organs, pinpointing and clamping onto a pale purple biological sac emitting high-energy reactions—

This was the "Mutated Gland," where the Crab King's entire essence resided.

Strip, grab, retract.

The entire sequence of movements was as smooth as flowing water; the biological sac was quickly stuffed into the Trophy Incubator behind his waist and locked.

Immediately after, a high-strength Cutting Cable popped out from the mecha's shoulder launcher.

The steel cable flashed coldly in the water, instantly wrapping around the base of the Crab King's intact giant pincer.

As the winch tightened rapidly, the alloy cable cut into the shell, producing a dull and piercing grinding sound.

In just over ten seconds, that giant pincer, even larger than the mecha, was neatly sliced off.

Its hardness was comparable to alloy, making it an excellent material for crafting heavy shields.

The Mechanical Arm skillfully dragged the giant pincer over and hooked it onto the gravity mount on the back of the mecha.

The machine's body suddenly sank, but was then stabilized by the engine's output.

This was a battlefield, but also a hunting ground; every second represented cold, hard cash.

Having dealt with the biggest guy, he didn't turn around to leave.

Instead, he controlled the mecha, laden with "trophies," and dove like a shark smelling blood into the torn belly of the Ro-Ro ship.

The interior of the ship's cabin was like the digestive tract of a giant beast.

The once-straight steel corridors were now twisted and deformed, with pipelines and instrument panels covered in fungal mats everywhere.

The turbulence from the thrusters stirred up the floating dust in the cabin, making visibility extremely low.

But relying on the 3D map constructed by the scanner, he wove through the maze-like wreckage, heading straight for the core area—the original engine room.

The deeper he went, the clearer that heart-palpitating sound of metal grinding became.

When the mecha smashed open the last deformed watertight door, even he, who was used to mutations, felt his pupils shrink at the sight.

Where the massive diesel main engine should have been, a "heart" made of half-metal and half-flesh now sat.

The thing was as big as a truck's cab.

Its surface was covered in a dark red biological membrane, with countless thick copper pipes and hydraulic rods inserted into it like blood vessels.

With every pulse, it caused the surrounding connected hull plates to emit a low, resonant hum.

Countless silver-gray hyphae, like nerve bundles,

were spreading frantically outward from this "heart," digging deep into the surrounding keel and bulkheads, feeding.

Turning the cold steel bit by bit into some kind of living substance.

This was the source.

The scanning beam quickly swept over that bizarre combination, and the originally chaotic data stream on the holographic screen suddenly locked.

[Warning: High concentration of active metal reaction detected]

[Target Characteristics: Metal/Biological Symbiote (Mother Plant)]

This wasn't simple parasitism; it was devouring and fusion.

It was eating the ship, turning this dead steel giant into its new shell.

"Old Chen, look at this."

He switched the feed directly into the public channel.

There was a deathly silence on the other end of the communication, followed by the loud crash of a chair overturning and the crisp sound of a teacup shattering.

"Holy shit! Holy shit!!"

Old Chen, who was always calculating and would haggle over repair costs even if the sky fell,

now had a voice as shrill as a cat whose tail had been stepped on, even cracking from excitement:

"Don't move! Don't you dare move! That's a 'Metal Mother Plant'!

Alive! Complete!"

"Is it valuable?"

He was concise, his finger already hovering over the activation button of the Laser Cutter.

"Valuable? This is a priceless treasure! You don't know shit!"

Old Chen roared over the channel, his breathing as heavy as a bellows:

"With this thing, black iron can come back to life!

We won't have to scavenge junk all over the world to piece together a ship; it can make the hull self-repair and even evolve by devouring metal!

This is the root cause of that swarm of crabs' mutation!

It's the seed of a Living Keel!"

Hearing the words "self-repair," a sharp light instantly erupted in Jiang Ran's calm eyes.

For someone making a living in the apocalypse,

nothing was more enticing than a warship that didn't need frequent overhauls and could even "grow" on its own.

This wasn't just a strain; it was clearly a gold mine.

"Bring it back! Dig it out by the roots! If even one filament is missing, I'll dock all your bonuses for this trip!"

Old Chen roared at the top of his lungs: "Cut the keel! Cut out that entire section of steel plate at the base! Don't damage its core!"

"Hold on tight."

He wasted no more words. The mecha's arms spread out, and two dazzling high-energy laser beams suddenly lit up.

The red beams stirred up rolling bubbles in the murky deep water.

The high temperature instantly turned the thick hull plates around the "heart" red-hot and melted them.

He didn't bother with the tiny hyphae.

Instead, he chose a violent but most effective cutting plan—

to take the entire keel steel plate connected to the mother body, prying it out all at once like cutting a cake.

"Sizzle—"

As the last connection point was melted through by the high temperature, the multi-ton steel plate carrying the "Metal Mother Plant" finally came completely loose.

The mecha's engine roared as the Mechanical Arm exerted sudden force, yanking the heavy "heart" right out of the ship's base.

The moment the mother body detached from the keel, a sudden change occurred.

The silver-gray hyphae that had been tightly rooted throughout the hull lost their energy supply from the mother body.

They instantly withered and turned gray, like muscles with severed tendons.

"Creeeak—Boom!!"

A dull roar that made one's heart stop hit the mecha's outer armor directly through the water.

This Ro-Ro ship sleeping on the seabed had long been riddled with holes from seawater corrosion.

The previous battle had only made things worse.

It had relied entirely on these mutated hyphae, as tough as steel cables, to hold it together.

Now, the adhesive was gone.

The balance instantly collapsed.

The sound of twisting metal came from above, and the once relatively spacious engine room tilted instantly.

Massive steel beams bent like fragile matchsticks.

The rusty decks snapped layer by layer, and huge chunks of concrete and metal debris fell like a torrential rain.

Rumble!

Murky dust instantly swallowed his vision, and the sonar radar was filled with frantically flashing red collision warnings.

Corridors were deforming; exits were disappearing.

The entire giant ship was being crushed by the deep-sea water pressure and its own gravity.

Like a flattened soda can, it was about to thoroughly crush the mecha still in its "stomach" into dust.

"Warning: Reactor output power has reached 120%."

Ignoring the frantically jumping red warning boxes, he slammed the power lever to the floor.

The vector nozzles on the back of the mecha spewed a dazzling blue torrent.

Dragging the heavy packing net behind him, he fled for his life through the closing steel ruins.

Since there was no longer a path, he would smash one open.

A massive bulkhead ahead collapsed with a bang, blocking the way.

He didn't slow down.

Instead, he controlled the Mechanical Arm to hold the heavy steel plate containing the "Mother Plant" in front of him like a battering ram.

Using the engine's violent thrust, he slammed into it.

Thud!

Sparks flew as the deformed bulkhead was forced open, creating a gap.

The mecha shook violently, and the hydraulic system let out an overburdened wail.

But he gripped the control lever tightly and forced his way through that fleeting gap.

Continuous sounds of collapse came from behind, as if a giant mouth were snapping at the mecha's heels.

"Right there!"

The scanner captured a weak point on the outer hull of the broadside.

At this moment, the entire hull had been severely deformed by water pressure, only seconds away from being completely flattened.

"Open up!"

He roared, and the mecha launched all its ammunition.

The remaining Micro-missiles exploded in a flash of fire on that rusted hull.

Then, the mecha threw its entire weight into the smoke of the explosion.

Boom—Crash!

With one final crisp sound of metal tearing, the mecha, enveloped in a mass of bubbles and debris,

like a heavy shell fired from a cannon, suddenly burst from the belly of the collapsing Ro-Ro ship into the vast, cold deep sea.

The immense inertia carried him rolling for hundreds of meters through the water before he could barely stabilize himself.

Looking back, the hundred-meter-long steel beast had completely collapsed in the undersea dust.

The stirred-up silt spread in all directions like a tsunami, swallowing everything.

Only the sound of heavy breathing and the hum of the engine's cooling fan remained in the cockpit.

Jiang Ran glanced at the mounting bay behind him and the green signal light showing "Full Load."

He looked again at the metal mother body still clutched tightly in his hand, and a slight curve finally appeared at the corner of his mouth.

Wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, he connected to the communication channel, his tone returning to its usual calm:

"Old Chen, the goods have arrived. Get ready to receive them."