69: 1v7? Sorry, this is a massacre of a lower dimension.

Jiang Ran closed his eyes, his fingers lightly resting on the cold edge of the steering wheel.

This feeling was wonderful and unfamiliar.

There was no need to look at the jumping red dots on the radar screen, nor was there a need for panicked reports from the sonar operator.

Through the deep nerve connection established by the mechanical core, he could clearly sense every slight movement in the surrounding waters.

Seven.

Seven clumsy and crude metal objects were approaching in a fan formation from a three-kilometer arc ahead.

Their old, high-power diesel engines and propellers churned the water violently.

The resulting chaotic turbulence struck the hull of the black iron.

To the current Jiang Ran, it felt as if seven giant flies were buzzing and bumping against his skin.

The sensation of vibration was so clear it was irritating.

"Jiang, don't play dead! I know you're listening!"

Harsh static accompanied by a crude roar exploded within the bridge, breaking this peculiar sensory connection.

A holographic screen popped up automatically.

On the screen was a man with a fleshy face and one eye—the leader of the Furnace Gang, "One-Eyed" Quinn.

He stood in a swaying cabin, with black smoke-belching chimneys and rust-covered instrument panels in the background.

Quinn stared at the silent Jiang Ran on the screen, greed almost overflowing from his eyes—the look of seeing a fat sheep:

"I know you got lucky and killed that crab.

Listen, you know the rules.

Leave that crab's carapace behind, and tie up that traitor Old Chen and send him over.

I'm in a good mood today, so I might even leave your corpses intact."

In Quinn's outdated intelligence, the black iron was still that piece of junk that needed careful budgeting and was covered in patches.

Even if the power was fixed, it was nothing more than a faster iron coffin.

He didn't notice at all that at the edge of the holographic screen, the data flowing inside the warship was no longer what it used to be.

Jiang Ran slowly opened his eyes.

There was no anger, no fear, not even a hint of emotional fluctuation in those black eyes.

That look was like a human watching a cockroach that had recklessly jumped onto the dining table.

"Too noisy."

He didn't respond to Quinn's shouting, but simply raised his hand and decisively cut the communication channel.

The world instantly became quiet.

Jiang Ran's palm covered the control sphere, and with a slight thought, a stream of faint blue data instantly flowed through his entire body.

A very faint hum came from the deck beneath his feet.

It was the unique response of an Lv4 Bio-Mechanical Ship—it was hungering for slaughter.

"Since you've come to my door,"

Jiang Ran's voice rang out in the deathly silent bridge: "then don't even think about leaving."

..."Hard to port! Force them in!"

"One-Eyed" Quinn stood on the deck of the flagship, looking at the strange waters ahead churning with dark red foam, the flesh on his face twitching with excitement:

"That's the Chemical Leak Zone!

Once they enter the Red Water, their propellers will be corroded into scrap metal within five minutes! They'll be like turtles in a jar!"

"Boom! Boom!"

Several modified gunboats opened fire simultaneously.

The shells didn't aim directly at the black iron but exploded on both sides of its course, kicking up massive columns of water.

This was a typical driving tactic, like hounds forcing prey into a dead end.

Faced with this encirclement, the black iron made a move that no one expected.

It did not slow down to turn around, nor did it try to force a breakthrough.

Instead, it suddenly lowered its bow, the engine letting out a dull roar like a crazed bull, and plunged headlong into that terrifying Red Water area.

"Ha! Desperate and lost!"

Quinn laughed wildly: "No need to chase, just wait here for them to float up..."

However, the expected scene of the hull smoking and speed plummeting did not occur.

The moment the dark silver warship charged into the Red Water, the Biological Armor on the hull's surface seemed to sense the environmental change.

The originally cold metallic luster began to flow and darken rapidly.

In just a few seconds, the entire ship turned the same dark ochre color as the surrounding waters.

The highly corrosive industrial wastewater splashing onto the hull didn't even etch out a single wisp of white smoke.

Instead, it slid down the dense textures like lubricant.

【Acid Corrosion Resistance: Active (Immunity Grade)】

【Environmental Mimicry: On】

Under the cover of the thick acidic red mist, the outline of the black iron became blurred.

It didn't kick up huge splashes, and even the bubbles in its wake were dissipated by the special hull structure.

It was like a drop of water merging into the sea, completely vanishing from the Furnace Gang's sight and radar screens.

The communication channel that had been clamoring gradually went quiet, leaving only the hiss of static.

The smile on Quinn's face froze.

He held up his binoculars, staring fixedly at the churning red mist, an inexplicable chill crawling up his spine.

Where were they?

Such a large ship, right under his nose... had it evaporated into thin air?

...The red mist churned, and visibility was less than twenty meters.

The Furnace Gang's flagship, the furnace, was slowly lingering at the edge, the sonar operator staring at a screen full of static with a forehead drenched in sweat—

In that high-corrosion area, the interference was too severe; they had become blind.

"Have you found them yet!"

Quinn kicked the console in frustration.

"There!"

This exclamation didn't come from the sonar operator, but from the lookout on the broadside.

No radar needed, no sonar needed.

In that rolling dark red toxic mist, a massive shadow abruptly tore through the fog.

Like a behemoth charging out of a pool of blood in hell, it silently slid to within less than fifty meters of the furnace.

At this moment, its bow was no longer the original dark silver but had completely assimilated into the same dark ochre as the Red Water.

Only at this moment of breaking through the fog did its cold, hideous metallic outline reveal itself.

It was too close.

So close that Quinn could even see the young man's indifferent face behind the glass of the opposite bridge.

There was no mechanical sound of turrets turning, nor the tail flame of a missile launch.

The black iron was aimed straight at the most vulnerable part of the furnace's broadside, moving at an astonishing speed.

"Hard to port! Get out of the way!!"

Quinn shrieked in despair, his voice cracking.

But inertia is a ruthless law of physics, and this kind of cobbled-together modified ship simply couldn't perform such extreme maneuvers.

And in the driver's seat of the black iron, Jiang Ran didn't even blink.

In his perception, this wasn't a battle at all, but a simple physics problem:

【Own Parameters: Ram Hardness 600 (Lv4 Active Alloy), Kinetic Energy Reserve 100%.】

【Enemy Parameters: Armor Hardness 50 (Scrap Metal), Fragile Structure.】

【Contact Area: 12 square meters.】

There was only one result. Crush.

"Thud—!!!"

A collision sound that wasn't too loud, yet extremely dull.

Immediately following was the sound of metal tearing, like a sharp hot knife cutting through frozen butter.

The bow of the black iron, reshaped with Active Steel and possessing biological texture, pierced into the side of the furnace without any resistance.

Those seemingly heavy welded steel plates were as brittle as crackers in front of the Lv4-grade alloy, instantly shattering and curling.

Jiang Ran sat in his chair, his body only leaning forward slightly.

The tactile sensation transmitted back through the nerve connection didn't feel like he had crashed into a thousand-ton warship.

Instead, it was as casual as kicking a piece of rotten wood.

"Boom!"

The black iron didn't slow down, crushing right through the wreckage of the furnace.

The enemy ship behind it was completely snapped in two under the massive kinetic impact.

The keel let out a deathbed groan before being swallowed by the surging river water in just a few seconds.

As the black iron charged out of the wreckage zone, the Biological Armor on its bow rippled slightly.

It shook off the few pieces of scrap metal and oil stains clinging to it, its surface as clean as new, without even a single scratch.

The tragic sight of the flagship being cut in half instantly shattered the psychological defenses of the remaining modified ships.

Those "hyenas" who had been cruising on the outskirts, waiting for a chance to take a few bites, were now like flies in a disturbed nest.

They didn't even bother to rescue their comrades still struggling in the water, turning their bows and fleeing frantically.

Jiang Ran did not order a pursuit.

In his eyes, those small boats cobbled together from scrap metal had lost their qualification as prey.

Wasting ammunition to hunt them down would be an insult to the black iron's energy.

He manipulated the steering wheel, and the black iron slowly adjusted its stance, aiming the fully charged main cannon on its broadside at the shore a kilometer away.

Standing there was a massive blast furnace, belching billowing black smoke like it was breathing.

That was the Furnace Gang's lair, the largest source of pollution and a totem of evil in these waters.

Countless survivors like Old Chen had been imprisoned under that giant steel tower, refining low-quality metal and radioactive dirty bombs day and night.

"Old Chen."

Jiang Ran's voice was soft, yet it clearly penetrated the somewhat deathly silent air.

He didn't look back, but simply pushed the final confirmation authority of the weapon fire-control system to the first mate's position.

"That's where you used to 'work.' Aren't you going to send a farewell gift?"

Old Chen sat in the co-pilot's seat, his oil-stained hands gripping the handrail tightly, his knuckles white from the excessive force.

He stared at the black tower on the holographic screen, locked in by the red crosshairs.

That tower had been his nightmare for years.

Without much hesitation or sentimentality, Old Chen took a deep breath.

He pulled a half-smoked cigarette from his pocket, stuck it in his mouth, and his gaze instantly became fierce.

"Let's hear a bang."

His thumb slammed down on the fire button.

"Hum—Boom!"

A dazzling blue-white beam of light instantly pierced through the murky air over the river.

The High-Energy Particle Cannon, carrying destructive kinetic energy, accurately struck the poorly maintained load-bearing base of the blast furnace.

There was no violent chain of explosions, only a snap so dull it made one's chest feel tight.

The iron behemoth that had stood for decades lost its balance the moment the base shattered.

Like a giant with its legs hacked off, it let out a piercing scream of twisting metal high in the air, then slowly tilted and accelerated its fall.

"Rumble—!!!"

Thousands of tons of steel slammed into the ground, the rising dust instantly engulfing the camp below.

The fire from the explosion soared into the sky, dyeing half the sky blood-red.

That black totem, symbolizing oppression and filth, was completely reduced to ruins at this moment.

The firelight reflected red across half the river.

The crackling of the fire and the screams of survivors in the distance intertwined, composing a cruel wasteland finale... the black iron slowly sailed through the floating wreckage.

According to past habits, Old Chen would have already been controlling the Mechanical Arm to salvage those floating supply crates and weapon fragments.

After all, in the resource-scarce wasteland, even a single screw was hard currency.

He subconsciously looked at the console, his hand reaching for the salvage lever's handle, but stopping in mid-air.

On the holographic scanning screen, the surrounding floating objects were densely marked:

【Low-quality Mild Steel Plate】, 【Damaged Old-fashioned Machine Gun】, 【Irradiated Compressed Biscuits】... all were a bunch of red "low-value" labels.

Jiang Ran didn't even glance at those "spoils of war" that they would have once fought desperately for.

His gaze swept past the burning ruins, toward the deeper and wider dark waters in the distance.

"No need to salvage."

Jiang Ran spoke indifferently, his voice carrying an unprecedented cold arrogance: "It's all trash."

Old Chen was stunned for a moment, then withdrew his hand with a bitter smile and slapped his forehead:

"True, with our current appetite, we really can't swallow this kind of junk anymore."

The black iron's engine let out a low rumble, its bow cutting through the burning oil slick.

That layer of dark red camouflage slowly faded, returning to a deep dark silver.

It was like a noble knight, disdaining to fumble for copper coins on a pile of filthy corpses.

It simply shook its cloak and turned to leave.

The waves kicked up by the stern swept the last few wooden planks marked with the "Furnace Gang" logo into the depths.

At this moment, they completely bid farewell to the Scavenger stage of relying on picking through trash and dismantling scrap metal to survive.

Jiang Ran pushed the throttle, raising the speed to cruise mode.

"Sit tight, we're entering the deep water zone."

The black iron turned into a silver stream of light, heading without looking back toward that abyss fraught with danger yet also hiding endless treasures.