79: Electromagnetic railgun! A divine strike from five kilometers away.

"One... zero."

The expected firepower coverage, sufficient to shatter the entire floor, did not descend.

Outside the window, the six-barreled autocannon that had been roaring and spinning idly seemed to have its nerves severed in this instant.

The ammunition feed motor let out a few shrill screams of overload before seizing up completely.

The missile bay cover slid halfway open but eerily stopped in mid-air, twitching and vibrating as if it were rusted shut.

The once overwhelmingly oppressive aerial gunship now hovered in mid-air, like a giant who had suddenly suffered a stroke.

Inside the gunship's cockpit, the alarms had merged into a continuous, piercing red line of sound.

"Fire control system unresponsive! Physical interface detected abnormal data injection!"

Drenched in sweat, the pilot frantically yanked at the control stick.

But the metal rod, which usually hit whatever it was pointed at, remained motionless as if welded to its base.

"Switch to manual mode! Fast!" the first officer roared, slamming the red emergency override button.

"Useless! The underlying logic is locked down!"

The weapons operator looked at the expanding skull icon on the screen, a sob creeping into his voice:

"The opponent isn't jamming us... they're rewriting our system!

All command permissions have been transferred!

My God, it came in through the maintenance port!"

In their eyes, this war machine worth hundreds of millions had become a cold, living coffin.

And that unknown intruder was like a parasite that had burrowed into the brain, taking over everything.

Meanwhile, inside the restaurant just a pane of glass away.

Jiang Ran didn't even lift his head to glance at the behemoth.

He merely lowered his eyelids, watching the data interface fed back onto his retina by the tactical eyepiece.

In the top left corner of the interface, three drone perspectives were firmly attached to the gunship's belly, the green [LOCK] indicator flashing steadily.

He didn't need any dramatic "hand against the glass," nor did he need to wave his arms.

As a Mechanic, the moment the physical link was established, the battle was already over.

He had simply used a massive amount of junk data to clog the gunship's logic units, trapping it in an infinite loop.

Like an insect encased in amber.

"A nice stop."

Jiang Ran tapped lightly in the void, issuing the final command through the drone beacons.

"AI zero, it's yours."

"Coordinate synchronization complete." A cold, synthesized mechanical voice rang directly in his mind.

Simultaneously, five kilometers away.

On the pitch-black river surface, a perennial radiation fog shrouded everything.

This was originally a silent stretch of water, with only the occasional mutant fish leaping out to break the peace.

Suddenly, a pair of crimson indicator lights flickered in the darkness.

With a dull sound of hydraulic transmission, the black iron, hidden in the shadows of the river bend, revealed its ferocious silhouette.

This Deep-Sea Biological Warship, which had evolved to LV5, was now like an ancient beast awakening from the abyss.

The heavy alloy deck at the bow slid open to both sides like petals, revealing the complex rail and coil structure beneath.

That was no ordinary cannon; it was the execution platform Jiang Ran had poured countless resources into—the Heavy Electromagnetic Railgun.

"Vrrr——!!!"

The air began to tremble.

The hum of the ultra-high-power capacitor banks discharging instantly startled countless water birds nesting on the banks.

A massive current surged through the coils, creating a strong magnetic field that directly distorted the surrounding space.

Even the river water beneath the ship was compressed by this invisible force, pushing out ripples of intense waves in all directions.

Blue-white electric arcs leaped and tangled wildly between the rails, illuminating the river for hundreds of meters as bright as day.

The surrounding mist was instantly evaporated by the high temperature, forming a vacuum firing channel.

It was charging.

Like a Titan holding its breath, it was gathering a punch capable of shattering the heavens.

And the direction that fist pointed was precisely the coordinate point several kilometers away, marked firmly by the three micro-drones.

Without any warning.

There was no sound either—because the speed of destruction far outpaced the propagation of sound.

In that instant, only one color remained between heaven and earth.

A stream of pure blue-white light suddenly erupted from the pitch-black river.

It didn't seem like a cannon shot; it was more like a divine sword of punishment thrust upward into the sky.

Ignoring distance and gravity, it instantly pierced through five kilometers of space.

The rain along the path was instantly vaporized, and the air was forcibly ionized by the high-energy charge, burning a long-lasting vacuum trail into the night sky.

It was a straight line of death connecting the abyss to the clouds.

A tungsten alloy kinetic projectile, traveling at several times the speed of sound, carried enough kinetic energy to pierce the armor of a battleship.

In the split second while the gunship pilot was still sweating and pounding on the console, it had already reached its destination.

Time seemed to freeze at this moment.

The survivors inside the Floating City building only saw a blur before their eyes.

That massive, sky-blotting steel fortress was pierced from directly below by the stream of light without any resistance.

Only after the light had penetrated the clouds and vanished into the horizon did the delayed, earth-shattering sonic boom sweep in from the distant river, carrying the rolling sound of thunder.

"BOOM——!!!"

The entire Floating City trembled violently in that roar.

It was a beauty that was almost harrowing.

The moment it was pierced by the tungsten alloy projectile.

The hundreds-of-tons "Hammerhead Shark" class gunship didn't explode immediately; instead, it eerily stalled in the air for half a second.

Then, a massive wave of kinetic energy surged wildly inside the hull, as if a rampaging monster were trying to burst out of the tin can.

"CRACK—BANG!"

Accompanied by a teeth-gritting tearing sound, the composite armor on the gunship's surface, which claimed to withstand conventional missile bombardment,

shattered inch by inch like a fragile eggshell.

Countless rivets flew off, and burning fragments sprayed in all directions like rain.

Following that, the core reactor lost its containment.

A brilliant orange-red fireball exploded from within the hull, instantly swallowing the entire fuselage.

At this distance, the shockwave from the explosion was even more violent than the previous sonic boom.

The remaining glass curtain walls in the restaurant were completely reduced to powder, and a gale carrying a scorching wave of air poured into the room, overturning tables and chairs.

It also blew the few survivors who were clutching their heads and shivering in the corner every which way.

They didn't care about the pain from the broken glass cuts; they just stared up blankly, that incredible scene reflected in their pupils.

The steel behemoth that represented the absolute authority of the Ark and the myth of invincibility was now like a burning kite with its string cut.

Trailing a plume of thick smoke, it lost lift amidst a series of dense secondary explosions, disintegrating as it fell irrevocably toward the pitch-black ruins of Jinling City below.

A few gang gunmen who had originally intended to take advantage of the chaos to ambush Jiang Ran dropped their weapons to the ground with a "clang."

Their mouths hung open, and meaningless rasping sounds came from their throats.

In their understanding, the Ark's gunships were the sky above their heads, a miracle that mortals could not contend with.

And now, the sky had fallen.

God had been shot down.

Rolling heat waves mixed with a pungent burnt smell poured into the restaurant through the massive hole.

Jiang Ran stood with his back to the grand fireworks of the falling wreckage outside, not even interested in glancing at how deep a crater the remains would smash into the ground.

For a Mechanic, the outcome was already decided the moment the data link was broken; the process was unimportant.

He raised his hand to brush off non-existent dust from his trench coat collar, his movements as composed as if he were concluding a dull afternoon tea.

Inside the restaurant, the few surviving gang thugs and waiters had already collapsed to the floor.

As they looked at Jiang Ran walking toward them against the light, their eyes no longer held the previous wariness or fear.

Instead, it was a bone-deep shudder one felt when facing an unknown entity.

Even "God" had been struck down by him.

In front of this man, the guns in their hands weren't even as good as fire pokers.

Jiang Ran ignored these ants.

He walked straight through the mess, his leather shoes making a crisp sound on the broken glass, sounding out of place in the silent room.

When he reached the door, he paused slightly.

He turned his head, seemingly reflecting on the performance of the aerial gunship just now, or perhaps making a final summary for the world that had tried to judge him.

"I thought I'd see something new."

Jiang Ran shook his head, his tone carrying an undisguised hint of disappointment and boredom:

"The Ark is nothing more than this."

With that, he pushed open the precarious door and strode into the shadows deep within the corridor.