202: Landers on Devil's Island

"Ugh—"

Wang Dalong leaned against the ship's railing, his face as pale as paper, feeling like his stomach no longer belonged to him.

Beneath his feet, this seemingly ordinary but deeply modified icebreaker-class research vessel was repeatedly tossed and slammed by the violent waves of the Drake Passage.

The boundary between sky and sea had blurred, with gray waves crashing incessantly, making the steel behemoth groan in agony.

"Brother Feng... I feel like all my internal organs are dancing the tango... Are we heading to Antarctica to dig up penguin eggs?" Wang Dalong weakly quipped.

A burly man in black combat gear silently walked over and handed him a medicated patch.

He was Stone, the head of the security team hired by Lin Feng through the Cavendish Family, a man of few words.

Lin Feng ignored Wang Dalong's wails.

He stood in the bridge, hands braced on the cold control console, his body swaying slightly with the ship's violent pitching, standing firm. His eyes were fixed on the constantly changing terrain data on the sonar screen, focused as if performing a delicate surgical operation.

"Port five, steer around that reef area." His voice cut through the roar of the engines and the howl of the waves, clearly reaching the helmsman's ears.

Stone applied the patch, glanced at Lin Feng, his eyes filled with awe.

This boss, who looked as frail as a college student, had demonstrated navigational knowledge and chart-reading skills over the past forty-eight hours that were more terrifying than those of the ship's captain with thirty years of service.

He was very familiar with the charts.

"Two nautical miles ahead, entering dense fog zone, reduce speed." Lin Feng ordered again.

The research vessel, like a docile giant beast, slowly sailed into a milky-white dense fog that seemed to devour light. Visibility instantly dropped to less than ten meters, leaving only the sound of water around them, the world eerily silent.

Wang Dalong finally recovered, holding onto the railing, looking at the impenetrable fog before him, feeling as if he had stumbled onto the set of Silent Hill, his heart leaping into his throat.

"This... is this the Devil Island's welcome ceremony? A bit too grand, isn't it..."

At that moment, Lin Feng's calm voice rang out.

"We're here."

As if to confirm his words, a sudden gust of wind scattered the fog ahead.

An island, pitch-black and twisted in shape, suddenly appeared before them.

It lay like the skeleton of an ancient giant beast, quietly crouching at the edge of the world, exuding an aura of desolation and lifelessness that warned strangers to stay away.

"Bone Island..." Wang Dalong muttered to himself, his Adam's apple involuntarily bobbing.

This place, just looking at it, made one's sanity plummet.

"Stone, prepare the landing craft. Scan the coastline for a suitable landing point." Lin Feng's instructions were concise and swift.

"Boss, look there." Stone raised his hand, pointing to a depression on one side of the island.

Through high-powered binoculars, they could clearly see, on that rugged black coastline, several long-rotted wooden stakes stubbornly wedged between rock crevices. A crude pier, now only half its original structure, was being mercilessly washed by the waves.

That was a man-made trace!

Wang Dalong perked up: "Holy crap! It's really there! That old monster's intel was true!"

Half an hour later.

Two black military-grade assault boats, carrying the fully armed Lin Feng and his team, steadily approached the black beach.

With his feet on solid ground, Wang Dalong finally felt alive again. He curiously surveyed the desolate island—the ground was hard black volcanic rock, crunching underfoot. Apart from the howling wind, there was no sound of birds or insects, the air filled with a mix of sulfur and sea brine.

"This place doesn't even have a ghostly shadow. How did those people survive here back then?" Wang Dalong shrank his neck.

Lin Feng didn't speak. He just took out a military tablet, glanced at the flashing red dot on it, then pointed inland toward the island.

"The target is over there, a straight-line distance of 1.2 kilometers. Move out."

The team formed a tactical formation and silently advanced toward the island's center.

After climbing over a steep ridge, even the usually composed Stone looked astonished at the sight before them.

In the valley ahead, a solitary, rust-eaten building stood quietly. Several broken antennas lay toppled nearby, the round white radar dome covered in cracks, long abandoned.

It was a completely abandoned weather station.

"My goodness!" Wang Dalong's jaw nearly dropped, "They really built it! Using the guise of meteorological research to set up a secret base in this godforsaken place... These Nazis, what a waste of talent not writing scripts!"

Lin Feng's theory was perfectly confirmed.

His expression remained unchanged as he made a "proceed with caution" gesture.

Stone, with two team members, moved cautiously toward the weather station in a triangular formation. A few minutes later, his brief voice came through the communicator.

"Clear, no signs of life."

Everyone entered the weather station, greeted by a heavy musty smell and dust. Inside was a mess—tables and chairs overturned, countless long-rotted papers and equipment parts scattered on the floor.

This place had been abandoned for at least fifty years.

Wang Dalong circled the room, feeling somewhat disappointed: "That's it? An empty shell? Those people are long gone. Brother Feng, did we come all this way for nothing?"

But Lin Feng seemed not to hear him.

He walked straight to the center of the room, where the core instruments should have been placed. He crouched down and gently tapped the thickly dust-covered metal floor with his gloved hand.

"Thud, thud, thud."

The sound was dull.

"Right here."

He stood up and gestured to Stone.

Stone understood, took a crowbar from his backpack, aimed at the spot Lin Feng had tapped, found an extremely fine seam, and wedged it in!

"Creak—!"

A piercing metal screech rang out.

As Stone's arm muscles bulged, a nearly two-square-meter metal floor panel was forcibly pried up from the ground!

Beneath the floor was not a foundation or pipes.

But a bottomless, pitch-black vertical shaft.

An elevator shaft!

Wang Dalong peeked inside, feeling a chill shoot from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

"Wow! Just wow! They built the base underground!"

Without further ado, Stone expertly set up pulleys and ropes at the shaft entrance and was the first to slide down the rope.

"Clear below."

Lin Feng was the second, grabbing the rope without hesitation and disappearing into the darkness.

Wang Dalong gritted his teeth and slid down too.

The descent felt endlessly long, as if falling into the earth's core. After about fifty meters, his feet finally touched solid ground.

This was the bottom of the elevator shaft.

Opposite was an equally thick, closed double elevator door.

Stone and another team member spent ten minutes using hydraulic cutters and saws to open a hole large enough for one person to pass through.

When Lin Feng crawled through the gap, turned on his tactical flashlight, and cast the beam forward, everyone held their breath.

Where the flashlight shone, what met their eyes was not the expected underground passage or warehouse.

But a wall.

A massive circular wall cast from a single piece, gleaming with a cold metallic sheen.

In the center of the wall was a dial-style combination lock over two meters in diameter, composed of countless complex gears and bolts. Above the lock, a badge long corroded by time still emitted a chilling aura under the flashlight's beam.

An Imperial Eagle clutching a swastika.

"They... they moved the entire vault into the belly of this volcanic island."

Wang Dalong's voice trembled as he looked at the colossal door before him, like a creation of demons, feeling a chill in his heart.