108: Giant Squid Attack

"Alright, the trash has been dealt with."

Chen Hu wiped the non-existent blood from his Combat Blade and walked out of the airlock in a carefree manner.

"Captain, these guys were way too weak. They were all down before I even finished warming up." He curled his lip, looking like he hadn't had enough.

"It's not that they're weak; it's that the Administrator's traps are too strong." Wang Yi shook his head, his expression remaining solemn. "To be able to sneak up on us so silently, their stealth capabilities shouldn't be underestimated. If it weren't for the Administrator's early warning, the consequences would have been unthinkable if they had reached the base's hull."

"biological acid..." Zhang Wei said with lingering fear, recalling the components analyzed from those monster corpses. "That stuff is extremely corrosive; our hull could only last thirty seconds at most."

Hearing this, everyone felt a wave of lingering fear.

Just then, the alarm in the main control room began to scream frantically once more, without warning and at an unprecedented frequency!

"Warning! Warning! A super-giant biological entity is detected approaching at high speed!"

"Energy level... unestimable! Repeat, energy level unestimable!"

"Danger! Extreme danger!"

The piercing electronic voice, like a death-dealing curse, caused everyone's heart in the main control room to suddenly constrict!

"What?!" Wang Yi snapped his head back, staring intently at the sonar screen.

On the screen, a red shadow so massive it could blot out the sky was rapidly surfacing from directly beneath the base at an incredible speed!

Its size was several times larger than the prehistoric Megalodon from before!

"Below! It's right below us!" Li Bingyao screamed.

Before her voice could fade, the entire base shook violently!

"Rumble—"

An extremely muffled boom echoed from the bottom of the base.

It didn't feel like an impact, but rather as if something had violently hoisted the base from below!

Inside the base, countless pipes and wires burst with dazzling sparks; the team members were thrown off balance, unable to stand steady.

"Report! Base structural stability has dropped by 20%! The bottom armor has severe indentations!" Zhang Wei shouted in terror.

Before everyone could recover from the violent shaking, something even more terrifying happened.

Through the massive circular portholes, they saw dozens—no, hundreds—of giant tentacles thicker than train cars, like demonic claws reaching out from the depths of hell, coiling around the base from all directions!

These tentacles were dark red, their surfaces covered in suckers the size of millstones with sharp, barbed hooks.

They writhed and entangled; in the blink of an eye, the entire massive deep-sea base was wrapped up like a zongzi.

"Creak— Creak—"

The tooth-aching sound of metal twisting echoed from every part of the base's structure.

Under the terrifying strangling force of these tentacles, the sturdy special alloy hull began to deform inch by inch, letting out groans of being overburdened.

"It's... it's a mutated Giant Squid!" a team member with some knowledge of marine biology shouted with a trembling voice. "Only this kind of creature would have so many tentacles!"

"Its tentacles... each one is over two hundred meters long! This... this is a monster!"

Just as everyone was paralyzed with shock by the apocalyptic scene before them, the monster hidden in the darkness launched its next attack.

"Psh—"

A thick, impenetrable black ink gushed out from the monster's body.

The volume of ink was immense, like a bursting dam; it instantly dyed the sea for several kilometers around the base into a pitch-black darkness where one couldn't see their own hand.

All external cameras and monitoring equipment of the base emitted a puff of blue smoke and were completely destroyed the moment they touched the ink.

All external screens in the main control room instantly turned to static.

They had become completely blind!

But that wasn't the most lethal part.

When the black ink completely enveloped the base, a strange, malice-filled mental wave penetrated the thick alloy hull and acted directly upon the minds of every team member!

"Buzz—"

Everyone felt as if their heads had been struck by a heavy sledgehammer; stars danced before their eyes, and nonsensical yet enticingly mad whispers echoed in their ears.

"Give up..."

"Sleep..."

"Become one with me..."

The voice seemed to come from the depths of their souls, carrying an irresistible magic that constantly eroded their sanity, stirring up their deepest fears and desires.

"Argh!" A young team member with weaker willpower suddenly clutched his head and roared in pain, his eyes turning bloodshot and his face filled with struggle and madness.

"Don't listen! Don't listen to it!" Li Bingyao reacted immediately. Her awakened healing talent made her exceptionally sensitive to mental attacks. "This is mental pollution! Cover your ears and focus your minds!"

But it was too late.

More and more team members began to show signs of losing mental control.

Some were laughing maniacally, some were wailing, and some even began to attack the companions beside them!

The entire main control room instantly fell into chaos.

"Damn it!" Wang Yi bit the tip of his tongue; the intense pain allowed him to barely maintain a shred of clarity.

He looked at his chaotic teammates, anxious but helpless.

At this critical moment, Su Yuan's voice flowed through every team member's mind like a clear spring.

"A bunch of low-level creatures without even self-awareness, and you dare to toy with the mind?"

The voice wasn't loud, but it carried an unquestionable majesty and the power to purify everything.

[Administrator Authority Activated: Mental Purification!]

[Isolating external mental interference...]

A warm and pure energy appeared out of thin air, enveloping the entire base.

The cold, mad whispers seemed to have met their nemesis, instantly dispersing without a trace.

The chaotic team members felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over them, suddenly snapping back to their senses.

They gasped for breath, their faces filled with lingering fear and relief.

"Wh... what just happened?"

"I think I saw my mom..."

"Thank you... thank you, Administrator!"

The crisis was once again resolved effortlessly by Su Yuan.

"Snap out of it!" Wang Yi roared, pulling everyone's attention back. "The mental attack was just the appetizer! That fellow wants to drag us into the trench!"

Everyone then felt that the entire base was being slowly dragged downward by a massive force.

"We've lost our vision! We have no idea where it is!" Chen Hu shouted anxiously.

"Who says we don't have vision?"

Wang Yi sneered. He walked to the command console and pressed his hands onto it.

"On my radar, it's as conspicuous as a firefly in the night!"

Just then, Su Yuan's prompt came again.

"Wang Yi, catch this."

A high-tech silver metal headset appeared out of thin air in front of Wang Yi.

[Item: Deep-Sea Sonar Enhancer]

[Price: 2,000 national fortune points]

[Effect: Can expand the user's bioelectric sensing range tenfold and filter 99% of noise, constructing an ultra-high-precision 3D sonar map in extreme environments.]

Wang Yi put on the headset without hesitation.

In an instant, the entire world became different to his sense of hearing.

That thick ink was no longer an obstacle.

He could clearly hear that in the center of that darkness, a massive heart was beating powerfully.

He could hear the writhing and exertion of each of those hundreds of tentacles.

An incredibly clear 3D model composed of sound waves slowly took shape in his mind.

"Found you, big guy." A cold arc curled at the corner of Wang Yi's mouth.