165: Chapter 165 The Living Ship Recognizes Its Master, Memories of the Deep Sea!

Those pipes of varying thickness extended from the bottom of the fleshy sphere, connecting to every corner of the entire warship.

Lin Xiao's gaze faltered slightly, then he recalled the description on the event card.

【If you successfully board an enemy warship and control the core cabin, you can obtain temporary command of that ship...】

The corners of his mouth curled up slightly.

Could it be?

Lin Xiao stepped forward slowly and reached out his hand.

The moment his fingertips touched the fleshy sphere, countless tiny tentacles shot out and wrapped around his arm.

They did not attack; it felt more like they were probing, as if confirming something.

Lin Xiao did not resist, letting those tentacles climb along his arm armor.

Then, a sharp pain shot through him.

He could feel tentacles piercing his protective gear, breaking through his skin, and burrowing into his flesh.

His vision darkened.

Immediately after, the scene before his eyes was torn into countless fragments.

Each fragment represented a certain scene: the bow, the deck, the cannons, the cabins...

He could now observe the situation in all these areas simultaneously.

It was no exaggeration to say that the entire warship had become his body!

Lin Xiao saw the status of the eight main cannons; they were all intact.

He saw the breeding area in the bottom of the hull, with hundreds of Iron-Devouring Worms curled up in the culture tanks.

There were also countless larvae that hadn't yet grown shells, wriggling in the mucus.

Not bad, plenty of ammunition.

Just as Lin Xiao intended to continue observing other areas, a large number of memory fragments suddenly surfaced in his mind.

This was the ship's past.

Images flooded in like a tide.

In March 1909, this battlecruiser, named the "Dreadnought," was launched at the Portsmouth Shipyard.

Its brand-new gun barrels gleamed in the sunlight.

Sailors stood in rows on the deck, and the military band played "Land of Hope and Glory."

Then came 1912.

The Dreadnought followed a full fleet, ordered to head to an uncharted sea area to carry out a secret mission.

Soon, Lin Xiao saw the Coral Archipelago mentioned by the mermen.

Even from afar, the island was even more magnificent than he had imagined.

As the ship approached, he saw iron rails laid out on the sea surface stretching into the distance; yes, that was exactly the sea rail track Princess Xiyao had mentioned.

The scene shifted.

The fleet encountered merman forces on one side of the Coral Archipelago.

The battle was exceptionally brutal.

The mermen rode giant sea beasts, surrounding the warships from all directions.

Artillery fire exploded in the seawater, kicking up towering waves.

The Dreadnought was ordered to cover a submarine's breakout. After paying a heavy price, the submarine successfully broke through the line and fired something into the depths of the trench.

About ten seconds later.

The sea surface several kilometers away shook violently.

Seawater surged into the sky at high speed, forming a magnificent white curtain of water.

Before the water curtain could dissipate, a massive column of water radiating heat erupted from beneath the surface, reaching hundreds, or even a thousand meters high.

A dark brown, cauliflower-shaped cloud bloomed at the top of the water column and, carried by the sea breeze, spread over a radius of more than ten kilometers.

An ancient, indescribable screeching echoed through the seawater.

It did not seem to be anger.

The sound was mixed with a certain emotion of joy.

It was as if some existence that had been sealed for a very, very long time had finally waited for the moment to reappear under the sun.

The scene shifted again.

Lin Xiao saw the seabed covered in white sediment, surrounded by broken ship wreckage.

Immediately after, a large amount of viscous black substance surged toward him, or rather, surged toward the "Dreadnought."

They instantly devoured the damaged hull and wreckage, devoured the dead crew, and everything else around them.

As time passed, grayish-white flesh slowly grew on the surface of the hull.

The "Dreadnought" had come alive again.

The vision broke off at this point.

Lin Xiao snapped back to reality, discovering that his back was soaked with cold sweat.

He suppressed his churning emotions and focused his attention on what was before him, attempting to control this resurrected cruiser.

The initial feeling was very awkward.

Because his field of vision was split into countless pieces, every time he turned his head, he would see over a dozen different images simultaneously.

A strong sense of dizziness almost made him lose his balance.

He tried focusing only on the eyes on the mast.

That was a visual synapse growing from the top of the mast, capable of rotating 360 degrees, transmitting images of the surrounding sea back to his mind.

After a few attempts, the image gradually stabilized.

Lin Xiao saw the pitch-black train speeding along to the front right of the fleet.

The outer walls of the carriages were covered in Iron-Devouring Worms; although passengers were guarding every window, it had little effect.

The transparent film covering the surface of the train had already been corroded into large white patches.

Additionally, he also saw eleven other ghost ships lined up in a row, continuously pouring living artillery shells at the train.

This won't do.

Lin Xiao attempted to control the main cannons.

The single main cannon at the very front of the bow quickly turned, aiming at the fleet to the front-side.

"Bang!"

There was no gunpowder in the barrel.

But the cannon, mimicked from a Calamity Creatures, seemed to use some kind of compressed gas technique to shoot the Iron-Devouring Worms inside the barrel out.

The first shot missed.

The Iron-Devouring Worm, curled into an iron ball, flew past the bow of a warship and landed on the distant seabed plain.

Lin Xiao quickly adjusted the angle.

The second shot hit the stern of the target warship.

The Iron-Devouring Worm, trailing a white wake, easily sank into the deck, smashing a huge hole into the already rotten and fragile hull.

The warship shook violently, and all the turrets on the deck stopped firing.

The corners of Lin Xiao's mouth curled up slightly.

He began to adapt to this first-person combat style.

Moreover, with every shot, he could precisely correct the trajectory through feedback from the ship's core.

The third shot hit the middle of the warship.

The fourth shot blew the turret of another warship into the sky.

The fleet moving at high speed never expected that there would be a traitor in their ranks.

Soon, the two hit warships began to tilt, and grayish-white flesh oozed from the wounds, attempting to repair the hull.

But Lin Xiao did not give them a chance.

The remaining seven main cannons all turned according to his command.

Then, the cannons fired in unison!

Iron-Devouring Worms were blasted out one after another, completely smashing the keels and core control cabins of those two warships.

The warships made creaking sounds, then began to fall apart, sinking completely into the sediment on the seabed.

...

Several minutes earlier, inside the train.

Pearl Tear stood by the window, gazing at the dense swarm of Iron-Devouring Worms outside, her brows furrowed tightly.

She turned to look at Princess Xiyao, "Your Highness, please allow me to lead the Merfolk Guards out to fight!"

Princess Xiyao looked hesitant, "The currents outside are too strong..."

The train, which was moving at high speed, was surrounded by strong currents.

If they went out rashly, they would be in mortal danger.

"But we must do something," Pearl Tear insisted, "Once these bugs break through this film, everyone on the train will die!"

Princess Xiyao bit her lip, and just as she was about to speak, the train suddenly slowed down.

The water flow outside the window slowed down significantly; the strong current carrying ice crystals was dissipating.

Pearl Tear's eyes lit up, "The current has disappeared! Your Highness!"

Princess Xiyao hesitated no longer, nodding, "Go, stay safe."

Pearl Tear accepted the order, turned, and looked at the fourteen Merfolk Guards behind her, "Follow me!"