Chapter 148: Displaying Great Might, Li Yang Takes on Four in the Deep Sea!

SouthSea, a designated sea area.

The sea surface was as calm as a massive sheet of dark blue glass, with only the wake left by the research vessel "Explorer" foaming white under the sunlight.

On the stern deck, the forty-ton "Jiaolong-1" was held firmly by a custom-built gantry crane, slowly suspended in the air and moved toward the sea off the side.

In the cockpit, Li Yang took a deep breath.

Through the spherical pressure-resistant observation window, he could see the team members gathered on the deck.

Feng Yan gave him a thumbs-up, Wang Hao was waving his arms exaggeratedly, and Chen Guang stood quietly, merely pushing up his glasses.

Further away, Zhao Gong and Li Kui stood side by side; the two veteran materials experts looked even more nervous than he was.

"Jiaolong, are you ready?" Feng Yan's voice came through the headset.

"Ready at any time." Li Yang replied, his fingers sliding through the final self-check program on the control panel.

All indicator lights turned green.

"Remember, this time you aren't going to fight, you're going to 'look'." Feng Yan's voice was very steady.

"But also be prepared to... see anything you shouldn't see."

"Understood."

The gantry crane released, and "Jiaolong" sank into the sea.

The moment it entered the water, the external pressure sensor readings began to jump.

Li Yang activated the active stabilization system, and the mech adjusted its posture slightly, like a real whale, head pointing downward, and began to dive.

The sunlight was quickly swallowed by the seawater.

From light blue to dark blue, then to an ink-blue that was nearly black.

One hundred meters, three hundred meters, eight hundred meters...

"Sonar is normal, communication link is stable." Li Yang reported.

"Water temperature has dropped to 8 degrees, pressure is increasing."

"Received." In the support ship's command center, Chen Guang stared at the six screens in front of him, which displayed the various sensor data and external camera feeds of "Jiaolong" respectively.

"'Torch Dragon' has taken over the data link and is beginning to construct a real-time seabed terrain model."

Wang Hao squeezed in beside him, his eyes wide: "Damn, it's really dark down here... Brother Li, turn on the floodlights! Turn on the floodlights!"

Li Yang smiled and pressed the control button.

The four high-power LED arrays on "Jiaolong's" head lit up simultaneously, four beams of light piercing the darkness.

Then, everyone gasped.

The world illuminated by the beams was so eerie it didn't look like Earth.

Pale, bone-like deep-sea coral forests "grew" from the seabed, their forms twisted like a nightmare;

translucent groups of salps drifted slowly like ghosts;

a nearly three-meter-long, pitch-black viperfish with a mouth full of sharp teeth swam past the lens, its cold eyes sweeping over the mech before disappearing into the darkness without a care.

"This... this is more intense than watching a horror movie." Wang Hao swallowed his saliva.

"Be quiet." Chen Guang stared at the sonar screen.

"Approaching target depth. Two thousand nine hundred meters... three thousand one hundred meters... three thousand five hundred meters..."

"Jiaolong" continued to dive.

Suddenly, an irregular metal echo appeared on the sonar image.

"Discovery." Li Yang maneuvered the mech to turn.

"At eleven o'clock, distance about three hundred meters."

He brightened the lights and slowly approached.

It was a patch of metal wreckage scattered on the seabed.

Twisted frames, torn shells, broken mechanical arms—it was the missing "ExplorerNo7" deep-submergence vehicle.

It looked as if it had been violently torn apart by something, the main structure broken into three pieces, scattered within a radius of fifty meters.

"My god..." Wang Hao muttered, "How much force would that take?"

Li Yang didn't answer; he controlled "Jiaolong" to hover above the wreckage and opened the high-precision laser scanner.

A fine laser grid covered the surface of the wreckage, beginning to build a 3D model.

At the same time, his gaze was drawn to something not far from the wreckage.

It was a metal structure half-buried in the sediment.

It wasn't naturally formed—the surface had regular geometric facets, and the material looked like some kind of dark alloy that barely reflected light even under the intense deep-sea floodlights.

The structure was about ten meters long, irregular in shape, but clear engineering structural features could be seen:

there were seams like hatches or covers, and protrusions suspected to be sensor arrays.

Most eerily, the surface of the structure was covered with a thick layer of biological growth, looking as if it had been lying on the seabed for over a decade or even longer.

But the distribution of the growth layer was unnatural—it was significantly thinner at some seams, as if... it had been cleaned regularly.

"Chen Guang, do you see that?" Li Yang pointed the main camera at the structure.

"I see it." Chen Guang's voice also became grave.

"'Torch Dragon' is performing a morphological analysis... no matches in the database. It is not any deep-sea equipment from any currently known country or research institution."

"Should I approach to scan?" Li Yang asked.

In the command center, Feng Yan and several experts from the NationalOceanicAdministration exchanged glances.

"Stay alert, approach slowly." Feng Yan ordered, "Finish the scanning and evidence collection of the 'ExplorerNo7' wreckage first."

"Understood."

Li Yang controlled "Jiaolong's" mechanical arm to remove a relatively intact structural plate from the wreckage and placed it into the sample chamber on the side of the mech.

At the same time, the laser scanner continued to work, recording the damage details of every piece of wreckage.

Just then, an anomaly occurred.

A section of the "ExplorerNo7" wreckage suddenly exploded without warning!

But it wasn't a violent explosion; it was a dull flash of fire suppressed by the seawater.

The shockwave traveled underwater, shaking "Jiaolong's" body.

"What's going on?!" Wang Hao almost jumped up in the command center.

"There's an explosive device inside the wreckage!" Chen Guang quickly analyzed the data.

"The explosion was controlled, the yield was very small, it's like... a trigger!"

Before he could finish, four high-speed moving light spots suddenly appeared on the sonar screen!

From the shadows of that metal structure, four streamlined attack underwater robots darted out, lunging straight at "Jiaolong"!

Their appearance was like deep-sea fish magnified several times, about three meters long, pitch black, with sharp rams on their heads and two torpedo launch tubes on each side.

The water flow ejected by their thrusters stirred up murky vortices in the deep sea.

"Enemy attack!" Li Yang's pupils constricted, his fingers reacting instinctively.

The vector nozzle thrusters behind "Jiaolong" started at full power, and the massive body shifted sideways with an agility inconsistent with its size, narrowly avoiding the first wave of two incoming torpedoes.

The torpedoes dragged white bubble trails as they grazed the mech, exploding into two murky mud clouds on the distant seabed.

"Switch to humanoid form!" Li Yang roared.

"Jiaolong's" cruise form immediately began to transform.

The back armor unfolded, limbs extended from both sides of the body, and the head changed from a streamlined shape to a humanoid head with a 3D sensor array.

The entire process took only seventy seconds, twenty seconds faster than expected.

"Form transformation complete!" Li Yang looked at the weapon system interface lighting up on the screen, "Wang Hao!"

"Coming!" Wang Hao had already taken over the weapon control module, "Watch Brother Hao show you a trick!"

He locked onto the enemy robot charging at the front and pressed the launch button.

"Jiaolong's" left-arm supercavitating torpedo launcher ejected a cloud of bubbles, and a slender torpedo shot out, wrapped in the bubbles.

It had almost no resistance in the water, its speed astonishing, hitting the target almost instantly.

"Boom!"

With a dull explosion, that robot was blown directly into two pieces, its internal parts and cables scattering in the seawater like entrails.

"Beautiful!" Zhao Kaiyuan clenched his fist in the command center.

But the remaining three robots had already scattered, surrounding them from different directions.

They clearly possessed a certain level of tactical intelligence, no longer charging in a straight line, but using the seabed terrain and wreckage as cover, firing alternately.

A torpedo hit "Jiaolong's" right shoulder armor.

"Bang!" A dull impact sound came through the body.

Li Yang glanced at the damage report—the external armor was slightly dented, the energy shield activated automatically, absorbing most of the impact.

Zhao Gong's "Dragon Scale-Abyss" material performed perfectly.

"These guys' torpedoes aren't very powerful." Li Yang analyzed calmly, "But there are many of them, and they coordinate well."

"Let me interfere with them." Chen Guang's voice cut in.

He controlled the sonic shock cannon on "Jiaolong's" shoulder, aimed at one of the robots, and fired.

There was no visible trajectory, but the seawater suddenly vibrated violently.

That robot staggered and rolled in the water like it was drunk, its movements becoming obviously chaotic.

"Sonic interference is effective, but the duration might not be long." Chen Guang said.

"Their control systems have anti-interference redundancy."

Sure enough, ten seconds later, that robot regained stability and rejoined the siege.

"I'll handle it." Li Yang's eyes sharpened.

He controlled "Jiaolong" to suddenly accelerate, charging toward one of the robots.

At the moment of imminent collision, the mech suddenly turned sideways, the mechanical right arm sweeping across—

"Clang!"

The elbow of the mechanical arm slammed heavily into the robot's side flank.

The high-pressure water environment of the deep sea magnified the impact force, and that robot was smashed away directly, crashing into a seabed rock.

The shell cracked, internal electric sparks flashed, and it was paralyzed instantly.

But the other two had taken the opportunity to close in, firing torpedoes in a volley!

"Can't dodge it!" Wang Hao said urgently.

Li Yang, however, made a move that surprised everyone.

He controlled "Jiaolong" to suddenly dive, while hugging its knees with both arms, shrinking the mech into a relatively compact sphere.

The four torpedoes grazed the back of the mech.

"They fell for it." Li Yang's mouth curled slightly.

At his previous position, two "Firefly" micro light bombs had been pre-deployed, and they exploded right in front of the robots at this moment.

The blinding high-frequency flash erupted in the deep sea; although not as intense as in the air, it was enough to overload the robots' optical sensors.

The movements of both robots stalled simultaneously.

Now!

"Jiaolong" stretched its body again, the hydraulic clamp at the tip of the mechanical arm popped out, precisely clamping onto the head sensor array of one of the robots.

The other tried to escape, but was chased down by "Jiaolong's" second mechanical arm—it was a multi-functional work arm, and at this moment, a high-pressure water jet nozzle popped out from its tip.

"Hiss—"

The ultra-high-pressure water jet cut through the robot's thruster lines like a blade.

That robot lost power and sank slowly.

Finally, Li Yang controlled the one he had clamped, pressing it firmly onto the seabed.

The pressure applied by the mechanical arm was just enough to keep it from breaking free, without completely destroying it.

The battle ended.

From the ambush to subduing the four enemy robots, the entire process took no more than six minutes.

The command center was silent, then erupted into suppressed cheers.

"Brother Li is awesome!" Wang Hao was the first to shout, "Damn! Brother Li's operation, this awareness! Brother Hao, I'm impressed!"

Chen Guang had already begun analyzing the data: "The enemy robots' coordination algorithm has a fixed pattern, 'Torch Dragon' has already cracked fragments of their communication protocol."

"Next time we encounter them, we can actively interfere with their coordination."

Zhao Kaiyuan checked the energy data: "Energy consumption of 'Jiaolong' during the battle was 15% lower than expected, the deep-sea adaptability of the 'Dragon Heart' reactor performed excellently."

Feng Yan let out a long sigh of relief and said into the microphone: "Well done, Li Yang."

"Now, bring your 'trophies' and surface. We need to study these 'uninvited guests' properly."

"Understood."

Li Yang controlled "Jiaolong" to tie up the three paralyzed robots with special cables and hang them on the back of the mech.

Then, the mech changed back to cruise form, the thrusters started, and it began to surface.

Through the observation window, Li Yang took one last look at the metal structure half-buried in the sediment.

As "Jiaolong's" lights gradually moved away, he seemed to see... an indicator light on the side of the structure that had been dim, flickering extremely faintly.

A green light.

Then it plunged back into darkness.

It might have been an illusion. Or perhaps the effect of the high-pressure deep-sea environment on his vision.

But Li Yang knew in his heart—something was watching them leave.

He pulled up all the data streams captured by "Jiaolong's" external sensors during the battle.

In one segment of the sonar record, there was an extremely faint signal pulse coming from a deeper direction.

It wasn't a robot's communication signal.

It was more like... some kind of response signal.

Coming from the direction of the deeper sea trench behind that structure.

Li Yang specially marked this data segment.

"Jiaolong" continued to surface, the seawater above gradually showing a faint light.

And below them, in the 3,700-meter deep sea, the metal structure returned to dead silence.

Only below the indicator light that had just flickered, a tiny, almost invisible hatch slid open a crack.

From the gap, a probe as thin as a hair extended.

The micro-sensor at the tip of the probe was aimed at the direction "Jiaolong" was surfacing.

It lasted for three seconds.

Then, it retracted.

The hatch closed.

Everything was as usual.

As if everything that had just happened was merely a deep-sea nightmare. ===== CHAPTER 149 =====