diskusbooks Chapter 179 Hunting on the Seabed
Chapter 179 Hunting on the Seabed
The seabed was pitch black.
The firelight after the courtroom collapsed and the water flow from the Leviathan in the upper and middle waters seemed to be separated by an invisible wall here.
Sediment was churned up from the seabed and mixed with the seawater, making communication channels even slower. Their channels were originally relayed from Cybertron, but now some sounds took half a second or even a minute to arrive.
The vectoring force leaped off the largest Leviathan armor, its feet landing on the seabed, stirring up mud and sand.
Optimus Prime landed to her left, his ion cannon still in place.
Megatron transformed from vehicle mode back into robot mode and landed on the right side. In the darkness, even the usually crimson optical mirror was blurred and invisible.
To prevent the vector from getting carried away with the fun of its vehicle form, Megatron reminded it, "Focus on the important matter."
"I'm very focused," said Vector.
Her voice on the channel was slightly delayed and stuttered, and carried an innocent-sounding smile.
Megatron glared at her, even though she couldn't see him.
The three aircraft did not immediately give chase, but confirmed each other's positions, since hesitation and blind rushing were not allowed here.
In an environment with almost zero visibility, low-frequency cognitive interference is more stable than before, much like a mosquito that's been stuck to the back of your head.
The Leviathan King Kong hovered at a slightly higher elevation, not close to the seabed. The silt, rocky ridges, old structures, and cracks would wear down their speed and stamina. Besides, the place itself made them instinctively uncomfortable.
Tong Tianxiao's voice came in after a while.
"The home team...has reached the edge."
There was a pause in the middle.
"We are maintaining formation."
Alita's channel then responded: "Caught up."
The sound wave didn't mince words: "Communication delay increased; enemy seabed node activated."
BICk0's connection was heavily affected by noise and electronic music, so he tried to finish his sentence: "They...node arrays...positioning. Quite...they...native fish."
Looking ahead, all was pitch black, with only occasional flashes of red dots behind the mud and rock ridges, or the glow of tiny organisms.
The Quintesson arrived here earlier and was more familiar with the place.
The curator has already connected to the seabed node array. Those old facilities originally belonged to Aquitron, but were later transformed into a control and positioning network by the Quintessons.
The nodes are buried in seabed cracks, the roots of debris, and pipes, allowing shark spirits, prosecutors, eccentrics, and others to sense each other.
Moreover, they can sense the movements of the Cybertronians and know who has strayed from their original path in the darkness.
The seabed was originally designed to make outsiders lose their way, according to the Quintesson Judge and the Curator.
The curator's mutilated skeleton moved along the rock ridge, and red lights lit up one by one. His voice regained a hint of sharpness and certainty.
"Full array access, summon the remaining shark spirits."
"Let them lose their way here."
The sharks responded immediately, swimming back from all directions, only to be forcibly pulled back to the same area by the control module.
Their sharp edges sliced through the mud and sand, their tail thrusters churning up black currents. Soon, those shadows coiled into a massive vortex above the seabed.
That was the last large group of shark demons that the Five-Faced Monster could mobilize.
As long as these things can hold off the pursuers, shred the Cybertronians, and shake off those most troublesome machines, they will have won half the battle.
As the vortex surged down, Tongtianxiao commanded the shield formation of the Faheng Knights in defense.
Alita and her elite guards seized the opportunity to engage in a fierce battle, while Arcee and several light units used their agile movement to deal with the obviously smarter shark demons and the crocodile demons mixed in with them.
Red Spider, 97, and a group of airmen suppressed the enemy in slightly shallower waters, the firelight briefly illuminating the intricate outlines of the sharks.
Nine-Seven cursed in the channel, but due to delay and current vectoring, it was not heard clearly. All that was heard was Red Spider's rare reply, "Indeed."
The guiding vector slowly closes the optical mirror.
The magnetic attraction extends outward, forming an invisible external field and an internal map of her mind.
She recognized Optimus Prime first.
His magnetic field is stable and quiet; even with low-frequency interference, he remains undisturbed.
Then there's Megatron.
Sharp and heavy, the magnetic energy reaction of the fusion cannon was like a red-hot iron nail in the dark.
Further out are Alita, Ultra Magnus, Soundwave, Arcee, Starscream, Nine-Seven...
She distinguishes the unique magnetic field of each life.
In her mind, a map drawn with magnetic fields as the paintbrush is taking shape.
The enemy was also there. The shark demons resembled a large, jagged mass of teeth, while the crocodile demons' reactions were more subtle, often sliding along the mud and sand.
Prosecutors, eccentrics, bailiffs, executioners, and so on—they all have their own magnetic field feedback, and the gravitational vectors quickly remember and recognize them.
The curator is easy to spot; he is made up of many mechanical bone spikes, and when he moves, he has a special effect like light spots on the magnetic canvas.
The five-faced judge was even more obvious, enormous, incomplete, and deformed. The remaining magnetic field feedbacks of several faces and tentacles pulled and entangled with each other, kneading together.
She opened the optical lens and found them.
"Optimus Prime, at 11 o'clock, there's a crocodile demon flanking behind you."
Since the message might not be delivered on time due to the delay in the channel, she took advantage of the magnetic pull to gently tug on Optimus Prime's ankle.
Optimus Prime instantly understood, and in the instant he turned around, the ion cannon blasted into the mud and sand behind him. Several crocodile demons that were about to get close were blown away by the cannon fire and rolled into the shark demon swarm.
"Received." Optimus Prime's response arrived half a second late, by which time he had already finished the fight.
The vector tugged at Megatron's left arm again, but with very little force.
Megatron didn't ask any further questions. He slightly turned his body, and the Fusion Cannon grazed the seabed as it fired. The prosecutor's red line, hidden in the crack on the right, had just risen when it was shattered by the purple and white cannon fire.
The vector itself chased after the five-faced judge, and she gradually got into the zone.
The Quintessons did not initially realize the seriousness of the problem.
In the curator's node array, the signals of Optimus Prime and Megatron are very clear and easy to predict or interfere with.
The Quintesson Judge used the beams of light from the tips of his tentacles to temporarily force Optimus Prime away, and then had the Odd Guy and the Prosecutor intercept Megatron.
The curator even used a portion of the shark spirits to briefly sever the connection between the other Cybertronian teams and the three-man pursuit group.
This helped them regain some confidence.
This should be their territory, and outsiders will hesitate, become confused, and reveal their weaknesses.
The signal disappears for a short distance between the volcanic limestone formations until the first excitation vector vanishes from the node array.
The five-faced judge and the curator could not catch her, so they immediately dispatched three shark spirits to defend her, judging that she would come out from the left.
A second later, the signal lit up again, and she was to her right rear, closer to the Quintesson Judge.
The curator's frame suddenly contracted: "Turn around!"
The shark spirits were a beat too slow.
The index vector has arrived.
The double-edged sword only drew a faint line of cold light when they got close. The shark demon that had just separated from its body was still twitching when she kicked it towards another one.
At the same time, the magnetic force pulled the machine onto a giant reef on the seabed, causing it to bend at an angle in the water and avoid the beam of light swept by the five-faced judge's tentacles.
The curator lost her position for the second time in just half a second.
She appeared below, the sword and cannon already in place.
The curator frantically slid in the sea, using both his hands and feet.
The five-faced judge's tentacles contracted and expanded like an octopus, quickly dodging the trajectory of the sword cannon's attack.
The vectoring vectors did not fire immediately, but instead forced them to change course by using the muzzle of the gun.
The Quintesson Judge was forced to flee to the left, but a moment later, Optimus Prime's ion cannon fired from that direction.
The Quintesson Judge was forced back to his original path by the artillery fire, where Megatron's Fusion Cannon had been waiting for a long time.
The five-faced judge was so frightened that he spat out a string of bubbles and barely dodged, while the shark spirit vortex was immediately affected, with a piece missing from its outer layer.
The curator finally realized that the guiding vector could not only catch up, but also guide other machines.
The damned Chief Justice of Cybertron guided them in another way, through darkness and water pressure.
The Cybertronian forces followed her commands like a fishing net slowly tightening.
The curator struggled to suppress a scream: "All shark demons, lock onto her!"
The shark spirit vortex seemed to converge on her like a churning shredder.
The gravitational vector simply plunged the double-edged sword into the seabed, and the magnetic attraction spread outward along the blade and the surrounding metal debris.
Pipes, broken armor, and severed chains buried on the seabed were simultaneously pulled up and scattered.
The shark swarm was obstructed by these suddenly raised metal fragments. The front row crashed into the obstacle, and the rear row couldn't stop, immediately resembling a rear-end collision.
"Tongtianxiao, suppress the right side."
A few seconds later, the shield array of Tongtianxiao and the Faheng Knights crashed into the still bewildered group of shark demons.
Alita led her elite guard to completely tear apart the shark demon horde, while Arcee's blade wiped out the bailiffs and crocodile demons who were about to retreat.
The sonic waves' mechanical tentacles extended from behind, controlling the electric current to fry a small piece of food.
When I sensed the magnetic vector using magnetic attraction, I immediately thought – where did this fish-frying guy come from!
The sound from BICk0 remained intermittent.
"This...guidance method...is retained, although...it does not conform to...the communication process."
The five-faced judge turned and ran, while the tentacles and anti-gravity system swam with great effort.
The curator stood protectively behind it, no longer attempting to create a shark spirit vortex, and used the last of his controllable power to fend off the pursuit.
They began to feel fear.
They could still see Optimus Prime's heavy signal, Megatron's high-energy reaction to the Fusion Cannon, and every Cybertronian unit could be displayed as a dot of light.
But that damned gravitational vector!
Her signal was indeed visible most of the time, but she kept getting closer and closer, never deviating from her route.
Even if Optimus Prime and Megatron occasionally paused or veered off course, she never did.
Each time it gets closer.
What's even more terrifying is that sometimes her signal would disappear for a second or two, and when it reappeared, the distance between them had decreased significantly.
It's like a hunting boss with a lock-on function.
The five-faced judge and the curator didn't dare to turn around.
Within the node array, the signal was like an unstable ghost, disappearing and reappearing in an instant, with the distance shortened along with it.
The shark spirits, beams of light, and deceptive signals they threw out could only disconnect the blue signal for a few seconds.
Then she came back.
Maintaining an accurate, quiet, and deadly pursuit.
Unable to contain his panic, the curator screamed, "Stop her!"
Unfortunately, they didn't have many subordinates who responded.
The five-faced judge no longer had the energy to talk about "trial" or "creator," and had no desire to face this chief judge who seemed to have cheat codes; he just kept running away.
When the magnetic vector tracked down to a certain point, there was a flat area on the magnetic field map in my mind, with irregular bulges made up of cracks, debris and other debris that were very conspicuous.
She quietly tapped the seabed with her magnetic attraction.
The seabed responded to her... and it sounded rather crisp?
The curator noticed her momentary pause in her pursuit and this time shouted, "Send her back!"
The shark demons that were originally blocking the main team and elite guards immediately changed direction, and the red line was instantly lashed out at the vector. Even the five-faced judge stopped and lashed out at her with its tentacles.
They were so anxious they could no longer hide.
Looking down at the seabed beneath his feet, the magnetic force resisting the enemy's attack, the corners of his mouth slowly turned up, and he immediately connected to the universal channel.
"I found something."
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