Wang Yuanwei laughed. He waved his hand, looked at the people in the captain's room with mocking eyes, and said, "Are you still afraid?" ”

"Now, turn me around—rush over me—kill me clean!"

Wang Yuanwei doesn't care what kind of mood and feelings these people have. There was only one thing he had to realize - those things weren't of the same kind, they were very inward-looking.

Because just after the three largest targets were killed, the remaining fifteen dragons immediately roared and retreated for thousands of meters. They are still bluffing, yet humans can see their fear.

The Truth launched three more strikes with Benchmark One fire over the course of half an hour.

After three blows, the terrifying dragon was completely wiped out from this sea area.

"They're not species, they're alien." Wang Yuanwei stood up from the captain's seat, walked up to the chief weapon chief and smiled kindly, "The real species must be nearby. And the thing was so weak that it didn't dare to show its face until now. ”

The Chief Weapons Chief smiled awkwardly and nodded, clearly ashamed of his flinching.

So Wang Yuanwei patted him on the shoulder again: "It's out of the way." ”

A drop of cold sweat ran down the forehead of the weapon.

Everyone knows what it means when Wang Yuanwei speaks in this tone.

"Because now you're fired. When you return, someone will take you to court-martial. Your crime is cowardice. He gestured to the lieutenant next to the Chief Weapons Chief, "Now you're the Chief." Don't let me send you to court-martial. ”

The people in the captain's room were silent.

Wang Yuanwei waved his hand. The chief weapon, grimaced with a dead face, gave him a deep look, turned and walked out the door.

"Now, move on." He gave the order.

The milky white research ship dragged a long wake on the surface of the ocean and headed straight ahead.

The eighteen dragons were closest to the research ship at a distance of four thousand meters, and people realized that there might be a separation zone nearby.

Therefore, when the research ship traveled nearby, the equipment on board carried out a detailed inspection of that piece of water. But the results were surprising - there was no supernatural force there, and it was a place of calm water.

Then there's another possibility—this is the very edge of that species' range of infections. Once beyond that, the alienated creatures lose the power that makes them mutate so strongly, and die in a very short time.

As a matter of caution, the research ship released the drone.

Three drones flew into the sky. After hovering for a few seconds, it flies forward in a zigzag pattern.

The maximum detection range of the research vessel is 18 kilometers - 18,000 kilometers. This means that there is no such thing as an awakened species within 18,000 kilometers. And the detection range of the UAV is two kilometers. This means that the drone has to fly a distance of at least sixteen kilometers before it can return valid information.

The dead weight of such a drone is large, so it does not fly fast. Theoretically, people need to wait for almost ten minutes with peace of mind.

However, less than a minute later, the mutation occurred.

One of the drones in front flew over the area where a quarantine zone was suspected to exist. Dive headlong into the sea.

The next two planes fell in the same way a second later.

Wang Yuanwei straightened up suddenly. stared at the ocean in a daze.

The waves set off by the dragon have calmed down. The sea is shrouded in golden sunlight and sparkling. The ship's probe did not detect any anomalies, and none were detected before the three drones fell.

But what's weird is that they seem to be running into an invisible barrier. All the signals on the body were cut off, and it fell headlong!

He was stunned and shouted, "What's the matter? ”

After a few seconds, the staff gave him a simple and straightforward reply - "...... I don't know what to do. ”

Five minutes later, a small drone for close-quarters reconnaissance missions was dispatched again.

It suffered the same fate.

This kind of thing is simply incredible, and no matter which theory Wang Yuanwei has in his head, it cannot be explained.

He walked over to the porthole and stared at the water for a moment, then turned his head to look at the occupants in silence. The people who were glancing at him all lowered their heads slightly, but none of them dared to make an obvious gesture of evasion.

After a while, he whispered, "Send someone to take a lifeboat." ”

Half an hour later, a soldier on the ship's defense mission was lowered into the ocean along with a small boat. Wang Yuanwei stood on the side of the boat, pursing his lips and looking at him.

The dinghy was launched, leaving a snow-white trail on the surface of the ocean and moving forward, arriving at its designated position after a quarter of an hour.

The soldiers on board first lowered a cage - there was a bluefin tuna in it. The booster behind the cage propelled it forward five meters away. Then the propeller on the booster slowed down and finally stopped completely – the cage sank to the bottom with the tuna.

But in the process, the tuna is still alive.

Wang Yuanwei's voice came into the ears of the soldiers: "You also drive over." ”

The soldier carried out the order with a blank face and faithfully. He started the dinghy, pursed his lips and headed forward. After five meters, the sound of the motor transmission disappears, and the dinghy continues to move forward under the impetus of inertia. The soldier tries to report back to the situation, but he finds that his communication equipment is out of order.

The soldier felt a little uneasy.

He felt a little scared.

Over the next six hours, the ocean-going research vessel Truth conducted a large-scale survey of this strange area of the sea.

In the end, the report in front of Wang Yuanwei showed that the area of that strange sea area was roughly 1,300 square kilometers.

It was a near-standard circle, with a radius of about twenty kilometers.

In this area, modern scientific instruments are rendered ineffective by some inexplicable amount of power, and even the abilities or psionic abilities of the capable are limited.

However, that force field does not cause damage to living beings. The most obvious effect is only to feel a little flustered and short of breath, as if you are faintly afraid of something.

And this doesn't seem to be a force field of the species - otherwise the soldier who crossed the border six hours ago would have been an alien.

A difficult problem is in front of Wang Yuanwei: what should he do?

The coordinates coincide - the tremor a month ago should have come from the center of the sea. But without the help of modern scientific instruments, they couldn't figure out what was in the center of this perfect circle.

He collected information from the database on the navigation of ships in the nearby waters for two centuries, but was surprised to find that there was no report on the hydrological situation of the area. This means that for two hundred years, human vehicles have never set foot here.

Five years ago, satellites in orbit might have been able to observe the area, but now it is clearly impossible.

He had never heard of a dragon-like "alien species" in that water, but it would not affect humans.

Eventually, he made a decision before sunset to send a heavy drone into the air.

The surface area of the water is a perfect circle with a radius of 20,000 meters. He reasoned that perhaps the central point was causing a spherical sphere. So he tried to get the drone into the air. Rise to an altitude of 20,000 meters as much as possible. At that height, you can capture the situation at the center point, and even if the drone's ability to climb is limited, you can get a clearer picture in between.

In fact, the maximum ceiling of heavy UAVs is 3,000 meters, and it is extremely difficult to climb again. It eventually climbed to a height of seven thousand meters. Several aerial photographs were conducted. Then it crashed.

The photos fed back brought Wang Yuanwei a surprise. He spotted the edge of an island from the corner of the blurred image.

The Truth remained at anchor in this area of water for a whole day. At noon the next day, South Luzon sent the only long-range strategic bomber.

The bomber returned home after a high-precision aerial survey at an altitude of 21,000 meters.

Wang Yuanwei finally saw the whole picture of the island.

The area of the island is 2.9 square kilometers and is an oval shape that is approximately perfectly round. The vegetation on the island is dense. It is a common tree species in tropical regions near the equator. Traces of bird activity were shown in the photograph, and a huge seabird was ingested into the camera — the object was larger than the largest known aerial creature, a kamikaze pterosaur, at the scale of the photograph.

Wang Yuanwei doesn't think it's a naturally occurring species, or that the island is a "paradise lost" of prehistoric biological activity, but that the birds are also affected and alienated by some force.

On the fourth day, he made the decision to send a fifteen-man expedition to the island.

The group of fifteen was aboard a small ship made of lightweight materials. It can rely on the difference in the concentration of seawater to provide assisted navigation without mechanical power, and is temporarily equipped with twenty pairs of oars. Considering that the high-tech equipment would be ineffective within that range, the team of fifteen carried relatively backward semi-automatic gunpowder weapons.

The fifteen men were combatants - they would spend two days on the island on a field trip and then return to make sure there were no mutated creatures on the island that posed a great threat to humanity.

Traveling 19 kilometers on land may not be difficult, but on the surface of the sea is a different matter. Fortunately, in the six days from the departure of the fifteen-member group to the return, the sea area has been sunny and windy, and there has not been any waves.

The eighteen dragons that were destroyed before seemed to be the only mutated creatures left here. The team also observed the huge birds in the photographs on the island. However, the birds do not seem to show much interest in humans, and their diet is marine life.

But the team brought back shocking news - they found traces of human activity on the island.

It was a button. You can buy it at any grocery store or tailor in the world—milky white with four small holes in it. It happened to be washed out of the sand by the waves when it was found, and it had been on the island for years, judging by the level of wear.

The reason the expedition was a day late was also their attempt to find traces of other human activity on the island, such as a human skeleton. In such a remote and inhospitable area, if someone had been wrecked and drifted there a few years ago, it would probably not have been possible.

But the result, of course, was nothing.

What they didn't know, however, was that the owner of the button was no longer in this world—at least for the time being.

Then Wang Yuanwei made a decision that no one on the Truth thought of - he was going to land on the island himself.

The day is July 28, 2020.

The sun is blazing near the equator, while the north is frozen for thousands of miles.

After a day and four hours of sailing, Wang Yuanwei stepped onto the snow-white sand.

And a certain uneasy fear in his heart had not faded because he was grounded—he at first thought it was simply because he was not used to the turbulence of such small ships, but the closer he got to the island, the more he felt a vague sense of awe.

It was as if the island was not made of rocks and soil—it was more like it was built with infinite truths and mysteries. When he looked at the rounded arc of the island, he felt that it was incomparably beautiful—a most primitive, back-to-basics beauty.

With such awe, he took a few steps on the beach, resisting the urge to lean over and kiss the land, and turned to look back.

He doesn't seem to be alone.

The originally capable entourage all showed an inexplicable dazed look on their faces, hesitated to set foot on this land, and then looked around with wide eyes.

Next, they slowed down and looked at each other.

A total of six small boats were landed, carrying sixty-two people.

At this moment, the sixty-one people except him were almost all standing in the kneeless water, as if they had turned into stone statues.

The once noisy beach fell silent, and the waves gently crashed against the bulkhead of the dinghy, making a monotonous sound. Wang Yuanwei took a step back in panic, away from the men, and went to look at his three guards, three well-trained and loyal, capable men who were also in a certain state of stupor.

He hesitated for a few seconds, took a deep breath with a shudder, and tried to call them by name. However, the trio did not react to this.

Wang Yuanwei finally felt the real fear. He reached out, ripped a pistol from the waist of one of the guards, and opened the safe.

Then he remembered the anomaly of the fifteen men who had been sent out for the first time.

They appeared depressed when they returned to the ship, which Wang attributed to their reluctance to carry out such a dangerous mission. But he didn't pay attention to it at the time - his attention was already drawn to the button.

But now he suddenly felt as if he had fallen into a great conspiracy.

That fluttering plastic button if it had been left on the beach a few years ago...... And how could it be washed out at this time? (To be continued......)