An unsettling night, finally spent peacefully in nightmares and panic.

During this period, Meng Lei was woken up by that strange sound several times.

Finally, in order to ensure safety, he also got up in the middle of the night and went to the bridge command room, personally turned on the sonar detector, and checked the situation.

However, sonar sounding results showed that the surrounding sea area was blank,

Not to mention the alien sea monster, not even a single anomaly has been found.

And Karl, who was on duty at night, also said that he did not observe any type of crisis.

The suspicious knocking and grinding sounds, as if some kind of hallucination,

Or maybe it was some strange hard object mixed in with the ocean current, which hit the surface of the submarine, and made a similar strange noise.

Having said that, Meng Lei didn't dare to be careless.

Under this helpless deep ice ocean, any small hidden danger may cause irreparable disaster!

"The Reborn Financial Giant"

He woke up Huo Ye and Simon overnight, put on a combat diving suit, took a weapon, and went out of the cabin to take a closer look.

It was found that there was a large amount of rubble scattered on the top of the submarine.

Densely packed and of various sizes, they cover almost the entire outer deck.

It feels as if you have been hit by a strong hailstorm while driving, and it makes your scalp tingle.

It was only then that everyone came to their senses and realized what had happened.

Those weird knocking sounds before the relationship were actually caused by these stones?

Several people looked at each other, and they all let out a sigh.

What a false alarm!

However, Meng Lei, who had a very keen insight, found that under the cover of those gravels, there were still many scratches and dents on the surface of the submarine's hull.

Obviously, these marks could not have been caused by the rock falling off.

Under normal circumstances, the rock layer would not have fallen off in a large area as it is now, and it seems that something deliberately destroyed the structure, which led to this phenomenon.

As for what the truth was, Meng Lei couldn't come to a specific conclusion, but he raised his vigilance.

After returning to the cabin, he seriously explained to Carl and turned on the active sonar.

If any abnormalities are detected while on duty, they will be reported immediately via the ship's public announcement.

In addition, through the short-distance communication system, he also told the officers on duty on several other ships to do the same and be vigilant.

After arranging everything, he returned to the captain's room to continue catching up on sleep.

Fortunately, in the second half of the night, everything was quiet.

The grinding and thudging faded away, and the world became dead silent.

This sleep, I slept straight into the morning.

A dreamless night.

The next morning, during breakfast, everyone was still talking about the strange sounds they had heard the previous night, and there was a hint of curiosity in their nervousness.

"You say, the rock is so strong...... How did those stones fall? ”

Huo Ye's mouth was stuffed with bread, looked around, and asked indistinctly.

Relatively speaking, Hans is the most experienced of all of them.

While immersing himself in eating, he explained thoughtfully:

"These rock formations are not always very solid, and it is normal for the overall structure to be occasionally damaged due to frequent geological activity, resulting in debris falling off."

After a pause, Hans chewed the caviar in his mouth again and again, swallowed it in one gulp, and added:

"In addition, there are many worms and arthropods that feed on algae, and it is also possible that in the process of feeding, sharp mouthparts are inserted into the rock formation, causing the surface rock layer to fall off.

Alternatively, some creatures will use their claws to hollow out part of the rock layer and transform the environment into a habitable structure when they need to build a nest.

There are all kinds of possibilities,

It's hard to tell what kind of situation is going to be without seeing it with your own eyes. ”

Hearing this, Huo Ye hovered in mid-air with a dinner plate, rolled his eyes thoughtfully, and said:

"Then yesterday when Carl was on duty at night, I didn't see any anomalies.

Looks like what happened last night should belong to the first situation you mentioned, right? ”

Hans shrugged his shoulders noncommittally, shook his head, and said:

"It's not clear, the cargo shipping lanes are rarely passable in normal times, and the alliance is not particularly in-depth in the investigation of such sea areas.

It is enough to simply make sure that there are no large sea monsters nearby, which can cause serious hidden dangers to navigation safety.

So, in a similar channel, there is no certainty about what is in the darkness, whether there are unknown creatures that we have never seen before. ”

After a pause, Hans put down the knife and fork in his hand and smiled:

"At least we weren't attacked, and that's the best-case scenario, isn't it?"

"That's right."

Huo Ye nodded when he heard this, picked up a napkin and wiped his mouth, and said:

"But with so many of our ships together, those little minions probably won't dare to provoke easily, as long as we don't run into the large Abyss Kraken, we can go sideways anywhere before we reach the hydrothermal wasteland."

At this time, Gina gracefully picked up the wine bottle and took a sip.

A mysterious smile appeared on his face, and he said:

"That's not necessarily, under this alien ice ocean, it's not just the disgusting things like sea monsters that can be deadly, a lot of invisible things will also drag you into the abyss, don't take it lightly~"

Hearing this, the relaxed expression on Huo Ye's face was suddenly stunned, and he turned his head suspiciously and asked:

"Dr. Gina, ...... you mean?"

Gina didn't answer directly, and tasted the impact of the inferior beer and caviar mixed together, which had an impact on the taste buds.

The delicate and glamorous face showed an expression of satisfaction and intoxication.

At this time, Simon put down the plate in his hand, got up and walked outside.

When passing by Huo Ye's side, he gently patted him on the shoulder and interjected:

"For example, the Painted Skin Parasite, that thing is hard to discern with the naked eye, but it can drag you into hell and turn you into a monster!"

As he spoke, Simon opened his mouth and made a gesture of sticking out his tongue, gesturing:

"Like this, a monster with a terrifying organ in its mouth!"

Seeing this, recalling his previous encounter at the Molten Rock Outpost, Huo Ye couldn't help but shudder, hurriedly got up, and pouted:

"Enough, it's so disgusting, I feel sick to my stomach when I think about it, and I'll vomit all the food I'll eat later!"

Several people laughed and stopped discussing the topic.

At this time, Meng Lei looked at the new crew of the ship last night, A-class engineer Byron, and asked:

"Is there any movement over there at the beacon station? Has the signal been restored? ”

The middle-aged man shook his head and said helplessly:

"It's a pity Captain, I have already checked just now, the communication has not been restored, and the beacon station is still in a state of disconnection."

Meng Lei frowned slightly, faintly feeling that something was wrong.

Seven or eight hours had passed, and under normal circumstances, the Alliance would have issued a bounty notice asking nearby bounty hunters to repair the beacon station as soon as possible.

And even if there are not many bounty hunters in this channel, passing merchant ships and cargo ships should be able to troubleshoot the beacon station.

But the current situation proved that the night passed, and no ships passed by the beacon station ahead.

Or maybe something happened to a passing ship.

In either case, it is doomed that the long-distance fleet will not be able to use external forces to restore the normal passage of signals.

"Looks like you'll have to make a trip yourself?"

Meng Lei frowned and groaned, and took a deep puff of the after-dinner cigarette.

"Captain, the cargo channel is different from the normal channel, the environment is too complicated, there are many forks, in the absence of the restoration of the beacon, we dare not venture deeper, we can only repair the beacon station and then continue to move forward."

At this time, Byron made a reminder.

Meng Lei nodded heavily, and said in a deep voice:

"yes, I know."

After a pause, Meng Lei let out a long breath:

"Alright, clean up the restaurant, let's leave as soon as possible, anyway, go over and see the situation first."

"Yes!"

The crowd agreed.

After breakfast, Meng Lei briefly introduced the current situation to Zhu Fei, Jiang Xing and Zhang Chao through the short-distance communication system.

Then, the fleet set off again, braving the chaotic currents in the darkness, and sped away towards the coordinates of the nearest beacon station.

The beacon station where the malfunction occurred was about seventy or eighty kilometers away from Meng Lei's current location.

It takes about five hours to sail at full speed.

However, navigating such a rugged and complex channel is not destined to be too fast.

After more than two hours of progress along the tunnels of the pitch-black rock formations, the currents became more intense.

The entrances to the huge caves that lead to nowhere, there are constant torrents gushing out, like the drains of the deep sea, and tons of ocean currents are pouring outward.

If it is in an open sea, this level of current will quickly be washed away and become minimal.

However, in the current narrow corridor, any change in the water flow will turn into a strong resistance or thrust, and the submarine will be staggered.

It is no exaggeration to say that Meng Lei feels like a worm crawling in this channel, which can be described as a difficult step!

In this case, the fleet had to distance itself to avoid being hit by its own people.

In addition, these turbulent currents are mixed with turbid sea sand and some unknown microorganism.

They are like a thick fog that obscures the sky and the sun, accompanied by the turbulence of ocean currents.

Visibility to the naked eye was almost zero here, and the projection in front of the bridge command room was all dim and snow-white, seriously obstructing the view.

As a last resort, several captains, including Meng Lei, could only navigate through the darkness through the pictures presented by the sonar display.

That situation is not much different from being blind with your eyes open.

After a long time against the chaotic currents, the fleet had advanced less than six kilometers after about an hour.

Although he didn't need physical control, he had been in a state of high nervous tension for a long time, and Meng Lei's brain had begun to become a little drowsy.

Nothing could be seen from the outside of the submarine, except for the clatter of hard objects slamming against the hull of the hull as the current stirred.

Even the sonar system seems to have been affected, sometimes in a lake, sometimes in chaos.

At this time, Meng Lei, who had always focused on the sonar display, saw something vaguely in the chaotic image.

It seemed to be a long textual message, and it appeared in front of me.

The dark golden words are twisted and shaking, very illusory, and very moldy, often before they can be condensed and formed, they are scattered by some kind of force.

Meng Lei was amazed in exhaustion!

The dark golden text appeared, he couldn't be more familiar with it, it was clearly the hint information given by the golden finger.

However, since so many days of crossing, there has never been such an unstable phenomenon in the gold finger.

Often, as soon as he concentrates, he is immediately able to come up with clear cues, or no cues at all.

It is the first time that this kind of model lake has appeared from time to time.

Meng Lei frowned slightly, thinking that there was a problem with the golden finger.

He focused his gaze again, fixing on an anomaly on the sonar display.

Clear prompts resurfaced.

(At a distance of 482 meters, there is a naturally exposed copper mine with a mediocre resource content, which is extremely valuable for the reclamation period, but now there is no need to mine it...... ）

It's still the slightly ridiculous tone, as if someone is standing outside the painting to make notes.

There is nothing unusual about Goldfinger, which gives clear and detailed hints.

However, when Meng Lei focused his eyes on the sonar display, the screen displayed by the turbulent ocean current data model.

A series of murky and shallow text prompts once again inexplicably emerged.

But before Meng Lei could concentrate and read the content of those words clearly.

The distorted dark golden symbol immediately dissipated as if it had never appeared, making Meng Lei feel extremely puzzled.

"Could it be that there is something strange about this current, what is in it? Goldfinger trying to remind me? ”

But why does the prompt dissipate on its own? This has never happened before! ”

Meng Lei's brows furrowed, and he couldn't figure out what the situation was.

He then made a lot of attempts, but the result was no surprise and nothing came of it.

Eventually, as the current slowed down, the fleet gradually sailed out of the narrow channel, and everything around it slowly returned to normal.

The strange hint vanished, never to be seen again.

"It's evil!"

Meng Lei was sitting in the driver's seat, his eyes full of solemnity.

Thinking about it, I have no clue at all.

Eventually, he gave up on the quest and focused on piloting again, steering the submarine towards the beacon station.

The rest of the voyage was much easier than before.

After leaving the rock tunnel, the surroundings became open and the water became extremely clear.

After another more than two hours of sailing, the fleet was getting closer and closer to the malfunctioning beacon station.

When the outline of the outpost model lake faintly appeared at the end of the sonar detector, Meng Lei finally let out a long breath.

But before he could completely relax, another discovery made his heart tighten, and his brows furrowed involuntarily.

"What's that? Is there a ship near the beacon station? ”

"Did anyone arrive before us?"

……