Ling Shuying had already left the sunken city far behind, entering the true undersea world that had existed since ancient times.
Ocean currents churned; marine life drifted.
Closer, closer!
Sensing the subtle changes in her surroundings, Ling Shuying’s eyes gradually lit up.
“The data was right.
An Abyssal Vortex is indeed forming nearby!”
The Abyssal Vortex was a bizarre phenomenon born from the marine ecosystem after the “Great Subsidence.” Some sailors called it the “Giant Maw of the Sea.” Its occurrences were completely without warning—marked by neither seafloor funnels nor reverse cyclones.
When it did appear, it was often accompanied by a massive whirlpool that sucked in passing ships, leaving no trace behind.
Some old sailors who liked to act profound often claimed that it was an ancient, giant deep-sea creature preying on passing lifeforms.
They said the beast had a mouth hundreds of meters wide and a body thousands of meters long, capable of swallowing half of the Thousand Sails City State in a single bite.
They would describe it vividly, and upon reaching the climax of their tales, they would boast about how they had led their fleet to narrowly escape the jaws of this behemoth.
There were also conspiracy theorists in the City State who argued that it was some sort of sacrificial ritual conducted by the Child of the Abyss.
But Ling Shuying saw through this phenomenon with reason.
Modern physics posited that there were constantly generating and annihilating quantum foams—microscopic fluctuations of spacetime—in a vacuum.
Under specific conditions, these foams could be stimulated by macroscopic energy, forming spacetime folds.
The Earth’s deep sea contained natural deposits of superheavy elements, such as actinides.
The high-energy particles released by their decay continuously bombarded the surrounding space.
When the density of quantum foam in a certain area reached a critical value due to particle collisions, the spacetime curvature would abruptly change.
The ships that were “sucked” away were actually broken down into quantum clouds, traversing a wormhole torn open in the deep sea.
The quantized reorganization of a nervous system was extremely prone to errors, meaning the ships and crews sucked in and broken down had almost zero chance of survival.
However, as an ecologist and a leading scholar studying giant algae at the Green Algae Institute, Ling Shuying had overcome this problem using her own methods.
It was the algae seedling she had created: Qing Ling.
The algal cells contained superconducting nanoscale lattices.
Carrying Qing Ling would anchor the surrounding biological information during the quantization process, keeping the subject’s biological integrity intact while stabilizing the teleportation coordinates.
Ling Shuying had already used gene-editing technology to carve the destination coordinates into Qing Ling’s RNA.
It could be said that Qing Ling was the most crucial part of Ling Shuying’s plan.
It was the only seedling she had preserved, and it was her proudest masterpiece.
“Next, I just need to get closer to the Abyssal Vortex and find a suitable entry point…”
SWISH!
A laser beam grazed Ling Shuying’s shoulder.
Ling Shuying whipped her head around.
“A Sea Hunter!
How is there still one left?!”
A battered Sea Hunter mech, seemingly on the verge of falling apart, was charging toward her at full speed!
It was piloted by Shi Meng, the captain of the Sea Hunter squad.
Right now, Shi Meng’s only thought was to completely obliterate the woman before him.
His Third Sea Hunter Detachment had deployed ten out of its thirteen members.
Five were lost in the battle against the giant squid, and the remaining four…
had all been killed in the explosion caused by Ling Shuying!
When the explosion occurred, one of his team members had blasted him into a corner with an electromagnetic pulse and shielded him with a force field operating at maximum output, barely saving him from death.
Even so, he had sustained severe injuries.
Now, every deployed member of his team, except himself, was dead.
He had no face left to return to the surface.
He would eliminate this woman for the City State.
He finally understood why the City State Council and the Law Enforcement Bureau had demanded she be captured at any cost.
This woman was too terrifying.
She used weapons without the slightest mercy!
Furthermore, he hadn’t even seen her carrying any large-scale explosives.
It was likely a homemade micro-explosive, but the destructive power was simply astonishing.
If such an explosion occurred inside the City State…
the consequences would be unimaginable!
Thinking back to the blast, he still felt a lingering dread.
An entire shopping mall built before the subsidence!
The reinforced concrete was so sturdy that it hadn’t deformed even after sinking to the bottom of the sea for so many years, yet she had blown it to pieces in a single breath!
Today, even if it cost him his life, he would bury this woman at the bottom of the sea forever!
“Damn it, damn it,” Ling Shuying clutched her shoulder.
Though the beam had merely grazed her, the laser’s heat had scorched her flesh black, causing a piercing pain.
The laser was too fast; even biological instincts had their limits.
In her evolved state, she hadn’t been able to react in time.
“To think one survived.
The explosion was still too weak.” Ling Shuying felt around her inner pocket.
Only a single vial of biological lure remained.
“It’s useless, there’s no time,” she muttered, gritting her teeth.
She flipped around and swam toward the core of the Abyssal Vortex.
WHOOSH!
WHOOSH!
Even with an evolved body, her speed could not match that of a Sea Hunter.
Hearing the turbulent rushing of water, Ling Shuying turned her head, only to see the mechanical shark growing larger and larger in her vision!
BANG!
The giant mechanical shark slammed into Ling Shuying with brutal force.
Ling Shuying’s face was pressed against the Sea Hunter’s front glass, meeting a pair of bloodshot, glaring eyes.
The pilot’s face was so covered in blood that his features were indistinguishable, but Ling Shuying could clearly read his lips and hear the faint sound transmitting through the glass.
Combined, these three pieces of information pointed to one unambiguous message:
“Die!!!!”
The Sea Hunter’s impact had likely broken two of her ribs, sending a shattering pain throughout her entire body.
Yet, her gaze remained sharp and unyielding.
“Parasite, you die!!”
Unfortunately, she couldn’t speak underwater, so Ling Shuying could only harden her expression and glare back viciously.
“I can’t afford to get tangled up here.
The D-BS7 has a time limit.
I don’t know how much longer it will last…”
“Ugh…”
Ling Shuying suddenly felt a suffocating lack of oxygen and looked down at her hands.
The webbing between her fingers was shrinking.
“Oh no!
The D-BS7 has run out of time!
Damn it, damn it, damn it!”
Shi Meng was still roaring.
He piloted the Sea Hunter and reversed a short distance.
Ling Shuying did not understand his intention, but seeing this, she hurriedly fled, diving deeper toward the Abyssal Vortex.
ZAP!
Another laser beam!
This time, Ling Shuying was not so lucky.
The laser pierced her right chest.
“Fuck…
Sea Hunter…
if you have the guts, ram me to death instead of using lasers…”
She felt like she was suffocating; she desperately needed oxygen.
Instinct drove her to swim upward.
BANG!
The Sea Hunter genuinely rammed into her again.
“Fuck…” Ling Shuying was pushed beyond the point of absolute fury.
“If I can’t leave, don’t even think about leaving either…”
Using the last of her strength, she pulled the final vial from her chest—Q-S88, the biological lure—and clenched it in her hand.
Just as the Sea Hunter’s final strike approached, she held the vial out in front of her.
CRASH!
Along with Ling Shuying’s body being sent flying, a pale red liquid dispersed in the water.
It was impossible to tell whether it was the reagent or her blood.
GURGLE!
Ling Shuying flew out—or drifted away—like a jellyfish going with the flow.
Under the dual forces of inertia and gravity, she bobbed with the ocean currents, gradually drifting further and further away.
Shi Meng didn’t know if Ling Shuying was completely dead.
But as a professionally trained veteran combatant dealing with such an extremely dangerous individual, he would not leave his opponent even a sliver of a chance at survival.
His laser energy was depleted, and his other weapons had just been exhausted during the battle against the giant squid.
Now, the only attack method he had left was ramming.
Looking at his dwindling fuel reserves, Shi Meng resolutely charged toward Ling Shuying once again.
Suddenly, a pair of gigantic eyes accompanied by a massive silhouette surfaced behind Shi Meng.
CHOMP!
The behemoth opened its massive abyssal jaws and swallowed Shi Meng, along with the Sea Hunter mech, in a single gulp.
The ocean returned to silence, leaving only a thin, crimson trail of blood drifting in the water, growing fainter and fainter.