Calamity of the Boundless Sea

Yu Xiao nearly jolted when he heard the words "self-destruct."

But he managed to keep himself under control.

The Red Fortress commander looked furious. Anyone could tell he was deeply unhappy with Yuan Zhen's suggestion!

Unfortunately, he couldn't think of a better way to argue against her, so he could only sit in his chair, fuming as he glared at Yuan Zhen.

"Everyone, there's no need to panic. Self-destructing is just a simple, crude option, and we shouldn't blow up our mechs just because we can't win." Yuan Zhen changed tack. "Every mech is an extremely valuable asset. Unless we're certain a monster is going to take one, we should always prioritize recovering it."

Yuan Zhen's words put everyone at ease.

"Go on, Bai Ying."

"After driving off the monster mech, I activated the escape pod and ejected from Xingtian. After that, I encountered the Xuanse Cangqiong transport ship..." Bai Ying wasn't sure how much time she had missed.

"That lines up perfectly with when the Truth arrived at the battlefield." Yuan Zhen continued, "We received your signal when you ejected in the escape pod, too. It looks like we've filled in the gaps in the timeline. Thank you for telling us what happened, Bai Ying."

Bai Ying nodded, and then the communication window closed.

"As a member of Omega and one of the first people to arrive at the battlefield, I'll put forward a few theories." Yuan Zhen knew she would have to lead this meeting herself, so she went ahead and shared her thoughts.

"Before this operation, humanity had never fully explored the oceans. So when monsters emerged from the sea, we couldn't rule out the possibility that they were native creatures." Yuan Zhen projected a digital model she had created onto the center of the long table. "But after discovering a spatial rift that may be a wormhole, we have reason to suspect that the monsters are actually outsiders, and that they all emerge from wormholes like this one."

"I agree with you." The deputy minister of the United Front's Defense Department raised his hand in support. "We compiled the locations where monsters were first spotted over the past ten years and marked their routes on a map. We found that the place where the Leviathan is now lies at the intersection of all their routes."

"That may well be where the original wormhole was." The Canghai Longyin commander, who had experienced the Calamity of the Boundless Sea firsthand, spoke up. "The Leviathan hadn't even appeared yet, and we were already facing an enormous monster horde."

"That brings me to another theory." Yuan Zhen was glad everyone was joining in the discussion. "For some reason, a wormhole's initial size is limited. At most, it can only let a Level 4 monster through. But as it absorbs more and more energy, the opening grows larger, until it can eventually let a giant beast like the Leviathan pass through."

"If everything you say is true, then why did the monsters open a new wormhole in the Silent Graveyard to transport a giant beast? Why not use the one beneath the Leviathan? It's already big enough, isn't it?" The deputy secretary-general of the United Front followed Yuan Zhen's line of reasoning and spotted the contradiction.

"..."

The room fell silent as everyone considered the question.

"Dr. Yuan, I wasn't part of this operation, but I assume a space-based energy weapon was what ultimately destroyed the wormhole, right?" General Chen broke the silence once more.

"Yes. And this attack confirmed that when a wormhole collapses, its one-way nature reverses. The size of the wormhole also affects how quickly it collapses." Yuan Zhen explained the situation in detail.

"That makes sense." General Chen nodded slowly. "After the Leviathan appeared, the special operations unit at the time suspected its weakness might be beneath the surface. They sent out several nuclear submarines carrying nuclear warheads. They believed that if they went deep enough, they could minimize the damage caused by the nuclear blast."

"Then the shockwave rose from the seafloor, burying nearly ninety-nine percent of our people beneath the Leviathan." The head of the special operations unit picked up where General Chen left off. At the time, he had only just begun to make a name for himself, and all he could do was wait on land for the result.

But he knew that the people who had sent out those submarines had never expected to come back alive.

After that battle, the special operations unit became one of the Watchman Alliance's most marginalized departments. His superior, overwhelmed by guilt, had even shot himself.

"So the original wormhole was most likely destroyed then. We just never realized the Leviathan could give birth to monsters on its own. How cruelly things had turned out." The Canghai Longyin commander sounded dejected.

Only today had the people in the room learned that humanity hadn't been completely defeated in that battle. They had destroyed the monsters' passage into this world.

But they hadn't defeated the Leviathan.

"Then... does anyone know why the wormholes appeared again?" The Golden Rainforest commander, the shortest of all the legion commanders, finally spoke up.

The question stumped everyone once more.

"I do have a theory." Yuan Zhen spoke up, as expected. "The Leviathan appeared in the middle of the Boundless Sea, where the deepest trench on this planet is located."

"There's a trench that seems to have no bottom ten nautical miles east of the Silent Graveyard docks, too." General Chen knew the terrain around the Silent Graveyard well, since it had once belonged to the Xuanse Cangqiong Legion.

"Although we don't have enough samples, we can tentatively assume that a deep trench is necessary for a wormhole to appear... No, that's just a superficial observation, not the underlying cause." Yuan Zhen cut off her train of thought halfway through. "Omega will investigate the reason behind it, but for now, we can treat deep-sea trenches as a necessary condition."

"We need to monitor trenches below a certain depth." The deputy secretary-general made a prompt decision. "If we can establish a comprehensive surveillance network, we can focus on defending against the Leviathan. That would ease the pressure on everyone considerably."

"Does anyone have any further details to add?" Yuan Zhen nodded. "If not, then we'll follow the secretary-general's proposal and shift our focus to monitoring wormholes and defending against the Leviathan."

"I object!" The Red Legion Fortress commander's voice boomed. "How long can we keep defending? The Leviathan can already launch long-range attacks from the air. It's a living wormhole now. If we just sit back and defend, who knows how long we'll last!"

"I object as well." The Canghai Longyin commander raised his hand. "The Leviathan is attacking more and more often, and its attacks are growing stronger. Just look at this latest assault. Even though the Alliance received advance warning about the monster horde, the United Front Legion still collapsed because no one was able to support them."

"It's easy for you to object." The deputy secretary-general looked deeply troubled. "The Alliance still hasn't recovered from the Calamity of the Boundless Sea! Funding, manpower, public opinion—every one of those takes time to get back under control. Defense is already the most we can manage!"

The deputy secretary-general's words were harsh, but every one of them was true.

The entire conference hall fell silent once more.

Until Yuan Zhen broke the silence.

"If all our mechs were as powerful as Xingtian, perhaps we could resolve everyone's concerns."