Another group of hunters?

Lin Jie's unconsciousness did not last long.

When Sergeant William's fingers pressed precisely onto a nerve node at the back of his neck, a sharp, intense sensation jolted him awake from the chaos of his mental exhaustion.

He coughed a few times, feeling as though his head had been stuffed into a roaring steam engine, with every heartbeat triggering a series of sharp, stinging pains.

"How are you feeling?" William's voice held a note of concern as he handed over a small metal flask containing high-concentration medical brandy, capable of quickly lifting one's spirits.

Lin Jie took a large gulp; the fiery liquid burned all the way down his throat to his stomach, finally bringing a hint of warmth back to his cold body.

"Still alive," he answered, his voice raspy. "But I think I won't be able to use that 'perception' ability again for at least twenty-four hours."

He deeply understood the massive price of the Touch of Afterimage ability.

It was like a double-edged sword; while it carved through the fog for him, it also mercilessly left deep wounds upon himself.

The scholar's face was full of lingering fear and awe.

He looked at Lin Jie's pale complexion as if he were looking at a frail prophet who had just returned from a divine revelation.

"Child, everything you just... everything you just experienced, we must record it! This... this will be the first time humanity has 'listened' to the heartbeat of an ancient Titan from such close range!"

"Now is not the time, Mr. MacDonald." William interrupted his excitement. The veteran's face was shrouded in a gravity as somber as the sky over the Scottish Highlands. "We have guests, and it looks like... they don't come with good intentions."

Lin Jie immediately became alert.

He followed William's gaze through the cabin's condensation-covered glass window, looking out toward the distant lake surface.

He saw that another boat had appeared on the water about half a mile away, though he didn't know when it had arrived.

It was not the local steam fishing boat common to the area, but an internal combustion engine exploration vessel with a more streamlined design and clearly superior power.

This new type of ship, fueled by refined petroleum, was an absolute luxury item representing cutting-edge industrial technology in 1888, with a cost far beyond what ordinary fishermen or even average wealthy individuals could afford.

Even more striking was the behavior of the people on board.

Standing on that ship were seven or eight burly men dressed in uniform, similar to some kind of exploration team attire.

Unlike Lin Jie and his companions, who were conducting their survey with caution, these men were "provoking" the tranquil lake in a way that was overflowing with predatory and destructive intent.

They lit the fuses of bundles wrapped in oilcloth—which looked like cylindrical Nitroglycerin Explosive—and tossed them into the lake one after another without a care!

"Boom—! Boom—!"

A moment later, muffled explosions mixed with immense water pressure came from the depths of the lake floor.

The small fishing boat they were on swayed noticeably due to the violent underwater shockwaves.

On the lake surface, plumes of murky water mixed with silt shot into the sky, and fish killed by the blast floated to the surface, bellies up.

"Lunatics! A bunch of complete lunatics!" The scholar was trembling with rage as he watched this scene, his scholarly face flushed red. "What are they doing? They are using Nitroglycerin Explosive! Are they trying to 'invite' our Guardian Deity out of its bedroom by force? This is blasphemy! This is the most barbaric violation of this holy lake!"

Nitroglycerin Explosive! Lin Jie's heart sank as well.

This powerful explosive, invented by Nobel, was still strictly controlled by the militaries of various nations due to its extremely unstable nature.

Yet, this group before them was able to openly toss it into the lake as if it were fireworks.

This was enough to prove that the forces behind them were by no means simple.

The veteran William had already picked up his monocular, his eyes locked tightly onto every detail of the exploration ship.

"Their equipment is very professional," William's voice was low and dangerous. "Look at that thing mounted on their gunwale; that's not a harpoon. That is a Whaling Cannon, designed to fire heavy, barbed whaling spears. And look at their uniforms."

Lin Jie also raised his own binoculars.

He clearly saw that while the group's uniforms lacked obvious markings, they had decorative patterns embroidered in silver thread on the collars and cuffs, resembling a snake coiled around a great sword.

The weapons in their hands were not ordinary hunting rifles or muskets, but strange-looking "Steam Weapon" designs, with gun bodies covered in brass pipes and pressure valves, seemingly capable of firing high-pressure metal arrows with high penetration.

"Their goal is not 'research,' but 'capture'." Lin Jie lowered his binoculars and met William's eyes; both saw a hint of gravity in the other's gaze.

They immediately realized that they had likely been drawn into a "hunting competition" between different organizations for the same target.

"What should we do now?" the scholar asked anxiously. "We must stop them! Otherwise, they will completely enrage that Guardian Deity!"

"No, we can't do anything right now." Lin Jie shook his head calmly, rejecting the impulsive suggestion. "There are only three of us, one broken fishing boat, and a few light weapons. The other side has at least seven or eight men, a powerful exploration ship, and... enough explosives to send us and our boat to the sky. In the face of such an absolute disparity in strength, any form of direct confrontation is suicide."

His words extinguished Alistair's fury.

Although the scholar was filled with righteous indignation, he understood that what Lin Jie said was reality.

William also nodded in agreement.

"He's right. Our primary mission now is to observe and gather intelligence, figure out the origins of this group and their true purpose, and then..." his fingers tightened around his rifle, "at the most opportune moment, give them a... lesson they will never forget."

Thus, they slowly steered their fishing boat into a concealed area formed by massive rocks, dropped anchor, and covered the vessel with camouflage netting, completely hiding themselves from the surface of this conflict.

They became observers lurking in the shadows.

The barbaric "fish bombing" operation on the lake continued.

Those uninvited guests appeared to be extremely patient.

They had divided Urquhart Bay into several grid sections and were conducting "bombing harassment" in a carpet-like fashion, piece by piece.

Their behavior was like using red-hot iron rods to constantly probe and irritate the tolerance threshold of a sleeping dragon.

"They are forcing it to come out." Lin Jie had already vaguely seen through the opponent's tactics, "They don't know the specific location of that creature, so they can only use this most clumsy yet effective method to provoke it, forcing it to reveal itself because it can no longer endure the harassment. Once it surfaces, that Whaling Cannon and those fishing nets they prepared, which are perhaps imbued with alchemy, will finally have a use."

This is a typical "beast hunting" tactic.

As time passed, the originally peaceful and calm spiritual pulse deep within the lake water began to change.

Although Lin Jie could no longer use Touch of Afterimage for deep perception, he could still rely on his intuition, which far exceeded that of an ordinary person, to detect a trace of irritability and unease slowly rising from the bottom of the lake.

That "Guardian Deity" who had been sleeping for many years was being forcibly awakened from its dream by the ignorance and greed of this group of mortals.