"Heading southeast, flight altitude 12,000. No abnormalities in the hull structure or flight attitude. Current coordinate position is about 100 kilometers away from Agania Island. Radar has captured a Herrscher-level Honkai energy reaction. All personnel, please prepare for battle."
Carol sat in front of a light blue projection screen, constantly correcting and reporting various parameters with rigor and composure. Only from her lively and clear tone could one glimpse the once boisterous girl she used to be.
Standing next to her, in the position that should have belonged to the "Captain," was a figure as dazzling as a torch.
"A Herrscher… It's been so long…" Himeko's lips curled into a smile, her eyes already alight with the anticipation of battle.
"The fire control radar has locked onto the Herrscher. Ready to attack at any time," Carol reported, her voice steady.
"Cough cough!"
Carol cleared her throat, ruthlessly reminding her, "Captain Himeko, the order from the forward command post is: Do not launch an attack prematurely. Once the order to fire is given, deploy all firepower at the fastest possible speed."
"Agh! Of course I know that! Anyway, it's alright to prepare for full combat readiness, right? It's not like locking onto the Herrscher in real-time violates the order, right?"
From a commonly accepted viewpoint, Himeko's statement wasn't wrong. The two hundred members of the Fire Moth Three belonged to the expanded Fifth Squad. Most of them were new recruits, like Carol, who had joined after the Third Honkai Impact.
Not everyone had experienced life and death as many times as Carol had.
For these new recruits, who were easily nervous, waiting until the last moment to prepare for an attack could lead to complete disarray. But preparing in advance wasn't without its risks. It meant all safeties would be removed. If someone nervously pressed a fire button…
Well, that would be disastrous.
Carol's reminder was just a precaution, intended to prevent that very scenario.
Her fingers flew across the projection keyboard, making no sound as they moved. Soon, one pop-up window after another appeared on the screen:
"All six 430mm railguns are fully charged!"
"All six 270mm railguns are fully charged!"
"The close-range defense system test is normal!"
"Charging progress for the main cannon is still less than 10%!"
"The power output of the energy barrier is insufficient, unable to be successfully activated!"
"The power output of the Maxwell power engine is continuing to drop!"
"Nuclear fusion reactors 1-4 are operating at overcapacity. Captain Himeko, should we start up backup fusion reactors 5 and 6?"
"Activate them!"
"Yes!"
With the activation of the backup power source, the charging speed of the main cannon and the energy barrier more than doubled. The power output of the front and rear power engines stabilized and slowly began to recover.
Himeko felt somewhat emotional. Mei, who had been a high school student not long ago, had now taken over the position once occupied by Mobius. And she was doing even better than her predecessor. The Fire Moth III, which Mei had redesigned and supervised the construction of, was the best proof of this.
The entire warship had abandoned the mistake of pursuing a large size and advanced technology like the Chasing Flames One. The length of the Three was almost 40% shorter than the One. The width, however, remained the same. If the One was a greatsword, then the Two was a slender dagger.
But a dagger wasn't necessarily ineffective. Especially when considering the main cannon, which was buried in the middle of the ship and nearly the same length as the ship itself. It was said to have power exceeding the abandoned 680mm railgun.
The power system had also moved away from the imperfect "Moonlight" series of Honkai energy conversion devices. Instead, it now used six reliable nuclear fusion reactors.
"Reducing the ship's altitude... the main cannon's charging progress is over 50%, and the energy barrier has been activated at full power!"
As a light blue glow flashed past, honeycomb-like matrices appeared out of thin air, forming a "shell" around the Fire Moth III. Then, with the activation of the optical camouflage system, the barrier gradually disappeared, becoming invisible to the naked eye.
"How many of the ground personnel still haven't evacuated?"
Mei asked, her gaze focused ahead, not turning her head.
"Most of the personnel have entered the underground fortresses. There are probably only a hundred soldiers you brought with you still on the surface, setting up the explosives."
Mei tried her best to control her breathing, ensuring the slight tremble wouldn't be noticed by anyone.
She remained silent for a moment. All necessary arrangements had been made, so she decided to speak less to avoid any misunderstandings among the people carrying out their tasks. Instead, she switched the screen to the monitoring view and began observing the black waves outside the energy barrier, which were gradually becoming more turbulent.
Vashak, on the other hand, sat on a cold bench the entire time, his face neither red nor white, and certainly not black. As his anger and frustration slowly faded, he seemed to settle into a state of shame and relief.
Mei noticed every subtle shift in his expression. For a moment, she couldn't find the right word to describe him.
The wind had started blowing at some point, though Mei couldn't tell from where. It collided with the invisible energy barrier head-on. The barrier wasn't a completely solid object; it was more like a thin film with small pores. These pores were small enough to block liquid molecules but allowed gas to pass through.
So, the high-speed air current passed through the countless pores that were impossible to see with the naked eye, like passing through the rigging that hung all over an old-fashioned sailing ship, making a sharp and shrill noise.
Snow-white foam formed a net, as if it wanted to use this to trap the black waves underneath, but how could waves be trapped by a net?
The arc-shaped black waves crashed against the invisible barrier, reflecting the honeycomb-like patterns. The foam that was swept away splashed back into the sea, creating small white crests.
The sea level was rising much faster than calculated. In less than five minutes, it had risen by five meters. This height was almost enough to submerge half of Agania Island, but the sea water was blocked by the barrier. No matter how it crashed against it, it couldn't shake the invisible barrier.
If you just looked at it that way, it seemed like the energy barrier was effective enough.
But that was only "if you looked at it that way".
Such magnificent power was already so unbelievable in the eyes of humans, but it was merely the aftermath of the Herrscher's arrival, which was just over twenty nautical miles away.
Or rather—it was just a precursor.
Mei understood that very well. She saw that a large number of explosives had not been planted yet, but the increase of the waves was already worrying. And, on the radar, the Herrscher had already started to move toward Agania.
"Tell Aldemir and the others to start withdrawing. If the explosives haven't been planted, just leave them. Make sure that the people are safe."
After giving that order, Mei thought for a moment, and in the end, she couldn't help but confirm it in a low voice:
"By the way, Pro, those semi-buried turrets on Agania Island..."
"Don't worry, Dr. Mei. Based on the parameters of those turrets, I can't say anything for sure, but they can more than withstand the first wave of the tsunami!"
Pro managed to twitch his mouth, revealing an ugly smile—as an experienced soldier, he had already understood the intention behind the series of arrangements that the doctor had made earlier. It wasn't a sophisticated or amazing plan. It couldn't even be said to be that clever, but it was indeed the best solution that could be made in such a short time.
Because of that, Pro thought even more highly of Mei. After all, for a person who had never been in combat before, and who was also a relatively emotional woman, it was already very amazing that she was able to step forward in the first place. Not to mention that she had quickly made the most appropriate arrangements.
But her hesitation and lack of confidence from just now also made Pro chuckle to himself, and made him realize once again that the doctor in front of him was really just a high schooler who was about the same age as his daughter.
But his smile quickly froze. "Doctor! The Herrscher is only four nautical miles away from Agania!"
"How did it get here so fast! Did it come surfing!"
It was like a huge and invisible palm had been inserted into the sea, and was quickly and forcefully pushing horizontally in the direction of Agania Island. As a result, the black waves crowded together, finally piling up into a giant wave that was a hundred meters high that was crashing down towards Agania Island.
Looking north from the angle of the recording, for a moment, the giant wave couldn't be seen—no, it wasn't that the giant wave couldn't be seen, but that everything that could be seen was a wall of waves that was a hundred meters high.
The wall of waves was completely vertical, which led the eyes to mistakenly think that the top of the wave wall and the sky were where the normal sea level should be!
"Prepare for impact!"
Pro shouted loudly.
"Transfer all power to the energy barrier, quick!"
But no one followed Mei's instructions. It was then that she realized that she had made a mistake: she shouldn't have timed everything so close to the limit.
At that moment, in the face of the terrifying power that humanity was unable to control, even the most experienced soldiers had become disoriented. No one could understand her commands!
So, she could only pray. She prayed that the strength of the energy barrier itself was enough, and prayed that the arch shape of the energy barrier could disperse the force to the greatest extent, just like an eggshell, and withstand this wave--she was only asking that it withstand that first wave!
But before she could finish praying, she felt two people push her down and firmly hold her against the cold ground. But then they quickly pulled her up and directed her to crouch down like them, her mouth slightly open.
"Evangeline? Karabiya?"
She quickly recognized the two of them, and then, she found that everyone in the command post was crouching on the ground—this was what Pro's earlier shout of "prepare for impact" meant!
But the waves didn't come right away.
"147," was what Mei had counted to, not 147 seconds. It was the 147th number she had counted to. As for whether her count was on point, faster, or slower? All of that no longer mattered.
The moment she softly uttered the number "147," a staff member in the closed and stuffy command post suddenly couldn't bear the pressure any longer and jumped up and screamed hysterically, "Let the storm come…"
He had only shouted half of the sentence when a violent vibration and rumble swept in. Even the fluorescent lights in the command post exploded one after another. But the sound of the light bulbs shattering was completely overwhelmed by the vibration from the outside.
The staff member who had stood up hadn't even had time to close his mouth when he was thrown backwards. The back of his head hit the corner of a table, and his teeth were also broken from biting down so hard. Blood filled the floor in just a few seconds, but no one was paying attention to him anymore.
The vibrations hadn't subsided when Mei grabbed the edge of the table with both hands and used her elbows to prop herself up and stand on her shaky legs.
Thank goodness, the 3D projection screen hadn't been affected.
In the view from the external monitors, the entire island had been submerged in seawater. The scene was like what was seen in an underwater tunnel. The only difference was that countless turbulent currents were present in the surrounding sea water.
Countless small black spots were being swept along by the turbulent currents, hitting the barrier and exploding into a black mist of blood.
"Bang!"
Mei's whole body jumped. She didn't know where the sound came from. Maybe someone had kicked over a stool in the command post, or maybe that was the sound effect transmitted from the external camera. What could be confirmed was that the invisible barrier that was enveloping all of Agania Island suddenly showed a spider-web-like crack, like a pane of glass.
Mei's fingers clenched hard. Her sharp fingernails poked into her flesh. As her heart pounded faster and faster, the cracks on the entire barrier also grew larger.
Soon, the entire barrier had been deformed. It was like an eggshell that had been tapped on the table.
"It's over..."
Just as Mei concluded that, the first ray of sunlight finally streamed down from the top of the barrier, and then uncontrollably widened the gap.
The aquamarine sea water slowly slid down around the edges. Eventually, even the entire sea level returned to normal.
Everyone in the command post collectively breathed a sigh of relief, but before that breath could be fully exhaled, the screen suddenly went dark--the sunlight had disappeared.
Layers of dark clouds had covered the sun, and an inconspicuous figure had appeared outside the barrier.
She was standing in the air over the sea, her eyes emitting a light green glow that was identical to the sea water. She was unconsciously grinning...
She lightly tapped her index finger on the crack on the barrier in front of her.
A normal sea breeze blew past, and the barrier instantly shattered.
However, in the northwest sky where no one was paying attention, a small black dot hovered in the air.
Just a few seconds later, what arrived with the dark clouds, covering the sky, was countless black dots, like sesame seeds scattered in the sky.