I built an armada.

The largest ship, shaped like a dying whale, was covered with ugly welded patches and rusted holes. A crooked, stained, blood-red flag with a black skull and crossbones design stood out conspicuously!

That's the Stinger!
On the shore, the campfire flickered, the smells of cheap alcohol, burnt fish, sweat, and excrement mingling together in a chaotic cacophony.

A group of pirates of various skin colors, dressed in dirty, greasy clothes and carrying a jumble of weapons, gathered around a campfire, shouting and cursing in various languages ​​and drinking cheap liquor.

Further away, the blurry figures of the "Hailong" crew members, disarmed and bound, huddled like lambs to the slaughter on the muddy shore could be vaguely seen. Rough laughter, screams, and the clanging of metal rose and fell.

Just as Qin Mingzhu staggered ashore on the gangway and was choked by the strong, mixed stench, a beam of bright light suddenly swept over her!
Two loaded AK-47 assault rifles, covered in grease and salt, rough as fire pokers, pressed against her forehead and chest like the fangs of vipers! The hard, cold metal pierced through her soaked thin shirt and pressed hard against her sternum!

"Hey! You drunken, stinking rat! Which hole did you crawl out of?"

A one-eyed pirate with yellow teeth, a missing left ear, and speaking broken Common, roared rudely. His single eye scanned Qin Mingzhu’s deliberately smeared face with dark paint, her cheap waterproof suit soaked through, and her strong, pungent smell of alcohol, as if he were examining a strange piece of trash.

Behind the other gun, a younger, dark-skinned pirate stared intently at her back and calves, their contours revealed by the wine-soaked fabric.

Sweat and seawater mixed together and flowed into my eyes, making them feel stinging and painful.

Qin Mingzhu didn't move, not even blinking.

With the cold gun barrel pressing against her brow and chest, she swayed slightly, letting out a few muffled sounds like she was still hungover, as if she were about to vomit.

At that very moment, her fingers, which were strapped to the back of her left calf, swiftly hooked onto the cold, folding trigger of the submachine gun!
At the same time, her lips, stained with salty seawater and mud, slowly parted, uttering two rough, hoarse syllables that sounded as if they had been repeatedly struck by rocks—

"Looking for... 'Old Shark'..."

The murky campfire flickered in the sea breeze, casting leaping shadows on Qin Mingzhu's face like countless ferocious ghost claws.

She leaned against the cold rocks, a deep red mark on the back of her neck from the rough hemp rope. Each time she was forced to tilt her head back, her throat bones made a sickening crunching sound under the pressure of the dirty arms.

Strands of hair, stained with foul-smelling mud and wine, clung to her forehead, obscuring half her vision. But deep within her slightly open eyes, like tempered iron, there was not a trace of fear, only unfathomable coldness and scrutiny.

"Old Shark!"

Her throat was choked, and her voice was like sandpaper rubbing against metal, unusually hoarse yet clearly penetrating the surrounding noise.

"Here's the money! Give me the boat! Do you understand the rules?! You dare to rip off Longxia's face!"

She spoke with difficulty, each word like a cold, hard pebble squeezed from the depths of her chest, trying to strike the nerves of the vicious pirate leader opposite her!
The man known as "Old Shark" was squatting on an overturned, abandoned diesel drum not far away, playing with a dark, heavy, large-caliber revolver with a barrel thicker than a child's arm.

The twisted knife scars that ran across the bridge of his nose looked like they were writhing alive in the flickering firelight.

He didn't look at Qin Mingzhu. His gaze swept over the crew of the "Hailong" on the muddy beach not far away, where more pirates had their hands tied behind their backs, their mouths taped shut, and they were trembling. In particular, in the corner, there were the outlines of two huge boxes wrapped in heavy waterproof canvas and deliberately protected. Inside were the core equipment that he was going to use to extort a lot of money from the Qin family of Longxia.

The ransom demand of "ten million US dollars" from a few days ago has now increased more than tenfold in his greedy mind!
"money?"

The old shark suddenly raised its head, revealing a mouthful of rotten, yellowed teeth, and let out a sinister laugh like that of a night owl.

"The Qin family's little she-wolf..."

He spoke in broken Chinese, drawing out the words, while the revolver barrel struck the rusty oil drum repeatedly, producing a dull, eerie "bang bang" sound.

"Those numbers on your tattered pieces of paper can't satisfy my brother's appetite!"

He pointed the gun at the two large boxes from a distance.

"Now! I want... five hundred million! US dollars! No!"

One billion! Plus a ship! Filled with the most expensive goods from the East!

A pirate next to him, who was constantly peering through binoculars at the dark sea, suddenly turned around and spoke urgently to Old Shark in a local dialect, his voice tinged with barely perceptible panic.

"what?!"

Old Shark's scar on his face suddenly jerked, and he stood up abruptly!

"Longxia's ship?! It's sailed here?!"

He roared with all his might, snatched the binoculars, and practically pounced onto the highest rock on the shore, slamming the heavy brass cylinder onto his single eye and gazing at the boundless, dark horizon!
We no longer need a telescope.

The darkness was torn apart as if by an invisible giant hand! At the hazy horizon where the sea and sky met, a blinding, cold, and utterly devoid of warmth, like the morning star before dawn, brutally ripped through the heavy night! Then, the second point! The third point!

It was as if hell had opened its gigantic eyes!
"Longxia's warships!!!"

A pirate's hysterical scream pierced the deathly silence!
The entire pirate island exploded instantly, like an anthill thrown into boiling water!
A cacophony of ecstatic shouts mingled with unspeakable, bone-deep screams of terror! The pirates scattered like headless flies, some yelling madly, "Let's fight them!"

Instead of pushing the outdated anti-aircraft guns to the stern, many were terrified, their legs trembling and their faces ashen, staring intently at the few points of light on the distant horizon that resembled deadly ghostly flames, and behind them, the overwhelming, towering steel silhouette that even the darkness seemed to retreat from!

"Damn it! Bring that woman out! Make her stand on the highest rock! Now!"

Veins bulged on Old Shark's forehead, twisting and contorting in a ferocious grimace! He whirled around, his single eye blazing with the fury of a desperate beast, roaring like an enraged animal.

"Tell them! Tell those kids from Longxia over there!"

Their precious Miss Qin is under my blade! Dare to approach! Dare to fire a shot! I'll cut off her head and throw it back to feed the fish!

He brandished the large-caliber revolver in his hand, gesturing wildly in Qin Mingzhu's direction!

"And those crew members! And that damn broken machine! I'll set it all on fire! Let it sink to the bottom of the sea!"

Two burly, foul-smelling pirates immediately grabbed Qin Mingzhu by the back of her soaked raincoat collar like a dead dog, dragging her out from behind the reef and pinning her to the highest, windward reef on the shore! A cold dagger was held directly against her carotid artery, which was already turning purple from being strangled by ropes!
A strong, pungent sea breeze rushed in, almost choking her. The rocks beneath her feet were icy cold, and her swaying body could barely keep her balance.

But Qin Mingzhu forced herself to open her eyelids, which were stuck together with sweat and mud, and straightened her back with all her might, looking toward the increasingly bright strait mouth.

At that moment, the world completely lost its timbre in her senses.

All I could hear was that deep, humming sound, like the beating of an ancient behemoth's heart!
The sound pierced through the raging sea wind! It shook the rocks beneath our feet! Not just one sound, but hundreds of muffled, low-frequency roars, like the rapid beating of war drums! Growing louder and louder as it approached!

The darkness at the horizon, which had swallowed all the stars, was now completely ignited!
Dozens of bright, thick beams of searchlight, like pillars of lava extending from hell, pierced the inky sea fog and night sky like the giant sword of the god of judgment!
They blatantly swept across each other, illuminating every filthy corner as if it were daytime—the roaring waves, the jagged reefs, the broken masts of pirate ships…

The blinding light, carrying a scorching heat that seemed to burn everything, enveloped Qin Mingzhu and the few pirates beside her who were trembling with fear.
Qin Mingzhu could even clearly feel that every speck of dust stirred up by the cold wind on her face was being peeled away and scorched by the all-pervasive light! What struck her heart like a hammer blow was that the beam of light was not swaying erratically!
They are precise, cold, and full of blatant disregard!

These beams of light didn't pause for even a fraction of a second as they swept across her face and the horrified, contorted expressions of the pirates around her! Like a high and mighty god coldly glancing over a few insignificant grains of sand and ants!

After the light swept past, there was an even more despairing, boundless darkness! Accompanying those dozens of beams of light that shattered the night was a truly terrifying torrent of steel!
One!
Two! Three...

Like a legendary sea fortress lifted from the abyss by the hand of God! A massive steel hull, almost bursting the limits of human vision! Sharp edges, as if carved by a knife and axe! The cold, dark gray-black paint job absorbed all the surrounding light! The ferocious, enormous vertical axe-shaped bow cleaved through the waves, creating massive surges like tsunamis!

Huge, dark cannons, gleaming with a deep, cold light, were pointed at the chaotic pirate island, their power enough to tear apart a torrent of steel!
And this is just the vanguard ship at the very outer edge of the queue!

Behind those steel behemoths, layer upon layer, row upon row of cold, shadowy ships appeared one after another! Their numbers were so great that they stretched as far as the eye could see!

Their battle formations were so orderly, like iron lines etched into the turbulent sea with a chisel! Destroyers! Frigates! Fast attack craft! Like a sprawling, ever-expanding jungle of steel thorns!

And in the very center of this suffocating, despair-inducing steel jungle... there was that towering, colossal shadow that moved slowly like a mountain range, swallowing all light and shadow, freezing even the desperate roars of all the pirates in their throats!

"That's...that's...it belongs to Long Xia..."

An older pirate collapsed to the ground with a thud, his crotch visibly soaked, and he trembled like a withered leaf in a storm.

"Their...055..."

He didn't need to spell it out at all!
The massive vertical launch area, revealed in a fleeting glimpse by the searchlight beam, filled with densely packed honeycomb-like cells; the integrated mast, towering and menacing even taller than the masts of the adjacent escort ships combined; the deep rumble of the 20,000-ton steel hull as it crushed the waves—a rumble that could shake the very bones of one's soul…

Twenty thousand tons! It is the newest and most powerful maritime weapon of the Longxia Navy.

The latest upgraded version of the "10,000-ton destroyer"! Code name: 055!

With an irresistible and absolute sense of oppression, it appeared before the "Stinger" pirate ship and the "Sea Dragon" plundering cargo ship, which were pinned to the center of the sea by the searchlight beam! In its enormous shadow, the two ships looked as small as two broken plastic toys carelessly discarded by children in a bathtub!
On its mainmast, the enormous, blood-red Dragonxia tribe battle banner, like a blazing fire, fluttered in the wind!
The whole world fell silent in the face of this cold, steel torrent!
All the noise on Pirate Island seemed to be strangled by an invisible giant hand! Only the roar of the waves crashing against the rocks and the deep resonance of the engines of the dozens of steel behemoths formed a hellish symphony!

"No...it's impossible...for...for a businessman?"

The old shark's proudest large-caliber revolver.

It fell with a thud onto the cold rocks at my feet.

His face, crisscrossed with scars, had lost all color, leaving only a deathly, ashen look of despair after his soul had been shattered.

He even forgot about Qin Mingzhu, whom he was holding at gunpoint as a hostage. His bloodshot eyes were fixed on the immovable steel jungle on the sea, which exuded the power to destroy all life! His body began to tremble violently uncontrollably.

That was no longer the pirates' fear of naval power; it was the utter collapse of the most primitive and humble microorganisms rooted in their blood when faced with an irresistible and magnificent force, in the face of the arrival of myth and the impending natural disaster!

Longxia Tribe!

They wanted to pull Qin Mingzhu out of this hell and get back the stolen equipment!

They sent their entire main fleet into the Cross Strait! And they brought with them colossal beasts that could easily wipe out countless lives in this sea area!
This is not a negotiation at all!
This is a crushing force that draws upon the power of the heavens, carrying steel, fire, and the indomitable will of the nation! It is a naked, destructive deterrent that disdains negotiation and declares all resistance laughable simply by its very existence!

Just then!

A voice suddenly rang out from the makeshift radio loudspeaker that the pirates had cobbled together for their threatening pronouncements!
The sound wasn't loud, but it was like ten-thousand-ton steel icebergs rubbing and crushing against each other! It carried the cold, metallic quality of something forged through countless hammer blows! Through the altered electrical noise, it spread to every corner of Pirate Island and the "Stinger"!
"Listen up, all armed personnel at Ghost Reef—"

"This is the Fifth Naval Combat Cluster of the Longxia Tribe!"

"In the name of the guardians of the Dragonxia Sea Frontier, I command you—"

"Immediately and unconditionally release Ms. Qin Mingzhu, the merchant from the Longxia tribe, who has been kidnapped! Cease all resistance! Lay down all weapons! Remain where you are! All hijacked ships, personnel, and equipment will be taken over and protected by Longxia in accordance with the law!" (End of Chapter)