Revisit Azur Lane

……

"That's roughly the situation of the squad. As the exploration captain, Zuikaku, you must remember to communicate with Bismarck in a timely manner. If the Executors make any unusual moves, immediately adjust the formation to meet the enemy."

Thanks to the continuous efforts of Yuudachi and Zuikaku, Zhou He had no choice but to gather the rest of his team ahead of time to announce today's attack plan and give Zuikaku some instructions.

"Oh! Don't you trust me to handle things?"

Ruihe winked at Zhou He, who glared at him before she answered with a grin.

"This operation is quite dangerous. After the battle begins, Javelin, Hammann, Jeanbart, and Shentong, don't rush into the fray. First, familiarize yourselves with the new combat rhythm."

Setting Zuikaku aside, Zhou He turned to instruct the newly joined ship girls, and only after receiving their answers, some serious and some casual, did he begin to explain and arrange the sortie route and the planned battle zone.

The more people attend a meeting, the longer it takes. Zhou He was also troubled by this change and wondered if he should change the meeting mechanism. Tactical discussions like this should be as quick and simple as possible.

After the meeting, Zhou He went out with the crowd and watched his dozen or so ship girls leave from the bay. He took a deep breath and exhaled steadily.

"The commander seems quite reluctant."

Long Island, stepping on the receding waves, turned around and saw Zhou He's slightly complicated expression. She leaned closer with a curious look: "Are you worried about everyone's safety?"

"Yes, some of them."

Zhou He did not shy away from the question. He nodded frankly and looked out at the distant sea: "What bothers me even more is that we seem to be surrounded by sirens, making it very difficult to expand outwards."

Although I had anticipated that the expansion wouldn't be easy, the increase in difficulty was too great. The first lap was handled easily, the second lap was a bit troublesome, and now in the third lap, I'm surrounded by the enforcers and dare not move easily. However—

"Long Island, how wide is your reconnaissance range? Can you go up to 100 nautical miles?"

Zhou He didn't know much about light aircraft carriers. He only knew that this type of ship had fewer carrier-based aircraft and thinner armor than regular aircraft carriers, but he didn't know about its range.

Upon hearing this, Long Island tilted his head: "Commander, are you underestimating me? It's only a hundred nautical miles, a piece of cake!"

"Sorry, in that case, could you please send a few reconnaissance aircraft northward to observe the situation over there?"

Zhou He briefly described the area of ​​the North Third District, hoping that Changdao would fly over there so he could see where the Sirens who had salvaged the documents had taken the items.

"No problem~"

Long Island uttered a simple word that Zhou He could understand, waved her sleeve, turned around, and followed the tide into the deep water. Her ship equipment was quite light, consisting of just a runway and some small details. Overall, it looked lighter than a destroyer. After running a few steps out, she stood directly in the middle of the bay and launched a reconnaissance aircraft.

"Has the Siren salvage team in the North Third District withdrawn?"

With Akashi and Kursk absent, and Long Island far away, Zhou He was left with only Hood and Hermione. As a senior, Hood guessed the situation from Zhou He's few words: "Is there really a lost document that even the Sirens value and need to be salvaged?"

"I don't know."

Zhou He was also puzzled by this question: "Perhaps in the experimental world, the Sirens will limit the level of technology they can use. As for salvaging documents, it is probably to fit this setting."

"set up…"

As a veteran young person, Hu De has a strong ability to accept new things. Although Zhou He's words were a bit abstract, she still understood it on her own: "So, the document that the Sirens obtained may contain technology similar to the current world's technology or combat-related intelligence documents?"

"This is assuming that there are other people in our world fighting against the Sirens."

Zhou He shook his head slightly, turned around and walked to the platform steps not far away to sit down, locking his gaze on the island marked with a human port area in the South Third District of the system map. When Ruihe checked it, the degree of abandonment of the port area ruins inside this island was far greater than that of the Siren base in the North Second District.

Given the number of enforcers present nearby, it's clear that the fall of this sea area wasn't something that happened in just one or two years.

Regarding the strength of the human side, we can actually infer it from many abstract things. First of all, it is impossible for humans to engage in a direct warship-to-ship battle with the Sirens, as that would put too much pressure on resources. Therefore, under the control of the Sirens, humans will definitely develop ship girl technology. The existence of ship girls can be divided into two types: one is that each country has its own unique ship girls, and the other is a globally unified port system that builds countless identical ship girls to fight against the Sirens.

If it's the latter, with human forces teeming with ship girls, the Sirens certainly wouldn't leave so many combat troops idle in the rear. Excluding that, it must be the former: ship girls unique to each nation...

To be honest, while the combined number of warships from all countries is indeed large, if they are separated, they will definitely be overwhelmed by the Sirens in terms of numbers, unless, like in the game's storyline, ship girls lead a large number of warships in coordinated battles, they can at least put up a fight against the Sirens.

However, some ports have been occupied by the Sirens for several years and have not been recovered, so it is not a situation that is evenly matched on the surface.

A simple deduction leads to the conclusion that if a human ocean resistance force still exists in this world, it would have been badly defeated by the Sirens, most likely forced into coastal waters and lacking the power to push back.

So, this technological document that fell into the deep sea might be similar to the technology the Sirens possessed in this world.

It's really weird no matter how you look at it.

"Since the Sirens exist, there must be corresponding resistance forces."

After observing Zhou He and confirming that he was just speaking casually and not actually pessimistic, Hu De chuckled and said, "Besides, even if there are no other forces of resistance, as long as we are still active, that's enough."

"Right."

Zhou He didn't ramble on. He didn't think too much about it, but simply wondered if the system had pulled some kind of trick on him.

For example, it wasn't just this island and port area that were created; the Mirror Sea, the ruins of various islands, and even the sirens were all created by the system. There are no other humans or ship girls in the world.

However, he encountered Tirpitz and the others a few days ago, which means that this is not a single-player game, and the system doesn't seem that powerful.

This topic was meaningless and was quickly moved on. Regarding some issues concerning port operations and interpersonal relationships, Zhou He sincerely consulted Hu De, who calmly provided answers one by one. Among them, Hu De clearly gave a core idea.

That is: as ship girls, their existence is more about fighting against foreign forces such as the Sirens than being girls. This is to keep Zhou He calm when controlling the battle and prevent him from developing psychological problems due to potential casualties.

"commander!"

The two were exchanging words, one bold and the other credible, when Long Island in the distance seemed to have noticed something and waved to Zhou He.

Chapter Sixty-Six Chaos

"Commander, it looks like someone is fighting the Sirens in the north, which you asked me to scout."

Long Island floated lightly to the area near the pier, looking at Hood sitting on the steps and standing beside him, and said hesitantly, "If I'm not mistaken, the planes that are dealing with the Siren carrier are our White Eagles."

"Ok?"

Zhou He glanced at Hu De, who was also focused, and opened the system map to look at the North Third District. Long Island had already covered the 60-nautical-mile block diameter, but unfortunately, there were no ship girl icons in it. However, the Sirens icons were indeed converging further north, and he could even see with his own eyes that one Sirens ship was missing.

However, what struck him as odd was that a portion of the eastern part of the North 3rd District, which had been left behind by Long Island, was covered by a black vortex. After switching to the East 3rd District, he discovered that both areas were covered by the same black vortex region.

Unlike Tirpitz's testing grounds, this new Mirror Sea is a behemoth spanning at least three to four blocks.

The White Eagle Fleet, which is suspected to exist in the North Fourth District or even further, actually dares to fight the Sirens in such a place. Could it be that they are unaware of the existence of the Mirror Sea?

However, there are quite a few types of mirror-like seas used by sirens. It's possible that the mirror-like sea in front of us isn't a testing ground, but rather an alternative use that directly affects the real environment. Without a special detection plan, it would indeed be impossible to discover it.

"What a coincidence."

Hood picked up the conversation with great interest, looking at Long Island who was waiting for instructions: "Whether it's the Sirens or the newly emerged White Eagle fleet, it doesn't make much difference to us at this stage."

“Long Island, you spotted their planes, so they must have spotted your observations as well. We can’t tell what their attitude is towards us, but we can take advantage of their battle with the Sirens to cross the battlefield and observe their fleet.”

Following Hu De's instructions, Long Island tilted her head and looked at Zhou He questioningly. The latter nodded and said, "I can't observe the area further north from here. Long Island, you will act as my eyes and see exactly what happened."

"Good~"

Long Island readily accepted the order, turned around and ran to a slightly more distant part of the sea to continue launching carrier-based aircraft. The circling formation of aircraft generated strong winds and brought a lot of noise. After taking shape, they flew into the distance.

"Commander, what's your opinion on this suddenly appearing fleet?"

Hu De didn't pay any attention to Long Island's little tricks and calmly chatted with Zhou He.

"We don't know their background or their purpose. Even if we make contact, we can't let them discover the existence of the port area."

Zhou He frowned. He had just been discussing with Hu De, as if they were having a philosophical discussion, whether there were any other Sirens rebels in the world. He hadn't expected them to appear so suddenly. He was worried when there weren't any, but now that they had, he was even more vigilant.

After thinking for a moment, he decided to wait and see: "After the fleet over there discovers the carrier-based aircraft on Long Island, they will definitely try to break through the Sirens' defenses and move closer to this side. If they do break through, Hood, you two should take them to the Sirens' base to rest and try to get some information out of them."

"Ah."

Hu De thought the arrangement was quite good. Most importantly, Zhou He didn't have high expectations for outsiders, which made her feel good. She smiled and said, "The Commander was quite enthusiastic when he met with King George V and the others last time."

"That's because they don't have any real-world connections."

Zhou He propped his chin up with his hand and turned his head to look at Long Island on the sea: "The chess pieces that have broken through the limitations of the Sirens' ideology exist based on Sirens' technology. No matter how much they want to complete the regrets they did not have in their memories, they are all unexpected individuals. They need a place to settle down and logistical support. Even if they do not join our port in the end, they will develop into a trustworthy group of people based on cooperation and life."

"Hmm, the commander is thinking quite far ahead. But isn't he trusting 'us' too much?"

Listening to Zhou He's explanation, Hu De was quite surprised. This level of thinking made it hard for her to believe that Zhou He was an ordinary citizen before he became the commander. However, there was a flaw: "The ship girl pieces that came out of the Siren Test Site mainly think based on their memories of their own faction. When they return to their original faction, they will most likely follow the orders of the current faction. It is even possible that they will turn around and attack us."

"...Don't shatter my beautiful filter of 'you'."

Zhou He pursed his lips. Although the various factions in the game's storyline were still constantly clashing and fighting each other, he didn't want to see the ship girls from different factions fighting each other, nor did he want to be at odds with the local ship girl forces.

"Hehe~ Commander is sometimes just like a child."

Hu De smiled faintly, but Zhou He's reaction reassured her.

"That's called having a childlike heart."

Zhou He corrected him, then shifted the topic to Zuikaku and his group who were traveling. While Long Island was scouting the situation in the north, Zuikaku and his group also arrived in the West Second District. Yesterday, many mass-produced Sirens were running around, causing a large number of Sirens to wander in the previously cleared sea area.

Within the West Second District, there are about a dozen mass-produced Sirens, which are not even concentrated in one place, but scattered in various places like loose sand. If it weren't for the concern that the executors in the South Second District would suddenly turn violent, Ruihe alone could have wiped them all out.

……

Zhou He's arrangement for testing whether mass-produced ships and executors shared intelligence was to attack the mass-produced ships near the executors from the farthest point. When Zuikaku and Bismarck's two teams entered the West Second District, Zhou He's gaze swept across the area and found that the Siren mass-produced ships furthest from the executors had already lost their connection.

This was Zuikaku's doing. In the midst of constant battles, Zuikaku's fighting power became increasingly ferocious. The Sirens team that might have needed some time to maneuver before could now be dealt with in a single encounter.

Zhou He had also reviewed Ruihe's stats. Putting everything else aside, just considering the aviation stat alone, it had grown from the initial 79 to 103, an increase of 24. In percentage terms, the current Ruihe was 30 percentage points stronger than the initial Ruihe.

Because there was no friendly control group, Zuikaku usually complained that the Sirens were becoming less and less durable, never thinking about his own exaggerated, even explosive, strength growth.

As with Zuikaku, so too with the others. Yuudachi, who joined the earliest and fought the most battles, grew from an initial 108 torpedo attack to 172, durability from 303 to 628, and artillery attack from 13 times to 21. These numbers almost doubled, and her artillery attack and durability attributes were almost approaching those of ordinary light cruisers, while her torpedo attack was far ahead.

Judging from the data alone, Zhou He even believes that Yuudachi will one day be strong enough to stand and fight battleships without being at a disadvantage.

"His equipment hasn't changed, but his combat strength has skyrocketed. That's too mysterious."

Watching the fleeting Siren icon on the system display, Zhou He simply stopped thinking about how his ship girls' enhancements were manifested and quietly observed the movements of the Executors docked in the South Second District: In his plan, the battle in the West Second District would be held every ten minutes, but even after the wave of mass-produced ships closest to the Executors was sunk, these Executors still did not move.

"It seems that these executors are indeed in a different intelligence network than the mass-produced ones."

Zhou He's eyes flickered. The executors were probably directly under the control of the test subjects. The fact that they had stopped acting as a group meant that they had not received orders. If they did not take this opportunity to test the individual combat capabilities of the executors, it would be difficult to test them again once the test subjects came out to take command.

He counted the number of executors in the South Second District, including those in the border areas of the South Second and Third Districts, totaling 46 executors, more than three times the number of his family's attack fleet...

"never mind."

He relayed the confirmation of the test results to Bismarck and Zuikaku, while ordering Bismarck to move closer to the North Block 2, and Zuikaku to protect the destroyers as planned to scout the situation in the West Block 4.

"There really is no information sharing system between mass production units and executors."

Because Zhou He hadn't spoken for a long time, Hu De took a short walk around the area. When he heard Zhou He's explanation, he was slightly surprised. He found a clean spot not far from Zhou He, bent his knees and sat down, placing his hands on his thighs, and said, "This discovery is very useful for our current development."

"Yes, once we've dealt with all the mass-produced units around here, we can focus on fighting these executors."

Zhou He nodded in agreement: "However, right now, our main objective should not be to fight the executors, but to wait for the battle in the north to end."

"I don't know how the battle is going."