Fate's Choice: Livestream at the Start Summoning Billions of Ravens

The moment the Yan'an-class active towed array sonar was activated, a beam of highly focused sonar pulse shot out along azimuth 085.

It completely skips the conventional sector search mode.

A needle.

It plunges straight down to a point 73 kilometers away, at a depth of 320 meters.

At the same time, the standard warning voice of the Great Xia Navy sounded on the internationally recognized underwater emergency communication channel.

"Attention, unidentified underwater target. You have entered the Da Xia military operation warning zone. Please surface immediately, identify yourself, and leave the area."

Seventy-three kilometers away.

Inside the command center of the USS Colorado, Lieutenant Commander Hull heard the sound of sonar pulses hitting the hull.

It was completely different from the wideband swishing that swept across the surface of a fan; a directional pulse focused to the extreme struck the outer steel plate directly above his command cabin.

The deputy looked up from the control panel, his face pale.

"Sir, they know exactly where we are."

Lieutenant Colonel Hull clenched his teeth so tightly that a bulge appeared in the muscles of his cheek.

"Direction, depth, speed, everything is locked."

The assistant opened the rulebook, the speed at which his fingers turned the pages producing a rustling sound.

"Sir, according to Article 9 of the Rules of Engagement in peacetime, the enemy issues an surfacing command after locking on with a sonar. If we refuse..."

"Rising."

Lieutenant Colonel Hull interrupted him.

He reluctantly reached out and pulled the surfacing alarm.

Continuing to lie in wait when precisely targeted and without any reason to retaliate is a military gamble.

The red warning lights were flashing and rotating in the command cabin. The buoyancy angle was preset, and the ballast tanks began to drain water.

The black hull of the Colorado surged out of the water at an emergency buoyancy angle, the afternoon sun shining on the wet hull and reflecting a blinding white light.

Lieutenant Colonel Hull picked up the wireless telephone receiver.

His hand gripped the microphone base so tightly that his knuckles turned blue.

"The US Navy's SSN-788 Colorado is conducting routine training and has received your warning to immediately leave the area."

When he uttered those words, each syllable sounded like he was chewing on a stone.

Once the formation confirmed that the submarine had begun to turn around and leave, the anti-submarine alert was lifted.

From the moment Fryna's toes touched the seawater to the moment the American nuclear submarine surfaced and revealed its identity, the entire process took less than twenty minutes.

Zero conflict, zero firing, zero casualties.

Clean and neat.

On the stern deck of the Exploration Ship, Funina did not move from beginning to end.

Zhou Ru strode out of the cabin, still clutching the latest report she had just received from the bridge.

"The submarine has surfaced and is already turning around."

Funina was stuffing the last piece of the macaron in her hand into her mouth, puffing out her cheeks, chewing it, and swallowing it.

Her response consisted of only two words.

"It's in the way."

Then she looked up at the sky directly above her.

The sky was clear and the wind was at level one.

Perfect diving conditions.

Then, Funina casually handed the crumpled macaron wrapper to Zhou Ruo.

"What happened to that little thing Chen Jianguo gave us?"

It took Zhou Ruo two seconds to understand what she was talking about. She bent down and rummaged through a waterproof bag in the corner of the deck to find the black oval-shaped device.

Underwater communication buoy.

Funina took it, weighed it in her hand, and twirled it between her fingers.

"Lighter than I thought."

She fastened the buoy to her belt, patted it to make sure it was secure, and then did something no one expected.

She turned and walked toward the intercom panel of the broadcast system on the outside of the bridge.

Zhou Ruo took two steps behind her.

"What are you going to do?"

Without turning around, Funina reached out and pressed the broadcast button for the entire formation.

A short, crackling electrical whistling sound came from the loudspeaker on the deck, followed by Funina's voice echoing throughout every corner of the three warships.

All 1,200 officers and soldiers in the entire formation heard her words at the same time.

"Everyone...on the ship."

Her tone was slow and clear, with ample spacing between each word.

"This water god is going down now."

There was a pause on the radio.

"There's something dirty down there that needs cleaning, and there's something else making noise, I don't know what it is."

It paused for another beat.

"I'm not sure how long I'll be staying."

Her voice was devoid of any extra emotion, simply stating the facts.

"We'll send a signal every thirty minutes; the buoy will let you know I'm still here."

There was a two-second pause.

"If the signal is down for more than two hours..."

The two-second pause made everyone who heard the broadcast hold their breath.

"...That's probably just a broken buoy, don't panic."

The broadcast has ended.

No one laughed in the corridors, on the deck, or in the engine room of the Tanyuan.

Fu Ningna released the broadcast button, withdrew her finger from the panel, and turned to walk towards the lowest point of the stern.

Zhou Ruo followed behind her, their footsteps echoing one after the other on the iron deck.

When she reached the mooring bollard, Funina stopped.

She reached out and took off her hat, handing it to Zhou Ruo.

Zhou Ruo took it with both hands; a creamy fingerprint remained on the brim of the hat.

Funina bent down and took off her black court shoes with blue bows, placing them side by side on the deck.

Her long hair swayed gently in the still air, and water molecules in the air swirled around her spontaneously, creating a faint breeze.

She turned and glanced at Zhou Ruo.

Zhou Ruo's eyes were red, but she didn't shed any tears.

Funina smiled at her.

It was a very faint smile, so faint that the corners of the mouth only turned up less than two millimeters, and you couldn't notice it unless you stared at it.

"Wait for me to come back and get the cream puffs ready."

She paused for a moment.

"Made fresh."

Zhou Ruo's lips moved, and the sound that came out of her throat had a rough edge.

"it is good."

Furina turned around and faced the sea.

She lifted her right foot and stepped into the sea.

The moment her feet touched the water's surface, the seawater supported her weight.

The water level dipped about three centimeters beneath her feet, forming a complete footprint, but without breaking.

She took one step forward, two steps, three steps.

I stood in the middle of the sea, about ten meters from the stern of the ship.

On the deck, more than twenty sailors who had poured out crowded behind the railing, their mouths agape, but not one of them uttered a sound.

Funina slowly squatted down and placed her hands on the water.

Blue light shone from all ten of her fingers into the sea simultaneously.

The light spread out beneath her, drawing a blue halo about twenty meters in diameter on the water's surface.

The aperture began to rotate.

One second, two seconds, three seconds.

At the end of the third second, the sea surface silently split open in the center of the aperture.

Without waves crashing or splashing, the entire expanse of seawater receded to both sides along a perfect circular boundary, revealing a vertical channel.

The passage is about four meters in diameter, and its walls are made of swirling blue water that extends downwards to a depth that is completely invisible to the naked eye.

Funina stood up.

She stepped onto the edge of the passageway, and her body began to sink.

Her long, silvery-white hair floated upwards in the flowing water within the passage, and the blue water droplet mark between her brows shone brightly against the blue water wall.

The entire fleet of 1,200 people stood at their respective posts or rushed onto the deck.

Every pair of eyes was fixed on the slender figure slowly descending through the blue tunnel.

On the Tanyuan, Yan'an, and Zunyi ships, all the portholes and decks with a view of the stern were packed with people.

No one speaks.

As Funina descended, her figure grew smaller and smaller, and the blue light wall reflected off her silhouette, giving it a faint blue halo.

When her head was submerged about fifty meters underwater, the blue halo at the entrance of the passage began to shrink.

The passageway was not closed.

The halo gradually shrank from a diameter of twenty meters, stopping when it reached about one meter and remaining there without changing.

The passageway still exists.

The blue water swirls continuously within an opening one meter in diameter. Looking down from the deck, one can see the blue light extending deep into the passageway along its walls until the light itself is swallowed up by the distance.