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

Funina pressed her right palm back onto the surface of the cocoon, and the purification boundary continued to crawl outward from its previous position.

Three centimeters, then another three centimeters.

The edge of the perception map flashed.

Far out at sea, 120 kilometers away, a metallic object pierces the surface and sinks at a steady pace. It's made entirely of titanium alloy, with buoyancy adjustment, passive sensors, and fiber optic cables connecting it to a much smaller, not part of a convoy. Heart rate data indicates the people on board are very tense.

She neither looked up nor pulled her hands off the cocoon.

The thing that jumps every fourteen seconds beneath my palm is far more important than anything slowly falling down from 120 kilometers away.

She pulled her senses back from the edge and pressed them back into the cocoon.

One hundred and twenty kilometers away on the sea, the ship that she didn't bother to even glance at was doing something it thought was a secret.

.....

On the Pacific Ocean, 120 kilometers away from the formation's anchorage coordinates.

A white research vessel flying the Bahamian academic research flag swayed slightly in the waves. The name of the organization painted on the hull was the North Pacific Deep-Sea Geological Survey, and the registration information pointed to a shell company that had been established for less than six months.

The hydraulic boom on the aft deck slowly lowered a full titanium alloy capsule into the sea.

The capsule is 4.7 meters long and has a maximum diameter of 1.2 meters. It has no propeller and relies on a buoyancy adjustment system to achieve vertical lifting and lowering. The outer shell is 54 millimeters thick and is designed to operate at a maximum depth of 11,000 meters.

Two hundred million US dollars.

Patterson's hand trembled as he signed the budget approval document, a fact he knew, as did the three people in the Pentagon's underground command center who were staring at the satellite data link main screen.

After the capsule enters the water, it automatically injects ballast water and sinks at a constant speed of 40 meters per minute. Six sets of passive acoustic sensors and a high-resolution optical module are activated simultaneously, and the data is transmitted back to the research vessel in real time through a thin fiber optic cable, and then relayed to the Pentagon via satellite.

Patterson's fingers rested on the armrest, his fingernails turning white.

His deputy stood half a step to his right rear, clutching a thin memo with the date of the Senate closed-door hearing marked on the cover: next Tuesday, seventy-two hours later.

"One kilometer."

The data officer's voice echoed in the command center, his tone trained to be completely flat.

"The housing temperature is normal, and all sensors are green."

Patterson didn't speak, his gaze fixed on the depth meter numbers in the lower left corner of the main screen, which changed every three seconds.

"Two thousand meters, condition is normal."

The spectrogram on the right side of the screen began to show messy low-frequency noise bands, which the data officer glanced at.

"We have begun to receive abnormal acoustic signals, the frequency distribution of which is consistent with the characteristics of abyssal noise recorded by the formation sonar."

Patterson's Adam's apple bobbed.

"continue."

"Three thousand meters."

The temperature of the outer wall of the shell began to rise abnormally, climbing from 3% of the design redundancy to 7%. The rise was not rapid, but the trend was stable, with no signs of decline.

The data officer turned to look at his deputy, who shook his head slightly.

No one dared to suggest stopping it.

"At 4,000 meters, the shell temperature exceeds the design redundancy by 10 percent."

Patterson tapped his fingers on the armrest.

What are the design limits?

"Thirty-five percent, sir."

"It's still early."

"Five thousand meters."

The optical module captured the first batch of suspended particles from the pitch-black background: purple microparticles with extremely low density, like someone had sprinkled a handful of luminous powder into ink. The particles had irregular ridges at their edges, reflecting the illumination from the detector's built-in micro-light source.

The data officer zoomed in on the image, and the purple particles slowly rotated in front of the lens. Each particle had a slightly different geometric shape, but they all had a sharpness that defied the laws of natural crystallization.

"What is this?"

Patterson leaned halfway out of the chair.

The data officer hesitated for two seconds.

"Unknown suspended matter, with density increasing with depth, is highly consistent with the description of the interior of the third pollution zone previously transmitted back by the formation."

He paused, then added a sentence.

"Sir, this is what they call the remnants of the abyss."

Patterson stared at the purple particles for nearly ten seconds before stopping tapping his fingers on the armrest.

"Continue descending."

"Six thousand meters."

The density of purple particles in the field of view of the optical module tripled, and the image clarity began to decrease. It was not a problem with the lens, but rather that the optical properties of the water itself were changing, and the refractive index was fluctuating unstablely. The autofocus system corrected itself seven times per second but still could not lock on completely.

The casing temperature climbed to 15 percent of the design redundancy.

"Passive acoustic sensor No. 1 has failed."

For the first time, there was a flicker of emotion in the data officer's voice.

"The sealant degraded under abnormal temperatures, allowing seawater to seep into the sensor cavity."

The deputy took half a step forward.

"Sir, one of the six sensors has been lost, and the temperature of the fiber optic cable's outer sheath is also rising. If we continue descending..."

"I said continue."

Patterson did not turn around.

"Seven thousand meters."

The optical module's image was almost completely covered by purple particles. Occasionally, one or two frames could penetrate the particle layer and capture the deeper darkness. There was nothing in the darkness, but the temperature data told everyone that the darkness was not empty.

The temperature of the outer wall of the casing exceeds the design redundancy by 22%.

Sensors No. 2 and No. 4 reported intermittent data packet loss, and the signal integrity rate dropped from 98% to 73%.

The deputy took another half step, almost standing next to Paterson's chair.

"gentlemen."

Patterson raised his right hand, putting his index finger to his lips.

"Eight thousand meters."

The optical module captured a single, all-changing frame at this depth.

The thick curtain of purple particles was torn open at a certain angle, and the gap existed for less than 0.3 seconds, but high-speed continuous shooting captured seven photos within this window.

The third frame is the clearest.

A blue beam of light extends upwards from the deepest part of the image. It is not scattered light, nor is it dispersion caused by refraction. It is a blue beam of light with direction, density, and boundaries, extending from the bottom of the lens's field of view all the way out of the frame. The angle is slightly tilted, like a luminous spear stuck into the depths of the sea.

Patterson actually jumped up from his chair this time.

He braced his hands on the edge of the control panel, his face less than 30 centimeters from the screen, the bloodshot in his eyes clearly visible in the screen light.

"enlarge."

The data officer magnified the third frame four times, revealing extremely regular water flow swirling patterns at the edges of the blue light pillar. The brightness inside the light pillar increased from the edges to the core, with the central area almost overexposed.

"This is her."

Patterson's voice was low, his finger resting on the screen, his fingertip landing precisely on the beam of light.

"This is the energy released by the water god in the abyss."

He straightened up, his breathing twice as heavy as it had been thirty seconds ago.

"Marked, archived, top security level."

"Sir, the casing temperature has reached 28% of the design redundancy..."

Did I ask you about the temperature?

Patterson turned around and looked at the data officer for three seconds.

"continue."