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

In the central Mediterranean, the night wind carried a heavy, salty smell, and the waves rose and fell in the boundless darkness.

A severely overloaded rubber boat drifted like a fragile leaf on the dark sea.

The ship departed from the sea off Tripoli, and its airbags, which were originally designed to hold only thirty people, were crammed with seventy-three.

Twenty-nine-year-old Amir sat on the edge of the stern, half of his body already soaked by the icy seawater.

He was a commoner from Eritrea who spent the first half of his life repairing cars in a run-down repair shop in Asmara, his hands covered in oil and grime.

Later, the war spread, and the repair shop was forcibly requisitioned as a military warehouse. He lost everything and could only flee north with his five-year-old niece.

He ventured into the Libyan desert and eventually embarked on a smuggling route across the Mediterranean.

Fourteen months ago, he traveled the exact same route, and of the forty-one people on the same ship, only twelve survived to see the coastline of Lampedusa.

His five-year-old niece breathed her last in his arms, her small body swallowed by the cold seawater.

He survived, spending nine months in a refugee camp in Italy, before being forcibly deported back to a detention center in Libya after his asylum application was rejected.

Three weeks ago, he escaped during the chaos at the detention center and used the last of his money to board this ship of death once again.

Two hours after setting off, the engine let out an unpleasant cough before stalling completely.

The human trafficker operator cursed, jumped onto the accompanying speedboat without hesitation, and left the boat full of people behind.

The rubber boat started to leak air.

The sound of the airbag depressurizing was faint and fragmented, like someone sniffling incessantly in the dark, with a desperate rhythm.

Seawater seeped into the cabin along the dried-up edges.

First it reached above the ankles, then it went over the calves.

The seawater, at 16 degrees Celsius, was icy cold and carried a pungent smell of diesel fuel and cheap rubber.

The ship began to list severely.

The darkness erupted with the piercing cries of children, the desperate screams of women, and some who tried to stand up in the chaos slipped and fell into the sea.

Amir clung tightly to the ropes on the gunwale, and as a young mother slid into the water, she forcefully shoved her three-year-old daughter into his arms.

Before the mother could even utter a final word, she was swept away by a wave into an abyss.

Amir tightened his arms, holding the little girl close to his chest.

He vowed to himself that this time he would never let the child in his arms die at sea again.

The rubber boat sank faster and faster until only a small piece of rubber from the edge of the airbag was still visible above the water.

Amir's head was already submerged in the seawater.

He used all his strength to support the little girl's head with one hand, allowing her to surface for air.

With his other hand, he gripped the last section of the airbag cable tightly, his fingernails almost digging into the rubber.

It felt like there was a fire burning in his lungs, and his legs began to cramp severely due to the extreme cold. Icy seawater poured into his nasal cavity, bringing excruciating pain.

In his final moments of blurred consciousness, his left hand touched something underwater that was not part of the seawater at all.

It was an extremely thin, transparent wing surface with flowing, light blue patterns.

The touch was warm, even with a faint pulse.

It was as if someone was at the bottom of dark water, steadily supporting his palm.

In the void, the transparent panel unfolded silently.

[Trigger condition validation begins.]

[Target identity verified: Pure civilian, never involved in armed activities or human trafficking.]

[Experience Verification: I witnessed fellow passengers drowning in the same sea area, was rescued, and then returned to that area.]

[Status Verification: At the moment of triggering, the individual was on the verge of drowning, with vital signs critical.]

[All three locks open simultaneously; access confirmed.]

A halo of light, centered on Amir, spread silently across the dark sea.

Instead of forming a circular diffusion surface, the halo extended straight out in both directions along the main smuggling route from Tripoli to Lampedusa.

The light was extremely faint, almost without any brightness, forming an invisible, continuous protective wing-like shield.

This protective belt covers the main shipping route and a depth of about 15 kilometers on both sides.

The deflated rubber boat stopped sinking in that instant.

The airbags were still deflated, and the damaged hull showed no signs of repair, but it was as if it were being held up by an invisible giant hand, firmly fixed at a certain depth below the water's surface, and it did not sink an inch further.

Seventy-three people, along with the several tons of seawater that surged into the cabin, were absolutely and smoothly leveled in the waves.

The hull began to move slowly under the thrust of the transparent wing flow.

The course was automatically corrected, and the rubber boat proceeded at a steady pace, not exceeding a safe speed, along the waterway toward the nearest legal rescue vessel.

Amir was panting heavily, the little girl in his arms was still crying, but he knew they had survived.

At the same time, the other two refugee boats within the wing flow coverage area also gained absolute buoyancy.

One of the dilapidated wooden boats, which had already begun to take on a lot of water, was forcibly stabilized just before it was about to capsize, remaining as stable as if it had been nailed to the surface of the water.

But on the third ship, a completely different scene unfolded.

Two human traffickers are beating a young male refugee who is trying to take up more space with wooden sticks.

The buoyancy remained, and the ship continued to float steadily on the sea.

But the planks beneath the two human traffickers' feet suddenly became as smooth as if they had been coated with a thick layer of grease.

The seawater surged up from both sides of the ship in an extremely gentle arc, tightly enveloping their calves.

Then, an irresistible force followed the current, sliding the two men off the ship's side and into the icy sea.

One of the traffickers reacted extremely quickly, reaching out and grabbing the rope on the outside of the boat the instant he fell into the water.

As soon as he closed his five fingers, a layer of slippery water film immediately seeped out from the surface of the rope.

His hand felt like it was gripping a soaking wet bar of soap; his five fingers slipped off one by one, leaving him completely powerless.

Another human trafficker struggled desperately in the water, trying to order the refugees on the boat to pull him back.

He shouted three times at the top of his lungs, and the people on the boat were too frightened to move.

Wing Stream completely ignored his will; the surrounding ocean currents bypassed his struggling arms and continued to push him northeastward.

The two struggled desperately in the water, only to be horrified to find that they were not sinking.

The sea supported their bodies, like lying on a huge, soaking wet mattress, but no matter how hard they paddled, they couldn't get even half a meter closer to the side of the boat.

The ocean current, moving at a constant speed of two knots per hour, propelled them northeastward.

That area happens to be a key route for the Italian Coast Guard's night patrols.

The refugees on the ship crowded on the deck, watching the two human traffickers drift further and further away in the cold moonlight.

A long silence fell over the entire cabin.

After a long time, someone covered their face in the darkness and let out a suppressed sob.

The cries spread like a plague as these people, abandoned by the world, wept bitterly on the stable deck, letting an unseen force propel them toward life.