Super Rich: Starting the game by going back ten years to buy Bitcoin

"Locked." Ling'er's reply was almost instantaneous. "The Ford-class carrier strike group is 230 kilometers from our current position, due west-southwest. The fleet is cruising slowly at 12 knots, with four escort ships and two destroyers in the vicinity."

Li Yichen hovered a thousand meters in the air and glanced down at the convoy below.

Twelve trucks lined up in a long queue, their headlights beaming as they climbed one after the other on the desert dirt road. They were still more than fifty kilometers from the port of Zubala.

He didn't leave.

Having three broken ribs wasn't a pleasant experience. Every breath brought a dull ache from the chafing of the broken bones, shooting from his left ribcage down his back. But that wasn't why he stayed.

One hundred and thirty-seven lives.

He wouldn't go anywhere until the warship picked him up.

"Brother, are you going to the aircraft carrier first?" Ling'er asked.

"No rush. Get the person there first."

The convoy's speed was limited by the trucks' performance, reaching a maximum of sixty miles per hour on the bumpy dirt road. Li Yichen hung there, a thousand meters in the air, drifting slowly along with the convoy's speed.

My ribs are throbbing with pain.

Twenty minutes later, a cloud of dust suddenly rose from the wilderness on the left.

Ling'er's alarm was faster than his reaction. "Vehicle approaching from the side! An armed pickup truck with a 12.7mm heavy machine gun mounted on its bed is accelerating towards the convoy."

Li Yichen raised his right palm.

The blue-white light condensed in his palm for less than a second. Two pulse cannons fired one after the other. The first shot pierced the hood, the second pierced the cab. The pickup truck lurched forward another thirty meters due to inertia, then veered and crashed into a sand pit by the roadside, bursting into flames.

The convoy didn't stop and continued driving forward.

Fifteen minutes later, Ling'er spoke again. "Eight hundred meters to the right front, a heat source has been detected at the third-floor window of an abandoned building, where a long-barreled weapon is being set up. Sniper."

A palm strike.

The entire wall, along with the window frame, was blown apart, and broken bricks and concrete blocks were scattered all over the ground.

No one in the convoy was injured or killed during the entire journey.

4:47 a.m.

The coastline appeared in the distance. The lights of Zubala Port dotted the sea, and a gray warship on the dock was fully lit, with the two white characters "Linyi" clearly visible under the searchlights on its hull.

The convoy entered the port area.

Li Yichen hovered at a height of one thousand meters in the air, without descending.

Through Ling'er's visual system, he watched as 137 people jumped off the truck one after another. Some fell, some cried, and some knelt on the ground, kissing the concrete of the dock.

Sailors ran down the gangway to help, some carrying stretchers and others handing out water bottles.

The last person to board was a boy of seven or eight years old. His legs were too weak to stand, so a young sailor picked him up and carried him up the gangway in a few quick steps.

Ling'er's notification popped up: "Brother, everyone is safe. All 137 people have been confirmed to be on board."

Li Yichen let out a long sigh.

A sharp pain shot through his ribs. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to swallow the pain.

Then he turned around.

Facing southwest. The direction of the aircraft carrier.

230 kilometers.

"Ling'er, descend to five meters below the sea surface."

"Brother, five meters is too low. At this height, even a slight deviation will send us crashing into the wave crest—"

"So you fly. Attitude control is entirely your responsibility."

"receive."

The armor plummeted rapidly. From one thousand meters to five meters, it took less than three seconds. The sea exploded beneath their feet, waves whipped up by the air currents and slapped against their leg armor, salt spray coating the lower edge of their masks with a white layer.

At this altitude, the clutter from the waves would be enough to completely drown out the armor's signals with radar noise.

Stealth.

After Ling'er took control of the flight attitude, the battle armor skimmed the sea surface and propelled southwest at twice the speed of sound. The crests of the waves swept past three meters below their feet, and occasionally one or two large waves rolled up to knee height before being torn into foam by the air currents.

twenty minutes.

At the edge of the horizon, the gray silhouette of a ship emerged from the horizon.

huge.

Even from twenty kilometers away, the outline of that thing looked unrealistically large. 130,000 tons of steel floated on the sea, while the four or five escorting ships around it looked like toy boats.

"Ling'er, full-spectrum scan. Find its weakest point."

"Scanning in progress."

On the HUD, a 3D perspective model of the USS Ford unfolds layer by layer. The deck structure, hull compartments, propulsion system, ammunition storage areas... the armor thickness data for each layer is clearly marked.

0.7 seconds later, Ling'er marked a red flashing dot on the model.

"Next to elevator number three on the starboard aft side. Five meters below the deck there is the upper deck of the main ammunition magazine, where the armor is relatively thinnest. The ammunition magazine stores a large amount of aviation ammunition and missile fuel."

She paused for a moment.

"If the ammunition depot explodes, the ship will be completely destroyed, even if it doesn't sink."

Li Yichen stared at the red dot.

He quickly reviewed the weapons currently on his armor in his mind. The palm pulse cannon couldn't penetrate the carrier deck. The shoulder-mounted missiles were all used up. He only had one armor-piercing round left, with a penetration depth of 600 millimeters, which was far from enough for the carrier's multi-layered protection.

The only option.

Chest.

High-power laser energy converter.

This thing isn't used normally. It was designed to handle extreme situations—connecting two miniature hydrogen fuel cells on the back in parallel to instantly release all the stored energy, which is then focused into an ultra-high-power laser beam via a chest converter.

It can cut any known metal.

"Ling'er, what is the maximum time the converter can withstand?"

"Ten seconds. If it exceeds ten seconds, the core lens assembly will melt down and become unusable." Ling'er spoke half a beat faster. "And during the parallel discharge, the other weapon systems and flight thrust of the battle suit will decrease by forty percent. Brother, you need to think this through—"

"A converter costs several million," Li Yichen interrupted her. "An aircraft carrier costs 13 billion US dollars."

He smiled.

His ribs hurt so much that he could only grin after laughing.

"This deal is a great bargain."

"Attack route planning." Ling'er switched to combat mode. "Rapidly ascend from the sea surface to 1,000 meters directly above the aircraft carrier, hover, activate parallel discharge, and continuously irradiate the target area with the chest laser. The entire attack window must be controlled within 15 seconds."

"Why fifteen seconds?"

"The Phalanx CIWS on an aircraft carrier takes eight to twelve seconds from radar lock-on to firing."

It takes eight to twelve seconds to lock on. He only needs to irradiate for ten seconds.

The time difference is sufficient.

Li Yichen took a deep breath—a sharp pain shot through his ribs. He swallowed the breath back and switched to shallow, rapid breathing.

"Walk."

The armored vehicle suddenly rose five meters from the sea surface. The vectoring nozzles were fully deflected, and it ascended vertically, reaching a height of one thousand meters from zero in two seconds.

The aircraft carrier deck unfolds beneath your feet.

Huge. Gray. Brightly lit. Ground crew working at night moved across the deck, their fluorescent vests flashing under searchlights.

Inside the CIC command center, Major General Jeffrey was sweating profusely from the encrypted communications from the Pentagon. All fifteen F-35Cs had been wiped out, and all fifteen pilots were dead. His hand was still trembling as he hung up the phone.

The air raid siren went off.

A piercing buzzing sound filled the entire command room. On the radar screen, a red dot appeared out of nowhere, a kilometer to the upper right of the aircraft carrier.

Everyone's blood was frozen.

The sailor on duty on deck looked up.

Silver-gray. Humanoid. Hanging motionless in the night sky.

A brighter and brighter red light was gathering at his chest.

"Phalanx CIWS, fire!" Jeffrey roared.

The close-in weapon system's radar has just completed the lock-on procedure—

late.

A crimson beam of light, as thick as an arm, slashed down from a height of one thousand meters.

It hit the deck next to elevator number three with precision.

The moment the beam of light touched the steel plate, the special steel emitted a piercing cracking sound. Sparks and molten metal droplets flew in all directions, and the anti-slip coating on the deck instantly vaporized, sending white smoke billowing into the sky.

Five seconds.

The entire flight deck was melted through, exposing the red-hot structural layer beneath. All equipment within a 20-meter radius above the deck was deformed and melted.

The Phalanx CIWS finally opened fire.

A 20mm tungsten-core bullet struck the armored vehicle, sending sparks flying. It was like a tickle.

Eight seconds.

The partition beneath the structural layer was also pierced. A crimson beam of light pierced straight into the ammunition depot.

Li Yichen saw four words marked by Ling'er on the HUD: "Target has been penetrated".

next second.

A muffled explosion was heard from inside the aircraft carrier.

The deck bulged and cracked outwards from the point of penetration, and orange-red flames shot out from the cracks.

The converter overload alarm is screaming.

Li Yichen severed the parallel connection. The lens group on his chest had turned red and deformed, and the edges were beginning to melt.

It's scrapped.

He didn't even glance at it. The vectoring nozzles ignited at full power, and the armor instantly rose from a thousand meters in the air, retreating at Mach 3 eastward at full speed.

Behind them, the USS Ford's ammunition depots experienced a chain reaction of explosions.

A ball of orange-red fire burst from inside the ship's deck, thick smoke and debris rising dozens of meters into the air. The 130,000-ton behemoth trembled violently on the sea, listing more than eight degrees to starboard.

Damage control alarms sounded throughout the entire ship.

In the CIC command center, Major General Jeffrey's legs gave way, and he collapsed onto the control panel.

The battle damage report on the screen was scrolling. Line after line. All in red.

He stared at the red words, his lips trembling, unable to utter a single syllable for a long time.

At an altitude of 30,000 meters.

Li Yichen flew eastward at Mach 3. His ribs ached so much that cold sweat beaded on his forehead, but the corners of his mouth were turned up in a smile.

He dialed Gu Shounian's number.

"Brother Gu, the people have been rescued. One hundred and thirty-seven, not one is missing."

A long sigh of relief came from the other end of the phone. "Okay! Okay—"

"However, there's a situation," Li Yichen said calmly, "During the rescue, the United States launched fifteen F-35Cs from its aircraft carrier to intercept us."

Gu Shounian's breathing suddenly became heavy. "Are you injured?"

"Three broken ribs, not a big deal." Li Yichen paused for a moment. "Brother Gu, I want to confirm—if I had shot down all fifteen fighter jets, it shouldn't be a major problem, right?"

Upon hearing Li Yichen's words, Gu Shounian on the other end of the phone fell into a deathly silence.