Revisiting Azur Lane

Zhou He took two steps back and opened the map. Sure enough, Kursk had already left the area covered by the headquarters and had left the port area at least an hour ago. This made him a little puzzled. He had given the map to Hood and could not show it to Kursk.

Forget it, I'll just report it to her when the battle starts.

……

Zhou He did not calculate the combat radius of Zuikaku in detail, but it was at least three hundred nautical miles. The target of this air raid was about a hundred nautical miles away from the port area. Theoretically, they could bomb the enemy directly at the doorstep, but considering the speed at which the aircraft arrived at the battlefield, Zuikaku followed behind Hood and others this time to shorten the distance between them and the target of the air raid as much as possible.

"Tosa, have you arrived at the designated location?"

At this time, Zuikaku was standing alone in the vast ocean. If you didn't look carefully while looking down from the air, you might not be able to spot her.

"I'm already here. Tosa is a little slow, but time waits for no one. Zuikaku, you start."

Before Tosa could reply, Hood gave the answer first - as a battlecruiser, Hood was much faster than the battleship Tosa, and even faster than the heavy cruiser Kursk.

"understood."

Zuikaku did not release the carrier-based aircraft immediately, but first flew forward with a reconnaissance plane to ensure that the information provided by Zhou He was correct. Only after there were no enemies on the air strike route did she condense the light spots and release the fighter jets. However, as soon as she took action, she received an order from Zhou He, and her expression suddenly became subtle.

Zhou He, who was far away in the command center, also felt a little weird at the moment. He just told Zuikaku not to worry about the recovery of the plane. If the bombing failed, just use the plane to crash into the aircraft carrier. After sending the message, he suddenly remembered that this way of fighting originated in Sakura Empire and it was not very humane.

After a moment's hesitation, he clicked on the video and saw Zuikaku with a determined look on his face. He explained aloud: "Zuikaku, I didn't express myself clearly just now. What I meant was that if your fighter plane is damaged during the war, I can immediately refill your fighter plane with full ammunition, allowing you to continuously launch attacks."

"Ah, so that's it."

Zuikaku noticed and heard it, and his expression softened. He rolled his eyes at Zhou He in annoyance and said, "Why didn't you tell me this earlier? I thought you found out that the enemy had more than one aircraft carrier."

"My mine."

Zhou He quickly admitted his mistake, breathed a sigh of relief, and said in a deep voice: "This is the biggest battle our port has ever encountered. I hope we can win it in one battle."

"Hmph~ Do you know who you are talking to?"

Zuikaku raised his eyebrows, his eyes showing his elegance: "Just watch, there is no task in this world that I cannot complete!"

Chapter 36 Tata open!

A regular group of fighter jets shuttled through the clouds like a flock of migratory birds. Although they were noisy and backward propeller-driven aircraft, they had performance far beyond their appearance. They left white air trails in the sky, overlooking the endless sea - and the huge dark and scarlet fleet in a circular formation, taking a defensive posture.

"The air strike has reached the enemy ships. We have found one aircraft carrier, one battleship, four heavy cruisers and one light cruiser..."

Zuikaku, who was controlling the fleet, was thinking rapidly. He processed the information fed back by the planes and informed Hood, Tosa and Hermione. Finally, he restrained his breath and lowered his voice: "All ships are in position. The battle has begun."

By raising the field of vision to take a hundred miles as the benchmark, one can see tiny, invisible people moving on the sea divided into three sequences. Directly opposite them are huge warships that are five times larger than them. The swooping fighter jets are the switch for everything. The moment the anti-aircraft artillery fire sounded, the distance between the two sides was infinitely shortened.

……

"what is this?"

In order to get the newly built ship girl with the magic cube and put it into the battlefield immediately, Zhou He did not return to the office, but sat on the stairs at the entrance of the command department. At this time, his brows were slightly frowned, looking at the battlefield in the west, the foggy area that had not been explored yesterday.

An island and a black vortex next to the island.

He didn't know what the sea over there looked like in Zuikaku's eyes, but according to the system's map display, the Siren aircraft carrier was located right in the center of the vortex, and the vortex was even still rotating, which looked very weird.

“Is there anything similar in the big world of the game?”

The answer is yes. In the center of the game world map is a huge vortex. The closer to the vortex, the stronger the Siren will be. However, that vortex is the basis for the existence of the game world module. The small vortex in front of him is obviously not that advanced.

Zhou He watched the movement and changes of the Siren fleet on the map, and suddenly thought of the Siren's iconic technology "Mirror Sea". This technology is relatively common in game activities, and the concept itself is relatively complex. It exists as if an independent world has entered the cracks between the worlds, and it also refers to a real area that simply interferes with your cognition and forms an abnormal magnetic field.

In the game, this is a panacea-like technology, and the Sirens use it most often to open up 'testing grounds' to conduct experiments of unknown purpose - in the game's activity plot, the experimenter-level Siren host can perform a large-scale 'restart' of the player's 'reality'. If you dig deeper, the world in the game is also very likely to be a testing ground for the Sirens.

In addition, the official event plot of the game is very well done, resulting in a truly open world view. Your guess this way feels reasonable, and his guess that way also feels reasonable.

To conclude, the Mirror Sea is like a random Easter egg. Once you enter it, you may encounter anything. If you are lucky, you may even come across a few trapped meta ships and take them back as heirlooms.

"So, this is the entrance to the Mirror Sea?"

Zhou He, who has already arrived in the real world of KanColle, naturally will not apply all the information in the game that cannot be confirmed at all, but since the system has marked this place, then there must be a meaning for its existence. Even if he broke into that damn secret sea area, it is also a kind of mirror sea area.

Thinking of this, Zhou He has already determined in his heart that this black vortex is the map feedback of the mirror sea.

Hey~

A sound as inaudible as the flapping of mosquito wings but with a strong presence rang in Zhou He's ears, startling him so much that he instantly threw aside his thoughts on the Mirror Sea and focused his attention on observing the battle situation on the map. At this time, the two sides had not yet met, only the formation of the Siren aircraft carrier fleet had changed, and there were even casualties, but the most critical aircraft carrier icon still existed.

"Not sunk?"

What the hell is that system yelling about.

Zhou He frowned and cut out the map. He found Zuikaku, who was already missing a quarter of her ammunition, in the dock and refilled her supplies. He then opened the task interface and looked at the fourth task that appeared. His eyes widened slightly:

④ Discover and explore a mirror sea area. You can get the following rewards based on your encounter and exploration completion: 1 furniture box, 1 to 10 self-selected research and development drawings, 1 to 10 self-selected ship equipment parts, and 1 to 3 mind cubes.

Note: In the mirror sea, the drop rate of the ship girl is slightly increased.

"Furniture! Ah, no, they gave me so many Rubik's Cubes. No wonder I felt that there were so few ways to obtain resources. It turns out that I haven't reached the level of open tasks yet."

Zhou He was so fascinated by the rich rewards that he could hardly take his eyes off them.

However, he soon realized that the biggest benefit of the Mirror Sea was not these fixed rewards, but the improved drop rates from the ship girl below. With this buff, even if he encountered an extremely large Mirror Sea that was worth exploring, he would not be at a great loss. He might even go in with one team and come out with three or four teams.

"That's wonderful."

Zhou He suddenly found that he could resonate with the fighting factions like Zuikaku and Yudachi. Since he was in this era and this position, he had to strive to climb up. Tata, Tata, Tata!

beep—

After calming down a little, Zhou He looked at the map again and felt something was wrong. It had been almost half an hour since Zuikaku launched the air strike, but the Siren's aircraft carrier had not been destroyed yet. Even the accompanying Siren fleet had formed a parallel line with the surrounding Sirens, and was about to meet Tosa and the others.

Something unexpected happened?

After replenishing Zuikaku whose damage was as high as 30%, Zhou He thought of Zuikaku's confident look not long ago, frowned and decided to give her another half an hour.

……

"It's a tough nut to crack. If we face off head-on, the pressure will be enormous."

At this moment, Zuikaku's expression was also very solemn.

She launched an air strike first, penetrated the anti-aircraft firepower of the Siren fleet and hit the Siren aircraft carrier. She thought it would end successfully, but the hull of the Siren aircraft carrier was incredibly strong. When she hit five out of ten shells, the planes on the runway on the deck of the Siren aircraft carrier were blown to pieces, but the runway was not blown through, and it was even able to push out new planes from the hangar.

Fortunately, the bumpy deck runway could no longer support aircraft takeoff. Zuikaku, who was not dragged into the quagmire of air combat, decisively chose to use torpedoes to blow up the bottom of the ship. It took a total of three rounds of suicide air strikes to barely pierce the bottom of the Siren aircraft carrier, destroying its power system and the take-off runway, leaving it powerless to resist and waiting to capsize on the spot.

However, because most of its power was used on the opponent's aircraft carrier, it did not harass the approaching Siren fleet Zuikaku too much. The fastest Siren destroyer had already collided with Hermione and Yuudachi on the right side of the battlefield.

Unlike the previous battles, the number of Sirens this time was extremely large, and they were coming from multiple directions. This resulted in Hermione and Yudachi facing a mixed fleet of destroyers and light aircraft carriers approaching from different directions, which far outnumbered their own.

Boom boom boom boom boom!

The destroyer's bombardment was weaker than that of the battlecruiser, but when the numbers were added together, it was still an extremely terrifying firepower coverage. Even a brave man like Yudachi could only retreat in the face of the continuous artillery attacks, and even got separated from Hermione during the period.

"Sister Hermione, go deal with the Siren over there, and let me take care of this one!"

Yudachi's petite body braved the wind and waves. The waves caused by the shells and the iron fragments passed through her body. Under her torn shirt were numerous small wounds. Red blood overflowed from the wounds and was blown away by the strong wind, dyeing the clothes bright red.

The dense explosions forced her to shout loudly even when using the team voice chat. Her wet hair stuck to her forehead, and her red eyes showed no fear, but only excitement and fighting spirit that was comparable to madness.

"Okay, Yuuri, you..."

Hermione's subsequent words were drowned out by the sound of artillery fire, and Yudachi had already begun charging. With her extremely fast speed, she drew a white wave line on the exploding sea surface. Facing the enemy's artillery fire, she also raised the cannon on the back of her hand:

Boom!

A shell landed on the enemy ship, followed by more frequent explosions. Two destroyers were hit head-on, one of which had its bridge blown off and tilted to one side, and the other was detonated by its own ammunition depot.

"I see. The material of the Siren ship 'over here' is much better. It's interesting."

Far away from the battle line, Kursk stood on the sea, waving his gloved hands forward like claws, his face still calm: "Fire."

Her arrival relieved some of Yuudachi's pressure, but also attracted more Sirens. However, facing the enemy's fire, she was too lazy to avoid it and went straight to meet it, with her main guns firing at full power, and smoke filled the air wherever she passed.

boom!

Finally, the shells fired from afar hit Yudachi who was sprinting. Although Yudachi twisted his body with the fastest reaction and used the turret on the ship to block it, it could not change the fact that he was hit. His body was thrown out from the black smoke like a sharp arrow, fell into the water, splashing water, and it was unknown how far he retreated before he stopped.

"It hurts... Hey, it doesn't hurt as much as I imagined."

The soaked Yudachi stood up shakily from the blood-stained sewage, gritting her teeth and trying to avoid the bombardment as quickly as possible. However, she discovered something unusual the moment she moved - her injured body had been repaired by an unknown force when she flew into the air. Now she felt a sharp stinging pain on her skin from colliding with the sea surface. She could not remember the feeling of being hit by the shell just now because her mind was blank when she was knocked away.

"Is it the Commander?!"

Yudachi rubbed her sore arm and moved quickly. She counted her ammunition and found that it was fully replenished. She knew of only one person who could do such a thing. The emotions surging in her heart made her unable to suppress her cry out, driving her to rush to the battlefield again.

However, this time, she was no longer facing a one-sided firepower coverage from the enemy. A familiar fleet of aircraft appeared in the sky. From behind her, a large amount of intensive artillery fire roared towards the enemy camp, almost turning the destroyers, light cruisers and other sirens that blocked her way into fireballs with a crushing force. She also received a new combat goal from Zhou He:

Anti-submarine.

……

To be honest, when Zhou He saw that Yudachi's 'health bar' almost dropped to zero in an instant, his heart almost stopped beating. The speed at which he pressed the repair button was so fast that he couldn't even realize it now, so that Yudachi's health bar seemed to have not changed from the beginning.

However, Yuudachi's stats changed in an instant afterwards. The maximum durability of 320 became 455, and the lightning strike increased from 110 to 146. The bombardment, mobility, reloading, and anti-submarine all increased. This kind of phased growth reminded Zhou He of the breakthrough star upgrade in the game.

"What's going on? My Yudachi is actually a Saiyan?"

Zhou He searched for a long time in Yudachi's panel but couldn't find the place that displayed the number of breakthroughs and levels. This made him very puzzled, after all, the numerical values ​​of other people did not change much.

"Forget it, as long as we can return safely, the destroyer's stamina is indeed not very good, so we should keep a close eye on it in the future."

He didn't understand but didn't think too much about it. Instead, he concentrated on opening the map and the dock in half, observing the battlefield while supplying his own ship girls - the supply vouchers for supply, with his generous and extravagant attitude, still had more than 40 points, and were even rising. He would give one point for sinking a Siren, which was completely different from the stingy way of giving out Mind Cube and Home Coins. He would call it the last conscience of the system.

After that, the number of Sirens began to decrease unilaterally. Finally, as he expected, a new ship girl appeared on the map. It was a destroyer with a purple beret and a bow in her short brown hair.

Another familiar ship girl. Although Zhou He felt that most of the ship girls were familiar, this one was the most familiar among the familiar ones. He had seen her portrait last week.

Z23! Nimmi!

"You're lucky, can you come up with another one?"

Zhou He made an "oh" sound and simply passed an instruction to Z23. He then glanced at the edge area of ​​the current section. When the fight started, there were many sirens approaching this side, but there were none now. That was good.

This head-on confrontation with the Sirens made him understand one thing, that is, the combat effectiveness of his own ship girls is really strong. From the time when Yudachi challenged the light cruiser alone and escaped easily, to now when the six-member team is fighting against a legitimate aircraft carrier fleet, they have always won by defeating the enemy with fewer troops.

So if we round it off, the ship girls in the front row can match at least three or more Sirens of the same type.

As for the battlecruisers, battleships, and aircraft carriers in the back row... Zuikaku failed to gain an overwhelming victory despite attacking first this time, which means that the combat gap between large ships is not that big. In the future, it would be better to fight the enemy in a 1:1 situation. If there are too many of them, the front row cannot handle it.

While he was thinking and summarizing, the battle was still going on. Including the lurking submarines, the number of surviving Sirens was less than half of the original number. Even without seeing it with his own eyes, he could imagine how tragic the battlefield was.

Time passed gradually in the quiet waiting and observation. The sun unknowingly climbed to its peak and began to slide down. Zhou He moved from sitting at the door to waiting in the guest room, and finally returned to the kitchen to prepare ingredients for the celebratory banquet.

It is hard to imagine that the Siren aircraft carrier, which was the first to be paralyzed, was the last to be sunk.

With the sound of an inexplicable bell ringing in his ears, Zhou He knew that the mission was completed. At the same time, he also saw the second new member dropped in this battle.

Chapter 37 Focus on Fate

"Tsk, isn't this luck a bit strange?"

Seeing the new member fall, Zhou He grinned. Could it be that there really is such a thing as fate in this world?

As for who fell? Judging from the appearance, this person was wearing a black military uniform, holding a black and red flag, and had long golden hair. She once did something world-famous, which was to sink the Royal Walking Glory with a single shot.

That’s right, the new ship is the same iron-blooded Bismarck as Z23, but it’s a version without the dragon. You can see its meticulous temperament just from the 3D figurine.

“Overall, it should be a good thing.”

Zhou He was happy to have a new ship join the team, but he had just gotten closer to Aunt Hood when a newcomer of the same weight arrived...

Zhou He gradually gave up thinking and sent Bismarck a basic order to reunite and return to the port. Then he switched his sights to the task interface and received a magic cube for the attack task. The original task ① disappeared, and then the task reappeared:

① Fleet attack, defeat the regular Siren fleet, and rewards are divided according to the size of the defeated fleet: 1~3 Mind Cubes

"Oh? Is this really becoming a daily task now?"