Chapter 222: Chapter 222

Chapter 222: The Red Dot That Covered the Entire Radar Screen!

Seizing the opportunity, Li Ye ordered the forces to concentrate their fire and begin bombing.

Under an unprecedentedly dense barrage, two Colossal Cutlassfish were slain.

They lay like mountain ranges, spanning across the heaving sea.

The ocean pushed against the two giant corpses, making them slowly roll and sink.

After dealing with the Colossal Cutlassfish, the Tomorrow Alliance continued to bomb the oncoming swarm of giant fish.

After several rounds of bombardment, more than half of the giant fish had been killed; the remaining ones still charged with stubborn persistence.

At the very front of the line, the Iron Whale suddenly throttled up and charged into the swarm.

The mobile city plowed like a roaring steel mountain, carving deep furrows across the water.

The giant jaw—its crushing and cutting apparatus at the city’s prow—had already been activated.

The moment the foremost giant fish slammed into the Iron Whale, thirty-six interleaved sets of hardened-steel teeth bit together, shredding the fish’s scales, bones, and flesh to pulp. The hydraulic smashing-hammer array thundered to life; impact piles struck with a devastating rhythm, each blow bursting spines and pulverizing entrails.

The fish swarm’s charge collapsed under the mauling of the cutting apparatus; slime and bloody mist steamed on the searing teeth, turning into a rank vapor.

On the deck, Li Ye watched and lightly shook his head.

The giant-jaw device was certainly effective, but it was far too bloody when used against enormous creatures.

He had felt distinctly uneasy the first time he saw the Iron Whale grind and cut apart giants.

Thanks to the crushing and cutting apparatus, the Iron Whale carved into and out of the fish swarm, wantonly reaping their lives.

To everyone’s surprise, the giant fish even employed tactics.

They dove under the Iron Whale and gathered their strength to smash its underside with their dorsal fins all at once.

Li Ye suddenly realized what they were trying to do.

“They’re trying to capsize the Iron Whale!”

Hundreds, even thousands, of giant fish pooled their force alarmingly; the Iron Whale actually began to show signs of tilting.

At that moment, another city accessory began to exert its effect.

It was the Gyro Stabilization Pod that the Tomorrow Alliance had specially installed during their plateau migration.

Now it ran steadily: a giant sphere filled with liquid mercury kept micro-adjusting the mass through a complex gear train, counterbalancing the tipping force under the city’s hull.

Li Ye picked up the radio, preparing to direct the Tomorrow Alliance to finish off the giant fish.

“The farce needs to end.” he murmured.

Just then, A-Bai’s voice suddenly crackled through the radio.

“Bad news, Lord! There’s something abnormal on the Radar! Come to the bridge right now!”

Li Ye froze; his heart gave an involuntary jolt.

Could another swarm of giant fish have arrived?

“I’m coming!” he replied in a low voice.

He rushed into the cockpit and saw A-Bai staring at the Radar screen in a daze.

Following his line of sight, Li Ye looked at the display.

On the Radar screen, a new blip had appeared from the center.

With each scan refresh, the blip’s outline grew larger; it had no clear boundary but seeped outward like spilled ink, eroding the Radar’s detection traces.

Li Ye watched and felt sweat drip from his brow.

“Everyone stop fighting and get this fleet out of these waters at full speed!” he ordered over the radio immediately.

Then he continued to watch the blip on the screen.

The more he looked, the more his breath faltered.

There was undoubtedly a gigantic ocean creature beneath this sea.

Its scale had already exceeded ten-thousand-meter levels.

After more than ten minutes, the Tomorrow Alliance finally cleared the area and shook off the entanglement of the giant fish.

Looking at the Radar screen, Li Ye let out a small sigh of relief.

The enormous blip on the screen had not pursued them.

For now, the Tomorrow Alliance was safe.

At the same time, a deep puzzlement rose in his mind.

What on earth was that thing?

So he boarded a gunboat craft and returned to the previous sea area, circling at high altitude to observe.

The sea surface lay unnaturally calm, as if even the wind had frozen.

Under the water, nothing seemed to be there.

But gradually, movement appeared on the surface.

At first it was only a small whirlpool, several meters across, quietly spinning on the sea.

But soon the vortex began to expand.

Ten meters, a hundred meters, a thousand meters, ten thousand meters.

Sea water was drawn down by an irresistible suction, forming a gigantic funnel whose rim churned with chalk-white foam.

Under Li Ye’s gaze, a ring of bone-white, serrated teeth emerged at the vortex’s edge; each tooth was as huge as a skyscraper, the jagged edges gleaming with damp, cold light.

They were not ordinary teeth but layered rows of spikes, extending from the abyssal interior of the mouth into depths that could not be seen.

They writhed and rubbed against one another, producing a hair-raising scraping sound.

Then came the creature’s maw.

It was like a pitch-black, bottomless cavity; the inner wall was not smooth but covered with even denser, writhing rows of teeth that contracted and expanded like countless maggots, greedily grasping everything on the surface.

Floating Colossal Cutlassfish, small islets, countless carcasses of giant fish, even seawater—everything was gulped down by its avarice.

The gunboat’s crew were all stunned at the sight.

“My God, what is that thing?”

“It looks like some cursed monster from legend!”

“Disgusting! If it swallowed you, you’d probably wish you were dead first.”

Li Ye’s expression turned exceedingly grave.

The creature measured tens of thousands of meters; if the Tomorrow Alliance had not withdrawn in time, the entire sea area might have been swallowed along with them.

“But then why did it only appear after those ten-plus minutes?” he wondered.

Thinking carefully, he understood the reason.

The creature normally lay dormant on the seabed.

It only slowly rose to the surface when hunting.

Such a colossal body required a very long time to ascend each time.

At this moment, the creature’s bulk was still rising; the sea surface began to bulge as its body broke through like a ringed volcano.

Its skin showed an unnatural dark blue, patterned with pulsing, blood-vessel-like veins; occasionally eerie bioluminescence flickered across it.

When it fully revealed itself, the entire sea level dropped by a full three meters.

All the water had been pushed aside by its enormous body—or rather, swallowed.

At that instant, the world seemed to lose its sound; eyes could only follow the thing’s slowly rotating toothed maw.

After a long while, one crew member snapped back to reality and murmured.

“Shall we open fire and bomb it, Commander?”

Li Ye merely shook his head.

A gunboat’s bombardment would at best only tickle a tens-of-thousands-of-meters-long ocean leviathan.

If they truly wanted to kill it, they would have to feed it a nuclear bomb.

He waved his hand and ordered the gunboat to return to base.

The storm thus came to an end, and the Mobile Cities returned to peace.

After returning to the deck, Li Ye walked along the Tomorrow, deep in thought.

Compared to the past, the Tomorrow was now bustling and lively, filled with people coming and going.

Corridors, decks, gangways—wherever Li Ye passed, people were everywhere.

Among them were even some elderly and children.

This was mainly due to the “Family Migration” strategy Li Ye had proposed to help new residents settle more comfortably aboard the Tomorrow.

What surprised him even more was that he even saw a pregnant woman with a rounded belly.

After all, the Tomorrow now had a population of fifty thousand, and signs of population growth were perfectly natural.

Looking at the pregnant woman, Li Ye couldn’t help feeling a sense of emotion.

It meant that soon, new life would be born aboard his Mobile City.

On the Wasteland, that was a rare thing indeed.

Unlike before, the Tomorrow now had a total of twenty-four levels, and even passing through the gangways and corridors alone was tiring.

Li Ye originally wanted to take the elevator, but a long queue had already formed in front of it.

So he shrugged and continued walking.

The new residents had only heard the name of their Lord but had never seen him. So when Li Ye passed by, most people simply took him for an ordinary resident and continued chatting as usual.

Only when someone recognized him and whispered a reminder did the others suddenly realize it, hurriedly greeting him with respect.

Li Ye merely nodded slightly, responding to them with calm courtesy.

At the moment, what occupied his mind was the city’s internal administration and construction.

There was still a week of travel before reaching the Polar Continent, and this idle period was perfect for dealing with such matters.

At that thought, he couldn’t help but raise his head to look toward the upper A1 Deck.

There, five sets of Level 3 Energy Wind Turbine Sequences stood tall.

Each turbine provided twenty percent of the city’s daily energy output—together, the Tomorrow gained one hundred percent of its daily energy.

Achieving energy self-sufficiency for the city had turned out far easier than Li Ye had imagined.

He had to admit, every time a Mobile City advanced a level, its armament and technological standards improved drastically.

Back when the Tomorrow was still a Level 1 City, Li Ye had worried constantly over the city’s energy problem.

Every time he harvested coal or fuel, he had been overjoyed.

Now, his emotions no longer fluctuated much over such matters.

As he pondered, he occasionally passed by a shop.

It turned out to be the Tomorrow’s exclusive electrical appliance store.

The store was bright and tidy, filled with various household appliances and crowded with residents, lively and noisy.

Seeing this scene, Li Ye couldn’t help but grow thoughtful.

At present, the Tomorrow had already begun supplying electricity to residents.

Out of caution, however, the city still imposed daily limits on residential power use—mainly because the population had suddenly surged to fifty thousand.

After all, city energy couldn’t all be spent on household electricity.

The Tomorrow ran almost all day long, and to remain hidden, it kept both its City Camouflage and Signal Shielding Device active around the clock.

In addition, a portion of the city’s energy had to be reserved for potential activation of the Energy Shield.

At this thought, Li Ye sighed quietly.

He had achieved freedom in iron ore, energy, and fabric—but not yet in electricity.

Aside from the electrical appliance shop, the City Committee had also applied to open a clothing store.

The Tomorrow now possessed a Level 3 Textile Factory and produced a steady supply of Level 3 Yunmeng Cotton.

After subtracting the cotton needed to manufacture jetpacks and camouflage uniforms, there was still a surplus.

Thus, the clothing store was established.

With the clothing blueprints obtained from city battles and monster hunts, as well as the City Committee’s external procurement efforts, the Tomorrow’s clothing production program had gradually become well-developed.

Though not as diverse as modern times, it at least met the residents’ everyday needs.

“Make your Mobile City come alive.”

Whiteman had once told Li Ye this.

By “come alive,” he meant building a complete social ecosystem within the Mobile City.

That way, residents would gain a stronger sense of belonging and be more willing to contribute to the city.

According to Li Ye’s plan, not only the Tomorrow’s official shops but even private residents could open their own businesses—

such as barbershops, laundromats, small restaurants, grocery stores, furniture shops, and inns.

This would allow Contribution Points to circulate faster and hold greater value.

The problem, however, was that residents currently couldn’t purchase goods to stock their stores—

all production rights were still firmly held in Li Ye’s hands.

Thinking of this, Li Ye turned and went to visit Whiteman.

“Bishop Whiteman, regarding the idea of residents opening private shops in the Mobile City, here’s what I’m thinking—”

Li Ye briefly explained his concept.

For all the daily necessities produced by the Tomorrow—food, clothing, and housing goods—Li Ye would assign a factory price.

Any resident interested in opening a shop could purchase items at that price and then sell them independently.

In this way, grocery stores, furniture shops, and laundromats could all be opened.

Whiteman, however, shook his head, pointing out a flaw Li Ye had overlooked.

No matter what, production rights still rested solely with Li Ye.

Ultimately, every shop bought its stock from him.

That meant there was only one manufacturer, with all goods sold at identical factory prices.

Take furniture shops, for instance—if multiple residents opened them, they would all buy from Li Ye at the same cost, and all furniture would be exactly the same.

In other words, the goods were entirely homogenized.

Whiteman thus sincerely advised that stores selling products should remain under the city’s official management.

Only when there existed a variety of goods, manufacturers, and supply channels—as in the modern world—could merchants sell at differing prices.

“I understand. Thank you for the reminder,” Li Ye nodded.

In truth, by then he had already thought of a solution.

He could help residents build their own factories to produce everyday goods—thus creating multiple sources of production.

The more production channels existed, the more supply lines and product types there would be, allowing shops to compete with one another.

However, doing so brought two problems.

First, with the Wasteland’s current level of technology, the quality of such factories would be low, and their products could never match those from the city’s Production Workshop.

Second, constructing multiple factories for residents would consume a large amount of space within the Mobile City.

“As expected, it won’t work after all,”

he sighed quietly in his heart.