Chapter 1328 Nightmare! Shocking Change! A Giant!

Time passed in the early hours of this morning, two days later, amidst tense nerves and a relatively smooth voyage.

That night, perhaps because he was far away from the constant roar of artillery fire in Chongqing, or perhaps because he was gradually adapting to the waterway environment, Han Feng slept more soundly than he had the previous two days in the relatively quiet cabin that the "Yangtze River Endeavor" had made for him.

However, just as the night was quietly slipping into the latter half, and the fleet was passing through a section of the Wu Gorge with a water depth of over 100 meters and a relatively wide river surface, an unexpected change occurred.

First, a thick fog rose from the river without warning.

The fog was extremely strange; it was not a typical condensation of water vapor.

Its thick, grayish-white slurry, thick enough to be unyielding, silently gushed forth from the deep canyons on both banks and the seemingly calm depths of the river, rapidly spreading and swallowing the starlight and the faint glow of navigation lights, engulfing the entire fleet within just a dozen minutes.

Visibility plummeted to less than twenty meters, or even worse.

The beam of the searchlight shot out like a chopstick thrown into milk, only illuminating a small section of the rolling wall of fog ahead. The light was greedily absorbed and scattered, unable to reach far.

The ships had to turn on all their navigation lights and signal lights. The red, green, and yellow lights blurred into indistinct patches in the thick fog, like the dull eyes of a giant beast.

Ships could only maintain contact with each other through radar, sonar, and constant high-frequency radio calls, carefully maintaining a minimum safe speed, like blind people groping on the edge of an abyss.

On the ship, the sentries and patrols on watch stared wide-eyed at the thick fog flowing outside the ship's side, as if it were alive, their knuckles turning white as they gripped their weapons.

The lights stretched and distorted their shadows, casting them onto the wet deck and bulkheads, swaying with the slight rocking of the ship, adding to the unease.

It was in this atmosphere that Han Feng was dragged into an exceptionally vivid and terrifying dream.

He dreamed that he was still standing on the bridge of the "Yangtze River Endeavour" ship, but the ship had disappeared and the deck beneath his feet had become the undulating surface of the river.

The fog was thicker than in reality, and its color was a suffocating mix of leaden gray and dark green.

Then, he "felt" it, rather than seeing it.

A being so vast as to be beyond his comprehension was lurking in the deepest, darkest part of the river beneath his feet.

It has no specific form, or rather, its form is completely incomprehensible to human senses and thought.

It was a pure quality, a pure antiquity, a pure... indifference.

In his dream, Han Feng was unable to move and could only "feel".

He felt the previously stable "river surface" (actually a kind of "membrane" on the surface) beneath his feet move slightly, almost lazily.

It wasn't a roll or a swim; it was more like a sleeping giant unconsciously turning over, or a limb beyond imagination slightly adjusting its position.

Just this "light touch".

Boom boom boom——!!!!

Crashed!

The entire Yangtze River, no, the entire world, was trembling, shaking, and groaning violently!

In his dream, Han Feng, who was "standing," felt like a leaf in a storm, instantly losing all balance, swaying from side to side, almost being torn apart by this invisible, vast force!

The towering cliffs on both sides collapsed with a roar, boulders tumbling down; the river flowed backward, forming a terrifying wall of water connecting heaven and earth; the sky was obscured by indescribable shadows...

The presence swept past him without malice, or even consciousness, just as a mountain wouldn't care about an ant at its foot.

But it is precisely this absolute, fundamental indifference and enormous gap that brings about the deepest sense of powerlessness and fear.

At this moment, Han Feng felt as insignificant as dust. All his experience, strategies, command skills, and steel torrents were laughable dust in the face of this indescribable behemoth.

Just as he was about to completely collapse under the immense pressure of this dream—

Beep-beep-beep-beep—! ! !

A sharp, piercing, and extremely penetrating alarm sounded like a steel needle piercing his dream, forcefully pulling him back to reality!

It was the highest-level combat alarm sounded by the frigate "Jiangzhou"! At the same time, the alarm system on the "Changjiang Fenjin" was also triggered!

Han Feng suddenly sat up in bed, cold sweat instantly soaking his underwear. His heart was pounding like a drum, and the world-ending tremor from his dream seemed to still linger deep in his bones.

He shook his head, forcibly suppressing the lingering fear, grabbed the coat beside him and put it on, then rushed barefoot to the communicator on the bulkhead, pressed the button, his voice hoarse from just waking up and still tense:

"Bridge! This is Han Feng! What's going on?!"

Almost simultaneously, there was a knock on the hatch, and the Chief of Staff's voice came from Qi Dong, equally urgent:

"Commander! There's something unusual on the river! The 'Jiangzhou' ship's sonar and radar have simultaneously detected a large unidentified underwater target! It's moving extremely slowly, but... its size signal is abnormal! It cannot be identified!"

Han Feng opened the door and exchanged a glance with Xiang Qidong; both of them had the same solemn expression in their eyes.

Without time to say more, he quickly ran towards the bridge.

At this moment, the atmosphere inside the bridge was extremely tense.

All the screens were lit up. On the sonar display, an enormous, blurry shadow signal occupied almost the entire lower half of the screen. It was moving slowly across the water about one kilometer ahead of the convoy, at a depth of about eighty meters.

Radar has limited detection capabilities for underwater targets, but it also showed strong anomalous echoes in the area.

What's even more unsettling is the external scenery.

The searchlights scanned repeatedly, like a mad cyclops searching futilely in the thick fog, the beams cutting through the churning, grayish-white liquid.

Just a moment ago, several beams of light seemed to have swept across the river surface a short distance directly in front of the fleet—

The thick fog there suddenly became unusually "thick" and "dark," as if the light had been swallowed up by something.

Immediately afterwards, everyone who witnessed that scene vaguely glimpsed... no, it couldn't be called "saw," it was more like the thick fog briefly dissipated, revealing a small part of the abnormal, enormous bulge outline of the river surface beneath it.

The outline was indescribable, beyond the comprehension of ordinary living beings or objects.

Smooth? Rough? Covered in indescribable bumps? It seems to be all of these, yet it seems to be none of them.

It appeared for less than a second before being covered by an even thicker fog.

But in that instant, all the witnesses, including Han Feng and Xiang Qidong who had just rushed into the bridge, felt a chilling fear, originating from their very life instincts, grip their hearts!

That wasn't the tension one feels when facing a mutated giant fish; it was... the tremor deep in one's soul when facing something completely unknown and far beyond comprehension—a "being."

"Is it... moving?" Han Feng's voice was hoarse as he stared intently at the slowly moving shadow on the sonar screen, a shadow representing the "vast unknown."

“Very…very slow. Almost still. But the sonar confirms it’s…moving.” The sonar operator’s voice trembled.

"Jiangzhou requests instructions: Should we launch an attack? Or change course to evade?" came the tense inquiry from the captain of the Jiangzhou over the communication channel.

Attack? Should we use a 100mm cannon or a YJ missile to hit an unknown object hidden 100 meters underwater with an absurdly large size and signal?

Avoid it? Where to avoid it? There are steep canyon walls on the left and right, thick fog and unknown waters in front and behind, and underwater lies that immeasurable shadow.

In Han Feng's mind, the terrifying feeling of the world turning upside down with the slightest movement in his dream resurfaced. He clenched his fists tightly, his nails almost digging into his palms.