Dragon Raja 5; Chapter 187: For Your Majesty (2)

Dragon Raja 5

Finger was also scratching his head. This was indeed the most difficult point in Snow’s description to understand. When they arrived at the Sunset Land, it was also midnight. How could even the most magnificent aurora be visible during the day? But no matter how much Abbas asked, Snow would not explain further.

A shrill alarm suddenly sounded, and the yellow light at the cabin door spun and lit up.

Every cabin on the YAMAL, from the captain’s club to the most ordinary sailor’s cabin, echoed with this alarm, like a tree full of crows starting to howl at the same time.

The ship’s entire alarm, the highest level of alert, is usually issued when an unavoidable iceberg appears ahead, or when there is a serious leak in the watertight compartment, making sinking inevitable. No one on board can ignore this alarm, because it affects everyone on board and determines whether you can get off the ship alive.

Jude Mai lowered the fork in her hand and looked out the window vigilantly.

This one glance was enough to answer all the questions. At the end of her sight, a silver line appeared in the blurry area where the ice sea and the sky met.

It was a rapidly approaching ice storm, its front still about ten kilometers from the YAMAL, but at its speed it could arrive in a matter of minutes. The storm was packed with ice crystals, reflecting light like silver threads.

In the moment Jude Mai stared, the thin silver line expanded into a towering, silvery-white wall, surging and rolling toward them. When the alarm sounded, several crew members, unaware of the situation, rushed to the deck to look. They were now shouting in Russian, securing any loose objects on the deck with chains. The towering cranes folded up like Transformers to protect them from the strong winds. Even before the real gale arrived, ice crystals were already covering the glass windows at a visible speed, like a forest of crystals. The temperature, already below freezing, plummeted by more than ten degrees in a split second. The surrounding icy sea darkened rapidly, the wall so high it blocked out the sunlight.

“Go and see what’s going on.” Jude Mai rolled up the pasta with a fork and gave orders.

“Understood! I’ll be back soon!” Finger stood up, shook his sleeves, bowed quite standardly, and ran away lively.

Jiude Mai sat by the window, deep in her food, not even glancing at the silver wall outside. The wall grew taller and taller, finally reaching the sky. The cabin was as dark as if a rainstorm was about to hit.

The moment the storm’s front made contact with the YAMAL, it felt like a wall of snow slammed into the side of the ship. Even with the YAMAL’s size, it tilted almost 30 degrees. The floor-to-ceiling windows, which had once afforded a view of dozens of kilometers, now offered only a swirling blizzard. It felt as if the entire world trembled in this blizzard, and the howling of the wind seemed to carry the roars of ancient beasts or angry spirits.

At this time, Jude Mai had already sucked the last piece of spaghetti into her stomach, leaned back in her chair with satisfaction, and closed her eyes to rest.

    ***

Finger ran into the library breathlessly. With his long-distance running ability, which could tire Deadpool to the ground, this distance was certainly no problem. But in life, why compete with physical strength when you can compete with acting skills? Seeing his terrified eyes and trembling legs, Caesar could only regard him as a frightened woman or child. With the mercy of a nobleman, he reached out to help him and comforted him, saying that it was nothing serious, just a storm.

The YAMAL had an exquisite little library. Upon boarding, Professor Schneider chose it as his command center. From then on, the library, surpassing Rebalco’s cabin, became the nerve center of the entire ship. When Finger arrived, Caesar, Abbas, and Rebalco were already there, along with the first mate, chief engineer, several key crew members, and several senior specialists. All the ship’s prominent figures were present.

Schneider stared at the projected Arctic Circle—the people in the Equipment Department had transformed this library into a simplified central control room, which was always connected to the EVA via a satellite network—but the projection did not show the storm, and they should be sailing in sunny weather.

“EVA, how come we didn’t get a storm warning in advance?” Schneider asked.

Both EVA and her predecessor, Norma, were designed as motherly AIs. They meticulously arranged each specialist’s itinerary for the front lines, even noticing the slightest change in weather at their destination, prompting them to receive pre-destination notifications reminding them to add or remove clothing. Schneider even suggested to the board of directors that the college secretaries’ service levels be downgraded to prevent the elites risking their lives to save the world from becoming dependent on them and becoming a bunch of mama’s boys. However, EVA’s complete lack of warning during such a major storm is truly remarkable.

“I’m sorry, but you are located within the Arctic Circle. Humans have not yet launched a synchronous orbit satellite to monitor the climate in this area. In other words, I don’t have eyes over the Arctic. That is my blind spot.” EVA replied.

“How can there be such a strong wind belt in the Arctic region?” asked Caesar.

“The North Pole is located in the polar easterly wind belt. This is a type of ‘planetary wind belt’ and has little to do with topography. Instead, it’s the deflection force of Earth’s rotation that creates strong northeasterly winds,” EVA replied. “Although it came quite suddenly, it’s a normal natural phenomenon.”

Caesar and Schneider exchanged a glance. In the presence of sailors, EVA always spoke in cryptic language. The cryptic implication of this sentence was that the ice storm might not be caused by some supernatural power, but rather a “natural phenomenon.”

“Can the YAMAL sail in a storm of this level?” Abbas asked, but not to EVA, but to Rebalko.

The ice storm was terrifying, but the people trained at Cassel Academy were all desperate criminals, so they certainly didn’t want to give up the operation just because of a storm.

“Of course, this ship was built for this purpose.” Rebalco shrugged.

The other senior crew members were whispering in Russian, their expressions probably saying, “You called us to a meeting for such a trivial matter?”

The desperate men on the academy’s side couldn’t help but feel a little deflated. It turned out that compared to the heroic spirit of “I will go forward even if there are thousands of people against me,” there was another kind of fearlessness that shouted, “What? This counts as fighting?”     

“You’re on the YAMAL, the world’s largest icebreaker. Powered by two heavy-water nuclear reactors, it can smash icebergs up to six meters high.” Rybalko glared at his crew, trying to soften their disdain. He added, “A Titanic-like accident wouldn’t happen on this ship. A whirlpool that’s fatal to a school of mackerel is just a splash to this giant whale.”