He raised his rifle toward the endless darkness, adjusting his aim solely by sound. A huge heartbeat was captured—target locked. He fired the first shot; the dark blue bullet path lingered briefly in the air, the enhanced alchemical bullet capable of penetrating shallow water.
Hit! Kamaitachi brought back the sound of the alchemical bullet striking dragon scales.
Caesar fired a second shot.
Another hit! The shadow beneath the water grew furious, circling the Maniach at high speed.
The Dragon King wasn’t injured, Caesar knew that. These alchemical bullets could, at most, cause some pain to the merged Dragon King. If such weapons could harm him, the Equipment Department wouldn’t have bothered assembling storm torpedoes with alchemical warheads. But it was enough—he just wanted to provoke the Dragon King’s rage, and now the Dragon was angry, it would direct that fury at him.
He fired continuously, each shot hitting its target with precision, dark blue bullet trails aiming in all directions. No matter how the Dragon King moved, unless he really dove deep, Caesar’s bullets would always track him.
“Caesar… what is he doing?” the second officer asked.
“Probably something like a one-on-one duel between a man and a male dragon,” Zero shouted into the microphone. “Is the warhead installed?”
“Installation complete! But we need to launch it quickly—the torpedo room has flooded with fuel, and an explosion could happen at any time!” the first officer’s voice came in; he was working in the nearly 70-degree Celsius engine room.
“The storm torpedo has a rocket engine! Its exhaust will ignite the fuel! What if there’s an explosion?” the second officer was shocked.
Zero gripped the firing lever, her expression calm: “We’ll just have to gamble.”
Caesar felt for a new magazine. He knew the final moment was coming. The shadow in the water abandoned its circling, its cautious attack route, and swam straight ahead. He believed it would come back; he always understood his enemies as well as he understood his friends.
The shadow stopped moving about a kilometer away from the Maniakh, and a dazzling light burst from underwater. The Dragon King had ignited his Yanling, revealing his position.
“Charge straight at it, that will give us a higher relative speed.” Caesar tossed the intercom into the water.
That was his last command; he didn’t need to say anything more.
The light under the water grew increasingly brilliant. The Maniach fired up its engines; the chief engineer outputted the remaining power. This soon-to-sink vessel roared as its bow lifted like a wild horse breaking free.
In the distance, the blinding light elongated into a line at the same moment.
Radar showed the Dragon King’s speed at eighty knots, while the Maniakh reached its maximum of fifty knots—a combined relative speed of one hundred and thirty knots. The collision would happen in a thunderous instant.
Caesar fired calmly, dark blue bullet trails shooting into the water, straight toward the Dragon King’s head. A roar echoed from beneath the water, the entire river surface shrouded in white mist. The Dragon’s head emerged from the water, and a figure covered in scales stood atop it, eyes glowing gold, piercing the fog. Caesar tossed the sniper rifle into the water, spread his arms, and focused entirely on his Kamaitachi.
He felt the scorching heat, as powerful as a burning hurricane.
“Not enough… just a bit closer!” he said to himself.
A relative speed of 130 knots, a distance of 100 meters—the Dragon King could cover it in just one second. The closer the distance, the higher the chance of the storm torpedo hitting its target. But the closer they were, the greater the risk. If they missed by even a second, Caesar would be scorched by the Dragon King’s flames. Visual rangefinding wasn’t precise enough, but he had Kamaitachi, and he trusted these wind spirits more than he trusted his eyes.
It was like a game of squash—facing a return at hundreds of kilometers per hour, there was no dodging. Instead, he had to stretch out his arm and catch it at the exact moment.
Not dodging might result in getting badly beaten, but those standing on the field never dodged.
Dodging meant losing.
Caesar reached up and grabbed the blindfold.
“Fire!” He tore off the blindfold, raised it high, and roared into the flames rushing toward him.
Zero yanked down the firing lever; at that moment, Caesar was engulfed by the flames. The Maniach was like a spaceship heading for the sun; the blinding light blocked out everything.
The Maniakh trembled, and a sound exploded in the air.
A thousand dragons roaring together? Feeling the lightning strike from within a storm cloud? No words could describe that sound, for no language was ever designed to describe it.
The rocket engine blasted a hundred meters of blazing light underwater. The conical storm torpedo shot straight ahead like a bullet. The human eye could only catch a blurred shadow as it plunged into the Dragon King’s flames, its surface beginning to melt, the outer metal layer peeling away, with the rocket fuel in the rear compartment on the verge of exploding.
But it kept moving forward.
In the frenzied sonic boom, the torpedo reached its maximum speed, breaking free from the river and leaping into the air.
It shot directly toward the blazing sun!
Direct hit! Taking the target with it! The massive kinetic energy, the so-called “extreme of science” accumulated by humans over centuries—no creature could withstand it. The twisting dragon form was carried into the air, its long tail thrashing in pain. Together with the Dragon King, the storm torpedo arced across the sky, plunging back into the water 200 meters away, slowly sinking.
The sonic boom seemed endless. Caesar touched his ears and felt blood.
The Kamaitachi were still flying around him, but Caesar could no longer receive their feedback. His world had fallen silent. The instant the storm torpedo launched, the immense noise pierced his ears, destroying everything inside. Zero had warned him, but he hadn’t listened.
The others were busy preparing lifeboats, but he couldn’t leave. He had to wait for the people below. Exhausted, he sat by the gunwale, with no strength left to move.