Blackstone Code-Chapter 675: Gone Again

“Monster?”

A group of idle sailors immediately crowded over, standing beside Connie and staring out at the distant sea.

Normally, when standing on a ship, one can’t see beneath the surface due to light refraction and other reasons.

But anything above the sea stands out—like a patch of blackness disrupting a shimmering silver surface.

Everyone saw it at once. Some younger sailors even began shouting and guessing what it might be.

“Maybe a whale…”

“Or an ocean sunfish…”

The sailors joked happily, and Connie joined in enthusiastically. “Maybe it’s a submarine…”

The laughter stopped instantly. Everyone gave Connie a look that clearly asked if he even knew what he was saying. The way their mouths twitched and their fists clenched made Connie realize he’d said the wrong thing.

“Hey, what I meant was…”

Before he could explain, a loud explosion echoed—the armed escort vessel was blasted over.

There wasn’t a towering fireball like in the movies. Instead, a massive plume of water erupted below the waterline, followed by black smoke. The ship flipped over slowly, bow down, stern up, beginning to sink.

The armed personnel in the water frantically swam away. As a ship sinks, it creates a vortex that could drag the unlucky ones down with it.

Luckily, it hadn’t gone under just yet. There was still time to escape the danger zone.

Everything happened so quickly, everyone was left speechless.

Federals weren’t exactly known for bravery—at least not yet. Faced with something like open warfare, their only instinct was to run.

But on the sea, where could anyone run?

With a splash, someone dropped a lifeboat into the water.

According to Federal maritime law, a ship’s lifeboats must accommodate twice the vessel’s rated crew capacity.

This was a cargo ship with a small crew, so there was only one lifeboat on each side.

As Connie ran toward the opposite side, he glanced back and accidentally caught sight of something below the surface—a swordfish-shaped object speeding toward the ship—

A deafening boom followed. More than sound, it was the screech of twisting metal. A wall of water exploded upward, and the ship began to list. A hole had been torn in the hull, water rushing in fast, alarms blaring all around.

The explosion knocked the sailors off their feet. Seconds later, they scrambled up and started jumping into the sea, pinching their noses as they leapt.

Connie followed. Then came the swearing captain and first officer. Almost everyone got aboard the lifeboat—except the men in the boiler room.

They rowed hard to put distance between them and the doomed vessel, watching as it slowly sank. Everyone’s expression was complicated.

The bedraggled captain clapped a young sailor on the shoulder and managed a smile. “This isn’t bad news—at least for us.”

Everyone turned to look at him. He met each gaze as he spoke.

“Look—twice now. First we met pirates. Then this… whatever it was.” He didn’t even know what to call it. “But—we survived.”

“That’s the best part. Twice we faced the worst situations. But we’re still alive. There’s nothing more thrilling than cheating death.”

“You’re all legendary sailors now. You can brag to anyone on any ship about what you’ve been through—and no one can question you.”

It had been a string of bad luck. But hearing the captain’s words, everyone started to feel like maybe they’d been lucky after all.

Still dazed, Connie asked, “That submarine… it’s not coming after us, is it?”

The good mood evaporated instantly. The captain clenched his fists. Realizing now wasn’t the time for violence, he forced a smile and said, “According to international law, even warring nations aren’t allowed to kill civilians…”

Eventually, they regrouped with the armed escort crew that had escaped. With the help of an old compass hanging from the captain’s neck, they paddled hard toward the Amellian coastline.

Over a day later, they were completely exhausted. The sight of the shore gave hope to those who had nearly given up.

Yes—despair. It had only taken a day to go from survival euphoria to hopelessness.

Behavioral scientists once ran an experiment with two identical tunnels—one pitch black, the other brightly lit.

Pairs of test subjects were assigned to each. Both tunnels were unobstructed and took only fifteen minutes to walk through.

But only one person made it out of the dark tunnel. All the others failed. In contrast, every person in the lit tunnel succeeded.

Being able to see, or not, gives people dramatically different psychological responses—just like these sailors drifting at sea.

They rowed tirelessly, but without sight of land, their excitement quickly turned into despair. All it took to break them was a lack of visible hope.

Add dehydration and hunger, and emotional collapse was inevitable. The fact they held out this long was already remarkable.

Any one of them alone in a lifeboat would have broken down much earlier.

This, too, proved the power of unity.

A few hours later, they finally made landfall. At a port hotel, they found the company’s receiver waiting.

“I thought you’d arrive sooner. Storm hit you or something?” the man asked, with a thinly veiled sneer.

The captain was in rough shape—drenched in seawater, baked by the sun, face darkened and peeling, looking no better than a local laborer.

Though it sounded like concern, the question was really mockery.

The captain took out his pipe, unapologetically opened the man’s cigarette case, crushed two smokes into the bowl, and lit it with the man’s lighter.

He looked at the man’s irritated face, took a few deep puffs, exhaled slowly—and in that moment, it was like he had been reborn.

He said casually, “The ship sank—along with our cargo.”

11:30 PM. It was a time for sleep. Mr. Wadrick, still in his pajamas, had just finished a friendly match with his wife and was about to drift off in satisfaction when the phone rang.

He whispered a few words to his wife, told her to go ahead and sleep, then threw on a robe and walked to his study.

“What happened?” he asked, holding the receiver between his shoulder and ear as he lit a cigarette. He knew any call at this hour wasn’t a joke.

In the Federation, the line between public and private affairs was strictly drawn. After working hours ended, people hated being disturbed—and likewise wouldn’t disturb others unless absolutely necessary.

This call was clearly not a prank. Smoke curled in his mouth; the nicotine was quickly absorbed, kicking in fast. He braced himself. “Let’s hope it’s not bad news.”

Two seconds of silence. Then a heavy voice: “Our ship sank.” As if that wasn’t clear enough, the speaker added, “The ship heading to the Amellian region—gone. Along with our cargo.”

It took Wadrick about ten seconds to process. “Do the others know?”

“The board has called an emergency meeting. If you can make it, come to the office. If not, join the conference call. The number is…”

Wadrick thought for a moment. “I’ll come in. Have a car ready.”

After hanging up, he didn’t move right away. He took a few slow drags, a strange expression creeping across his face. It was unmistakably Lynch’s doing.

His opinion of Lynch rose yet again. If Lynch’s ties with the military were strong enough to justify attacking their own merchant vessels, then Lynch’s value needed serious reassessment.

Thirty minutes later, Wadrick appeared sharply dressed in the boardroom. Many others were already there, and those caught off guard in other cities had joined the call remotely.

After a brief wait, the last person was connected, and the meeting began.

“I contacted the shipping company,” the board chairman said, pressing his temples in frustration. “Salvaging our ship would cost around ten million.”

“And that’s not counting the other losses. This incident alone cost us another twenty million. Gentlemen, twenty million!”

“Add that to the sixteen million we lost earlier, and we’ve done absolutely nothing—yet lost over thirty-six million. Can anyone tell me how much more we’re going to lose?”

His voice wasn’t loud or angry, but no one dared ignore it.

Wadrick sat off to the side, face serious, though a faint, elusive smile flickered in his eyes.

He had basically already won this round.