Chapter 380 - 377: Silent Ship

Chapter 380: Chapter 377: Silent Ship

The *Tiansuo* bobbed up and down in the sea. Though the film of water outside the porthole was clearly flowing, it looked deceptively still, maintaining a stable state.

The equipment lights on the ship pulsed slowly, illuminating the dim cabin.

Every so often, a few robots would pass by, their moving parts making soft, scuttling sounds.

Although the *Tiansuo* was operating normally, the robots were unusually busy.

Their spider-like lower limbs allowed them to walk with perfect stability down the swaying corridors.

Li Luo ignored the occasional sounds from the corridor, her head bowed as she focused on the electronic screen.

Since the *Tiansuo* was frequently submerged by the seawater, the light from the porthole flickered on and off. The rippling patterns of light it cast into the room looked like white worms crawling up and down the walls.

Li Luo rubbed her eyes and flipped to the next page.

She had gone over the material many times. While a few of the more convoluted clauses were difficult to commit to memory, she already knew most of them by heart.

She had sorted these precautions into two categories:

The first was for things prohibited on the ship, and the second was for things that might be useful in the Sea of Creation.

The rule "Do not leave your room," for instance, was one she placed in the first category.

She didn’t spend much time memorizing that section.

The second category, she subdivided further into rules related to clothing, behavior, language, and so on.

This system made them easier to memorize and would allow her to recall these "taboos" whenever she was about to do something.

Of course, she also noticed some clauses that seemed a bit repetitive:

"Do not wear clothing with horizontal stripes..."

"Do not wear clothing with vertical stripes..."

Li Luo didn’t own any striped clothing, so she was in no danger of breaking such a rule, but she committed both items to memory anyway.

In fact, these particularly strange rules were actually the easiest to remember.

After one more review, Li Luo switched off the electronic screen, closed her eyes, and began mentally reciting the rules to solidify her memory.

She glanced at the Block from time to time, speculating internally:

’It’s probably working hard, too...’

...

Mo Ling dreamed that a spider was fighting a shark.

It was an incredibly fierce fight.

He, as a spectator, was on the sidelines cheering them on, constantly fanning the flames.

The spider stood its ground, its legs braced on a rock. It arched its body and threw a heavy punch, leaving the shark battered and bruised.

Unwilling to concede, the shark stirred up the surrounding water, transformed into a raging sharknado, and charged at the spider.

But the spider remained unhurried and spat out a strand of silk.

Using the tornado’s vortex, the silk wrapped around the shark, trussing it up completely.

The shark struggled, thrashing its tail and snapping frantically, but it couldn’t break free from the tenacious silk.

It had no choice but to let out an angry roar and call for backup.

A school of sharks suddenly surged in from the distance and began to gang up on the spider.

The spider was hopelessly outnumbered and couldn’t fend them off. It was beaten back again and again.

Seeing this, Mo Ling, who had just been egging them on, grew furious.

"Ganging up on him is cheap!"

He activated his teleportation ability on those dishonorable sharks.

Seeing their companions vanish, the other sharks were startled but continued their frenzied assault on the spider. Mo Ling had no choice but to teleport them away one by one.

"If you’re going to fight, then fight fair! None of this ganging-up nonsense!"

The spider didn’t waste the opportunity, lunging forward to land a punch on the shark that had called for backup.

"Nice one!"

Mo Ling cheered again and again. In his excitement, he threw a punch.

...And slammed it right into the metal wall, the pain jolting him awake.

Clutching his fist, Mo Ling lay in bed for a long while before the throbbing subsided.

But when he turned his head to look for his electronic screen, he saw a pile of strange shark bodies on the metal floor.

The sharks were tiny, like toys, and were strewn haphazardly across the floor, completely motionless.

Mo Ling froze.

’Was there really a spider and a shark fighting?’

He quickly expanded his perception outward and discovered it was the middle of the night.

Li Luo was fast asleep, the time glowing on the electronic screen beside her.

’Three-fifty.’

At some point, the *Tiansuo* had slowed to a crawl. The drill had stopped spinning, and the ship was now just drifting forward with the waves. The inside of the cabin was eerily quiet.

Outside the ship, however, it was a different story.

Several robot crew members were standing guard around the *Tiansuo*.

In the distance, a stream of Black Shadows surged toward them. As they drew closer, Mo Ling realized they were the same strange sharks from his room.

Despite their small size, they charged frenziedly at the towering robots.

The robots fired special projectiles from their mechanical arms, taking down the sharks from a distance.

Moreover, the robots’ movements were extremely careful, as if they were afraid of making too much noise.

However, a battle inevitably makes noise. The impact of the projectiles, the sound of them being fired—it all made the area around the *Tiansuo* even more chaotic.

The sharks seemed extremely sensitive to sound, charging even more furiously toward the source of any noise.

Not only that, but as they drew nearer to the noise, their bodies began to swell rapidly.

After watching for a while, Mo Ling finally understood why—

These sharks devoured sound.

They seemed to be creatures that fed on sound. The more noise they consumed, the more powerful they became.

That was why the robots weren’t using more powerful weapons, relying instead on these nearly silent projectiles.

It was also why the *Tiansuo* had halted its advance and was now simply drifting.

Seeing this, Mo Ling suddenly recalled one of the rules on the precautions list:

"Making any sound between three and four o’clock in the morning is prohibited."

’Was it because of these sound-eating sharks?’

Mo Ling checked the time again. Three-fifty. It was indeed within that window.

He wondered how the *Tiansuo* had attracted these sharks in the first place.

The sharks’ bodies swelled with incredible speed; it seemed even the faintest sound could trigger a dramatic transformation.

Fortunately, the robots’ projectiles were highly effective against them. A direct hit was a guaranteed kill.

When Mo Ling saw the sparks of electricity that flashed upon impact, he understood why the projectiles were so lethal.

Soon, the robots had wiped out the entire swarm of sharks.

The time slowly crept toward four o’clock.

Once it was past four, the strange sharks abruptly stopped coming. After inspecting the *Tiansuo*, the robots quickly returned to the ship.

Back inside the cabin, one of the robots began to record the incident in the *Tiansuo*’s log:

"At 3:30 in the morning, a handbell among the cargo, due to inadequate packaging, was dislodged and fell, creating a noise that triggered an attack by Sound Sharks. However, during the assault, an unknown force assisted the *Tiansuo*; the most powerful Sound Sharks vanished without a trace. The remaining Sound Sharks were successfully neutralized. After four o’clock, the Sound Sharks retreated of their own accord..."