Chapter 833 - 372: Cracking the Treasure Site Code! (8K Combined - )

Chapter 833: Chapter 372: Cracking the Treasure Site Code! (8K Combined Chapter)

Lin Yu’an added, "But the premise is, we cannot afford any further unplanned delays in our voyage. Every detour, every reduction in speed will be directly deducted from these 20 hours."

"Got it." Riven gripped the wheel tighter; she could almost feel that string representing their fate being twisted another turn tighter.

[Day Two, 6 a.m., the twenty?fourth hour’s alarm bell]

After twenty?four hours of nonstop high?speed sailing, the Polaris was like a tireless blue sailfish, cleaving through the waves in the pitch?black deep water of the Exuma Strait.

The hull was being continuously pushed to the limits of its performance, the engine’s ceaseless roar, and the dull, rasping groans it gave each time the solid hull carved through a towering wave.

Along with the high? and low?frequency hum of the autopilot, radar, inverter and various other electronic devices in operation, all weaving together into a noise that made it impossible to truly relax.

Everyone on board felt as if they were living inside a gigantic tin drum, being shaken at all times by an invisible hand.

The real enemy was exhaustion. That kind of exhaustion that seeped out bit by bit from deep in the bone marrow, with no escape.

Instant coffee and energy drinks could only provide a brief, illusory rush, followed by deeper fatigue and a lingering headache.

Taste started to go numb; the beef Lin Yu’an had carefully stewed felt like wax in their mouths, and everyone was wasting away at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Lin Yu’an was at the tail end of his eight?hour "midnight watch," the most exhausting time of day.

He heated himself a cup of oatmeal and gulped it down with a few utterly tasteless soda crackers.

Just as he was bracing himself to endure the last two hours, a bout of violent jolting made him frown. This jolting was different from the rise and fall of swell, more a short, savage roll across the beam.

He rushed to the helm at once to check carefully, and a startled Mike also burst in. "What’s wrong?"

"There’s a thunderstorm cell up ahead. Fuck, it’s not on the electronic chart or in the forecast at all!" Lin Yu’an’s voice carried a rasp of fatigue, but his eyes were still sharp.

He pointed at the radar screen, at that deep?red blotch that had sprung from nowhere. "The area isn’t large, but judging from the echo intensity, there’s definitely hail and strong downbursts inside."

"We have to go around it. If we do, we’ll lose at least half an hour, maybe forty minutes."

Mike’s expression was grave. "The safety window’s already compressed down to just 20 hours... forty minutes is maybe still acceptable. Go get some rest, Lin. Leave it to me."

"I’ll do it." Lin Yu’an said without the slightest hesitation. "My brain’s still awake, perfect for dealing with this kind of sudden situation. Mike, go get the storm sails ready, just in case."

Mike looked into Lin Yu’an’s eyes—bloodshot from the long watch yet still glinting with light—then gave a firm nod and didn’t argue.

Lin Yu’an took over the wheel; he did not choose a wide detour.

Instead, on the radar screen he quickly plotted out a precise route, trying to slip through the weakest edge zone of this thunderstorm cell.

Bean?sized raindrops mixed with icy hailstones crazily hammered the blast?resistant windows of the wheelhouse, crackling like gunfire.

Pale?purple forked lightning kept tearing open the pitch?black curtain of night, lighting up the surge?torn sea like a hellish sheet of corpse?white!

Fortunately, forty minutes later, only after they had come through the storm zone with a fright but no real danger, did Lin Yu’an have a moment to download the second batch of routine weather data.

He tapped open the display, and the moment he saw that latest satellite cloud?image, the heart that had just relaxed a fraction with the successful avoidance of the thunderstorm plunged straight back into the abyss.

On the screen, Artemis’s satellite cloud pattern had undergone a qualitative change.

It was no longer a relatively loose spiral nebula; a "central dense overcast area" whose structure was as compact as a fortress of war had fully formed.

Even worse, at the center of that rotating, densest mass of white clouds, a vague yet undeniably real "eyewall" prototype was rapidly taking shape.

"Goddamn..." Lin Yu’an muttered a curse under his breath.

He understood better than anyone what this meant. It meant that "Artemis" was entering a period of rapid intensification.

It had already broken away from being just a disorganized tropical storm and was violently evolving toward the prototype of a Category 1 hurricane with highly concentrated energy!

And its rate of strengthening was far beyond what any official model had predicted.

The atmosphere inside the cabin seemed to be stripped of oxygen bit by bit along with that endlessly rotating cloud map on the screen.

Even the engine’s rhythmic roar sounded, in that moment, as if it carried a faint, powerless wail.

[Day Three, 5 a.m., the forty?eighth hour of judgment]

Two days and two nights, no sleep, no rest, more than four hundred nautical miles of extreme assault.

By the time the Polaris reached the "fateful decision point," the three people on board were like candles burned down to the stub.

Lin Yu’an slowly pulled back the engine throttle; after roaring continuously for forty?eight hours, the engine rpm finally dropped, turning into a feeble hum.

The Polaris’s speed eased off, rocking gently on the great ocean swell in the open deep water.

The three of them gathered at the helm as if by prior agreement; no one spoke. The air was thick with the mingled smells of sweat, diesel, and concentrated coffee.