Chapter 772.2: To Scam Thy Enemy, Scam Thyself First

Across the turbulent sea, a lone warship slowly advanced toward the northwest.

Zhang Ruowen suddenly felt that the ship resembled him, or perhaps that he resembled the ship. He did not know where he was supposed to go.

That sense of confusion had only deepened after Chalas issued his latest proclamation.

Over the past 200 years, the survivors of the Southern Seas had accomplished many things, yet everything seemed to have been in vain. In the end, they were still repeating the same mistakes they had made back then.

The Southern Archipelago Federation had been born in flames, only to disintegrate amid an even greater inferno. They had turned toward the Torch Church because their enemies opposed it, only for that excessive sear to burn every one of them.

So what had any of it been for?

“Your confusion is perfectly natural. The root of every mistake lies in the human species itself. It is a physiological limitation. Old humanity belongs to Earth and is suited only to living on Earth. If fish wish to crawl onto land, they must evolve limbs, but limbs alone are not enough to carry us toward the distant stars. We still require a transformation of our very form of life.” A calm voice echoed from the depths of his consciousness, like gospel descending from heaven, granting him a brief moment of peace.

Zhang Ruowen glanced sideways at the old man standing inside the captain’s cabin and said with a faint smile, “Then why haven’t you simply abandoned your physical body like the others of your kind?”

He knew that he man was one of the senior members of the Torch Church. Moreover, he was the only Apostle who had gained access to the Sanctuary without becoming a Pathfinder.

“That would be too extreme,” Arzu replied, shaking his head. “They were too eager to draw a clear line between themselves and humanity, and in doing so placed themselves at a disadvantage. Were it up to me, I would exploit my human identity to recover as much of the old civilization’s legacy as possible, and only then implement the final transformation.”

Had the Torch Church followed his approach, it still would not have deceived the Academy, but it might at least have fooled the Enterprise.

The residents of Ideal City still carried a degree of guilt over what had happened 150 years ago. Otherwise, they would not have scattered money across the wasteland or tried to correct the mistakes of the past.

As for the Army, they could have been bought off with the technology the Wislanders desired, along with a promise that they would be allowed to rule the Great Rift Valley. Even after the Eastern Army had failed, a considerable number of Wislanders outside the Eastern Army still longed to take revenge upon the Post-War Reconstruction Committee.

Overthrowing the Great Rift Valley and freeing themselves from the restraints of their masters were also goals desired by the Bugra Free State. The two factions could have formed an unspoken community of shared interests, just as they had during the Bonechewer Clan uprising.

Had that happened, no matter what methods the New Alliance employed, it would have struggled to establish an encirclement like the present one.

Unfortunately, those Pathfinders thought far too highly of themselves. They believed their advanced ideas and philosophies would inevitably defeat the old order, mistakenly treating something that had not yet become history as though it were already historically inevitable.

Everything led up to what they were facing at that moment.

In the end, it still fell upon him, a human who had retained his physical body, to salvage the situation.

Arzu sighed. Fortunately, he had employed a few methods of his own. Otherwise, the situation would most likely have become irretrievable by now.

The version of himself residing on the other chip should already have warned Chalas. As of their conversation, North Island should have learned that the entire operation was a deception.

The Southern Sea New Alliance would never imagine that the captain of the Reef was actually his Apostle, and that Apostle would probably never imagine that Arzu knew every one of his secrets.

The two remained silent, each harboring their own thoughts as they gazed at the raging waves beyond the bridge.

At that moment, footsteps sounded in the corridor. The adjutant pushed open the door, saluted, and reported with a grave expression, “Sir! As instructed, we transmitted the signal. North Island Naval Base has responded that they received our request. The destroyer Flying Fish is heading toward the designated coordinates to receive us.”

“Mm.” Zhang Ruowen nodded. “Proceed according to plan.”

The bait operation was highly classified. Apart from Zhang Ruowen himself, no one aboard the destroyer knew the codename Laken, much less that they themselves were the bait.

Even his closest confidants knew only that they were defecting to the north. Most of the lower-ranking sailors did not even know that the ship had deviated from its patrol route, let alone that its movements had already been exposed to the North Island Federation Fleet.

Everything was part of the plan.

Looking at Zhang Ruowen’s expressionless face, the adjutant hesitated before speaking quietly. “Sir...”

Zhang Ruowen replied absentmindedly, “What is it?”

The adjutant remained silent for a moment before he continued, “Is this... really the right thing to do?”

Zhang Ruowen looked at him and raised an eyebrow slightly. “Which part are you referring to?”

“I don’t believe Chalas will trust you any more than Commander Li Minghui does. After we return to North Island, we may be welcomed in name, but our actual circumstances could become even worse. And...”

The adjutant hesitated, apparently uncertain whether it was his place to say such things. After a brief silence, however, he gritted his teeth and finally voiced what was on his mind. “... And I think... compared to Chalas, the declaration advocated by the Southern Sea New Alliance is what we truly need.”

What they needed was not a false reconciliation or superficial unity. They needed genuine union.

Hearing those words, Zhang Ruowen fell silent for a moment, as though waiting for something. Then, at the precise moment when the hour and minute hands overlapped, he suddenly laughed twice and spoke in a very quiet voice. “Good. That’s very good.”

The adjutant froze. “Good?”

Zhang Ruowen nodded and continued with a faint smile. “You’ve begun thinking about our future. That’s a good thing. I still haven’t decided where we should go from here, but at least someone is thinking about it. Perhaps my confusion is only temporary.” Looking at the thoroughly bewildered adjutant, he continued, “To a large extent, I chose Chalas because I no longer knew what else to do. Perhaps someone sufficiently forceful and somewhat capable could think on behalf of everyone else. At least he wouldn’t be indecisive like Mongo, or argue from dusk until dawn like our cabinet without ever reaching a conclusion.”

“Perhaps he wasn’t so bad. Well, that was what I thought at first. Maybe he really could lead us toward a brighter future. But then I suddenly realized... that was merely my own laziness and delusion. That idiot isn’t any smarter than the rest of us. He makes the same mistakes we make through debate, except he commits them over and over again, quietly and without anyone noticing.”

He had heard that survivors from the Southern Seas had recently begun venturing outward one after another, carrying the legacy of the Prosperity Era with them to change others across the wasteland and unite even more people.

Chalas probably would never have allowed them to do such a thing. That man still dreamed of establishing an enormous maritime empire after dealing with the New Alliance, using the biological technology provided by the Torch Church to contend with the Army, the Enterprise, and the Academy, while treating the survivors of the Southern Seas as pieces and bargaining chips on his board.

How small-minded... Both in ability and ambition.

He had already become president of the North Island Federation, yet he did not even dare to dream bigger. An entire sea of stars stretched above their heads, yet all he could see was the little pond beneath his feet.

If they followed that man, they would never return to the places humanity had once reached, not in this lifetime.

A faint smile curled at the corner of Zhang Ruowen’s mouth. He was immensely grateful that he had made the correct choice back then. Back then, he hesitated for two seconds when Chalas’ order arrived.

However, seeing the smile on his face, the adjutant asked bitterly, “If you believe Chalas cannot be trusted, are you still choosing him in the end?”

He did not approve of his superior’s decision to defect, but it seemed too late to say anything now. The Reef had already entered radio silence and severed all contact with the Southern Sea New Alliance.

No matter how slow Commander Li Minghui might be, he should have realized by now that the Reef had defected. At present, only North Island Command knew their position and heading. They had no choice but to continue down their path to the very end.

At least, that was how the adjutant saw it.

“You’ve only seen the surface... It’s natural that you would think that way.” Zhang Ruowen took out a pair of binoculars and looked toward the north. After pausing, he continued, “There’s no longer any need to keep this secret. I can tell you plainly that we are merely bait. A decisive battle codenamed Laken has already begun!”

“Pass down my orders! The entire ship is to enter maximum combat readiness! Prepare to engage the vessel coming to receive us!”

Just as he had expected, the adjutant’s face filled with astonishment as he stared at Zhang Ruowen’s blazing gaze. The other officers on the bridge were equally unprepared for the sudden revelation. None of them had imagined that a routine patrol, or supposed defection, would become the final decisive battle against the North Island Federation.

Well, no one there except Arzu, whom only Zhang Ruowen could see.

The muscles on Arzu’s face gradually twisted into a savage grin resembling that of the sea beast, Laken.

As expected! The man had indeed pretended to surrender so he could lead the enemy into a trap! He had finally revealed his true intentions!

Before the Reef entered radio silence, Arzu had already notified North Island Naval Command. As long as those people continued along their original course, what awaited them would not be the destroyer Flying Fish, but the cruiser Laken.

That was an anti-ship vessel specifically designed to hunt destroyers!

Over the past century, Shelter 70 had not only feared the Army that had overthrown the Post-War Reconstruction Committee. What it had truly feared most were the survivors of the Southern Seas. To guard against those survivors using the technology brought from the shelter against it, Shelter 70 had designed a whole series of weapons intended to balance one another.

At the same time, under the escort of the destroyers Flying Fish and Defender, the battleship Ocean Edge would engage the Southern Sea New Alliance’s ambush forces both above and beneath the sea.

No matter how powerful the submarine carrier and their aircraft might be, they could not possibly match destroyers designed specifically for anti-submarine warfare!

The second the submarine surfaced, it would be even more thoroughly doomed.

As for the cruiser Harpoon and the two other destroyers covering the submarine, they would be nothing more than a joke before the main guns of the Ocean Edge.

Arzu smiled as he watched Zhang Ruowen, only to realize that the latter was also looking at him.

The expressionless face showed no visible emotion. However, upon closer inspection, Arzu noticed an unusual smile curling at the corner of those calm lips.

He’s smiling? How can he still smile?

Suddenly, Arzu thought of something, and his hollow pupils contracted sharply.

Wait! The codename of their entire operation was Laken?!

The Southern Sea New Alliance’s bait operation was actually codenamed Laken!

That can’t possibly be a coincidence.

There was only one explanation. From the very beginning, those people had been targeting the cruiser, Laken.

They had anticipated his and Chalas’s anticipation. They had calculated that Chalas would never trust the Reef, and had even anticipated that Arzu could read the thoughts within an Apostle’s mind and thereby leak the plan, even though Torch had never disclosed that secret to anyone.

Not even Chalas knew!

“I imagine you must be wondering how I concealed the operation’s codename from you,” Zhang Ruowen said softly, watching the smile on Arzu’s face change gradually from ecstasy to terror.

Without severing their connection of consciousness, Arzu’s throat bobbed. He slowly nodded.

Zhang Ruowen paid it no mind and continued casually. “To deceive your opponent, you must first deceive yourself. To tell you the truth, I only learned the codename of this operation a few moments ago.”

“That’s impossible!” Arzu glared at him, only to discover, to his horror, that Zhang Ruowen was not lying. A terrifying possibility surfaced in his mind, accompanied by a bead of cold sweat that did not truly exist.

Zhang Ruowen continued, “You already know this is an ambush. Therefore, the vessel coming to pick us up could not possibly be another destroyer. It cannot be the Flying Fish or the Defender, because a battle between destroyers would take time to produce a result. Nor could it be the Ocean Edge... Chalas will never risk separating the only treasure in his possession from the protection of his fleet merely to destroy a single destroyer.”

“That leaves only the Laken. After all, you explicitly claimed that the ship coming to receive us would be an anti-submarine destroyer. Meanwhile, so long as we believed the operation remained undiscovered, we will never allow any submarine to follow close to the Reef. It would instead lie in ambush much farther away. In that case, even if the Laken possesses relatively weak anti-submarine capabilities, it would still have sufficient time to sink us, immediately turn around, rendezvous with your fleet lying nearby, and draw both the Southern Sea New Alliance’s surface and submarine forces into your ambush.”

If that were truly the case, the result would undoubtedly be disastrous.

The Southern Sea New Alliance’s submarines would be helpless against the North Island Federation’s destroyers, while the Southern Sea New Alliance’s only cruiser, the Harpoon, could never defeat the battleship Ocean Edge.

The entire battle would conclude as cleanly and decisively as a game of rock-paper-scissors with one side knowing what the other was going to throw, without the slightest suspense.

Yet that was precisely why they could turn the situation around and exploit Chalas’s prediction of the Southern Sea New Alliance’s prediction.

If Zhang Ruowen had guessed correctly, then at that very moment, a Southern Sea New Alliance submarine had to be lying in ambush somewhere nearby, already targeting the vessel falsely identifying itself as the Flying Fish as it approached the area, the Laken.

“Li Minghui never told me the codename of this operation, so all of this is merely my own guess. If the codename had actually been Flying Fish or anything else, then it would have meant I had gambled incorrectly.” Looking at the terrified Arzu, Zhang Ruowen stared through that translucent face toward the surging waves beyond the bridge and the “Laken” concealed behind them. A faint smile appeared on his face as he continued, “But your reaction tells me that I probably guessed correctly.”