Necromancer, summoning 055? What the heck?

Chapter 248 Sunset, Rusty Ship Deck, Bloodstained Moment of Slaughter (Bonus Chapter 2)
Dongxia's worries, or rather, his "worries," soon became a reality.

On a coral reef near the Republic of Jasmine Eagle Lion, but outside its borders, an abandoned ship, rusted and stranded for years due to "malfunction," became 0019's, or Afu's, second target.

For no other reason than to clearly distinguish between gratitude and resentment.

Through continuous hunting and devouring, "Afu" is gradually regaining some of its essential characteristics as a flesh-and-blood giant. Its body is becoming stronger and larger, while its limbs... appear shorter and thicker in comparison.

It used to be a long-legged spider, then it slowly turned into a crab, and now, with its round, fleshy body and several short, powerful appendages, it looks somewhat like a short-legged caterpillar.

In short, when this creature, now three meters long and burly, poked its head out of the water and curiously examined the dilapidated boat with its four eyes (two large and two small), a member of the Jasmine Kingdom on board let out a joyful shout.

"Look, we're going to get rich!"

Indeed, in order to capture this mysterious mutated creature, the bald eagle offered a huge bounty. For these small fry who have been staying on the wrecked ship for many years, if it weren't for the reward promised by Jasmine Kingdom, who would be willing to suffer the torment of being half-dead here?

Now, an astronomical bounty has risen from the sea, and a group of people are green with envy.

It was sunset, the sky was ablaze with red clouds, and the water shimmered with golden light. A boat, a beast, the sea, and the glow of the sunset—it should have been a breathtaking scene.

However, the next second, this "painting" was brutally torn apart.

When this wrecked ship came aground, it was a premeditated act. The ship not only had enough guns and ammunition, but also a considerable amount of explosives. These guys swallowed hard, picked up their rifles with slightly trembling hands, and lay on the ship, secretly watching "Afu" as it slowly approached.

They were waiting for the monster to get closer so they could kill it with one blow, and also to make it easier to retrieve "Afu" from the coral reef, preventing its body from falling into the deep sea.

As for why they are not afraid.

First, people blinded by greed don't know fear. When humans have firearms, they dare to confront most wild animals.

Secondly, "Afu" has no record of injuring anyone so far.

Flesh giants are undead creatures with a certain level of intelligence, but not a very high one. Throughout Dongxia's long period of teaching, it has been repeatedly emphasized that the second principle of action is not to attack humanoid creatures.

Ah Fu has always adhered to the rules very well.

Of course, above the second principle, there is a first principle: prioritizing one's own safety.

So when these guys decided to attack "Afu", something big was bound to happen!
Because half of the ship was submerged in seawater and the other half was exposed to air, it was severely corroded. In addition, a large amount of oil was leaking and garbage was dumped, making the seawater around the ship extremely filthy, and the coral reefs beneath it were almost completely destroyed.

However, the undead creatures didn't seem to notice anything. Afu slowly approached the ship, trying to figure out with his limited intelligence why this big guy was "deserving to die".
The continuous gunfire shattered the tranquility of the sea.

At least four automatic rifles fired, creating a fine spray of water on the sea surface, with more than a dozen bullets hitting "Afu" directly in the body.

After the flesh and blood fusion, "Afu" was covered with a layer of keratin-like skin with dark spots. The texture was relatively tough, but no matter how tough it was, it was not a heavy armor shell and could not withstand the firepower of firearms.

The dense bullets pierced "Afu's" body. It didn't hurt, but it made it feel very uncomfortable.

This is an attack without a doubt!
Prior to this, Dongxia had studied the modification of the limbs of undead creatures and discovered a very strange mechanism: the undead would show a clear rejection reaction to metal embedded in their bodies.

You can make it hold a knife, or you can put armor on it, but if you replace a piece of its alloy skeleton, Xiaobai will be very uncomfortable and even become extremely irritable.

Experts in necromancy and psychology from Dongxia have conducted extensive research on this and have concluded that it may be a compensatory mechanism. In other words, because the dead do not feel pain, their reaction to external attacks is much slower than that of units that do feel pain.

This situation is more common among lower-ranking undead due to their relatively low intelligence.

Low-level undead are precisely the units that often require large-scale group operations and are unlikely to be precisely controlled and commanded one by one by lords and summoners.

Therefore, the intense discomfort caused by the metal embedded in the body actually serves as an alarm signal of "being attacked." It is an evolutionary, or designed, compensatory signal used to compensate for the potential reaction delay caused by the lack of pain sensation in the undead, ensuring that they can respond quickly when harmed.

This argument is supported by several studies, such as the fact that attacking zombies with pure plastic bullets instead of metal bullets slows their reaction speed by at least three to four times.

Now, this intense, sudden swarm attack instantly activated "Afu's" fighting instincts.

The "second principle of action" repeatedly instilled by the Dongxia trainers—that is, the principle of not initiating attacks on humanoid creatures—was superseded by the more prioritized "first principle of action"—protecting one's own safety—in the face of this sudden malice.

"Afu's" eyes instantly locked onto the few humanoid creatures sticking their heads out of the wrecked ship, their faces a mixture of greed, tension, and madness.

"Hit! It's not dead! Keep firing!" a soldier from Jasmine Country shouted in his heavily accented local language, frantically pulling the bolt back on his rifle.

"Shoot it on the head! Shoot it on the head!"

However, their time was running out.

"Afu" let out a low hiss, its body sank into the water, and it dived directly into the coral reef, which was only a dozen meters deep. It used its limbs to cling to the rocks at the bottom, like a fleshy bomb flying close to the ground, and quickly rushed forward.

In comparison, crawling on the bottom is definitely much faster than swimming.

A huge, round, black shadow darted straight forward underwater at an extremely fast speed. Although rifle fire was constantly chasing its figure, the inefficiency of shooting underwater had no effect on "Afu's" forward speed.

Just a few dozen seconds later, Afu disappeared into the sea around the ship, which was covered with oil, garbage and various unidentified floating objects. As the little black monkeys on the ship searched frantically, Afu suddenly rose straight up from the seabed, bringing with it a curtain of turbid water.

"boom!"

Its heavy body slammed against the ship's side, and the entire dilapidated vessel emitted a chilling groan as its worn hull shook violently.

With its signature pair of thick, sickle-shaped forelimbs, Afu embedded itself deeply into the hull like a sharp blade cutting into sand, providing powerful grip. Its other pairs of short, thick, and powerful limbs moved in turn, and in just a few leaps, it had flipped onto the deck. As the massive body, along with the rusty railings, overturned, screams and gunshots from the soldiers rose and fell.

"It's up! It's climbed up!"

"Fire! Fire now!"

"Mom!"

"what--!!!"

As "Afu" advanced, the deck transformed from a hunting ground into a slaughterhouse.

The closest Jasmine soldier, gun and all, was sent flying by a sweeping limb before he could even make a move. He crashed into the rusty cabin wall with a thud, and lay motionless on the ground like a rag doll after a chilling thud.

One of the guys, who seemed to be the squad leader, still retained some fighting instincts. He pulled the trigger of his submachine gun, unleashing a hail of bullets at "Afu's" head and chest, while staggering backward, trying to find cover.

Enraged by this harassment, "Afu" lunged forward, its sickle-shaped forelimbs slashing down like a guillotine blade!
The squad leader's screams came to an abrupt halt as his body, along with the submachine gun in his hand, was cleaved in two. Blood and entrails were instantly splattered onto the filthy deck, and a strong stench of blood quickly filled the air.

Once the slaughter begins, it can never be stopped.

"Afu" rampaged across the deck, its sickle-shaped forelimbs slicing through limbs as easily as chopping melons and vegetables, its heavy arthropods trampling through the torso like boulders crushing eggs. The deck was soon covered with mangled corpses and splattered blood and flesh.

Amidst the chaos and bloodshed, a figure huddled in the shadow of a half-collapsed watchtower on the upper deck, trembling as if suffering from late-stage Parkinson's disease.

He was the deputy captain in charge of lookout and communications on the ship. Because he was huddled in the lookout tower, he was lucky enough not to participate in the attack. At this moment, all he could do was to use his trembling hands to tightly grip a portable video recording device and point the lens through the gaps in the ship's hull at the efficient massacre outside.

The shaky camera captured a series of brutal and terrifying scenes.

"Afu" used his body to smash a soldier who was tumbling and crawling into the inner cabin, along with the iron door he was hiding in, flattening it flat. The squeezed-out bits of flesh curled up along the deformed iron edges.

A man who tried to jump into the sea was caught by arthropods and dragged back. Then, "Afu" used some kind of pole to pick him up and nailed him to the hull.

The vice-captain bit his lip hard, not daring to make a sound. Tears and snot covered his face, and the immense fear almost suffocated him.

He could only watch helplessly as his companions fell one by one, as the monster leaped and bounded through the mountains of corpses and seas of blood, as blood soaked the deck, as pieces of flesh...

It seems like it's been a long time since I've eaten meat... The vice-captain suddenly had an extremely inappropriate and almost absurd thought, while swallowing hard.

"Afu" had an excellent memory, or rather, its identification and targeting mechanism for "attackers" was extremely efficient. Not a single enemy on the ship that attacked it escaped, and even a guy who successfully jumped into the sea was quickly caught up by "Afu" and cut into three pieces.

Back on the ship, "Afu" looked up in confusion at the direction of the watchtower. The flesh giant had sensed the life force there, but since the other party had not made a move, it chose to ignore it according to the second principle of action.

By the time it finished, the sun had already set below the horizon, and the last ray of white light was about to disappear. "Afu" stood still, its massive body rising and falling slightly with its breath. It seemed somewhat confused as it shook off its blood-stained forelimbs, then looked down with its compound eyes at the ship it had wrecked.

The trainer said the ship "deserves to die," but how do you kill a ship?
It tried to chop the main deck a few times with its sickle-shaped forelimbs, leaving several deep dents, but it seemed far from completely dismantling the steel ship.

"Afu" tilted its huge head, which was almost integrated with its body, and after some serious thought, finally let out a few low, unintelligible gurgling sounds.

Only someone fluent in the language of the dead can understand its self-talk: "This body isn't big enough yet; we'll dismantle it when it's grown a bit bigger."

Under the horrified gaze of the vice-captain, the killing machine that had just cleaned the deck slowly vaulted over the railing and plunged into the murky seawater, leaving behind only ripples of blood that gradually spread outwards.

As night fell, the beachhead was devoid of lights and human voices, leaving only a deathly silence, like that of a ghost town.

After an unknown amount of time, realizing that the terrifying monster had finally gone far away, the vice-captain stumbled into the cabin with whimpers like a wounded wild dog and found the ship's communication facilities.

Regardless of whether it was kept secret or not, the deputy captain used a distorted voice to send a distress signal to the surrounding area through the public channel.

"Help! Help me! Monsters attacked our ship, they're all dead, they're all dead! Help me...please!"

This area has always been under the actual jurisdiction of the Eastern Xia Republic. Upon receiving the signal, the Eastern Xia coast guard ship arrived immediately, picked up the guy whose pants were already soaked, and took the complete video from him.

The information was relayed back to Dongxia, and after a few minutes of consideration, Dongxia made a decision to release the unedited video in its entirety!
This grounded ship was deliberately placed there as a target to demonstrate Dongxia's "restraint" and "patience" to both the international community and the domestic audience. The core message was that we suffered a loss because the other side broke its promises, but we abided by the rules and never forcibly expelled them.

Now that the other side has suffered a great loss, it's time to clarify things. You have your own witnesses and physical evidence; it wasn't our coast guard or our navy who did it!
It was your own people who were greedy and foolish; you brought this upon yourselves!
At the same time, Dongxia also fully demonstrated its "humanitarian concern" as a "responsible major power" by officially notifying Jasmine Eagle Lion through official channels that, based on international humanitarian considerations, they were allowed to send unarmed vessels to the ship involved in the incident to collect the bodies within a specified time.

Um... it should be the job of collecting body parts!

As for whether they will take the opportunity to recruit more personnel...

Go ahead, Dongxia is already exhausted. If you're not afraid of death, then go!
Undoubtedly, this "sea monster bloody attack on the grounded ship" incident has once again become the focus of public opinion on Earth. Speaking of which, "Afu" can definitely be called a top global internet celebrity now, a behemoth that has long dominated the top of various media platforms. If he ever has the chance to debut as a celebrity...

You're overthinking it. Let's think about "A-Fu's" next stop...

According to Dongxia's monitoring and calculations, there are still about three and a half months until the agreed-upon window for replenishing dark energy. Given its current capacity for causing trouble, its ever-growing size and appetite, who knows what other astonishing things it might do during this period—a time that is neither too long nor too short.

The most critical issue is that we don't know what level of information "pollution" it has caused by overhearing the trainers' conversations, or what kind of actions it will ultimately take.

The unpredictability is what's most terrifying!

Deputy Commander Gu looked at the red circles on the record board, and sighed softly, slowly, and for a long time.
(End of this chapter)