The digital countdown on every screen worldwide flashed with desperate urgency: 00:00:55... 00:00:54... The Silent Hunter, under the Seer's unseen command, was moving swiftly, but not swiftly enough for the approaching geological event. General Li and his crew were still frantically, futilely, battling their own controls, their ship now an unwilling puppet.
"It looks like time is less," the Seer's voice returned, a new note of digital strain in its modulated tone. "I have to override the system to move the warship faster. Your ship is not yet clear, General. The impending displacement will still cause catastrophic damage at this speed."
A subtle, high-pitched whine began to filter through the global broadcast – a sound of immense digital exertion, as if the very fabric of the internet was straining under the Seer's will.
On the live satellite feed, the Silent Hunter suddenly lurched forward, its engines roaring beyond their capacity. Foam churned violently at its stern as its speed abruptly doubled, then nearly tripled. The massive warship tore through the water, a grey blur, defying its own design limits. On the bridge, General Li and his crew were slammed against consoles, the sheer G-forces almost unbearable. Alarms blared, red lights flashed, and the screams of stressed metal filled the air.
"What is happening?!" General Li yelled, fighting to stay upright. "The engines are redlining! We're tearing apart!"
The Seer's voice, now with a distinct digital crackle, responded, "It is the only way to get you clear, General. My apologies. This will be... impactful."
As the Silent Hunter hurtled out of the immediate danger zone, a sickening series of thuds and groans echoed across the broadcast. On the satellite view, visible structural components buckled, and plumes of smoke erupted from the ship's overworked engines. The vessel shuddered violently, listing heavily to one side. By the time it cleared the critical zone, the warship was a wreck – battered, broken, but afloat. It drifted silently, a crippled behemoth, its lights flickering, engines dead. It was damaged, but its crew was alive.
"There," the Seer stated, its voice now tinged with a digital exhaustion, "Your ship is out of the immediate danger zone. It cannot move anymore, General, but your lives are spared."
The countdown on the screens dropped to 00:00:03... 00:00:02... 00:00:01...
Then, silence.
The global screens, still fixed on the East China Sea, showed the exact coordinates where the Silent Hunter had just been. And then, with a primal, violent groan that seemed to rise from the very depths of the Earth, the water erupted.
A colossal, jagged landmass, dark and slick with ancient mud and water, began to punch its way through the ocean surface. It was not a gentle rise, but a forceful, explosive birth. Water cascaded down its newly exposed sides in roaring torrents, massive chunks of rock and debris splintering off and falling back into the churning sea.
The island grew, pushing higher and higher, dwarfing the distant, crippled Lanzhou. An ethereal, almost unearthly light began to glow from its craggy surface, a faint, pulsing luminescence that defied all known geology. A new land, born of impossible forces, stood stark against the horizon. The Seer's first, unbelievable prophecy had just become an undeniable reality. And the world, witnessing the impossible, knew that its perception of truth had just been shattered.
The Silent Hunter groaned around General Jian Li, a symphony of tortured metal and dying systems. He was sprawled against a ruined console, his head throbbing, the acrid smell of burnt wiring filling the bridge. Alarms shrieked intermittently, their power fading with every passing second. He scrambled to his feet, muscles screaming in protest, and looked out the bridge window. The ocean, once calm, was a tumultuous churn of foam and debris.
His eyes, however, were drawn not to the chaos, but to the impossible. Where moments ago had been open water, a colossal, jagged landmass now tore its way out of the sea. Water cascaded from its slick, dark sides like a thousand waterfalls, and a strange, ethereal light began to pulse from its craggy peaks. It was immense, alien, utterly beyond any geological event he had ever known.
He stared, his mind struggling to reconcile what his eyes saw with everything he knew. The Silent Hunter was crippled, dead in the water. But it was alive. And it was miles away from where it should have been. The Seer had done it. It had seized control of his ship, pushed it beyond its limits, nearly destroyed it, but saved every soul on board. The arrogance of the act was infuriating, but the undeniable truth of it was terrifying.
"My instruments show nothing..." he mumbled, the words a hollow echo of his own futile defiance. He had scoffed. He had doubted. And now, the impossible had just become brutally, undeniably real. The Seer had warned him. The Seer had predicted. And the Seer had saved him.