Along with the sea-born monsters rising from the ocean, the red-haired girl immediately noticed a floating island appearing where the sea had previously been empty.
Floating islands weren't anything rare. Abyssal bases were rarely built atop fixed undersea mountains—instead, they were artificially created floating islands, almost magical in nature.
This gave Abyssal bases mobility, a clear and overwhelming advantage.
Only humans would foolishly build their bases and naval headquarters on immovable islands. They even naively called some of them "unsinkable aircraft carriers."
Ridiculous.
They were nothing more than sitting targets.
If Abyssals didn't require the "Ink Sea" to replenish their strength, they could easily propel their floating islands into the sky and turn them into airborne fortresses.
If something could float on water, it could float in air—transforming war from a two-dimensional surface battle into a full three-dimensional conflict across land, sea, and sky.
But the cost was too great. For now, the Abyssals had no need to raise their bases into the sky to strike directly at human territory.
After all, the Abyssals never truly sought to annihilate humanity. What they needed was the negative emotions of humanity as sustenance—plus the occasional bit of amusement.
Like vampires raising livestock for blood.
They wanted humanity to live in a state of long-term fear and short-term despair.
But now… things were changing.
One person—no, strictly speaking, two people—had destroyed an Abyssal army numbering in the hundreds of thousands. And not just any army: it included fully trained elites like Barbarossa, Abyssal Bismarck, and Abyssal Tirpitz.
When this news first reached the Abyssals, not a single flagship believed it.
But the Abyssals don't celebrate April Fools'.
The intel was real. There truly existed a shipgirl who had shattered the power ceiling that had stood for countless years. Someone who now possessed the strength to challenge the Abyssals themselves.
That was why the red-haired girl had rushed here overnight.
These individuals, who had caused such a global stir, were not difficult to locate.
Originally, the girl had planned to infiltrate the human realm using her planted spies, gradually working her way closer to these individuals.
That would've been risky. The humans had many strong protectors, and the land was not her battlefield—she would've been isolated and alone.
So when she received intel from her agents that these people had fallen out with the government and split ways, she was stunned.
She had always known humans could be foolish and short-sighted, but she had never expected this level of idiocy.
Rather than uniting what could be united, they were still scheming and infighting. It was baffling.
What they didn't know was this: because of the emergence of that "Peerless Demon" known as Tirpitz, the Abyssals had already decided to suspend their invasion of East Asia. They were even willing to withdraw their forces and allow humanity to claim a few major victories.
This was strategy.
Even human history recorded such maneuvers. When external pressure was high, internal factions would band together. When external pressure eased, they would turn inward and fight amongst themselves.
She remembered this tactic being used by Cao Cao during the Three Kingdoms.
The Abyssals, too, were masters of strategy. But usually their schemes were aimed at entire continents or nations. This time, they were even willing to sacrifice millions of troops to capture just one person—Tirpitz.
To be valued so highly by the Abyssals… that was something to be proud of.
But what the red-haired girl hadn't expected was that before she even began her infiltration plan, the situation had shifted drastically—and in her favor.
The power she had planned to use as bait could now be preserved. Tirpitz and her companions were now little more than isolated, scattered remnants.
Her mission now was simple: locate these scattered troops, and uncover the secrets hidden within them.
Thinking of this, the girl let out a small sigh.
Finding them wasn't the issue—it was what came next.
How many troops would she need to ensure a clean victory?
She furrowed her brow and calculated. The Abyssal presence in this sea region wasn't particularly strong. If she wanted to gather billions of troops, she'd need to tap the deep south—Antarctica.
Within a 3,000-nautical-mile radius, she could at best rally five million Abyssals, along with thirty to fifty flagships.
That was her limit.
Both in terms of authority—and in terms of command capability.
[End of Chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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