The countdown blazed on the world's screens: 00:03:45... 00:03:44... General Jian Li stood defiant on the bridge of the Silent Hunter, his eyes fixed on the ocean, his faith in his instruments unshakeable. The Seer's voice, however, persisted, a chilling whisper of warning.
"General, why are you not believing me?" the Seer implored, a rare hint of frustration, or perhaps desperation, coloring its modulated tone. "This may cost the lives of your crewmates. Your defiance is a grave error."
General Li scoffed, a tight, nervous sound. "We see nothing! My sensors are clear! I will not endanger my ship on the word of an unverified voice!" He turned to his helmsman. "Maintain course, I said! Full power, prepare for evasive maneuvers if any actual threat appears!"
A profound sigh seemed to resonate through the global broadcast, a sound of immense weariness. "Very well, General," the Seer stated, its voice now utterly devoid of emotion, cold as steel. "It seems I have no choice. I cannot stand by and watch this needless loss of life. I will control the ship myself."
The words sent a fresh wave of shock through every command center, every home. Control a warship? Live?
On the satellite feed, the Silent Hunter suddenly, violently, veered. Not in the slow, controlled turn the general had ordered, but in a sharp, almost impossible maneuver, its bow cutting sharply through the water. Sailors on deck stumbled, thrown off balance. General Li himself staggered, grabbing onto a console to steady himself, his face contorted in disbelief.
"What in the blazes?!" he roared, scrambling back to the helm. "Helmsman! Regain control! What are you doing?!"
The helmsman, a young officer, was frantically wrestling with the controls. "General, I'm trying! The helm isn't responding! It's locked! I have no control!"
"Navigational systems override!" the General barked. "Regain manual control! Now!"
But it was futile. The Silent Hunter, seemingly of its own accord, continued its rapid, impossible turn, its mighty engines pushing it away from the specific coordinates where the island was about to emerge. It cut a sharp, new course, putting significant distance between itself and the designated area.
The Seer's voice returned, oddly contemplative. "To be truthful with you, General Li," it admitted, a chilling honesty in its tone, "a part of me wished for your vessel to sink and be destroyed. Not out of malice for you or your crew, but because such a clear, undeniable disaster would have amplified my warning. It would have made the world believe my words without a shadow of a doubt. Fear, sometimes, is a more potent teacher than evidence."
The general, still reeling, could only stare at the main screen on his bridge, where the Seer's masked face now seemed to watch him with an unnerving intensity. His crew, bewildered, continued to grapple with unresponsive controls.
"But what can I do?" the Seer's voice filled the stunned air, a profound weariness in its modulated depths. "I cannot bring myself to deliberately kill people when I possess the means to save them. My burden is to see the future, not to orchestrate its most brutal lessons unnecessarily. Your lives, General, are more valuable than my credibility."
The Silent Hunter continued its rapid, controlled retreat, moving swiftly away from the coordinates. On screens across the globe, the countdown kept ticking down, now at 00:01:20... 00:01:19... The world, witnessing the unimaginable – an unseen entity seizing control of a warship – had just been given the most terrifying, undeniable proof of the Seer's power. Their disbelief was shattering, replaced by a dawning, terrifying reality. The island was still coming, but the Seer had chosen mercy over demonstration.