At this moment, on the radar screen, a large area of dense red light spots suddenly lit up around the light spot representing their fishing boat!
Those red dots were gathering towards the three small boats from all directions!
At the same time, an extremely huge shadow slowly emerged on the foggy sea ahead.
“It’s…it’s a ship!!”
“Someone’s coming!!”
“Help—!!”
The miserable condition of the three small boats was even worse than Lu Ye had expected.
Rather than being ships, they were more like three tattered rafts floating on the sea. The sides and decks of the ships were densely covered with a layer of something that was constantly wriggling and flashing with a strange metallic luster.
Looking closely, Lu Ye's scalp also felt slightly numb.
It was not a single sea monster at all, but a "living tide" composed of countless strange creatures the size of fingernails, shaped like barnacles, but with fine fangs and tiny tentacles!
【Mutated barnacle swarm (micro)】
Danger level: low (individual), high (group)
[Characteristics: Live in groups, reproduce rapidly, secrete highly corrosive mucus, fear of fire]
[Explanation: A locust in the ocean poses no threat alone, but when they form a large group, they are powerful enough to devour steel!]
There were so many of these things that it was despairing. They were gnawing at the hull frantically at an astonishing speed.
The waterline of one of the small boats was dangerously low and it was about to fall apart and sink completely!
"It's over...it's over...the ship is going to sink!"
"Help! Give us a hand! Please!"
"Lu Ye..." Shen Shu's voice trembled slightly, and her face turned pale.
She had seen bloody surgical scenes, but the visual impact and psychological pressure brought by these dense, sticky, and seemingly endless tiny creatures was a completely different experience.
"There are too many... should we retreat first? We can't kill them all!"
Lu Ye's eyes were sharp as he quickly scanned the battlefield.
He didn't look at the barnacles that made his scalp tingle, but stared at the center of their encirclement - the sea where the three broken ships were struggling.
The system wouldn't spawn so many monsters for no reason. Where these low-level monsters gather, it's either a spawn point, or... there's something valuable they're guarding!
Fortune and wealth are achieved through risk!
"Retreat?" Lu Ye's mouth curled up in a slightly crazy arc.
"Since I'm here, what a shame it would be to leave empty-handed? Besides, I can't get over the fact that I saw someone dying without helping him."
He slapped his thigh suddenly: "Got it!"
"Bai Yue!" he turned his head and shouted.
"Bring out those two big barrels of our spare oil!"
Although Su Baiyue didn't understand what was going on, she immediately followed the order and soon dragged two heavy iron oil drums that emitted a pungent smell onto the deck.
"Brother Lu, what are you going to do?" Su Baiyue looked at the two barrels of precious fuel with some uneasiness.
"Let's do something big!" Lu Ye unscrewed the lid of one of the oil barrels, and a strong smell of petroleum instantly filled the air.
"Chen Shu, come and help too!" Lu Ye pushed another oil drum in front of Chen Shu without question, "Pour it along the edge of our own boat! Hurry!"
Chen Shu was stunned: "Pour... pour oil? Lu Ye, are you crazy?! This is fuel! Our own ships also need it..."
"Stop talking nonsense! Do as I tell you!" Lu Ye interrupted her harshly. He had already picked up an oil barrel and tilted the barrel. The sticky black liquid poured down the side of the fishing boat like a waterfall, and a layer of oil film quickly spread on the water surface.
Su Baiyue gritted her teeth and started pouring oil like Lu Ye did.
Chen Shu looked at Lu Ye's determined eyes, hesitated for a moment, and finally chose to believe him. She picked up the oil barrel and poured the black "lifeline" into the sea outside the boat.
This scene stunned the survivors who were still struggling in the distance.
“???”
"What is he doing?!"
"Pour... pour oil? Is he crazy?! That's oil!!"
"Oh my god! How much oil does this take?! Is he trying to kill himself?!"
In this survival game where fuel is life, every drop of oil is worth breaking into eight pieces.
Especially for a fishing boat like Lu Ye, which has been obviously upgraded and is of considerable size, the fuel consumption is absolutely astronomical.
In their view, dumping large amounts of oil directly into the sea is tantamount to cutting off one's own lifeline, and is simply the craziest of crazies!
Soon, a thick, pungent oil belt formed around Lu Ye's fishing boat, separating the fishing boat from the densely packed mutant barnacles.
"Enough!" Lu Ye threw down the empty oil barrel, wiped the oil stains off his face, and took out the lighter he was used to using from his pocket.
With a "click", the orange flames swayed in the sea breeze.
Everyone's eyes, including Shen Shu and Su Baiyue, were focused on the small flame.
Lu Ye grinned, revealing a row of white teeth, but his eyes were as cold as ice.
"Stand firm!"
He raised his arm and threw the burning lighter like a dart, accurately towards the oil stain on the outside of the ship!
“Whoosh—boom!!!”
The moment the flame touched the oil, it seemed as if the whole world was on fire!
An orange-red wall of fire suddenly rose up, protecting the fishing boat firmly in the center!
The sea surface boiled instantly, making a sizzling sound!
Those mutated barnacles that were contaminated with oil or close to the fire wall didn't even have time to scream before they quickly curled, carbonized, and exploded under the high temperature!
An indescribable burnt smell, mixed with a strong smell of petroleum and some strange "fragrance" of burnt protein, hits you in the face, making you almost nauseous.
Fire borrows the power of oil, and oil boosts the power of fire!
The originally dense and hopeless "barnacle tide" was like encountering its natural enemy in front of this sudden wall of purgatory fire!
They were instinctively afraid of fire and frantically retreated to the periphery, trying to stay away from this death zone.
The originally suffocating encirclement was suddenly broken by the fire!
"Well done!" Lu Ye roared excitedly, quickly returned to the control console, controlled the fishing boat, and under the residual power of the fire wall, carefully circled in the cleared "safe zone".
The flames were still burning, but they could no longer stop the frightened survivors from approaching Lu Ye's fishing boat.
“I’m… I’m saved…”
"Woo woo woo... We survived..."
"Thank you! Thank you benefactor!!"
A young man in his early twenties with a dirty face even knelt down on the shaking raft and kowtowed towards Lu Ye.
"My great benefactor! You saved all of our lives! This life is yours! From now on, if you have any orders, I will do it even if it means death!"
At this moment, a girl who looked only seventeen or eighteen years old, with a ponytail and tears and stains on her face but still looking pretty, tremblingly took out a bunch of things from her only remaining backpack.
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