The Almighty Ring

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

“Warning! Hull Breach! Warning! Hull Breach!” cried the system alarm.

“What happened?!” the captain of the American submarine roared.

“I don’t understand. I had made sure that there’s nothing beneath us!”

“Explain the situation!”

“The system is indicating a breach in the hull! There’s nothing on the radar so, we must have hit an underwater skerry!”

“Doesn’t matter. Seal the hull and surface to above sea level!” the captain roared.

Once the submarine had reached the surface, the captain of the submarine quickly ordered a thorough check. After having inspected the hull damage, they found the breach at the belly of the submarine. When Jiang Fei pierced into the submarine, he had only made a small opening. The immense water pressure did the rest. By the time the submarine had resurfaced, the opening had only become worse and deformed, leaving no trace of how it appeared.

“There’s no way we can continue with the mission like this. Call this in! We’re heading back, boys!” cried the captain of the submarine. The American-made submarine was built with two layers of solid titanium alloy with pressurized air in between. The damage dealt by Jiang Fei and the water pressure had only affected the outermost layer. Although the submarine could still work, there was no way they could continue diving into the sea.

When the enemy’s submarine left, Dragon 1 returned to its previous location and resurfaced. While the moon was high and bright, the night was dark enough to allow the black-colored submarine to hide its presence. The cargo hatch opened and many inflatable black boats were released.

“Is everyone here?” Jiang Fei roared.

“Yes!”

“Yes, we are!”

“Yes! All hands accounted for.”

…

Every leader of the group responded immediately.

“Proceed to land!” cried Jiang Fei.

There were more than ten small boats then and all were led by Jiang Fei in the front. Jiang Fei’s boat had a little over fifty fighters. Besides Ariel, the rest were young disciples of various sects. There were those as young as 13 years old and as old as 30 years old. Their fighting strength was as low as Level 3 Beginning stage and as high as Level 4 Intermediate stage.

There were so many of them on the boat that Jiang Fei had students from almost all sects of China besides Soaring Cloud Sect. After having learned their lesson with Shang Guanqi’s case, they did not send their best students just to have them stolen by him.

20 minutes later, all boats arrived on shore and everyone gathered together on the dark cold beach.

“Alright. We shall split up here since some of you would not go with me,” said Jiang Fei to the rest of the martial artists.

“Please understand, Brother Jiang Fei. It’s not that we do not give you face. It’s just that… guns and cannons are just too… barbaric for us to understand. It’s hard for us to cooperate…” said Bai Wanli as he laughed awkwardly. Even though deep down, he genuinely did not want to work with the normal humans, he would not want to wrong Jiang Fei.

“That’s right. Please do not misunderstand us. All we are going to do is defeat those Mutants, am I right? There’s no need for such complications. Just lure them into Japan and they will be as good as ours!” said another sect leader.

“Hm. Here. These are communicators. Please use this to stay connected at all times. You can request for assistance easily with these,” said Jiang Fei as he handed out an earpiece that was made by 0541 using Planet Namek’s technology. There was no need to fear the Americans tapping in.

“With these, there’s no way we would lose!” said Bai Wanli.

“Alright, no time to waste! Let us proceed as planned!” Ma Xuantong roared as he left with his own group of students. While everyone else was centered around Jiang Fei, he was the only sect that was left behind.

“Little Jiang Fei, I wish you the best of luck. Please remember to take care of the two little ones. This grandmother beg of you!” said Grandmother Jinghua as she nodded toward Yang Qing and Yang Po suggestively to Jiang Fei.

“Hoo… We shall take our leave as well. Zongwei, you should learn more from Brother Jiang Fei! Never let yourself shame the Snow Mountain Sect!” said Bai Wanli before leaving with his students.

Jiang Fei sighed as he watched all the sects leave by themselves. For a brief moment there, he pondered on the thought of whether this mission involved the alliance as a whole or individual sects. They were all moving on their own accord and did not show any signs of cooperation.

He turned to face his own team members and thought of a speech.

“Everyone here knows the importance of this war. We are fighting against the Mutants of the west! We cannot lose!” Jiang Fei roared.

“This might come as news to few but war is not a playground. A simple mistake and you can get seriously injured. I only ask of you to be vigilant. We are here for war, not sightseeing. Remember that and you might just survive!” Jiang Fei added.

“You can count on us, brother Jiang Fei. We will not disappoint the alliance!” said Bai Zongwei.

“Brother Bai, your father called Brother Jiang Fei as Brother. Shouldn’t you be calling him “uncle”? said Ding Menghan as she teased him.

“Why do you care so much about that?” said Bai Zongwei as he rolled his eyes. At the same time, he blamed his father for addressing Jiang Fei, a man much younger than he was, as brother.

“Sheesh!” Ding Menghan clicked her tongue and ran away before Bai Zongwei could do anything to her.

“Enough! What did I just say earlier?! Be serious!” Jiang Fei bellowed angrily. It was all his fault. In the previous fight in Japan, Jiang Fei had shown too much affection to the girls. In the end, the girls had thought of Jiang Fei as a big brother that could be swayed with cuteness! There was no way that they could be serious with Jiang Fei anymore.

“I should have brought Shang Guanqi with me…” said Jiang Fei to himself. If she was around the rest of the girls would surely be as stiff as a rock. Everyone that was in the previous war was “taken care” by her!

“Listen. Follow me. We need to find a safe place to rest!” said Jiang Fei as he started to make his way across the beach and toward the inland. Everyone else quickly followed.

As they trekked through forest and hills, Jiang Fei called Han Tianyu through the communicator. Han Tianyu was only a Level 2 Beginning stage fighter. Bringing him along to Japan was too troublesome for Jiang Fei. It was better to have him in China in the military base to provide support.

“Jiang Fei, are you in Japan?”

“Yes. We’re all safe and sound,” said Jiang Fei.

“Do you need me to start the plan now?” asked Han TIanyu.

“Not yet! Wait until the result is out in America!” said Jiang Fei. He was not pushing for war to happen since the army of Level 4 Bio-Humans would only be ready in a day or two and Hong Yu’s body would be ready in more than three days! That was why the longer the Americans delayed, the better it was for Jiang Fei.

“Alright. I’ll inform you immediately if there’s any development!”

“Thanks! Oh! Please tell the military that they can now release information about the first stage!”

“Will do!”

Han Tianyu was the mastermind behind this elaborate plan. Even without Jiang Fei reminding him, he would have gone ahead with the it!

“Alright, there’s nothing else going on right now. You go get busy now,” said Jiang Fei before hanging up.

“Brother Jiang Fei, where are we going?” said Yang Qing as she strolled closer to Jiang Fei. At the same time, she glared at Ariel with hostility.

“H532. A marshland,” said Jiang Fei. H532 was the code which 0541 had aptly named for Jiang Fei. Jiang Fei had only realized it after the word left his mouth. By then, it was too late. Even so, it did not matter as no one would understand it since it was a term used between Jiang Fei and 0541.

“Where is that?” Yang Qing pursued on seeing that Jiang Fei did not even bother to look at her. This time, she walked in closer and got in between Jiang Fei and Ariel.

Jiang Fei was dead focused on the front. He did not notice Yang Qing’s little move. Ariel was not affected at all as she had willingly walked away to give Yang Qing some space. The pure little angelic Ariel was too nice with everyone. If Isabella were there, Yang Qing might have already be turned to ashes.

“Where is this H532?” said Yang Qing louder this time.

“It’s 150 kilometers straight ahead. We should make haste. At this speed, we will take the entire night to reach there!” said Jiang Fei.

The sky was still dark but the time was almost 3 am. They had already spent way too much time in the sea and could not afford to waste the night. If the sun were up, it would be hard to make a move.

The weakest member that was in Jiang Fei’s group was a Beginning stage of Level 3. As such, everyone was more than capable of mastering Qinggong, allowing them to move as fast as the wind but not as fast as Jiang Fei could. More than fifty martial artists sped through Japanese soil and toward the inland. Before the sun could shine its rays across the land of the rising sun, the group had arrived at the marshland.