“Report! The typhoon has turned!”
“Turning north by five degrees. Continue maintaining parallel course with the typhoon eye.”
“Report! The typhoon is turning sharply!”
“Still turning! Tur… Wait, what is going on? How can the typhoon’s path change so much!?” The captain stared at the real-time position of the typhoon eye on the screen, stunned.
“No idea! Report: external wind force is gradually increasing, already exceeding level eight and still strengthening. Approaching level nine soon!”
“Turn! Turn! Full speed ahead! Head east!” the captain roared urgently.
At this moment, the typhoon was shifting from west-northwest to due north, and the turn was drastic. They could not predict the subsequent path, so following the typhoon was extremely dangerous. The best option was to disengage urgently.
“Turning now!”
“Report! Wind force continues to strengthen! We have entered level nine wind zone. The typhoon eye is still approaching!” the monitor shouted.
The captain glared, eyes wide, staring intently at the screen showing the typhoon’s bizarre trajectory, his face full of disbelief.
“Maximum power! Full disengagement!”
“Yes!”
The captain took a deep breath and glanced back at the young faces in the cabin, their eyes slightly panicked but forcing composure. He did his best to calm himself.
“Report! Wind force near the typhoon eye has exceeded level nineteen!”
“Report! Level ten wind circle has reached one hundred and fifty kilometres!”
“Report! External wind force strengthening! We have entered level ten wind zone, and distance to the typhoon eye is closing further!”
The monitoring ship’s hull grew increasingly unstable. Outside, rain poured and winds howled. Large raindrops smashed against the glass, though the cabin’s soundproofing muffled the noise.
Inside the cabin, work did not stop. All staff continued reporting various monitoring data in an orderly manner.
Though some male crew members’ hands trembled uncontrollably, and some female crew members’ eyes reddened, their voices remained steady and strong.
“Report! Level ten wind circle expanding again. We have entered level eleven wind zone!”
Everyone’s expressions changed, because this meteorological monitoring ship’s maximum safe wind resistance was only level ten storms.
“Boom!”
Outside, waves towered. A nearly ten-metre-high wave crashed down. The ship’s side was struck, tilting eastward to almost thirty degrees. Everyone in the cabin lurched sideways. Cups, papers, and pens on desks slid and fell.
“Report! External wind force still increasing. The typhoon eye is approaching from the side!”
“Report: wind force near the typhoon eye approaching level twenty!”
“Boom!”
Another wave over ten metres high rose from the west, looking almost like a wall of seawater.
Everyone could not help looking at that wave, lips pressed tightly, silent.
…
In the centre of the typhoon eye, Lu Zheng, who had cast the Western Ultimate Wind-Calling Curse to form a small cyclone and alter the typhoon’s direction, had relaxed.
Besides controlling the cyclone to avoid merging with the typhoon, Lu Zheng also tried extending his divine sense into this naturally formed typhoon of heaven and earth, comprehending and perfecting his wind arts.
“It turned! It turned!”
Lin Wan, right beside Lu Zheng on a small white cloud, was both surprised and delighted.
Lu Zheng raised an eyebrow. “It works as expected. But with my cyclone added, it feels like the typhoon’s wind force has strengthened further!”
…
Thanks to Lu Zheng’s cyclone giving Typhoon Dragonfly an acceleration, the wind speed near the eye spun faster and faster. In a short time, it had strengthened from the initial level seventeen to the current level twenty.
Lu Zheng did not understand, but the personnel and experts on the monitoring ship and at Zhejiang Meteorological Bureau were long stunned.
You should know, for Typhoon Dragonfly’s near-eye wind speed to rise from level fifteen to seventeen had taken a full two days!
Even approaching level eighteen, counting it as eighteen, but rising from eighteen to twenty in just one or two hours? What was that about?
Sudden wind force increase!
Drastic typhoon turn!
On the monitoring ship and at the Meteorological Bureau, many could not help looking at the small cyclone in the real-time satellite cloud image, only about six kilometres in diameter.
All this was because of this small cyclone that appeared out of nowhere and formed suddenly in a short time.
However, the situation was too abrupt. People at the Meteorological Bureau could only watch, while those on the monitoring ship were nearing despair.
…
At that moment, Lu Zheng frowned, his eyes suddenly sharpening.
Lin Wan, always watching Lu Zheng, noticed immediately and asked urgently, “What is wrong?”
“There is something… seems like a sea vessel. Let us go check,” Lu Zheng said.
The monitoring ship was still dozens of kilometres away. If he had not spread his divine sense, he probably would not have noticed.
Lu Zheng formed a seal. The formed cyclone continued maintaining itself, while he pulled Lin Wan and plunged into the typhoon.
…
On the monitoring ship, they no longer had time to turn. The wall of waves over ten metres high had already crashed onto the ship’s side.
“Boom!”
The massive wave struck the hull fiercely, splashing countless seawater, surging turbulently over the deck and structures.
The monitoring ship, hit by such a violent side attack, tilted abruptly. The starboard rail nearly touched the water.
Everyone in the cabin lurched rightward. Unsecured items clattered and slid that way.
Alarms blared frantically.
From the earpieces came the warning, “Hull tilt angle excessive. Capsizing imminent. All personnel brace for impact!”
“Crash!”
Just as the ship’s rail dipped into the water, the hull suddenly stopped, then began recovering to the left.
“Splash, splash…”
Waves continued surging from west to east, but the monitoring ship bizarrely reversed against the waves and wind, snapping back upright in one go.
Then, like a roly-poly toy, the ship rocked with the waves, but tilt angles remained small, as if…
“Report! External wind force suddenly decreased. Now it is… it is…”
The captain turned back. “To what level?”
“To… to level two wind…”
“What?”
Everyone stared dumbfounded at the wind force monitor.
“Level two wind…” The wind force monitor also looked up in disbelief.
The captain stared at the monitor, mouth agape, then snapped back and rushed to the porthole.
In the distance, the monitoring ship saw raging storms and towering waves. But as those waves approached them, they strangely calmed, gradually weakening. By the time they reached the hull, they were no higher than one or two metres.
The wind was the same. The captain looked at the flag at the bow, seeing it flutter gently like a ribbon in level two or three wind.
“What on earth is going on?”
