Alien Relic Hunter

The three people following behind also walked up. When they saw the explosives and detonators, they also showed expressions similar to those of Ke Lan and the others.

"Is this ice path a closed loop? We made a circle in it?" Qin Zhao guessed.

"Impossible... This ice road is very straight, I can hardly feel the curvature of it... If it is a circular structure, it will be a long distance to go around, and we are walking now The distance we have passed is only a few hundred meters." Leighton shook his head repeatedly and said, "And if it is a closed loop, then where did the underwater passage we came out of go?"

"No, Layton, I think what she said makes sense." Ke Lan walked to the crack and squatted down, "The underwater passage appears out of thin air, and it is normal for it to disappear out of thin air. As for this ice passage There is actually a very simple way to verify whether it is straight or curved.”

As he spoke, Ke Lan opened the laser sight on the front of the pistol, and a red laser shot out directly in front of the ice road... But what surprised everyone was: the laser that was supposed to go in a straight line turned out to be tens of meters away. The outside curved strangely to one side, and finally a circular spot of light was reflected on the ice on that side.

"Actually, this ice road is just a circle, but our senses are distorted by some imperceptible force... The weird feeling I just felt probably came from here." Ke Lan said.

At Ke Lan's suggestion, everyone walked a little further, and sure enough, the ice path covered by egg sheaths appeared again, and they also found the traces that Layton had cut with a circular saw.

"The same goes for walking backwards." Ke Lan said, "This ice road is not long, but it has no end."

"So, we just came out of the nine stone rooms, and we were trapped again." The hound took a deep breath and tugged on the equipment straps a little irritably.

"No, there is a third way."

"You mean..." Hound took a breath, "Isn't this too crazy? Are you sure?"

"Otherwise? We continue to circle in this ice road?" Ke Lan said, "On the contrary, I feel that that hand... is one of the clues left by the designer of the ruins. Under the ice, there is A real outlet.”

"But...but, if, what if...I mean, if, if we hit that hand, that monster...we will die. What...what should we do?" Martin tried his best. He shook his head and said, his word order was quite confusing, and his fear was palpable.

Ke Lan looked forward. The ice road extended into the shadows beyond his sight. The darkness seemed endless. But they all knew that as long as they moved forward, they would be back to the starting point again soon.

"But there is only one way we can go." Ke Lan said.

Among the nine stone chambers, the stone platform and the person trapped in the nightmare were the first clues. Following this clue, Ke Lan and the hounds discovered the secret of the movement trajectory of the stone chambers, and obtained the title of "Double Moon Inner Eclipse". The first clue...and in this circular ice tunnel, the hand under the ice and the cracked ice surface are obviously the lead to the second clue.

Even if there is no exit below, there must be clues related to the exit.

A famous Russian playwright in the old era once said a famous saying: "If the script of the first act states that there is a gun hanging on the wall, then in the subsequent plot, the gun will definitely be used. Start."

...Otherwise, there would be no point in writing this gun at all.

Judging from the design of the nine stone chambers, Ke Lan has roughly figured out the idea of ​​​​the "designer of the secret room" - the other party is pursuing the ultimate introduction, and everything that appears in the environment is indispensable in the decryption process. important factor, and the fact is indeed as he judged: in short, anything that appears in the secret room must be "used", which naturally includes the bird sealed under the ice. palm.

The only thing that breaks this logic is the egg sheaths of those red meat worms. Those things...

No, that's not right! Ke Lan suddenly shivered. Those egg sheaths were also part of the secret room... An hourglass hanging upside down could not help but appear in Ke Lan's head... These egg sheaths... they were timers! When the countdown ends, the bugs in the egg sheaths will hatch out and "clean up" the entire circular ice channel!

Thinking of this, Ke Lan immediately raised his head and looked at Leighton, asking: "What is the temperature in the ice channel now? Is it hotter than just now?"

"Hey, Ke Lan, if you don't tell me, I haven't noticed yet. The temperature seems to have risen a lot higher than before. I thought it was because our clothes were dry..." Layton said, glancing at the clothes on his body. An instrument for measuring temperature, "When I first came out of the underwater channel, I remember it was minus four degrees Celsius... Tsk, now it's actually two degrees above zero? A full six degrees higher? Huh? It's risen by one degree again. It’s three degrees Celsius…”

"Sure enough!" Ke Lan gritted his teeth and told everyone what he had just guessed.

For a moment, everyone's expressions turned a little ugly.

"...It seems that this is the only way to go." The hound sighed, "When the temperature rises to a certain level and the bugs in the egg sheaths hatch...those Alphas who designed this ruins are really awesome Mom is nothing, now it’s better, even starving to death has become a luxury.”

"It's best for everyone to be mentally prepared. I estimate that, except for the stone chamber at the starting point, every subsequent 'level' should have a time limit." Ke Lan said, "We can't go on like this any longer. We have to take action immediately!”

…

The team returned to where the rift was.

Although the terrifying palm had disappeared, it made the darkness under the ice deeper, and an unspeakable depressive atmosphere spread among the team.

According to Ke Lan's request, Layton first removed the detonator of the explosive set on the crack, and then used the circular saw made of Nino alloy to expand the crack on the ice little by little - compared with the adhesion between the egg sheaths, The ice ballast was much harder, and a series of sparks burst out the moment the tooth blade came into contact with the ice surface. At the same time, a harsh noise like nails scraping against a blackboard at high speed filled the ice path.

Ke Lan stared closely at the cracks on the ice, watching the circular saw embed bit by bit - if this saw blade was made of other materials, I am afraid those toothed edges would have been scrapped long ago.

Layton put two more energy-filled crystals into the engine. Suddenly, the speed of the circular saw became faster, and the sparks even splashed onto the top wall of the ice tunnel.

Several tripods were detached from Layton's robotic arm. Each tripod had a suction cup at the end, which was firmly attached to the ground, while his other hand was holding on to the machine tightly. A pull ring on the upper end of the arm forces the circular saw downward.

Listening to the sound of the teeth rubbing against the ice, the hound felt a sense of irritation for no apparent reason. Cursing, he pulled out two wads of cotton wool from the damaged areas of his cold-weather suit and stuffed them into his ears.

The vibrations of the toothed blades were transmitted along the ice, and even the people standing on the ice felt the tremors. But at this moment, Layton's wrist suddenly sank, and the tremors immediately disappeared... …

"I saw through... there's nothing under the ice!" Layton shouted.

He added: "The corner of ice that I sawed off fell down. There is a passage underneath...it's a shaft drilled into the ice!"

"So...that thing was clinging to the wall of this shaft before, and then fell down again?" The hound dug out the cotton wool in its ears, "Is this right...if this thing can really be there?" It would be too fucking unscientific to move freely in an ice layer that is denser than steel."

Not only the hounds, but also other people in the team, including Ke Lan, somewhat relieved some of the pressure in their hearts after hearing the news: Although in the ruins of Alpha Civilization, many things cannot be mastered by humans at all. It can be explained by scientific principles, but when something that originally seemed weird suddenly becomes consistent with scientific theory, it can still bring a little comfort to people - at least, this thing must comply with the most basic laws of physics, then It shows that the "means" based on these basic physical laws can have an effect on this thing.

If it is really a monster that can move freely through ice layers that are denser than steel, then Ke Lan and the others can almost throw away the guns in their hands - they can ignore these solid ices, and that bit of alloy What kind of threat can a material warhead pose to it?

"In this case, the same should be true for the big eyeball." Layton nodded. "There should be a special space for it to move in the ice, just like the track under the mobile surveillance camera."

"These ice layers have an extremely complex structure inside, and they are not as solid as we first imagined..." Ke Lan glanced at the bowl-sized ice hole that Leighton sawed open, and said thoughtfully.

This time, their conversation did not avoid Qin Zhao and Martin. After hearing what Layton said, the former immediately grabbed the key word in it and asked: "Big eyes? What?" Eyeballs?”

"It's better that you don't know about this thing." Hound pouted, "You little girl seems to be quite courageous, but I'm worried that the other rookie will be scared to death."

Qin Zhao couldn't help but glance at Martin, who trembled like a frightened bird: "Wha, what is it?"

"Nothing." Ke Lan shrugged and said to Qin Zhao: "If you want to know the things we mentioned, you can consider joining our hunting group. Of course, the premise is that we can get out of here alive."

"Your hunting group?" Qin Zhao was slightly startled. In her impression, Ke Lan and his team should be composed of a group of senior hunters with free status. There is no such thing in the exploration records of the A-087 ruins. Speaking of the hunting group they belong to, have they been recruited by a hunting group during this period?

"The hunting group we formed ourselves is at the consortium level, which is a level higher than Polaris." The hunting group said with some pride, "Of course, it has not been officially registered yet and is currently performing qualification certification tasks."

"Qualification certification mission? Is that why you came to the bottomless sinkhole?" Qin Zhao asked again.

"Yes, okay, let's not talk about this for now. Time is pressing. Layton, can you use a laser rangefinder to measure the depth of the shaft?" Ke Lan said.

"Well, I'm measuring it." Layton said, and a crimson laser shot downwards at a completely perpendicular angle to the ice surface... However, it didn't take long for Layton's expression to become weird.

"What's going on?" Ke Lan asked.

"The...laser seems to have been swallowed." Layton replied hesitantly. Even he himself was a little confused as to what happened.

"The laser was swallowed?" The hound rubbed his huge aquiline nose vigorously. "You mean there is a black hole underneath? How is this possible?"

"It doesn't have to be a black hole," Ke Lan shook his head. "Maybe there is some device that can interfere with light. In other words, it is not the light that is interfered with, but our senses - just like this 'seemingly straight' It’s like a circular ice track.”

"Then what should we do? We don't even know how deep it is. Should we just jump in?" The hound said anxiously. He turned his head and glanced at the direction of the ice path near the egg sheath concentration area.

"Leiton, how high has the temperature risen?" Ke Lan asked.

"Six degrees above zero," Layton replied.

"Lee...the average temperature in that place is eight to eleven degrees Celsius. The temperature in the mine is relatively higher, around fifteen degrees Celsius... The current temperature should be very close to the temperature required for the hatching of those bugs. I can't wait any longer. There are so many, let’s widen the crack first.”

As he spoke, Ke Lan had already pulled out a folding ice ax from his body, inserted the front end of the ice ax into a crack, and began to strike with the handle of the pistol as a hammer.

Layton, on the other hand, simply pushed the circular saw outward along the previously cut crack, widening it as much as possible.

"Oh, never mind, it's better to fall to death than to be eaten by bugs anyway." The hound felt worried, groped in the equipment bag for a while, took out a hand ax, and hammered the ice.

Although these ice cubes were as hard as iron, the fine cracks inside them were constantly increasing. Finally, when the hound rounded the hand ax and smashed it down for the fifty-fifth time, only a "click" was heard, and those fine cracks were heard. The lines suddenly spread, and the originally translucent ice layer was suddenly covered with white cracks, becoming like a piece of tempered glass that had been hit hard.

"Danger, retreat!"

Ke Lan shouted, and he pulled the hound and quickly retreated out of the range of the crack. On the other side, Layton also put away the bracket in time, and jumped back a big step.

With a "swish" sound, the broken ice fell into the deep well, and a circular wellhead with a diameter of about two meters appeared in front of everyone.