Volume 1 Glacial Relics Chapter 7: Split Jaw Worm
"This... we can't take a detour now. It's the same whether we say it or not." The Hound sighed, "I'm afraid this level will be difficult."
"If you react quickly enough, you may be able to escape the moment the trap is triggered, but the risk is still very high." Ke Lan said. He remembered that during that exploration, there was a hunter who was a thief. He dodged three traps in succession with his agility, until he ran into the fourth trap and fell due to exhaustion.
This is also an important reason why they finally chose to take a detour: even if you avoid the first trap, from this moment on, it will be difficult for you to stop. The impact range of the trap is much larger than the trigger range. If you want to protect yourself, you can only maintain a high-speed moving state - in this case, you have no power to choose your own foothold, and then, you will trigger more traps one after another until you die of exhaustion.
Of course, it is not ruled out that some experts can rush out of the trap area in one breath, but the difficulty is like using your physical body to walk through a minefield. Your speed must be faster than the flying fragments to reach the safe area safely.
What's more, the area of the hall in front of them is larger than the one Ke Lan and his team encountered before, and the number of "land mines" will only be more, not less...
"I can try." The speaker was Asano Akira. At this time, he had taken off the heavy protective clothing and the worn-out armor, leaving only a sleeveless combat suit made of reinforced fiber.
Ke Lan discovered that Asano Akira's exposed arms were densely covered with various scars, and there was almost no intact skin.
Who is this guy?
"Are you sure?" Ke Lan glanced at the alloy pillar in the middle of the hall, then looked at the two entrances at the end points of the short axis of the oval, and said, "The door opposite is too far away. The nearest safe zone to us is the nine floors of three by three on the left and right sides. The straight-line distance is about 120 meters. You will pass about forty to fifty floors, and at least half of them will trigger traps... As for the coverage area, it is almost the entire distance."
"My record for gravity resistance training in a moving state is 125 times my own weight, and the time is 1.75 seconds. If it's only 100 times the gravity, I should be able to get out of that area in time." Asano Akira replied. He handed the protective suit and armor to Ke Lan, and tied the sword to his back with a rope.
125 times? 1.75 seconds? The other five people looked at each other in surprise. If what he said was true, then this was undoubtedly a monster data. You know, even the elite space shuttle pilots on the Ark only had the highest intensity overload training of 35G gravity, and they were wearing anti-gravity suits and fixed on the seats for training.
One hundred and twenty-five times the gravity in motion? Ke Lan simply couldn't even think about it. You have to know that the strength of human bones is limited. If you remain motionless, a moment of one hundred times the gravity may not crush your bones. But if you enter a state of motion at this time, the load-bearing limit of the bones will be reduced to one fifth to one tenth of that in a fixed state. There is only one outcome, and that is literally "smashed to pieces".
In Ke Lan 's opinion, this was not training, but murder.
Unless Asano Akira had undergone top-notch biochemical transformation above level nine, or like the protagonist in a certain antique science fiction movie, replaced the calcium in his entire body's bones with high-strength alloys... but there were only a few transformed people above level nine in the entire Ark. With their identities and abilities, it was absolutely impossible for them to fall to this point; as for adamantium alloy, that was no longer science fiction, but a mythical level.
"The types of traps are not limited to this one. You still have to be more careful. I will record every floor you step on... I wish you good luck." Having said this, Ke Lan couldn't stop Asano Akira anymore. Besides, he couldn't think of a better way to crack it.
"I will be very fast, so just keep your eyes on my feet." After saying this, Asano Akira rushed out like an arrow.
However, as soon as he left the safe zone, Ke Lan felt a strong sense of crisis and shouted, "Retreat quickly! Retreat to the back six squares!"
Apart from this nine-grid safety zone, no one knows which floor contains the hidden mechanism. If the first floor is triggered, even the safety zone will be affected.
As expected, as soon as Asano Aki landed, his whole body trembled and his face looked unnatural for a moment. Fortunately, he quickly got out of the overweight quagmire and continued to rush forward.
"Directly ahead, with the center of the safe zone as the base point, coordinates 2-2, gravity trap." Ke Lan quickly wrote it down, "The first step was wrong. It's probably going to be hard to find a safe route now."
This is the method he and Asano Akira chose. It is the dumbest, but also the least error-prone way to crack the trap - manual trial and error, eliminating the plots that will trigger the trap one by one, and then finding a safe passage through them.
According to the calculated mathematical expectation, Asano Akira would need at least three trips back and forth to find a safe route. If he was less lucky, this number would rise to eight or nine trips.
While ensuring his own safety, Asano Akira must step on as many floors as possible, which is also a severe test of his physical strength.
"Coordinates 4-9, ground spike trap, the ground spikes are about 30 centimeters high and 10 centimeters apart... Coordinates 7-16, um, it looks like a gravity trap... Coordinates 14-30, this should be a high-temperature trap, the surrounding air density has changed, causing the refraction of light..."
Asano Akira hardly slowed down. His toes touched the floor for only a brief moment, and then he leaped several meters away under the influence of powerful force, moving left and right. He was like a dancer dancing with death, but death could not keep up with his rhythm.
"Coordinates 67-83, electric current trap, huh..." After recording the last mechanism block, Ke Lan couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief. At the same time, Asano Akira, who was standing in the safe zone in the distance, was already in a mess.
His clothes and pants had traces of cuts to varying degrees, his thick protective boots were burned black, and his short hair was electrocuted into an afro, making him look a little funny.
Asano Akira, who was almost a monster in everyone's eyes, was in such a state of disgrace. If it were someone else, he would have been killed long ago...
"Asano, take a rest for a while and wait until you recover before taking the next step. Also, I have recorded all the traps you triggered just now on the map and will send it to you now." Ke Lan said to the communication device, but before he could send the map, the hound let out a strange cry, suddenly hugged his waist and dragged him back into the passage!
"What's going on?!" Ke Lan was stunned for a moment, but before anyone else could answer him, he suddenly discovered that Zhuoligetu, who was the farthest from the entrance, had already sunk into the ground with his two legs! The originally solid floor had turned into gravel at some point, and if the hound hadn't pulled him, he would have probably sunk in by now.
"It's quicksand! What's going on? Who triggered the trap?" Ke Lan shouted, "Quick, pull him out!"
"No one triggered it. The safe zone has changed. The entire safe zone has become a trap!" Layton said. The mechanical arm he stretched out had already grabbed Zhuoligetu's shoulder, which made everyone breathe a sigh of relief. Fortunately, it was quicksand. If it was a more deadly trap, I'm afraid that except for Asano Akira, this hunter team would have been wiped out...
At this moment, Zhuoligetu suddenly screamed in pain: "Ah - wow - there is something! Something is biting my leg! My leg!!"
The hounds who were originally planning to go to Lazhuoligetu retreated again and again, shouting: "There is something under the quicksand, everyone be prepared!"
It took Layton four or five seconds to pull Zhuo Ligetu out. This strong Mongolian man had already fainted. Everyone was horrified to find that below his knees, only white bones were left!
"Rustle, rustle..." accompanied by a sound that makes one's scalp tingle, countless black beetles crawled out . Each of these beetles was the size of a palm, and the front end of their mouthparts had a pair of three-petaled mandibles that were completely disproportionate to their bodies. The inside of the mandibles had sharp serrations - this was an organ that had evolved entirely for the purpose of crushing flesh and blood.
"The Split Jaw Worm! It's a Split Jaw Worm!" the hound exclaimed. Unlike the small bugs that could control corpses before, the Split Jaw Worm was not unfamiliar to them at all - it was definitely one of the native creatures of Alpha that hunters were most reluctant to encounter!
They are like the super-evolved version of the army ants on Earth. Wherever they pass, any living creature will be eaten away, leaving only skeletons, even the notorious thunder beasts are no exception.
According to the Alpha exploration guidelines, any signs of activity by the riftjaw swarm must be reported to the Ark immediately, followed by an emergency evacuation of all nearby ground units, and drones equipped with napalm bombs are dispatched to carpet-clean the entire area with a sea of fire.
Radiation, bullets, explosives, and highly toxic broad-spectrum pesticides are not very effective against split-jaw worms. Only high temperature and flames are their true nemesis—but the problem is that Ke Lan and his team don't have such weapons!
"Run! Run! I'll cover you!" Layton retreated step by step, holding the unconscious Zhuo Ligetu in one hand, and the machine gun in the other hand roared wildly, with six gun barrels spewing out long tongues of fire - but this firepower was completely a drop in the bucket. After repelling a wave of split-jaw worms, more would immediately pounce on them. They kept coming out of the pits, almost endlessly.
It's like a shark that smells blood... Ke Lan thought as he ran... He had never seen a real shark, and he didn't know what a shark attracted by blood looked like, but writers in the old era seemed to like this rhetoric very much, using it to describe those fanatical hunters... However, if they were thrown into the current environment, perhaps a more appropriate metaphor would be born?
"It's like a split-jaw worm that has found its prey—"
…
They were everywhere, on the ground, on the walls, on the ceiling... The five men ran wildly, not daring to stop for a moment. Layton had long given up the idea of suppressing fire, and even removed the expensive machine gun in order to reduce the burden.
"I don't want to die here--" The hound howled hysterically. He no longer cared about the threat of radiation at the moment. He used his hands and feet to take off his protective suit and threw it behind him. In just a blink of an eye, the bright yellow protective suit was swallowed up by the black swarm of insects.
