Volume 14: Devastation Chapter 720: Fire Extinguishing Gel
"Only one-third of the people have evacuated this block..." Aya's voice sounded in Ke Lan's ears, "Some remnants of the heretical sect have mixed into the crowd, and the garrison troops have had several small-scale exchanges of fire with them... Although these remnants have been shot dead, at least twenty civilians were accidentally injured or killed in the exchange of fire... The subsequent stampede caused by the riots cannot be counted at present, and a conservative estimate is... the death toll may be more than two hundred!"
"I don't care about that! Evacuate as many people as possible! Tell the nearby garrisons to bring all vehicles that can transport people here! All civilian agencies that have low-ground aircraft should be mobilized—"
Ke Lan lowered his head and dodged a spider silk that almost brushed his hair. He continued to shout into the communication device: "The building of the New Star Chamber of Commerce will collapse soon. If this fusion body is exposed to an unclosed environment, no one in this neighborhood will survive!!"
“Why, why?” Aya was visibly stunned. “With the Nova Chamber of Commerce as the center, the three surrounding streets have been completely cleared. Even if the monsters rush out, it shouldn’t cause any casualties—”
"This monster is covered with hyphae of mimic fungi! These man-eating fungal spores can be sprayed up to ten kilometers away! The slightest contact will infect anyone! No one will be spared by then!" Ke Lan explained hoarsely - even with his ninth-level enhanced physical fitness, he was inevitably on the verge of limit under such a high-intensity chase. Moreover, he also had to use "time stop" frequently to observe the fusion's attack methods and plan its movement routes... This was simply a double test of his physical and mental strength.
"...How much time is left before the building collapses?" Aya asked urgently in the communication channel.
"At most... no more than three minutes." Ke Lan quickly looked around the basement - many walls and partitions had been destroyed and knocked down by the fusion body, including some load-bearing walls with steel piles inside. The ceiling of the basement had broken and fallen, and the entire building began to tilt and sink downward.
Ke Lan was not worried that he would be buried alive by the collapsed building - with his ability, it would not be difficult to open a passage through the ruins.
However, it was not a difficult task for him, and it would naturally be even easier for the fusion body.
"Ark Guard Fleet! I am the fifth seat of the Undead Crew - 'Pope'. Have you completed the task I just asked you to do?" Ke Lan closed the team's communication and switched to another channel.
"Reporting to His Excellency the Pope, the cruiser Spark has arrived at the designated area, the main gun has been fully charged, and has locked onto the target area, ready to fire at any time!" A sonorous and powerful voice answered in the communication channel.
"Ark's Southern District Defense Module! Air defense shields No. 167 to No. 181 have all been shut down! The hull dome has been opened, and the bombardment orbital airspace has been cleared!" another voice responded.
If Ke Lan could run to the street outside at this time, he would see that the giant spherical screen above his head that was originally used to simulate the sky had been closed, and the heavy dome was lifted up to the surroundings, revealing the real sky above Alpha.
Unlike the cloudless sky simulated on the screen, the sky above Alpha is always covered by a layer of lead-gray clouds. The sun cannot be seen during the day, and the stars cannot be seen at night.
No one would like such a sky... dead and dull, just like the wasteland after the apocalypse, without any life.
A cruiser several hundred meters long was hovering 12,000 meters above the South Fifth District. Its silhouette was obscured by the clouds, and the people could not see it even if they looked up... But at this moment, the muzzle of the cruiser's main gun was aimed at the headquarters building of the Nova Chamber of Commerce below, and the plasma cannon's charging array continuously flashed circles of blue and white arcs.
This shot was enough to reduce the Nova Chamber of Commerce building and the fusion body to ashes, and it was also enough to raise the ground temperature of the entire block by hundreds to thousands of degrees.
The air temperature will be heated to over 300 degrees Celsius, and the moisture in it will evaporate quickly. The people in this block will be like food stuffed into an oven, and will be cooked and dried in just a few seconds...
This temperature is not enough to burn the human body, but it is enough to take tens of thousands of lives in a very short period of time.
If the order to fire was given at this time, it would be tantamount to replicating a small-scale "Alexandria disaster".
But if we don't fire, and allow the fusion to rush out of the Nova Chamber of Commerce building and spray the spores of the mimicry fungus into the surrounding blocks... then the situation will only get worse.
By then, the death toll will probably be more than tens of thousands.
Another load-bearing wall made of high-strength concrete and solid metal piles was flattened by the tentacles of the fusion body. Those metal piles, which were six meters long, as thick as a fist in diameter, and had a large amount of concrete fragments remaining on the surface, were directly rolled up by the tentacles and continuously shot towards Ke Lan like spears.
A corner of the basement had completely sunk to the bottom. Fortunately, the Nova Chamber of Commerce building was converted into a fortress by the remnants of this heretical sect. If it were any other building, it would have collapsed by now.
The northeast corner of the building had collapsed. After losing the load-bearing part, the floor above could not bear the weight and was directly crushed. Rooms on the third and fourth floors were squeezed together and fell into the ground with a loud rumbling sound.
If this scene is a little difficult to imagine, you can imagine a house made of plasticine and cardboard with one corner flattened by someone sitting on it - the walls, floor, interior decoration and furniture all seem to be compressed, and it is even difficult to distinguish the original dividing lines between the floors when viewed from the side.
In some collapsed areas, light from the outside world can even be seen shining in - if the fusion body destroys a few more load-bearing walls, the rest of the building will probably sink completely into the foundation.
This building is the last barrier against those deadly spores...
Wait, a barrier?!
A sudden idea came to Ke Lan's mind. If a building like this can become a barrier, then why can't I put up a bigger barrier outside?
Anyway, as long as we can block those flying spores, it will be fine!
It is definitely too late to ask the engineering department to rush to make a giant physical cover now. If an energy shield is used, maybe it can be used... No, that won't work either. An energy shield of this size cannot have its range accurately controlled if it is dropped directly from the air without precise debugging. Whether it can block the spores is another matter. Once it comes into contact with the hull of the Ark, the entire block will also be heated.
The degree of heating may not be as terrifying as the heat dissipated by a plasma cannon, but the energy shield will not be shut down after only a few seconds... This is a continuous heating process, and like a frog in boiling water, the temperature of this block will eventually rise to a level that is fatal.
The frog in the pot has no time to jump out before the water temperature becomes lethal.
As for the barrier wall used when the entire ship is blocked, it is only there at the connection between the plots of land, and it is of no use at all at this time!
Buildings may provide cover for people, but the spores of mimic fungi fall from the sky, and if you want to avoid these spores, you must hide inside the building.
In this way, the evacuation progress will be completely stagnant... and for the fusion body, the spores it can produce are almost endless. As long as it is still alive, it can continue to spray spores in all directions.
If you want to leave this block, you have to expose yourself to the deadly spores falling from the sky. If you hide in a safe room, you will face the terrifying high temperature and scorching air after the plasma cannon bombardment...
You can only choose one of the two.
No, we must come up with a better solution, and it must be implemented in a short time -
Another spider silk came towards Ke Lan. Ke Lan was a little slow in dodging, and a palm-long cut appeared on the left trouser leg. Fortunately, the leg inside was not injured.
The fusion body rarely sprayed spider silk directly at Ke Lan like it did just now. In the short ten seconds of pursuit, it learned to weave the spider silk into a web, which covered Ke Lan all over the place, and then used sneak attacks with a single spider silk to force Ke Lan to move, and almost forced Ke Lan into a desperate situation several times.
"Spider silk... spider web... liquid secretions... condense into a solid state when they come into contact with air..."
Ke Lan's eyes suddenly lit up, and he shouted, "Spark Cruiser! Do you have fire extinguishing gel on board?"
Fire extinguishing gel is a fire-proof and fire-extinguishing material commonly used on warships. It is usually stored in a high-pressure metal tank in the form of a mixture of powder and liquid. When in use, the sprayed liquid will quickly turn into a gel-like flame retardant substance after coming into contact with the air. Its volume expands greatly, and the dry powder particles contained in it make it have excellent fire-extinguishing capabilities.
Since there is no barrier that can block the spore spray, it is better to spray the whole body of the fusion body with fire extinguishing gel, so that the mycelium and spores will be covered with this sticky and heavy semi-fluid. In this way, even if the fusion body sprays out these spores, they will not be able to fly far.
"Yes! The Spark has 200 cubic meters of A2 fire-extinguishing gel and 3,500 cubic meters of B6 fire-extinguishing gel in stock. In addition, there are four tons of raw materials in the cargo hold. At least 2,000 cubic meters of B6 fire-extinguishing gel can be dispensed at any time." The person in charge of the Spark cruiser immediately reported.
The difference between the A2 and B6 types of fire-extinguishing gel is whether they are destructive to precision electronic components - the former is more expensive and is generally used for fire-fighting operations in important facilities on the ship, while the latter is mostly used for fires on the outside of the hull and armored parts.
For Ke Lan, there is basically no difference between the two.
"Five thousand seven hundred cubic meters of gel..." Ke Lan thought for a moment, "At an altitude of twelve thousand meters, can you accurately project this amount of gel onto a target with a diameter of about thirty meters?"
"It's difficult - the fire extinguishing gel spray gun is not a weapon, and the maximum horizontal range is only 500 meters... Although there is no distance limit when spraying from top to bottom, accuracy cannot be guaranteed." The cruiser replied.
"Then descend to a height where we can accurately spray the fire-extinguishing gel onto the target!" Ke Lan roared, "Five thousand cubic meters of gel won't last long. Let all the surrounding airships equipped with fire-extinguishing gel come over! My requirement is that after the target is exposed, its body must be covered with gel at all times!!"
"yes!!"
The Spark cruiser began to descend as soon as it received the order. At the same time, the synthesis room in the ship was running at full capacity. One high-pressure metal tank after another was filled with the newly synthesized gel, and then was carried to the bottom cabin by soldiers wearing power armor without stopping.
The Spark cruiser descended until it was only 150 meters away from the Nova Chamber of Commerce building and stopped. At this time, the cruiser was completely inside the Ark's hull. The huge shadow covered a large area of the city block, causing the people to exclaim.
"Ke Lan! What are you doing? Why are you lowering the warship?!" At this time, Aya asked angrily in the communication channel, "Do you think the people's mood is not panic enough?"
"Shut up! Do your own thing!" Ke Lan didn't bother to explain to her. The Xinxing Chamber of Commerce building was already in danger and could collapse completely at any time.
"Everyone, I don't have time to go around in circles with you. Let's meet on the ground!" After saying this, Ke Lan rushed straight to the stairs.
In fact, it was thanks to the fusion's wanton destructive behavior that the basement, which was originally like a maze, was almost completely destroyed. Except for the collapsed and buried places, other passages were unobstructed. It took Ke Lan less than ten seconds to rush to the street outside.
Before he could even catch his breath, a loud noise came from behind him. The tentacles of the fusion body destroyed the last few load-bearing walls, and the entire building finally collapsed completely !
"Fire extinguishing gel, ready!" Ke Lan raised her hand and shouted loudly.
The smoke and dust raised by the building's collapse was nearly a hundred meters high, but Ke Lan still saw a tentacle penetrate the ruins and emerge from the ground.
"shooting!"
The bottom cabin of the Spark cruiser was completely open. Sixteen fire-extinguishing gel guns were clamped by mechanical arms and aimed at the ruins directly below. White foamy colloid sprayed out from the muzzles and went straight to the fusion body that emerged from the ruins!
During the process of fully reacting with the air, the volume of the fire extinguishing gel expanded rapidly. The ball of gel that was originally only the size of a fist when it was shot out of the muzzle, when it fell on the ruins, was large enough to wrap up an entire adult - this fusion body that had just "seen the light of day" instantly became like the heroine in the book, with its entire body covered with white viscous colloid.
Ke Lan stared closely at the white hyphae on the surface of the fusion body - the spores were indeed sprayed out, but under the influence and traction of the gel, these spores could not fly even ten meters away and fell to the ground... and more spores could not even leave the white hyphae that were stuck together.
Seeing this scene, Ke Lan couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief - although the problem of the fusion body has not been completely solved, at least the threat that is right in front of him has been resolved.
