Volume 15 Gray Fog Forest Chapter 727 Gray Fog Forest
After finishing the conversation with Demeter, Ke Lan turned around and headed for the Black Well.
Since the undead crew members are unwilling to tell him those secrets, he can only use the stupid method - looking for files and files that may be related to these events in the years like searching for a needle in a haystack... Mobilizing so many special forces, plus the noise caused by detonating small hydrogen bombs and the engine explosion... With so many traces, it is impossible for the undead crew members to erase them completely.
There are always some clues left in those black hard drives.
Ke Lan stayed in the black well for five days.
I don’t know if it was because of good luck, but he actually found a clue using this needle-in-a-haystack method, and it was a very crucial clue.
In the core area of the Gray Mist Forest, there is also an "engine wreckage", which the undead crew will give it the number "No. 63"... In two years, a total of four elite troops like the 776 Special Forces were sent to carry out the task of blowing up the "No. 63 Engine Wreckage Site", but no troop was able to successfully cross the Gray Mist Forest...
Of course, it was purely Ke Lan's personal speculation that no troop could successfully cross the Gray Mist Forest. According to actual records, the four troops lost contact shortly after entering the Gray Mist Forest. They neither sent any messages to the outside world nor could anyone come out of the forest alive - not even a corpse.
The several transit stations and military bases set up at the border of the Gray Mist Forest also did not detect any vibrations coming from the forest... In other words, none of the small hydrogen bombs carried by the four troops were detonated.
Due to the confidentiality of the mission, Ark did not organize a large force to enter the Gray Mist Forest for search and rescue. Instead, after the fourth special forces team lost contact, it sent a "special operations fleet" consisting of a heavy cruiser, a frigate and three high-mobility support ships to the Gray Mist Forest.
However, just as the fleet crossed the "red line", it was attacked by a large number of flying indigenous creatures. The frigate and a high-mobility support ship crashed into the forest. The heavy cruiser and the remaining two high-mobility support ships were severely damaged and had to withdraw from the airspace of the Gray Fog Forest.
Speaking of the red line... we have to focus on the Gray Mist Forest, a very special area on the planet Alpha.
Although the Gray Mist Forest is not considered a relic of the Alpha civilization, in the eyes of all soldiers, mercenaries, and relic hunters, the danger level of this place is no less than that of an S-level relic.
However, they are referring to the area within the "red line".
The "red line" refers to a "danger warning line" five kilometers into the Gray Fog Forest... The area outside the red line is not that dangerous. The experts from the research institute don't even need to bring many guards when collecting samples and doing various experiments in this area... But once you cross the red line, the situation will be different...
The area behind the red line becomes more dangerous with every fifty meters of penetration. Everything here, even the plants and the land beneath your feet, is deeply hostile to outsiders.
According to official records, only one expedition team composed entirely of high-level enhanced humans and modified humans successfully retreated after crossing the red line of 400 meters, but even so, they suffered a loss of nearly two-thirds of their personnel.
In the fourteenth year of the New Era, an armored troop that had retreated from the front battlefield entered the Gray Mist Forest while being chased by indigenous creatures... About fifteen hundred people, plus nearly a hundred tanks and almost fifty Fearless armors, all disappeared silently in this "man-eating forest".
More than 90% of the trees in the Gray Mist Forest are a type of woody native plant called "Mist Trees", but the most troublesome thing is another type of native plant that parasitizes on these Mist Trees: Mist Vine.
When the fog vines breathe, they release a gray mist. The mist released by countless fog vines connects together to form a mist that lasts all year round. This mist can obscure the field of vision to a great extent and also carries strong neurotoxins. Except for those creatures that have lived in the gray fog forest all year round and have developed resistance to toxins, it won't take long for outside creatures to enter the mist without protective measures. The deeper you go into the forest, the heavier the fog and the higher the toxin concentration. Especially after the red line, the fog concentration will rapidly increase exponentially. In addition to distance, the main means people use to determine the exact position of the red line is to observe the changes in fog concentration.
Take humans as an example. Suppose a strong middle-aged male soldier has not undergone any strengthening surgery or toxin resistance modification. If he moves outside the red line for two hours without wearing a gas mask or taking anti-toxin drugs, he will feel serious physical discomfort and fall into a coma after four hours... Even if he is taken away from the Gray Mist Forest at this time, he will die of organ failure within 48 hours if he is not treated in time.
In the area within the red line, the time it takes for the toxin to accumulate to a lethal level is shortened to six minutes.
As for the transition from coma to death, it only takes half an hour.
Another point is visibility - outside the red line, visibility in the gray fog is about ten to fifteen meters, but once you cross the red line, visibility quickly drops to within five meters. The further you go in, the lower the visibility... The expedition team even recorded a description like "you can't see your hand in front of you."
The reason why the remaining one-third of them were able to come back alive was thanks to several high-powered blowers that blew away the nearby gray fog, allowing the explorers to find their way back.
However, the gray fog is very "sticky", and the maximum distance that the blower can blow it away is less than thirty meters...and this is only four hundred meters away from the red line, and the center of the gray fog forest is at least fifty kilometers away from the red line.
Although the gray fog is very sticky, its density is not high at all. It can rise to a height of hundreds of meters and cover the entire forest below. In the central area of the forest, the height of the gray fog even exceeds a thousand meters. From a distance, it looks like a gray mountain.
As for the chaotic magnetic field and radio interference... at least one-fifth of the surface of Alpha has such characteristics, and the area where the Gray Mist Forest is located is right within this one-fifth.
Some people once thought of using napalm bombs to open up a traversable "corridor" in the gray fog forest, but after actual operation, they found that the fog trees and fog vines are extremely fire-resistant... Moreover, the gray fog, which is extremely flame-retardant, squeezes out most of the air in the forest. In the case of severe lack of oxygen, it is difficult to start a fire.
The wood density of the Mist Tree is extremely high, as hard as iron, and its ignition point is between 1,500 and 1,700 degrees. It would have been a good material, but this wood is extremely difficult to process, difficult to cut, and impossible to melt. It is completely inferior to various alloy materials...
There are no relics, the resources are of low value, and the danger level is comparable to that of S-level relics...Except for experts and scholars who are interested in forest ecology, almost no one is willing come to this place. Naturally, this forest has gradually disappeared from the public's sight.
Ke Lan tried to search for information about the Gray Mist Forest on the public Internet, but apart from a small amount of exploration records in the area outside the red line, there was very little information that could be found... and among this information, the most frequently appearing words were "maze", "red line", "extremely dangerous" and... "eating people without leaving any bones".
Like the Ancient Bronze City Ruins, the Gray Mist Forest is also a "forgotten" place.
As for how the undead crew knew that there was an "engine wreckage" in the core area of the Gray Mist Forest, Ke Lan had no idea. According to his judgment, it was most likely deduced through clues obtained from other ruins or other "engine wreckages"... After all, up to now, the core area of the Gray Mist Forest is still like the abyss at the bottom of the Zhonghai Sea, a mysterious forbidden area where no one has ever been.
In fact, in Ke Lan's opinion, there is no need for the Undead Crew to send anyone to blow up the engine wreckage hidden deep in the core area of the Gray Mist Forest... If they are trying to cover up something, the Gray Mist Forest can definitely be regarded as an excellent barrier.
No one can pass through the gray fog forest, and no one can see the engine wreckage hidden in the gray fog.
Perhaps it was for this reason that after the fourth special forces team lost contact and the special operations fleet failed, the Undead Crew shelved the plan to blow up the "Engine No. 63 wreckage".
If there is an Alpha man inside the engine wreckage...
When he thought of this, Ke Lan's breathing became rapid.
He still remembered what the Alpha who was killed by the 776 Special Forces Team said before his death in the "Super Dream" video -
"I'm not going to stop you."
"I know why your leaders are doing this... They are right... The truth cannot be made public... Otherwise, everything will fall into chaos."
"Because of the paradox, most of us disappear."
"There are only a few survivors left, leaving the planet. At least a few individuals like me stayed behind, wanting to witness some things and trying to communicate with you."
"But unfortunately, there is no 'symbiote' among you. It seems that I can't communicate with you."
There is no symbiote... These were the last words of the Alpha before his death. It was precisely because no one in the 776 Special Forces Team could understand the language of the Alpha civilization... they could not even hear the "voice" made by the other party, so they mistakenly thought that the Alpha was trying to stop their mission and shot him.
But Ke Lan, as a symbiote, knew very well that the other party not only had no hostility, but even wanted to take the initiative to communicate with humans!
It may very well represent the will of the entire Alpha civilization.
Assuming that Ke Lan can find a living Alpha in the "Site of Engine No. 63 Wreckage", all the problems that bother him will be solved.
But before that, there was a question before Ke Lan: How could he get through the Gray Fog Forest?
The area within the red line is a restricted area for humans. The expedition team completely lost their direction after crossing the red line by only 400 meters. The distance between the core area and the red line is at least 100 times the expedition team's limit of depth.
An armored unit of 1,500 people was swallowed up by the forest, and a heavy cruiser that could kill a Fusion Plus in seconds was severely damaged and had to return empty-handed... These cases all show that the online descriptions of the dangers of the Gray Mist Forest are not exaggerated.
Even if Ke Lan could gather a large-scale army like the one he used to attack the ruins of the Ancient Bronze City, he would probably be helpless against this forest.
More than 100,000 people sounds like a large number, and it would look spectacular if they were gathered into a neat square formation on the plain... but if so many people were scattered across a vast forest that is more than 100 kilometers deep, it would be like pouring a 500-gram bag of edible salt into a freshwater lake covering several hectares. The salinity of the lake water would not change at all.
Theoretically, the best way to do this is to set fire to the mountain - of course, conventional means such as napalm cannot be used, otherwise even if all the Ark's inventory is used up, only a very small area can be opened up. If you want to burn, you must burn a "big one".
For example, directly airdropping large-yield nuclear weapons, continuously bombarding forest areas with plasma cannons, etc.
Doing so would indeed remove the entire forest from the surface of Alpha, but it would also destroy the engine wreckage hidden in the deep forest and kill the Alpha who might be staying in the engine wreckage.
What's more, the undead crew might not approve of Ke Lan's plan... If they agreed to transfer the command of the fleet to Ke Lan, Ke Lan wouldn't even need the Ark's fleet. He could just drive the Yaguna Tor directly into the mountain formed by the gray fog.
Given the thickness of Yaguna Kator's armor, those flying indigenous creatures could not pose any threat to it at all.
