Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 829 Sea Water
"Damn it, even if we want to throw away this broken stone now, we can't." The Hound looked at the decommissioned nuclear beacon with some annoyance. When he remembered that he had just opposed discarding the beacon, he swallowed the curse that he had been thinking about for a long time.
"The most urgent thing now is to find a way to contact Ke Lan. Only he can change the settings of the Yagunakotor console... As for the nuclear beacon, there is nothing we can do with it now." Zhuoligetu said in a deep voice, "But if there is really no way... then we must prepare for the worst."
"Worst case scenario?" The Hound raised his head and looked at him.
"Since we are unable to change the route, our destination is Zhonghai. Once we reach the sea, things may turn around," Zhuo Ligetu continued.
"I understand what you mean." The Hound nodded, "But there are still nearly 80,000 people on Yaguna Kator. What are they going to do?"
"If Yaguna Kotor hovers above the sea, then we will leave these people in the boat." Zhuoligetu paused and continued, "If Yaguna Kotor takes everyone into the underwater city, or even reaches the mysterious deserted island that Ke Lan mentioned... then we can only choose to leave it to fate."
"But at least one thing is that compared to the 776 Special Forces Team back then, we will at least not be helpless against the Seed of Corrosion..." Layton continued, "After all, the only monster Ke Lan has encountered on the island is the Seed of Corrosion."
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Tower of Babel, second floor.
Ke Lan looked at the dark screen in front of her and was a little confused for a moment.
"What happened? The connection is disconnected?" Thirty-three asked from the side.
"Yes, it's disconnected." Ke Lan nodded, "And the moment before the connection was disconnected, I saw that Yaguna Kator's route was modified."
"The route was changed? Was the operating system hacked? Where was the route changed to?" Thirty-three's reaction was almost identical to that of Hound and the others. "Would the undead crew do this? Is the new destination near the Ark or some place suitable for an ambush?"
"No..." Ke Lan shook her head with a complicated expression, "The destination of the new route is an area in the Central Sea ... Under that area, there is a sunken city."
"Are you talking about the eighteenth S-class ruins... the underwater city?" Thirty-three's expression suddenly became interesting.
Although the Undersea City has been sealed off by the Ark's top brass, it has still been certified as an S-level relic and numbered "S-018" in the order in which it was discovered. The original eighteenth S-level relic bottomless pit was automatically moved back one place and became "S-019."
"Didn't you explore that ruins once before?" Thirty-Three asked.
"To be precise, I'm the only one who has explored it... and the extent of my exploration is extremely limited." Ke Lan sighed.
There seems to be an invisible boundary between the underwater city and the sea area. Only by breaking through that boundary can one enter the territory of the underwater city. During that exploration, Ke Lan crossed this boundary without noticing it at all, while Liao Zilang, who was traveling with him, did not even touch the boundary and was forced back to the surface of the sea by the turbulent undercurrent.
Ke Lan's experience was completely opposite to Liao Zilang's. The entire diving process was calm. Not to mention the undercurrent that was turbulent enough to sweep people away, there was not even any slightly abnormal change.
Ke Lan remembered that at that time he had just scanned the seabed below him through sonar. Based on the time it took for the sound waves to return, he could determine that they were still a long distance away from the seabed... But just when he told Liao Zilang the results of the sonar scan, he looked up and happened to meet the big green eyes carved on the stone pillar.
From that moment on, Liao Zilang seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth and never responded to Ke Lan's call again.
But just in the last second, Liao Zilang was within ten meters away from Ke Lan.
The maximum communication distance of the AF-6 radio communication equipment in the waters of Zhonghai is 22 meters. If Liao Zilang was swept away by the undercurrent in an instant, that would make sense...but the problem lies in what happened afterwards.
Neither the shipborne sonar on the Pioneer icebreaker nor the portable small sonar carried by Ke Lan and Liao Zilang could scan the city built on the sea platform below the stone pillar statue.
There were indeed ruins of a city of the Alpha civilization on the seabed of that sea area, but it was not the one that Ke Lan had arrived at.
If the underwater city discovered at the beginning is called "City No. 1", then what Ke Lan saw should be "City No. 2".
"City No. 1" is located on the seabed at a depth of 3,000 meters. With the diving equipment that Ke Lan was wearing at the time, he could not reach such a deep place. His original purpose of diving was just a tentative reconnaissance, and he never thought about getting close to the underwater city.
If you want to reach "City No. 1", you must use a submersible. A diving suit alone cannot withstand the pressure equivalent to hundreds of atmospheres.
Speaking of submersibles, Ke Lan thought of the diving chamber on the "Pioneer" icebreaker that was dismantled to leave only an iron shell - no one who had taken this diving chamber survived. After joining the Undead Crew, Ke Lan also checked the files of this incident in the Black Well. The cause of death of the crew recorded in the files was not "attack by unknown creatures" but "parasitism by flesh-eating worms."
When Ke Lan entered the underwater city "City No. 2", he also found the body of a diver who had been parasitized by flesh-eating worms. From this point of view, the "underwater city" that the diving cabin arrived at was most likely "City No. 2", rather than the "City No. 1" located three thousand meters deep on the seabed.
As for the culprit who destroyed the diving chamber into that state... maybe it was the fusion creature lurking in the abyss hatchery?
To be honest, if this submarine really escaped from the hands of the fusion creature, then these people were really lucky... But perhaps because they used all their luck on escaping, none of them were able to return to the surface alive in the end - no one knew how the flesh-eating worms entered the closed submarine and how they parasitized the crew members.
Moreover, the short English sentence engraved on the inner wall of the diving chamber, "Leave the bed"... This was the first time that this "secret code" appeared in front of Ke Lan. Later, Ke Lan saw or heard this sentence again in many places and on many occasions. Even the bishop of the heretical sect who tried to launch the self-sacrifice of the Holy Word responded to this sentence - but until now, Ke Lan has not figured out the meaning contained in it.
Ke Lan knew each of these three English words, and he also knew the three words together...but it was obvious that the message this sentence wanted to convey was not as simple as the literal meaning.
In addition to the underwater city, there is also the deserted island, an unnamed deserted island where the flow of time is completely different from that in the normal world and where day and night are constant.
As far as Ke Lan knew, he and the 776 Special Forces Team were the only two groups of humans who had arrived at the nameless deserted island. However, the two groups, 48 years apart, arrived at the deserted island in completely different ways.
The 776 Special Forces Team was "teleported" to the island after the hydrogen bomb exploded, while Ke Lan fell into a coma after falling into a liquid cliff, and when she woke up she found herself on a deserted island.
During the time he lost consciousness, he must have been teleported...
The two transmission channels have entrances thousands of miles apart, but they have the same exit...
Is it a coincidence? Or is it a pre-arranged result?
Ke Lan is more inclined to the latter.
One thing is certain now, the Alphas have been trying to create powerful biological weapons... or to put it more bluntly, powerful monsters.
These extremely suicidal behaviors seemed to be the most important things to the Alpha civilization in Ke Lan's opinion. Whether it was the hatchery in the abyss or the laboratory under the nameless deserted island, they were obviously built for this "suicidal plan".
According to the memory fragments in his mind, the Alphas even imprisoned a creature suspected to be a primitive species in the underground of an unknown desert island... That thing is not suitable to be raised as a pet, so there is only one explanation.
They are trying to analyze and replicate the primitive species.
This is linked to the Leviathan incident - those red flesh worms that make up the body of Leviathan should be the research results of the Alpha people, but the progress bar of the plan has not been fully completed, and the Alpha civilization disappeared from the planet.
Otherwise, who knows, they might be able to produce a large number of mass-produced primitive species.
Why did the Alpha civilization create monsters? Was it to participate in the war between the "gods"? No... that's not right. Those were the contents of the prayers, and according to the information on the tiles of the Tower of Babel Square, those prayers were just a means to cover up the truth.
At least that group of "Night Watchmen" are by no means devout believers. They are always thinking about breaking free from the control of the "Great God"... These plans to create monsters should be the same.
These monsters are not His guards, but the resistance force to overthrow Him!
After sorting out all these things, Ke Lan suddenly felt a sense of sudden enlightenment - although there are still many mysteries that have not been solved, at least most of the main body of the "iceberg" has surfaced, rather than the original inconspicuous corner.
The Alpha civilization's plan failed.
They had not even waited for the moment to confront the gods before they were wiped out from this world by some mysterious force.
Ke Lan couldn't help but think of a metaphor: a group of ants, because they were afraid of the power of humans, decided to secretly accumulate strength to overthrow human rule over the earth. They spent countless generations of life and a very long time for ants to accumulate food, develop the tribe, and train warriors... Finally, when the strongest individual in the ant colony was finally able to fight a dung beetle alone, a torrential rain came down without warning, destroying the entire ant nest and drowning all the ants.
But humans don’t know that in the corner of the playground, an ant colony that once had “lofty ambitions” was destroyed in a late summer rainstorm... The children who rushed out of the classroom would only greedily breathe in the fresh air after the rain, and even if someone noticed the corpses of the ants wrapped in the wet sand, they would not have any special ideas.
Perhaps only biologists and documentary directors would pay attention to a group of ants drowned in the rain; perhaps only a writer with a weird imagination would write a "great story" for this group of ants trying to rebel against humans.
But neither the biologist, the documentary director, nor the writer felt that a group of ants would have any impact on them, let alone pose a threat.
The gap between gods and mortals is simply too huge. Even though the Alpha civilization is countless levels ahead of human civilization, in front of "Him", it is still no different from a group of ants... No wonder the words recorded on the floor tiles are so desperate and dejected.
When an ant realizes the truth about the world, can it still muster the courage to overthrow human rule over the earth?
Ke Lan felt that if an ant could possess such an ability to understand, let alone the truth of the world, it would probably go crazy just by seeing the daily life of humans.
Just like those "forbidden knowledge", knowledge itself is harmless, but if an individual who is too weak tries to absorb "knowledge" that he cannot bear, the consequences will be terrible.
Perhaps, in a parallel world, there are no humans on Earth, and ants have developed their own civilization and become the rulers of the Earth... But here, ants are always ants.
As if he could empathize with the other person, Ke Lan suddenly felt a vague sense of despair. The feeling of powerlessness from the bottom of his heart gradually crept up on him, causing him to question what all this was all for.
The Alpha civilization worked hard for who knows how many tens of thousands of years, but before it could even take the first step of its plan, it was wiped out like a group of ants by a "rainstorm"... As for humans, it's even more ridiculous.
What is the meaning of civilization?
What is the meaning of life?
Ke Lan slowly squatted down and hugged his head.
He suddenly felt very tired and wanted to give up... Maybe, just lying in this tower, looking up at the virtual moon and starry sky above, waiting for the predetermined ending to come... seems not bad?
Anyway, no matter what you do, you can't change the outcome... So why not breathe as many breaths of air as possible before the "rainstorm" comes?
Breathe...air?
Ke Lan's nose twitched, and he suddenly discovered that there seemed to be a hint of salty smell in the air.
He was not unfamiliar with this salty and fishy smell.
"Ke Lan, something is wrong." Thirty-three took a step back and stood back to back with Ke Lan. "There is water. Water is flooding in from all directions."
"It's sea water." Ke Lan said.
