Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 831: Exploring the Undersea City Again
"What did you say?" Thirty-three almost couldn't hold it in. "Didn't Old Dog and the others say that you stayed underwater for nearly a day and a night?"
"It was on a deserted island, not in the underwater city." Ke Lan explained, "I didn't stay in the city for long, and went to the Abyss Hatchery, which is the rift. After encountering the fusion body, in order to avoid pursuit, I hit the liquid cliff and fell into the deep sea... When I woke up, I found myself on an unknown deserted island."
"This is completely different from the version I know!" Thirty-three frowned. Since he had only joined the God Hunting Group not long ago, he knew very little about the "secrets" of Ke Lan and the others, especially the exploration activities that Ke Lan and his team had temporarily formed before the God Hunting Group was established. What he knew was not much more detailed than what outsiders knew.
Although the place called "nameless deserted island" was mentioned many times in the conversations between Ke Lan and others, Sanshisan had never connected this nameless deserted island with the underwater city - and because he had just joined the group at that time, he felt that he was not qualified to know those things, so he did not ask more questions.
"In the version that's been circulating, you floated to the surface near the icebreaker 'Pioneer' and were rescued by a lifeboat lowered from the ship ... not on an unknown desert island, right?" Thirty-three continued, "Could this version be a cover to distract attention?"
"No, I was indeed found on the sea near the Pioneer." Ke Lan shook his head. "The flow of time on that nameless desert island is different from that in the outside world. Lao Gou and the others mentioned before that I stayed in the underwater city for a day and a night, but in fact, I spent most of the time on this nameless desert island."
"Then how did you leave the island later?" asked Thirty-Three.
"This is a long story. It may take at least half an hour to explain it clearly. Are you sure you want to listen now?" Ke Lan glanced at Sanshisan and said.
"Forget it then." Thirty-three waved his hands. "If we really end up on that nameless deserted island you mentioned, we can still talk about it later... Right now, I'd rather know something about this underwater city."
"Based on my brief exploration experience, I didn't find any threats inside the underwater city. Instead, it's the abyss hatchery not far away. We'd better stay away from it and not alarm the fusion form inside." Ke Lan said.
Thirty-three touched the back of his head and said, "A fusion is the kind of monster that the New Star Chamber of Commerce cultivated before, right? It can absorb the genes of various creatures and fuse them into its own body, causing itself to mutate and evolve. It can even perfectly simulate the organs of the absorbed creatures... If it were another creature that did this, it would have died suddenly due to an immune storm or genetic collapse..."
"If we use the levels in fantasy novels to describe it, the fusion organism cultivated by the Nova Chamber of Commerce is at most a 'Qi Refining Stage', while this one lurking in the abyss hatchery can definitely be regarded as a 'Nascent Soul Old Monster'. The Alphas have no idea how many 'gene seeds' they fed it, and in the following tens of thousands of years, it preyed on a large number of marine life close to the abyss on its own... Even if Ze Luo is here, we will probably have to run away if we meet it." Ke Lan said.
“But as long as we don’t get close to the Abyss Hatchery, it won’t come out to attack us, right?” Thirty-Three glanced at the dark rift and took a deep breath.
"I'm not sure. Anyway, last time, I was attacked after I dived deep into the Abyss Hatchery." Ke Lan said, "But it's not ruled out that this guy is waiting for me to go down... It's very intelligent and even has a habit of playing with its prey. And it seems that there is no limit to its range of activities... It chased me all the way outside the sea platform. According to this calculation, the entire underwater city is within its activity radius."
"That is to say, while we are exploring this underwater city, this monster may appear and attack us at any time?"
"In theory, yes." Ke Lan nodded.
"It feels like a sword is hanging over our heads, and we never know when it will fall."
"It's the 'Sword of Damocles'." Ke Lan helped him add, "But this metaphor is a bit inappropriate here. You might as well say it's a time bomb with no visible countdown."
"I'm not a novelist. Why bother with so much? Just understand what I mean." Thirty-three checked the few dozen Nino alloy flying blades left on his body, then pulled out the magazine of his pistol and ejected all the bullets one by one.
The power of firearms in underwater environments is extremely limited. Even if it is a large-caliber hunting pistol, the bullet cannot travel very far in the water, and the kinetic energy attached to the bullet will be consumed by the resistance of the water, not to mention in a place with such high water pressure.
I guess the range is not even as far as a toy gun used by children.
However, the bullets they carried this time were all infused with a large amount of Nino alloy, so it would be a good choice to use them to replenish the flying blades that were lost previously.
Ze Luo used the power of space to separate the Nino alloy part of the bullet, and then pressed it into thin sharp blades - more than forty bullets were used to press out a total of one hundred and thirty-five thumb nail-sized and paper-thick oval blades. Although the strength and durability of these blades could not compare to the specially made black flying blades, they were completely sufficient to be used as consumables.
After replenishing his "ammunition", Sanshisan hid the blades in the secret pocket of his clothes, then nodded to Ke Lan: "I'm ready and can leave at any time."
"Then let's go."
The huge bubble that enveloped the two people began to slowly "float up" and approached the underwater city.
…
It took them about five minutes to finally enter the underwater city. At this time, Ke Lan and Sanshisan discovered another strange thing.
According to their original perspective, the underwater city was hanging upside down above their heads. But after approaching the underwater city, the two found that the rubble and other scattered objects on the ground without attachments were attracted to the ground like magnets, and did not sink "down" under the action of gravity.
Ke Lan and Sanshisan looked at each other. Neither of them spoke, but expressed their thoughts with practical actions - they flipped over with the help of Ze Luo's spatial power and landed on a relatively empty street.
Not until they had their feet firmly on solid ground did Ke Lan and Sanshisan finally verify the idea in their hearts.
Those things did not sink not because they were sucked by the ground, but because there was gravity inside the underwater city - a gravity that was completely opposite to the direction of the plane where Ke Lan and the others were previously in.
If we look at it from their previous perspective, they are now "hanging upside down" on the street...
Moreover, the two of them did not feel any of the "cerebral hemorrhage" feeling caused by the blood flowing to the brain under the action of gravity when they were hanging upside down. From the moment they turned around and stepped on the ground with their feet, the direction of gravity changed.
"It feels like being in the weightless environment of space, and I'm wearing sensory gravity boots... It's a pity that there are no reference objects at the original place, otherwise the feeling would be more obvious." Sanshisan said as he took out a bullet shell from his pocket. As soon as he loosened his fingers, the bullet shell fell straight to the "ground".
"Let's go." Ke Lan was no longer surprised. He looked around and then walked towards the intersection about a hundred meters ahead.
Although the outline of the city felt very familiar to Ke Lan, the location was unfamiliar to him - he had not been to this place during his brief exploration two years ago.
"This city doesn't seem to be much different from the cities of the Alpha civilization on the ground. The architectural styles are almost the same." Thirty-three said as he observed the buildings on both sides of the street. "Moreover, these buildings don't seem to have any waterproofing measures at all..."
"This city was originally on the ground, and then sank to the bottom of the sea." Ke Lan remembered the "mirage" he saw on the beach of an unknown desert island.
"I thought that 'City No. 2' was originally built on the seabed. After all, this sea platform is like a foundation specially prepared for this city. In addition, there is the abyss hatchery next to it. If the city can sink, the hatchery can't sink, right?"
"This city was originally built on a floating platform on the sea surface, and the Abyss Hatchery is located below the floating platform." Ke Lan said, "The city is a disguise for the hatchery, and also a defense. The underground city of this city... no, to be more precise, the underwater city is a large biological laboratory that is compatible with the hatchery."
All this information came from the memory fragments sealed deep in his mind... Ke Lan could even glimpse a few residual images of the city sinking from the perspective of the researchers among the Alphas.
"This place should not have been explored by anyone." Thirty-three sniffed, "Maybe there are a lot of useful things buried in the ruins."
It has been some years since he retired and switched his job to become a relic hunter. Sanshisan has almost all the "professional habits" that an old hunter should have... Normal people would only think about saving their lives when seeing such relics, but an experienced relic hunter, while thinking about saving his life, would also subconsciously think about what valuable treasures are inside the relic.
"Something doesn't seem right." Ke Lan suddenly shook his head.
"What's wrong?" Thirty-three immediately became alert, and the "thoughts" in his head disappeared without a trace in an instant.
"I remember that the last time I saw this underwater city, there didn't seem to be so many ruins... At least 60% of the buildings were intact." Ke Lan said.
The Alpha civilization's construction and material technologies are still very advanced. Even if the city sank into the deep sea and was immersed in such strong water pressure for tens of thousands of years, most of the buildings still retained their original outlines... But now, 80% of the buildings within Ke Lan's field of vision are ruins, and only some relatively low houses are relatively intact.
"Could it be related to the different regions?" Thirty-three said, "Just like human cities, there are prosperous city centers and shanty towns on the edge. When a city encounters an earthquake, the reinforced concrete houses in the city center generally do not collapse, while those slums and shanty towns will instantly turn into ruins... Maybe this is the slum area of the underwater city? During the sinking process, the solid buildings in the core city area are intact, while the houses here are all destroyed..."
When he mentioned the word "destruction", Thirty-Three paused before continuing, " Of course , there is another possibility that I don't want to mention... This block may have been destroyed when the fusion came out to move around."
"It's better to be careful." Ke Lan nodded and slowed down his pace a little.
Just twenty meters away from the intersection, Sanshisan stopped and looked at the ruins of a building on the right side of the street.
"What's wrong?" This time it was Ke Lan's turn to ask.
"I can sense that... there is a large amount of Nino alloy buried under this ruin..." Thirty-Three frowned.
"A lot? How much?"
"At least... one ton."
A ton of Nino alloy is rarely seen even in the ruins of Alpha civilization. For the Alpha people, Nino alloy is also a very precious material. Things made of a whole ton of Nino alloy must be of great importance.
"Stand back a little." Ke Lan signaled Thirty-three to step back, and then with a wave of his hand, two invisible shovels condensed from the power of space began to dig in the ruins.
After a while, a section of black metal pipe covered with a large number of barnacle-like marine organisms appeared in front of the two.
"That's it." Thirty-three said immediately.
"What is this...?" Ke Lan waved her hand again, and the "barnacles" that were dense enough to trigger trypophobia were swept away, revealing the original appearance of the metal pipe.
Nino alloy will not rust and is extremely corrosion-resistant, so the metal pipes basically remain in their original state.
"It's not pure Nino alloy, but the content is above 90%..." Thirty-three told Ke Lan.
But Ke Lan stared at an inscription on the metal tube, an inscription in Chinese and English.
Was this thing...made by humans? Or...by those "fugitives"?
Thirty-three also saw the inscription and read it out immediately: "Zhenhai-class ship number one, 'Zhenhai', 45-caliber smoothbore gun..."
"It's a gun barrel!" Thirty-three exclaimed, "It's the barrel of a naval gun on a warship!"
"Navy?" Ke Lan was stunned for a moment, "Ark's navy?"
He knew that the Ark had three major legions: the garrison that guarded the Ark, the field legion that was the main force of external combat, and the most powerful air force fleet, but he had never heard of any naval fleet.
