Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 849: Entering the Hive
“How about I try?” Thirty-three took off his helmet and hung it around his waist. Then he unzipped his upper body and tied the upper part of the protective suit around his waist. Finally, he rolled up his sleeves and took an extremely steady horse stance.
He slowly stretched out his hands in front of him, his eyes tightly closed, his facial expression gradually becoming ferocious... Although he looked as if he was constipated, as Sanshisan "exerted his strength", the equipment and small accessories containing Nino alloy on the two people were suspended in the air one by one, trembling slightly but at a high frequency.
Unfortunately, the door made of Nino alloy on the ground remained motionless.
A line of thick nosebleed flowed down the philtrum of the thirty-three men, drop by drop, landing on the sleeves of the protective suit knotted at his waist… He tried for a full ten minutes before he fell headfirst to the ground.
At the same time, all the floating objects containing Nino alloy fell down.
"Are you okay?" Ke Lan immediately walked forward and helped Sanshisan up.
"No... I'm fine, I'm just exhausted." Sanshisan wiped the blood from his nose and waved his hand. "This door is too heavy. My ability... is useless in front of it."
Although Thirty-Three can manipulate Nino Alloy, this ability has a limit. Before, when fighting against the God of War "Alexander", he had controlled Augustus from a distance to jam Alexander's gears... That level was almost the limit of what Thirty-Three could do, but the mass of the door in front of him was dozens of times greater than that of Augustus.
Even if Thirty-Three risked his life, he would not be able to shake the situation in the slightest.
However, when Ke Lan saw Sanshisan's nosebleed dripping, an idea suddenly popped up in his mind.
Not long ago, Ke Lan used his own blood to activate the floor tiles in the core square. In this case, he might as well try it again. It doesn’t cost money to try it anyway... it just requires a little blood.
Ke Lan strode to the center of the hive city gate, stretched out a finger, and an invisible space blade flashed by. A drop of bright blood dripped directly into the fist-sized inscription grooves.
Almost in an instant, the blood bead was absorbed by the inscription.
"There is a reaction!" Ke Lan was delighted. He was very clear about the material properties of Nino alloy. It did not have the ability to absorb any liquid. If liquids such as blood were dropped on it and could not evaporate, it would remain in its original state. No matter how long it took, it would not penetrate into the interior of the Nino alloy and would not react with it.
Even many high-precision scientific research equipment and components that are in direct contact with test objects are made of Nino alloy, not only because of the high hardness of this alloy, but also because of its extremely high "inertness".
It was obvious that Ke Lan's drop of blood was not evaporated, and Ze Luo did not find any tiny gaps or holes in the groove of the inscription that were invisible to the naked eye. In other words, this drop of blood could only be "absorbed".
Although Ke Lan didn't know how the Alphas managed to make a high-density metal like Nino Alloy become like a filter that allowed liquid to easily penetrate, it didn't matter.
Ke Lan squeezed out a few more drops of blood from between his fingers and dropped them on the inscription of "Nest City".
“Buzz——”
There was a hair-raising metallic friction sound, and the "Nino Alloy Door" that had been tightly fitted to the ground began to rotate slowly. After a few seconds, it suddenly began to sink at an accelerated speed!
"Wow!" Thirty-three exclaimed, "I was wondering why this thing was shaped like a bottle cork... Turns out it's not a door at all, but a lifting platform!"
After the lifting platform carrying two people sank for dozens of meters, a baffle of the same material was moved out from one side of the shaft, sealing the hole caused by the sinking of the lifting platform, and also blocking the sea water outside.
"To be honest, I don't really like the feeling of having my retreat cut off." Sanshisan looked up at the barrier that was getting farther and farther away. "But then again, there's seawater everywhere above, and there are monsters sleeping in the abyss nearby. The retreat... it's almost like a dead end."
Ke Lan did not respond, but looked carefully at the walls of the shaft - the descent speed of the lifting platform was not actually very fast, about the same as the elevator on the Ark, so he did not use his ability to stop time to analyze it frame by frame. The naked eye was enough to take in the surrounding scenes and things.
The section about two hundred meters above the shaft is high-density rock, and further down is a mechanical structure with a metallic texture - even if he and Sanshisan dug in from the edge of the lift platform just now, they would eventually hit these iron lumps... Moreover, it is not difficult to see that there are a large number of deadly mechanisms buried in these mechanical structures. Although these mechanisms have not been activated yet, if the two of them entered the shaft by "abnormal means", it is hard to say whether these deadly mechanisms will be as quiet as they are now.
The lifting platform was closely attached to the sixteen slide rails on the shaft. These slide rails did not adopt a repelling suspension design, but instead used a gear set mechanism that was extremely "primitive and backward" for the Alpha civilization and meshed with the sides of the lifting platform. This mechanical structure filled with the smell of lubricating oil and metal rust made Ke Lan feel as if she was not in the ruins of an alien civilization with highly advanced technology, but in an imaginary diesel punk fantasy world.
The wear marks on the rails and gears were obvious, and the edges and corners of the gears had been polished smooth and rounded, even reflecting the shadows of the lifting platform and the two people on the platform. In places that the gears and movable structures could not touch, there were a lot of oil blocks that were hardened, covered with dust and various impurities, just like the scale and corruption accumulated in a sewer that had not been maintained for many years.
Thirty-three naturally discovered these "irrational" places: "As a relic hunter, I should be used to it... but I always feel that something is wrong with this place, but I can't tell what it is."
"Generation gap." Ke Lan continued, "This place... these precise, ingenious but not advanced mechanical structures have a huge technological gap with the Alpha civilization we are familiar with."
"Technology gap?" Thirty-three frowned slightly. "It seems that I do... With the technology of Alpha Civilization, this lifting platform can be pushed by anti-gravity devices, or any other technology will do... Even the rail trains of human civilization in the Earth era have popularized magnetic levitation technology, but this extremely heavy lifting platform actually uses gear meshing to control the lifting... You are right, these mechanical structures are very delicate, spectacular and magnificent, but they cannot be called advanced. The Ark's technological level is also fully capable of making them. Even if we go back a thousand years, humans in the old era could only create such machines."
Thirty-three paused, then asked in an uncertain tone, "Speaking of which, this isn't some kind of 'scenic spot' or 'theme park', is it? Only buildings that don't pursue practical value would choose such a thankless design, right?"
"Diesel Punk Theme Park?" Ke Lan shook her head. "The amount of Nino alloy consumed by this shaft and this lifting platform alone is an astonishing number. For Alpha Civilization, Nino alloy is also a valuable resource... Have you ever heard of anyone on Earth using gold to build a Ferris wheel or a carousel?"
"Uh... I seem to have heard of this kind of story." Thirty-three scratched his ear with his little finger. "For those rich people who are extremely extravagant, there is nothing they can't do, right? I've strayed off topic... Let's get back to the point. Since these are not non-practical buildings, is there a possibility that this place is an early relic of the Alpha civilization, that is, something built before their technology developed to that level? Assuming that the Earth is still there, if aliens come here and see the skyscrapers in the metropolis and the ancient buildings in the archaeological excavation site at the same time, they will also sigh at the technological gap between different periods, right?"
"With the technological level of the Alpha civilization, it is not a problem to transform the entire Alpha planet. Do you think they are the kind of civilization that has the sentimentality to preserve ancient relics?" Ke Lan muttered softly.
His question was not a rhetorical question, but a question. He was asking Thirty-Three and also asking himself.
If this place is really the remains of the early Alpha civilization, then... perhaps we can find something from it and figure out the grievances between the Alpha civilization and the "great god", as well as the reason for the disappearance of the entire civilization.
If you want to understand the ins and outs of all things, starting from the "origin" of the earliest period is indeed a good way.
I just don’t know which period of the Alpha civilization this “hive city” was created in…
The lifting platform descended to a depth of about 1,500 meters. The surrounding narrow well walls suddenly disappeared, replaced by a huge flat cylindrical underground space.
This underground space is filled with a large number of rough-style buildings made of metal materials. Countless houses and towers are piled on this plane, and then continue to climb higher. Some places have even touched the dome of the underground space, and simply expanded to the surroundings close to the dome... No matter how vast the space is, if it is filled with messy things, it will give people a feeling of cramped and suffocating.
The "illegal buildings" that can be seen everywhere are growing wildly like tumors in this underground city. Even the most messy slums on the Ark can only bow down to this underground city... As far as the eye can see, there is almost no inch of ground exposed, and even the streets can only be built on the roofs, passing through the pitiful gaps between buildings.
Ke Lan suddenly understood the meaning of the word "Nest City" - rather than being a city for "people" to live in , it was more like the nest of some kind of insect.
Living in this city, there is no need to dream of things like "comfort" and "private space", but from the structure of these buildings, one can roughly estimate the population of this city - assuming that the loft closest to the elevator platform, which seems to be converted from a container, is counted. Looking in from the open window, one can see that there are fourteen pieces of furniture that can barely be called "beds". If all the people in this underground city are occupied, the population can reach about 16 million to 18 million...
For the metropolises on Earth in the old era, this population figure is not exaggerated, but you have to know that those metropolises, even the smallest one, is thousands or even tens of thousands times the size of this "Nest City"... If you calculate the per capita area excluding the stacked building structures, the residents of the Nest City may not even have 0.1 square meters.
Even if it is converted into per capita living area, each person living here can only get a small "foothold".
Ke Lan suddenly thought of a metaphor that has long been overused in the field of literature - "as crowded as a can of sardines."
"Even if it's a prison... no, even if it's a place to keep livestock, the conditions shouldn't be so bad, right?" Thirty-three couldn't help but sigh. "I originally thought that ruins like the 'Abandoned Sandstone City' could be considered slums in Alpha City, but compared to this place, it's not an exaggeration to say that the 'Abandoned Sandstone City' is a high-end residential area... Is the gap between the rich and the poor in Alpha civilization that exaggerated?"
Ke Lan didn't say anything. He walked step by step to the edge of the lift platform and carefully observed the underground city.
He had a vague feeling that the architectural style of this city seemed to be closer to the architectural style of human civilization than those Alpha civilization cities on the ground.
Not only the architectural style, but also the layout inside the building and the living facilities... seem to be very close to human civilization.
If this city was inhabited by humans instead of Alphas, he wouldn't feel any sense of disorientation.
"Ke Lan, how much do you know about the social structure of Alpha civilization?" Thirty-Three turned around and asked.
"Very few, relevant documents are rarely found... Even if there are, they are not accessible to me... And I have only been a member of the Undead Crew for a short time, so I can only look up the important things as much as possible. It is impossible for me to read all the inventory in the Black Well."
"Although it's a bit strange, I still want to tell you..." A hesitant look appeared on Sanshisan's face.
"Just say it."
"I don't know why, but I always feel that this nest city... is like... a shelter." Thirty-three said, "Although the living conditions on the Ark are now many times better than here, in the worst years, they were actually not much different... I'm thinking that after the Ark left the Earth, in the last few hundred years before the Earth was destroyed by the sun, if humans who could no longer survive on the surface moved underground, they would probably live in a shelter like this, right?"
