Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 872: "Doing the Work for You"
"Fallen Angel Mass Production Type..." Lin Qiming's face flashed with a hint of hesitation, "But, aren't all living CPUs implanted with that kind of chip? The target has the ability to directly destroy the chip, and these mechas may not be a reliable combat force."
"They are different." Demeter explained immediately, "This team was just established. All pilots are selected from the elite pilots of the fleet. They have complete self-awareness and clear mind."
"Awake mind?" Lin Qiming couldn't help but gasp. Although he had never driven a mass-produced Fallen Angel, he knew very well how much pain it was to drive such a machine... Even a living CPU needed to remain in a semi-comatose state at all times so that the brain could withstand the terrifying data flow impact from the machine. If it was a person in an awake state, his brain would probably be scrapped after a single operation.
"That's right, so their 'use limit' is shorter than the original living CPU. In the case of high-intensity combat, they can only last for thirty minutes." Demeter paused for a moment before continuing, "They are all volunteers... don't waste it."
"...Understood." Lin Qiming nodded vigorously.
With a crisp "beep" sound, a bright red countdown appeared on the dial of his watch. He took a look and saw that the remaining time was "29 minutes and 59 seconds".
This is the activity time limit for this mass-produced fallen angel squad, and also the action time limit for the ground forces. Although Demeter did not say it explicitly, Lin Qiming also knew that when the countdown reached zero, the fleet hovering in the air on standby would launch a saturation bombing on the underground ice storage.
"Also, I have one more thing to tell you." Demeter added, "We can now basically confirm that Zeus' main goal in going to the underground ice storage is to obtain sample No. 344171."
"'Sample No. 344171'?" Lin Qiming was stunned. There were more than 300,000 pieces of collections in the underground ice storage. He would have some impressions of the special or typical ones, but it was impossible for the human brain alone to remember every piece of collection.
Among these more than 300,000 collections, more than 70% are "precious but worthless" items... For example, an alloy block found in an S-level ruins is extremely difficult to obtain, but its research value is basically zero... Things like this account for more than 70% of the collection list.
Judging from the serial number, this "No. 344171" sample should be the most recent collection to be stored... But perhaps the collection itself is too insignificant, Lin Qiming found that he had no impression of this thing at all.
"This collection is claimed to be a cell sample of an indigenous creature found in the northern wilderness. In fact, it is the remains of a special creature called 'Seraphim' that was formed by the fusion of the meme body and the Yinglong egg."
"The remains of the Seraph?!" Even someone like Lin Qiming, who was used to big scenes, couldn't help but lose his voice at this moment, "That thing... wasn't it completely destroyed?"
"No... some of it was preserved." Demeter said, "At that time, there was a disagreement among the crew. Some people demanded that the wreckage be completely destroyed, while the other group, the 'radicals' led by Zeus, demanded that the wreckage be preserved for research..."
"Crazy... They must be crazy..." Lin Qiming murmured. With his status, it was disrespectful for him to say such words to the members of the Undead Crew. Even though Zeus and the others had already betrayed the Crew, when it came to judging the wreckage of the Seraph, Zeus was still a member of the Crew.
However, Demeter did not care about such a small matter and continued, "In the final vote, more votes will be cast in favor of destruction."
"Then why is this thing still kept?" Lin Qiming was stunned and asked.
"After various attempts, we found that the technology we have now cannot completely destroy the remains of the Seraph. Rather than throwing it into space and causing a series of uncontrollable situations in the future, it is better to keep it sealed in the bottom layer of the underground ice storage and keep it under strict monitoring and control." Demeter said, "Now that I think about it, Zeus probably decided to use this trump card at that time."
"Your Excellency the Queen...if the target really has that kind of power, I request that the fleet immediately attack the underground ice storage...otherwise, the memetic infection incident will break out again and the entire Ark will fall." Lin Qiming said gritting his teeth.
Although allowing the fleet to launch an attack would almost certainly detonate the main reactor below West Area 1, it was better than spreading the Seraph meme throughout the Ark.
The resolution of the meme crisis was basically entirely due to Ke Lan's ability... and now, no one knows where Ke Lan is. It is impossible for them to stop the spread of the meme by themselves.
"The remains of the Seraph are soaked in 700 tons of liquid nitrogen. It will take at least an hour to completely thaw. You still have one last chance to try..." said Demeter.
…
…
Zhonghai, restricted sea area, inside the underground pyramid.
Yeger discovered something very strange: the space inside the pyramid was obviously limited, and he could see the boundaries with his naked eyes, but when he actually measured the space inside the pyramid with his footsteps, the space seemed to begin to extend infinitely.
According to Yaguna Tor's scanning data of the underwater city, the outer outline of this underwater pyramid is a square cone with a base length of four kilometers and a height of only 1.5 kilometers. The cross-section of the pyramid is composed of two standard "three hypotenuses, four legs and five sides" triangles ... In other words, as the hypotenuse of this triangle, the farthest distance between the base and the top of the pyramid's inner wall will not exceed 2.5 kilometers.
But since Yeager followed Wilson to climb up the wall, the two of them had been running on this "slant" for at least an hour, but still had not reached any boundary or corner.
Yeger could be sure that, with the speed at which the two men moved, the distance they moved in more than an hour was definitely more than 2.5 kilometers. Even if the moving path was not a straight line, they should at least be able to see the changes in the distance between themselves and the other inner surfaces of the pyramid.
But if the distant wall and ceiling were used as a reference , the two of them were basically standing still for more than an hour.
Yeger suddenly had a very strange illusion. He felt that the ground under his feet seemed to extend infinitely - every time he stepped forward one foot, the ground extended forward one foot. Every time he ran ten meters in one breath, the ground extended forward ten meters.
This is different from the conveyor belt treadmill in the gym. Yegel was splashing orange-yellow signal paint along the way. The star-studded track has extended a long line, but it has never returned to Yegel's feet. Because of this, Yegel was sure that every step he took was a place he had never been to before.
He really wanted to ask Wilson in front of him what was going on, but because of the presence of the light ball, Yeager kept his mouth shut.
The strange feeling Wilson gave him was no less than the space inside the pyramid... He knew very well that Wilson was definitely not just an engineer from the God Hunters. His terrifying self-recovery ability, his completely different personality, and his familiarity with the pyramid...
Yeger couldn't help but take a deep breath - this guy, this couldn't be the first time he entered this underwater pyramid?
But, hadn't anyone ever been to the underwater city before? When had he been here before?
Just as Yeger was daydreaming, Wilson suddenly stopped, turned around, looked at Yeger, and waved to him.
Yeager walked forward with a hint of suspicion. He never expected that in the next second, Wilson's only remaining arm would pull out a pistol from his pocket, raise the muzzle and aim at himself!
Fortunately, Yeager had just sensed a hint of hidden murderous intent in Wilson's eyes, and he was also wary of Wilson. The moment Wilson pulled out his gun, Yeager rolled on the spot and avoided the muzzle of the gun that was so close to him.
"Bang!"
A gunshot rang out above Yegel's head, and the bullet grazed Yegel's back. Even though the back of the anti-gravity driving suit had a hard protective skeleton similar to an exoskeleton, the bullet only left a shallow scratch on the skeleton, but Yegel still felt a burning pain in his back.
The opponent had a large-caliber hunting pistol in his hand... This kind of weapon is usually only chosen by front-line combatants. For logistical positions like engineering operators, their personal defense weapons are either small-caliber pistols or folding submachine guns... Even if they were given a high-powered weapon, they might not be able to control the amazing recoil.
But the recoil of this hunting pistol seemed to disappear in Wilson's hand. After firing the first shot, the muzzle did not rise at all. Wilson immediately lowered the muzzle, aimed at Yeager, who was still rolling on the ground and had no time to get up, and fired the second shot.
The second shot still missed. It was not known whether it was because Yeager was lucky or Wilson was not holding the gun with his dominant hand. After a quick adjustment, the second shot missed by at least ten centimeters and hit the floor, which was originally the inner wall of the pyramid.
Yeager did not rush to get up, but rolled to Wilson's feet, hugged the opponent's calf, took out the dagger hanging on his shoulder, and stabbed it directly into the ankle.
Wilson was not wearing any protective equipment. He was still wearing the pair of work boots he had worn when he worked in the engineering department. The tip of the dagger pierced the synthetic leather upper of the shoe without any hindrance and pierced into Wilson's ankle. Yeager could even clearly feel the tip of the dagger penetrate the muscles and ligaments and hit the bone at the joint.
Yeger gritted his teeth and twisted the dagger nearly 180 degrees.
If the ankle suffered this degree of injury, few people could stand steadily. Even a strengthened person would find it difficult to maintain balance with a damaged ankle joint... But Wilson was like an iron tower nailed to the ground. No matter how Yeager held his legs and shook him, he did not move at all.
Yeger's heart skipped a beat, he knew he had made a wrong bet... This kind of close combat technique, similar to that of street thugs, was very effective when practicing against Hans and the others, but he forgot that Wilson was a "person" with a body that was somewhat different from that of an ordinary person, and this kind of trauma would not have any effect on him at all.
Yeager wanted to pull out the dagger, but found a huge resistance at the front end of the dagger - Wilson's terrifying recovery ability appeared again, and the bloody ankle wound healed in just half a second, and even clamped the dagger that he didn't have time to pull out.
Yeager did not look up, but he could already feel the black muzzle of the gun pointing directly at his head... He seemed to have seen a series of slow motion shots: the trigger was pulled, the firing pin hit the bottom of the bullet, the primer was triggered, the compressed gas generated by the explosion pushed the cartridge case open, and the tungsten steel bullet flew out of the chamber -
Faintly, he seemed to hear Wilson talking to him: "I need to pay some price to...but I have more important things to do, so I can only let you do it for me."
…
…
Hive City, third level, upper city.
"Bang!"
A gunshot rang out from deep in the jungle, startling Ke Lan's thirty-three.
"What's going on?" Sanshisan gathered all the black flying blades around him, forming an airtight black shield. "Ke Lan, you heard it too, right?"
"Yes, I heard it. It was gunfire." Ke Lan nodded solemnly, "It came from deep in the jungle."
"Can you tell what kind of gun that sound is?" Thirty-three looked a little strange.
"It's too blurry, I can't tell... but I feel it's somewhat familiar." Ke Lan glanced at Thirty-three's strange expression, "It seems that you seem to have heard it?"
"I'm not sure, but I've heard this kind of gunshot too many times..." Sanshisan exhaled hard, "It should be the fourth-generation R-type large-caliber hunting pistol produced by Magnum Industries, and it's a portable model with a shortened barrel. This was the gun I carried in the army before, and I'm very familiar with its sound."
"Are you sure?" Ke Lan asked solemnly, "You should know that this gun should not appear in this place, and it should not be fired at this time."
"I wasn't sure just now, but the more I think about it, the more I feel... it's the same model of gun." Thirty-Three nodded, "As for why there are pistols made by Magnum Industries in the hive, perhaps, they were brought in by Heruni and his men back then?"
“Even if the gun was brought in by Hruni and others… then who is using it now?”
