Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 873: Jungle Hunting Ground
"Could it be some kind of mechanism?" Thirty-three judged with the inertial thinking of a relic hunter.
"This possibility cannot be ruled out." Ke Lan remembered the mechanical insects that he encountered in the glacial ruins, which could drill into the human brain and manipulate corpses... If there was someone among Heruni and his group who was carrying the large-caliber hunting pistol mentioned by Thirty-three and unfortunately died in the hive city, then its body would most likely be occupied by some creature left over from the hive civilization and become a walking corpse.
As for why the corpse could be preserved for more than ten years, this is also easy to explain - according to Neto on the second floor, when Heruni and his team entered the nest, all of them had been "severely contaminated" by the "disaster", and there were no individuals who could be called "humans". Even if they died, the corpse would be in a semi-corrupted state, let alone more than ten years, it is possible to preserve it for hundreds or even thousands of years.
Judging from the remaining technological facilities and creations in the Upper City, the technological level of the Hive Civilization is no less than that of the Alpha Civilization. The so-called "brilliant but backward mechanical civilization" is actually an illusion that only exists in the Lower Hive and the Lower City. The Hive Civilization has already mastered the technology of crystal structure and widely used it in various facilities in the Upper City. In addition to the aesthetic style of the buildings being similar to that of human , in terms of technological level alone, it is not much different from the Alpha Civilization cities on the surface.
This should be a deliberate act by the managers of the hive city. By restricting the technology of the lower city and the bottom nest, the possibility of rebellion by the lower people is eliminated, and the threat of those unstable factors to the rule of the upper level is minimized.
There is such a huge technological gap between the Upper City and the Lower City, which means that even if every person in the Lower City is fearless and works together, it is absolutely impossible for them to have even the slightest shaken control over the Upper City and higher levels.
Apart from anything else, the most powerful weapons that the Lower City can get are just those equivalent to the firearms of the Second Industrial Revolution period on Earth in the 19th century. Facing the armed rebels in the Lower City, the Upper City only needs to launch a few drones to kill all the rebels.
Those guns couldn't even penetrate the drone's thick armor.
As for wanting to hack into the drone through technical means, that was even more nonsense... The Lower City and the Bottom Nest didn't even have the simplest computer, let alone anyone who could use such equipment. Even if Ke Lan traveled through time and gave each of them a special device used by the top hackers on the Ark, the people in the Lower City and the Bottom Nest would not be able to use it at all.
If you want to completely solidify the class structure, the most effective way is to control the education and culture of the people at the bottom, so that they have no access to cutting-edge technologies that can make the times progress... Over time, these people can no longer be considered human beings, but only livestock with similar appearance to humans.
The attitude of the Hive City towards the residents of the Lower City and the Bottom Nest is indeed like treating livestock.
But the rulers of the hive city never imagined that what overthrew their rule was not the lower-class people they had kept in captivity, but a force from the outside world - what they called "disaster."
"But why did they open fire at this time..." Thirty-three did not relax his vigilance at all, and almost maintained the "floating shield" around him. "From the sound of the gunshot, the location of the shooting is at least several kilometers away from us. Even without these trees as cover, this distance is completely beyond the maximum range of the hunting pistol."
"We were not the target of the shooting," Ke Lan said. "Before the gunshots, I didn't feel any threat or sense of crisis."
Although from a scientific point of view, the so-called sixth sense is very unreliable, people like Ke Lan and Sanshisan, the former of whom has narrowly escaped fatal crises countless times, and the latter of whom is a veteran who has survived the cruel battlefield, believe in their sixth sense far more than ordinary people living in a safe environment... The reason is simple, people like them have been saved by their "sixth sense" to a greater or lesser extent.
This cannot be considered superstition, but a survival instinct.
"Even now, I don't smell any danger." Thirty-three whispered, "This is very strange... If I heard a gunshot like this on the battlefield, even if I was out of range, all the muscles in my body would immediately tense up. But now, this gunshot seems to have come from a movie screen, and I don't feel nervous at all."
Thirty-three swallowed and continued, "Compared to the sound of gunfire, it is the dense jungle in front of me that makes me feel a little apprehensive."
"In that case, let's ignore it for now." Ke Lan nodded. "Anyway, the gunshots were on the road we have to take to cross the jungle... We'll know what happened when the time comes. The most important thing right now is to get through this jungle."
"You said before that this jungle was used as a hunting ground by the people in the upper city, right?" Thirty-three removed the floating shield that consumed a lot of mental energy. Most of the black flying blades returned to his hidden bag, leaving only about twenty black flying blades floating around to keep alert. "Even the tunnel dwellers can survive until now, so the prey raised in this hunting ground... must have descendants."
"According to normal logic, this possibility is very small." Ke Lan glanced at the PAD tied to his arm. On the screen was the map of Upper City that he had just taken. "The area of this jungle hunting ground is not very large, and it is difficult to form a sufficiently complete ecosystem... If there is no human feeding, breeding, and introduction of various creatures, it will soon become desolate... Unless..."
"Unless what?"
"The beasts kept in this hunting ground no longer fight each other, and have lost reproductive isolation. Only in this way can this fragile ecosystem last for half a million years." Ke Lan finished speaking, then smiled bitterly and shook his head, "Speaking of which, I am a little too serious... You are right, even the tunnel dwellers can survive until now, how could this hunting ground be completely dead? Besides , those beasts are probably contaminated by the 'disaster'."
"It seems... what awaits us will be one tough battle after another."
What Thirty-Three said was not an exaggeration. The battle with the tunnel dwellers was not difficult. This was not only because Ke Lan could use Ze Luo's spatial ability to assist at that time, but also related to the strength of the tunnel dwellers themselves. Ke Lan's Thirty-Three could completely suppress those tunnel dwellers with his own ability. The only thing that could pose a threat to them was the gravity gun.
But now Ke Lan already knows that the physical fitness of the tunnel dwellers has actually degenerated compared to the residents of the hive city... Even if "No. 32" is just a special case, the average physical fitness of the hive city residents should at least be at the level of a sixth to seventh level enhanced human.
In Channel 4, Ke Lan had personally witnessed armed men kicking a healthy worker away. Even if the source of their power was enhancement surgery, in a society where enhancement surgery was so common, the enhancement level of residents in the upper city would only be higher than that of people in the lower city... Only a minority of people, like the powerful class on the Ark, were unwilling to undergo physical enhancement because they were afraid of the risk of surgical failure and the surgical process.
In this way, the wild beasts that serve as prey should also be strengthened accordingly... If it was just an ordinary tiger instead of a genetically modified giant saber-toothed tiger, this kind of hunting would be no challenge at all for the residents of the hive city - it would be like the nobles on Earth riding horses and carrying guns into the hunting grounds, only to find that the hunting grounds were filled with only chickens, ducks, and geese with a combat power of less than five.
"Yeah," Ke Lan sighed and checked the gravity gun in his hand again, "Get ready."
After saying that, he inserted a positioning beacon at his feet and walked forward.
Thirty-three followed closely behind.
"I didn't expect that not long after leaving the Gray Mist Forest, I ended up in another forest." Looking at the towering trees around him, Thirty-Three couldn't help but sigh in a low voice.
The two men were not moving fast, but definitely not slow either, maintaining a speed of about two meters per second - compared to the gray fog "outside", the terrain of this hunting ground was much flatter, and this design probably took into account the obstacle-crossing capabilities of the mechanical horses ridden by the dignitaries who participated in the hunt.
Hunting activities should be interesting and challenging, but the difficulty should not be set too outrageous, and at the same time, participants should feel a certain degree of "comfort"...
Just as Ke Lan was thinking about how he would control the "game balance" by adjusting the terrain if he were the designer of this hunting ground, the sense of crisis that he had not felt when he heard the gunshots suddenly surged up.
"It's at the nine o'clock direction. It's not big, but it's moving very fast." Ke Lan quickly identified the source of the sense of crisis. He originally wanted to use his ability to stop time to see the appearance of that thing clearly, but he found that in the upper city, his ability to stop time, like Ze Luo's spatial ability, was also "banned."
But it's normal to think about it. These two abilities have the same origin, so they will naturally be restricted together.
"I can only see a black shadow. Can you see clearly what that thing is?" Thirty-three crouched down, holding a dagger in one hand and a pistol in the other, resting on the wrist of the hand holding the knife.
More than fifty black flying blades were released, spreading silently around close to the ground, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
"I can't see clearly, and time stop is disabled." Ke Lan did not use the gravity gun directly - although the gravity gun can flatten an entire forest, there is a short delay in the triggering effect. He had previously approached the tunnel dweller who used the gravity gun through high-speed irregular movement and subdued him. And now, the speed of this black shadow can also dodge the attack of the gravity gun.
Ke Lan suddenly felt that he had relied too much on "Time Stop" before, so much so that after "Time Stop" was disabled, even his self-confidence was greatly reduced.
"I can't predict where that thing is going to move... I can only see it running around between the trees." Ke Lan said, "I don't want to use a gravity gun. This kind of thing will make too much noise and cause unnecessary trouble."
"I agree." Thirty-three nodded briefly, "Try not to use this thing if you can avoid it."
Ke Lan hung the gravity gun on the equipment on his waist, then pulled out the engineer shovel inserted on the other side and opened the folded shovel head.
"That thing is not running around." Thirty-three said in a deep voice, "The distance between it and us keeps shortening... It's only twenty meters now. This distance is in my advantageous range. Let me test it first!"
Before he finished his words, the black flying blades that were sneaking close to the ground suddenly shot into the air, forming a siege and trapping the black shadow inside.
The shadow's trajectory did not change, but it directly hit several of the flying blades. The expected sound of the blades cutting through flesh and blood did not appear, but was replaced by the clanging of metal colliding and flying sparks. The shadow knocked away the black flying blades, forcibly tore a gap in the encirclement, and then dodged and hid behind a big tree.
"So hard!" Thirty-three raised his hand to retrieve the flying blades that had collided with the black shadow, and was shocked to find that the flying blades forged with pure Nino alloy had actually been deformed to a certain extent. "The shell on that thing... is very hard!"
"As far as I know, the only material that can compete head-on with Nino Alloy on Alpha is another piece of Nino Alloy." Ke Lan said, "The armor of this thing is probably also made of Nino Alloy."
"Is it a man-made creature?" Thirty-three was surprised. "Nino alloy is a man-made material. How can it grow on a wild animal?"
"It could be man-made, or it could be the result of evolution." Ke Lan shook his head and whispered, "There are a lot of Nino alloys in the upper city. There is no shortage of native creatures on Alpha that can digest metals. If the digestive systems of these creatures are strengthened, they should be able to use the Nino alloys they swallow for their own benefit."
"I see. This thing is not easy to kill..."
"If it's a living thing, it has weaknesses after all... such as the eyes, mouth, nose, etc... As long as I can seize the opportunity... here it comes!"
Just as the two were talking, the black shadow that had approached to within ten meters suddenly jumped out from behind the tree. This time, it did not dodge left or right, but rushed straight towards Ke Lan.
Ke Lan finally saw the shape of the black shadow clearly - it was a creature about two meters long and shaped like a crocodile, but unlike the crocodiles on Earth, it had eight pairs of claws on both sides of its body.
