Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 894: Illusionary Magnetic Field
"No..." Zhuoligetu shook his head, "I didn't notice anything unusual."
"Where's Xiaona?" the hound asked again.
"Me neither." Valentina's voice came through the inner shell of the submersible.
"I don't think it can be that simple... If we could easily find the pattern of such abnormal events, we wouldn't have fallen into this situation." Chi Hanfeng sighed.
"Among the various theories about the remains of the Alpha civilization, do you know something called 'illusion magnetic field'?" Ghost Owl suddenly asked.
"I've heard of it, but I don't know much about it." The Hound said, "I'm not interested in this kind of theory that is basically all hypothetical. I value skills that can be put to practical use in the ruins."
"But our current situation just fits the description of 'illusionary magnetic field'." said the ghost owl.
"What is the illusion magnetic field? Can you explain it in detail?" Chi Hanfeng, who knew almost nothing about the ruins, asked curiously.
"Many hunters experience hallucinations and auditory hallucinations after entering the ruins... or even become trapped in an illusion and unable to extricate themselves. You should have heard of this, right?"
"Yeah." Chi Hanfeng nodded.
"According to the information collected by experts who study the ruins, the illusions seen by hunters in the same type of ruins are mostly similar, and some people even have exactly the same illusions. So the experts believe that this illusion is actually something like a 'player'. Each relic has those images and sounds pre-stored in it, and the brains of hunters who enter the ruins are like a magnetized videotape, and these images and sounds will be directly copied into it... I think that the 776 special forces team and the first group of people who explored the underwater city should have received similar 'revelations', which is why they left those puzzling clues..."
"Moreover," Ghost Owl continued, "the illusionary magnetic field has another very significant characteristic, which is that the longer you stay in the ruins and the deeper you explore, the more information will be 'recorded' into your brain."
"I know that." The Hound nodded in agreement. "Ruins that can easily drive people crazy usually have strict exploration time limits. No matter what you gain or what you discover, the time you stay in the ruins cannot exceed this limit. Otherwise, it is easy to fall into hallucinations. Once you fall into hallucinations, it is difficult to get out of the ruins smoothly, and you will get deeper and deeper into the hallucinations, turning it into a vicious cycle... Even if you are rescued by the rescue team later, this person will completely become a madman or a fool."
"Then how do we explore a ruin like this?" Chi Hanfeng asked, "If a large ruin has an illusionary magnetic field and the stay time is 30 minutes, then in these 30 minutes we won't even have enough time to reach the depths of the ruins. Should we just give up on this ruin?"
"There are always more solutions than problems. When encountering this kind of ruins, there are generally two ways to deal with it." The Hound raised two fingers. "The first is to use robots to explore. In fact, most ruins are explored by robots to complete the most dangerous preliminary exploration work. Only those ruins with complex environments or strong interference will be explored by hunters. The second method is more unethical. It is usually done by unscrupulous hunting groups under the big financial groups. They recruit a large number of rookie hunters who dream of getting rich, and then fill them with human lives. After throwing a hundred people in, there will always be a lucky one who can crawl out with the treasures deep in the ruins."
As the hound spoke, he couldn't help but glance at the ghost owl.
"Our hunting group has never been willing to do such a thing." Noticing the look in the hound's eyes, Ghost Owl immediately retorted, "Our hunting group has always attached great importance to the cultivation of fresh blood, so we will not let newcomers do such a life-threatening job."
"But most of the hunting groups acquired by the consortium do this. I don't know if it's because the KPI requirements within the consortium are too high, or because the people in charge of managing the hunting groups are short-sighted. Most of those hunting groups are looking to make a quick buck and exhaust all the resources. They don't take the lives of newcomers seriously and engage in all kinds of destructive excavations. These are basically all from those hunting groups... If an exploration mission requires cooperation with such a hunting group, I would rather pay the penalty and give up the mission."
"So what should we do now? Continue exploring the underwater city?" Chi Hanfeng asked worriedly, "If there really is a 'magic field' here, if we continue to explore, the situation will only get worse, right?"
"That's not necessarily true... Everything has two sides." Ghost Owl shook his finger. "If the illusion completely devours consciousness, that's certainly a bad thing, but if you can ensure that you maintain a clear self-awareness while receiving the information from the illusion, then this information can be of great use in ruins exploration... Those famous hunters in history are all people with extremely high inspiration and strong minds. They can make good use of these illusions and apply them to exploration work in turn."
In addition to Chi Hanfeng, the "outsider", Hound and Zhuo Ligetu all knew this. Ke Lan also knew it. Once upon a time, Ke Lan, like Ghost Owl, believed that as long as one possessed both "high sensitivity" and "firm mind", one would have a great advantage in exploring the ruins. But since he learned about "erosion" and "super-erosion", his views have changed dramatically.
The so-called "inspiration" is actually the "forbidden knowledge" that can continuously deepen the degree of erosion of the human body. Of course, the more "forbidden knowledge" you master, the more information you can obtain, but once the degree of erosion exceeds the critical point, the whole person will be corroded and become a half-human, half-corpse monster... But not everyone can become a corroded corpse. For example, those with fragile minds, the degree of physical erosion has not yet approached the critical point, but their spirit has completely collapsed... In the eyes of others, this situation manifests as a mental illness such as madness or dementia.
And the Thirty-Three in front of him had obviously fallen into madness.
Immersed in the illusion, Thirty-three somehow remembered how to manipulate the Nino Alloy... Although his technique was extremely unskilled, those black flying blades that flew crookedly but had extremely tricky attack angles still posed a great threat to Ke Lan.
Ke Lan's body had been cut hundreds of times, the most serious of which was located right in front of his chest - the first black flying blade cut through his flesh, the second black flying blade severed his ribs, and the third black flying blade pierced his heart directly!
If Ke Lan didn't have an almost abnormal recovery ability, he would have been killed countless times by Thirty-Three.
The only thing Ke Lan could do now was to protect his head as much as possible, dragging Sanshisan while fighting and retreating, and in the process of fighting, try to grab those black flying blades and throw them out of Sanshisan's control range - but the number of black flying blades that Ze Luo had "forged" for Sanshisan was indeed a bit too many. Ke Lan had already thrown away nearly a hundred of them, and Sanshisan's offensive was still continuous.
Ke Lan had basically given up on protecting all parts of his body except for his joints and brain. His body looked like it had endured the ancient torture called "Lingchi". Although the wounds on his skin and flesh had healed, his clothes had been cut like a torn fishing net and had been soaked with blood from the wounds. The edges of the cloth, dyed black and red, were constantly dripping with half-coagulated blood beads.
"Thirty-three! Wake up soon! Everything you see now is fake, I am not your enemy!" Ke Lan shouted at Thirty-three - he was sure that Thirty-three could see him, but he didn't know if he could hear his voice.
"It's useless." Neto's voice came from all directions. "He can see you and hear your voice... But in his perception, you are now a terrifying monster, and your cry is as creepy as an indescribable whisper... Do you think he will stop attacking such a thing?"
"What kind of dream did you implant in him?" Ke Lan asked Neto while dodging.
"Fear is useless to you, but for most humans, fear is the best catalyst for madness." Neto said lightly, "I let him see what he fears the most. As for what this thing is, only he knows."
"The most frightening thing..."
"Actually, you can kill him. Although his ability is a bit troublesome, it shouldn't be difficult for you to kill him. Why don't you do it yet?" Neto asked jokingly.
"Fuck you!" Ke Lan cursed. He knew that it was pointless to argue with Neto about such things. The other party did this just to make the two of them look up at the dome above. As long as he refused to do so, Neto would not stop.
Ke Lan thought about knocking Sanshisan out, but he took the opportunity to go behind him and hit him hard on the head. The opponent was only stunned for a moment and then turned around to continue attacking. For this, Ke Lan paid the price ... Sanshisan, who was trapped in a dream, seemed to be completely immune to dizziness. Even if Ke Lan smashed Sanshisan's skull, he could only kill him but not knock him out.
If Thirty-Three wants to escape from the dream, he can only rely on himself.
At this moment, thirty-three's perspective.
This is a barren land.
As far as the eye can see, there are only cracked earth and gray-yellow sand and gravel. There is not even a dry weed or a piece of moss growing on the shady side of a stone... There is absolutely no sign of any life in this place. Even in the cracks of the hardened and cracked soil, there is no trace of any insects.
There are many barren lands like this on the surface of Alpha.
To the Ark and human beings, such a barren land has no value. There are no relics, no living creatures, and no resources. It is not a strategic location and is not worth developing or garrisoning... But not long ago, a battleship airdropped Sanshisan and his comrades onto this wasteland.
Their superiors told them that their mission was to eliminate the heretics found in the area...but when Sanshisan looked around, he didn't see even a shadow of a heretic.
He looked at his teammates with some confusion, only to find that they looked as if they were facing a formidable enemy, holding loaded guns with the safety on, their index fingers pressed against the trigger guards, ready to fire at any time.
"Have you...have you found the target?" Thirty-three couldn't help but ask.
No one responded to him... All the soldiers traveling with him were marching in silence across the wilderness, and from the looks of them, it seemed that they had already determined the location of the target.
Thirty-three's eyes swept across the faces of these soldiers one by one. Their faces were blurry, so blurry that Thirty-three could only vaguely see the outlines of their facial features... These outlines gave him an extremely familiar feeling. He always felt that he could call out the names of these comrades, but just when he wanted to call out the name of one of them, he found that he could not remember anything.
If you don't think about it, those memories will stay there, allowing Sanshisan to sense them but not be able to look at them carefully. But if you think about it deliberately, those memories will become like frightened little animals, disappearing in an instant without a trace.
Just when Sanshisan felt the air beginning to become sticky, a soldier suddenly fell to the ground and began to convulse all over.
"What's going on?! What's wrong with you?" Thirty-three stopped and asked loudly.
The soldier did not reply, but just lay on the ground twitching continuously, while the other soldiers ignored him, walked past him and continued moving forward.
"Medic? Where's the medic?!" Thirty-Three shouted, "Someone needs help! Damn it, didn't anyone see him?!"
Still no one responded.
Not only could these soldiers not see or hear the fallen soldier, they also could not see Thirty-Three or hear Thirty-Three's voice.
Everyone is like a clockwork puppet, maintaining the same posture, moving forward, forward, forward.
Thirty-Three began to look for the medic among the crowd, but soon he discovered something even more terrifying.
In this team of more than 20 people, not only did he not find any medical soldiers wearing Red Cross armbands or with Red Cross logos printed on the sides of their helmets... he also did not find any soldiers with "special duties".
All the soldiers seemed to be cast from the same mold. They wore the same uniforms , held the same weapons, maintained the same postures, and marched in the same steps...
Even the numbers on their armbands are the same.
The armbands were clear, not blurry like their faces, and each armband had the same number: BHL10077.
This was Thirty-Three's dog tag number when he served in the Field Corps.
Every soldier here is himself...
