Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 907 Life Response
"Life response? Are you sure?" The Hounds and their companions immediately became nervous.
"The Blasphemer mecha's biological detector has reacted... but I can't be sure if there is any malfunction in the equipment." Valentina said this, but the safety of the weapon held by the body had been turned on, and the dark blue charging indicator lights on both sides of the barrel all lit up. As long as she thought about it, a high-power light beam could directly penetrate the building that showed life reactions.
"The feedback from the detector is very vague... We only know that the life forms in the building are quite large, but we cannot detect the specific number, shape and other information..." Valentina said again.
"Perhaps some kind of sea creature uses that building as its nest?" The Hound poked half of its body out from behind the Blasphemer mecha and carefully looked at the building that Valentina was aiming at - it was a cylindrical building. If you had to say what it looked like, it was a bit like a shortened and bold version of those large chimneys that could be seen everywhere in the Ark Industrial Zone.
"Strange, the exterior of this building is not damaged... It should be intact, this shouldn't be the case..." Ghost Owl muttered.
"Xiao Na, what did you see on the biological detector?" the hound asked again.
"It's a large, blurry shadow with irregular and unclear edges... If it's a single creature, based on the ratio between the shadow and the building, its body height may be more than 20 meters," Valentina replied.
"It's a big one..." Chi Hanfeng nodded, then patted the leg armor of the Blasphemer mecha, "Don't use laser weapons underwater. The power will be greatly weakened by the sea water. Moreover, after the energy of the laser beam is absorbed by the sea water, it will heat the sea water to a very terrifying degree. Our deep diving suits may not be able to withstand that temperature."
"Yes... Major!" Valentina was stunned, and immediately put away the cluster laser cannon and pulled out the heavy armor-piercing sword that came with the Blasphemer mecha.
However, she did not activate the energy blade of the heavy armor-piercing sword, but used it completely as a blunt weapon - of course, with Valentina's operating skills, she could activate the energy blade the moment the armor-piercing sword touched the target, which could not only save energy, but also maximize the original power of the heavy armor-piercing sword.
"To be honest, I don't think... it's necessarily a big one." The Hound shook his head. "Didn't you hear what Xiaona said? It's a large, blurry shadow with irregular and unclear edges... If this thing is seen on your CT scan, it's not good news... It means that you have a tumor in your body, and it's probably a malignant one."
"Tumor...malignant...cancer...you mean, what the Blasphemer Mecha detected was a huge tumor?" Chi Hanfeng was stunned and asked in confusion.
"No, what I mean is that what the blasphemer 'saw' might just be some tissues with signs of life, not necessarily a single individual life... For example, a whole living insect nest, or a blood-sucking bacterial blanket... You can't define this type of life form as singular or plural. It might be a complex ecosystem composed of countless tiny organisms, or it might be something 'alive' but 'cannot be called an individual organism'... But then again, you said there's a tumor inside, and that's not impossible. But a tumor that has been removed from the body can still survive for so long after losing the host's nutritional supply. Do you think this is normal?"
"Should we go in and take a look? Or should we just let the mecha split the building apart?" Ghost Owl clenched the gun in his hand. This was a special underwater pistol with a six-barrel, magazine-less structure. Each barrel contained a hollow arrow-shaped bullet. The Ark's underwater troops usually filled the hollow part of the arrow-shaped bullet with high- explosive bombs, but the arrow-shaped bullets of the Hounds were all loaded with concentrated crystal energy bombs.
The gun in Ghost Owl's hand alone and the "resonance" of the crystal energy bombs caused by the six arrow-shaped bullets fired together were enough to half-collapse this chimney-shaped building.
"Don't alert the enemy yet. What if there is a living insect nest inside? If you break into the nest, the millions of insects inside will eat you to pieces..." The hound glanced at the ghost owl, "Has your hunting group never encountered something like this before?"
"Uh, no." Ghost Owl shook his head. "Or rather, most of the things we encountered during this trip were things I had never encountered before...my experience was hardly of any use. As for the living insect nest you mentioned, I have never heard of such a thing."
"But... dealing with living insect nests is usually done by the military. You've never been a soldier, have you?" asked the hound.
"After graduating from compulsory education, I had five years of military service... two years in the reserve, and the remaining three years in the garrison... I basically didn't receive any combat missions." Ghost Owl said somewhat embarrassedly.
After 937 years of the New Era, the military service system on the Ark was changed to non-compulsory. Only teenagers who have completed the entire compulsory education stage in free educational institutions will be required to serve in the military. In addition, fresh graduates who are not physically qualified, registered as relic hunters, and have already made an appointment for a job during the school period can be exempted from military service. Among the remaining teenagers who entered the military camp, there are also two types. One is the "reserve", which only receives the most basic military training, has only temporary military status, and has no military rank. Usually, they are not issued weapons and equipment, and participate in the work of military-industrial enterprises. It is a bit like "half-soldier and half-worker", which is very similar to the military settlement in the ancient Chinese military farming system, except that it has changed from farming to working... This kind of "reserve" generally only needs to be completed for five years. In the last one or two years, they will be assigned to some less important troops to experience real military life, and then they will be directly retired.
When war breaks out and soldiers are urgently needed, these retired reservists will be the first choice for replenishment.
As for the other type, "regular service" directly receives the most comprehensive and detailed military education and training, is fully armed, has his own military registration number and rank, and after leaving the recruit camp he will be assigned to various combat units according to his performance and personal intentions. Unless he is disabled or has special reasons, he must serve until the age of 35 before retiring.
After retiring, "regular servicemen" can receive a one-time retirement compensation. In addition, the minimum living material guarantee for regular servicemen is three times that of civilians and reserve forces. In addition to some social welfare and priority employment qualifications in military cooperative enterprises, these are basically all the benefits that a retired veteran can enjoy.
(PS I had a similar setting before the book was published, but I never had the chance to write it in, so I'll just add the setting here. At the beginning, Hound once questioned Asano Akira's identity as a "retired soldier" because of his age. This is because after retiring from the "reserve force", there are no benefits for retired soldiers, so they are generally not considered "retired soldiers.")
"Oh, the reserve... or the reserve of the garrison. It's normal not to know that." Hound curled his lips. He never looked down on the officers and soldiers from the garrison. However, Ghost Owl was a former reserve and was not even a regular soldier of the garrison. He was too lazy to complain. "Old Chi, your mecha troops should deal with living insect nests frequently. Tell me, how do you do it?"
"Okay. A living insect nest is actually a special 'biological phenomenon', not really a nest of a certain insect creature." Chi Hanfeng said, "Ghost Owl, you should know the 'primordial species' insect queen, right?"
"The Queen of Insects? Is she the primitive species that floats in the low-Earth orbit of Alpha and occasionally launches meteorites to the ground? In addition to 'Kaz', the only 'primordial species' that is still alive in the low-Earth orbit is the Queen of Insects." Ghost Owl nodded, "I've heard that our hunting group's exploration mission was canceled once because a meteorite launched by the Queen of Insects hit a transportation transfer point, and the entire affected area was blocked by the army."
"Have you ever thought about why a primitive creature that launches meteorites is called the Queen of Insects? If it was just a meteorite, why would the army have to go to such great lengths to block off the entire area..." Chi Hanfeng showed a somewhat helpless smile.
"The Queen of Insects... Could it be that the thing that the Queen of Insects launched onto the surface of the earth was not a meteorite, but the living insect nest you mentioned?"
" You have some brains." The hound nodded. "Those living insect nests are actually the excrement of the queen, or something like a placenta... Every once in a while, the reproductive organs in the queen's body will expel a living insect nest and launch it to the ground. Although this living insect nest has left the mother body, it is still active. After landing, it will drill into the ground, absorb all the nutrients it can, and hatch the eggs wrapped in it... We call these insects the offspring of the queen. They are not very threatening themselves, but they can secrete strong acid and like to chew metal the most. Therefore, most of the living insect nests are located on the Ark or in the locations of those large military bases. As for the ruins of the Alpha civilization, I don't know why they have never been the target of living insect nests."
"Most of the living insect nests will be destroyed by the fleet's artillery fire before they break through the atmosphere. Only less than one-tenth of the escaped ones will fall to the ground. At this time, people like us are needed to clean them up." Chi Hanfeng continued, "After the living insect nests fall to the ground, they will drill into the ground. We tried to use earth-penetrating bombs to blow them up at first. The insect nests were indeed blown to pieces, but it was like using firecrackers to blow up a cesspool. The insect eggs inside flew everywhere, and the farthest one even appeared thirty kilometers away, eventually leading to the destruction of six transfer stations and a small military base... Later, after many improvements, we invented a method: after discovering a living insect nest, we drill a hole in the nest and directly pour seawater from the Central Sea into it... The seawater from the Central Sea is deadly to humans, and the same is true for living insect nests. A nest only needs to be filled with fifteen to twenty tons of seawater to complete the kill."
"Then...then the things in this building should be ruled out as living insect nests, right?" Valentina interrupted, "This is all sea water...isn't that thing most afraid of sea water?"
"Who knows if a living insect nest will mutate? Its mother is a primitive species that can survive in space." The hound said, "If there really is a living insect nest in here, with one cut, the offspring of the queen insect that spews out can instantly eat you up without leaving even a bone..."
Imagining that scene, the ghost owl couldn't help but shudder.
"Let's check the outside of the building first? The chance of it being a living insect nest shouldn't be very high." Chi Hanfeng suggested.
"Well, but you still have to be careful... To be honest, whether in the ruins or in the wilderness, I hate dealing with living things the most." The hound muttered with a flat mouth.
The Blasphemer Mech was responsible for guarding the movements inside the building and the surrounding streets, while the four Hounds walked around the building and finally climbed to the top of the building.
At the top of this "big chimney", there is a round airtight door. The rusty valve is covered with seaweed, but what surprised the four people is that... although this airtight door is intact, it does not have any locking device.
In other words, they could open it directly by turning the rusty valve...
The Hound and Chi Hanfeng looked at each other, the latter shook his head and said, "I think... it's better not to open it."
"But if we don't open it, we'll never know what's inside..." The Hound frowned, "How about this, let Xiaona drive the mecha over here and point the muzzle at the airtight door. If we open it and find something bad is really inside, we'll just close the door. If we don't have time to close it, we'll just give it a fucking shot. What do you think?"
"It's very risky... but we can give it a try." Chi Hanfeng hesitated for a few seconds and said, "After all, this is the first intact building with life reactions found inside. This alone is worth the risk."
"Zhuo Ligetu, give me a hand." The hound swam over and grabbed one side of the ring-shaped valve, while Zhuo Ligetu grabbed the other side.
The hound first tried to turn it slightly. The direction of rotation of the valve was the same as that of the soda bottle cap on the Ark, counterclockwise to loosen it and clockwise to tighten it... The most important thing was that the mechanical structure of the valve was not rusty, and it felt very smooth to turn. The hound didn't even dare to use too much force, for fear of accidentally turning his head and opening the door.
"Everything is ready, time to open..." The Hound gave Zhuo Ligetu a look, and then the two of them exerted force at the same time and turned the valve counterclockwise.
“Crunch…Crunch…”
After four turns, the resistance of the mechanical structure had completely disappeared. The Hound took a deep breath and tried to lift the valve up half an inch.
There was no obstruction at all. A slight gap opened at the edge of the entire airtight door, and no bubbles came out of the door.
This shows that the other side of the airtight door has also been filled with sea water.
"Damn it, this building is clearly intact, and there is no damage to it... How come it is full of water?"
Zhuo Ligetu raised the flashlight and shone it into the door.
"Did you see anything?" Chi Hanfeng asked anxiously. He lowered his voice for fear of waking up the thing inside the door.
"It's empty... It's a compartment... It's not connected..." Zhuoligetu raised his head and said to the others, "There's a drainage cabin above. The life form detected by the blasphemer should still be on the next floor."
