Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 914 Triggering the Alarm
Four people and one mecha rode the lifting platform down at a constant speed. Although they had already learned about the general structure of the hive city from Christine, when the bottom nest actually appeared in front of them, they were still somewhat shocked.
"My goodness, have they really built hundreds of nests of this scale?" The Hound sighed in a low voice, "With this level of construction work added together, I'm afraid they can build a fleet of Noah's Arks, right?"
"Don't forget that Yagunakotor was built by this hive civilization. I suspect that this civilization may have reached the threshold of a second-level civilization." Chi Hanfeng continued.
"A Level 2 civilization still needs to hide in an underground shelter?" The Hound muttered, "What on earth have they encountered..."
"Who knows..." said Chi Hanfeng.
He has almost recovered now, but because he failed to choose the armor just now, he has been staying in the cockpit of the Blasphemer mecha. Hound has given him the task of overall command of the team.
“Boom!”
With a muffled sound, the lifting platform dropped to the bottom and stopped moving.
"We're here already?" Zhuoligetu was the first to walk out of the lift platform and looked around. "We should still be in the bottom nest now... Below the bottom nest is the lower city, and further down is the upper city..."
"It seems that this elevator can only take us so far. We have to find the rest of the way by ourselves." Ghost Owl said, holding his gun and looking around vigilantly.
"Be careful, I think this place is evil." said the hound.
"What's the weird thing?"
"I can't explain it, I just feel uncomfortable..." The Hound looked around, "If I have to say something that makes me uncomfortable, it's these buildings... They are too compact and too dense. There are places to hide almost everywhere. If a street fight breaks out in such a place, it will definitely be a nightmare."
"Why not just use firepower to cover them?" Zhuo Ligetu weighed the heavy axe in his hand. "These buildings are shoddy construction. They can be used for hiding, but they can't be used as cover... You don't even need weapons. I can just walk through them with this armor."
"That's true..."
The Blasphemer mecha was the last one to step down from the lifting platform, but just as the Blasphemer's feet stepped on the ground of the bottom nest, the entire bottom nest suddenly lit up with a dazzling red light, and a large amount of white smoke sprayed out from every corner!
A language that the hounds could not understand rang out in the bottom nest, echoing back and forth under the empty dome.
If Ke Lan were here, he could translate this sentence for them: "Intruder detected, start the cleanup procedure immediately!"
"What's going on?" The hound was startled and immediately wanted to retreat back to the lifting platform, but as the alarm sounded more and more urgent, the lifting platform actually rose directly to the dome, revealing a bottomless well.
"That Christine didn't tell us about this!" The Hound asked anxiously, "Did Ke Lan come in the same way?"
"We seem to have triggered the defense mechanism of the Hive..." Chi Hanfeng said, "Just now, when you stepped off the lift platform, everything was fine. Only when the Blasphemer mecha stepped on the ground of the Hive, the alarm sounded. It seems that only the Blasphemer mecha was recognized as an 'invader'... Is this probably because this mecha was made by the Alpha civilization?"
"Are the Hive Civilization and the Alpha Civilization hostile to each other?" Ghost Owl asked, "Then if we abandon our machines, we won't be attacked, right?"
"If we give up on the Blasphemer at this time, we are truly mentally ill... The defense mechanism has been triggered, and we must have been regarded as invaders. With the Blasphemer, our chances of winning are somewhat higher..."
The hound wanted to say something, but was interrupted by Chi Hanfeng: "The Blasphemer's vibration detector shows that something is coming, and there are a lot of them! At three o'clock and six o'clock! Moving speed is over 150 yards, high mobility, metal reaction, and the number is over 200!"
In fact, Chi Hanfeng didn't need to say it, Hound and the others had already seen it - hundreds of "robots" leaping back and forth between the buildings, quickly approaching them.
These robots are all humanoid, with torsos, limbs and heads, but their body proportions are very slender. Their slender torsos can really be described as "slim as a fist". Especially when they are jumping and moving in a prone position, they look like giant "stick insects".
These robots are divided into two types, "melee" and "long-range". The "melee" robots surrounded the team with their terrifying mobility, while the "long-range" robots occupied the nearby commanding heights and began to attack them with "finger cannons".
Each of the "long-range" robots has five "fingers" on its hands. Except for the thumb, the other four fingers are gun barrels that can fire high-power pulse lasers with a very high hit rate... Fortunately, the power of the pulse lasers is not that great, and the armor on the Hounds can withstand it alone, not to mention the energy shields of Zhuo Ligetu and the Blasphemer Mech in front.
“Da da da da da——!!”
The Hound's six heavy machine guns opened fire simultaneously, and a large number of shell casings quickly piled up at his feet. These power armors have their own fire control system, so he doesn't even need to aim. The mechanical arm will automatically make fine adjustments, constantly changing targets while controlling the recoil.
The robots that approached them were knocked down one after another by the dense firepower network. As for those long-range robots, their numbers were constantly reduced due to the precise killing of the Blasphemer Mechas. Although the battle was fierce, it was actually not stressful at all for them.
"These robots don't seem to be that strong." Hound removed the overheated barrel and replaced it with six new ones. Compared with the other three, he killed the most robots, but also consumed the most ammunition. Fortunately, they brought enough ammunition this time. There were several boxes of ammunition on the external shelf on the back of the Blasphemer mech, which was enough to support a high-intensity battle.
"These don't seem to be pure robots..." Relying on its armor and fast speed, the Ghost Owl picked up the remains of several robots that were relatively close. Everyone discovered that under the metal shell, there were parts similar to biological tissues inside the "robots". These biological tissues were not even completely dead, and there would be a very obvious stress response if poked with a dagger.
"Biochemical robots?" Chi Hanfeng whispered, "Then it makes sense why these robots are so agile... It's difficult for a purely mechanical structure to make such agile movements."
"No matter whether they are purely mechanical structures or biochemical robots, they are just a bunch of small fry... If the defense mechanism of the Hive City is limited to this level, then I wonder - even a few of us can kill our way in, so why can't the Alpha civilization get in?" The Hound raised a question.
"According to Christine, the Alpha civilization cannot enter the nest because of the residual power of the 'God'... However, most of this residual power is in the cloud top and the upper city area, and there should not be much in the bottom nest and the lower city area." Zhuo Ligetu said as he started to push back with his shield. Several robots rushed up to him, but before they could touch him, they were chopped to the ground by the giant axe and crushed to pieces.
"Be careful of your head." Chi Hanfeng warned him. A melee robot jumped down from above and pounced on Zhuoligetu's head. At this time, Zhuoligetu had just chopped off the head of a robot on the right with his battle axe, and he had not had time to retract it...
He just raised the heavy shield upwards, and four lasers shot out from the four muzzles on the shield at the same time. The four lasers intersected left and right in mid-air and directly cut off the limbs of the attacking robot. The remaining torso slammed heavily on the shield, and before it could make any reaction, it was vaporized by the suddenly activated energy shield.
"I always feel that... the Mongolian's fighting skills have improved a lot." Chi Hanfeng murmured, "Although you were not weak in close combat before, you can now perfectly integrate the characteristics of high-tech equipment into close combat... It's as if these equipment are part of your body. Logically speaking, you have only been in contact with this set of armor for more than an hour, and you are so proficient in it?"
"I don't know..." Zhuoligetu shook his head, "I just subconsciously felt that I had to do that... To be honest, I didn't even realize how I controlled the laser fired from the shield to cut off that guy's limbs. I originally just wanted to try to intercept with a laser cannon..."
"It seems that this set of armor is very intelligent." Chi Hanfeng came to a conclusion, "The technological level of the Hive Civilization should not be lower than that of the Alpha Civilization... The strength displayed by these biochemical robots is not consistent with the technology of the Hive Civilization. You'd better be careful."
"Maybe it's because too much time has passed and these robots have fallen into disrepair?" The Hound said nonchalantly.
"Out of repair? Do you think an out-of-repair robot can perform such acrobatic moves?" Chi Hanfeng said seriously, "Old dog, don't be careless. The reason we have the advantage now is entirely because of our equipment. If we didn't have these armors and blasphemers, we would have been wiped out by these robots long ago. If it were any other team of relic hunters, such an offensive would be enough to make them despair."
"I know, I know. I'm not careless." The Hound said, "Strategically, we should despise the enemy, but tactically, we should take the enemy seriously... Do you understand what I mean?"
There were a total of 260 biochemical robots, and it took Hound and his team half an hour to clear them all. Although the alarm did not stop, no more robots came out - it seemed that all the movable robots in the bottom nest should have been killed by them.
"Christine said that the bottom nest is a place similar to a slum in the hive city. These robots were supposed to be used to suppress riots, right?" Ghost Owl held a gun and checked the remains of the robots. When he saw one that was still moving, he shot it in the head and torso. "Although these robots are no match for us, they should be more than enough to deal with ordinary people without weapons. We don't even need 200 of them. Fifty of them would probably be enough to massacre everyone in this bottom nest."
But at this moment, the hound suddenly slapped his thigh and shouted, "It's broken!"
"What's broken? Didn't we win the battle? We didn't suffer any casualties..." Chi Hanfeng was frightened by the hound.
"Have you forgotten? We came to this nest city to stop Ke Lan from entering 'Cloud Top'. These useless robots are just here to delay us! We wasted half an hour on them. I guess Ke Lan has already finished the job!" said the Hound.
"What should we do now?" Ghost Owl kicked away the wreckage of a robot at his feet and walked back.
"There's no time to find another way, let's go straight down the elevator shaft." The hound walked to the edge of the well and looked down.
It was pitch black down there, and even if you shone a searchlight downwards, the beam of light would not reach the bottom of the well.
A large number of mechanical structures are exposed on the well wall, but these mechanical structures are tightly fitted together, and the entire well wall seems to be a whole.
"You mean... we should climb down along the wall?" Ghost Owl looked at the lift platform that rose to the dome with some worry. "What if the lift platform drops down again while we are climbing? We won't be crushed, right? The diameter of the elevator shaft and the diameter of the lift platform are perfectly matched. There is no gap for a person to pass through."
"If the lift platform comes down, we just have to climb faster than it. If that doesn't work, we can just let go and jump down. Your armor has so many nozzles , you should be able to stay in the air for a short time, right?" said the Hound.
"It's possible... What if Christine lied to us and the bottom of this elevator shaft is not the downtown area but somewhere else..."
"Since we have accepted this 'commission', we should not doubt Christine's intelligence anymore." Zhuoligetu patted the ghost owl on the shoulder. "It's meaningless. If Christine wanted to kill us, why would it provide us with these equipment?"
"Okay..." The ghost owl took a deep breath, walked to the mouth of the well, looked up at the lifting platform fixed motionless above, and then climbed down along the wall of the well.
The power armor they wore had retractable claws on the fingers and front ends of their feet. The claws made of Nino alloy could easily cut into the well wall, making climbing not difficult. Even if one accidentally slipped, the power armor's jet thrusters could push the person back onto the well wall - as long as the lifting platform above did not suddenly fall down, there was no danger at all in the climbing process.
The only problem with the Blasphemer Mech was a little more troublesome - the Blasphemer Mech had no claws on its limbs, and its structure was not suitable for climbing... Fortunately, the Blasphemer Mech had its own anti-gravity device. After turning the device's power to the maximum, the actual weight of the entire machine could be reduced to about one ton. The four of Hound and his companions directly used a steel cable to lift the Blasphemer Mech down into the air, and the other end of the steel cable was directly connected to the four people clinging to the wall of the well.
