Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 915: Western Region
The hound's estimate was completely accurate. On the other side, Ke Lan had already crossed the jungle hunting ground and entered the western half of the upper city.
It seemed that the only part of Neto's control was over the jungle hunting ground. After Ke Lan left the hunting ground, he encountered no obstacles and had a smooth journey.
Compared with the eastern half, which is like a high-end villa area, the western half is more like a heavily guarded militarized fortress. The outermost circle of "city walls" alone is thirty meters high - you know, the height of the outer walls of the most magnificent cities in ancient times was unlikely to exceed twenty meters.
This circle of city walls is cast with reinforced concrete as the base, and three layers of composite armor plates are added on the surface. When necessary, the outer layer of armor plates can be directly connected to high voltage electricity to prevent the enemy from climbing to the top of the city with props such as suction cups or grappling hooks.
With such a wall in place, even if all the people in the bottom nest and the lower city area united together, they would probably end up dying under the wall .
The city walls were even equipped with flamethrowers. Even if the bodies of the attackers were piled as high as the top of the wall, the raging fire would burn them to ashes, leaving absolutely no chance for the enemies behind to rush up the city walls by stepping on the bodies of their comrades.
Judging from the military perspective before modern times, this is a fortress that cannot be breached from the front.
But there is also a famous saying in history: "The strongest fortress is often breached from within."
Although this famous saying generally does not describe a true "fortress", the fortress in the western half of the city clearly perfectly proves this saying - there are almost no signs of fighting on the outside of the city wall, but when Ke Lan climbed to the top of the wall, the scene inside the city was a mess.
As far as the eye can see, there is almost no intact building. There are ruins and scattered bricks and stones everywhere. Even the skeletons of the houses that are supported by Nino alloy and can stand for hundreds of thousands of years without decay have been twisted into a knot.
This was not damage caused by the passage of time. A very fierce battle once broke out inside this fortress... and, judging from the remaining traces, one of the parties in the battle was definitely not human.
As soon as Ke Lan stepped onto the street, the floor tiles under his feet turned into powder. The cracks spread rapidly from his feet and soon covered the entire street. These floor tiles had already been vitrified, barely maintaining their original shape hundreds of thousands of years ago. When Ke Lan stepped on them, the balance of external and internal stresses was instantly broken, and the floor tiles on the entire street were shattered in an instant.
"Vitrified floor tiles...is it because of high temperature?" Ke Lan bent down and dipped her fingers into some glass powder - the particles of these powders were extremely small, as if a whole piece of glass was thrown into a grinder in a food factory, and the grinder was turned on the gear with the finest output.
With the current level of human technology, there are two types of weapons that can vitrify floor tiles. The first is the well-known nuclear weapon, and the second is the plasma weapon used as the main gun of a battleship.
A nuclear weapon would also cause the ground to vitrify at the core of the explosion, but this place should not have suffered a nuclear explosion - if the ground was vitrified, then the surrounding buildings would not have been able to retain these ruins, and this area should have been completely razed to the ground.
Then the only option is plasma weapons, and they should be small plasma weapons that can accurately control the strike range.
Ke Lan was not surprised at all that the Hive Civilization was able to miniaturize plasma weapons - fortunately Neto could not control the defense facilities here, otherwise Ke Lan's advancement speed would probably become a snail's pace.
The power from that "shell" should not be used lightly unless it is absolutely necessary, and the strength that Ke Lan can exert within the "safe range" is still somewhat strenuous when facing weapons of this level... Well, to be precise, it is very strenuous.
The plasma ball launched by plasma weapons, commonly known as plasma, can have an internal temperature of millions of degrees Celsius. Even though the temperature of the plasma will drop rapidly after launch, it can still maintain an extremely high temperature of over one million degrees, and can heat the surrounding air to tens of thousands of degrees in an instant.
Except in a vacuum environment like the universe, using plasma weapons anywhere else is a "kill one thousand enemies and lose eight hundred of your own" move - plasma cannons are real AOE weapons, and they are also weapons with a killing radius greater than the range. Even if a plasma cannon for individual use can be developed, it cannot be fired by hand. Because when the "cannonball" is fired, the person carrying the plasma cannon will be vaporized by the high temperature.
There won't even be an intermediate stage of "carbonization", and the launcher will not feel any pain during the whole process - like the barrel, the launcher is also a disposable consumable, unless he has strong enough protective gear, such as the Blasphemer Mech.
What Ke Lan least wanted to face was this kind of blanket attack weapon. Even if the plasma cannon could not hit him directly, the spreading high temperature was enough to vaporize Ke Lan in a second... He was not sure whether his body could be restored to its original appearance after being vaporized...
Ke Lan didn't want to try, nor did she dare to try.
In the past 500,000 years, there are no corpses left on the streets. Only those corpses that can be buried in the soil and become fossils can be preserved. As for those exposed to the outside, it only takes a few years for them to be completely decomposed and weathered, becoming part of the dust covering the ground.
It is unrealistic to find the corpses of both sides of the battle. Ke Lan can only go straight forward according to the map in his memory - if the locations of Nieto in the upper city and the lower city are vertically opposite, then Nieto in the upper city should be located in the deepest part of the fortress.
…
It took Ke Lan a full half hour to reach the "deepest part" - there was originally a tower here, but now only the part below the second floor remains. As for the part above the second floor, it is scattered on the surrounding open space.
The structure inside the tower had completely decayed, with only frames containing Nino alloy still stubbornly clinging to the broken walls. Ke Lan simply touched it lightly, and the wall crumbled down like a crisp biscuit. He estimated that if he gave it a light push, he might be able to knock over the several-meter-high wall in one go.
Not to mention how long this tower ruins, like a candle in the wind, can stand, Ke Lan searched the surroundings but couldn't find Neto's real body.
The main body of Nieto in the lower city is placed in the center of the square, which is an extremely eye-catching location, just like the large advertising screens on the Ark that are located in prime locations.
Considering that Neto's original image was that of a beautiful girl with long black hair rather than that kind of scary rotting meat, it seems that there is nothing wrong with placing this super biological computer in the most conspicuous position - just like a statue is for people to worship, as the "agent" of the hive city, Neto also has such a symbolic role.
The nobles in the upper city obviously don't need to pay homage to Neto, so Neto naturally doesn't need to be placed outside like a statue... Ke Lan thought about it and thought that if he were the designer of the upper city, he would probably put Neto in this tower...
"etc!"
Ke Lan seemed to have thought of something and quickly walked into the tower that could collapse at any time.
There was a thick layer of dust on the ground of the tower, covering the original floor. Without thinking, Ke Lan took out the engineer shovel and started digging on the ground. Not long after, a closed secret door leading to the underground appeared in front of Ke Lan.
"So it's hidden underground..."
Ke Lan inserted the edge of the engineering shovel into the gap of the secret door and pried it open with force. But at the same time, a large mass of pink stuff rushed out from under the secret door and rushed directly towards Ke Lan!
Ke Lan calmly took a big step back and swung the engineering shovel in his hand quickly, crushing the pink thing that was rushing towards him into pieces - the moment the pink thing appeared, Ke Lan had already seen its true appearance through time stop: this was a mass of biological tissue that could proliferate rapidly, and its texture was between human muscle and fat. There was no bone inside, but it was densely covered with blood vessels and nerves. The large amount of blood spurted out from the parts that were crushed by the engineering shovel, just like a punctured balloon filled with blood.
For a rapidly generated tissue like this, under normal circumstances, the proportion of water in its composition must be much greater than that of solid matter, and it can even "burst" directly with a pinch of the hand... These fan tissues do not have any lethality at all. Even if Ke Lan did not dodge and stood where it was and let it pounce on her, it would not be able to do anything to Ke Lan.
It couldn't even scare Ke Lan.
It is difficult for this thing to kill a person. Even if it is wrapped around a person's neck, it cannot strangle the person to death... Its texture is too soft and fragile. Even if it is tightened hard, the pink tissue wrapped around the neck will probably explode before the person feels suffocated... Those pieces of meat with tendons that can get stuck in the blades of a meat grinder may have a stronger physical strength than this thing.
The only way it can kill people is probably to get into the nose and mouth and block the respiratory tract. But in fact, with a little force, the pink tissue that gets into the respiratory tract can be blown out like blowing your nose...
Ke Lan looked at the pink tissue squirming in front of him, and suddenly remembered the slime that often appeared as a monster in the novice village in works of the other world... No, perhaps the slime is more powerful than this thing.
"You... are Neto?" Ke Lan asked tentatively.
"So what if you find my true form?" Neto, who had been silent all this time, finally spoke again, "I admit that I have no way to deal with you... but you also cannot kill me. After accepting the gift from the great god, I have become infinitely close to His origin..."
"I'm curious about one thing. Since you worship that god so much, why don't you just sacrifice yourself? In this way, your long-cherished wish will be fulfilled - to become a part of the 'great god'." Ke Lan stepped forward, swung the engineering shovel in his hand, cut off a large piece of bloody tissue from Neto's body, and crushed it with his foot.
"I'm missing something..." Nieto replied, "I'm different from humans. I'm a program. The so-called intelligence is just a simulation of the program... I lack the 'soul' of humans, so I can't completely merge with Him like those sacrificed people... Nieto in the lower city survived for this reason."
"You are very intelligent..." Ke Lan asked doubtfully, "You have obviously developed self-awareness. Although you are a creation of humans, you have become a new form of life... Otherwise, why would you believe in that great god? AI only obeys orders. Only creatures with self-awareness can make their own choices."
"Faith in the Great God is an instruction written in my source code," Nieto replied, "The meaning of my existence is to find sacrifices for Him."
"..." Ke Lan pulled the corner of his mouth speechlessly. He finally understood that the thing that had been communicating with him emotionally was a program, but the emotional module of this program was too realistic, which made him have the illusion that this intelligent program had developed self-awareness under the influence of "Him".
But in fact... it is only because someone modified the personality of this intelligent program into a fanatic believer in that god that Neto behaves in this state.
Carefully thinking back to his previous exchanges with Neto, Ke Lan now realized that there were many common-sense logical errors in Neto's language. He originally thought that it was a "BUG" that appeared after Neto's sanity was eroded, but after knowing that it was still just an intelligent program, these logical errors could be completely explained scientifically.
The most basic instructions of the Neto program are to be loyal to the great god and to help the great god search for sacrifices. These two instructions have the highest priority, and any other instructions must give way to them. When there is a conflict between instructions, the lower priority instructions will be abandoned. This makes Neto give people a feeling of being crazy and mentally abnormal.
But this raises another question: Who modified Nieto's underlying program?
There is one thing Ke Lan can be sure of, that person was in a hurry when modifying Neto's underlying program. He simply wrote these two instructions in without checking them with other instructions... If Neto is regarded as a giant program, this giant program is full of bugs almost everywhere because of these two newly added instructions.
In order to make these two instructions run, that person probably deleted a lot of "safety measures"... so much so that as long as Ke Lan did not violate these two highest priority instructions, Neto would answer most of his questions - Ke Lan initially thought it was a trap set by Neto, but now it seems that it was pure artificial intelligence.
