Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 985: First Contact
"Keep distance from it! Back off! Back off! Call for support!" the square-faced man yelled, and at the same time threw the empty ammunition box at the armadillo and took out a new one from his backpack to replace it.
The square-faced man used to be a soldier. Although the actual combat effectiveness of the Ark's soldiers during the interstellar drifting period was roughly equal to that of the security guards, he could still be considered one of the people who was most familiar with firearms among the group - while Lu Dan was still frantically stuffing the ammunition belt into the feed port, the second round of shooting by the square-faced man had already begun on the other side.
The armadillo turned around, used its tail to whip a vanguard member who had circled behind it, and then curled up its body.
When curled up, the armadillo's body surface area is reduced, and the scales on its body will stack up layer by layer, and its defense will be further improved... The more crucial point is that this curled up posture is actually the starting point of the armadillo's "ultimate move".
Ke Lan subconsciously wanted to shout loudly to let the advance team members around him disperse, but he found that his throat seemed to be hoarse and he could not make any sound... And those advance team members who were originally retreating, after seeing the alien armadillo curled up into a ball, actually approached it again and shot at the alien armadillo at close range with the guns in their hands.
The next second, the curled-up alien armadillo suddenly rolled up. The bespectacled loli and the insignificant passerby A were unable to dodge and were immediately crushed into meat paste by this "big iron ball". The team doctor who was proficient in close combat reacted a little faster than the two of them. He jumped back suddenly the moment the alien armadillo moved, but his body was still hit by the high-speed rolling alien armadillo, and the whole person was immediately thrown far away like a kite with a broken string.
Only two minutes had passed since the armadillo attack, and seven of the ten-person action team had already been lost, leaving only Ke Lan, Lu Dan and Square Face still alive.
Oh, from the vital signs detection device, the guy who was just whipped away by the armadillo's tail is still alive. However, given his condition, if he doesn't get timely treatment, he probably won't live for more than ten minutes.
Ke Lan glanced at the communication device on his wrist. The team status interface in the upper right corner of the screen showed that the team doctor's heart rate had returned to zero - even the doctor was killed. Even if the remaining three of them successfully killed the armadillo, no one would be able to perform emergency surgery on him.
"What the hell is this monster?! Why has no drone ever captured it before!" The general-purpose machine gun in the square-faced man's hand had exploded due to overheating. He simply threw away the weapon and the heavy ammunition bag, and ran wildly while shooting at the armadillo with his pistol and cursing.
"This thing probably stays underground most of the time, so it's normal that the drone didn't capture it..." The alien armadillo rolled towards the direction of the square-faced man. The pressure on Ludan and Ke Lan was relatively light, but it didn't mean they were safe - after the square-faced man was crushed to death by the alien armadillo, with the speed at which the alien armadillo rolled, it would be easy for it to catch up with the two people without a vehicle.
Just when the three were in despair, a strange-looking aircraft suddenly broke into the airspace. A slender metal spike shot out from the launcher at the bottom of the aircraft and hit the armadillo accurately. A bright white arc flashed across the surface of the armadillo. The next second, the armadillo uncurled and lay on the ground, its body twitching.
"Is it the paralyzing effect of the high voltage current?" Ke Lan judged from the arc that just flashed by . Then he looked up at the alien aircraft in the sky and said, "Is it the remnant of the Alpha civilization?"
However, before the three advance team members could react, the aircraft suddenly lost power and fell straight down from the sky, hitting the ground hard and exploding with a loud bang.
A deformed piece of metal debris whizzed over and nailed to the ground one meter in front of Ke Lan - if it had flown a little farther, Ke Lan... No, it should be the Fool's body, which would probably have been split in two.
"Crash?" Ke Lan looked at the smoking wreckage in the distance and a big question mark popped up in his head.
Obviously, the pilot of this aircraft was most likely an Alpha, and most likely a member of the Night Watch. But why did he crash after saving Ke Lan and the other three? Was it because of a mechanical failure, or some other reason?
Lu Dan and Square Face looked at each other and quickly made a unanimous decision: to check the crashed spacecraft. Although the pilot's chance of survival was almost zero, this was the first time that another intelligent civilization was discovered on Alpha.
Moreover, the other party just saved the three of them. Does this mean that the civilization on this planet does not regard humans as enemies?
Of course Ke Lan knew clearly in his heart that the Alpha civilization had never regarded the humans on the Ark as enemies from the very beginning. It could even be said that they were the ones who guided humans to this time and space and to the planet Alpha. However, Lu Dan and Square Face did not know all this, and Ke Lan had no way to tell them the truth.
The two men walked up to the burning wreckage of the aircraft. Lu Dan took out an emergency fire extinguisher from his backpack. After putting out the flames, he began to search through the wreckage. The square-faced man stood a little further away with a gun in his hand, looking alert.
As for Ke Lan's task, it was to keep an eye on the armadillo that had lost its ability to move .
"Strange... It's so fucking weird..." About ten minutes later, with his head and face covered in dust, the boiled egg crawled out of the wreckage and shook his head at the square-faced man and Ke Lan, "It's so weird... There's no body in this aircraft."
"No body?" The square-faced man was stunned for a moment. "I didn't see anything ejected from the aircraft just now, so the possibility of parachuting should be ruled out. By the way, did you see the 'Scavenger'?"
"No." Ke Lan also shook his head.
"Could it be a drone?" the square-faced man asked again.
"It's not a drone. I found a complete cockpit inside, and even a very advanced linear seat... Judging from the size of that seat, the Alphas should be a creature with a body shape quite similar to ours." said Lu Dan.
"Could it be that the body has been burned? After all, we have never seen what this kind of creature looks like. If it was a fragile creature like a jellyfish, it might have evaporated directly as long as the temperature in the cockpit was a little higher?" said the square-faced man.
"No... The cockpit is well protected. After I pried open the door, I was even amazed at the safety performance of this aircraft... Even if the aircraft disintegrated in the air, the operator in the cockpit would have a very high survival rate... The technological level of the Alpha civilization is far superior to ours."
"That's really weird." The square-faced man knitted his thick eyebrows together, "Could it be that this is a flying machine that can be operated by humans or unmanned? By the way, since the cockpit is well preserved, can you find any clues from its control system?"
"Stop talking..." Lu Dan shook his head repeatedly, "I can't understand those words at all. I guess even if I ask the linguistics experts in the team to look at them, it will take a lot of effort to decipher them."
"Well, let's take pictures of all the data first and send it back to the shuttle." The square-faced man did not ask the shuttle to send the data back to the Ark - after the shuttle passed through the atmosphere of Alpha Star, the communication between them and the Ark was cut off... The thick radiation cloud was like an ionization barrier, isolating the entire planet from the outside world.
"Even if the data can be transmitted back to the Ark, those linguistic experts will not be able to decipher the text of the Alpha civilization." Ke Lan said in his heart. At this moment, he really wanted to get into the cockpit of the aircraft to take a look... Although the Fool at that time did not understand the language of the Alpha civilization, Ke Lan could understand it.
It's just that the Fool's feet seemed to be nailed to the ground, motionless... Ke Lan could only sigh in his heart. It seemed that the Fool did not enter the cockpit at that time. Even if Ke Lan forcibly broke free from the shackles of memory and rushed into the cockpit, he probably wouldn't be able to see anything.
This is a world made up of the memories of fools. Anything that the fool has not seen does not exist.
A true world of "subjective idealism".
"I sent it back, and they said they'll send someone over right away." Lu Dan said, then turned around and looked at the paralyzed armadillo with some concern, "I just don't know how long this monster will be controlled... Maybe we should find a way to get rid of it first?"
At this moment, Ke Lan suddenly felt that the sky and the ground were shaking violently, and the boiled egg and square-faced man, the wreckage of the aircraft, and the armadillo not far away in his field of vision began to twist and deform, and the color tone of the surrounding environment gradually began to distort... The next second, he suddenly found himself back in the real world, and the hound was shaking his shoulders vigorously.
"What's wrong, old dog?" Ke Lan rubbed his sleepy eyes and asked.
"I was just about to ask you what happened. Didn't you insist that you wouldn't feel sleepy? Why did you fall asleep on the sofa?" The hound shouted, "I was planning to let you rest for a while... but now, not only you, but everyone else can't sleep."
"Is there something going on at the Ark?!" Ke Lan was startled and sat up straight. Although the Hound had not yet told him why he was woken up, Ke Lan had already vaguely guessed something.
"There's something wrong. It's a big problem." The Hound raised his hand and pointed at the wall behind Ke Lan. "Look for yourself."
Ke Lan turned her head and saw on the projection screen, a huge, pale... tree?
"What's this?"
"It grew from the Ark, just five minutes ago." General Maginot, who had two dark circles under his eyes, added.
It was only then that Ke Lan noticed that the base of this giant tree was actually the Noah's Ark that they had been monitoring... If the size of the Ark was used as a reference, then the size of this giant tree was simply exaggerated .
At this size, even the hidden military god Alexander and even the Leviathan monster can only look up to it.
"Did this really grow in five minutes?" Ke Lan confirmed with the hound.
"If you don't believe it, you can replay the video." Hound threw the remote control of the projector to Ke Lan and pouted angrily.
Ke Lan pressed the "rewind" button and rewound the video to five minutes ago.
The Ark seemed extremely silent under the cover of night. The towers and high-rise buildings that were once brightly lit were now completely dark. Only with the help of the high-brightness searchlight on the drone, one could vaguely see the fleshy fungal mat covering the surface of the Ark and the egg-shaped tumors growing on the fungal mat.
Ke Lan didn't have to wait long before changes occurred - the egg-shaped tumors suddenly shrank, and the monsters that were hatching inside also dissolved into pus and dissolved into the fleshy fungal blanket. Then, the blood color of the fleshy fungal blanket quickly faded and turned into a pale color, just like a corpse that had been soaked in formalin solution for several days.
All of this happened so quickly that the video had to be slowed down to 0.25 times the speed to fully capture the changes...
The entire fleshy fungal carpet turned pale in just one minute, as if the vitality in it had been completely drained. At one minute and ten seconds, the towers and high-rise buildings in the center of the Ark suddenly began to shake, collapse, and sink into the interior of the Ark.
In the center of the Ark, the dome suddenly began to crack, and a pale white sapling with a diameter of more than two kilometers emerged from underneath and began to grow at an astonishing speed...
"You should be more familiar with this location than any of us." The Hound pointed to the place where the pale sapling grew and said to Ke Lan.
"The core area..."
The speed at which the sapling grows can only be described as terrifying. It is difficult to imagine how such a huge body is made of matter... If this is really a "tree", even if all the organic matter on the Ark is used as nutrients for its growth, it would probably be just a drop in the ocean.
"This thing... completely violates the law of conservation of matter, right?" Maginot murmured. Although he had seen this scene more than once, the shock in his heart when he saw it again was still difficult to express in words.
"I suggest you forget all the laws and rules proposed by scientists on Earth." The Hound glanced at Maginot and said, "Especially anything that has anything to do with 'that existence'."
"What on earth do the Undead Crew want to do?" Maginot took a deep breath. "I am increasingly confused about their actions."
"I don't know what they are doing now, but if they have all been corrupted, I can be sure of one thing." Ke Lan held his chin with both hands and spoke word by word, "Their ultimate goal is to sacrifice the entire human civilization to that existence."
