Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 990 Ultimatum
"Damn it..." Soap cursed and took several steps back. When he turned around, he found that pale roots were spreading behind him.
"We can't stay here anymore!" Noir said, "We have to leave here immediately!"
"Run... run! Let's run!" Even Ulrich, who was not mentally normal, was so anxious that he kept turning around in circles.
"Then why don't you lead the way!" Soap glared at Ulrich, "Without you leading the way, we'll be left wandering around in this underground maze. We'll probably die faster than running into these ghosts!"
"I... I don't know where to go..." As if trying to pull the non-existent hair, Ulrich's sharp nails scratched his scalp and left bloody marks. "No place is safe... Danger... Fear... It's... everywhere!"
"You mean, the entire underground maze is occupied by these roots?" Noir raised his eyebrows, "Where is the nearest exit to the ground? Take us there!"
"I don't know... I don't know!!" Ulrich roared. He seemed to have lost the ability to detect the road conditions. It could also be that the extremely heavy feeling of fear had suppressed him to the point that he could not calm down and find a way out.
"We don't need him to lead the way." The clown suddenly said, "Have you not discovered that since these roots invaded the underground maze, the entire maze has stopped functioning?"
"It seems to be true!" Soap was slightly startled, and then immediately said to Nouval and Ulrich, "Why are you still standing there! Hurry up! Let's go! Let's get to the ground first!"
…
Mukach Fortress, General Maginot's office.
"So what should we do now? If we want to destroy this giant tree, we can only attack its roots, but its roots are hidden inside the Ark and protected by the energy shield. This brings us back to the problem..." Maginot said in a troubled tone. The fat on his face had been squeezed into a ball, especially the area between his eyebrows, where several layers of loose skin were stacked up. Sweat slid down the wrinkles and dripped onto his bulging belly.
"To put it bluntly, our strategic goal has not changed since the beginning." Hound stared at the projection screen, his fingers slightly bent, tapping rhythmically on the back of the sofa. "Whether it's getting rid of the Undead Crew and the Corruptor, or blowing up this damn tree, we have to break into the Ark. Ha, everything is back to square one."
"No, the situation is completely different." Levi shook his head. "Even if we successfully break into the Ark, we have no means to destroy this giant tree... If Mr. Ke Lan's description is true, the vitality of this alien plant may be far more tenacious than we imagined. With the total equivalent of nuclear warheads we have, even if we detonate it at the root, we may not be able to destroy it."
"Annihilation bombs... The Alphas used annihilation bombs to destroy the Crown of Ashes." Hound muttered, "But we have no place to get annihilation bombs now... Wait, I have an idea!"
"What idea?" Maginot and Levi's attention was immediately attracted by the hound.
"An annihilation bomb, in essence, releases the antimatter that was originally bound by a gravitational field... Anyway, I don't know much about this aspect. Just tell me, if you are given enough antimatter, can you make an annihilation bomb? It doesn't have to be too sophisticated, as long as it can be successfully detonated and powerful enough when it explodes!" The Hound spoke quickly.
Ke Lan looked at Ze Luo.
The three-no girl nodded slightly: "In theory, yes. However, with the current technology of human civilization, it is impossible to create a container to store antimatter, so it is impossible to create a portable annihilation bomb like the Alpha civilization."
"But," Ze Luo changed the subject, "My spatial manipulation ability can create such a container. As long as I can find antimatter, I can bring it to the roots of the giant tree and detonate it."
After Ze Luo finished saying this, the words "human bomb" popped up in the heads of the men present... Letting such a beautiful girl who was beyond words act as a human bomb, Maginot and Levi couldn't help but reveal a trace of pity in their eyes. The latter's lips moved a few times, but he didn't say anything in the end.
"If you detonate the antimatter, you... you should be able to escape alive, right?" asked Maginot.
Both of them knew that Ze Luo was very capable, but the annihilation bomb was not an ordinary thing. The energy released when matter and antimatter interacted could almost destroy everything... The space barrier could support pure antimatter, but when positive matter was mixed in and began to "react", even the space barrier might not be able to stop it.
It's like a bottle of soda, which is very stable when it's in the bottle, and the soda itself won't cause any damage to the bottle. But if you throw a few Mentos mints in it and shake it vigorously... then the situation is completely different.
"Fatty, how come you're worried about other people's safety now? I remember you used to be the kind of person who would do anything to achieve your goals." The Hound looked at him strangely, "Do you still remember the blocking battle at Hill 963? At that time, you left a whole battalion of troops behind to cover their retreat. They fought until only the last man was left, and they didn't receive your order to retreat. Although you did it to ensure the safety of the baggage troop, if I were the battalion commander of that battalion, I would come back to find you and kill you even if I became a ghost."
" That was just an exercise! An exercise!" Maginot said angrily. "You know, before I was transferred here, I had no actual combat experience at all! To me, an exercise is just a game of chess. When you play chess, would you give up the outcome of the entire game just because you care about the life and death of a few chess pieces?"
"This situation is like a game of chess," Ke Lan sighed. "Everyone here is a chess piece in the game. No one can jump out of the chessboard... If I could, I would really like to slap the chess player sitting next to the chessboard twice."
After Ke Lan finished speaking, he turned to look at Ze Luo and said, "If this is the only way to break the impasse, then we have no choice."
Everyone seemed to see Ze Luo smile, but it seemed to be just an illusion. Ze Luo still maintained her expressionless appearance. She turned her head and looked at Ke Lan and said, "I saw a sentence in a book about Chinese chess, 'When a pawn crosses a river, there is only advancement and no retreat, and there is only death and no life.'"
"But there is another old saying in China, which is 'to survive after being put in a desperate situation.'" Ke Lan said, "The choice is yours. You can go or not."
"Go." Ze Luo nodded.
"But there is still a problem before us. Where can we find so much antimatter to make this 'annihilation bomb'?" Maginot said with a frown.
"Antimatter, we have it ready." Hound and Ke Lan looked at each other, then snapped their fingers, "Chief of Staff, please mark all the known and well-preserved 'death ray cannons' on the surface of Alpha on the map."
When they first came out of the glacial ruins, the battleship carrying them was hit by a death ray cannon, which was still fresh in the memory of Hound and his companions...but later they learned that it was only the "pre-aiming" mode of the death ray cannon, and it was not considered an actual firing at all.
The death ray cannon, which uses antimatter as its shells, has a true power far beyond that single shot.
In fact, that shot was only used to lock the target - just like the laser sight hanging on the gun, the gunman has not pulled the trigger yet, and the bullet has not been fired, the temperature released by the laser sight has already burned the target paper.
A dozen red dots were marked on the global map of Alpha. As an important part of the Alpha civilization's "planetary defense system", there were more than 600 death ray cannons installed in total, spread across every corner of Alpha. Even on the islands in the mid-sea, offshore platforms, and ice caps in the polar seas, bases for death ray cannons had been built.
However, until the disappearance of the Alpha civilization, this defense system was not fully built. Among the more than 600 bases , only less than 100 were equipped with the death ray cannon, and most of them had been destroyed. There were only 17 well-preserved death ray cannons left, including the one that Ke Lan and his friends had "experienced".
"These death ray cannons should still be able to fire, but we are uncertain how much antimatter is left stored inside..." Levi said.
In order to measure the amount of antimatter remaining in the death ray cannon, the core components of the cannon must be disassembled. For the Ark civilization that has not mastered space technology, this is undoubtedly a very dangerous task... No, to say it is dangerous is an understatement. To be precise, this is a suicidal thing.
Once, a research team from a research institute tried to dismantle a death ray cannon in the wilderness. As a result, the research team was gone, and the death ray cannon was gone too. Instead, where the death ray cannon had been, there was a very regular hemispherical pit with a depth of two kilometers and a radius of two kilometers.
According to the research institute's later estimates, the amount of antimatter remaining in the death ray cannon should be very small, otherwise, even a military base 15 kilometers away might not have been spared.
"Then the mission is divided into two parts." Ke Lan turned around and said to everyone, "I will take Ze Luo to the death ray cannons at various locations to collect the remaining antimatter. The others will try to tear open the defense gap of the Ark and create a passage for Ze Luo to enter."
This sentence may sound light and easy, but in fact, everyone present knows how difficult it is... None of the reconnaissance teams that were previously sent to the Ark have returned. Not only is the energy shield outside the Ark difficult to break through, but the inside of the Ark is probably full of murderous intentions.
"We will do our best." Maginot gritted his teeth and said in a deep voice, "Even if we have to use corpses to pave it, we must build this passage!"
Levi wanted to say something, but some news suddenly came from the headphones he was wearing, causing his expression to change several times in succession.
"What's wrong with you, Levi?" Maginot immediately noticed the look on the face of his new subordinate and asked, "Is there any bad news coming back from the forward observation post?"
"I... I don't know whether this news is good or bad..." Levi shook his head. He first looked at Maginot, and then focused his sight on Ke Lan. "The forward observation post received a ciphertext from inside the Ark, using our internal secret frequency band."
"What is the content of the ciphertext?" The Hound jumped up from the sofa in an instant and asked excitedly, almost rushing up to grab Levi's collar and interrogating him.
"Can't...can't decipher it." Levi said with difficulty, "Our intelligence department has been busy for half an hour, but still can't decipher this ciphertext...Its encryption method is not any of the ones we know..."
"Damn it, you mean to say that the forward observation post received this ciphertext from inside the Ark half an hour ago? Then why didn't it report it? If you find that you can't decipher it, you should report it immediately. Those idiots in the intelligence department don't even understand this?" The Hound cursed angrily.
"Send me the ciphertext." Ke Lan was not as angry as Hound. He sat down on the sofa and moved the laptop on the coffee table onto his knees.
The contents of the ciphertext were quickly sent to Ke Lan's computer. Ke Lan hesitated for just a few seconds before his ten fingers rapidly typed on the keyboard.
In less than five minutes, the contents of the ciphertext were cracked...it was a picture, a picture filled with strange characters.
"Is this... the writing of the Alpha civilization?!" The Hound exclaimed immediately after taking just one look.
"What's the content?" Machino stared at Ke Lan with burning eyes. Among all the people present, only Ke Lan had the ability to decipher the text of the Alpha civilization.
"It's a warning, or a reminder," Ke Lan said. "Someone told me that the roots of the giant tree have begun to spread. In twelve hours, it will penetrate the bottom of the Ark and drill into the ground of Alpha. By that time, the giant tree will merge with the entire Alpha. The only way to destroy it is to destroy the entire Alpha."
"What this person means is that we only have twelve hours left?" The Hound was stunned, and then punched the sofa cushion fiercely. "Damn it, I almost forgot that those idiots wasted half an hour. Now we should have eleven and a half hours left."
"Is this... an ultimatum?" Maginot muttered, "Is this the Undead Crew declaring victory to us in advance?"
"No, this message should have been sent by our own people." Ke Lan shook his head, "There are also our friendly forces on the Ark."
