Volume 5: Bottomless Sinkhole Chapter 243 Arrival at the Tiankeng
At twelve o'clock sharp, blue-green flames began to spurt from the tail and bottom of the "Greece", the supporting cantilevers on both sides of the dock slowly opened, and the eighty-two fixed anchors used to support the ship were unlocked at the same time - "The area ahead has been cleared, please follow the laser guidance line to exit the airport." The voice of the airport controller came from the control tower, and the "Greece" began to gradually accelerate, flying outside along the two green lasers shot from the control tower.
"It's really stable." The Hound glanced at the dock and control tower that were constantly receding on the real-life screen. Although the "Greece" was accelerating, the people sitting in the airship's restaurant could not feel any vibration at all. Even the full cups of water were not spilled at all.
"I just checked the information of the 'Phantom' high-speed airship. In order to allow passengers to enjoy the most comfortable journey, 75% of the cabins inside this airship are suspended structures, controlled by four large anti-gravity devices. Even if the ship is directly hit by a missile, as long as the outer shell is not penetrated, even if the entire airship turns over in the sky, the cabin can still remain in an absolutely balanced state ." Layton said, "Nowadays, many large warships are designed in this way, just to minimize the impact of the external environment on the crew in fierce battles... But this thing is very expensive, so it has not been popularized in the civilian field."
"It's great ." Ivan said, silently taking a sip of the 96-degree "Water of Life".
"Okay, it's time to get down to business." The Hound pulled up a corner of the tablecloth, wiped the sauce from the corner of his mouth, and then looked at Ke Lan.
"Mental attack." Ke Lan nodded to him, "Those crazy relic hunters, they were mentally attacked at the bottom of the tiankeng."
"When I tried to 'communicate' with those patients using the Alpha language, they all showed very strong reactions without exception... This shows that the Alpha language is very likely the stimulus for their illness, and the carrier of this mental attack method." Ke Lan continued.
"If mental attack is the Alpha language, people like me can't hear it at all, so why would it have an effect on those crazy people?" Zhuo Ligetu asked in some confusion.
"We can't hear infrasound and ultrasound either, but that doesn't stop us from making them into weapons." Layton said seriously, with his arms folded across his chest.
"But it is precisely because ordinary people can't hear it," Ke Lan nodded, "so this mental attack is as concealed as sonic weapons. At the same time, it also has a certain delay - the attacked person often only notices the abnormality after a few days, and then is quickly swallowed by nightmares."
"Nightmare? You mean, this method of mental attack creates a nightmare in our heads and scares us crazy? So... the nightmares they had before they went crazy are the key?!" The hound reacted quickly and instantly grasped the key word "nightmare" in Ke Lan's words.
In the information provided by ACMS_0420, it was also mentioned that these crazy hunters were completely mentally ill and suffered from nightmares... But in the eyes of most people, the worst nightmare would cause a person to fall into a state of neurasthenia. It is simply impossible to drive a normal person completely crazy in just a few days.
Ke Lan said, "Yes, the main reason these hunters went crazy was indeed because of nightmares, but the nerve attack from the tiankeng did not create a brand new nightmare. Instead, it dug out the things that people feared the most, visualized them, and magnified them infinitely... I roughly counted that those hunters with serious psychological trauma were basically the first to fall into madness."
"Does this mean that the braver you are, the less likely you are to be affected?" The Hound glanced at Layton. "A brainless guy like Big Guy should be completely immune to this kind of mental attack, right?"
"Among the relic hunters who came back from the tiankeng, nearly half of them were not affected at all... I didn't have time to investigate these people one by one." Ke Lan picked up a drop of sauce from the plate with a fork and dropped it into a glass of water. Suddenly, the dark brown sauce spread in the water, forming a turbid mist . "I can't be sure whether these people didn't go crazy because their mental health was better, or because they didn't suffer a mental attack at all."
"Ke Lan." Hound sat opposite Ke Lan and looked him straight in the eyes. "If it were you, do you think this kind of mental attack would work on you?"
"I don't know, but I think it's highly unlikely to work."
"Why."
"It's like I had a nightmare. If there was a voice in the dark telling me that this nightmare would come true in the future, I might be skeptical. But if Layton came to me and told me that this dream would become a reality, I would just think he was having a seizure in his brain - I can understand Alpha language, so I can use my consciousness to fight it." Ke Lan paused and continued, "So, I decided that I would be the pioneer in this exploration."
Vanguard is the most important and also the most dangerous position among the Ruin Hunters. In a hunting group, only the most experienced and agile elites can take on this responsibility. In return, the Vanguard Hunter receives the highest reward in the entire team.
If it is a temporary team, the hunter who serves as the vanguard will have the priority right to choose the spoils by default.
"If you think it's okay, then I have no objection." The Hound said. Although Ke Lan was not the best among them in terms of skills or experience, he had the ability to understand Alpha language and stop time, making him undoubtedly the best candidate for the vanguard.
"The more capable you are, the more you get for the more work you do" is a principle that most hunting groups follow.
…
The speed of the "Greece" was much faster than that of the Amran-class transport aircraft. In less than ten hours, it had brought Ke Lan and his companions to the area above the two ruins of "A-087" and "S-018".
Almost one third of the volume of the majestic glacier had disappeared. As for the original entrance to the A-087 ruins, the black crack had completely disappeared. Instead, there was a huge, crescent-shaped sinkhole. The edge of the sinkhole was a nearly vertical cliff formed by solid ice, extending into the bottomless darkness.
