Volume 5: Bottomless Sinkhole Chapter 261: Revisiting the Old Place
While searching for an exit, Ke Lan was thinking about the connection between these clues: the internal eclipse of the twin moons and the water that suddenly poured into the stone chamber... These two points combined made him think of the gravitational tides between celestial bodies. Could it be that part of the mechanism of this stone chamber was controlled by the tidal force between the twin moons and Alpha Star?
But the amount of calculations involved in these data is really too huge. Let alone Ke Lan, even if a professional astronomer were here, it would be difficult to calculate all the details without the help of a computer.
And trying to reversely infer the structure of the ruins through these data is even more unrealistic.
At this moment, the cry of the hound came from another direction -
"Found it! The exit is here! Stone Chamber No. 7!"
…
In the northeast corner of Stone Chamber No. 7, a hole about one meter square appeared under the water. This hole was connected to a horizontal passage. The length and width of the passage were also one meter, running from south to north. The material of the surrounding passage walls was similar to that of the stone chamber. The only difference was that the surface was covered with a layer of somewhat slippery scale.
Ke Lan dived down and took a look. It was impossible to see the end of the passage with the naked eye.
"I have used laser to measure the length of the underwater passage." Layton said, "It is exactly 460 meters. At the other end of the passage, there is also an upward opening. Judging from the path of light refraction, it should be empty above, without water."
The exit and the passage were very narrow. If they wanted to pass through the passage, they had to take off their powered exoskeletons. Even big guys like Zhuoligetu and Layton had to tighten their bodies to barely squeeze in.
"This... this place... if I go in... I can't move at all." Zhuo Ligetu gestured at the entrance of the passage and said with difficulty.
"That's not a big problem," Layton said, raising his robotic arm and shaking it. "There's a propeller device in my robotic arm that can be used as a power source for underwater propulsion. As long as I can get a rope to connect everyone, I can lead everyone through this passage... It will take about three minutes."
"Three minutes..." The Hound glanced at the breathing mask in his hand. "For us, holding our breath for three minutes is not a big problem, but what about them?"
He was referring, of course, to Ivan and the other two who were still in a coma.
The Hound continued, "There are only two respirators, and this passage is so narrow that people would be squeezed in like sardines. There is no way to turn around and help them breathe."
"Can we use tape to seal their mouths and noses? As long as they can last for three minutes," Layton suggested.
"No." Ke Lan shook her head. "They have all been injected with the Mengzao preparation and neutralizer. Their current state is the same as a deep coma. If you put them in a state of suffocation, their brains may suffer irreversible damage due to lack of oxygen. Three minutes is too long."
"But I do have a solution." Ke Lan took out a roll of polymer textile from his backpack. When he unfolded it, everyone realized that it was actually a body bag.
Although the name of this thing is not very auspicious, many hunters who work in a team will still add a few body bags to their equipment list... Even if the original function cannot be used, the bag can be disassembled and used as waterproof material or bandage. In wilderness survival and ruins exploration, its versatility can be said to be quite wide.
"Body bag... that's indeed a solution. It's waterproof. As long as we fill it with some air, it will last for ten minutes without any problem." The Hound nodded.
Soon, the sleeping Ivan, Asano Akira and Cao Feng were put into body bags. As for the two breathing masks, they were kept out for emergency use.
Everyone connected the three sections of cable and fastened them to the safety buckles on each person's waist. They then connected the three body bags head to tail and strung them onto the ropes. As for the exoskeletons and other equipment that had been taken off, they were dragged to the very end of the cable.
Led by Layton, everyone took a few deep breaths and then entered the underwater passage one by one.
Ke Lan was the second in the queue. After entering the underwater passage, those at the front of the queue first crawled forward for a distance. After everyone, including the three body bags, came in, Layton turned on the propeller in the machine, dragging everyone along the passage to accelerate forward.
Everything went smoothly. There were no additional mechanisms in the underwater passage, and no accidents occurred when the team passed through it. Even the time it took was exactly the same as Layton's estimate - at three minutes and nine seconds, Layton, who was at the head of the team, was the first to reach the end of the passage, and at three minutes and thirty-eight seconds, the equipment bag hanging at the end of the cable had been dragged out of the water.
But when Ke Lan saw the scene at the other end of the underwater passage clearly, he couldn't help but hold his breath. An inexplicable chill spread from the depths of his bones and climbed up his back little by little.
A spacious and well-organized space, a passageway large enough for three Junius off-road vehicles to pass side by side, and black ice as dense as steel...
They were back again, back to that strange ice road under the glacier!
"This place... we seem to have been here before..." Leighton subconsciously took a step back. Ke Lan could clearly hear the sound of his teeth chattering... it was not because of the cold, but fear.
The Hound silently placed his hand on the holster. If you shone the flashlight on him, you could clearly see that his fingers were shaking uncontrollably.
Among the four, only Zhuo Ligetu's situation was relatively better, but it was only "better".
If this was really the ice road from before, and if the things Ke Lan had seen were not illusions... they all knew very well what kind of "things" they might encounter next...
The only two people who didn't understand the situation were Qin Zhao and Martin.
"Have you been here? But... isn't the deepest explored distance of the tiankeng less than 500 meters ? Where is this place?" Qin Zhao asked softly. She felt that something was wrong with the mood of Ke Lan and the others. Under this atmosphere, even she herself became a little nervous.
"This is not a tiankeng..." The hound uttered a few words with some difficulty, "This is... A-087... the remains of the glacier..."
