Volume 5: Bottomless Sinkhole Chapter 266 Closed Loop
The three people following behind also came up, and when they saw the explosives and detonators, they showed similar expressions as Ke Lan and the other two.
"Is this ice road a closed loop? Did we go around in a circle inside it?" Qin Zhao guessed.
"Impossible... This ice path is very straight, I can hardly feel its curvature... If it is a circular structure, then walking a circle will be a long distance, and the distance we have walked now is only a few hundred meters." Layton shook his head repeatedly, "And, if it is a closed loop, then where is the underwater passage we came out of?"
"No, Layton, I think what she said makes sense." Ke Lan walked closer to the crack and squatted down. "The underwater passage appeared out of nowhere, so it's normal for it to disappear out of nowhere. As for whether this ice road is straight or curved, there is actually a very simple way to verify it."
As he spoke, Ke Lan turned on the laser sight on the front of the pistol, and a red laser shot out towards the front of the ice track... But what surprised everyone was that the laser, which was supposed to go in a straight line, actually bent to one side strangely dozens of meters away, and finally projected a circular spot of light on the ice surface on that side.
"In fact, this ice road is a circle, but our senses have been distorted by some imperceptible force... The strange feeling I just felt should come from here." Ke Lan said.
Following Ke Lan's suggestion, everyone walked forward a distance. Sure enough, the ice road covered by egg sheaths appeared again, and they also found traces of cutting by Layton with a circular saw.
"It's the same going forward." Ke Lan said, "This ice path isn't very long, but it has no end."
"So, we just got out of those nine stone chambers, but we're trapped again." The hound took a deep breath and tugged at the harness belt on his body in annoyance.
"No, there is a third way."
"You mean..." The Hound gasped, "This is crazy, right? Are you sure?"
"What else? Should we continue to circle around in this ice path?" Ke Lan said, "I think that hand... is one of the clues left for us by the designer of the ruins. The real exit is under the ice."
"But...but, what if...I mean, if, if we run into that hand, that monster...we will die, what...what should we do?" Martin said, shaking his head vigorously. His sentence order was quite confused and his fear was evident in his words.
Ke Lan looked ahead and saw that the ice road extended into the shadows beyond the reach of sight. The darkness seemed endless, but they all knew that as long as they kept moving forward, they would soon return to the starting point again.
"But that's the only way we can go," Ke Lan said.
In the nine stone chambers, the stone platform and the person trapped in a nightmare were the leads to the first clue. Following this lead, Ke Lan and the hound discovered the secret of the stone chamber's moving trajectory and obtained the first clue of "Double Moon Eclipse"... and in this circular ice path, the hand under the ice and the cracked ice surface were obviously the leads to the second clue.
Even if there is no exit below, there must be clues related to the exit.
A famous Russian playwright in the old days once said a famous saying: "If the script in the first act says there is a gun hanging on the wall, then in the following plot, the gun will definitely be fired."
...Otherwise, there would be no point in writing about this gun.
Judging from the design of the nine stone chambers, Ke Lan has roughly figured out the idea of the "designer of the secret room" - the other party is pursuing the ultimate simplicity, and anything that appears in the environment is an indispensable and important factor in the decryption process. And the facts are indeed as he judged: in short, anything that appears in the secret room must be "put in handy", which naturally includes the palm sealed under the ice.
The only thing that broke this logic was the egg cases of the red fleshworms. Those things...
No, that's not right! Ke Lan suddenly shuddered. Those egg sheaths were also part of the secret room... An upside-down hourglass appeared in Ke Lan's mind... These egg sheaths... They were timers! When the countdown was over, the bugs in the egg sheaths would hatch and "clear out" the entire circular ice track!
Thinking of this, Ke Lan immediately raised his head and looked at Layton, asking, "What's the temperature inside the ice track now? Is it a little hotter than before?"
"Hey, Ke Lan, if you hadn't told me, I wouldn't have noticed. The temperature seems to have really risen a lot compared to before. I thought it was because our clothes had dried..." Leighton said, glancing at the temperature-measuring instrument on his body. "When we just came out of the underwater passage, I remember it was minus four degrees Celsius... Tsk, now it's two degrees Celsius? It's risen by six degrees? Huh? It's risen by another degree, to three degrees Celsius..."
"It is indeed the case!" Ke Lan gritted his teeth and told everyone his guess.
For a moment, everyone's faces became even uglier.
"...It seems that this is the only way." The Hound sighed, "When the temperature rises to a certain level and the bugs in the egg sheaths hatch...the Alphas who designed this ruins are such a piece of shit. Now, even starving to death is a luxury."
"Everyone should be mentally prepared. I estimate that, except for the stone chamber at the starting point, each of the following 'levels' should have a time limit." Ke Lan said, "We can't procrastinate like this any longer. We have to act immediately!"
…
The team returned to where the rift was.
Although the terrifying hand had disappeared, the darkness beneath the ice became even deeper, and an indescribable atmosphere of oppression spread among the team.
According to Ke Lan's request, Layton first removed the detonator of the explosives set on the crack, and then used the circular saw made of Nino alloy to expand the crack on the ice surface little by little - it was much harder than the ice chips stuck between the egg sheaths. A series of sparks burst out the moment the teeth touched the ice surface. At the same time, a sharp noise like fingernails scratching a blackboard at high speed filled the ice track.
Ke Lan stared at the crack on the ice, watching the circular saw embed itself into it bit by bit - if it was a saw blade made of other materials, the teeth would have been scrapped long ago.
Layton put two more energy-filled crystals into the engine. Suddenly, the circular saw's speed became faster, and the sparks even splashed onto the top wall of the ice track.
Several tripods were detached from Layton's robotic arm. Each tripod had a suction cup at the end, firmly attached to the ground. His other hand tightly grasped a pull ring at the top of the robotic arm and pressed the circular saw down hard.
Listening to the sound of the teeth rubbing against the ice, the hound felt annoyed for no reason. Cursing, he picked out two balls of cotton wool from the torn part of his winter coat and stuffed them into his ears.
The vibration of the tooth blade was transmitted along the ice surface, and even the people standing on the ice felt the vibration, but at this moment, Layton's wrist suddenly sank, and the vibration disappeared without a trace...
"I sawed through...there's nothing underneath the ice!" Layton shouted.
He added: "The piece of ice that I sawed off fell down, and there is a passage underneath... It's a vertical shaft dug into the ice!"
"So... that thing was clinging to the wall of this shaft before, and then fell down?" The hound dug out the cotton wool from his ears. "That's right... If this thing can really move freely in the ice layer that is denser than steel, then it's too damn unscientific."
Not only the Hound, but also the other people in the team, including Ke Lan, felt a little relieved after hearing the news: Although in the ruins of the Alpha civilization, many things cannot be explained by the scientific principles mastered by humans , but when something that originally seemed very strange suddenly became in line with scientific theory, it can still bring people a little comfort - at least, this thing still has to obey the most basic laws of physics, which means that the "means" extended from these basic laws of physics can have an effect on this thing.
If it really is a monster that can ignore obstacles and move freely through the ice layer whose density is higher than that of steel, then Ke Lan and the others can almost throw away the guns in their hands - if it can ignore the solid ice, what threat can the bullet made of alloy material pose to it?
"In that case, the big eyeball should be the same." Layton nodded. "There should be space reserved for it to move in the ice, just like the track under a mobile surveillance camera."
"These ice layers have extremely complex structures. They are not as solid as we initially imagined..." Ke Lan pondered as he took a look at the bowl-sized ice hole that was sawed open by Layton.
This time, their conversation did not avoid Qin Zhao and Martin. After hearing what Leighton said, the former immediately grasped the key words in it and asked, "Big eyeballs? What eyeballs?"
"It's better if you don't know about this." The Hound pouted, "You seem to be quite brave, little girl, but I'm worried that the other rookie will be scared to death."
Qin Zhao couldn't help but glance at Martin, who trembled all over like a frightened bird: "W-what?"
"Nothing." Ke Lan shrugged and said to Qin Zhao: "If you want to know the things we mentioned, you can consider switching to our hunting group. Of course, the premise is that we can leave here alive."
"Your hunting group?" Qin Zhao was slightly stunned. In her impression, Ke Lan's team should be composed of a group of experienced hunters with free identities. There was no mention of their hunting group in the exploration records of the A-087 ruins. Could it be that during this period of time, they had been recruited by a hunting group?
"We have formed our own hunting group, which is at the consortium level, one level higher than Polaris." Hound said with some pride, "Of course, it has not been officially registered yet, and is currently carrying out the qualification certification task."
"Qualification certification mission? Is that why you came to the bottomless tiankeng?" Qin Zhao asked again.
"Yes, okay, let's not talk about this for now. Time is running out. Layton, can you use a laser rangefinder to measure the depth of the shaft?" Ke Lan said.
"Well, I'm measuring it." Layton said, and a deep red laser shot downwards at a completely perpendicular angle to the ice surface... However, it didn't take long for Layton's expression to become strange.
"What's going on?" Ke Lan asked.
"The laser seems to have been swallowed." Leighton answered hesitantly. Even he himself was a little confused about what had happened.
"The laser was swallowed?" The Hound rubbed his huge hooked nose vigorously. "You mean there is a black hole underneath? How is that possible?"
"It may not be a black hole," Ke Lan shook his head. "Maybe there is some device that can interfere with light. Or, it's not the light that is interfered with, but our senses - just like this 'seemingly straight' circular ice track."
"What should we do? We don't even know how deep it is. Are we just going to jump in?" The hound said anxiously. He turned his head and glanced in the direction of the ice track near the egg case concentration area.
"Leighton, how high has the temperature risen to?" Ke Lan asked.
"Six degrees above zero," Layton replied.
"Li... The average temperature there is between 8 and 11 degrees Celsius. The temperature inside the mine is relatively higher, around 15 degrees Celsius... The current temperature should be very close to the temperature required for the insects to hatch. We can't wait that long. Let's expand the crack first."
As he spoke, Ke Lan pulled out a folding ice pick from his body, inserted the front end of the ice pick into a crack, and began to hit it with the handle of the pistol as a hammer.
As for Layton, he simply pushed the circular saw outward along the previously cut crack, trying to expand it as much as possible.
"Oh, never mind. It's better to fall to death than to be eaten by bugs." The Hound made up his mind, fumbled in the equipment bag for a while, took out a hand axe, and hammered the ice surface again and again.
Although these ice blocks were as hard as iron, the fine cracks inside them were constantly increasing. Finally, when the hound swung the hand axe and smashed it down for the fifty-fifth time, there was a "crack" sound, and those fine lines suddenly spread out. The originally translucent ice layer was suddenly covered with white cracks, becoming like a piece of tempered glass that had been hit hard.
"Danger, retreat!"
Ke Lan shouted, and he pulled the hound and quickly retreated beyond the range of the crack. On the other side, Layton also put away the bracket in time and jumped back a big step.
With a "splash", the broken ice fell into the deep well, and a circular wellhead with a diameter of about two meters appeared in front of everyone.
