Volume 5: Bottomless Sinkhole Chapter 294: Trial Suspension
"These vines... are they an attack from the Crown of Ashes? Aren't they too fragile?" Without the suppression of gravity, Ke Lan's swing of the armor-piercing sword suddenly became smoother, and he cut the vines that emerged from the ground into dozens of pieces like a sharp knife.
If the physical strength of the Crown of Ashes was the same as these vines, Ke Lan felt that he wouldn't even need the support of the fleet's artillery fire to clear the way. The heavy armor-piercing sword in his hand alone would be enough to dig a hole in the Crown of Ashes.
"Not really." The trial program still maintained that tone without any emotion. "This is an ancient plant called 'Lava Vine' that parasitizes on the roots of the Crown of Ashes. It will attack all foreign creatures that approach the Crown of Ashes. The closer to the Crown of Ashes, the higher the density of the lava vines."
"Then what about the changes in gravity? Can this parasitic creature control gravity?" Ke Lan asked.
"It's not the lava vines that control gravity, but the Crown of Ashes that controls gravity that drives the lava vines." The trial program corrected.
As he was talking, dozens of vines broke out of the ground and attacked Ke Lan. Ke Lan simply ignored them and crushed the vines that blocked his path. Then he started running forward...
However, before he had taken a few steps, the surrounding scene suddenly disappeared, and his vision suddenly fell into darkness.
"What's going on?" Ke Lan wanted to control the mecha to grope forward... but he was shocked to find that it was his own hand that was raised... The connection between him and the "Blasphemer Mecha" had been severed at this moment.
He reached out and touched his back. The tiny tentacles that had pierced his spinal cord had retracted into the fleshy seat, and the egg white-like liquid filling the cockpit was also rapidly decreasing. Soon, Ke Lan felt a suffocating feeling.
After he blew away the remaining liquid in his nasal cavity and respiratory tract, his breathing finally returned to normal. Unlike LCL liquid, although this thing can supply oxygen, it cannot dissolve the oxygen in the air. If it is disconnected from the supply device in the mecha, the remaining liquid remaining in the human body can even suffocate a person to death.
"What the hell just happened? Hello?" Ke Lan kicked the inside of the cockpit door, but the entire "Blasphemer" mecha didn't move at all, as if the power had suddenly gone out.
Ke Lan took out a light stick from her bag and lit it up. Suddenly, she could see all the details in the cockpit. Rather than saying that this was the cockpit of a mecha, Ke Lan felt more like she was in the stomach of a giant monster.
Although he had already taken a quick look at the entire cockpit when boarding the plane, when he was actually "locked" in it, he had a completely different feeling.
Except for the rusty metal material at the hatch, other places are covered with a layer of deep red flesh membrane, on the surface of which grow cyst-like glands - the egg white-like buffer fluid is secreted from these glands.
"Apart from the consciousness link, is there no other way to control this mecha?" Ke Lan searched the cockpit, but after searching for a long time, he found nothing.
The development path of Alpha Civilization's mecha is obviously different from that of Earthlings. Human civilization's mecha is a purely mechanical structure: a product made of a variety of metals and polymers, with a micro reactor or energy crystal converter as the power core, a computer composed of precision circuits as the control center... However, Alpha Civilization's mecha is obviously more inclined towards the biochemical technology side of the technology tree.
Although judging from the data on paper, the technological level of the Alpha civilization is indeed many years ahead of human civilization, but compared with mechanical structures, the products of biochemical technology have a fatal flaw.
Living organisms do not have what is called "standard properties".
If a machine breaks down, a qualified mechanic can easily fix it as long as the cause . Whether it is an electrical or mechanical problem, one is one and two is two. The standards on the drawings can be applied to every piece of equipment...
But organisms are different. For the same disease, some people can use targeted drugs, but some cannot... Even for cloned organisms with exactly the same genetic sequence, there is still the possibility of mutation.
This is the difference between dead things and living things.
No one knows whether, after so many years, this Blasphemer mecha is still exactly the same as when it first came out of the factory.
"This broken thing... Could it be that it has fallen into disrepair and broken down?" Ke Lan muttered, "This... This is really bad luck, isn't it?"
Apart from anything else, if the malfunction was in a Wolf Spider mecha, Ke Lan would have at least six ways to escape: pull down the manual escape valve above his head, or simply take out the toolbox under the seat and remove the safety screws that secure the hatch, or use a one-way blasting patch to blow up the safety pin...
But this thing didn't work... Ke Lan couldn't even find a gap in the cockpit door, let alone remove it by force.
Just as he was racking his brains for a way to escape, the mecha suddenly trembled slightly, and then the heads-up display screen lit up again.
"An emergency has been detected and the trial process has been terminated." The previous voice said in Ke Lan's mind.
Emergency? What emergency?
"Subject No. 1197 has breached containment. Threat level is being assessed..."
When Ke Lan wanted to ask what this Experimental Subject No. 1197 was, several strong tentacles suddenly grew out from the driver's seat and pulled him back in an instant. Then, the "consciousness link" that Ke Lan had experienced once occurred.
But Ke Lan knew that this time, the enemy he was going to face... was not a virtual enemy.
He once again gained the vision of the Blasphemer mecha - just as he had expected, he was still standing in the center of the square, with the remains of the explorers from more than forty years ago scattered at his feet.
"What do you want me to do? Take that experimental subject back?" Ke Lan tried to move his hands and feet and asked the trial program.
However, this time the trial program did not respond. Ke Lan only heard the sound of wind coming from far away, and mixed with the sound of wind was a strange and low gasp...
"Hello? Hello?" Ke Lan continued to shout, but the trial program fell completely silent, without any sound at all.
"Could it be..." Ke Lan suddenly thought of something very bad: Could it be that the experimental subject No. 1197 who broke through the containment device has already invaded the core control center of this relic?
If that thing is irrational and can only cause destruction, then the situation is not too bad... but if it is intelligent and knows how to seize control of the ruins... then it will be a big problem.
Not only Ke Lan, but also Layton, Asano Akira in the Funnel Cave, and the hounds by the underground lake would instantly become fish at the mercy of anyone... Ke Lan had no doubt that the mechanisms in this relic could easily kill everyone.
Perhaps, I should find a way to stop the escaped "Subject No. 1197".
The trial system left by the Alpha gave him control of the Blasphemer Mech before going "offline", and it was obvious that he was placing his hopes on him...
only……
"This mecha... doesn't even have any weapons?!"
Whether it was the heavy armor-piercing sword or the plasma charging cannon... these weapons, like the Crown of Ashes, were all virtualized by the trial program. In reality, this Blasphemer mech, except for a pair of fists, had an empty weapon list!
Is this going to force me to engage in hand-to-hand combat with "Subject No. 1197"?
In the "Mecha Competition" of the Ark's upper class, there is indeed an event called "hand-to-hand combat", and the fierce collision of fists and iron is indeed enough to stimulate the audience's adrenaline to the greatest extent, but the problem is... the opponents in hand-to-hand combat are basically mechas of the same specifications - according to the requirements of the competition committee, the body weight, power of the power reactor, and frame model of both parties must be exactly the same. The only details that the contestants can adjust on their own are the armor material and some icing on the cake accessories... After all, it is a fighting competition. If the gap between the two sides' bodies is too large, then the competition will have no viewing value at all.
But what Ke Lan has to face is not a fair fighting match... He doesn't even know what "Subject No. 1197" is... But since he was able to break through the containment device of the Alpha civilization, his strength must not be weak.
At this time, the fluorescent lights between the hexagonal floors in the square turned into a dazzling bright red, and flashed at an increasingly faster frequency, giving people the feeling that they were about to explode...
"boom!!"
Just as Ke Lan was thinking this, several pieces of floor dozens of meters away actually exploded, revealing a passage slanting downwards.
"Does this mean that you want me to go out this way?" Ke Lan turned his head and glanced at the passage he came in from - with the size of the Blasphemer Mech, it was obviously impossible to get out from there. After gaining control of the mech, he also tried to open the cockpit, but the mech did not respond.
Although he was able to control the mecha, he was still locked in the body of this metal giant.
"It's like an online game with maximum freedom. You can do anything in it, even make circles and crosses with pretty girls... but there's just no fucking logout button." Ke Lan couldn't help but complain.
Although the trial program gave Ke Lan the right to use the Blasphemer Mech, Ke Lan could only continue this "game" according to the other party's will.
Ke Lan walked around the hall, and after confirming that there were really no weapons here that could be used by the mecha, he had no choice but to bite the bullet and go into the downward passage.
The walls of this passage were made of hexagonal metal plates, just like the floor of the hall. The dazzling red light was constantly flashing inside the passage, just like the flashing alarm lights in a battleship that was about to crash .
Not long after entering the passage, Ke Lan discovered that a series of Alpha words appeared on the head-up display in the cockpit: Approaching the core control center... Trying to establish a connection with the core control center...
Connection failed, preparing for a second attempt...
Connection failed, preparing for third attempt...
…
After failing for the sixth time, the Blasphemer Mech finally gave up the connection and instead informed Ke Lan that all external connections to the core control center had been closed. It was preliminarily determined that the core control center had been invaded and the automatic protection mechanism had been triggered.
The core control center will be completely locked after 1,200 seconds. If you need to release the lock countdown, you need to enter the core control center and eliminate the intrusion factors.
"Locked?" This word immediately touched Ke Lan's sensitive nerves. If the core control center was locked, wouldn't he be unable to get out of this mecha?
Even if I can finally escape from this ruin with Hound and the others, if I return to the Ark in this state, I'm afraid I'll be sent to the research institute in a minute...
"Turn left ahead, 200 meters away from the core control center." At this time, the heads-up display screen has completely turned into a navigation device. However, in this passage with no forks, the role of this navigation device is indeed somewhat redundant.
Ke Lan continued to move forward.
…
"100 meters from the core control center."
At this distance, Ke Lan could vaguely see a huge round door over 30 meters high at the end of the passage, but his attention was completely attracted by something else on the side...
In the passage on the right, an irregular hole was torn on the hexagonal alloy plate. Looking inside through the hole, Ke Lan saw a smooth tunnel that extended into the depths of the black ice.
Only now did he realize that what lay directly beneath the underground square was not a rock layer, but a giant block of black ice. This passage and the core control center in front were both buried deep in this block of black ice.
"The 'containment device' mentioned in the trial program...could it be this piece of black ice?"
Ke Lan stretched out one arm of the Blasphemer mecha, put his fingers together into a knife-like shape, and poked hard at the black ice near the cave entrance.
"bite!"
There was a sound like the clanging of metal, and the front end of the Blasphemer mecha's finger only penetrated half a centimeter into the ice layer, and it could not move forward another step.
The hardness of this ice is much stronger than the wall of the bottomless cenote and the ice path in the A-087 ruins!
And the guy called "Experimental Subject No. 1197" actually dug such an exaggerated tunnel inside. Ke Lan could imagine how terrifying the power of this thing was with his heels...
Isn't this trial procedure just sending yourself to death?
