Volume 5: Bottomless Sinkhole Chapter 295 Experimental Subject No. 1197
Ke Lan hesitated for a moment, then walked towards the end of the passage.
For some reason, he suddenly no longer felt afraid, as if an emotion called "fear" had been pulled out of his body.
There was no point in escaping... If he chose to turn around and run away now, the outcome would probably be that he and his companions would be buried here... In addition to this mecha, every exit of the ruins was also locked along with the control center.
It was like being chased by a carnivorous creature in the wilderness. Simply running away would not shake off the predator. Human physical strength could never be compared with that of the native creatures on Alpha Planet... The only chance of survival was to turn around and punch the hunter before the physical strength was exhausted by the long chase.
Courage is not the same as recklessness. It is one of the most valuable qualities of human beings.
Ke Lan remembered that he seemed to have seen this sentence somewhere - "The hymn of mankind is the hymn of courage!" Although he couldn't remember the source for a moment, as long as he figured it out, he suddenly felt that his whole body's breathing became smooth.
It was like a nose that had been blocked for a long time was suddenly blown clear... Although the metaphor was a bit strange, this was exactly the feeling he felt.
In his hand, he was holding an extremely sharp metal bar that he had broken off from the breach in the passage, and he took a few steps to the door of the giant circular gate - the giant door was ajar, and the sophisticated combination lock had been dissolved by some corrosive substance, leaving only a base. As for the defense measures against violent unlocking, they were not triggered at all.
"Corrosive substances... It seems that the thing can pass through the ice, perhaps not entirely relying on physical strength..."
Maybe, that thing is not as scary as I first thought.
"Afraid? What the hell... There's no use in being afraid." Ke Lan took a deep breath, then kicked open the door of the control center.
“Bang!!”
The heavy alloy door suddenly fell inwards and hit the ground heavily - Ke Lan finally understood why the defense measures were not triggered: the connecting bolts and safety locks on both sides of the door, as well as the mechanical structures used to trigger the mechanism, were completely dissolved by the corrosive substances that penetrated into them, and the entire door had become a decoration.
"Is this the true core of the ruins..."
What caught Ke Lan's eyes was a deep well with a diameter of about 100 meters. In the center of the well, there was a metal pillar that was as thick as more than ten people could hug. Corresponding to the metal pillar were densely packed crystal circuit boards embedded in the well wall.
The area and sophistication of these crystal boards far exceeded any similar products Ke Lan had ever seen. Countless tiny streams of light were flowing in these crystal boards, and from time to time a few thin arcs of electricity would shoot out from them and collide with the metal column in the center.
The higher you go, the more frequent the arc emission becomes. Looking up, you can only see a dazzling blue-purple electric grid flashing continuously.
Ke Lan's first impression of this place was that it was like a large server room, and the metal pillar in the middle was an extra-large Tesla coil.
But now is not the time to care about these things - right above Ke Lan's head, a black shadow with an extremely fast speed has passed through the layers of blue and purple electric nets and pounced towards him!
The moment he discovered the black shadow, Ke Lan activated the time stop function, but what surprised him was that the surrounding scene had just been frozen when the black shadow's sharp claws instantly tore open the stagnant space and forcibly broke Ke Lan's skills!
The things in the field of vision had not even completely turned into black and white, but had returned to their original colors.
This is the first time I've encountered an opponent who can counter "time stop"!
"This is troublesome..." Ke Lan gritted his teeth and controlled the Blasphemer mecha to run around the metal pillar - however, the opponent seemed to have locked him, and no matter how he dodged, he could not get rid of the falling black shadow. He could only watch as the distance between the two was rapidly closing.
Ke Lan had no choice but to squat down, cross his arms in front of him, and prepare to take the impact.
But just when the black shadow was about to collide with the Blasphemer mecha , it suddenly jumped to the side of the mecha and lashed out at the mecha with its long tail.
"What a pity." Ke Lan sighed inwardly, took a big step back, and revealed the metal bar that was originally hidden under his arm. His original plan was to erect the metal bar at the moment the shadow collided with him. With the help of the opponent's momentum, this move might be able to severely injure him in one fell swoop...
However, this move was seen through by the black shadow.
However, Ke Lan finally saw the true face of this black shadow.
It was a lizard -like creature that was nearly ten meters long. However, unlike a lizard, its body had no scales. Instead, it was covered with a mixture of dark black and dark green hair.
There is a hard exoskeleton outside its head, which protects the entire head. There are eight symmetrical holes on both sides of the exoskeleton, revealing four pairs of blood-red eyes.
Its body was covered with wounds so deep that the bones could be seen, and smelly pus and blood kept dripping out of these wounds. These wounds were constantly festering, but at the same time they were also recovering at a speed visible to the naked eye. The new granulations that had just grown out melted into pus not long after... Destruction and rebirth were actually maintaining a delicate balance in this monster's body.
The Blasphemer mecha's heads-up display has locked onto the "lizard", and the label that pops up next to the lock box is "Subject No. 1197".
"Is this the thing..."
Ke Lan stared at the big lizard not far away and switched the metal bar in his right hand to his left hand. In terms of power, the left and right hands of the mecha were the same, but in terms of operating habits, Ke Lan was more accustomed to his right hand. Compared with simple stabbing movements, the free hand actually required higher flexibility.
Although this lizard looks like a common indigenous creature in the wilderness, how could a creature that can tear apart stagnant time with a pair of sharp claws be an ordinary character?
If "time stop" is a cheating-level ability, then the other party obviously also possesses the same level of ability... This is no longer something that humans can understand at this stage. It is an existence that completely subverts the laws of physics. Although the pair of bone claws look ordinary, in Ke Lan's opinion, they are more difficult to deal with than the prehistoric beast like Leviathan.
Since this claw can tear apart time, no one knows whether it can pierce through space - maybe, as long as it stretches out its hand and grabs through the air, it can easily dig Ke Lan's heart out of the mecha and out of his body.
Characters with this ability are generally called "挂逼" on the Internet.
Even though Ke Lan can be considered half a cheater, when she really encounters a character who is so cheating that he doesn't even act, she will still be suppressed.
This just proves an old Chinese saying: "A small witch meets a big witch."
But in ancient times, when a small wizard encountered a big wizard, the small wizard could at least "pull out the grass and give up", but now, Ke Lan has no chance to retreat at all.
Time stopping is Ke Lan's ultimate move to win in close combat, but now this ultimate move has been completely countered by the opponent, so the only trump card in his hand is this "Blasphemer Mech".
The armor strength of the Blasphemer Mech might be higher than the black ice outside... But the problem is that Ke Lan doesn't know what other means the other party has... The level of physical strength might be meaningless in the eyes of the monster in front of him.
Just when Ke Lan was desperately thinking of a countermeasure, the other party - the "big lizard", the "Experimental Subject No. 1197" mentioned by Alpha, suddenly spoke!
"You... you are not them... although you look alike... but you are not them," it said.
This is not the language of the Alpha civilization, nor is it the language of the human world. It is communicating with Ke Lan directly through thoughts. In "this sentence", Ke Lan can even clearly feel the emotions contained in it... It is an emotion between disgust and hatred, but the subject of this emotion is not him.
"The ones you're talking about...are you referring to the Alphas?" Ke Lan asked tentatively.
The other party can communicate, which is not a bad thing for Ke Lan... Although intelligent creatures are more difficult to deal with than simple beasts, at least it is possible to "reason" with intelligent creatures. Ke Lan feels that if possible, he may be able to avoid a battle where the chance of winning is almost zero.
"Alphas? You call them Alphas?" Subject No. 1197's tone was full of contempt. "They are just a bunch of pitiful bugs! You... you are similar to them... but you are weaker than them... This is ridiculous... When I woke up, the bugs disappeared... and were replaced by a group of even weaker bugs."
"We were just forced to land on this planet..." Ke Lan did not refute the other party's words. First, he did not want to anger the big lizard. Second, what the other party said was not wrong... Humans are indeed very weak. If even the Alphas are a group of bugs in its eyes, then humans are probably not even bugs.
From a certain perspective, the rhetoric chosen by this giant lizard is actually a compliment to humans.
"Their disappearance has nothing to do with you... maybe nothing to do with you..." Subject No. 1197 walked towards the Blasphemer mecha, "Although I don't know why you can activate those bugs, you really have nothing to do with all this."
"I want to know...what happened to the Alpha civilization back then...why did they disappear?" Although it had bad intentions, this big lizard was indeed the first intelligent creature that Ke Lan had encountered on Alpha that could communicate. Driven by his curiosity, he couldn't help but ask.
"They disappeared... How could I know... I was sealed in a low temperature where even the molecules would stop moving... Until today... when all the equipment here was restarted, I seized that slight opportunity and escaped from inside before the temperature dropped to absolute zero again..."
As Subject No. 1197 spoke, he crawled towards the metal pillar standing in the center. His sharp claws cut through the hard metal pillar like tofu and dragged out a glass jar more than one meter tall from it.
This glass jar was exactly what the mercenary had described. Although Ke Lan had never seen it with his own eyes, the diameter and the slot at the bottom of the jar that was dragged out of the metal pillar by the giant lizard just matched the base on the stone platform outside. If the trial program of the ruins did not deceive him, then the things in this jar were one-third of the database of the ruins.
"Perhaps I should thank you. It was you who broke in and activated and restarted the core system here... Without you, I would have to go through a long time before I could escape... But I won't thank you, just like the gods they believe in. God may occasionally lower his head and take a look at those little bugs struggling in the mud... But God will never thank the bugs, no matter what they do."
The big lizard cut open the top of the glass jar with its claws, and the filling liquid inside immediately spilled all over the ground. It stretched out its claws, pulled out a mass of gray-white tissue that looked like a brain and was still wriggling from the jar, and swallowed it in one gulp.
"Unfortunately... there is no answer here either... I can't answer your question." Subject No. 1197 said, "But I can not kill you... because you make me feel... sometimes, little bugs are still very interesting."
"Maybe I will change my mind in the next second, but at least now, I won't kill you." It continued.
"Well... there are still some of my companions outside. If possible, I hope you won't kill them." Ke Lan said, "Although it was unintentional, at least I let you out... In exchange for our lives, this is reasonable, right?"
"Equivalent exchange? Interesting... I think you are more interesting than those bugs back then... But what puzzles me is... why are those bugs outside your companions?" Subject No. 1197 tilted his head, staring at the cockpit of the Blasphemer mecha with four eyes on one side. "You and them... are obviously not the same kind... In my opinion, you are closer to the bugs that lived on this planet back then... Why do you regard them as your companions?"
"...Can't we be companions if we are not of the same kind?" Ke Lan was not too surprised by the big lizard's words. After obtaining the inheritance in the stone tablet and absorbing the thing called "holy object" by the heretical sect, he knew that he was very different from ordinary people - let alone anything else, which normal human being has the ability to "stop time"?
" No, they should be food or slaves to you."
