Volume 9: Molten Mine Chapter 442: The giant ship falls from the sky
"So you guys took action ahead of time?"
"Yes." Park Sangyou nodded. "We made some simple modifications to the vehicle prototype built in the first plan, and then selected four people from the expert group who were willing to enter the magma channel. Together with a driver and a level 7 modified person, we temporarily formed an exploration team. They took the vehicle and entered this shrinking channel..."
"I knew it..." Ke Lan sighed softly, "Although my guess is somewhat different from my previous one, it's pretty close..."
"What speculation?" Park Sang-woo showed a puzzled look.
"It's right! It's all fucking right!" The hound exclaimed, "Ke Lan said before that the people who caused the earthquake might have been tempted by something they couldn't refuse... They can't hesitate, as long as they are a little slow, the opportunity will be gone. Isn't this the lava channel they are talking about? Haha, a valuable relic, an ancient warship made entirely of Nino alloy and left behind by a more advanced civilization, this is so fucking valuable..."
"And the inscriptions on those scraps should have come from the civilization that built this ancient warship." Leighton added.
"Scraps? What are you talking about? And the inscriptions...what are those?" Park Sang-woo looked at the hound and Layton , then at Ke Lan.
"Don't worry about that for now. Go on. What happened after those six people entered the lava tunnel?"
"The lava channel was at a roughly 45-degree angle to the ground. Two small anti-gravity devices were installed inside the vehicle, allowing it to slide into the channel in a suspended position... When the vehicle reached a depth of 600 meters, the communication between them and us was suddenly interrupted."
"Was the communication interrupted suddenly instead of weakening gradually?" Ke Lan asked.
"Because the passage is almost straight, the vehicles and the people on the ground use laser communication. Laser communication is not easily interfered by radiation, and there will be no obvious attenuation even at a distance of tens of thousands of meters... In addition, the diameter of the passage entrance had shrunk to half of its original size at that time, and many people who stayed on the ground thought that the advance team had died."
"That's not necessarily true." Layton said, "The laser communication was suddenly interrupted. Either the second half of the channel suddenly turned and blocked the laser, or they passed through a barrier that could block the laser. Only a minimum-power energy shield would be enough."
"Some of us thought so... We were still hopeful at first... But after four hours, the lava tunnel began to shrink faster, and in the sixth hour, the tunnel entrance disappeared completely," Park Sang-woo said. "Even if they were still alive, they couldn't come back... And judging by the speed of the vehicle, they were still a long way from the depth of Yaguna Kator."
"That would be like being buried alive in the lava..." The Hound shuddered involuntarily, "Damn... it's scary to think about dying in this way."
"We thought so too. After waiting for another two hours, we made a new decision: we left some people to guard the place where the lava channel disappeared, and sent more people to patrol around and above the No. 1 magma lake with drones to look for new lava channels." Park Sangyou said, "And I followed the expert team back to the garrison base to prepare a report to submit to the Ark..."
"Wait a minute, I have a question - didn't you ask Ark for permission before taking action?" asked the Hound.
"I asked for instructions, and the reply I received was 'Operation approved'. The reply also mentioned that the convoy transporting supplies encountered a rare sandstorm and would be delayed by about a week." Park Sangyou said, "Now that I think about it, the one who responded to us should be the heretic sect that intercepted the communication..."
"I guess you didn't expect at that time that the people coming here were not the Ark's support convoy, but the monster army of the heretic sect... This is so fucking ironic... Pah! Damn!" With a light "pop" sound, the Hound spat into the helmet again.
"What about the earthquake?" Aya Breya, who had been taking notes with her head down, suddenly asked.
"Not long after I returned to the garrison base, before I even had time to take a shower and change clothes, I received a communication with a special identification code... In order to maintain confidentiality, everyone involved in this project has a unique special identification code. The sender of this communication was one of the four experts who took the vehicle into the lava tunnel! The content of the communication was only two words... You should all know these two words, which are the 'Run' in the emergency evacuation notice..."
"Damn, this group of people are still alive? But...how did they contact you? This doesn't seem right no matter how I think about it. Could it be another heretical sect doing this?" said the Hound.
"I don't know...but the next second, the main control system of the garrison base suddenly lost control, and then issued an emergency evacuation notice on the general channel shared by everyone." Park Sangyou said.
"It seems that they have successfully entered 'Aguna Kator'... This message was sent with the help of the equipment on this ancient warship... For a civilization whose technological level is higher than that of the Alpha civilization, I think it should be possible to communicate with the outside world across several kilometers of magma."
"I can't be sure about this, but out of caution, I decided to follow the content of the communication... Although many people thought it was a bad joke or a mistake made by the staff, more than 90% of the people in the base were unmoved. Only a small number of people ran out with me. Most of them were participants in the 'Restart Project'. They also received the communication with the special identification code of the expert."
"However, after leaving the base, we had a disagreement," Park Sang-woo continued. "Some people planned to go to the No. 1 magma lake to check the situation, while others thought we should evacuate the mining area first... We split into two groups, and I joined the evacuation team."
"You may laugh at me for being timid, but at that time, my inner anxiety almost reached its peak. Although the terrible disaster had not yet happened, I could sense that it was approaching me quickly. Soon, my thoughts were confirmed."
"'Yaguna Kator'... It was a silver-gray shuttle-shaped warship. Almost everyone in the mining area could see it... It floated up from the bottom of the No. 1 magma lake and flew into the air."
"Then, it fell down—"
