Alien Relic Hunter

Leighton drove an anchor into the ceiling directly above the shaft and dropped the rappel with weights attached to it into the shaft.

Accompanied by the "swish" sound of friction between ropes, it didn't take long for the finger-thick rappelling rope to collapse straight. Leighton tried to lift it, and then shook his head at Ke Lan - this two-hundred-meter-long rope None of the rappels could touch the bottom of the ice track.

"Although it can be extended in the future... but the total length of all the remaining ropes we have is only three hundred meters. If the depth of this shaft exceeds five hundred meters, we will have to climb down little by little." Layton said, "Although the diameter of the wellhead is quite wide, you can wear an exoskeleton down there, but in terms of safety, an exoskeleton without a propeller..."

"That's all we can do." Ke Lan said, "Distribute the equipment, and then we'll go down."

Ke Lan and the others brought down a total of six powered exoskeletons, but two of them were seriously damaged, one was slightly damaged, and only half of them could still perform full climbing functions.

Although Layton dismantled one of the severely damaged exoskeletons and used it to repair the other two, in the end he only obtained four intact exoskeletons and one that was partially functional and could only be regarded as a "half" defective products.

"Six people, four and a half exoskeletons, how do you plan to divide them up?" The hound's eyes swept over each person, and then stopped at Ke Lan.

"My mechanical prosthetic body also has some rock climbing capabilities, so I can just use that 'half body'." Layton said first.

"The big guy is in the vanguard position, and he is still using defective products, so he will definitely not be able to lead people. There are still four exoskeletons and five people left. In addition, we still have three guys who can't move and need to take them." The hound continued, "Ke Lan, as the leader of the hunting group, you are responsible for allocating this matter."

"Yes." Ke Lan nodded and pointed at Martin, who was huddled in the corner. "First of all, Martin is 'infected', so he cannot have direct contact with other people, so he needs an exoskeleton."

"Now there are three exoskeletons left, four movable people and three immobile ones - Zhuo Ligetu's own exoskeleton is an enlarged one and should be able to carry two people, and then Lao Gou and I will go on our own. Bring one." After saying that, Ke Lan turned to Qin Zhao, "Choose whoever you want to bring."

Qin Zhao looked at the hound, then at the tall Zhuo Ligetu, and finally pointed his finger at Ke Lan and said, "I'll go with you."

"Tsk, sure enough, young pretty faces are more marketable in the eyes of girls." Hound couldn't help but complain, and then tied the body bag containing Cao Feng to his back, "Oh, little sister, When you grow up in the future, you will be able to appreciate the charm of a mature old man like me."

"Come on, it's just you?" Layton smacked his lips, "I don't see the charm. I just see that your head is getting bald."

Joking aside, everyone quickly put on their equipment. As for Qin Zhao, he fixed himself on Ke Lan's back brace in a back-to-back manner - although it sounds ambiguous, in fact, the relationship between the two people There was no physical contact. The hard exoskeleton covered almost 90% of Ke Lan's back. He could only feel the cold metal parts. As for things like warm-scented nephrite, it was a joke.

It's just that... due to the angle, Qin Zhao's long ponytail tied behind his head just fell into Ke Lan's back collar. The girl's hair would brush against the back of Ke Lan's neck from time to time, not counting the distance. There was a thick layer of lining, and Ke Lan thought some small bugs had fallen in. When he tried his best, he happened to catch the other party's ponytail.

After Qin Zhao let out a cry of pain, Ke Lan realized what he had grabbed in his hand. He quickly let go and said "Sorry" to the girl behind him.

However, Qin Zhao's reaction was a bit unexpected for Ke Lan and the others: she took out a folding knife from her pocket, opened it, held her ponytail in one hand, raised the knife with the other hand, and directly cut off her long ponytail. He cut it off completely and put it back into his pocket along with the folding knife.

The hunting dog was stunned for a moment, then gave Qin Zhao a thumbs up and said, "Hey, girl, with just one strike of yours, our hunting group will be sure to kill you."

"Uh..." Now, Qin Zhao was a little embarrassed, "I just think long hair is really a burden..."

"I've seen a lot of girls," Hound suddenly showed a look of disdain on his face, "I used to know a female secretary. I heard that she got her job through connections. But I don't know what went wrong and she was Assigned to the field force... Good guy, half of the carry-on luggage was filled with various underwear and underwear, and the other half was filled with cosmetics and hair conditioners. All the assigned self-defense weapons were thrown away in the dormitory. The reason was that the secretary did not need them. Participate in the battle... Damn, that kind of woman makes me annoyed when I see her."

"Then... what happened to the secretary?" Qin Zhao couldn't help but ask.

"Dead." The hound shrugged, "The army suffered a defeat and was almost wiped out by a large group of indigenous creatures. When retreating in a hurry, she accidentally fell off the off-road vehicle. Logically speaking, Wearing that standard armor, she could always survive a fall, but that girl's beautiful long golden curly hair was caught in the tank tracks... half of her head was crushed, and red and white were scattered all over the floor. "

"vomit……"

As soon as the hound finished speaking, Martin couldn't help but let out a retching sound. He glanced at the others in embarrassment and wanted to try to move his exoskeleton, but due to an operation error, he stumbled and fell to the ground.

"Don't touch the red trigger!" Layton immediately scolded, "That's the emergency release lock used to release the support joint of the knee. It's used to help you escape when the exoskeleton is stuck on the terrain!"

"Hug, sorry...I accidentally touched it." Martin said quickly to Layton.

"It's useless for you to say sorry to me. It's you who will die if something goes wrong... But if other people are affected because of you, then it's useless for you to say sorry. Do you understand?" After saying that, Layton looked at it again. He glanced at the thermometer and said, "Ke Lan, it has risen by one degree again. There is no time."

"Yes, I understand." Ke Lan nodded, "Everything is ready. If you have any questions, let's go down now."

As the pioneer, Layton was the first to enter the shaft. He hung the lock buckle around his waist on the rappel, used the hooks and robotic arms of the exoskeleton to support the walls of the shaft on both sides, and began to move slowly and slowly. It slid down towards the bottom of the well at a rapid speed.

Behind him is Ke Lan with Qin Zhao.

Ke Lan followed Leiton's example and stretched out his exoskeleton arms to both sides and pressed them against the well wall to control the speed of descent. Qin Zhao, who was back to back with him, was holding an arm. The steel pipe temporarily modified by Leighton - this steel pipe was originally part of the cutting frame. Leighton cut it off, but retained the two blasting bolts at the end. If Ke Lan's exoskeleton malfunctions, it will The steel pipe in Qin Zhao's hand was used as the last resort.

It may be difficult for two people to hang on the well wall with only one steel pipe, but it is completely enough to be used as a "brake" to slow down.

Even if Ke Lan and the others did not choose the fastest gear, the speed of rappelling was still much faster than climbing. In less than five minutes, Leighton had reached a depth of two hundred meters. The first rope the end of.

"The structure is still the same below, without any changes." Leighton shined the searchlight downwards. For some reason, within this shaft, the light of the searchlight could only illuminate a distance of about fifty meters at most - if it were placed On the ground, such intensity of light can easily penetrate several kilometers of night, but here, the dark and dark ice seems to have the ability to swallow light, and no matter how bright the light is, it cannot shine very far.

"Continue to descend." Ke Lan said.

Layton connected another two-hundred-meter-long rope, but this time, after throwing the weight down, he heard a muffled "dong" sound.

This muffled sound couldn't help but cheer up everyone's spirits!

"I calculated the time of falling. The bottom of the well is about 150 meters away from our current location." Ke Lan said. He pointed the laser transmitter downwards, but the red laser could not penetrate the rich color below. The darkness gives people the illusion that this shaft seems to be bottomless.

"Then it adds up to three hundred and fifty meters? I thought it was a few thousand meters deep, no, that's it." The hound's voice came down from above.

"In this shaft, no light can shine very far, so it creates this illusion." Ke Lan explained, but as soon as he said this sentence, he felt something wrong - the light above In the ice tunnel, their perception was disturbed, and they regarded the circular ice tunnel connected from end to end as a straight passage. If it were not for the signs like cracks and egg sheaths, they might have walked along without realizing it... And In this shaft, what is disturbed becomes light.

Why did the designers of the ruins create such interference?

Are they simply trying to make their escape more difficult, or are they trying to conduct some sort of test? Ke Lan didn't know, but the only thing that was certain was that the mechanism of this ruins had a power that they could not resist. They could only act according to the ideas of the ruins designer and were completely unable to resist it.

Then another question arises: What is the purpose of the ruins designers in creating these secret rooms?

This is definitely not one of those entertainment facilities called "Escape Room" on the Ark. To be precise, this should be part of the entire biological weapons laboratory, but why is there such a room with a bunch of puzzles in the laboratory? What about the secret room?

Ke Lan couldn't help but think of something called a hamster box. In the hamster box, even if the hamster successfully passed through all the mazes, it could not escape from the box...

Ke Lan suddenly felt a sense of despair.

Even if they can solve every puzzle smoothly along the way, will they definitely be able to escape from this ruins? No matter from which angle you look at it, it is impossible for the designer of this ruins to lead them to the real exit...

The other end of the passage will always be the next "test area".

But Ke Lan knows that as the leader of the team, he must not say these negative speculations now - everyone's mood is already very low. The hound teased Qin Zhao before was purely for the purpose of adjusting the atmosphere. If he Let me tell you now, if there is no way out if we continue, I'm afraid the whole team will fall into despair.

Ke Lan raised his head, looked at the hound directly above him, and showed a wry smile in the darkness.

A human spirit like Hound must have guessed something, but he also kept silent about it. As a field force officer who has commanded many battles, he understands the importance of morale better than Ke Lan. sex.

Everyone continued to slide down the rappelling rope... Finally, their soles once again stepped on solid ground.

That's right, the ground... not the ice.

To Ke Lan's expectation, the end of the shaft turned out to be a man-made cave. There was no black ice here, only square rock pillars neatly arranged in the cave, supporting a height of about twenty meters. flat dome.

"What is this place?" Hound looked around with a flashlight, "Why do I feel... this place looks like the elevated floor at the bottom of a modern building."

"I think it's more like an underground garage." Layton took over the conversation and said, "By the way, Ke Lan, does Alpha Civilization have the concept of private cars?"

"I don't know if there are private cars, but their vehicle should be a shuttle-type aircraft that can travel between buildings at will." Ke Lan replied, "Some hunters have found these aircraft in the ruins."

"Of course I know about that kind of aircraft. Many small anti-gravity devices currently on the market are disassembled from these aircraft, but I wonder if this kind of aircraft should be parked underground, right?" Layton said.

"This place..." Ke Lan squatted down and rubbed a finger on the ground, "It's like a battlefield... or, in other words, a gladiatorial arena..."

"Why?" The hound's nose twitched slightly, "I can neither smell the smoke nor the smell of blood. Why do you think so."

"It's just a feeling. I don't know why, but when I see these neatly arranged columns, I can't help but think of the ancient Roman Colosseum on earth." Ke Lan said.

At this moment, his peripheral vision saw a black shadow flashing behind a stone pillar, and Layton set up his machine gun at an extremely fast speed and aimed it at the stone pillar.

"Did you see it clearly? What is it?" Ke Lan asked immediately.

"No." Layton shook his head, "But it seems to be a humanoid thing."

Human form... When Layton said this, everyone in the team couldn't help but think of the hand that disappeared under the ice.

Could this dark shadow be the owner of that palm?