Alien Relic Hunter

When Ke Lan was checking the weapons of the metal colossus, nearly a hundred black beetles had gathered on the island. Looking up, he saw a dense mass of black beetles. The buzzing sound caused by the trembling wings even overshadowed the roar of the surrounding volcanoes ejecting magma. A loud crackling sound.

Ke Lan thought for a moment, and instead of continuing to attack with the plasma charge cannon, he raised the armor-piercing sword in his hand.

Although these bugs are quite powerful, their individual strength is far inferior to that of the metal colossus. It is not cost-effective to waste precious energy on them.

"Let's test the Colossus's maneuverability first..." Ke Lan thought, bending his knees slightly, and then jumped up with all his strength——

"Bang!!"

A huge thrust burst out from the legs of the metal colossus. Ke Lan's perspective suddenly shifted to nearly a hundred meters in the air. He turned around, and the armor-piercing sword in his hand swept away all the surrounding black beetles. .

"Boom!!"

The metal colossus once again fell back to the island. Fortunately, the shock absorption performance of the mecha itself was very good, and Ke Lan didn't even feel the impact. It has been proven while on the ground.

"The height of a full-strength jump is about a hundred meters..." Ke Lan muttered silently. The reason why he can jump so high is mainly due to two reasons - first, the mass of this asteroid is not that big, and the gravity is even more. It is only one-tenth of the size of Alpha Star. Secondly, this metal colossus is equipped with an anti-gravity device inside.

The power of these devices is not high enough to keep the metal colossus suspended for a long time, but it is enough to increase the mobility of the metal colossus to a level that far exceeds the average level of a ten-meter-class mecha.

Ke Lan jumped again. This time, he crashed directly into the airspace where the black beetles were densest. The giant sword in his hand swung out a circle of colorful afterimages, and the energy shield restrained into blades tore apart the black beetles. The hard body, broken carapace and joints fell from the sky along with the smelly internal organs, and fell into the magma river below, splashing with sparks.

In the process, a few black beetles that were lucky enough not to be affected by the blade hit the body of the metal colossus - the metal colossus itself also has an energy shield, but it is different from the way humans use energy shields. The energy shield of the Colossus has an extremely "intelligent" triggering method: only when an attack is imminent, the energy shield in the corresponding part will be activated, and when there is no attack, the energy shield will always be closed. under the condition.

As for human warships, even if they can open the shield intermittently, it is absolutely impossible for a large energy shield with a diameter of several hundred meters to only light up a few palm-sized areas - this already involves modifying the shield. There is a problem with the internal program of the computer, and with the current human means, this is an area that is completely impossible to get involved in.

All humans can do is to control the switch of the shield generator through the supply and interruption of the energy source.

If the energy shield generator is compared to a wooden stick, and the attack that needs to be defended is compared to a wild beast, the way humans use it is to directly pick up the wooden stick and engage in hand-to-hand combat with the beast; the Alpha civilization uses the wooden stick to Processed into a fully automatic wooden repeating crossbow, it shot the beast to death while standing out of reach of the beast...

Although Ke Lan knew that there was a gap-like technological gap between the two civilizations, when this gap was laid out nakedly in front of him, he still felt a sense of powerlessness as he was being crushed.

Ke Lan felt that if that guy Layton saw this metal colossus, he might be so excited that he fainted...

With two jumping attacks, the metal colossus had cleared away nearly half of the black beetles above the island. However, the remaining beetles did not show any fear. Instead, they swarmed towards the metal colossus and crashed into Ke Lan almost crazily.

"That's good, it saves time."

Ke Lan did not hesitate and fired a plasma-charged cannon, vaporizing the group of black beetles that had gathered together. As for the few surviving small fish and shrimps, they were cut into pieces by the giant sword in the blink of an eye and thrown into the into the lava river on the side.

"I always feel... something is wrong. These insects are too weak... Logically speaking, the second phase of the trial shouldn't be so simple..." Ke Lan stepped on the remains of a beetle that was still struggling to death. , pierced the sword blade into its shell, raised the tip of the sword, and the beetle's remains were thrown out and fell into the magma.

Although the scene on this asteroid was like purgatory, Ke Lan didn't feel that it was very dangerous-except for the giant plant growing on the lava.

Ke Lan is twenty kilometers away from it, but he can still feel the sense of oppression... It is like the master of this planet, with its thick and prickly roots deeply embedded in the earth, constantly sucking the ground. Deep energy.

"This plant... should be considered an ancient species." Ke Lan muttered to himself as he looked up at the giant flower blooming at the top of the stem.

"Target update: Destroy the 'Crown of Ashes'." The voice sounded in Ke Lan's ears again, but this time, in addition to this sentence, the heads-up display in the cockpit also listed in alpha text A lot of information.

“The Crown of Ashes, an ancient plant growing on the asteroid ‘Ashes’, can directly absorb the heat in the magma and use it to support itself.

According to the survey, the root system of the Ash Crown is located in the core of the "Ash". In addition to absorbing energy faster, it can also control the magnetic field and gravity on the asteroid, and interfere with the movement trajectory of the asteroid.

Its life forms are in a very special symbiosis with the asteroid 'Ashes'. During its fifteen-year observation period, the asteroid 'Ashes' changed its orbit a total of 4 times, impacting and swallowing up a total of 17 small natural celestial bodies. In this process, the diameter of the asteroid 'Ash' expanded 7 times and the mass increased 27 times. However, the body of the Ash Crown did not change significantly, only the surface density increased four times.

For some peculiar reason, Cindercrown could not be explored in more detail.

The asteroid ‘Ashes’ and the symbiotic organism ‘Crown of Ashes’ are tentatively judged to be no threat at the moment.

However, during the secret mission numbered 1214, a starship carrying 700 units of 'Blood of God' accidentally entered the star field where the asteroid 'Ash' was located and was captured by the abnormally increased gravitational field of 'Ash'. The ship crashed on the surface of the asteroid, and the blood of the god was absorbed by the Crown of Ashes, causing it to undergo a huge mutation.

Currently, the asteroid 'Ashes' is rapidly approaching the main star and is expected to enter the galaxy where the main star is located in one hundred and forty-three years.

The preferred solution: send an advance team to land on the asteroid ‘Ash’ and try to destroy the Crown of Ashes;

If this plan fails, star-killing weapons will be used to destroy the Crown of Ashes and the asteroid 'Ashes' together. "

After reading this long string of text, Ke Lan finally had a certain understanding of the plot of the second phase of the trial and his mission objectives. Not to mention whether this scene was completely virtual or taken from the real history of Alpha Civilization. In terms of task difficulty alone, it can indeed be regarded as hell-level.

This plant, called the "Crown of Ashes" by the Alpha civilization, should be the most powerful creature on this asteroid. It has the ability to manipulate asteroids, and uses this ability to control asteroids like "big ones". Like "fish eating small fish", it keeps devouring nearby celestial bodies and gradually strengthens itself.

If it continues to be swallowed, the mass of the asteroid's "ashes" will continue to increase until it escapes the category of asteroids... However, this process is extremely long.

As a living organism, the "Crown of Ashes" must have a lifespan. Even if it can survive for hundreds of millions of years, it will inevitably die one day, and hundreds of millions of years are just a short moment in the universe. That’s all.

The Crown of Ashes may be called a miracle of life, but that is the limit of what it can achieve. It is for this reason that Alpha Civilization judges it as "no threat for the time being."

But the following plot is a bit like a bloody scene in a sci-fi disaster movie from the old era of mankind. Ke Lan can't figure out why the technological level of the Alpha civilization is so high, transporting "gods" How can a starship with such an important item get lost in the universe?

Even if the navigation system fails, wouldn't there be a frigate for such an important thing? At the very least, there must be an entire escort fleet, right?

To put it bluntly, even if there is no frigate, the starship itself should have sufficient weapons and defense measures, right? Just like that, he was captured by the gravitational field of an asteroid and then crashed... Could it be that the transport of the blood of the god was a civilian ship? Isn't this too childish?

It seems that... this plot is very likely to be fictional and only exists as the content of the trial level.

Ke Lan didn't have an accurate idea of ​​how much 700 units of God's blood were, but he was very clear about the role of God's blood... If nothing else, a monster like the Seed of Corrosion would use a drop of God's blood. manufactured.

Ke Lan couldn't even imagine what kind of monsters 700 units of God's blood would spawn.

Even if the Crown of Ashes is like an ordinary plant and does not respond to external attacks, if Ke Lan wants to cut it down, it will probably take decades to cut off the thick flower stems. Not to mention that this thing most likely has the ability to heal itself.

By then, the progress of the second year's project had not been completed, and all the cuts made in the first year had already grown back... With the power of one person and one machine, he would never be able to cut down this "Crown of Ashes".

This reminded him of a certain fool named "Wu Gang" in fairy tales...

"It seems that the 'annihilation bomb' in the equipment should be prepared to destroy the Crown of Ashes..." Ke Lan said to himself, but this thing is still in a state of being unusable, and he doesn't know. What conditions must be met to unlock usage rights.

The power of antimatter annihilation is indeed terrifying, but the size of the Crown of Ashes is simply too large. If a suitable detonation location cannot be found, it will still not be completely destroyed with just one annihilation bomb.

Just as Ke Lan was looking at the Crown of Ashes in the distance, the content on the heads-up display was refreshed again.

"In fifteen minutes, the support fleet will bombard the roots of the stems of the Crown of Ashes to open the passage. The advance team needs to enter the passage, reach the root zone sixty-five kilometers underground, set up annihilation bombs and detonate them."

"What is this? Mission instructions?" Ke Lan muttered. Sixty-five kilometers deep underground... it is undoubtedly a magma world - if calculated according to earth standards, it has already reached the mantle layer. The temperature and high pressure in that place are beyond what conventional organisms can withstand.

Ke Lan was very doubtful. With just this giant metal statue, he could really go deep into that kind of place?

Even if the metal colossus doesn't melt, what about him inside the colossus? As long as one ten thousandth of the heat penetrates into the cockpit, it will be enough to roast Ke Lan into a human body.

This mission is probably set based on the physique of Alpha people? Compared with them, the bodies of people on earth are too fragile...

"Additional tip: After setting up the annihilation bomb, please return to the surface before the explosion countdown reaches zero. If the tester dies in the explosion, or the annihilation bomb is destroyed before detonating, it will be deemed a test failure."

"..." Hearing this additional reminder, Ke Lan couldn't help but burst out a lot of curse words in his heart. According to his idea, since this is a virtual scene, as long as he can complete the task, his life and death are not important. But who knew that the trial procedure actually required him to survive... "Are you Alphas so unsacrificing?"

[P.S. The definition of "year" in Alpha civilization: The period of one revolution of Alpha star around the sun is basically the same as the earth year, but there is no leap year.

"Main Star" is a name given to Alpha Planet by the Alpha Civilization. As for why it is not called the Home Star, that is because... (I refuse to spoil it, let me start with it). 】

[P.P.S. Supplementary information about the setting of Corrosion Seeds: Corrosion Seeds with a drop of God’s blood in their core are all native species that were first born in the Alpha people’s laboratory, and the Corrosion Seeds that were born through parasitic containers do not have the core of Corrosion Seeds. The existence of godless blood.

Under normal circumstances, the strength of the native species is the most powerful among the erosion species, while the initial strength of the parasitic species is affected by the container itself. Mutated species are not included in the conventional calculation. Similarly, predation behavior after birth is not included. An individual that keeps getting stronger.

The main function of the blood of God is to induce mutation, not to enhance strength. Therefore, even if the native species is stronger, the gap between it and the parasitic species will not be too obvious.

However, the probability of mutation in native species is much greater than that of parasitic species. 】

[P.P.P.S. I have been feeling very unwell recently, so I feel that I am not particularly satisfied with what I wrote. There are probably a lot of typos. I hope you can forgive me.

It will be almost three months since the last bone puncture. I plan to go back to the hospital for a review next week. Because I need to be hospitalized for bone marrow puncture, I may take a day off. I will issue a note at that time. 】