Alien Relic Hunter

"And you may not be able to avoid them even if you run fast...Those multiple walls of light often move towards each other and will trap people in the middle." Ghost Owl continued.

"What about upwards? What is the height of the light wall? Can it be avoided by flying?" Layton couldn't help but ask.

With the technical support of the Ye Consortium and an almost unlimited budget, his cybernetic body has recently undergone several major changes. He even installed a flight module with seriously over-powered power, giving him the ability to fly in the air. The ability to stand still for long periods of time.

"Flying in the Bronze City is purely suicidal - even low-altitude ground-skimming flight will not work. Although we are not yet clear about the triggering mechanism of the horizontal light wall, the vertical light wall triggering rate is almost 100%." ​​Ghost Owl After a pause, he continued, "Inside a building, no matter how high you go, as long as there is a ceiling above your head, the light wall will not appear. But if you are in an open space, as long as you are more than five feet above the ground meters, the vertical light wall will always be triggered - it will press down directly on top of you, much faster than the horizontal one, and you can't avoid it at all."

"Five meters high...that is to say, if you jump too high, it will trigger the light wall, right?"

"right."

As if to verify the Ghost Owl's words, just when the group of hunters in the video turned into a small alley, a wall of light appeared in front and behind them at the same time. A tall man with both hands and feet appeared at the same time. The hunter, who had a mechanical prosthetic leg, saw this and climbed directly up the wall of the building - the moment he was more than five meters above the ground, a light curtain came down from directly above at a speed that was difficult for ordinary people to react. The hunter only had time to let out a short exclamation before most of his body was swallowed up by the light curtain.

His flesh was instantly vaporized, leaving only some melted and deformed prosthetic parts scattered on the ground, emitting a red light.

But what made everyone breathe a sigh of relief was that the light curtain only pressed down to five meters above the ground and then stopped continuing... Although the hair of other hunters was curled by the heat radiated from the light curtain, At least they temporarily escaped the fate of being destroyed by the group.

The video freezes at this point. It seems that the internal components have malfunctioned due to impact and high temperature. A black and white snowflake flashes on the screen, and the screen cuts back to the shot of the ghost owl.

"What happened next?" Ye Yan asked, his breathing a little rapid, "How did you escape?"

"We were lucky. We found the entrance to a building and hid inside the building before we were caught between two light walls." Ghost Owl said, "The light wall will only clean up the streets outside, but not the outside." Causes damage to creatures inside the building..."

"That means the building is safe." Hound said to himself while stroking the stubble on his chin, "But now the ruins of this city have been occupied by heretics, and they will definitely destroy most of the buildings. The entrance is sealed... Even if it is not sealed, I'm afraid it will just be a trap left by them."

"According to official public records, the Gray Bird Hunting Group was the first team to discover the mobile light wall mechanism of the 'Ancient Bronze City Ruins'... Didn't the previous hunters encounter this thing?" Ivan asked .

"This has to start with the structure of the ancient copper city ruins." Ghost Owl took out a sensor pen and drew a circle on the screen. "The ruins of the Ancient Bronze City are a perfect circle, with the center of the circle as the intersection point. Six straight lines running through the entire circle cut the circle into twelve sector-shaped areas of equal area. And inside the circle, there are two more Isocentric circles with exactly equal spacing divide the ancient Bronze City ruins into three areas - based on depth, or distance from the center of the central circle, these three areas are called the 'inner ring', 'middle ring' and 'outer ring' respectively. '...

Of course, the geometry I drew looks simple, but the actual terrain is much more complex. Various streets and passages are criss-crossed in each block. Each block is equivalent to an independent maze, and each independent maze is related to each other through ingenious design... That's why I combine it with The 'formation' in Chinese legends is connected together. "

"The urban area of ​​this ruins looks very similar to the Ark... I just don't know if the housing prices in the 'inner ring' are the same as those on the Ark, which are dozens or even hundreds of times higher than in the 'outer ring'... murmured the hound.

"The reason why previous explorers have not encountered these light walls and light curtains is because we are the first team of hunters to go deep into the 'Middle Ring' area." Ghost Owl said, using a sensor pen to scan the ancient Bronze City ruins Several marks were made on the sketch, "We entered from the third sector of the outer ring to the third sector of the middle ring——"

The sensor pen swiped across the screen, and a striking orange line appeared on the sector marked with the number three on the sketch, passing through the concentric circle dividing line from the outer ring area and entering the middle ring area.

"We lost a total of nine hunters before successfully escaping from the central area to the outer area..." Ghost Owl said, "But it wasn't until we walked out that we noticed that we came out of the eighth sector of the outer area. of……"

"You were so anxious that you took a detour from the third sector to the eighth sector?" Layton scratched his head. He didn't know why the ghost owl had such a complicated expression on his face - it's not normal to take a detour in the ruins. Something?

"No." Ghost Owl shook his head, "Our moving routes are all recorded, because the appearance of the light wall is completely random, so we all choose the closest route as possible - even if there are some deviations, then we should be The only way to come out is from the adjacent second or fourth sector... With our travel distance, it is absolutely impossible to go around to the eighth sector that far away... unless we cross the entire ancient copper city Ruins.”

"Maybe you have really traversed the entire ruins... In the maze built by the Alpha civilization, no one is reliable, whether it is the compass, the radio positioning device, or the human sense of direction." Hound said.

"I can be sure that we did not cross the ruins, because there are very clear dividing lines between the outer ring, the middle ring and the inner ring of the ancient copper city ruins. If we mistakenly entered the inner ring, we would definitely cross that dividing line. … But from the beginning to the end, we have been operating in the Central Area and have never seen the dividing line between the Central and Inner Rings.”

"If you have never entered the inner ring area, then the shortest route from the third sector to the eighth sector should be like this -" Ivan also took out a sensor pen and drew a line that was almost close to the The arc at the edge of the inner ring.

"Even this shortest route is much longer than the distance you moved when you escaped, right?" Ivan asked.

"That's right." Ghost Owl nodded, "Even if the positioning equipment will be interfered with, the mechanical pedometer cannot make mistakes. Even if the calculation error is expanded to more than five times the standard value, the distance will still be far away. not enough."

At this moment, Ke Lan, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly knocked on the table in front of him and said to the hound: "Old dog, do you still remember the 'nine stone chambers' we encountered in the bottomless sinkhole? ?”

"Nine stone chambers... I remember that, but wasn't that thing our dream?" The hound nodded, "Actually, we have been lying in that cave the whole time and have never been anywhere."

"Although the nine stone chambers are a dream, theoretically speaking, they can be recreated in the real world... I suspect that there may be a similar structure in the Bronze City."

"You mean... movable block sections?" Hound was stunned for a moment, "I don't think it's strange that the stone chamber can move, but the entire block can change places without anyone noticing... Isn't that impossible?"

"It doesn't have to be an entire block, it could be a street, half a square or even a separate building... As long as the city adopts a modular design, these are all possible. As long as Gray Bird Hunting The buildings within the sight of the regiment’s hunters have not changed, and it is difficult for them to perceive the displacement of the external plates.”

Ke Lan paused for half a second, then continued: "Furthermore, in the state of being chased by a wall of light, even if the plates under their feet are moving, they may not be able to detect it as long as the movement is not particularly large. "

Ghost Owl was silent for a full minute, and then nodded seriously: "Captain Ke Lan, your analysis makes sense. In my memory, there are indeed no landmark buildings in that area that can be used as a benchmark. , the clouds in the sky are also very thick, and there is no independent cloud group that can be used to judge the direction... If the ground is moving slowly, we really can't find it..."

"Good guy, a city where each module can change its position at will like a Rubik's Cube... It's really a big project!" Hound couldn't help but sigh.

Although Ark also adopts a modular design, the plots in each area are fixed on the base... If these plots are to be mobile, it cannot be solved by simply adding a few engines and pulleys. things.

"Block transformation, module movement..." Ke Lan's index finger tapped the table rhythmically, "It's really a bit like those 'mazes' with rich fantasy colors in legendary stories."

The so-called formation is actually the formation arranged by the army when it is marching and fighting. People are alive, so the military formation is naturally alive too - a military formation that cannot change is easily broken by the enemy. All those famous military formations are , all of them are unpredictable and difficult to find flaws... Even if there are some unavoidable flaws, you can quickly change the formation to turn the "flaws" into "traps"... or even become decisions. The winning move.

When people are alive, stones are dead - Zhuge Kongming used huge rocks to build a Bagua array to block the tens of thousands of Soochow troops. This kind of story can obviously only appear in novels with a lot of fictional plots such as "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" ...Unless these boulders can move.

"If we calculate it this way, let alone the eighth sector, it is possible for you to come out from any place in the ruins...hiss." The hound said as he pulled out a thick and long stick. Nose Hair said, "You should be lucky that you were not sent directly to the inner ring... The middle ring is so dangerous. If you enter the inner ring, I'm afraid not many people can come out."

"Now the ruins of the Bronze City have been controlled by the heretical sect. Assuming that the city's blocks can really be moved at will, the method of manipulation must also be in their hands." Layton said with a look of embarrassment, "Don't say Let us break into the ruins and seize control. As long as the heretical sect’s bastards have some brains, we will never reach the core area of ​​the ruins.”

"There are worse things." Ivan sighed, "Suppose we have just killed the defenders of a heretical sect, maybe the land under our feet will bring us into a circle surrounded by a group of mutants in the next second. Li - they don't even need to move, they just need to wait for the moving plate to bring the prey to the door, not to mention the overwhelming light curtain chasing after them..."

"After entering this ruins, we are like those turtles, we can only be slaughtered by others." Layton agreed.

"It's like a turtle in a urn... Big guy, if you don't know how to use idioms, just stop using them, okay? Our hunting group can't afford to lose this person." The hound rolled his eyes at Leighton and turned to look at Ke Lan, "Ke Lan, this The difficulty of the task is much higher than that of exploring S-class ruins. It is not an exaggeration to say that there is no chance of death... But I also know that we can't refuse this task. Look, how about you go and persuade the people above? People, let them change their tactics?"

"How to persuade?"

"To deal with this kind of target, don't use troops to attack it... just use long-range firepower to saturate it and raze the ruins to the ground."

Before Ke Lan could speak, Layton spoke first: "Old man, aren't you more embarrassed than me? Do you think that is an ordinary exile settlement? Can a few missiles blow it up? That is an Alpha civilization. It's a fortress, and it's a fucking fortress with fully activated defense facilities! For our human weapons, even with full firepower, it can only scratch the itch... If nothing else, just say that this covers the whole city. The light curtain, do you know how powerful this system would be if used as an external defense shield?"

"How big is it?" Hound asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Remember the 'Kilin' that nearly killed Leviathan? If the 'Kilin' were used to hit the energy shield of the Bronze City, until the entire battleship was vaporized, it would not be possible to hit the city's energy shield. Any building! If I want to use this method to break the shield, I can only think of two things."

"What two."

"Noah's Ark and Yaguna Kotor—only their mass and volume can guarantee that they can penetrate the shield without being completely ablated." Layton immediately asked, "What do you think? Is it possible for policymakers to adopt such tactics?”