Alien Relic Hunter

"The airships can no longer get any closer. If they move forward, they will be shot down by those anti-aircraft lasers." The voice of the frigate captain came from the loudspeaker, "Some battleships have tried it before. , even the heavy cruiser’s shield can’t block those lasers, so I can only send you here.”

"Everyone, check your equipment one last time and prepare for airborne landing!" The commander of the mobile unit stood up from his seat and shouted to his subordinates.

Bursts of clanging sounds of gold and iron echoed in the cabin, and before long, the entire army was ready for battle.

The door at the bottom of the cargo hold has also been slowly opened - the "Cross Pickaxe" has lowered its suspension height to 160 meters. In addition to the armored vehicles that need to use steel cables to assist in landing, other mechas and armors wearing The soldiers in power armor all jumped out of the hatch and landed steadily on the ground with the help of their own propellers.

"I wish you all good luck." The frigate captain's voice sounded in the communication channel for the last time, and then the "Pickaxe" quickly rose to an altitude of more than a thousand meters and joined the array that bombarded the core control tower.

"If we walk fifty meters forward, we will enter the core control area." The commander of the mobile unit pointed to the "metal forest" composed of buildings with an average height of two hundred meters directly in front of him, and said to Ke Lan said.

The core control area of ​​the Ancient Bronze City ruins is the "fourth ring" located in the center of the inner ring. This fourth ring is different from the first three rings in that it has no obvious regional boundaries - before the operation begins, the core control area is just It's just a general concept. Basically, any place related to the ruins control center can be counted in the core control area. But after the operation began, the participating troops quickly designated a specific area.

The so-called core control area boundary is actually the no-fly zone of the Air Force fleet. Any aircraft entering this area will be instantly destroyed by powerful laser weapons. Just when they were in the sky, Ke Lan and the others had already seen the core control area. The wreckage of several battleships is scattered in the outer area...from heavy cruisers with thick armor and strong shields to high-speed assault ships that are extremely fast and difficult to lock. As for the wreckage of fighter jets and flying mechas, there are even more countless.

On the contrary, if you enter from the ground, you will not be attacked by these laser weapons.

Two "Dunshan" mechas walked in front carrying composite physical shields weighing 1.5 tons, while the others followed silently - the atmosphere in this mobile unit was very depressing. Every soldier's nerves were very tense... In comparison, Ke Lan and the others were in very little better condition. That guy Leighton even boasted braggingly in the team channel: "What's going on? Never seen it before? If you want to scare me with just a few battles, you really underestimate my courage."

"But you look nervous." Valentina, who didn't like to talk, suddenly interrupted.

"Huh? How could it be? Sister Xiaona, please don't talk nonsense. Why am I nervous? It doesn't exist at all." Layton immediately denied it.

"But I discovered that Augustus's energy shield generator has been in a critical state." Valentina said sharply.

The "critical state" of the energy shield generator refers to controlling the charging efficiency within the threshold of 99.95%~99.99%. The shield generator in the critical state can be charged with at least a little more energy. The shield is activated immediately, and at the moment of activation, the power of the shield itself is directly increased to the maximum.

Of course, the critical state also causes a lot of losses to the shield generator itself... It's like a rubber band that will eventually lose its elasticity or simply break if it is kept in a tight state for a long time. For a shield generator that is in a critical state for a long time, the life of the machine will inevitably be affected. Therefore, even in a combat state, the charging efficiency of the energy shield will only be maintained below 50%, as much as possible. This extends the life of the shield generator.

For example, the shield generator mounted on the Augustus body only takes about 0.3 seconds to charge from 50% to 100%. Unless it is in a close combat situation, the operation manual is rarely available. It is recommended that pilots maintain shield generators in critical condition.

And some shield generators that are of relatively low quality or have been severely damaged when dug out from the ruins have a high probability of self-destruction in critical conditions... Shield generators like this type, It is absolutely forbidden to enter a critical state.

At this time, Layton stuck the shield generator in a critical state, which was enough to show how nervous he was.

"You... I, I am not nervous at all. What I call caution is that it is always right to be careful, right? Ke Lan, don't you think so?"

"Just because you talk nonsense, I can tell that you are very nervous." Ke Lan responded casually, "Actually, there is nothing to be ashamed of. I am also very nervous now. Moderate nervousness can help improve reaction speed, which is a good thing. "

"But it's not good to be overly nervous. If you need it, Lao Lei, I can provide you with some medicine." As Ivan said, he had already put his hand into his pocket to fumble around.

"Medicine... medicine is not necessary. If I go back and let that guy know this, he will laugh at me for several years."

"Then I'll keep it to myself." Ivan fumbled for a long time and finally found a stainless steel mini wine bottle. He unscrewed the lid and took a sip.

"Hey, this is the medicine you were talking about. Hurry up and give me a sip." Leighton shouted immediately.

"Forget it, drunk driving is illegal, not only driving, but also operating a mecha." Ivan said and put the wine bottle back.

"Tch, cheapskate."

Although the topics discussed between the few people did not have any substantive content, the original nervousness was relieved a lot at this time.

"Leiton, check the communication signal and see if you can still get in touch with the troops outside." Ke Lan patted Augustus' knee and said.

"I've been watching it since I came in. The deeper we go into the core control area, the more serious the radio interference becomes... The source of interference comes from these towering metal buildings - this assumes that there are no interference devices inside these buildings. Hundreds of thousands of metal buildings standing here are enough to form a huge interference field." Layton said, "Less than a hundred meters in, my communication signal has been cut off... I don't know about the Beidou 'Is there still a signal? The communication equipment of that thing is much more powerful."

"It has also been disconnected." Valentina said. Relying on the unique scanning system of the Blasphemer mecha, she has been monitoring the status of these machines in the team. "Your signal is entering the core control area. It broke at ninety-eight meters, and the Taipei Dipper lasted thirty meters longer than you."

"Tsk...the so-called high power is nothing more than that."

Not only for external communications, Ke Lan and the others were only a few meters apart, and the team communication channel was already full of noisy electricity. Thirty-three simply took off his headphones and stuffed them into his backpack.

Now they have walked nearly 500 meters inside. Even if they amplify the signal strength of the communication equipment ten times, they still can't get in touch with the outside world - the core control area is a circular building complex. The further inside, the surrounding The more metal buildings there are that can be used as sources of interference, the intensity of interference increases exponentially... Let alone radio communications, even some sensitive monitoring equipment has begun to be affected. Ke Lan took a look The magnetized needle on the dial of the watch is spinning crazily, with no intention of stopping.

The entire core control area is a perfect circle with a diameter of six kilometers. The central tower is located at the center of the circle. If Ke Lan and the others do not deviate in the direction of travel, they can reach it as long as they advance less than 2,500 meters. The bottom of the tower.

At this moment, Ke Lan suddenly stopped.

He grabbed the mobile unit commander next to him. The latter suddenly became excited and asked quickly: "Have you noticed anything unusual?"

"It's too quiet, don't you think?" Ke Lan said in a deep voice.

"Huh? What do you mean... We haven't encountered the enemy yet. Isn't it normal to be quiet?" the commander asked confused.

"No, that's not what I meant. Just now, my teammates were still chatting, so I didn't notice anything was wrong. But now, after they all shut up, I realized that I couldn't hear the voices of the first few machines at all. Footsteps."

"Footsteps?!" The commander was stunned for a moment, then immediately turned to look at the front of the team.

Leading the way are two "Dunshan"s. As heavy defense mechas, the "Dunshan"s do not have sliding air cushion devices in their footsteps. Movements must be completed by moving their legs and keeping their feet on the ground.

Including equipment, ammunition, spare fuel and energy blocks, a fully equipped "Dunshan" weighs at least twenty-five tons. For a machine of this tonnage, no matter how careful it steps, it will still make no sound at all. Maybe - what's more, the entire ancient copper city ruins are covered with hard alloy floor tiles on the ground. Even special military boots with soft rubber soles cannot be completely silent when stepping on this kind of ground.

But now, Ke Lan and the others could not hear the footsteps of the two "Dunshan" units as they advanced.

They were only fifty meters away from the front of the team.

"What's going on?" the commander frowned, "How about I ask him to stop advancing——"

"No, don't let them stop yet."

Ke Lan squatted down, put his palms on the ground, stared at the two shield mountains in front, and said: "Let the two shield mountains continue to move forward, and everyone else and the machine should not move."

The thick big feet of Dunshan slowly fell. Ke Lan clearly felt a shock coming from the ground, but his ears did not hear any sound.

Immediately afterwards, he lay down and put his ears to the ground, and then heard a dull "dong" coming from what seemed to be an extremely distant place.

"I kind of know why the six airborne troops in front were completely silent after they came in. The sound from this place couldn't be heard at all," Ke Lan said.

"Can't transmit sound?" The commander subconsciously opened the mask of the power armor and took a deep breath, "But...but...this place is not a vacuum. Even the oxygen content in the air can fully meet the needs of human breathing. …”

"It has nothing to do with whether it is a vacuum." Ke Lan shook his head and said, "It should be some kind of technological product of Alpha civilization, blocking the transmission of sound."

He began to walk forward until he was within twenty meters of Shield Mountain, when the sound of heavy footsteps appeared in his ears.

He turned around and saw that the commander seemed to be shouting at him, but he could only see the other person's mouth moving, but could not hear the sound coming from his throat at all.

It was like a pantomime performance.

Ke Lan walked back quickly until he was within 20 meters of the commander, when he heard the commander eagerly asking: "How are you? Do you understand what's going on?"

"Let the two shield mountains in front stop first. Don't go too far." Ke Lan said, "The information we have so far shows that the sound can only reach twenty meters away in this place - this kind of barrier The method is not to gradually weaken, but to have a clear 'boundary'. There is only one step between what can be heard and what cannot be heard. In addition, the solid ground can transmit sound, but the transmitted sound will be distorted. , and it’s hard to tell distance and direction.”

"The effective distance of radio communication is only about thirty or forty meters, and the farther you go in, the smaller the distance will become. I guess that when we get to the bottom of the tower, even if we communicate face to face, we won't be able to hear what the other party is saying. What's wrong?" Ke Lan continued, "But the good news is that vision does not seem to be affected, so we can use gestures to communicate with people far away. In addition, wired communication will not be interfered with."

"I understand. Now I'll have people connect the vehicle and the body with communication cables." The commander nodded and said, "But to be honest, even though the facts are right in front of me, I still feel a little unreal. feel……"

"Watch it." Ke Lan didn't explain much, just took off a grenade hanging on the opponent's shoulder, pulled the ring, held it in his hand and counted for a few seconds, then threw it diagonally upward. go out--

The grenade exploded about thirty meters away from them and almost ten meters above the ground. The commander who did not close his mask only felt a wave of air full of thick gunpowder smoke coming towards his face, but the explosion of the grenade exploded. But it seemed to disappear out of thin air.

It's like when watching a 4D movie, the cinema simulates all kinds of environmental effects such as body sensations, smells, smoke, etc., but the audio files, which are second only to the pictures, are missing.