Alien Relic Hunter

…

Due to the existence of the transfer channel, even the step of water injection and pressurization is omitted. The four people only need to sit on the seats and then push the transfer channel through the slide rails - wait until the surrounding scene returns to normal, and dive deep The weapon is already in the deep sea.

The deep submersible is equipped with multiple "Scorching Star III" underwater searchlights in all directions. The maximum brightness of this searchlight can reach 35 million lumens. But in this sea area, the light only penetrated about a hundred meters of water, and it was already exhausted.

Everyone has known that the seawater in the Central Sea and the Extreme Sea absorbs light for a long time - if the same five-meter-deep pool is filled with clean water, the bottom of the pool must be clearly visible under normal light. But if the seawater from these two places is injected, the pool will instantly turn into a dark and deep pool.

Although the seawater has been filtered out of all visible impurities before being injected, and it is clear and colorless when taken out in a single basin, when it reaches a certain depth, it becomes like ink.

According to the institute, this characteristic seems to be related to the composition of seawater. It only needs a few "not simple purification" procedures to erase this characteristic of seawater.

But the institute only "purified" ten tons of seawater, and the energy consumed was enough to purify hundreds of millions of tons of domestic water for the residents of the Ark... And in the Central Sea and the Extreme Sea, there are more than hundreds of millions of tons of seawater like this?

The outline of the underwater city looked shadowy under the blurred lights, just like a ghost town, full of eerie atmosphere and unreality.

Fortunately, Layton could also synchronize the panoramic scanning data of Yagunaktor to the computer of the deep submersible. Although the remains of the city below could not be seen clearly with the naked eye, the precise holographic modeling still accurately represented the city. The appearance has been outlined, and at least there is no need to worry that the deep submersible will suddenly hit a tall tower or fall headlong onto a steep slope.

"It's so quiet..." In the deep diving cabin, apart from the beeps from the electronic equipment and the slightly weird-sounding echoes received by the sonar, there were only the breathing and heartbeats of the four people. In this environment, even hounds who are accustomed to talking loudly can't help but lower their voices.

"Isn't the bottom of the sea supposed to be quiet?" Chi Hanfeng asked puzzledly, "If there is really any movement, that would be bad, right?"

"I mean the sonar is too quiet." The hound pointed to the hemispherical one on the control panel. Every few seconds, a circle of ripples would spread out from the center, and not long after, another circle of ripples would return from the edge to the center. The screen said, "The sonar can only scan the seabed and the ruins of the city on the seabed. There is no other sound. This is not normal."

"It's not normal." Ghost Owl continued, "Although the deep sea has always been called a restricted area of ​​life, there are actually many types of creatures living in the deep sea. The depth of the 'Eye of Hell' in the extreme sea is enough More than 10,000 meters, except for the waters polluted by the corpse of the prehistoric species 'Yinglong', there are a large number of active deep-sea life in other places... The depth here is only three thousand meters, so it should not be completely dead. right."

"Yes, you know, when we first arrived in this sea area, we happened to encounter Miss Soma's icebreaker being besieged by deep-sea giant eels... Since there are deep-sea giant eels in this sea area, they must also exist. Otherwise, what would these giant eels eat?" The hound pressed his face against the porthole, which was made of several layers of special glass and filled with a transparent semi-liquid pressurizing agent, staring into the darkness. Said the sea water.

"Could it be that Yagunaktor scared away the deep-sea creatures when he dived, so it was so quiet?" Chi Hanfeng raised a conjecture.

"This is the only possibility." Hound nodded, "Lao Chi, at least you are right about one thing. Quietness is better than bustling. I would rather scare myself than see a giant deep-sea eel appear in front of my eyes right now. Swim over.”

But just after the hound said this, a dark shadow suddenly "floated" past the porthole, so fast that the four of them didn't even have time to see its general outline!

"What the hell!" The hound's eyes widened, and his right hand had already pulled out the pistol from the holster on his waist. Although this conventional weapon cannot function underwater at all, it has become a habit to draw the gun immediately when in danger. A soldier's muscle memory is engraved in his bones.

Not only him, but Chi Hanfeng, Ghost Owl and Zhuoli Getu also immediately reached for their weapons.

"Did you see it too?!" The hound turned around and asked, "Isn't it my hallucination?!"

"It's not an illusion..." Chi Hanfeng felt a chill running down his spine, "But..." he glanced at the sonar screen several times as he spoke, "The sonar didn't detect anything near us at all. ."

"Is there something wrong with the sonar?" Ghost Owl whispered, "That thing was not even five meters away from us just now... Otherwise, we think it would be impossible to see it without direct light. ! It should have swam past the deep submersible! It’s so close, so it’s impossible that the sonar can’t detect it!”

"No, it's not necessarily a problem with the sonar." The hound shook his head, "The problem may be with the thing floating past. Some creatures have special fat layers on their skin that can absorb sound waves. When sound waves touch them, they It's like a hammer hitting cotton, there will be no feedback at all..."

"Old dog, I forgot to tell you that this deep submersible is equipped with the latest model of high-power sonar. It has the functions of both active sonar and passive sonar. If the body of a certain creature can absorb sound waves, then the sonar's There should be an obvious blank on the image, and there should be an obvious gap in the received sound wave circle pattern, instead of nothing abnormal like now." Chi Hanfeng murmured, "Unless it is a ghost, The sound waves will pass directly through its body without being affected in any way."

"Ghost? Lao Chi, aren't you an atheist? Why have you started to believe in this kind of thing?" Hound muttered.

"I'm just making an analogy..." Chi Hanfeng's eyes kept switching back and forth between the sonar screen and the porthole, "To completely avoid sonar detection at such a close distance, according to the existing human civilization There are two ways to develop science and technology.”

"What two ways?" the hound asked.

"The first method is to add a 'lubricant' coating to the surface of the object so that sound waves can slide over the surface... Alpha civilization can do this easily. Their optical camouflage device uses this principle. By refracting light, the things that need to be hidden will be hidden in the 'dead spot' formed by the refraction, and will naturally not appear in the visible light field of view. Sound waves and light are both waves in the same way, so naturally this method can be used to The technical difficulty of becoming invisible in front of sonar is even lower than that of optical camouflage." Chi Hanfeng explained to the other three people in a low voice but quickly, "The other way is to 'simulate' and absorb the sonar. After analyzing the sound waves emitted, the 'echo' sound waves under 'normal' conditions are simulated to deceive the sonar... This method of camouflage is more complicated than the first method, but it is actually more difficult to implement. It should be lower. In my impression, before I retired, this technology had already been installed on some experimental vehicles, but because there were too few occasions where it could be used, few people knew about it."

Chi Hanfeng swallowed and continued: "But no matter what kind of technology it is, if you want to improve the success rate of camouflage, it is inextricably linked to the distance. The farther the distance, the harder it is to be discovered... …And with the kind of distance just now, no matter what kind of technology, it is impossible to hide it perfectly.”

"I just checked the sonar records again, and I didn't receive any abnormal feedback sound waves." Zhuo Ligetu said, "All the scan results are exactly the same as the results predicted by the computer."

The meaning of this sentence couldn't be more obvious. According to the sonar detection, there is nothing in this water except the undersea city directly below and Yagunaktor suspended in the sea not far away.

Otherwise, as long as there is any abnormality in the sound wave, even if it is only one ten thousandth of a deviation from the predicted result, the computer will immediately issue a reminder.

However, from the time the four people glimpsed the dark shadow until now, the sonar did not sound the alarm - if the portholes were closed, no one would know that something had just swam past the deep submersible.

The hound took a deep breath, raised his hand to wipe away the beads of sweat from his forehead, and said to Chi Hanfeng: "Contact Layton immediately and ask him if Yagunaktor's panoramic scan captured anything. Something unusual.”

"I asked just now. Layton said that he didn't see anything in the panoramic scan." Chi Hanfeng said immediately, "He was staring at us the whole time. There was nothing around the deep submersible except sea water."

"Did you really see a ghost?" The hound clung to the back of the seat behind him, as if this could provide him with a sense of comfort. His eyes kept glancing at the porthole on one side... He wanted to die. He stared out the window, not missing the slightest movement, but he was also afraid that he would really see something. He wanted to see it but didn't dare to see it. The conflicting emotions were fighting crazily in his heart, making him feel that the skin all over his body was gone. It seemed to start to itch and sting.

"Could it be an hallucination?" Ghost Owl whispered, "In some ruins, affected hunters will have group hallucinations. Is it possible that the black shadow just now was the hallucination of the four of us? If in the water If there really is something, the sonar on the deep submersible can't detect it, so with Yagunaktor's technological level, it's impossible that it can't be discovered, right?"

"I would rather it be an illusion." The hound kept taking deep breaths to control his soaring heart rate. "At least, hallucinations are not fatal...at least most of the time they are not fatal."

"Then what should I do now?" Chi Hanfeng asked, "Do I want to continue searching for that black shadow just now?"

"Don't worry about it. Let's not talk about whether it's an illusion or not. Even if there is something in the water, it was so close to us and didn't do anything to us... Then we just pretend we didn't see anything and keep doing whatever we need to do. "The hound said, "Dive down and go to the city."

Chi Hanfeng didn't answer, but he knew in his heart that in this case, instead of wasting oxygen and energy like a frightened bird, it would be better to continue to implement the original goal... If that "thing" is really If they were to launch an attack on the deep submersible, they would not be able to prevent it at all. After figuring this out, the fear lingering in my heart actually subsided a lot.

Chi Hanfeng switched the control mode of the submersible to full manual operation and gently pressed down the joystick. The front end of the submersible tilted slightly. Under the triple action of the tail propeller thruster, external drainage tank and anti-gravity device, it slowly Slowly approach the city ruins below.

"Diving in progress, still 45 meters from the seabed, current depth, 3192 meters."

"Come closer." Hound said. The six searchlights in front of the deep submersible concentrated the light beams, and the outline of the originally hazy building finally became clearer bit by bit.

"Is this the city under the sea..." Zhuoligetu couldn't help but sigh in a low voice as he looked at the remains of the city outside the porthole, which, even though it was dilapidated, could still vaguely see its former grandeur.

"The damage to the building is very serious." Ghost Owl said, "Look, the things that were broken into pieces, if I read correctly, should be the 'empty rails' that are common in Alpha Civilization cities."

The sky rail in Alpha City is not the same thing as the "sky rail train" inside the earth and the Ark. This thing can be regarded as a "highway" built at high altitude. The sky rail itself is just a three-meter-diameter rail. The structure, but with the empty orbit as the center, can expand a gravity channel with a diameter of about twenty meters. The Alpha Civilization's vehicle can glide at high speed on the inner wall of this gravity channel that is invisible to the naked eye, making it look like it is flying. .

"I have led teams to explore many urban ruins of the Alpha Civilization. This kind of sky rail generally only appears in cities above the 'B' level. The towers used to support the sky rail are generally between 500 meters and 1,000 meters tall. About meters... I think this kind of traffic would not appear in an underwater city."

A Class B city is equivalent to a "provincial capital" on the earth. As for Class A, it is a city at the capital or cultural, political, and economic center level.

"This city sank from the sea, Ke Lan told me." Hound murmured, "He said he saw a burning city sinking into the sea with his own eyes..."

"See it with your own eyes?" Ghost Owl was stunned for a moment, "He...where did he see it?"

[P.S. Thanks to Reading Giraffe for the 3,000 starting coins; Thanks to Soap for the 1,500 starting coins. 】