Alien Relic Hunter

"What is the general concept of the strength level of the Familia?" Ke Lan couldn't help but ask.

"What do you think of the strength of the prehistoric species?"

"Are the prehistoric people... the Familia?" Ke Lan was stunned. As soon as he asked, he felt that his guess must be wrong.

"For the Familia, the prehistoric species can only be regarded as pets, and they are only pets kept by the weakest Familia." The master of the nest city said, "As for the 'blood of gods' collected by the Alpha civilization, it is actually only from captured It's just the essence of life purified from the body of the prehistoric species, and it actually has little to do with that existence. If there is real blood of God... I even doubt whether the universe we live in can accommodate that kind of thing."

Listening to the description of the hive master, Ke Lan inexplicably felt a suffocating despair... Come to think of it, the despair felt by the original Alpha civilization would only be deeper than this. That entire civilization was destined to become a source of nourishment for high-dimensional creatures. The fate, the feeling of powerlessness that no matter what you do, it will be of no avail... It is simply too pale to describe it in words.

For people on earth, this kind of thing may not matter - by the time the entire civilization is destroyed, their bones may have been turned into ashes... But the Alpha people are different. Each of them has been eroded. Even if they die, their consciousness will be gone. Will be assimilated by that existence... This seems to be a gift, but in fact it is never-ending torture.

Just thinking about this kind of torture can send chills down your spine.

"Can you tell me... about the Alpha Civilization?" At this time, Ke Lan was no longer in a hurry to ask why the Alpha Civilization would bring the Ark to this time and space... Instead, he was even more interested in what the Alpha Civilization later experienced. curious.

"It can be seen that you are very special." The tone of the master of the nest city was mixed with a hint of appreciation. "This information, due to the residual power of that existence, can be regarded as taboo knowledge, and it is dangerous. The higher level, but until now your body has not changed, your cognition has not been distorted, and your mind is very clear... This gives me a glimmer of hope."

"My body has actually been..." As Ke Lan said this, the bright red seeping out of his pores instantly condensed into a large group of tentacles that looked almost exactly like the Seed of Erosion, and in the blink of an eye it turned into A red skeleton lying on his back, "It's just that I prefer to keep the appearance of a human... This way I can always remind myself that I am a human being, not a monster."

"The key point is here." The master of the nest city said, "If there is anything that humans can compete with that kind of power, it is will. As long as your idea of ​​​​thinking that you are human does not waver at all, the impact of erosion on you It will be greatly weakened... Of the three judgment criteria I mentioned, the last two points are actually the most important. As for the first point, it can be ignored in the face of the last two points."

The three judgment criteria mentioned by the other party naturally refer to "body", "cognition" and "mind"... As for the latter two criteria, only outsiders are qualified to judge. As for Ke Lan himself, it is difficult Recognize that your perceptions are distorted—after all, a madman never thinks of himself as a madman.

"The vast majority of people in Alpha Civilization have become loyal believers in that existence. They firmly believe that as long as they are pious enough, they can merge with that existence after death and gain eternal life in body and soul... As for those who know the truth and stay awake People came together and formed an organization..."

"Night watchman?"

"Yes, they are the Night Watchmen." The master of the nest city said, "They thought that existence was manufacturing war weapons, so they tried to capture many prehistoric species and conduct research... Although they paid a heavy price, at least they obtained a certain amount of knowledge. Results. The fusion you saw in the Abyss Hatchery of the Undersea City is one of the results."

"There are also primitive erosion seeds." Ke Lan added.

"In terms of strength, the fusion body and the original erosion seed are very close to the prehistoric species. It is not impossible to call them artificial prehistoric species... But I have said before that the prehistoric species that can be contacted by Alpha Civilization The species is just a pet kept by the weakest family members, or a biological weapon made at random. It is impossible to resist that existence with such things alone."

"..." Ke Lan couldn't help but admire the will of those night watchmen - they had already seen the gap like a chasm, and they were still thinking about resisting... This kind of spirit is simply more tenacious than Yu Gong moving mountains, Yu Gong is good at all. There are still an infinite number of descendants, but even if Alpha Civilization gives them 100 million years, even if they are not extinct due to erosion, at most they can only touch the threshold of the Familia... They actually still want to resist that existence.

Is this tenacity...or stupidity?

"In addition, the night watchmen have also made various efforts... The ruins you see on Alpha Planet are basically the remnants of these projects. In order to keep them secret, the core areas of these ruins are A large number of mechanisms have been set up, and only members of the Night Watch organization can pass through them safely."

"Then what happened later that caused..." Ke Lan hesitated for a moment, but continued to ask, "What caused the Night Watchmen to decide to bring us humans in this time and space here?"

"Because there is no time." The master of the nest said, "The erosion of the entire Alpha civilization is rapidly deepening. Although everyone has turned into a monster whose upper body is humanoid and whose lower body is made of tentacles, in that existence Under the influence of the disease, the mutation is still deepening... More and more people are turning into creatures that are difficult to describe in words... If erosion is regarded as a plague, then the period of disaster is before the acute outbreak, and the Alpha people They are survivors who have survived the acute outbreak... But this does not mean that the 'disease' in their bodies has been cured, but that it has entered a chronic progressive stage. No one can escape this fate, not even newborns. , large-scale mutations have occurred.”

The master of the hive city paused for a moment and continued: "This is the influence of the remaining power of that existence... As long as the Alpha civilization has not yet reached the qualifications to become a dependent race, that influence will continue to transform their bodies and cognition, adapting to The only ones who survive will survive, and the unfit will be eliminated...According to the current progress, the entire Alpha civilization will eventually be eliminated."

"So, the Night Watch finally gave up resistance and accepted their fate?"

"You can say you have given up, or you can say you have not given up, it depends on how you understand it." The hive master gave an ambiguous answer, "Alfa civilization is inevitable, but humans in other time and space may still be saved. ."

"Humans from other time and space...refer to us?" Ke Lan sat down cross-legged, raised his head, and stared at a light source on the ceiling attentively, as if it were the other person's eyes.

"It can be you, or it can be humans from another parallel universe. But no matter who it is, in the first half of history, your experience was similar to that of the Alpha civilization - if the Ark continues to sail in the universe, there is a high probability that it will Become a 'dead ship'... Compared with an entire drifting planet, the risk resistance of an interstellar colony ship that can only accommodate tens of millions of people is too low. And after observation and calculation, Alpha Civilization discovered A desperate fact - most areas in the universe suitable for intelligent life have actually been contaminated by the power of that existence. They even put forward a bold guess that the sun will suddenly accelerate decay, and it may be that existence Caused by consciousness invading the solar system."

"In other words, even if human beings have not left the solar system and have not been swallowed by the decaying sun, this is the end result? And even if Ark finds a planet suitable as a home in the universe, there is a high probability that that planet will be in that place. Within the control range?" For some reason, a line that often appears in costume dramas from the old era suddenly popped into Ke Lan's head.

"The vastness of the world belongs to the king's land; the shores of the land belong to the king's ministers."

It's just that the world here has become the "universe", the king has become a "god", and the king's ministers have become "families".

"The Night Watchmen are unwilling to let human civilizations in other time and space repeat the same mistakes. After careful calculation, they came up with a 'maybe feasible' method."

"The 'maybe' solution? So what is that?"

"Bringing human civilization from another time and space to this time and space will cause a time and space paradox, causing the vast majority of Alphas to disappear. But it is this paradox that gives the Night Watchmen space to operate - that existence is just A thought has been left in this space. He will not pay attention to this space all the time, let alone Star Alpha. Therefore, when you, the humans from another time and space, come here, it just happens that It can replace the vacancy left by the disappearing Alpha civilization."

"Let us replace Alpha Civilization... But, is there any point in doing this?" Ke Lan frowned. No matter how he thought about it, he felt that this was a way of harming others and himself... Not only Alpha Civilization would disappear because of this , the Ark civilization has also been dragged into this quagmire. If the Ark civilization is allowed to drift in the universe, it may be able to survive for a long time.

"Because the Ark civilization has not been 'branded' by that existence... and the Alpha civilization, whose members have been corroded and begun to mutate, has an indelible 'brand' on each person's body and soul. Even if the Alpha people escape to the ends of the earth, There is no way to escape this fate. But the Ark people who have not been 'branded' still have a future and hope. Relying on the legacy left to them by the Alpha civilization and combined with their own circumstances, they may have a chance to escape this fate... "

"You mean, the Alpha civilization is equivalent to using its own demise to give us a chance to escape?"

"You can think so." The hive master said, "In order to ensure that the Ark can pass through the wormhole smoothly and sail to the space domain where Alpha Star is located, the night watchman imparts various knowledge to the universe through the projection of consciousness across time and space. For the humans on the Ark, all the technological breakthroughs that can be called miracles during the voyage of the Ark were actually taught to you by the Night Watchmen in this way... It is precisely because of this knowledge that from the side, The formation of the Immortal Crew Association.”

"No wonder... before the Ark has landed on Alpha Planet, the Undead Crew has already mastered the technology related to the Coffin of Immortality... Wait, wait!" Ke Lan suddenly widened his eyes, "You said those so-called The technological breakthroughs that are miraculous are all because the Night Watchmen used the method of consciousness projection to teach the Ark people... So, the predecessor of Alpha Civilization, the people on Earth at that time, were able to break through the technical difficulties of fusion in just a few years, right? because……"

"You are very smart, you discovered the problem so quickly." The hive master praised, "Yes, we are not the first human civilization to have such an idea and put it into action. In another time and space, there is another A desperate human civilization, they passed on this knowledge to us, hoping that we could escape our fate... Unfortunately, we failed, so we can only pass the baton to your hands."

"..." Ke Lan was so shocked that he couldn't speak for a long time... He was just comparing the Alpha civilization, the Night Watchman, and Yu Old Man Moves the Mountains. He didn't expect that this was really a Yu Old Man Moves the Mountains that spanned time and space... except that he moved mountains. It is not the descendants of Yu Gong, but human civilizations in different time and space one after another.

Countless human civilizations were destroyed because of the power of that existence, but they accumulated and passed on their knowledge bit by bit, and handed it over to themselves in another time and space, trying to change their destiny...

But now, the baton is in the hands of the Ark people.

"I...I probably understand...but I have to slow down." Ke Lan took several deep breaths, closed his eyes tightly, and tried hard to smooth out the information in his brain one by one. , and then digest and absorb them one by one.

After about ten minutes - of course, in this space fragment, time is stagnant, and these ten minutes should be regarded as the ten minutes Ke Lan felt about himself - he opened his eyes and looked at the light source on the ceiling again. Asked: "Then... what role did I play in this story?"

"You give me a very familiar feeling. The Alpha civilization once came into contact with an Ark human. That person was you, but it was not you." The nest master said.

"Fool?"

"After he joined the Undead Crew, his code name was indeed 'The Fool'." The master of the nest gave a positive answer, "Although his sequence is zero, in fact, he was the last person to join the Undead besides you. A guy from the crew.”

"The latest?" Ke Lan was stunned for a moment. He originally thought that the Fool would be the founder of the Immortal Crew Association.