Alien Relic Hunter

Chapter 297 Crown of Ashes (4000-word chapter)
When Ke Lan checked the armament of the metal colossus, nearly a hundred black beetles had gathered above the isolated island. Looking up, it was a dense mass of blackness. The buzzing of the trembling wings even overwhelmed the roar of the surrounding volcanoes when they spewed lava. There was a crackling sound.

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

Although these bugs have a lot of momentum, their individual strength is much worse than that of the metal colossus. It is really not worthwhile to waste precious energy on them.

"Let's test the mobility of the colossus first..." Ke Lan thought so, bent his knees slightly, and then jumped up vigorously——

"Bang!!"

A huge thrust erupted from the legs of the metal colossus, and Ke Lan's perspective suddenly shifted to a height of nearly [-] meters in the air. He turned around, and the armor-piercing sword in his hand just swept away all the black beetles around him .

"Boom!!"

The metal colossus fell back to the isolated island again. Fortunately, the shock-absorbing performance of the mech itself was excellent, and Ke Lan didn't even feel the impact it should have. When it is on the ground, it has been verified.

"The height of the full-strength jump is about 100 meters..." Ke Lan said silently. The reason why he can jump so high is mainly because of two reasons-first, the mass of this asteroid is not too large, and its gravity is One tenth of Alpha Star; Secondly, the interior of this metal colossus is equipped with an anti-gravity device.

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 far exceeding the average level of a ten-meter mecha.

Ke Lan jumped again. This time, he directly crashed into the airspace where the black beetles were densest. A circle of colorful afterimages swayed from the huge sword in his hand, and the energy shield bound into blades tore apart the black beetles The hard body, broken carapace and jointed limbs fell from the air along with the smelly internal organs, and fell into the magma river below, splashing sparks.

And during this 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 "smart" trigger method: only when an attack is about to come, the energy shield on the corresponding part will be activated, and when it is not attacked, the energy shield is always closed under the state.

As for the human warships, even if they can open the shields intermittently, it is absolutely impossible for the large energy shields with a diameter of hundreds of meters to light up only a few palm-sized areas-this already involves modifying the shields. The problem of the internal program of the device, and with the existing means of human beings, this is a field that is completely impossible to get involved in.

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

If we say that 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 to fight with the wild beast; Alpha civilization uses the wooden stick It was processed into a fully automatic wooden crossbow, and it shot the beast to death by standing in a place where the beast could not touch it...

Although Ke Lan knows that there is a gap-like technological gap between the two civilizations, when this gap is naked in front of him, there will always be a sense of powerlessness being crushed.

Ke Lan felt that if Layton saw this metal colossus, he might faint from excitement...

With two jumping attacks, the metal colossus had already wiped out nearly half of the black beetles above the isolated island, but the remaining beetles didn't show fear on the surface. Instead, they swarmed towards the metal colossus and ran towards Ke Lan almost madly.

"That's good, save time."

Without hesitation, Ke Lan directly fired a plasma charging cannon, vaporizing the group of black beetles gathered together. As for the few surviving small fish and shrimp, they were cut into pieces by the giant sword in an instant and thrown into the In the magma river on the side.

"I always feel...something is wrong, these bugs are too weak... Logically speaking, the second stage of the trial should not be so simple..." Ke Lan stepped on the remnant of a dying beetle , pierced the sword blade into its shell, and with a flick of the sword tip, the remnant body of the beetle was thrown out and fell into the magma.

Although the scene on this asteroid was like purgatory, Ke Lan didn't think 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, its thick and twisted roots are deeply planted in the earth, constantly sucking the ground The energy of the depths.

"This plant... can be regarded as a prehistoric species." Ke Lan muttered to himself, looking up at the giant flowers blooming at the top of the stem.

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

"Crown of Ashes, an ancient plant that grows on the asteroid 'Ash', can directly absorb the heat in the magma and use it to nourish itself.

According to surveys, the root system of the Crown of Ashes 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 asteroid's trajectory.

Its living body and the asteroid 'Ash' are in a very special symbiotic state. During the 15 years of its observation period, the asteroid 'Ash' had a total of 4 orbital changes, impacting and swallowing a total of 17 A small natural celestial body, during this process, the diameter of the asteroid 'Ash' expanded by 7 times, and its mass increased by 27 times, but the main body of the asteroid 'Ash' did not change significantly, only the surface density increased by four times.

Due to some special reasons, it is impossible to conduct a more detailed exploration of the Crown of Ashes.

Asteroid 'Ash', symbiotic organism 'Crown of Ash', preliminary judgment: no threat for now.

However, in the secret mission No. 1214, a starship carrying 700 units of "God's Blood" strayed into the star field where the asteroid "Ash" was located, and was captured by the abnormally enlarged 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.

At present, the asteroid 'Ash' is rapidly approaching the host star, and is expected to enter the galaxy where the host star is located in 140 three years.

Preferred solution: send an advance team to the asteroid 'Ash' and try to destroy the Crown of Ash;

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

After reading this long string of texts, Ke Lan finally has a certain understanding of the plot of the second stage of the trial and his own mission goals. Let’s not talk about whether this scene is 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. "Fish eats small fish" continuously devours nearby celestial bodies, gradually growing itself.

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

As a biological body, the "Crown of Ashes" must have a lifespan. Even if it can survive for hundreds of millions of years, it must die one day, and the years of hundreds of millions of years are just a short moment for 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 do. It is precisely for this reason that the Alpha civilization judges it as "no threat".

But the following plot is a bit like a bloody plot in a sci-fi disaster movie in the old era of human beings. Ke Lan can't figure out why the technological level of the Alpha civilization is so high. "Blood" is such an important item, can the starship get lost in the universe?
Even if the navigation system fails, isn't there a frigate for such an important thing?At the very least, there must be an entire escort fleet, right?
Taking a step back, even if there is no frigate, the starship itself should have enough weapons and defensive measures, right?Just like that, it was captured by the gravitational field of an asteroid, and then crashed... Could it be that a civilian ship was transporting the blood of God?This is too childish, right?

It seems... This plot is very likely to be fictional, and it only exists as the content of the trial level.

Ke Lan doesn't have an accurate idea of ​​how many 700 units of God's blood are, but he is very clear about the role of God's blood... Among other things, a monster like Corrosion Seed uses a drop of God's blood to manufactured.

And what kind of monsters will be spawned by 700 units of God's Blood, Ke Lan can't even imagine.

Even if the crown of ashes is like an ordinary plant that does not respond to external attacks, if Ke Lan wants to cut it down, he will probably have to cut it down for decades to cut off the thick flower stem, and even more so. Not to mention that this thing has the ability to heal itself in all likelihood.

By that time, the progress of the project in the second year has not been completed, and all the cuts made in the first year have already grown...With the power of one person and one machine, he will never be able to cut down this "Crown of Ashes".

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

"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 I don't know What conditions must be met to unlock access.

The power of antimatter annihilation is indeed terrifying, but the size of the Crown of Ashes is too large. If a suitable detonation site cannot be found, it is still impossible to completely destroy it with only one annihilation bomb.

Just as Ke Lan was looking at the crown of ashes in the distance, the content on the head-up display was refreshed again.

"After 15 minutes, the support fleet will bombard the roots of the crown of ashes and open the passage. The advance team needs to enter the passage, reach the root zone located 65 kilometers underground, set up an annihilation bomb and detonate it."

"What is this? Mission guidance?" Ke Lan muttered, the place 65 kilometers deep underground...it is undoubtedly a magma world-if calculated by the earth's standards, it has already reached the mantle layer, and that place The high temperature and high pressure cannot be tolerated by conventional organisms.

Ke Lan was very skeptical. With this metal colossus alone, could he 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 penetrated into the cockpit, it would be enough to roast Ke Lan into a human body.

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

"Additional reminder: 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 detonation, it will be considered a trial failure."

"..." Hearing this extra prompt, Ke Lan couldn't help but spit out a lot of dirty words. According to his thinking, since this is a virtual scene, as long as he can complete the task, his own life is not important. But who knew that the trial procedure actually required him to survive... "Are you Alpha people so unsacrificing?"

[PS The definition of "year" in Alpha Civilization: The cycle that Alpha Star revolves around the sun once is basically the same as the Earth year, but there is no leap year.

"Main star" is a name given by the Alpha civilization to the Alpha star. As for why it is not called the mother star, it is because... (I refuse to spoil the spoiler, let me start). 】

[PPS Supplement on the setting of Seed of Corrosion: Seed of Corrosion with a drop of God's blood in its core is a native species that was first born in the laboratory of the Alpha people, and the Seed of Corrosion was born through a parasitic container. The existence of godless blood.

Under normal circumstances, the strength of the native species is the most powerful among the eroding species, while the initial strength of the parasitic species is affected by the container itself, and the mutant species are not within the scope of conventional calculations. Similarly, predation behaviors after birth are not included. A growing individual.

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

But native species are much more likely to mutate than parasitic species. 】

[PPPS has been feeling very unwell recently, so I feel that I am not particularly satisfied with what I wrote, and there are probably a lot of typos. I hope everyone can forgive me.

It will be three months since the last bone puncture, and I tentatively plan to return to the hospital for a review next week. Because I need to be hospitalized for a bone marrow puncture, I may ask for a day off, and I will issue a separate chapter to explain it. 】

(End of this chapter)