Alien Relic Hunter

Chapter 808 The Tower of Babel

"So, this is the only way I can save my companion?" Ke Lan asked the tile.

"Yes." The other party gave an affirmative answer.

"What's in Tongtian Tower?" Ke Lan asked again.

The tiles are silent.

"Can't you tell me, or your database doesn't have relevant data?"

"There is no corresponding data, so I can't answer." The tiles are quite cooperative this time, but I don't know whether it is true or not.

It's no joke that artificial intelligence can lie... let alone an artificial intelligence developed by the Alpha civilization.

The other party must have concealed some crucial information from him. Unfortunately, the principles of smart devices of Alpha civilization are completely different from those of human civilization. Even if Ke Lan's hacking skills are superb, he can't hack into this floor tile after all.

"Then let me enter the Tongtian Tower, is it also part of the night watchman's plan?"

"..." Tiles continued to remain silent.

"If you don't answer, I will take it as your default." Ke Lan said.

Floor tiles are selected by default.

According to the logic of this "Narrator Type III Automatic File Storage", any information related to the Night Watchman Project cannot be disclosed to Ke Lan, a "symbiont", but the paradox is that this plan must have Ke Lan, a "symbiosis", "Bio" cooperation can go on, and, for many things, even if the floor tile chooses not to answer, Ke Lan can already guess the answer.

Ke Lan knows that if he continues to ask about this matter, he will only continue to choose to respond with silence. Instead of guessing about things that are still relatively distant now, it is better to focus on the present——

"Is there any danger in Tongtian Tower? If I go in, will I be killed?"

"There are eight trial procedures in the Tongtian Tower. If you can pass these eight trials, the strength and character of the symbiote will be recognized, and the control of the Tongtian Tower and the foggy forest will be transferred to the symbiote. The night watchman plan The next stage will also be opened at the same time." Floor Brick replied.

"Then what if I can't pass these eight trials?"

"That means that the symbiont is unqualified and needs to be rebuilt."

"Returning to the furnace and rebuilding? What kind of rebuilding method?"

"Throw it into an organic matter decomposition furnace and restart cultivation from the embryonic stage."

Ke Lan pursed her lips, this is really a fucking literal "reinvention"...

As if worried about Ke Lan's backing down, Floor Brick suddenly threw out another heavy "bait": "If the symbiont successfully passes the eight trials, when the next stage of the Night Watchman Program starts, the symbiont will be automatically killed. Absorbed as a member of the night watchman, get the same authority as all night watchmen."

"That is to say, if I can pass these eight trials, those restrictions will be lifted, and the truth of the whole plan will be revealed to me?" Ke Lan froze for a moment, he had to admit that this bait is very attractive... But with the lessons learned from the Undead Crew, it was hard for him not to wonder if this was a trick set by an Alpha man.

"Yes, if you pass the eight-way test, it proves that you are not in danger of 'super-eclipse' for the time being, and you can be trusted."

It seems that the content of the trial should be related to his own erosion level, which made Ke Lan a little interested-for him, his own erosion level and critical value have always been an unpredictable mystery. I was already so close to crossing the line, but in the end, "nothing happened".

That's certainly not a bad thing, but it's definitely not a normal thing either.

"What does the night watchman's authority include?" Ke Lan asked again.

Now that you have decided to venture into the Tongtian Tower, you still need to figure out what the "final reward" is... Don't try your best to climb to the top of the tower, only to find that the so-called authority is just a word game, that would be a bit ...

"Until you are approved, this information cannot be opened to you." Floor Brick replied.

Then I'll change the way of asking, Ke Lan muttered in his heart, and pieced together a new question with characters: "In the past, in the Alpha civilization, how many night watchmen were there in total? This can always be said, right? "

"The historical peak of the number of night watchmen is 470 five people." Floor Brick replied.

so much?Ke Lan was stunned for a moment. Compared with the Undead Crew Club, which only has more than 20 members, the number of this Night Watchman organization is almost equivalent to a reinforcement division of the Field Corps.

"Is this the highest number of people existing at the same time, or the total number of people who have joined the Night Watchman in history?" Ke Lan confirmed to Shi Ban.

"The highest number of people exists at the same time. The night watchman organization has always maintained a scale of more than 10,000 people." Floor Brick explained to Ke Lan, "But due to the existence of erosion, the average remaining survival time of each night watchman after joining the organization Only two to three years, every ten days, the night watchmen need to measure the degree of erosion, and the night watchmen who are close to the danger threshold will be disposed of immediately through a series of "safety procedures"... Even if some night watchmen have been corroded Very low, and the maximum number of years to become a night watchman cannot exceed ten years."

"What happens after ten years?"

"Erosion deemed to be approaching the critical threshold."

Ke Lan suddenly understood why there are so many night watchmen... These people seem to have higher authority than other Alphas, but they are actually a group of consumables destined to be sacrificed.

In order to prevent the "great god" from spying on the plans of the Night Watchmen, they defended this secret in a way that sounded quite tragic.

When an Alpha is selected as a night watchman, it means that its life has already begun to count down.

"But some night watchmen have survived for more than ten years, right?" Ke Lan couldn't help but think of the Alpha man that the 776 special team encountered in the wreckage of No.90 No. [-] engine. It should have stayed in that ghost place for a long time, right?
Among other things, there must have been at least ten years... At least after the Ark landed on Planet Alpha, humans have never observed traces of Alpha people's activities on the surface of the planet, if there is a handover ceremony between the night watchmen , whether there is an alpha person coming out of the wreckage of the engine or someone going in from outside, the drone of the ark should be able to find some clues.

At least one thing is certain, there should be only such an Alpha person in that ruins, and it had already stayed there before the Ark landed on Planet Alpha.

"Because of some special reasons, there are indeed night watchmen who have exceeded the number of years of survival." Floor Brick replied, "But these night watchmen will not be recognized by the night watchman organization, and their authority will be withdrawn. Once discovered, the night watchman The forces under the organization's jurisdiction will immediately execute the obliteration process."

"If you have lived for ten years, even if you don't have 'super eclipse', you must die. Not dying is considered a betrayal... Can I understand this?"

"can."

Ke Lan took a deep breath. He originally thought that the nature of the Night Watchman organization and the Undead Crew would be very close, but now it seems that the nature of the two is completely opposite.

The undead crew members want to firmly control the power of the entire human civilization in the hands of more than [-] immortal people, and this night watchman organization is more like a group of martyrs, they trudge forward in the swamp of the night... Some people fell and were swallowed by the mud, but new members continued to join...

The walking night watchmen hold high the only torch that can shine in the dark night. Whenever the old night watchmen fall down, they will pass the torch in their hands to the new night watchmen...

Ke Lan couldn't help but see a scene in front of his eyes: countless people in black robes and black hoods lined up in a crooked queue, and the road ahead was full of people lying around... But these people were not Corpses, but sleepers who are sleeping soundly.

The night watchmen in black robes held up the torches, driving away the surrounding darkness and the things hidden in the darkness, but their physical strength seemed to be exhausted very quickly, and they would fall to the ground after walking a few steps, no longer Move...but as they fell, one of the sleepers kept waking up, picking up or taking the torch, and moving on.

They seem to have walked this road for tens of thousands of years, and they will continue to walk.

No one can see where the end is, maybe... there is no end at all.

"Is the status and authority of every night watchman equal? ​​Is there a leader in the night watchman organization?" Ke Lan asked again.

"The status and authority of each night watchman are completely equal, and there is no leader in the night watchman organization." Floor Brick replied.

"There are more than 10,000 night watchmen, wouldn't there be differences in opinions?" Ke Lan was a little puzzled. There were factional struggles within the Undead Crew, a small organization with only about 10,000 people. This more than [-] night watchmen In his view, it is almost impossible for everyone to work together.

"There is no corresponding information in the database, and this question cannot be answered."

Just when Ke Lan was about to ask something, a beam of light suddenly lit up on the floor tiles, enveloping his whole body—not just the tile under his feet, but also the tile that Ze Luo and 33 were stepping on It also lights up.

"What's going on?" 33 looked around vigilantly, and hundreds of black flying blades flew out from various hidden pockets on his body, surrounding him.

"It's teleportation." Zelo said, "The space around us is distorting."

"Ke Lan, where is this thing going to send us? Should we avoid it?" 33 asked loudly.

"It's best not to act rashly." Ze Luo said, "This teleportation device may be activated at any time, if at that time half of your body is within the teleportation range and half is outside the teleportation range..."

"What will happen?"

"Only send half of the people to the target location, and the remaining half of the people stay where they are."

"Where are you going to teleport us? In the Tongtian Tower?" Before the teleportation device was activated, Ke Lan quickly moved the characters on the floor tiles.

"Yes, the stored energy is about to be exhausted, and the transmission must be completed before the energy is still enough to activate the transmission device." Floor Brick replied.

Ke Lan turned his head and glanced at the Tongtian Tower in the center of the square. This tower has no doors or windows, and there seems to be no other way to enter the tower except teleportation.

Before Ke Lan could ask the next question, the surrounding scene suddenly changed.

The three of them seem to have been teleported to a huge mirror with almost no borders. The mirror under their feet reflects the reflection of the three people, as well as a round of... "moon" hanging in the air and exuding a cold white light?
"Where is this?" 33 stood on the mirror, not daring to move at all.

"In that tower." Ke Lan replied.

"The tower? The tower standing in the middle of the square?" 33 was stunned for a moment, "I didn't expect that there was such a scene inside... By the way, what did you say to that floor tile just now, why did you teleport us all of a sudden? came in?"

"Brick said that I need to pass the eight trial procedures. If I pass, I will be able to gain control of this tower and the gray mist forest, release Asano Akira and the others, and at the same time tell me the biggest secret of Alpha civilization... Of course, I don’t know whether what it said is true or not. As for you... Although it didn’t mention it, it’s probably not forbidden to bring assistants when you come to the trial program, right?”

"But if you want to save other people, you have to believe it, don't you?" 33 shrugged helplessly, "By the way, what if you can't pass this trial? What will happen?"

"Destruction of humanity."

"...Actually, I almost guessed it. There's no fucking way back." 33 spat forcefully on the ground, but when the saliva touched the mirror, the reflection in the mirror spit out It passed through the mirror strangely from bottom to top, and went straight to the front of 33.

Before 33 could even react to what happened, his fighting instinct had already made him manipulate a black flying blade to block in front of him, intercepting the spit.

"What?" 33 was obviously taken aback, "The spit I just spit was bounced back by the floor?!"

"It wasn't bounced back." Ze Luo pointed to 33's feet, and the spit he just spit out was still on the ground like a mirror.

"The spit that attacked you was spit by 'it'." Ke Lan looked at the reflection of 33 in the mirror.

"My shadow?" 33 stared at the reflection in the mirror in surprise, and the reflection in the mirror also stared at him with "a look of surprise".

"Zero, I'm going to do an experiment, and I need your help." 33 pulled out the gun at his waist, and pointed the muzzle at his reflection.

And Reflection also pulled out his gun and pointed the muzzle at 33.

"If, later, I shoot and a bullet flies out of the mirror, help me block it, can you do it?" 33 said.

Zelo nodded.

(End of this chapter)