"It's at least three billion years old!"
Schultz frowned.
Schultz also swallowed and said tremblingly.
After hearing the meaning of Schultz's words, Lu Zhou nodded in agreement.
"...Earthquake!" Shultz shouted in the communication channel at the top of his lungs. Schultz grabbed Vernal who was lying on the ground. "Get up! Let's get out of here."
Like a peristaltic esophagus...
Schultz opened his mouth, and after a while, gave an ambiguous evaluation.
"What did you find again?"
Schultz frowned, not quite understanding what Professor Vernal wanted to say.
Schultz was also getting up from the ground, and he raised his hand with difficulty. Although he looked as embarrassed as him, fortunately, he was not seriously injured.
Professor Vernal's face was full of panic, and the original calm expression was gone at all.
"The difference is that our location is getting deeper and deeper. The rocks here tell me that seawater intrusion occurred here three billion years ago, or even earlier. Hundreds of millions of tons of seawater poured in Entering here, the terrifying pressure tore apart all the artificially designed structures in this passage. It took hundreds of millions of years for this area to completely dry up, and the fruit was exposed on the surface, allowing it to be eroded by wind and sand... etc. wait."
"The sand here is new..." Professor Vernal looked around, "At least it's much newer than the ones we just saw."
"Let's split up."
Hearing this sound and so on, Schulz subconsciously stopped.
"Don't worry, young mathematician, we can definitely go back... I'm just making an academic assumption. We who study archeology have a relatively indifferent view of decades of life, so please don't worry about it."
The two people leaned against the wall, their faces filled with joy of surviving the disaster and expressions of shock.
"You saw... my shovel could only leave a scratch on it. Not to mention knocking off a piece, my hand was almost dislocated by the shock."
Finally unable to bear it any longer, he asked.
With Professor Vernal's professional qualities, it should not be difficult to complete this task.
Schulz looked uneasy and added in a corrective tone.
“Jesus…”
"I'm afraid it's difficult to do," Fan Tong said with a look of embarrassment. "The underground passage has a two-hour cycle and is always in a state of dynamic change. Even if we return along the original route, we may not go exactly as we came. Same path."
"Yet these are the ones I have."
"If you can't go back the same way, then just meet up in front," Lu Zhou looked ahead. "Since all roads end at the same place, it's the same if we meet at the opaque wall."
Through the dusty masks, they saw the surprised and uncertain expressions on each other's faces.
"Are you sure there were traces of civilized activities here?"
When these words were spoken, the members of the expedition team all made surprised sounds. Except for Wang Peng and Lu Zhou, whose expressions were relatively calm, the faces of the others almost invariably showed expressions of surprise.
After taking a deep breath, Schultz stood up, looked at Lu Zhou and said.
"Damn! This is more than a thousand meters deep underground. Where can we escape?!"
Just when he was about to ask what happened, he saw Professor Vernal taking two steps forward, squatting at the base of the rock wall, grabbing a handful of sand and holding it in his hands.
"Yes, just throwing it on the ground or knocking it can easily produce debris..." As he said that, Professor Vernal picked up the multi-functional shovel in his hand and dug hard into the reddish-brown rock mass nearby, making a loud noise. There was a crisp sound.
He felt like he and Professor Vernal were like two headless flies, wandering aimlessly in this ruins.
"Professor Vernal and I will go together. You and I are both collaborators on the ABC conjecture proof paper. If an accident occurs... someone has to be there."
"The big problem... How was this sand transported here?" Muttered to himself, Professor Vernal's pupils were filled with disbelief, "It's like the sand that fell first from the hourglass and finally appeared here. On top of the sand pile...can you understand what I mean?"
"crisp?"
"... There are two possibilities, either we lost our way and passed here just now, or a certain section of tunnel on the surface was moved in front of us."
"The sand that fell first appeared on top..." Schulz frowned deeply, "How is this possible?"
In addition, as Schulz said, at least one of the two people must reach the deepest part of the ruins.
"Dear Germanic mathematician! Sorry, I didn't mean it just now... I was just a little excited to survive."
That's a shovel.
"I don't care, but I want to know, how long do we have to go?" Schultz glanced around, "In other words, based on your professional knowledge, what is there between the section of road we walked an hour ago and what's here? Is it different?"
Schultz: "Each one sounds like a dream."
Looking at the two forks in front of him, Lu Zhou thought for a moment and then said, "Let's continue along the passage on the right. You...or bring someone else with you and explore along the path on the left. If it's a dead end. If so, go back from the front and continue along our road, and we will meet in front."
It has been two hours since they went deep into hell, and the distribution of underground tunnels has completely changed. No matter it is the exit or the end of the maze, if you want to survive, you can only keep moving forward!
Perhaps he was awakened by Schultz's roar. Professor Vernal used all his strength to get up from the ground and threw the multifunctional shovel in his hand towards the rapidly closing rock wall behind him. , ran forward without looking back.
In the face of danger, the two people burst out with extraordinary courage and strength, barely avoiding the sand haze sweeping behind them and the rocks that collided with each other.
"Even if it's a violent tectonic movement... two hours is too short."
Getting up from the ground, Vernal panted, shook off the gravel and rubble from his body, and cursed.
Just as they passed through a narrow door-shaped structure, the scenery before them suddenly opened up.
"For some reason, the Martians dived into the bottom of the sea and built this tunnel to the depths of the underground, which is the ruins we are now in. Both the technology they used and their motives are so fascinating. Fascinated... maybe for that holy relic? I am more and more curious about what is at the end of this passage!"
There is no such thing as a way out.
"That's it. Schultz and Professor Vernal are divided into group A, and the rest are group B. We will meet at the front."
They had been walking for almost an hour, but found nothing.
"This, this is... what I just left behind."
After giving some supplies to the two of them, the group began to go their separate ways and continued forward along two completely different passages.
Unlike Schultz, Professor Vernal's tone was full of affirmation, even excited.
Professor Vernal laughed and said: "People who study fossils and stones are good at making up stories, especially stories from tens or even hundreds of millions of years ago. Three billion years, God... I have never seen anything like this. Ancient strata, even the strata of Mount Roraima are only 300 million years old. If you want to investigate such ancient strata on earth, you will probably have to drain the Mariana Trench. If I can go back, if I can Writing these findings into a paper will definitely break the world record!”
It's almost like being alive!
"It's not advisable to stay here for a long time... No one knows whether what just happened will happen again. Damn it, it was really two hours." Finally, taking a deep breath, Professor Vernal checked the oxygen reserve, and then looked at Shu. Ertz, "Let's go ahead, my gut tells me it shouldn't be far—wait, what is that?"
"This sounds like some science fiction story."
Standing up, Vernal carefully put the sand into the sample bag he carried with him. With an expression of surprise on his face, he pulled out a sticky note and stuck it on the side of the sample belt.
Then, he compared the depth value on the wrist-mounted computer, scrawled the approximate depth position on the sticky note with a marker, and then continued.
The two exchanged glances silently.
"We can only move forward."
If he remembered correctly, it was clearly the one thrown backward by Professor Vernal.
"I'm here, Shet... what did you just call me?"
However, the latter did not confuse him for too long. After putting away the multifunctional shovel in his hand, he continued with a fascinating tone.
If something happens to the other team, at least they have a second chance...
"This used to be a passage paved with alloy steel!"
Kneeling on the ground, Professor Vernal stretched out his trembling hands and picked up the familiar multi-functional shovel from the ground. His face was filled with incredible shock.
Seeing the stiff expression on Schultz's face, Vernal smiled and patted his shoulder.
The rock walls approaching at a constant speed seemed to be pulled by some unknown force, without giving people the slightest feeling of stiffness that rocks should have.
"No matter where you run away, at least it's better than standing here waiting to die! Now we can only move forward! Hurry, run!"
Although there is another option, that is, everyone advances and retreats together, and the road goes to the dark side, but what Lu Zhou hopes is not just to find the holy relic. On this basis, he hopes to learn from this relic. Collected more secrets about Martian civilization and the sacred relic.
The two continued walking forward.
Continuing forward along the narrow tunnel, Schultz looked around with a flashlight. If he had any hope of discovering traces of Martian civilization before, now this hope has almost been reduced to zero.
"I think so too, but..."
"We can definitely go back."
Standing up awkwardly from the ground, Schulz looked back with difficulty, and his pupils suddenly shrank to a point. I saw that the passage they had walked through before was closing in the middle in a strange manner.
Facing everything in front of them, the two of them stood there in a daze.
"I'm very sure! The surrounding strata do not appear to be naturally formed, but some kind of special steel mixed with rare metals. A strip of hematite containing rare metals was formed under the action of long-term oxidation and mechanical fragmentation. Ore veins. You know, ordinary hematite is very brittle."
"Damn... I thought I was dead this time. Kraut—are you okay?"
"...Do we still want to move forward?"
Just halfway through speaking, Professor Vernal suddenly stopped.
“…the results are in front of us.”
Shocked by the recoil, Professor Vernal took two steps back and looked at Schultz and smiled.
Grasping Schultz's right hand, Vernal forcefully pulled him up from the ground.
Aubrey couldn't help but say.
Professor Vernal's face was also a little ugly, and his tone was full of doubt.
Before Professor Vernal finished speaking, a strong tremor suddenly struck from all directions. Caught off guard, the two of them almost lost their balance and were knocked to the ground by the sudden earthquake.
It is different from ordinary mine collapses.
Noticing his expression, Schultz followed his line of sight and looked in front of the two of them with a strange expression on his face. However, almost in an instant, the expression on his face froze.
Almost clinging to the closed rock wall, the two rolled into an empty grotto.
With incredible shock in his eyes, it took Professor Vernal a while to squeeze out a word from between his lips.
"Any questions?"
About ten minutes passed.
His eyes were fixed on the open space in front of him, completely forgetting what he wanted to say before.
"...How is this possible? The path we have taken has changed. Can it be haunted?"
Finally, the fear of death triumphed over the despair of nature.
Rubbles continued to fall from the top of the cave, making random clanging sounds on the helmets of the two men.
Feeling confused by his surprise, Schulz stepped forward and stood behind him, looking at the handful of sand in his hand, but he didn't see anything unusual. .