When he opened his eyes, what he could see was an unusually wide and bright silver-white metal hall.
In this huge space that is more than 400 meters long and wide and more than 100 meters high, except for the streamlined flashing rune lights on the ceiling and four walls, there is nothing, nothing can be seen, everything is There was a void, there was no air in the entire hall, it was an extremely thin vacuum.
The size of the hall is really extremely huge. This is a proportion and structure that are simply unacceptable to ordinary humans. The sense of disharmony and the illusion created by instinct can make everyone in the hall feel as uncomfortable as entering the kingdom of giants.
And all around, the bright light released from the runes is a special kind of torture. The light waves containing special energy fluctuations stimulate the nerves of all the irradiated creatures, making them absolutely unable to sleep and falling into crazy exhaustion - not to mention Speaking of being in a vacuum, being unable to breathe is a fatal torture that most creatures cannot bear.
And right in the center of this vacuum hall, which seems broad and bright, but is actually some kind of special prison, there are five translucent crystal pillars standing, and on the five crystal pillars, five human-shaped metal cans are covered with some kind of The sealing array hangs in mid-air, unable to move.
"...where is this?"
Knight Clark opened his eyes blankly. He had just woken up from the shock after the failed teleportation. But when he opened his eyes, what the knight saw was not the desolate land of another world (which was the case most of the time), but an obvious It is the hall of civilized creations.
Soon, the knight discovered that he was now restrained by a magic circle and tied to a crystal pillar that was obviously a seal.
"You're awake. Sure enough, your mental quality is the worst among the five of us."
From the transmitter on the inside of the helmet, the voice of the cleric suddenly came out with a slight electronic sound: "Don't make any movements, keep your original posture, and pretend that you are still unconscious."
Although the knight was said to have the worst quality, it was only compared to his teammates who were casters. He also quickly realized that something was wrong, and then followed what the priest said, keeping his body still and pretending to be okay. In coma.
At this time, the five of them were all wearing the 'Alien Exploration Magic Armor' specially made by the Moldavian leader. This is a fully sealed, fully covered special full-body armor. The outer armor is forged from 'active metal alloy' , has a certain degree of self-repair and strong adaptability to the world. It will not melt due to overheating or become brittle due to overcooling. The inner armor is made of special 'self-repairing materials' obtained by analyzing the body of the legendary demon king. It also has unparalleled suitability. It can even temporarily assimilate with the wearer's skin, provide nerve induction, and become the wearer's body. part of the body.
For some reason, none of the five of them had their magic armor removed. It was precisely because of this that they were able to survive in a vacuum environment for such a long time. The self-circulating system of the armor allowed the team members to survive in the void for a period of time. Time, a mere vacuum really doesn’t mean anything.
"what happened?"
The knight felt something bad in his heart. He knew that he and others must have been involved in something bad again, so he quickly asked his teammates: "Captain, what are we doing..."
"You'd better rest for a while, I'll ask first."
However, the mage decisively interrupted a certain crow's mouth. He directly interrupted and said to the mana armor on the other side, who was also motionless and pretending to be unconscious: "Captain, you mean that we are now being attacked by a group of high-level aliens." Intelligent life has captured us, and now they are planning to torture us through all kinds of torture, asking us questions that we actually don’t know the answers to?”
"That's right."
The mage's tone was full of resentment, but the question was clearly organized, so Priest, who had been thinking calmly all the time, immediately replied: "That's the way it is."
"At the last moment of our teleportation, an inexplicable attraction sucked us to a weird steel altar. At that time, you were basically all unconscious. Although I was awake, I was also dizzy... And at that time, I saw A very weird alien life... came to us."
When he said it was weird, Priest's tone was a little weird. He used the communication function of the magic armor to send the image of the alien creature to the other four people.
This is a strange-looking crustacean creature that looks more like a spider—but it is definitely not a real crustacean creature.
They have gray-black carapace, sharp eight legs, disc-like bodies with obvious 'visual organs', 'mouthparts' and crab-like forelimbs... Looking at this alone, no matter how you look at it, it is just a certain creature. It is a kind of strange big crab, but the most important thing is not the body, but the mushroom-like object that 'breaks out of the shell' from the center of the disc body.
Is that a creature? Or a plant? Or is it really some kind of fungus? No one can confirm this without touching it with their own hands. Unlike the huge body, the fungus body looks relatively thin. If you have to compare it, it is probably as big as one finger and the entire palm. Its oval-shaped umbrella cover is flowing with obvious magical light, and the light shines regularly, proving that this is indeed an intelligent life.
"...It looks a bit like a parasitic fungus."
The well-informed alchemist expressed his opinion. He has been dealing with all kinds of strange plant creatures and fungi all year round, so he can see the specialness of this life form at a glance: "I don't know if you have seen it before, but there is a A fungus can parasitize an insect, control its movements, and finally eat it up completely... This thing looks similar, and the crab below is probably just a parasitized body."
"Indeed, when they interrogated me, they did use the fungi-like thing above as the main subject."
Priest took over and continued: "This alien life has extremely powerful spiritual power. It attempts to peek into our spiritual world while we are unconscious - but because the species gap is too large, the logic of thinking is also limited. It was completely different, it couldn't do this, and when it forcibly tortured me through mental communication on 'how to find them', I deliberately cut off the oxygen supply to my brain and passed out."
When he said this, Priest seemed to think of something interesting. He smiled and said through the communicator: "These alien beings seem to think that the 'magic armor' is also a part of our bodies, plus active metal alloys It does have some biological characteristics, so they have been tortured on the armor, whipping and cutting, and chopped off a few of my 'fingers', but they just didn't think of peeling off the armor - they seemed to think that this was us A species with a powerful body and extremely strong self-regeneration ability.”
In this regard, even in such a serious environment, everyone couldn't help laughing - sometimes, the gap between species and civilization is indeed large enough to cause such misunderstandings.
But soon, the topic returned to seriousness.
"These alien beings seem to call themselves 'fleets'. They should be sailing in the void and happened to pick up our failed teleportation."
Priest concluded: "Based on the known information, I can roughly deduce that they should be carrying out some kind of covert operation, so they are very nervous about our sudden appearance and have been interrogating us on how to find them."
"What should we do next?"
The priests speak concisely and concisely.
"Wait for the opportunity, collect intelligence, and after roughly understanding the situation, use the 'return beacon' to leave directly."
Priest didn't talk nonsense. He said seriously: "These alien creatures think that the armor is our body. It is impossible to analyze in a short time whether the things in the internal layers of our armor are necessary life-support organs - As long as these things don't pay attention, we can return at any time through the beacon."
"Although it's a pity that I have to leave without completing anything, knowing that such a special alien intelligent life exists is not without gain."
The mission of the External Exploration Department is ultimately to find colonizable alien worlds and worlds with valuable resources. At the same time, searching for alien civilizations is also an important task, whether it is a primitive civilization with great potential but still weak like the dragon people in the world of Kronos, or a huge and advanced alien civilization like the Star Sea World. .
Although Captain Kita has repeatedly reiterated that the value of the return beacon may be greater than that of the five exploration team members - this is just some kind of friendly joke, and it must be used. Thinking of this, Priest couldn't help but feel sad. I'm a little lucky. Fortunately, they happened to bring this thing with them this time, otherwise they would have been trapped in this weird place.
However, just when Priest asked the players to remain silent.
Buzz.
A dull hum sounded from one side of the hall.
A circular 'door' was opened.
A large amount of air was rapidly injected, and the turbid gas was mixed with gray-yellow spores, releasing extremely obvious magic fluctuations. In just ten seconds, the originally empty and pale huge hall was filled with air that clearly came from another world.
And a group of eight-legged fungi walked out of the circular gate and came to the five people who were bound to the crystal pillars by the magic circle.
This group of eight-legged fungi has arc-like magic shields rotating around them. They are not here for interrogation, but for other purposes. Everyone in the exploration team held their breath and nervously paid attention to the plans of these alien beings. While doing this, along with a wave of magic, five crystal pillars rose up from the ground and floated in the air.
The umbrella cover above the head of an eight-legged fungus flashed with a burst of magical light. This seemed to be some kind of spell-casting 'gesture'. Then, five translucent energy wires were connected to the crystal pillar, and it floated like this. The crystal pillar, and the five people on top of it began to move.
Ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta.
The conversation between the eight-legged fungi relies on some kind of weird and sharp hissing sound, or even some kind of ultrasonic vibration. What the human ear can hear is only a partial part, but at this time, whether it is Priest or No one else heard any neighing, and all the eight-legged fungi advanced silently and left the hall.
'Are they going to get rid of us? ! '
Through the communicator that came with the magic armor, the knight sent a text message to the group. You can tell from the punctuation marks that he was very nervous at this time: 'Cut us into pieces and throw us into the garbage dump, even into the heart of the magic engine... I heard that the lord Your Excellency threw a lot of monsters in there at the beginning, and those who died were miserable, miserable, and miserable! '
'shut up! ''Shut up! ''Shut up! ''You evil beast! Everyone, including Priest, was about to faint: "You crow-mouthed man, if you talk again, I won't let you go even if you die!" '
The eight-legged fungi were unaware of the exchanges within the expedition team, but they didn't need to know.
After leaving the vacuum-sealed hall that seemed to serve as an 'isolation prison', the five people, who had been proven to be free of infectious viruses and non-hazardous, were brought into a truly alien civilization environment by this group of gray-black eight-legged fungi.
Suddenly, all members of the exploration team forgot to communicate. They were shocked and immersed in the scenes they saw.
The huge prison hall is a rectangular metal cabin suspended in mid-air. Priest originally thought that it was big enough and a giant building that would be difficult for humans to adapt to. But what he didn't expect was that outside this hall, , a building like this is not worth mentioning at all.
—What a vast world this is
Above the hall, there is a rumbling, vibrating, and constantly reorganizing 'metal sky'. Under the hall, there is a vast and boundless 'Biological Continent' that can be seen as endless as a glance.
This is an artificial environment with a round sky. The half-metal, half-living 'sky' is constantly squirming. Fungi-like pillar-like materials form the main structure of the semicircular dome. At the top of the dome, a huge The magic sun lamp releases bright orange light, illuminating the flat land.
And the earth itself is a living, wriggling column of fungi. The earth is covered with all kinds of towering biological buildings. Structures like honeycombs are everywhere. Tens of thousands of eight-legged fungi move in and out of the honeycombs, carrying supplies and doing work.
The prison hall is a high-altitude extension facility located in the center of the world, a super-giant central hive. This group of eight-legged fungi took the crystal column of the seal exploration team on a cable car that looked similar to a pitcher plant, and then Just keep taking them forward.
Without any time to think, react or sigh, everyone present subconsciously turned on the photography function of the magic armor and began to record the surrounding video data crazily.
Priest felt that his eyes were not enough at all - at this time, the group of people had been taken into the giant central hive. The eight-legged fungi seemed to have no sense of confidentiality and allowed them to observe the surrounding environment at will. They were sitting on the cable car , enter an entrance of the hive vertically, and go to its very center.
And in such a short period of time, Priest observed countless extremely valuable intelligence information during the movement of the cable car.
It is a funnel-shaped white organ that is supposed to be an 'energy engine' by being filled with various organic substances and outputting a large amount of magic power.
Using magic to cut, load, and separate, there are processing chambers where dozens of eight-legged fungi work.
Grow some kind of plant, or be a production base for weird things that are half plant and half living thing.
In a translucent closed cabin soaked in a light golden liquid, one can vaguely see several eight-legged embryonic shadows floating in the cabin.
Priest even subconsciously forgot that he should hide his actions. He turned his head slightly and looked around, looking around the moving cable car. It was a unique scene of alien civilization.
As the cable car went deeper, he saw that the structure inside the honeycomb became stronger and stronger, similar to metal. He saw countless prisms made of crystal-clear material inserted into the fungus column, and it seemed that its growth and movement were being controlled through the flow of magic power. Priest discovered that the deeper into the hive, the brighter the light becomes. The self-illumination phenomenon brought about by the high concentration of magic power allows you to clearly see everything around you without any light source.
Not only Priest, but also the five members of the exploration team saw that white bacterial bubbles floating in mid-air began to appear around the cable car. The surface and interior of these bacterial bubbles were covered with obvious special symbols. The bacterium bubbles collide with each other and merge with each other, forming an extremely huge bacterium bubble from time to time. Then this big bacterium bubble rapidly divides and turns into thousands of small bacterium bubbles. They seemed to be conducting some kind of calculation and information exchange. Every time the bacterium bubbles merged and split, it was equivalent to a spark of thinking and inspiration, and a burst of magic chirped in the air.
Too huge.
If the giant hive is the size of a person, then the prison hall, which is hundreds of meters long, hundreds of meters high, is only as big as a human fingernail. Going deep into the center of the central hive, Priest felt as if he was entering the center of an extremely huge creature.
In the body of this creature, countless eight-legged fungi are moving back and forth, just like bees and ants, traveling between huge fungal structures one after another, working hard and tirelessly.
In the center of the hive, which was already bright enough to shine like the light of noon, the eight-legged fungus and the destination of Priest and his team had already appeared. A giant hexagonal prism 'palace' located at the bottom of the central hive.
'The Court of the Shepherds'.
I started to let myself go
(End of chapter)