The forest swallows the city, the plants take the place of the buildings, and the "spirit of creation" builds a splendid civilization of fire and steel, but it will only take some time for nature to wear these traces away-or even assimilate it all Be part of nature.
The civilization on this planet has faded for many years. This can be seen from the ancient and desolate ruins. Many ruins have not only collapsed, but also become the nests and territories of wild animals. Their builders carefully designed These things are used to demonstrate human wisdom and strength, but now these results can only benefit the birds and beasts in the forest, and these later "tenants" obviously don't care what their lairs were originally for.
Several wild boar-like alien beasts with bristly short hairs ran into the distance in panic, and disappeared into the depths of the dense forest in the blink of an eye. Animals with intelligence quotient scared the shit out of them. It seems that Nolan's previous judgment was correct: there is nothing threatening on this planet, and the beasts in the forest are not much more powerful than the tigers and wolves on the earth.
"The development of this civilization does not seem to be low. These ruins have a history of thousands of years, but they are still not completely weathered. Their material technology is comparable to that of Tanagus, or higher," said the driver. After the beasts, Hao Ren and the data terminal went forward to check an ancient heritage that was once occupied by those animals as lairs. It was a hemispherical metal shell that seemed to be some kind of large pressure vessel used to store dangerous liquids. It is now It is distorted and deformed and only half of it is left, but its strength has not changed much. After removing the rust on the surface, it is still hard and stable. "An alloy with a complex structure, high temperature and corrosion resistance, and good strength. "
Vivian stroked the rough rust marks on the surface of the metal container with her fingers: "Then how did they perish?"
"Maybe it's the eldest son, even if it's not the eldest son, there are countless reasons that can lead to the extinction of this level of civilization," the data terminal said in an emotionless tone, "civilization is very fragile, even if it can go to space, it's not much stronger. Diseases, wars, and natural disasters, when faced with these things, the resistance of most civilizations is actually not as strong as they imagined. It is still impossible to analyze how the original civilization of this planet became extinct, but this machine believes that in the ruins of the city There will definitely be more information over there."
Lily looked up and looked into the distance. Due to the occlusion of the jungle and the height difference of the terrain, she could not directly see the scene of the city ruins from here, but her special vision could still capture something: occasionally visible among the trees. Steel, or concrete fragments that were pushed into the air by giant trees, these things became more and more dense, which showed that they had actually reached the edge of the city ruins, but due to forest erosion, this part of the ruins was almost completely obliterated .
"I didn't expect there to be such a place in the Dream Plane," Hao Ren couldn't help feeling, "Mysterious star regions sealed off by space fractures, ecological planets hidden in corners, and ancient civilizations that have perished... Life is such a thing. It’s amazing, it always feels rare and precious, but it can always appear in various places.”
"Compared to feeling these things, I am more concerned about the issue of us being attacked in space," Vivienne frowned, "The attack was obviously aimed at us... but the drones had already sent us The jumping point has been scanned back and forth countless times, it is absolutely safe to illuminate the route, right?"
Mentioning this matter, Hao Ren's expression became serious: "That's right, the drone has scanned the jump point countless times, and before we jumped over, there were probes dropped by the drone moving in that area: The signals from the probes are strong, but they have never been attacked."
If Hao Ren hadn't confirmed the safety of the route in advance, Hao Ren would never take a spaceship and jump to an unknown galaxy to risk his life. The probe and the drone were tested in various ways for a long time, and finally something went wrong.
Hao Ren couldn't help but think that this was really a trap, and it was quite a clever trap, and it was very possible - there was someone controlling the trap behind it.
Or at least there is a complex and astute decision-making mechanism controlling this trap.
He touched his chin: "The storm in space later showed obvious characteristics of divine power, so it was driven by the power of gods, and there are not many beings who can mobilize this power. There are only three parties in the dream plane: Creation The Goddess and her guardian races are born with such abilities, and the Godslayers can also achieve similar effects through rune technology, and there is another... the 'Goddess of Destruction' that has been corrupted by pollution. As for the Lord of Madness , it does not have the IQ to lay out such a trap."
"The probability of the goddess of destroying the world is higher," Lily pondered. "The goddess of creation is considered to be a justice camp, and she should not do harm to others. The gods of the gods are actually being used as guns by both sides, and they have never taken the initiative." Quan, the Goddess of Destruction, she has the ability and motivation. And think about it, landlord, haven’t we always suspected the star map in Vivian’s head? In my opinion, it is the pit left by the Goddess of Destruction. Let’s Come here, this is the initiative to fall into the pit..."
Hao Ren frowned. Although Lily's thoughts sounded reasonable, he always felt a sense of disobedience, but he couldn't explain where this disobedience came from, so in the end he just Neng shook his head: "Don't rush to draw conclusions, wait until you understand the body of the divine storm."
In order to collect data on the local natural environment along the way, Hao Ren and his party did not move fast. They walked out of the forest after collecting enough data. When the first rays of sunlight pierced the clouds and fell on the ground, they stood The edge of the ruins of the city in the middle of the forest.
It was larger than expected. Nolan only had time to take a few silhouettes from unsatisfactory angles when passing through the air before. The scale of the ruins he could see was limited to the part visible from the air, but from a highland at the edge of the forest When you look down, the part of the ruins hidden by the forest is clear at a glance. It should have been a highly developed city in the past. Even after years of vicissitudes and disasters, traces of its glory can still be seen. Hao Ren saw that there were many tall buildings neatly arranged in the center of the city, and some hollow structures stood between these buildings. The buildings are staggered and connected, and the center of the city is a huge building in the shape of a quadrangular pyramid, which is magnificent and whose purpose is unknown.
All the buildings have been severely damaged, and the signs of collapse can be seen everywhere in the city. Although the neatly arranged high-rise buildings can still be seen, Hao Ren can also find that there are far more buildings that have collapsed than those that are still standing. many. This civilization has superb material technology, and the high-rise buildings they built are many times stronger than those built by people on earth. Just like the golden capital of Tanagus, a small part of these buildings can still stand after the end. Thousands of years or even 10,000 years, but even so, the power of nature has ravaged these strong man-made materials: the sprawling forest makes these solid steel twisted, bent and collapsed, and the giant trees from the inside of the building When it grows up, it pierces its branches through the walls of the building, making the whole building seem like a coat outside the tree trunk, and the dense tree crown expands and grows directly on the upper part of the building.
Bridges have become skeletons of vines, roads are broken and twisted together, this is the end of nature's counterattack after the end of civilization.
Hao Ren also saw two huge lakes in the ruins of the city. They should be caused by the collapse of the city's underground structure. The subway system or something else could not bear the weight of the superstructure first, causing the city to collapse and sink. These pits became a good place to store water. After the forest spread, the largest depression area also became a lake, which became a source of drinking water for animals.
The morning has come, and the world is becoming brighter. The sounds of birds and beasts make the ruins and the forest gradually lively, and a burst of "thumping" sounds have also joined the dawn sonata: Vivienne's little bat swarm Fly out of the dense forest and fly to all directions of the city to find things that may be valuable.
The data terminal rose to mid-air, ready to scan the energy response of the entire ruin group from the air: Judging from experience, as long as this kind of civilization has a short reaction time when it is extinct, it will definitely try to leave some traces of information, even if it is not deliberately done. It is also very possible that there are prehistoric relics such as databases buried deep in the ruins of a city of this scale. Perhaps this type of database can resist the erosion of time, and even keep running after thousands of years. This is what the data terminal is looking for. .
While waiting for more information, Hao Ren climbed up a nearby boulder and looked at the entire city and its surrounding scenery from a height. Suddenly, a sense of disobedience caused his gaze to stop in a certain direction.
"Landlord—" Nangong Wuyue shouted from below, "What are you looking at—"
"Come up and take a look, I always feel that something is wrong over there."
Wu Yue wagged her tail and climbed onto the big rock in twos and twos, then raised her upper body and followed Hao Ren to build an arbor and looked into the distance: "What's wrong?"
Relying on the increased height of her tail, she is much better than Hao Ren in grabbing the commanding heights...
"The vegetation over there is very sparse. The forest seems to have been cleared by something, and there are no intact ruins...not even a pile of high ruins," Hao Ren pointed into the distance, "It always feels like it's been bombed..."
"It looks like that," Wu Yue shook the tip of his tail, "So this civilization was destroyed by war?"
"No, it's not just that." Hao Ren frowned, "Even if the city was destroyed by bombing, after so many years, the forest should have filled up the bombed area long ago..."
He was halfway through speaking when he heard the voice of the data terminal suddenly sound in his mind: "Partner! I see something here!"
Hao Ren led Wuyue back to the ground and joined Lily and Vivian. A moment later, the data terminal also fell from the sky. The latter didn't make a sound, and directly projected an image shot at the sky in front of the four of them. .
To the northwest of the city, a sudden mountain range rises from the end of the forest and spreads out along the edge of the forest. The whole body of the mountain range is dark brown and slightly green, and its lines are not as sharp and angular as ordinary mountains. It looks quite round and smooth...
line
Hao Ren finally suddenly realized what was on the screen:
It was a tentacle, a huge tentacle that spread out from the depths of the ground like a mountain.