Book 10: Chapter 43: Ruins Exploration

The Paranto dimension had an atmosphere, but the Bingren Mecha still flew very fast. Soon, Qin Lun and the others saw the ancient ruins that were in the projection records.

Except for Bobby who was merged with the Advancing, all nine other members of the Patroller Team came. The Bingren Mecha piloted by the Gith Flight Officer lost some in the Cosmic Octopus battle, and there were now over twenty left.

Because all mobile forces left, the Gith Ordnance Officer on the Advancing urgently repaired the warship’s APB field. Although the weapon system was not fixed yet, it was enough to hold out until Qin Lun and the others returned if attacked. For a short time, they did not need to worry about their safety anymore.

This ancient ruins was located in the center of a continuous mountain range. The ruins covered a very large area. Looking down from the sky, the entire mountain range was transformed by some great power. In the very center, there was a square funnel, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, shaped like an inverted pyramid.

The four walls of the funnel pyramid were made of countless giant steps. At the very bottom was a small stone platform with nothing on it. What caught everyone’s attention was not this stone platform, but the dozens of square tunnels exposed on the four walls.

Perhaps because the Angel Race had large bodies, most of these tunnels could allow four Bingren Mecha to enter side by side. The height was also enough for the mecha to fly off the ground, not feeling too cramped.

“This place seemed to be a base before. We should gain something.” Robin’s voice came through the team’s communication channel. “But it’s well preserved, so there might be defenses left by the Angel Race. Everyone, be careful.”

“There are many tunnels. Let’s split into three teams to enter!” Qin Lun divided the nine Apostles into three groups. He took Frank and Sawa and flew first towards a tunnel entrance at the top of the ruins.

Although Frank was an MT and Sawa was a healing Apostle, their strength was different from other Second-Order Apostles. It was most suitable for him to take care of them.

“Release the probe robots!” Qin Lun ordered Alex beside him.

Alex nodded, descended near the tunnel entrance, and a hatch opened on the shoulder of the Bingren Mecha. It launched several silver metal balls. Before hitting the ground, a glowing observation lens extended from the front of each ball, and thin metal wings popped out on both sides, making a buzzing sound as they flew into the dark tunnel.

At the same time, the shared video from the spherical probes appeared on the Bingren Mecha’s display screen.

Qin Lun and the others did not leave anyone outside the ruins. This ruins was huge, almost as big as a giant city. Also, there were countless tunnel entrances. Even if an enemy team attacked, they could not block all exits. Therefore, they just left some warning devices in hidden spots outside and all entered the ruins.

“Strange, I saw the ruins projection of the Gith Angel on the original Gith Star on the Faith. Those ruins had high technology, but here we don’t seem to see high-tech products. The stone walls of the tunnels are basically part of the mountain.” Sawa, who had an archeology background, seemed quite excited after entering the ruins. She stared at the images from the spherical probes and muttered to herself along the way.

“Huh? Did the probe robots have a problem?” Vera at the front of the team exclaimed in surprise.

Qin Lun frowned slightly. He also saw what just happened. The probe video just shook and then went completely black. Moreover, several spherical probes malfunctioned at the same time, which was clearly not normal.

“Sir, should we release another batch of probe robots?” Alex asked seriously.

“No need. Frank, you go first!” Qin Lun shook his head. The situation just now was too strange. Since the first batch of probe balls didn’t find anything, releasing another batch probably wouldn’t help either. The interior of the ruins was still very large, so probe robots needed to be used sparingly.

“Okay, young master!” Frank lifted his Qiongqi Bone Shield, stepped forward from the group, and walked at the front. Meanwhile, several furry tentacles grew on both sides of the Seventeenth Fallen Angel’s head; they were the Multieye Bramble Horn transformed from the Holy Thorn.

“Frank, be careful. The corner ahead is where the probe robots had the accident!” After walking some distance, Qin Lun reminded softly.

“Mhm!” Frank acknowledged, landed on the ground, held his shield in front with the mecha’s right hand, bent his waist, and carefully moved towards the corner.

“Stop!” Qin Lun suddenly had a creepy feeling and shouted without thinking.

“Tsss…” Before Qin Lun finished speaking, white smoke rose from the bone shield in Frank’s hand. The hunchbacked servant’s Bingren stood frozen in place. After a few seconds, it slowly retreated back to the others.

“Clang!” Alex seemed to have found something. He drew the magnetic resonance knife equipped on the mecha and dug out a few dull gray cylindrical objects from the stone walls on both sides of the tunnel.

“It’s an antimatter ray device with built-in sensors!” Alex looked at the cylindrical object in the mecha’s hand for a while and said in surprise, “After such a long time, these little things can still work.”

“No wonder the earlier probe video showed nothing unusual. The antimatter ray has no brightness, blending with the surrounding dark environment.” Vera picked up a few fragments of the probe from the ground at the corner and marveled.

Frank looked down at the deep marks on his Qiongqi shield, a trace of lingering fear on his honest face.

Due to technological limitations, the APB field of the Bingren Mecha was not very effective against antimatter rays. If he hadn’t stopped just now, his mecha would undoubtedly have been cut into several pieces by the antimatter rays. If one ray crossed the cockpit, whether he could survive would depend on luck.

“Too bad Sherlock didn’t come. He would be most interested in this kind of thing!” Alex put the antimatter ray device into the mecha’s equipment compartment. The Gith didn’t know much about antimatter technology, so this thing had great research value if taken out.

“There should be other mechanisms ahead. Take turns releasing the spherical probes, two at a time to save usage.” Qin Lun thought for a moment and said, “Also, the three groups should use different probe views to reduce the risk as much as possible.”

“Sir, the communication signal inside the ruins is very poor. I can’t notify the other two teams about the situation here.” Sawa suddenly said with a grim expression.

“Forget it. I hope they don’t lose people because of this.” Qin Lun sighed and led everyone to continue exploring forward. But after this incident, no one had the relaxed mindset from before. The team atmosphere unconsciously became tense.

As time passed, Qin Lun felt they had gone deep into the mountain interior of this ruins. It wasn’t entirely mountain stone walls anymore. Some sections began to have metal composite material structures. They were not far from the core location of this ruins.

Although they were approaching an important part of the ruins, defensive devices like the antimatter rays did not appear again, which made everyone secretly relieved.

“Sir, look!” Vera suddenly shouted excitedly.

“I see!” A gleam flashed in Qin Lun’s eyes. The video from the probe robot showed a huge metal gate. They had finally reached the end of this tunnel.

“Zap!” Right at that moment, a dazzling white flash appeared on everyone’s projection screens, and the entire screen went dark.

“The probe robots were destroyed by something again!” Sawa screamed.

“Release another batch. This time increase the number. You all increase the output power of your APB fields. I estimate this time it’s not a fixed defense device.” A shadow fell over Qin Lun’s heart. His eyesight was the strongest among everyone. He vaguely saw something unusual in the white flash just now, but it happened too suddenly, and he wasn’t sure what he saw.

“Click, click, click!” Not long after the second batch of probe robots was released, some strange sounds came from deep within the tunnel, seemingly extending towards them.

The second batch of probe robots was soon completely wiped out again. But this time, everyone saw a more complete picture. The things that destroyed the probe robots seemed to be some strip-like objects, accompanied by intense electric light.

“Defensive formation!” Qin Lun strode forward, took the Qiongqi Bone Shield from Frank, and stood at the very front of the team.

The team waited quietly for a while. The strange sounds from the opposite side grew louder. With the help of the Bingren Mecha’s searchlights, they finally saw the objects rapidly approaching.

“What is this thing?” While seeing the strange objects clearly, everyone’s vigilance also reached its peak.

The object on the mecha screen was a monster robot with over ten metal tails. Its shape was like a tadpole enlarged countless times, except its tail wasn’t just one but over ten, crawling by grabbing the tunnel walls like tentacles.

The tadpole robot was very large, half the size of the tunnel’s cross-section. With over ten metal tails or tentacles, it almost filled the tunnel, forcing everyone to face it head-on.

The robot crawled very fast and instantly reached in front of Qin Lun. A tentacle with dazzling electric light whipped towards the Seventeenth Fallen Angel. “Smack!” Before Qin Lun could even see the tentacle’s path, he felt the mecha shake and was directly sent flying by the tentacle.

“Shoot!” Qin Lun only felt his hand lighten. The extremely hard Qiongqi Bone Shield shattered into pieces. He even glimpsed with the corner of his eye that the shield was scorched black.

“Bang, bang, bang!” The Seventeenth Fallen Angel that was sent flying swept through a row of mecha like a bowling ball. The glow of APB fields rose and fell one after another. The mecha that were hit all bounced far away, embedding into the tunnel’s stone walls.

The remaining lucky ones quickly raised their guns and fired. The tunnel was instantly filled with the dazzling light of particle beams. But they were soon stunned. The surface of this tadpole mechanical monster showed a transparent mirror-like effect similar to an APB field, defending against all particle beams.

The only effect of the particle beams was to push it back a bit, without causing real damage.

“It’s really tough!” Qin Lun climbed out of the dent in the stone wall. The mechanical pack on his back fully opened, and four cylindrical metal objects ejected, hovering in front of the mecha.

“Spread out, leave it to me!” A trace of ferocity appeared on Qin Lun’s face. In such a narrow tunnel, the phased-array dense formation autocannon nicknamed “Cold Storm” would show its greatest power.