Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Wu Haibo’s exposition made Meng Chao deeply respect the Earth warriors on the relief sculptures.
It must be known that even today, half a century later, the superhuman warriors of Dragon City were still fighting monsters with crystal sabers and spirit guns. It was still soul-stirring and arduous.
It was really hard to imagine how the Earth warriors could stop the ancient monsters, which were even more terrifying than the current ones. They had just transmigrated and had yet to awaken their superhuman strength. Besides, they had merely fought with bayonets, grenades, and semi-automatic rifles that used ordinary gunpowder.
Meng Chao turned around with a solemn expression and bowed deeply to the Earth warriors on the relief sculptures on either side of the tunnel.
After passing through the tunnel, the temperature suddenly dropped by more than ten degrees, as if they had arrived at a cold storage.
However, ordinary monster flesh and blood specimens were not stored there. Instead, the specimens there had ferocious faces, and they were baring their fangs as well as brandishing their claws.
The first specimen was a lifelike human-shaped stone statue.
Aside from being pale and lifeless, it looked exactly like a human.
However, his right hand had obviously withered, revealing the white bones inside.
It was as if some mysterious power had turned most of the poor man’s body into stone. Only his right hand still kept the characteristics of a carbon-based creature.
Meng Chao suddenly thought of Lei Zongchao, the Battle God. Lei Zongchao had told him about a person who had gotten lost in the depths of the ancient ruins for five minutes. They had managed to dig him up but he had become petrified in an instant.
As expected, the corners of the stone statue’s eyes and mouth were so wide that they were about to tear apart. The word “fear” seemed to turn into black flames that were about to spew out from the gaps of the stone statue.
Even Meng Chao had never seen such a terrified expression in his apocalyptic nightmare.
Just that expression alone was enough for him to imagine how traumatizing the ancient demonic creatures were.
The lower half of the second specimen was an intact human leg.
However, its upper body had turned into a slowly-blooming man-eating flower.
Its scarlet petals were fat and thick, as well as covered in green mucus. Spike that resembled shark fins grew on the edges of the petals, and clusters of shiny, tentacle-like stamens sprouted from the middle of the petals.
Since the entire specimen was sealed at the moment when its vitality was at its peak, Meng Chao could apparently smell rotten and stinky human organs coming from the base of the stamens.
The third specimen was a deformed person whose body was not uniform on either side.
The left half of his body was reminiscent of a normal human.
However, the right half of his body was deformed and swollen. It looked like it belonged to a giant that was three to five meters tall. A large number of spirit tattoos were also apparent on the surface of his body. They were colorful, and he did not have a single inch of clear skin.
The deformed giant’s spirit tattoos were unlike the spirit tattoos that superhumans obtained through scientific cultivation, which were relatively stable and controllable. Theirs were like wild weeds that grew crazily. They emanated a chaotic, barbaric, and brutal smell that made people feel uncomfortable just by looking at them. It was as if some kind of chaotic power within his body was constantly expanding and eager to venture out.
There were also many other deformed specimens behind him.
They were monsters that normal people could not dream about even in their deepest nightmares.
Wu Haibo told Meng Chao that they were monsters that had been infected with the ancient bacteria. In other words, they were demonic dwellers.
Their display there was naturally to remind everyone, who entered the ancient ruins, of what dangers and mysteries they were about to face.
Meng Chao used the eyes of a veteran harvester to carefully study the ancient monsters.
He had to admit that their mutations were even more abnormal than the monsters that had merged the characteristics of reptiles and mammals.
Nevertheless, Meng Chao also observed a very interesting phenomenon.
He discovered that the physiological characteristics of many ancient monsters were actually very similar to the physiological characteristics of the ten thousand races in the Other World. He could see it in the memory fragments of his previous life.
For example, there was an ancient monster that was about 1.5 meters tall. Its skin was black, as though it was charred, but it was covered in scarlet spirit tattoos. Its canine teeth were also extremely sharp and hollow like needles. It resembled the dark elves and blood race in Meng Chao’s memories of his past life.
Also, the specimen that was small on the left and large on the right was extremely deformed and unbalanced. It was obviously a product of an incomplete evolution.
If the left half of its body had enlarged to the same scale, it would be almost identical to the overlords of the Other World’s northern part, the ice barbarians and ice giants.
Of course, compared with the Other World races that possessed primitive intelligence and medieval civilizations in Meng Chao’s memories, these ancient monsters were obviously more barbaric, crude, and unrefined. They were more like the early experimental versions of the former, or rather… the relationship between primitive and modern humans.
“Interesting. Could it be that there is an intrinsic connection between the ten thousand races in the Other World and the ancient ruins?”
Meng Chao thought to himself, “Just by relying on the independent ecosystem of a planet in another world, it is certainly impossible to produce elves, blood race, Dragon Race, demon race, immortal race, magical human race, technological human race… There are hundreds and thousands of different types of carbon-based intelligent creatures that are completely different.
“Could it be that the so-called aborigines of the Other World are not real aborigines, but like us Earthlings, they were summoned here from their mother planet by a mysterious force that originated from the ancient civilization. Then they were infected with the ancient bacteria, so they slowly mutated and evolved?”
Meng Chao hid this question in the depths of his brain.
Following Wu Haibo, they passed through the last two specimens that had four or five pairs of bat wings, and their entire faces were covered by tentacles. After passing through a pathway and three layers of disinfection, they finally stepped onto a new lift platform.
The movable arc-shaped dome in front of the lifting platform slowly slid open to both sides.
Meng Chao’s eyes suddenly widened. It was actually a gigantic underground space.
“…”
Even though Meng Chao had mentally prepared himself for the mysteriousness and vastness of the ancient ruins, he still felt extremely shocked. He was momentarily rendered speechless.
At the peak of Supernatural Tower, the towering Battle God Palace that lived up to its name had already left him in awe.
The underground space was at least the size of dozens of Battle God Palaces. It could fit a small-scale town.
As the length and width were too large, man-made light sources were unable to illuminate every corner. The edge of the underground space was shrouded in a thin layer of fog, making it appear even more expansive.
Meng Chao condensed his spirit energy into his eyes and looked far into the distance. He could barely see the underground space’s rocky walls filled with densely packed, crisscrossing things that looked like metal pipes.
Those were not human-style metal tubes.
No, they were not tubes at all. Instead, they were the organs and nerves of creatures.
This place was like the body cavity of an enormous metal beast. They were merely parasites inside the body of the beast.
“Wait…”
Meng Chao suddenly felt that something was not right.
The length, width, and height of this underground space must have been more than a thousand meters.
How could a massive space that was at least a few cubic kilometers stand tall under the pressure of billions of tons of rock without the support of a gigantic pillar?
No, the more important question was, how could there be such a vast underground space beneath Supernatural Tower?
Meng Chao clearly remembered that the Supernatural Tower’s area was far from being as exaggerated as a square kilometer.
In front of Supernatural Tower was the Civic Square. On both sides were the office buildings of the Survival Committee. Behind them were the headquarters of a few super enterprises.
The people of Dragon City, who were meticulous in their calculations, not only filled the surrounding space, they also dug down a large number of underground buildings with beehive structures. In addition to the air raid shelters, underground shelters, and underground armories that Dragon City already had… It formed an underground world that was as complicated as a maze.
If they were to continue digging from directly below Supernatural Tower, they would reach the air raid shelters, underground shelters, armories, and armories within two to three hundred meters.
However, everything that Meng Chao could see was empty. Where were the underground buildings that should have existed in all directions?
“It seems that you have discovered the problem.”
Wu Haibo smiled and said, “The theory of a three-dimensional world can not explain the phenomenon of ‘overlapping space’that we saw. However, the ancient civilization that left this relic is most likely a four-dimensional civilization. Their method of modifying the world is completely different from ours.
“It’s like activated charcoal with countless tiny holes inside. If its internal holes were fully expanded, a mere gram of activated charcoal could expand to a thousand square meters.
“Perhaps, in the three-dimensional universe, a mere cubic meter could accommodate an entire city, or even an entire planet, after other dimensions were expanded?
“In short, the ancient ruins beneath Supernatural Tower and the underground space of Dragon City are not completely in the same dimension. You can simply interpret it as us not taking an ordinary elevator to reach hundreds of meters underground. Instead, we went through a new transmigration, transmigrating into an unbelievable alternate dimension.
“You can only enter this alternate dimension through a few spatial gaps that are similar to wormholes. If you were to stand in the Civic Square and excavate, you wouldn’t be able to find any ancient ruins even if you were to dig three feet deep. This is also one of the reasons why we went through so much trouble to build Supernatural Tower. It’s to maintain the long-term existence and stability of the spatial gaps.”
Meng Chao suddenly came to a realization.
No wonder he felt that the elevator had operated for too long, far exceeding the time it took to reach 100 meters underground.
Space folding and dimension unfolding, truly inconceivable!
“This place… is a space developed by the ancient civilization?”
Meng Chao looked around, somewhat dazzled. “What exactly is this large space used for?”
“Up till now, there’s still no clear conclusion. With the current technology level of the people of Earth, exploring the ancient ruins is no different from a blind person touching an elephant. Maybe it’s just like what I said at the project introduction meeting, Dragon City has installed a ‘transmigration engine’ underground. The entire city is a super huge universe ship. This place is naturally the ‘dock’ or ‘port’ to receive the universe ship.”
Wu Haibo smiled and said, “This problem is too unfathomable. It’s not too late to study it in the future. In short, this is now the largest black technology research and development center in Longcheng. Come, let’s go down and take a look. It’s a gift from Swire!”