Escape the Infinite Chambers Chapter 173 - Ancient Remains (VII)

Chapter 173 - Ancient Remains (VII)

Editors: Humu & Kitty

As Luo Jian used these flames to clear a way out, the alien finally brought Luo Jian and company to the central control room. There was a display of giant computers and operating panels in a large room, wrapped in a steel-like sh.e.l.l.

When Luo Jian and others closed the heavy protective door of the control room, they finally blocked the insects that were hiding the skies and covering the earth. Then, Luo Jian and others cleaned up some insects that also crawled into the control room and finally got a short time for respite.

“It’s too terrifying. Even we are in such a mess. Will what Captain is facing be worse?” w.a.n.g Yue was very nervous. Although he kept talking, he did not stop working. He sat down on the ground and began to take out parts from his carry-on secret chamber. He predicted whichever crevices the insects might come out from and installed traps and defence nets on the crevices.

“You have a good hand in doing it.” The alien noticed w.a.n.g Yue’s actions and seemed to be smiling under the black helmet.

“I don’t know how long we’re going to be here, so we have to be prepared in advance…… When we can kill these monsters, we should kill as many as possible. I cannot help but wish the whole s.p.a.ce station is full of these traps. Anyway, I have a lot of parts, br.i.m.m.i.n.g full in my ‘backpack.’”

Different from w.a.n.g Yue’s busyness, Luo Jian stared at his weapon thoughtfully and fiddled with it from time to time. He was adjusting the temperature and range of his flamethrower, trying to turn the s.p.a.ce station within his reach into a sea of fire .

Alien Noen also began to do his work. He told Luo Jian and w.a.n.g Yue, “I need to restart the system in the control room. It takes a period for the system to self-check and to adjust. Looks like it will take about 10 minutes. During this period, if any insect comes into the control room, it may hinder me, so I’ll be counting on the both of you.”

“I know, I know…” w.a.n.g Yue squatted in the corner and installed a small range of fire ignition traps, at the same time, he stated, “This round we have to protect the NPC.”

Time was so tight that everyone’s nerves were stretched thin, and there was no time to breathe. The door to the control room had been tightly shut. The heavy doors of the s.p.a.ce station were all high-level protective doors. Once closed, not even a gap would remain. If the insects outside wanted to enter the control room, they must find another path.

At this time, the intricate ventilation ducts on the s.p.a.ce station became shortcuts for the insects.

Soon, Luo Jian and w.a.n.g Yue heard the insects crawling within the walls. w.a.n.g Yue was long ready. He set up numerous flame ignition traps and highly explosive bombs at the entrance of the ventilation duct.

He did not worry that he would blow up the entire control room because Noen had said that the walls of the s.p.a.ce station were made of special materials. The biomimetics could repair themselves endlessly. No matter how powerful the explosion was, the s.p.a.ce station would be destroyed only under one condition, that was, when all power was exhausted.

According to the plan put forward by the alien Noen, after they entered the lifeboat on the lowest level and escaped from the s.p.a.ce station, they would remotely start the self-destruction system of the s.p.a.ce station. The system would stop transmitting power to the s.p.a.ce station and use all the remaining energy to blow up the s.p.a.ce station into bits and pieces in s.p.a.ce!

The best way to escape was to destroy the swarms and nests of insects in the entire s.p.a.ce station. That was also agreed by Luo Jian and company.

But before that, they had to find their companions.

Luo Jian and w.a.n.g Yue guarded as they remained in front of the ventilation duct in the control room for 10 minutes, but 10 minutes seemed very long for them. Every minute, insects would crawl out from the duct. w.a.n.g Yue’s traps were triggered, but they still could not stop the insects.

But they could not weld the ventilation ducts shut completely because it was the only source of air. Noen said that every small room in the s.p.a.ce station was a perfectly sealed chamber. For special reasons, the walls would breathe like living creatures. If the ventilation ducts were sealed, the oxygen would be consumed quickly.

Suffocating to death was not a good way to die.

“Noen! Are you ready?” w.a.n.g Yue felt that he was almost unable to stand up. He was as anxious as ants on hot oil. There were as many insects as tidal waves. Some of them had already started to climb onto w.a.n.g Yue. w.a.n.g Yue felt that he had been bitten on his leg, and as a conditioned reflex, he took out the knife tied on his thigh and cleanly cut the insects crawling on him in two.

On the other side, Luo Jian calmly took his flamethrower to torch the insect pile. The flames became like a prairie fire, and the insects were destroyed patch by patch. The debris of the insects on the ground was paved layer by layer, almost forming into a hill.

What was worse was that even if these insects were dead, their remains still exuded a pungent and intolerable strange scent. That scent seemed to make people feel dizzy after smelling it for prolonged periods. w.a.n.g Yue was bitten two times by insects. He was the first to get inflicted, and soon he felt dizzy. It was as if the whole world was spinning around him.

“These insects seem to be poisonous…” After recalling that he was bitten, w.a.n.g Yue felt a little uncomfortable.

“If there are therapeutic injections in the bag, give it to yourself. It should last for a while. I’ll take a look at you when it’s safer.” Luo Jian squeezed out a brief gap of time to take a look at w.a.n.g Yue’s leg that was bitten by insects.

“Surveillance is on. I’m looking for the whereabouts of your companions.” Noen squatted in front of the supercomputer and knocked. Soon, he seemed to find something and said in a loud voice, “I found them!”

Luo Jian pulled w.a.n.g Yue up and pushed him to his back. “You go and have a look. I’ll keep them at bay!”

w.a.n.g Yue knew that Luo Jian, this brat, was a little too overpowered, so he turned around and headed for Noen. The giant computer displayed the virtual screen suspended in the air. It really showed how Captain and company were doing. Interestingly, Xing Yan chose a different road from the others. They took the waterway.

“How smart. Those bugs don’t like water.” Noen looked at the virtual screen and said, “I don’t know how they got down, but they were on the next floor, near the pump, which was originally used to drain water. The power room stopped working after the power supply stopped, so all the water is in there.”

“What can we do to get there!?”

“One way is to take the elevator down, but the elevator is a little far from here, and after getting down, there is still a detour to get to their location! The other is to blast a hole on the ground that can lead to the next floor, but…… considering that the buildings of the s.p.a.ce station have the ability to repair themselves, and the part.i.tion between the two floors is four or five meters thick, it is very difficult to do this…”

While Noen was talking and thinking about how to get down to the next floor, they heard a huge explosion sounding out from Luo Jian’s side. The explosion was akin to lightning that flattened the ground! As the blasts continued, the whole train station shook! w.a.n.g Yue subconsciously covered his ears because they had begun to ring. And now, for a short period of time, he could no longer hear any sound.

w.a.n.g Yue turned his head and looked at Luo Jian.

Luo Jian’s flamethrower had completely deformed. He had found a new use of the gun. When he tried to continuously improve the flame temperature of the gun, the color of the flame changed from ordinary red to wonderful blue-white flames. To Luo Jian’s knowledge, the highest temperature of this kind of blue and white flame could reach 4,990 degrees Celsius. That temperature was the highest temperature that modern humans had artificially created.

The temperature of the sun’s surface was about 6,000 degrees Celsius, and that was a terrifying number because at such high temperatures, all matter could only exist in the form of gas. Therefore, the so-called sun was a hot gas ball which continuously emitted its light and heat to the Earth.

Now, under Luo Jian’s gun, even the part.i.tion board with a thickness of five or six meters could only be blasted into a huge hole. The remains of the swarms of insects crawling around were not left, and they begin to evaporate as soon as they are burned by the flame! At this moment, the swarm of insects, which had been marching forward and surging forward like waves, seemed to be frightened by the shocking light and heat transmitted by the fire, and they even began to retreat.

Unfortunately, the power consumed by this high-temperature flame was also huge. Luo Jian could clearly feel that the strength in his body was being sapped away at an obvious speed, so he could not keep up with this manner of blasting for long. Soon, the flames extinguished themselves because there was no fuel. Luo Jian stood in the middle where even the walls began to melt. Under his feet was a huge hole burned by the fire.

“Very good, we can head down!” Luo Jian happily put away the flamethrower in his hands and looked down at the next floor under the huge hole.

Not hearing any response, Luo Jian doubtfully turned his head to look at Noen and w.a.n.g Yue, only to see the two standing there, both looking at him stupidly.

“What’s the matter?” Luo Jian also inexplicably tilted his small head, “Come on, let’s go while these insects have not come forth.”

Both human and alien were silent for a while, obediently went over, and surrounded the sides of the huge hole.

“I had belittled you previously, human child. What did you say your name was?” Noen looked at Luo Jian and raised his chest in embarra.s.sment. Luo Jian even suspected that his face under the helmet began to turn red: “We, the Polaris race, had always wors.h.i.+pped the strong, and you have my approval.”

“My name is Abyss.”

Noen nodded and exclaimed, “You look so small that I didn’t expect you to have such a powerful weapon. It’s estimated that this weapon is an independent type developed by you humans when you researched our biotechnology, right?”

Luo Jian thought of the history of Polaris, nodded, and said, “Indeed, this weapon was developed by combining the technology of your race.”

w.a.n.g Yue could not understand their conversation. Therefore, he could only look puzzled: “……” What the h.e.l.l are you guys talking about?!

In fact, it was also true that the secret chamber itself was a special system developed due to combining Polaris’s extraterrestrial technology with that of Earth.

It was developed to train future soldiers to learn and integrate this special autonomous weapon. Unfortunately, the secret chamber had fled ten thousand years ago to reach 21st-century Earth. However, the people living on Earth in this era did not have the physical quality and spirit to integrate these special weapons.

Even if the players were given these weapons by the secret chamber, these weapons would only be somewhat useful in the secret chambers. If they left the chamber and returned to the real world, their ability would be suppressed…… No, it should not be described as suppression. It should be said that this was the original strength of these players in reality.

Yes, Luo Jian thought that this was the purpose of the secret chamber. It just wanted to create a warrior who met the standards of the futuristic world. However, for modern players, the distance of 10,000 years was that of heaven and earth, unable to be coveredirreparable.

Because no one met the criteria, the chamber would not allow any players to leave the chambers permanently.

They had to keep fighting. And unless they became strong enough to satisfy the secret chamber, their only end was death.

“No wonder we lost the war. It turns out that you humans have become so powerful.” Noen’s words brought Luo Jian back to reality from his thoughts. He sighed with regret: “Although I understand the common sense of natural selection and that some species will eventually be destroyed, it is still hard to accept the thought that my people will disappear with the ebbs of time.”

After hearing what Noen said, Luo Jian turned his head and looked at the tall alien. The alien’s way of thinking seemed to be very different from that of human beings. They did not regard personal interests as supreme. On the contrary, they attached great importance to team interests and collective interests. Among Ying’s narration to Luo Jian, the most frequently heard sentence was—

“The collective interests of the team are supreme!”

The Polarisians were born to be soldiers. No matter old or young, women and children, all of them would take up arms. They were born as people of this race and would die for this race. Their personal feelings were quite weak, so they only acted for the sake of collectivity…… It was very different from the people of Earth.

Therefore, Noen’s view of things was not from a personal point of view. They did not value hatred, and they did not even feel sad when their companions were killed because they were a whole. When necessary, they did not even hesitate to allow their companions to sacrifice for the group, or…… these companions of theirs had already been consciously aware that they had to sacrifice themselves and even took the initiative to stand up and die themselves.

What a cruel and rational race!

Unfortunately, because they were too unified, if one of them encountered the same situation as Noen did, one would start to feel at a loss.

“Don’t worry, Noen. Now you’re our companion.” Luo Jian suddenly raised a smile and expressed his kindness to the alien, “We Earthlings may be different from you. In our concept, as long as we face the same enemy, then the enemy of the enemy is a companion…… We may not be as united as you are, but the advantages of humanity…… is probably that we are rich in feelings.”

“You can trust us.” Luo Jian continued to boost his morale: “We will get out of this place.”

“How amazing.” Noen said: “I’ve seen a lot of other humans during the war. You are all creatures filled with emotions, very demagogic, and very good at deceiving others.”

Luo Jian did not speak but just kept smiling at Noen.

Noen was defeated by the look in his eyes and seemed to have compromised, “I’ll believe you. Let’s move on.”

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“Captain, over there!” Jiang Li grabbed Xing Yan and pointed to a dry area not far in front where there was no water. It could be used as a temporary rest area to let them get away from the heavy, icy-cold, stagnant water.

Xing Yan swept a glance at the two teammates who followed him. Their hands and feet were cold, and their faces were blue. Although they felt that they faced a certain risk in their security here if they continued wading in the cold waters, if they met enemies, they would have no energy to fight the enemies.

“Go ahead.” Xing Yan nodded and agreed. The two members almost jumped up and cheered. They immediately climbed out of the heavy water, stood on the edge of the water source, and began to knead their clothes.

“When those insects were chasing after us previously, they didn’t chase us after we jumped into the water. I feel like they do not dare to head into the waters,” Jiang Li said.

“Since they are not afraid of fires and bombs, how can they be afraid of water? I think if necessary, those insects would even fill their corpses up with water,” Xing Yan said, “I’m afraid it’s not conducive to take action in the water, so they didn’t chase after us. I suppose there is more than one kind of insect here, so there may be some big insects that can move in the water.”

“Does it mean that even the waterways are not safe?” John asked as he pressed for an answer.

“Probably.” Xing Yan also felt a little tired…… They were now judging their location based on the distance from the elevator using their memories. They had to take the elevator to head to the next floor. Time was too tight. They were chased by a group of disgusting insects all the time. Even if they were Team Ghost Shadow, they still felt that at this moment, their spirits were weak but their flesh was willing.

Then, the worst thing they could imagine occurred.

“There’s something in the water.” It was not known who said that. All three of them turned their attention to the waters in front of them. The waters were very deep. If one descended down, the water could submerge one’s shoulders, only revealing one’s head.

At this time, many ripples surfaced on the surface of the water. There were some kinds of creatures spitting bubbles under the water.

T/N: Again, this is unedited. Edited chapters will be up tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Humu helped to edit this chapter