Alien Relic Hunter.

Chapter 577
Ke Lan touched the edge of the ravine almost silently, and looked down.

He didn't see the crowded scene as he imagined—the bottom of the ravine was very empty, and there were no traces of human activities at all. On the contrary, there were many caves on the rock walls on both sides that seemed to be dug by humans.

These exiles set up their settlements inside the rock walls instead of at the bottom of the rock ravines, so that the concealment is stronger.Looking down from the air, it is difficult to find abnormalities, whether it is observation with the naked eye or radar scanning. Unless the drone can go deep into the rocky gully to investigate, it is possible to find these inhabited caves.

And in the wilderness, there are countless rocky ravines like this. If drones are sent to inspect each one, it will be an extremely heavy burden—compared to the various threats on Alpha Planet, These mice hiding in the gutter are actually not that much of a concern.

In fact, as long as these exiles do not actively attack the transfer station and transport convoy of the Ark, and are not involved with heretical sects, both the security bureau and the military will turn a blind eye to their existence It's just that—it's just that as more and more exile settlements have "voluntarily" or "forced" joined heretical sects in recent years, the frequency of cleaning up exile settlements has suddenly increased.

In the past year alone, the Security Bureau and the military have jointly wiped out a total of 71 exile settlements, but there is no such thing built inside the rocky valley.

Not only because it is difficult to find, but also because the difficulty of building such settlements is too difficult for the exiles who lack tools and resources. Most of the exiles can only avoid the attacks of indigenous creatures and the ark by constantly migrating. There is simply no ability to build such a permanent stronghold.

Heretic sects are excluded.

Ke Lan knew that inside the Ark, especially in the upper class, there were a lot of secrets of heresy sects buried.With the help of these shadows, it is not difficult for the heretic sect to complete such a project - of course, this also shows from another angle that this stronghold definitely belongs to the sphere of influence of the heretic sect, not any A separate settlement of exiles.

Ke Lan noticed that there was a camouflaged AT-A1 "walker" biped mech lying on the bottom of the rocky valley. The mechas of the "Pacer" series, even the latest "AT-T5" model, are now veritable antiques.This series of bipedal combat mechas has been fully retired from the army ten years ago. Not only the manufacturers who developed this series of mechas have announced the discontinuation of production, but even those authorized third-party manufacturers no longer produce related parts. Accessories.

Most of the "walker" mechs were disassembled and recycled, and only a small part was sold to some civil organizations at a very low price after the weapons and armor were removed, and they were used as transportation or construction machinery .

The weapon armor of the AT-A1 "walker" that Ke Lan saw was not dismantled. The 25mm cannons installed on both sides of the head can easily tear apart most of the models equipped by field troops. power armor, and the heavy-duty flamethrower mounted on the bottom of the mecha can create a fan-shaped flame area with a radius of 150 meters and a range of about 120 degrees in front of the mecha-if there is no support from heavy firepower, If the marines rush into this rocky ravine rashly, there will inevitably be a lot of casualties.

The paint on the surface of this "walker" mecha has almost completely peeled off, replaced by a large amount of khaki mud smeared on the surface of the armor.After the mud adhering to the mech dried and hardened, it formed a perfect camouflage.Looking down from directly above, this "walker" mecha squatting there is like a big square stone.

The only flaw is probably that the corners of this "stone" are not round enough, which is a bit abrupt in the rock gullies formed by the weathering of rock crevices, but if you don't observe closely, you can't find this flaw at all.

……

The driver of this AT-A1 "Pacer" is a middle-aged man in his early 30s. At this moment, he is poking his head and squinting his eyes and staring at the slender observation window above the console—— As a trial model of the "Pacer" series of combat mechs, the AT-A1 is not equipped with an electronic monitor connected to a camera outside the vehicle, but uses a visual observation window similar to that of an old-fashioned tank.On the top of the body, there is also a periscope that can rotate 360 ​​degrees, allowing the pilot to observe the sides and rear of the body.

The reason for adopting such a design is simply because in the early days when the Ark landed on Alpha Star, electronic equipment was very prone to failure in some areas of strong radiation, and it was not as reliable as a purely mechanical structure.In that era, most of the equipment design ideas tended to return to the original and retro style. This AT-A1 "Pacer" was born in such a big environment.

However, this is not a shortcoming for the pilots of the heretic sect. In the absence of maintenance and replacement parts, the observation window with a purely mechanical structure is indeed better than sophisticated electronic monitoring equipment—for this AT- As far as the A1 is concerned, as long as the weapon and power system can still function, its combat effectiveness will not be greatly affected.

"No one should be able to find this place..." the driver of AT-A1 said to himself while turning the lens of the periscope slightly.

In normal times, his work is actually very leisurely—thanks to the fact that the van cockpit of the bipedal mecha is much more spacious than that of the humanoid mecha, he can even lay the seat flat and lie on the back of the chair Flip through the magazines brought back by some companions from outside.Unlike color magazines such as "Penthouse" and "Playboy" that most men like, he prefers to read some mechanical science magazines, and it is for this reason that he became the driver and maintainer of this AT-A1 .

He was born in the wilderness, and he has never spent a day inside "Noah's Ark" in his life. All his knowledge about mechas comes from self-study and dismantling the garbage picked up from the battlefield. He always felt that if If he could be born on the ark, he would definitely become a top mechanic—although he yearned for the ark very much, he didn't like the ark at all, and even hated this colonial spaceship that brought humans to this planet.

In terms of age, he is almost a descendant of the first batch of human exiles on Planet Alpha. In his memory, he has very little impression of his parents... His mother died when he was very young. As for his father Who is not known at all.

Someone once told him that his mother was a well-known scientist on the ark and had to leave the ark because of "academic persecution"... But what does this have to do with him?For a child who lost his parents, being a teenager is extremely difficult. Those who lived on the ark could not imagine how a child who was less than ten years old survived in the cruel wilderness of.

And this memory that he didn't want to recall became the source of his hatred—he hated everything and everyone from that ship, except weapons.

Because weapons can be used to kill, to kill those who come off that boat.

So when he learned of the existence of heretical sects, he joined the "Prophet" without hesitation.

He doesn't believe in any "great gods", but the powerful and mysterious power of the prophet is obvious to every believer... He just needs a leader who is strong enough to lead them to destroy the ship.Get the people on that boat out of their safe and comfortable rooms and make them feel what they've been through.

Just a few hours ago, the Prophet came to this secret stronghold with a beautiful woman in a coma. He felt sorry for participating in the operation in the molten mine area, but the prophet only threw him a word, and then disappeared into the depths of the cave with the woman.

"Be vigilant, someone may follow here."

Although he was somewhat disappointed, he did not dare to slack off in the slightest. He did not even dare to take a big breath for several hours, and kept staring intently at the one-inch-high observation window in front of him, for fear of missing any troubles.

Just then, something seemed to drip from the roof of the cockpit and hit him on the head.

"Huh?" The sudden movement made his shoulders jump violently, and his forehead and eyebrows knocked against the frame of the periscope lightly—"Ouch!"

"Hiss... what? Could it be that the cooling pipe that was repaired last week is leaking again?" As soon as the words came out, he was stunned—with his familiarity with this machine, he certainly knew that the top of the cockpit There are no cooling pipes at all, and even if the coolant does leak, it will not drip from here.

"Strange... what could that be?" He stretched out a hand and groped around the roof of the cockpit. Soon, he touched some viscous liquid.

"Could it be engine oil? It's leaking from the riveting seam...isn't that right?"

Not only that, but vaguely, he seemed to smell a faint smell of blood...

Strong uneasiness surged in his heart, he raised his hand to turn on the lights in the cockpit, and raised the two fingers stained with the "unknown substance" to his eyes——

The fingertip was stained with a bright red liquid, thick and sticky... He wasn't sure whether he had misread it or something like a hallucination. The drop of liquid on the fingertip seemed to be wriggling?

"Is this... blood? Fresh blood? No, it's cold?"

Before he could react, more liquid seeped from the crack in the cockpit roof and dripped onto his head and shoulders.

"What's going on? What is this?!"

He subconsciously wanted to ring the alarm, but his hand reaching for the console was forever frozen in midair—a sharp claw made of blood had pierced through his chest from bottom to top, and the sharp claw tip directly pierced through his throat.

Hot blood was sprayed on the console, as well as the magazine "Mecha Mechanical Construction" with the issue number of the sixth month of 929 in the new era, which was placed aside.

The bloody claw quickly returned to a flowing liquid state, and reversely penetrated back along the gaps in the armor plate.

All the blood was sucked back by a pale palm, and in a blink of an eye, this palm was covered with a layer of armor with the same texture as the bloody claws.

Ke Lan, who was squatting on the top of the mech, jumped down and landed lightly on the ground. He glanced at his right hand in surprise—he just wanted to try out the idea in his mind, but he didn't expect that the active armor could actually After detaching from his body, it recondensed into shape and successfully assassinated the target hidden in the mech.

And a weapon, Ke Lan always felt that this thing was like a monster parasitic in his body—maybe, the side effect of the "unknown" in Pan's mouth is that sooner or later this thing will awaken self-awareness, and then compete with himself for the body Control... Or, simply break out of the body, just like the mature "Seed of Corrosion"?
From the moment the fusion was successful, Ke Lan never regarded the living armor as his own power—he completely regarded the living armor as a hidden danger, a time bomb buried in his body.

But at that time, he had to "put on" this living armor... Threatening the lives of most people on the ark, including Ke Lan himself, the crew knew that this was simply a blatant conspiracy. Lan had no choice.

If there is a chance, he must find a way to separate this thing from his body, he doesn't want to be something like those "containers".

Since the members of the Undead Crew Club bluntly stated that they could not take the living armor out of their bodies, Ke Lan could only hope that he could find some useful clues in the ruins of the Alpha civilization... Maybe, the one in the bottomless sinkhole Can the big lizard that has been imprisoned for tens of thousands of years help him?
Of course, the premise is that Ke Lan has to find it first... This difficulty may be even more difficult than exploring a complete S-level ruins - who knows if the big lizard is still on this planet.

"Forget it, think about it later... At least for now, I still need the power of this thing..."

Ke Lan walked to the rock wall, found a hole at random and got in.

Although there are more than a dozen holes, large and small, on this rock wall, according to the information sent back by the scouting robot, the insides of these holes are actually connected together, and it doesn't matter which hole you enter from.

For fear of alarming the enemy, the reconnaissance robot withdrew after entering the cave 50 meters... so no one knows what is in the depths of the cave.

Even the walker mech pilot who "watched the door" outside didn't know that except for a few shallow caves on the outskirts of the ravine that were used for people to live in, those caves leading to the depths were connected to a huge The labyrinth, even the followers of heretical sects are not allowed to enter.

After walking not far, Ke Lan saw at a glance that this cave was definitely not a settlement for exiles, and it wasn't even dug out by humans—judging from the various traces in the cave, these caves probably already existed for quite a while. The long years, since this is the case, how could it be excavated by humans?
The deeper you go, the fewer traces left by human activities, and the less weathered and eroded the caves are. Those sharp corners and corners, as well as the passage circuits accurate to millimeters, are only advanced in the ark. Advanced engineering equipment can only be done with the assistance of computers.

"This place... Could it be an undiscovered remains of the Alpha civilization?"

【PS Thank you 2119233 for the 100 starting coins. 】

(End of this chapter)