by <unknown>
After reducing the body size to the minimum with the bone-shrinking arts and crawling through a natural crack that was no thicker than a snake, they found themselves in front of a man-made tunnel that was more than thirty meters in diameter. It was dark and leading to nobody knew where.
The tunnel was in an oval shape, broad on two sides and narrow on the top and the bottom. There were obvious traces of manual work on the rocks nearby, but after thousands of years, they were getting smooth again, as if they were covered in a tough shell.
"This tunnel was not excavated recently."
Li Yao analyzed the current depth with a barometer. "We have descended to more than twenty-four thousand meters below the ground. In many places, this should be the boundary between the crust and the mantle. I didn't know that there was such a massive man-made tunnel at such depths.
"Come on and take a look at the traces on the wall of the tunnel. It'll be better if you sense them with your hands. Have you felt the patterns with tiny helices? It should be the sign of a certain shield tunneling machine or a gigantic drill. But judging from the size of the traces, it did not seem to be the magical equipment of the Pangu Clan or the Nuwa Clan because the traces are too small in size."
Long Yangjun was the first to understand what Li Yao meant.
The thirteen clans of the Pangu civilization were mostly enormous carbon-based lives, with an average height of more than twenty meters or taller. They were all overwhelming giants.
Therefore, the shield tunneling machines, the excavators, or the miners of the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan should've been larger in size, and the traces they left behind should've been broader.
From a lot of primeval relics, including the Kunlun relic, the debris of similar magical equipment of the Pangu Clan and the Nuwa Clan had been dug out. So, both Li Yao and Long Yangjun were very familiar with the size of similar magical equipment.
"Are you suspicious that this tunnel was excavated by human beings?"
Thinking for a moment, Long Yangjun remarked, "It was done by the Supreme Emperor or the Blood God ten thousand years ago!"
"If your guess is correct, that will be very likely."
Li Yao nodded his head and said, "Assuming that the Supreme Emperor's army and the Blood God's were really searching for something below the ground of the capital planet, they naturally needed to establish tunnels that were spacious enough for more troops and destructive magical equipment to be shipped in. Since Blackstar the Great had learned the secret, he certainly did not have to waste time digging a tunnel of his own. As long as he could find one of the Supreme Emperor's or the Blood God's tunnels in the past, he would be able to reach somewhere near the 'target' very soon."
"Fair enough."
Long Yangjun released her telepathic thoughts and examined for a moment before she brought everyone to the center of the tunnel. Pointing at the marks on the floor, she said, "Feel them."
On one of his knees, Li Yao touched the uneven floor carefully, sensing countless bumps in the shape of sawtooth.
"They were made by tracks, very, very broad and heavy tracks. Also, those tracks were in groups of six to eight, meaning that they were carrying a certain vehicle that had an astonishing load."
Li Yao said, "If they were caused by the Supreme Emperor or the Blood God's army ten thousand years ago, the marks would've been frayed by time and couldn't be as new as they are now. The marks of the tracks have been left behind when the floor is frequently rolled over in the recent year!"
Right now, they were finally certain that their judgment was correct.
As for the obvious contradiction that the height of the tunnel was only no more than fifty meters while the working surface of the ultra-huge shield tunneling machines was a hundred meters in diameter, it was not really a problem.
The ultra-huge shield tunneling machines seemed to be magnificent iron beasts, but they could be extremely fragile on the other hand, and every second of their working time mattered. Unless it was absolutely necessary, it would be best to minimize their working duration.
Dismantling the ultra-huge shield tunneling machines into thousands of units, shipping them to the spot through heavy vehicles, and assembling them again before they were put to work was the most efficient way of using them.
Knowing that the man-made tunnel must be leading to Blackstar the Great's "trump card", they were not surprised to hear the deafening noises as if a hundred thousand waterfalls were pouring ahead of them and see the Imperial Guards who had been armed to the teeth after sneaking forward for another two hours.
Not just Li Yao and Long Yangjun, even Li Jialing who had just finished one strengthening treatment could've taken down the Imperial Guards more than easily.
But alarming them in such a way was unnecessary. They chose a safer approach.
While everybody lurked in a dark corner of the man-made tunnel, Li Yao drilled a hole the size of a fingernail on the wall with Neltharion, which directly led to the heated working spot up ahead. Then, Li Xiaoming and Li Wenwen controlled abundant mechanical spiders and crawled in through the hole, sending back the image and the waves that they had scanned so that everybody could share the vision of the mechanical spiders.
The pictures transmitted by Neltharion and the mechanical spiders made it hard for them to breathe, and they almost exclaimed in shock.
The end of the man-made tunnel was simply too huge and vast.
Li Yao had seen countless enormous underground spaces. He had even seen a silver "ocean" below the ground of Boneyard earlier.
But all the underground spaces combined were not as shocking as the void he was seeing right now.
The diameter and height of this underground space were at least ten times more than that of the Great Iron Plants. It could've accommodated dozens of underground towns and was like a tiny blackhole embedded inside the capital planet, absorbing the rocks nearby incessantly.
As far as the eyes could reach, stairs and platforms that led downward helically were everywhere. There were also giant, horizontal caves on the wall, like some sort of beehives and ant nests with complicated structures.
Some of the "ant nests" were the camps of the Imperial Guards and were surrounded by impenetrable bastions of crystal cannons and cubic defense systems, while some of the caves were factories where shield tunneling machines were assembled and maintained. They were all fairly large in scale.
Li Yao maneuvered Neltharion and carefully changed the direction to go downward. He saw that quite a few ultra-huge shield tunneling machines were excavating and shattering without any stop on the platform close to the bottom of the gigantic hollow. They were also followed by a hundred large, medium, and small shield tunneling machines. Their sizes were so obviously different that it was like several giant beasts going hunting with their children.
Those few shield tunneling machines were far from enough to establish such a vast underground space so quickly!
Thinking quickly, Li Yao was immediately amused by his silliness. Such a "boundless" space couldn't have been dug out by Blackstar the Great alone. It was probably created by the Supreme Emperor's or the Blood God's armies like Long Yangjun had said. Wuying Qi had only inherited the cause of the ancestors and continued digging downward.
BOOM!
BOOM! BOOM!
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!
Right then, they heard patterned explosions from the depths of the underground space.
"Are they blowing up the rocks?"
Long Yangjun asked Li Yao in a low voice.
"No."
Li Yao stuck his ear and cheek to the wall and sensed carefully for a moment before he shook his head and said, "They're scanning the structure of the deeper parts by detonating the crystal bombs and examining the feedback."
It was a regular approach in underground explorations to scan the environment with the feedback of waves.
Judging from the distribution of the wave sources, the Immortal Cultivators had dug out a relatively s
hallow tunnel in every direction radially and planted a group of special crystal bombs at the end of each tunnel so that they could scan the whole environment.
In other words, whatever Wuying Qi asked them to search for, they hadn't made any breakthroughs yet but only searching randomly.
Li Yao was more or less relieved after discovering that.
"At least a whole legion of the Imperial Guards has been deployed here. Also, judging from the new camps and fortresses being built, the scale of the garrison will further increase."
Narrowing his eyes, Li Yao analyzed the high-definition image that Neltharion sent back carefully. "No wonder Li Linghai paid so much attention to the Imperial Guards. I had been curious about that. Most of the Imperial Guards had little combat abilities and would be crushed the moment they encountered the enemies on a battlefield. They were not of much use however loyal they might be.
"As it turns out, Li Linghai or Wuying Qi didn't plan to ask the Imperial Guards to go to the battlefield at all but are using them as 'engineering soldiers'. This is rather an appropriate use."
Li Yao glanced around and did not notice any expert as far as he could see. Thinking of something, he chuckled and said, "What do you say we suddenly march down and strike on them?"
Chapter 2430: Insane Wuying Qi! |
"I say it's a bad idea."
After carefully observing the configuration of troops and the defense system of the underground space, Long Yangjun rejected Li Yao's impulsive offer.
First of all, the underground space was guarded by at least one strengthened legion. Also, crystal cannons and fixed fortresses had been established on all the platforms from top to bottom, constituting an impenetrable web of the crossfire. The place was ten times better defended than the Great Iron Plants.
Even they could charge forward and go on a killing spree with their Colossi, they would certainly be absorbed by the web of the crossfire. Their fuel and ammunitions would be greatly consumed, and the Colossi would be riddled with holes too.
Of course, assuming that the enemy was not supervised by leaders who were above the Nascent Soul Stage and also equipped with a Colossus, it would be possible for them to crush the whole legion. The Imperial Guards were not the most determined warriors. It was possible that they would completely collapse the moment they saw that two Colossi showed up.
Then, so what?
To some extent, both the Imperial Guards and the shield tunneling machines were "consumable". Even if they were to annihilate all the Imperial Guards in this place and destroyed all the shield tunneling machines, Wuying Qi and Li Linghai, having occupied 99% of the resources of the Empyreal Terminus Sector, could easily devote more "consumables" to the place.
Even though the production and maintenance of the ultra-huge shield tunneling machines could be tricky, the regular shield tunneling machines could certainly be shipped in incessantly.
Their reckless attack would be entirely pointless except for slightly delaying Wuying Qi's excavation progress. Instead, it would only alarm the enemy, inform Wuying Qi and Li Linghai of where they were, and let the enemy know that their trump card had been exposed.
Once Wuying Qi discovered that his trump card had been exposed, he would certainly change the way of playing it. Under the stimulation, he might even sacrifice millions of people just in order to accelerate the excavation without bothering the consequences.
Right now, the greatest advantage of Li Yao and his team was that they were in the dark while the enemy was in the light. Wuying Qi and Li Linghai did not know the first thing about their latest action. Naturally, they would not jump to the enemy's face easily.
Unless, of course, they could destroy the underground space entirely.
But it was certainly not an easy task!
The underground space had been an empty cave in the first place. How exactly could it be destroyed? Even if they could blow up the rocks around and fill the space, the loose soil could easily be dug through by the shield tunneling machines and the excavators again.
What was even more critical was that this underground space was probably on an extremely vulnerable seismic belt. The exploration of the Supreme Emperor and the Blood God ten thousand years ago had already resulted in the drastic changes in the crust of the entire planet, leaving thousands of gorges on the vast continent. There was no telling how many people were killed in the catastrophe.
The capital today had multiple times more population than it did in the age of the Star Ocean Imperium. Even the giant gorges torn apart in the disaster were now full of underground towns where billions of people and even more were residing.
If they insisted on destroying the underground space, the catastrophe ten thousand years ago might be repeated. Countless towns would be swallowed by rocks, and too many people would fall into darkness forever. Billions of residents might be affected.
Blackstar the Great perhaps did not care about that. Billions of people were but a number for him.
But Li Yao certainly could not do that.
"Be careful. This area has been frequented by earthquakes for quite a few days."
Long Yangjun said in a low voice, "Do you still remember how I mediated in the war among the three wildling tribes, namely the Ning Wings, the Black Armors, and the Red Rings? The reason why the wildlings were fighting each other was that their habitats were destroyed in the consecutive minor earthquakes. Those earthquakes happened a lot over the past half year but were never heard of several years ago.
"I suspect that it was what Blackstar the Great did here that triggered the series of chain reactions in the thousand square kilometers around.
"He can be blatant and pay no attention to the prices, but can you?"
After a long silence, Li Yao mumbled, "What is Blackstar the Great trying to do exactly? Doing such crazy things on a highly-sensitive seismic belt can really lead to the collapse of the entire capital planet!
"Although 'blowing up a planet' might be an exaggeration, the possibilities that the plate movements become highly active, the continent sinks into the ocean, mountains rise from the ocean, and the whole ecological circle and even the atmosphere fall apart, turning the habitable planet into a desolate planet that's no longer habitable… are quite high!
"Is he crazy enough to abandon his own capital?"
"Don't forget Blackstar the Great's most remarkable battle on his rise."
Long Yangjun said, "When he was still a general of the border defense troops of the Star Ocean Republic, faced with the fleets of the Covenant Alliance, he had once abandoned 'Karan', where his command center was located, and installed powerful crystal bombs that could raise a chain reaction below the ground of the planet, alluring the Covenant Alliance to occupy Karan so that the planet would be blown up together with the enemy's fleets!
"So, this is apparently not the first time that he has destroyed a planet. Today, the four Kurfürst families are obviously stronger than him when combined. Who knows whether or not he will play the same trick if he wants to win quickly?"
Taking a deep breath, Li Yao said in a low voice, "In order to excavate the primeval treasures buried deep below the ground and to defeat the four Kurfürst families, Blackstar the Great has already made up his mind to sacrifice the hundred billion residents on the capital planet for the purpose? It's truly as expected of the ancestor of Immortal Cultivators!
"Right now, the Imperium has been controlled by him. We have to bring everything we've seen out of the capital and let anyone who objects to Blackstar the Great know. Only in such a way can we reveal his insanity!"
Long Yangjun said, "We have captured all the pictures."
Li Yao shook his head and said, "Shooting pictures from far away is not convincing enough. Such 3D videos can easily be fabricated. Besides, spying from such a long distance away can barely prove anything.
"We have to retrieve a working log of one of the ultra-huge shield tunneling machines. Let's see what we should do… Hey, if your 'clones' can approac
h the ultra-huge shield tunneling machines, how long will it take to copy the machine's log?"
Li Yao turned around and asked the kids.
"It depends on how long the log is and if it is encrypted and defended."
Li Wenwen said, "But I don't think it will take too long. After all, it is just a piece of clumsy, crude civil magical equipment. Blackstar the Great couldn't have installed the most advanced super crystal processors on every shield tunneling machine, right?"
"Ten seconds!"
Li Xiaoming, on the other hand, bashed his chest and guaranteed, "Ten seconds will be enough for us to copy a complete working log!"
"Very well. Then…"
Li Yao narrowed his eyes and observed for a while longer before he said, "Considering the erosion and the cooldown time, the No. 2 ultra-huge shield tunneling machine on the left side must've been used for the longest time, so its log must have the most abundant content!"
The team observed in silence for a long time to determine what the few ultra-huge shield tunneling machines were going to do next. Then, Li Yao activated Neltharion again and bypassed it from the flank before he planted a super-tiny crystal bomb on the most vulnerable point in the rocks that the No.2 ultra-huge shield tunneling machine was going to excavate.
When the No.2 ultra-huge shield tunneling machine's working surface was revolving at the highest speed and all the vibration sawtooth and blast drills were letting out deafening noises, Li Yao remotely controlled the tiny crystal bomb to explode, which raised a chain reaction in the rocks, collapsing the cave that the No.2 ultra-huge shield tunneling machine just dug out!
The explosion of the crystal bomb was completely dwarfed by the noises when the machine was working.
Also, during the excavation of the shield tunneling machines, such minor collapses were anything but unusual and could not hurt the machines at all.
All kinds of ambulances and spiritual puppets immediately ran close and injected liquid metals and buffer foams into the collapsed rocks to strengthen the structure, while more than ten heavy tractors dragged out the shield tunneling machine that had been buried in rocks.