Chapter 1451 Remnants of Pollution

A tense atmosphere condensed in this hall shrouded in dim light, the air seemed to have frozen in this atmosphere, and the low humming sound from the ancient equipment in the depths of the hall seemed to come from an extremely distant place, It sounded unreal and ethereal to Azalena—but after such a tense state lasted for several minutes, nothing happened in the hall.

Those magical balls of light that rose into the air were still floating in the air, and their appearance did not "stimulate" anything. The door leading to the corridor was wide open, and the light that diffused from the direction of the corridor was swept away by an unknown person. The power was suppressed within a few meters from the door, and a hazy gray-black misty phantom was formed behind the exploration team members.

Besides, there were no harsh alarms, no awakened guards, no indescribable things jumping out of the darkness—except for the weird environment, there seemed to be nothing in the hall.

"Maintain a state of vigilance," Alice RS-6's cold voice broke the depressing tension. While giving instructions to her soldiers, she looked up at the "giant tree" deep in the hall. "Like a faint shadow structure, a crack suddenly opened on the smooth forehead of the Iron Man Commander, and then some kind of artificial crystal protruded from it. This delicate sensing device projected a flickering light curtain, and the light curtain itself Although it was quickly swallowed by the surrounding darkness, its scanning field has quickly completed scanning the surrounding environment. "There are no active targets, energy traps, and running spells in the environment."

The accompanying Kraken advance team members also started to move. They maintained that daunting "combat posture", and walked towards the hall in groups of two. The "footsteps" of people's scalp numb.

Azalena watched these "deep sea allies" move towards those dark areas little by little, feeling as if they were going to be completely plunged into the shadows in the next second, but in fact their hazy figures were never completely swallowed by the darkness—the people in this hall The darkness is not completely dark. Although the light produced by the lighting and the magic light ball is suppressed, it can still provide a certain amount of illumination.

"Safe." "This side is also safe-only some buzzing equipment." "There are some terminals that are still running here, and there is nothing unusual." "There are only a bunch of pillars here..."

The voices of the Krakens came from the depths of the darkness, and then the advance team members temporarily released their "combat stance" and returned to the team—although the Kraken's combat stance is powerful, it is not suitable for performing delicate tasks. Technical operations and exploration operations.

At this time, Azalena was slightly relieved, but she still didn't dare to relax her vigilance completely—maybe there is really no danger here, but there is such a hall completely enveloped by an abnormal environment in the space station built by the voyager itself. Strange thing, she frowned and looked at the shadowy equipment and the "lights" that were so weak that they were almost extinguished, she couldn't help muttering softly: "What the hell is going on..."

"There is a very powerful shadow power entrenched here... But I don't know if this shadow power is from outside or the voyager stayed here from the beginning,

Beside her, the red dragon Belranta said softly, and at the same time walked towards the largest "tree" structure in the center of the hall, "No matter what, this thing is obviously the core here..."

"Be careful, don't go there alone!" Seeing this, Azalena hurriedly reminded her behind, and then led her people to follow in Berlanta's footsteps.

Soon, the entire operation team came to the foot of the weird thing in the center of the hall. Cassandra raised her head vigorously, and saw countless dark "thorns" and crystal structures growing from the floor into the air, and It spread near the ceiling into a huge structure like a canopy, and among those intertwined thorns and crystals... there seemed to be some other things hidden.

Azalena raised her hand again, and another magic ball of light appeared in her hand. Although the light emitted by this ball of light was suppressed by the surrounding dim environment, it still illuminated those " A small area on the surface of the thorns.

"...quantity can make up for quality," Azalena said casually looking at the area illuminated by the light ball, "creating more light sources will more or less allow us to see the situation here."

The dragons at the scene immediately released more lighting spells, and nearly a hundred magic light spheres formed over the exploration team almost instantly, and drifted upward along the huge "thorn crystal structure". Serena kept her eyes wide open and stared at the places where the light spheres flew past. In the small-scale light spots that were constantly moving, she was able to see more detailed structures of this "thorn crystal"-these flickering sharp crystals showed Deep purple-black, with a changeable luster from time to time in the moving light source, they are intertwined and entangled with each other. Although they look like vines, they are obviously not plants, but more like... minerals that grow chaotically.

Azalena just watched those balls of light fly to the top of the thorns, and watched them cling to the thorn bushes. In the process, she finally saw clearly—this group of thorns that looked like a "giant tree" It seems to be just a piece of growth. In the depths surrounded by thorns, some kind of large-scale equipment can be vaguely seen. It seems to be a pillar. A large number of radiating branch structures can be seen at the connection between the top and the dome, and the bottom extends out. Several things that looked like control terminals, a large number of purple-black thorny growths grew out from around this huge device, entangled in layers to look like a tree.

"There is something inside here... wrapped up," Belranta also noticed the large equipment looming in the depths of the thorns. She frowned and approached cautiously, but did not dare to touch those sharp purple-black crystals rashly, " This looks like a large-scale terminal, similar to the one in the assembly hall, but it seems to be a higher level... There is some movement in it, is it still running?"

Azalena didn't say a word, she just walked slowly around this huge "thorn", carefully observing the shape of this thing, and at this moment, a strangeness suddenly came into her eyes, making the dragon seal The witch stopped abruptly.

"There's something here!" She whispered subconsciously, and then waved her hand to summon a magic ball of light, which emitted a dim and obscure light and slightly dispelled the surrounding darkness, allowing her to finally see clearly. A strange shape - the next second, she felt a chill suddenly hit her heart.

It was a dirty trace like rotten scorched marks, as if some kind of extremely corrosive and terrifying force invaded here, and left a mark several meters long on the floor. It spread into those thorns, and it seemed to have spread for a certain distance inside. The thorns in contact with it showed a state of decay and damage. The purple-black crystals were stained with a layer of dirty gray-brown. Cracks are all over the surface, and the entire "contaminated area" even spreads upwards to a height of several meters.

The others rushed over immediately after hearing Azarena's exclamation. After seeing the traces of pollution and corruption on the floor and among the thorns, Bellanta was the first to widen her eyes: "This is ..."

"The trace left by the reverse tide," Azalena stared at the dirty mark, feeling her heart pounding, "There is no mistake, the characteristics are too obvious."

Bellanta's eyes widened, and she suddenly realized: "Quickly check the surroundings!"

All the action team members acted immediately and began to conduct further inspections of the hall shrouded in darkness. However, after careful inspection, it seemed that the only trace of pollution found was the one found by Azalena.

"...The pollution of the reverse tide is all in one piece, and there is no scattered distribution." After hearing the inspection results of other people, Belanta shook his head lightly, "So this should be the only pollution..."

"And it's the pollution left over from years ago..." Azalena bent down and carefully examined the disturbing traces on the floor. Her eyes moved forward along those traces, and finally landed on those obvious On the crystal thorns showing signs of decay, "These thorn-like things..."

"Now it seems that these crystal thorns are preventing the spread of pollution and protecting the central device," Alice RS-6's calm voice came from the side, and the iron man commander's eyes shone with a slight energy radiance. His eyes were slowly sweeping over the imprints on the ground and the dying crystal thorns, "...they have stopped moving."

Azarena didn't speak for a while, and broke the silence after half a minute of contemplation: "Negative Tide is dead, right?"

"That's what the death certificate and autopsy report from the Theocratic Council said," Berlanta nodded. "The conclusion was given by several senior advisors, so there should be no problem."

"So, what we have in front of us is just an ancient clue, something that happened in the past... The power of the reverse tide once tried to pollute the sky, but was stopped by these thorns," Azalena said softly thoughtfully, she Standing up slowly, he looked at the thorns not far away that had been infested by the force of the reverse tide, "We need to collect some samples, especially these pollution samples."

"Let me do it." Cassandra volunteered, she took a step forward, and at some point in her hand, she took out the container and cutting device for collecting samples.

She came to the gray-brown crystal thorns polluted by the force of the reverse tide, and carefully touched the thing with the high-frequency cutter in her hand.

In the next second, the sound of crystal cracking came to everyone's ears, as if a delicate balance that had been maintained for hundreds of thousands of years was suddenly broken. Before Azarena could react, the large piece of polluted crystal The thorns collapsed into debris all over the ground in the blink of an eye.

"This..." Cassandra was also taken aback by this situation, she turned her head and looked at the others innocently, "I just touched it a little, you guys are watching..."

"It may be that this thing is too fragile." Nicholas' voice suddenly sounded from behind, and his slightly trembling deep voice seemed extraordinarily serious at the moment, "It's not important, what's important is... It seems that something has been exposed. "

Cassandra turned her head, only to see that due to the sudden shattering and falling of those polluted crystals, a breach had appeared in the "thornbush" that originally completely wrapped the large equipment in the center of the hall, and at the center of the breach , it can be seen that a device like an operating terminal is exposed.

The structure extending from the back of the thing is connected to the giant pillar in the thorn bushes, and the lights on the surface have been extinguished. This device has obviously ceased to be active, but Nicholas can feel... Weak energy is coming to this sleeping terminal deep flow.

This is different from those devices in other compartments that have completely fallen silent due to energy interruption.

"This thing is still running, it just shuts down the external interaction part, I might try to reactivate it," Nicholas said uncertainly, "Also, we have to report back what we found here."

Azarena nodded immediately: "I'll take a few people to the nearest communication port."

Moving in the vast space, both the Dragon Clan's communication spell and Alice's Iron Man network have exceeded their respective communication limits, and even the siren's psionic singing cannot reach the mainland, but Azalena and the others still have a way The contact with the surface here—rely on the "induction" between Gawain Cecil himself and the Sky Station.

There are some "communication ports" distributed in this space station. After activating them, Gao Wen, who is far away on the surface, can directly contact the engineering team active in the sky station, and even "see" their activities inside directly. , Therefore, the cabins with communication ports are also regarded as important "transit strongholds" by the engineering team-these strongholds are the only way for them to communicate with the surface.

After Azarena left the "Hall of Shadows" with some personnel and went to the nearest communication port, Nicholas and the others who stayed in the hall continued to study the huge thorns and the large device wrapped in thorns.

Regardless of the origin of these thorns, one thing can be seen - they stopped the spread of reverse tide pollution many, many years ago.

After confirming this point, those purple-black crystals that seem weird and terrifying are not so scary anymore.

It goes against the taint and rot on the floor, so it's a good thing.

"Now let me see what this thing is for..."

Floating in front of the breach in the thornbush, looking at the ancient terminal exposed from the breach, Nicholas' voice was eager to try.

He has roughly found a way to wake up this terminal, but out of caution, he observed here for a long time.

Standing not far away, Bellanta and the others were obviously more nervous than Nicholas. They watched the commander-in-chief's movements closely, watching him float beside the silent machine to observe carefully, repeatedly probing, and each of them was calm. Dare to breathe -- although many of them really don't need to.

After a long time in this way, Nicholas finally confirmed the next operation. He took a step forward, and gently "touched" a certain structure deep in the terminal with invisible force.

A slight buzz sounded immediately, and in the next second, the device that had been sleeping for an unknown number of years gradually came to life, and a series of flickering lights appeared on the surface of the terminal and the structure connected to the giant column at the back, and then, Nicholas Then I saw a holographic image jittering and jumping in the sky above the terminal, and a line of Voyager words appeared in the middle of the projection.

Before departure, members of the engineering team, including him, had already supplemented their knowledge of the Navigator's writing.

They understood the words on the projection, but were at a loss as to its meaning——

"The star map keeper is offline."