[3] Huangquanchuan Aiho

(Forbidden World, Monday, April 1, 2013, afternoon; Northern California, Abandoned Mine Pits)

"Hell, are you all crazy, if you're going to make it all the way, let's get out of here!"

"Mr. Cartel, I understand your feelings, but as the person in charge of security, I can't agree to a hasty retreat under any circumstances. Huang Quanchuan Aiho said and tilted her head slightly, looking into Susan's eyes with a calm face, "It's very stupid to divide troops in two ways in this kind of complicated terrain, and if there is really some unknown danger, I don't think it will be safer for the two of you to move." ”

"Let's go together, then!"

"Cartel, Susan, can you listen to me. I can't understand why you're panicking at all, and there's not enough evidence to support your murder scene hypothesis. Yuta Tomigashi's expression and words couldn't fault anything, but the faint fishy smell in the air made this scene seem extremely strange, "Even if there really is some kind of crypt creature, the results of the detection robots have not yet come out, isn't it just right to point them out a way to chase us now?"

"Personally, I very much agree with Mr. Tomigashi. With the weapons we carry, it is more than enough to protect ourselves while maintaining formation. Professor Shauna pushed the goggles with built-in lenses, "To be honest, I think your concerns are really exaggerated. Calm down, okay?"

According to common sense, if a suspected murder scene is discovered, any normal scientific research team will choose to leave and report to the public security organs, and at the same time be careful not to destroy the traces of the scene during the retreat. But the members of this team clearly have different agendas, and Susan and Carter's proposal is rejected by all three of them with the same excuse.

After some persuasion, Susan and Cartel finally agreed to move on. Huang Quanchuan Aiho walked at the front of the line, walking along the dark brown blood stains on the ground. She is armed with a pistol reinforced on each side of her waist based on the FN M1935, and a dagger on the outer strap of her thigh.

The lamppost pierced into the winding passage ahead, and the raised rocks pulled out long, unpredictable black shadows under the constant shaking light. The ground was uneven and undulating, but the overall slope remained between thirty and forty-five degrees, as if to foreshadow their descent into a dark and deep cavern that no human had ever reached.

As they progressed, the stalactites and stalagmites in the cave gradually disappeared, and the number of forks in the road may have diminished - but from time to time you can see some narrow cracks in the rock face, some of which you can squeeze into sideways, provided you don't have a package on your back.

At Professor Shauna's motion, they paused for a moment in front of several of the cracks, trying to find useful information from them. On average, they are much younger than the channel structures themselves, and some have signs of erosion from the current, while others appear dry. Po speculates that the cracks may be related to a small earthquake that is not uncommon in California, and that they are new cracks that have been torn open again after the main structure of the cave was formed.

After walking for about sixteen or seventeen minutes, the probe robot entered a straight and flat passage. The slope of the passage is very gentle and is already close to level in the second half. Then Huangquanchuan Aiho was the first to enter this passage - perhaps the relics of civilization that Professor Shauna was looking for were here, because there were no stalagmites or stalactites on the floor and the roof of the cave, not even a few pieces of rubble, and the rock face that should have been rugged had obvious traces of artificial trimming.

The top of the passage is not very high, and although the rock walls on both sides have been polished, there are no murals or seal carvings or anything like that. Given the complexity of the cave system, Professor Shauna boldly speculated that the passage was not for regular access, but rather a structure similar to a back door.

Surprise—or rather, horror—came far beyond what Aiho of Huangquanchuan had expected. The probe robot stopped at what appeared to be a cliff, where the dwindling blood on the ground vanished. And when they walked through the man-made tunnel to the exit at the other end, they were speechless by what they saw.

It was an incredibly large cavern, and the place where they came out looked like the top of a tower built against a rock wall, and infrared rangefinders showed that they were about 60 meters from the bottom of the cave - a height that was quite impressive even in the city, not to mention the ancient buildings that were left over from ancient times underground. The diameter of the cavities is equally staggering – 110 meters from where they stand to the opposite rock wall.

"Yes, that's it!

Professor Shauna looked fascinated and fanatical, as if she wanted to jump right down and go straight to her destination. Carter and Susan also let out a sound of amazement, and even Yuta Tomigashi and Yuroka Totori, two mysterious members from the San Diego agricultural syndicate, were shocked. Po Pingdong Jing quietly signaled her to be vigilant against Shauna in the special channel, and then took out and turned on the high-powered lighting device.

The dense darkness wasn't completely dispelled by this, but it was enough for them to see the cave. The bottom of the cave is a fairly regular circle, with an altar-like structure in the center, and various buildings resembling towers and temples distributed around it in a symmetrical center. These buildings are made of stone, with rectangular stones so tightly knit with each other that it is hard to imagine how people in ancient times cut and polished them and transported them into the caves.

The rock wall leading from the exit to the top of the tower was carved with holes interspersed with sticks, but now it was empty, and Aho had to replace the ladder that might have existed with a rope ladder in the package. Outside the tower is a narrow staircase that barely fits two people alongside, and although the slope is not steep, the stone handrails are very low and do not look very sturdy.

"Before I go down, I would like to remind you to stay calm on this stretch of road, especially you. Huang Quanchuan Aiho looked at Susan coldly, and at the same time pointed to the gun on his waist, "If the previous thing happens again, and you try to push me and the others off the tower, I will ...... you in the name of legitimate defense Kill!"

After saying this, she ignored the fear on the other party's face and climbed down the rope ladder. At the top of the tower is a square about three meters long, surrounded by elaborate reliefs carved on the low walls. She didn't have much research on it, maybe she would be able to see something from it when Professor Shauna came down. The left side facing the cave is a staircase that slopes down from the outside, rotates around the tower three-quarters of a circle, and then terminates at the platform below, which is the top of a thicker section of the tower.

"I dabbled in relief sculpture when I was in college, and my dissertation was on temple sculpture in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, and later I also visited the art of relief sculpture in temples and caves in China. This style ......" Professor Shauna's expression looked a little confused, but Aiho Huang Quanchuan keenly captured the excitement in the other person's eyes and a certain kind of ominous fanaticism, "The typical form of high relief, but it is not the style of some people with whom I am familiar, and it is different from the maverick of modernists, and it is more like a kind of technique that has long been formed and matured and perfected...... If I had to say it, it was like a work of art from another planet. ”

Carter and Susan used their portable camera to capture these precious patterns, while Po Pingdongjing used 3D scanning technology to build models of them. One by one, they descended down the outer staircase to the landing below. The style of the sculptures here is similar to that of the top of the tower, but the content is different - most of the patterns are simple and subtle geometric shapes, and a few contain many ancient symbols used for strange shapes, and the style seems to have some connection to the runes of alchemy, astrology, and other suspicious realms that Huang Izumi had in his impression.

The inside of the tower is a circular descending passage, but there is no patio-like structure in the center, but a dead stone wall, and it is difficult to tell what is behind the wall. Po Pingdong Jing sent the robot into the darkness to explore as usual, and after confirming that there was no risk of collapse or traps in this closed passage, she signaled that she could go inside.

There are no reliefs or other types of decoration on the inside of the passage, and the walls seem to have a good ability to absorb light, even if the lights are turned on. She walked around the room, her unchanging vision making her almost wonder if she was spinning in circles—if it weren't for the bevel beneath her feet alerting her.

A few minutes later, she exited the tower through the exit facing the center of the cave, followed by Yuta Tomigashi and Yurokaka Kotori, then Professor Shauna, and Po Hei Dongjing in charge of the rear of the hall. Considering that there was not much time left, and that they had no intention of spending the night in the area—the bloodstains had not been forgotten—they agreed to take a look at the center of the altar, and then officially set out on the return journey to find out after two days of repairs.

In fact, the process took more time than they thought. The intricate geometric patterns that had previously been viewed are now transformed into a complex and strange labyrinth, but the regular shapes from a flat perspective are in fact something strange that exudes an ominous atmosphere: perhaps the special optical properties of the building materials, the illuminated pillars that sway as they move seem to be distorted and deformed by some external force, and the unspeakable sense of doubt and threat lurks behind the angles of the carved rocks, and its unpredictability is simply maddening, at first glance it looks like a convex corner, but at second glance it becomes a concave corner, like gold but not gold— Po Hei Dongjing secretly told her that [Metal Manipulation] ability was ineffective - the huge door panel was lying flat or diagonally, and in any case it moved diagonally in an unnatural trajectory, but Huang Izukawa Aiho could not pinpoint which specific motion or geometric rule was violated.

The attack came so suddenly that she wasn't even sure when it started. At first, Yuta Tomigashi exclaimed, and then the others realized that Carter and Susan had disappeared at some unknown time, followed by a heavy blow that lifted her helmet off.

"It's a rubber bullet! The enemy's intentions are unknown!"

Huang Quanchuan Aiho endured the discomfort and shouted, and at the same time, the wind was under his feet, and he jumped three or four meters away with the impression before the lights went out, waving the double knives in his hands, and exerting his auditory senses to the extreme. At this time, she no longer cares about any security tasks, she is not a real bodyguard who goes to the trouble for her employer, but a dark and cruel evil party who performs "things that cannot be expressed to the light".

At that moment, a faint light flashed between the gaps in the hollowed-out stone wall on her right, caught out of the corner of her eye as she turned her figure. She subconsciously looked over there, and saw a sphere about ten centimeters in diameter suspended on the high platform of the altar, and faintly visible on it were many irregular planes, similar to black polyhedra with red stripes, and it was impossible to see whether it was some kind of support or some humanoid creature supporting it.

As the outline and details of the crystalline sphere became clear in the focus of Aiho Huangquanchuan's eyes, the unknown artifact immediately gave her an almost alert imagination - an alertness between life and death that had brought her away from death more than once, but now she found herself almost unable to take her eyes off it, as if her body no longer belonged to her. And when she looked at the shining surface of the crystalline sphere, for a moment it seemed that the stone seemed to be transparent, and that it contained a myriad of magical worlds.

Many unimaginable images came to mind, some of them strange planets with huge stone towers, others planets with towering mountains and no signs of life, and even more distant than that dark deep space, where only a stirring blur of darkness could indicate some form of movement and life, even ...... Something great will that is incomprehensible to man.

The screen cuts to a long procession of countless robes and hats that do not look like human beings at all, rows of carved monoliths that reach up to the sky in the desert of countless leagues, countless minarets and high walls rise in the pitch-black abyss beneath the ocean, and wisps of black mist float in front of the thin light of a cold purple nebula in the middle of the whirlpool in the middle of the galaxy.

Beyond all of this, what Aho finally glimpses is a dark endless abyss in which entities and semi-entities are only perceived when they stir like the wind, and ambiguous forces seem to impose order on chaos, giving a key that can lift all the contradictions and mysteries of the world known by the negative entropic mind.

Then, in an instant, an indefinite but torturous panic struck her, breaking the indescribable sluggishness and weakness that had been inflicted on her. Her trained nerves seemed to be tensed to the limit, and her breathing, which had become rapid from intense exercise and emotional instability, was held at the moment. She turned away as fast as she could, almost instinctively, aware that some formless, strange being was approaching, and stared at her with terrifying concentration.

Something entangled in something - something that doesn't exist in a physical form in the orb, but can look at her through this strange thing, something that can follow her ultimate fear in a way that doesn't look like the naked eye, but something like a mind-reading person in the school city. She knew she had to leave immediately.

"A guest from the school city that claims to be twenty or thirty years ahead of the outside world.。 It was Professor Shauna's voice, and Huang Quanchuan Aiho was terrified in her ears, but at this moment, she didn't know where to use her marksmanship and fighting skills, "You don't know anything about true knowledge and wisdom!"

Fear is at its peak at this moment. She didn't know when, or what she thought, but her gaze turned to the crystal orb on the altar again. In the gathered shimmer, she felt like she saw a faint glow emanating from the wildly angular orb. She tried to look away from it, but some vague force forced her to look back at the insanely blasphemous thing.

There seems to be a problem with memory. Aho Izumi saw something she had never known before, in some indescribable world, where darkness seemed to be light, and light seemed to be darkness.

"Through the Void...... [Shining home remedies octahedron]...... Capture the ...... of thought reinvention The Abyss of Light ......"

Crazy incomprehensible words and phrases flashed through her thoughts, and the subsequent fragments could no longer be recorded by a sober intellect, nor by an instinctive mind that kept its own order. Darkness, sinking, abyss...... Until a crisp cry woke her up from her nameless nightmare.

"Shield of Darkness!"

Dispelling the darkness is a pair of blazing golden magic eyes, pure divine and unclean evil forces fused in an incomprehensible form. Under the light of that light, a black demon dragon the size of a water tank raised its head and roared.

……