At the same time, an upward buoyancy is emitted from the gloomy substance, so that people will not fall completely. Gu Chuan, who fell suddenly, grabbed Chu Yun and Zaiyan's hands tightly, and was also grabbed by their hands, and then lifted up with his strength, forcibly getting out of the vast smoke and water that kept coming out of the clouds.

The three of them pulled the cart back about 20 meters, stood on more stable land, discussed it, and decided to use an elastic safety rope to connect each other and support each other.

"Do you know where the ship left over from the world's problems is? Loaded. ”

The young man who realized for the first time that the Netherworld was the existence of the Netherworld was worried as he tied the rope around his waist.

In front of them, they no longer saw the clear sky and the earth, but the vast sea of smoke that had cut off their vision. And their feet are no longer solidified earth, but more like a vast and endless swamp that chooses people to eat.

Hatsukumo took the rope and looked down to observe the sand where they were standing. The grains of sand became softer and looser, soaked with some kind of water of unknown color. But it's not covered with water...... Nor is it washed by water. They are not distinct, they are not clear, they are not clean, but they seem to dissolve into water at any time, they dissolve into each other, and even seem to be ...... In volatile.

The sand gradually evaporated into water.

"It's dirty...... It's weirdly dirty. ”

Hatsuyun frowned.

On the other side, Zai Yan proudly replied to Gu Chuan:

"Rest assured, there is the sound of our city's sound tower. Although the clouds cover the fog, it is still easy to find the stronghold of our clan. ”

Subsequently, he added:

"This kind of research base was originally garrisoned by my compatriots, and the world's problems also required the manufacture of aircraft, all equipment, and as for pathfinding and survival. There, we can get supplies that the bazaar doesn't get. "The industrial strength of the Gear People may only be higher than that of Sunset City, but the sincere cooperation of the Gear People at any cost...... Sunset City can't catch up.

After the recall order began, all the Gear men had been evacuated. The evacuation has been short, and the methods used to determine the location have not yet failed.

The sound tower's signal can be received in the ear of the carrier.

Gu Chuan's mood improved:

"Let's go."

Led by Zaiyi, they moved westward along the dividing line of matter in the rush of clouds.

Cloud flow has a direction.

As they walked, the explorers from both races exchanged opinions and confirmed each other, but the area they had traveled through the clouds was too small and too small for them to know exactly how the clouds were changing. But they have realized that changes in cloud flow are likely to be the focus of their future voyages.

"...... like a dream"

Gu Chuan didn't dare to inhale the diffuse cloud smoke, only to find that his dome was not stained with any water mist, nor did any liquid condense on the surface of the dome.

In other words, in a sense, the vision is incomparably clear.

But everything is covered in the distance, up and down, front and back, left and right are all in line with each other, and only a rushing mass of countless clouds and mist can be seen. With the instincts that sprung out of their heads, they agreed that the top looked lighter at first glance, and the bottom looked more solid at first glance.

The light ones are like clouds drifting in the wind, while the heavy ones are like water gathered by the clouds.

They're walking, and so are the clouds. As a result, the world reflected in the eyes is different from moment to moment.

"The clouds here are weird, maybe we can classify them."

Gu Chuan preached with great interest.

There are small clouds, well-defined, with light flickering at the edges that come from nowhere, in the shape of an ellipse, a tile, a scale, or a wave of water, like a school of fish, drifting on other clouds.

There are large clouds, and the large clouds they most often see in the distance are evenly layered, with a slight blue color, the bottom is dark, and the upper part is bright, covering many thousands of square kilometers of heaven and earth, and it is a whale in the clouds, soaring freely.

There's also one of the biggest clouds, and that's a huge tower. The tower-like clouds are so high that you can't see the edge, like a huge tower made of smoke masonry and piles, and because of its sheness, it looks like a towering hill, and the outside presents a white silk structure. And the inside is chaotic and dark to the extreme. As soon as you get closer, it shines with a wonderful brilliance in the darkness.

The whale-shaped clouds also appear flat and short in comparison, as if the big fish led the countless scale-like light rain behind them and swam into the corals.

Sometimes, from the tower-like clouds, thin things like snow fall into the vast darkness in the distance, and no one knows how deep they fall, or whether they reach the netherworld.

If you do, will you sink into the netherworld, or will you float outside the netherworld?

The Gear People's record of the Netherworld is strange, and they say that the characteristics of each place in the Netherworld are different, which may be the relationship between the evaporation, movement, and condensation of the clouds that are in action on the Netherworld at any time.

The shape of the clouds is very clear when it is far away, but when it is closer, it becomes a large area of fog and smoke, and only the shape of the clouds in the distance can be seen.

"You told me that we live in the gas that fills the heavens and the earth."

Chu Yun suddenly thought of something and asked in surprise.

"yes."

Gu Chuan's eyes flashed, and he turned his attention to this lovely partner who had been his for a long time.

"Then you also say that clouds are smoke in the sky, smoke is dust particles, fog is condensed water vapor distributed in the air, and dust is tiny particles of earth that fly. Well, by definition, these clouds are the air here. We should call these things air, not clouds, fog, smoke, and dust, right? ”

The girl's puffed cheeks made Gu Chuan cry and laugh, but the peculiar gear man fell into deep thought.

"That's a problem...... Our air refers to the transparent things that cannot be seen, how dense is it like the clouds here? Based on this...... Let me give you an example...... "Gu Chuan defended himself slyly, "The smoke between the mountains and forests is also called smoke, not air." ”

"It seems like this...... "Hatsuyun frowned, her bright hair was tied behind her head by herself, made into the shape of a bun, "Alas, Sunset City's language is so strange, there are too many rules......"

"It's weird!"

The young man laughed.

They spoke back to Sunset City, which made Jae-chan indestructible. Although he was already learning Sunset City's language, his days were short. Gear people are much better at learning than people because they are rarely distracted.

He looked at the tower-like clouds in the distance and walked around the spot a few times.

"Can't you hear the sound tower?"

"It's not...... I'm looking for an entrance. ”

Gu Chuan suddenly realized.

Due to the nature of the Great Wilderness Storm, the Cogwheel people mostly built their strongholds underground. They have this architectural strength, and at the junction of the Great Wilderness and the Netherworld, they will naturally tend to build it underground.

They helped Zaiyun find it together, and it was Chu Yun who found it first.

The entrance is under the rocks. On the side of the rock near the surface, there is a text left by the Cogwheel Man, which reads the Eighth Question, and the symbol of the Eighth Question—

That's just the right rice word.

He removed the stone, revealing an iron door. In some strange cipher-like order, he tossed the gears forward three squares and then two backwards, repeating the movement three times, and the three of them heard a crisp sound.

After that, push the gears again, and the entire metal door is completely opened.

They walked up the stairs.

The lights are like the old city.

Grains of sand blew from the edge of the iron gate into the staircase, and once upon a time, there was silence.

"After the failure of world travel, the progress of world problems is complicated, and there are many psychopaths in the world problem area." Zaiyan, as the recorder of the former Junping Mentor, is clear about this, "In other words, there may be some danger here, be careful." ”

Ordinary Gearmen don't hurt other Gearmen, and they don't help other Gearmen much.

Psychopathic Cogwheel people, who may try to kill other Cogwheel people, will also try to actively help certain Cogwheel people.

This is what Zai Yan knew, that he had not believed, and that was given by Master Junpei.

He now knew it was true.

"We know."

They took off their protective suits, took off the glass dome, and walked to the bottom floor.

The layout underneath is similar, with a room for the gear man to pause, and a large storage room. The storage room is filled with uniform size boxes.

Two travelers were excited, while the other was proud.

"We're always prepared."

Zai Yan said.

"Okay, yes! You're really good......"

Gu Chuan's heartfelt praise reminded Zai Yi of the current appearance of the gear man, which was quite unpleasant.

Instead of inspecting the storage room immediately, they inspected several other rooms first, with a special gear control room, where all the gear machines are concentrated, and where most of the gear machines can be controlled. But it's not useful for travelers.

As they descended, there was a large central Netherworld Observation Room.

The Netherworld Observation Room, a bit like a large observatory, has a huge mirror tube that passes through the surface of the soil, and under the cover of other natural things, points straight into the depths of the Netherworld, also using complex optical principles.

Gu Chuan brought his eyes to the front of the eyepiece, and Zai Yi turned on the machine according to the instructions to satisfy the curiosity of the traveling companion. Then the eyepiece suddenly brightened, and the shape of the endless nether clouds appeared, like a mountain with layers of mountains. There was also fog in the mountains, and the netherworld was full of clouds. The only difference is that all the clouds and mountains in the Netherworld are moving, and none of them are not moving.

So the landscape is as endless as a mirror, and the young man has no doubt that he can see it for a day with this telescope—

When he was a kid, Tetris could play for a day!

And the scene captured in the lens often appears with surprisingly small spots of various colors, what these spots represent, and the gear man only has a simple record, and he can't tell one, two, three, four. Gu Chuan slowly flicked the gears, but found that the cross aiming in the center of the eyepiece seemed to have another function-

He saw that the clouds in front of him seemed to be pierced by some powerful ray, and they were scattered for a moment. Later, everything behind the clouds was reproduced in the mirror one by one using the principle of small hole imaging, so that the optical telescope was enough to see the scene behind the clouds.

"This may be taking advantage of the function of some treasure, on a very small scale, through the clouds, through a hole. This allows the telescope to see what is behind the obstacle. ”

Zai Yi explained.

"Then it's a kind of laser positioning."

The young man immediately remembered the head of the lens barrel man, and then he shuddered when he thought that the large telescope in his hand could also rely on this laser positioning to achieve ultra-long-range strikes close to the twenty-first century.

His exhaled breath rose along his face, condensing into a thin mist on the surface of the eyepiece.

The young man wiped it, closed it, and said with pity:

"If only it could be removed."

Before he could understand the greed that overflowed in the words, the two travelers had continued down the roundabout corridor.

The Lion-headed Cogwheel hurriedly followed, and arrived at the last room with the two companions.

Even the door to this room is huge, almost occupying the front wall.

When they opened the gear door, they saw a large area of scaffolding made of load-bearing shafts and gears. Scaffolding has been around for many years and can be seen with rust and cleaned up rust oil stains.

The same dim lights as the old solution city illuminate the scaffolding platform.

The three of them walked to the platform, which was facing the water.

The water is in the waterway, and the waterway is a passage built by the Gear Man to connect to the Netherworld, which is opened and closed by a controllable gear door.

The water was a liquid filtered out of the netherworld, emitting strange smoke. A dozen pointers were inserted into the water, and these pointers were also instruments used by the Cogwheel People to measure several values of their interest, including microscopic biological content and anomalous nutrient content, according to the legacy reports of the Cogwheel People who had been stationed there.

On the water, there is a floating ladder that sticks out and connects to a door. And that door was on a huge locomotive-like thing.

The thing was an irregular cylinder, lying on the surface of the water, and the bottom was probably flat, overgrown with dense aquatic weeds, and it was not easy to see.

The farthest point of the scaffolding falls on this locomotive. There is also an observatory-like hole in the locomotive, like the only eye on the head of a giant.

"What ...... this?"

Gu Chuan was already about to guess.

Zai Yi only said in confusion:

"Isn't this just a 'ship'? Don't you know the ship? Or are your ships and ours not the same concept? ”

Halfway through speaking, he remembered that Gu Chuan and they called the ghost ship a ship.

Gu Chuan took a few steps forward and saw the 'locomotive' more clearly. He said:

"Yes...... Yes......"

This is a concept that belongs to the gear people, which is different from the people of Sunset City or the earthlings, and does not think that the ghost ship is a ship, and the ship in their perception is completely enclosed.

And the boat built by the Gear Man did not rely on the buoyancy of water.

"There are two kinds of things that grow underneath, one is called a 'waterwheel' and the other is called a 'water sail', which are two different separating agents that can act on liquids, and they both like gases, and they are incompatible with liquids, and they are not soaked by liquids, so the force of this refusal will drag the weight on top of the liquid."

Zai Yi patiently explained.

Everything he said with ease, for Gu Chuan, it can only be attributed to the effect of "strange things".

The young man went further.

He could clearly see the aquatic weeds or tentacles, struggling at the interface between the boat and the liquid, trying not to fall into the water.

And on the vast surface of the ship, where there is no end in sight, its name is marked with a special metal in the language of the Gear Man:

A thing that has no end and no result.

There are no mistranslations here, that's how the gear people of the past etched on it.

Chu Yun saw Gu Chuan staring at him for a long time, and then asked callingly:

"What is this ship called?"

Gu Chuan pondered for a moment.

He said:

"Life ......"

When Zai Yan heard this, he also cast his gaze, and heard the young man continue:

"And death."