Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“We got in! We actually got in! We didn’t fail! We finally succeeded!”
“Su Mo, we did it!” He shouted.
After they felt the resistance holding back the rocket completely dissipate, they pulled the thrust lever back to its original position.
Lu Kuan excitedly stood up at once, and then sprinted toward the porthole window like a maniac.
A whole ten years of preparation had ended in two dismal failures.
No one could really understand how ruthless a blow to the psyche this kind of baffling failure was to Lu Kuan, who was someone who wholeheartedly believed in science.
Every night, the eight top scientists, including Lu Kuan, would ponder long and hard about which step had gone wrong, and which step had not been perfectly executed.
However, no one could have predicted that this would happen on such a normal, uneventful day.
In just two days, the inner mental demon that had perplexed him for ten or so years was actually destroyed by Su MO!
Humans, mere mortals, had succeeded in piercing through the barrier and had entered the chamber of the gods.
It really was a historic breakthrough; a development so incredible it was equivalent to moving from 0 to 1!
“Wait a moment! Don’t be too happy yet. Look closely at what’s below!”
Su MO soon followed Lu Kuan to the porthole window. He then began observing what was below.
What set him apart from Lu Kuan was that his face displayed no excitement, but instead expressed a sense of solemnity.
With the God of the Ocean’s title, his eyesight had reached an extremely high level.
Just because Lu Kuan could not see it, it did not mean he could not.
“Hmm? Did we not succeed?”
After being cautioned by Su MO, Lu Kuan started examining and analyzing his surroundings, looking downward with a slight hint of confusion.
Slowly but surely, as the distance between the spacecraft and the ground drew closer, the scene in his vision became more and more clear.
His excitement quickly started fading.
It was just as Su MO predicted—Astonishment, puzzlement, and panic ensued!
“Why would, why even here…”
“It’s not possible! Our nuclear bomb wouldn’t have been able to reach such heights! It makes no sense that this place would become a Land of Death!”
Half an hour ago, both of them had just seen the other nine continents, which had turned into forbidden areas, from a high altitude.
Now, half an hour later, they had shuttled across this planet that, from its outer appearance, looked like it was covered in countless bodies of water.
Both of them had not expected that they would see that devastating scene once again.
The ground was cindered black, and no vegetation could grow on it. Sometimes, horrifying bursts of flames would flare up from underground.
The ocean carried a dark red tint from having swept up god knows how many living beings’ fresh blood, appearing both mysterious and sinister.
Not only that, if one pieced these scenes together, with the dimmed sunlight, it would only be proper to call this place an infernal hell!
Toward a place like this, Lu Kuan was anything but unfamiliar. You could even say—it felt like home!
“Nothing’s impossible. The god’s dead, so even this place would become a desolate Land of Death!
“We came too late!”
After keceiving all the information, a bad feeling arose within Su MO’s heart.
Nonetheless, he felt relieved after clearly seeing what lay below.
Before this trip, he had prepared himself for the worst possible scenarios.
The first scenario was that…
Within this unknown land lived the God of the Ocean who still possessed his full strength.
The game was searching for the God of the Ocean’s location.
Su MO was searching for the exact same thing.
Both of them not only had the same goal, but also the same motives.
The game wanted the God of the Ocean dead, and Su MO also did not want him alive!
If the severity of the disaster was half a million times worse, the humans on the wasteland would stand no chance. Once it started, everyone would be engulfed and eradicated in a split second.
No one could afford for such a scenario to happen.
As such, once he met the living God of the Ocean, there would absolutely be no second outcome if they could not come to an agreement.
If that was the case, only one of them could walk away unscathed!
The second scenario was that…
The of the Ocean was still alive, but in a very bad state that caused him to enter a state of deep slumber, just like what the game said.
This scenario was neither the best, nor the worst.
If he faced a weakened God of the Ocean, he had both his title as
Oracle of the God of the Ocean, as well as the system behind him. Even if he could not come to an agreement, Su MO still had the confidence that he could emerge victorious in a battle against him.
Still, if he looked past both these possibilities, what he really hoped would happen was that—the God of the Ocean would be dead or gone!
This would be the best outcome and would be the one he most wanted to see come to pass.
The of the Ocean was still alive, but in a very bad state that caused him to enter a state of deep slumber, just like what the game said.
This scenario was neither the best, nor the worst.
If he faced a weakened God of the Ocean, he had both his title as
Oracle of the God of the Ocean, as well as the system behind him. Even if he could not come to an agreement, Su MO still had the confidence that he could emerge victorious in a battle against him.
Still, if he looked past both these possibilities, what he really hoped would happen was that—the God of the Ocean would be dead or gone!
This would be the best outcome and would be the one he most wanted to see come to pass.
It was a pity that, at this moment, he was still unable to verify whether the God of the Ocean had been sent to an early grave or if he had disappeared into thin air.
He looked at this desolate scene below and had a few guesses as to how things had transpired based on the information he already possessed.
“God is dead…
“Even if God is dead, this place shouldn’t have become like this. This is clearly the aftermath of a nuclear bomb explosion.”
“This place is hundreds of thousands of kilometers up in space! Our weapons couldn’t possibly reach this place!”
The rocket did not have a landing module and could only maintain a cruising speed as it flew across the planet’s skies endlessly.
Lu Kuan continuously repeated Su MO’s words and felt stunned as he looked at the scene below them, which had become very clear.
“Lu Kuan, let me ask you. If you were a fugitive and wanted to hide, where would be the most suitable location?”
Lu Kuan stared blankly, “Hide myself?”
Su MO nodded, ‘Yes, if you didn’t want anyone to find you, where is the safest place you could possibly hide?”
This question seemingly had nothing to do with the previous questions.
However, as he glanced at the serious expression on Su MO’s face, he tilted his head and fell into deep contemplation after temporarily allaying the shock he felt in his heart.
After a while, he slowly said, “If you’re talking about concealing yourself where no one can find you, I’d definitely hide within the Land of Death. There’s nobody around and it’s deserted, so no one would normally come here. ‘
“If you’re talking about the safest hiding place, however, I would stay put in the base. On the wasteland, no other location would be safer than a base built from Level Four Alloy!”
The two answers seemed contradictory at first but, after finishing his train of thought, he was startled by the possible revelation.
He looked down at the Land of Death below, and then at the interested expression on Su MO’s face, he suddenly conjured up a daring thought, ‘You mean? This is…”
Su MO nodded, “You’re right, prepare yourself. I’ll go down to check it out!”
The arrow condensed by the breathing method still steadily pointed down toward the blood-red ocean.
It meant that the God of the Ocean was residing right there.
Even if terrifying amounts of radiation permeated the area below, it had already cost him too much to get here. After considering all the factors, he could not find a reason not to go down there to explore.
“If you wanna go down, we have parachutes. It would not pose a problem!”
“Besides, the area below isn’t the real Land of Death. We’ve already prepared protective suits that are highly-resistant to chemicals that were specifically tailored for situations like this. Based on a rough estimate of the intensity of the radiation—two hours of exploration should pose no issue.”
They quickly returned to the dashboard. Lu Kuan fiddled around with it, and the data on the rocket’s detection module steadily displayed itself.
The atmosphere here was no different than the one on the wasteland.
Putting aside the insane levels of radiation, regardless of what had taken place here in the past, you could even “treat” this planet just like the wasteland’s Land of Death.
For humans wearing chemical protective suits that could block radiation, the world below just looked scary. It was unable to cause them harm.
The only tricky part was that the rocket was not like a spaceship.
Landing would be easy, but launching off again after that would be nearly impossible unless a new launchpad was constructed, with the rebuilt frames and everything.
If he did not prepare for that eventuality, any landing would mean being trapped on this world forever!
“Su MO! Going down is easy, but we don’t have the equipment to bring you back up. ‘
‘Our rocket is ultimately not a spaceship because it doesn’t have modules for takeoffs and landings. If we could land, I would be the best candidate for exploration due to my metal body.”
Lu Kuan tapped on the dashboard and analyzed more and more data, but eventually still shook his head in regret.
Although he also wanted to go down and explore the area below, the Land of Death could well become their “final place of rest”.
The reality of the situation was that going down and coming back up after that was harder than ascending to the heavens.
“Wait a minute, how low can our rocket fly?”
When he was asked such a key question, Lu Kuan became dazed for a while, before swiftly saying, “Because our rocket’s is really light, we can probably descend to an altitude of more or less eighty meters at the lowest. Any lower and we would run the risk of crashing!”
“That’s enough. This is more than sufficient. You guys wait here for me!”
After learning of the eighty meters altitude limit, not only did Su MO not hesitate in the slightest, he straight away marched himself toward the utility room.
k!or Lu Kuan, this height would naturally pose difficulties. However, for someone like Su MO who possessed a magical flying carpet, it would not be a problem at all!
The ability to fly at a height of a hundred meters and for five minutes would not be enough for Su MO to scour the Land of Death fully, but it was definitely enough for him to fly down and back up again!
‘Uhm? Do you have a plan on how you can get back up here?’
One could see Su MO confidently walk out of the utility room with the heavy protective suit.
After wavering slightly, Lu Kuan still chose to stay by Su MO’s side and helped him put on the suit.
Furthermore, after putting on the suit, Lu Kuan brought out two more pieces of equipment.
“Su MO! Since you’ve decided to go down, you must have some tricks up your sleeve that we don’t know about. If you have time though, this equipment is used to collect soil, while the other one is used to collect water.”
“Although our current instruments are limited, a chance like this is hard to come by. If possible, bringing back some of the natural resources from this planet might just help us out a ton in the future!”
The solemn look on Lu Kuan’s face prompted Su MO to nod heavily as he fit both collection instruments into his side pockets.
‘Good! Go ahead and control the rocket’s flight height and I’ll go prepare in the rear. When I want to come back up, we’ll communicate using this!”
Su MO fished out a backup set of his long-range Bluetooth headset from his storage spaces.
After verifying that there were no connection issues, Su MO passed the headset to Lu Kuan.
“Stay safe!”
“Believe in me’”
Farewells between men were anything but maudlin.
Lu Kuan saw the stern look in Su MO’s eyes through the suit’s helmet, and rapidly turned and sprinted toward the captain’s quarters.
Only Su MO and Oreo, one man and one dog, were left behind.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to follow me. It’s equally important to remain here. Later…”
He lowered his body and whispered a few brief words into Oreo’s ears.
One had to refrain from harming others, but also had to stay on guard against those who might potentially harm you.
After leaving the rocket, if Lu Kuan and his group stepped on the pedal and decided to leave immediately, Su MO would be left to his own devices in the Land of Death.
A true man would not stand next to a collapsing wall. From the start, Su MO had prepared safeguards and contingency plans for anything that might happen.
“Woof! Ruff Ruff. ‘
‘Okay, I promise you. If I were to fight, I’d definitely bring you with
He once again patted Oreo’s head and prepared himself. He heard Lu Kuan shouting that he would soon successfully lower the rocket’s altitude.
Hearing this, Su MO’s eyes narrowed as he headed towards the rear large strides.
Other than the re-entry capsule, the rear hatch was the only other place connected to the exterior of the rocket.
Boom!
His arm strength exerted a pulling force greater than ten tons, so the hatch offered no resistance and opened easily.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
In spite of the rocket’s speed slowing down to the point of almost stalling, the view from this high altitude was still tremendous.
In an instant, whirlwinds violently swept in through the hatch.
bome radiation was mixed in with it, which was detected by Su MO’s protective suit. As a result, the Geiger counter started to rustle. This radiation level was no joke; it was truly terrifying.
If the radiation levels were so high even at such a high altitude, one could clearly see what kind of devastation had destroyed this place in the past.
He took another deep breath and whipped out the magical carpet. Seeing the scene below, Su MO once again did not hesitate and descended bravely riding on the magic carpet. .
