It wasn’t just Professor Vernal and Schultz who were left behind.
The other group marching along another spacious passage also encountered the “earthquake” that changed the entire ruins.
Wang Peng climbed up from the ground. He gritted his teeth and removed the stone pressing on his leg. If this was on Earth, his legs would be broken, but fortunately, the gravity of Mars was only 0.37 times that of Earth.
He took out the torch hanging under the muzzle and threw the broken rifle aside. He walked to the side and pulled Fan Tong from under the gravel.
“I told you… cough cough… that thing is useless.”
“Whether it’s useful or not, it’s broken.”
After checking the operation of various equipment on the spacesuit, Fan Tong leaned against the rock wall next to him with a sigh of relief.
“Where’s the rest?”
“I don’t know…”
Aubrey and Lomonov fell behind when they escaped and were forced to rush into another path. It was still unclear whether they were alive or dead, but Wang Peng didn’t care.
What worried him was that Lu Zhou was gone too!
“Damn it!”
He slammed his fist against the nearby rock wall.
This shocked Fan Tong, who was standing next to him. Fan Tong quickly reached out and grabbed him.
“Bro, calm down… We’re already in this situation, we have to think of a solution.”
Wang Peng was in the special forces.
After taking a deep breath, he quickly calmed himself down.
“I’m going to find him.”
Fan Tong said, “How are you going to find him? Are you going to blow up the rock walls?”
The corners of Wang Peng’s mouth twitched, but he did not respond.
He would consider doing this, but, unfortunately, he didn’t have explosives or anything in his hand. A broken gun was not useful at all.
Wang Peng clenched his fist.
Fan Tong continued in a quiet voice, “I said before that the tunnel here will change drastically every two hours. However, no matter how it changes, I think its endpoint is the same. If… he is still alive, we will definitely be able to meet at the front.
“In any case, we can only move forward!”
…
On the other side.
Lomonov put his hands on his knees as he leaned against the rock wall, panting.
A weak voice came from the communication channel.
“Sh*t… Give me a hand, I’m stuck.”
After taking a deep breath, Lomonov stepped forward patiently. He reached out his hand to pull the buried American astrophysicist out of the gravel pile.
“This is a mistake!” Lomonov looked at Professor Aubrey and said, “Now look, we’re left behind.”
“We just got separated, stay calm…” Aubrey took a deep breath and looked around. “Aren’t we still alive?”
“Not for long!”
In the entire team, when it came to survival, these two had the most useless skill sets. Lomonov had already started to regret coming on this trip.
Compared with Lomonov’s pessimism, Professor Aubrey’s mood was fairly stable.
After taking a deep breath, he straightened up and observed the surroundings. He thought for a moment and said, “This is not like normal tectonic movement… No, it shouldn’t even be mechanical movement.”
Lomonov glanced at him.
Although he didn’t think this discovery would be any help to survival, he still asked casually, “How did you come to this conclusion?”
“Conclusion? Are you kidding?” Aubrey looked at the Russian aerospace engineering expert. “The rock mass of millions or even tens of millions of tons is moving? A large-scale geological movement every two hours? Well, maybe it is possible, but where does the energy come from?”
Lomonov frowned.
Obviously, he also realized this.
Aubrey gulped and continued, “Rely on the cooled core? And the tunnels, if they really collided with each other because of the movement in the ground, then there is no doubt that the inertia alone is enough to bring down this mountain.”
Lomonov frowned and said, “It’s not mechanical movement… Then what do you think it is? Magic?”
“Not magic, but for us, this technology is probably no different from magic.”
Professor Aubrey sat down against the rock wall and sighed.
He looked at Lomonov and spoke.
“Of course, I have a guess.
“Have you heard of standard Euclidean space?”
…
Inside the empty rock cave.
Except for the dust and the person standing in the gravel, nothing else was nearby.
Lu Zhou felt his steady heartbeat. He slowly opened his eyes and lowered his arms.
He looked at the surroundings. His eyes fell on the giant arch that was about five meters tall in front of him. A thoughtful expression appeared on his face.
“I see…
“It seems that my guess is correct.”
After listening to Dr. Fan Tong’s description, he had a suspicion. Now, this was proof that his suspicion was correct.
There was no earthquake here.
These tunnels themselves never changed.
Only the order was disrupted!
Basically, the area where the ruin was in was not a three-dimensional space in the traditional sense but a standard Euclidean space after expansion.
In this space, fragments of four-dimensional space or higher-dimensional space were scattered like bubbles, hidden in corners invisible to three-dimensional creatures.
This explanation was difficult to understand.
Basically, everything in the ruins, including the intricate tunnels and passages, was like pieces of a puzzle.
On the surface, the geological movement caused the collapse and formation of new and old tunnels, but in essence, an invisible hand disrupted these puzzles and put them together again.
Everything never changed.
After realizing all this, Lu Zhou immediately made a decision. When the earthquake happened, he deliberately left other people aside and took the initiative to let the tunnel “collapse” on him.
It now seemed like he was correct.
Otherwise, he would have been crushed into meat sauce, and he would not be standing here.
“This should be the place where the Holy Relic is…”
Lu Zhou did not hesitate. He walked toward the tall arch.
As soon as he stepped into the space behind the arch, the empty communication channel instantly lit up.
Immediately afterward, an electric current sound rang in his ears.
“… You’re here.”
