Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
With Lily’s nose as a guide, Hao Ren finally found the first piece of the aircraft’s wreckage.
It was a piece of bent metal and a non-descript ellipsoidal equipment bay. It was tangled together with many burnt cables and tubes, reeking of a burnt smell. While the wreckage had already cooled down after a night, it was clear that it had suffered quite a brutal explosion and immolation, which left the outer shell almost melted.
The five-to-six-meter long fragment had fallen between two massive trees, and the impact created a ten-meter-wide crater. The conditions of the trees around the crater were unusually different. The first one had been killed by the impact and extreme temperature, its trunk now snapped and the canopy a burnt-out husk. The other tree, however, still stood evergreen by the crater and its branches, as well as its leaves, looked like they had just sprouted.
Without question, the leaves of the second tree were derived from the First Born after its tentacles broke through the surface. It was quite clear that they were the sensory points of the monstrous creature deep within the planet. Standing beside the crater, Hao Ren knew that he was already in the First Born’s view.
However, as Zorm had mentioned, once a First Born reached maturity (meaning that when it was able to send its tentacles out to any place on the planet’s surface while it stayed within the planet’s core) its sensory abilities underwent several changes, and “microorganisms” around the tentacles would no longer attract its attention. Unless, those microorganisms had energy signatures that were capable of destroying the main body, or they exuded some special agitative and challenging aura.
Hao Ren would obviously not challenge it, so he and the rest restrained their aura as they carefully approached the crater and began to inspect the aircraft’s wreckage.
“This is probably the radar compartment, and the metal plate on the top is part of a protective layer.” The MDT floated next to Hao Ren’s head as it scanned the wreckage’s structure with a blue ray. “The inside’s been totaled… Seems like the impact was devastating and every part of the ship suffered massive compression. The First Born’s tentacles probably deployed a stagnation forcefield, and the aircraft, flying at full speed suddenly went from highspeed to zero. Without a stabilizer, no vehicle could have withstood such a sudden change in speed.”
“There should be other wreckage nearby, probably in an even better state.” Hao Ren looked around. “I remember one of the aircraft was taken out during the bombing run, and it was clearly decelerating before being shot out of the sky. That wreckage should fare a little better.”
Lily snorted. “Fare better after being blasted into pieces out of the sky…”
That said, the werehusky was still a good bi… a good girl who would do her best in finding stuff. Under such circumstances, her nose was even more effective than the MDT’s simple radar system, and it did not take long for them to find more wreckage.
There were more pieces of wreckage than expected. If Hao Ren were to account for every screw that had fallen, the four aircraft would have probably disintegrated into at least five digits worth of parts in the area. Plus, their spread could have easily been more than ten kilometers wide. But not every piece was worth their attention, and Hao Ren was looking for the cockpit.
Even better would be the discovery of the corpses of the pilots…
They found another large wreckage within a depression about a few hundred meters away from the radar compartment. This piece of wreckage was a few times bigger than the radar compartment. It had two parallel rails that seemed to function as track accelerators. There were also a few other torn tubes and several burnt wire structures. The entire mess was lying sideways within the depression. The water in the depression had already evaporated due to the extreme temperature and only a parched patch of mud was left.”
“This is probably a weapon module, a part of a railgun.” The MDT once again ran a scan. “A railgun should probably have more components but seems like these were left after the crash. Let me see… High-temperature superconductor, a high-efficiency capacitor bank and… Oh? A shell stuck at the end of the rail? Decent quality.”
“What are you on about?” Wuyue scratched her head as she wiggled her tail impatiently on the ground. “So can you tell if their weapons are super high-tech, or can you see the survivor’s industrial capabilities?”
“This entry-level railgun technology isn’t something super-advanced. Even Earthlings are almost there now. But a later stage railgun is a totally different beast compared with an early-stage test model,” the MDT said as it bumped itself against the rails of the wreckage. “There are only sturdy materials left in this wreckage. There aren’t any tech components in it, probably destroyed by the extreme heat. I can only come up with an analysis based on these materials, and their work is pretty decent. A shot from this railgun can punch through any man-made object, including the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier or the Khufu Pyramid. Of course, the plasma bombs that they lobbed during the bombing run are much stronger, and against the tentacles of the First Born, bombs are usually more useful than cannons.”
“Creating and maintaining these powerful flyers would require a stable industrial base.” Hao Ren rubbed his chin. “And this industry must be capable of producing these weapons to keep up with the attrition. This would need raw material support. The attack yesterday was by a wing of six and only two survived. I believe that such losses are common when confronting the First Born. They could also be worse…”
“The survivors did not only survive, but they are also equipped with the might of a country, industry, and population at the very least. They would’ve have needed raw materials, factories, auxiliary industries, and manpower to support these projects. That means a sizeable amount of land was acquired, or else these weapons alone would not have allowed them to survive for thousands of years.” Vivian nodded. “A good example would be those ‘ancient gods’ who perished after just a generation or two.”
Hao Ren waved as he called the patrolling droids over and ordered them to clear up the railgun’s wreckage as well as collect any other pieces of debris around the area. Those droids were the ones converted by Nolan the day before. While some of their tentacles were now equipped with laser rifles and shield generators, their remaining tentacles could still complete simple engineering works.
Hao Ren realized that he really needed to have a batch of droids converted permanently into those semi-combat, semi-support type, especially when exploring a foreign planet with danger all around. Perhaps he could create a new production line and call it the generic vanguard unit?
“Collect those bigger wreckage parts,” Hao Ren ordered as he explained to Vivian beside him. “The lab in the ship is still working. Once they’re sent back, Nolan can run a few scans using the analysis mainframe.”
The collected pieces of wreckage were carefully categorized before they were stored in Hao Ren’s limitless Dimensional Pocket while Lily headed deeper into the jungle to search for more.
Not long after, Hao Ren heard a gunshot in the jungle. As the sound of gunfire rang, so did Lily’s yelp. “Waahh!”
“F*ck me… that dumb dog ran into trouble!”
Hao Ren yelled before he dashed headlong in the direction of the noise while Vivian and Wuyue followed closely behind.
Just as they were halfway there, they saw Lily bounce energetically out of the woods as she screamed, “Mr. Landlord, Mr. Landlord, I found someone! I found someone! I even got shot!”
Seeing how energetic the husky was, Hao Ren swallowed all his worries back into his gut, but he was quickly befuddled. The husky was actually all excited after she got shot. Would she also grin from ear to ear if her family got massacred?
And she actually found a surviving pilot?!
“Are you all right?” Hao Ren still focused on examining the werehusky. “I heard you yelling.”
Lily lifted her arm. “Just a scratch. I couldn’t react in time. By the time I saw the bullet, it was too late to dodge, and I just ended up blocking it with my arm. Say… alien guns are far stronger than human ones. I thought I could just grab it out of the air…”
Hao Ren was quite horrified by the wound in Lily’s arm and was really amazed by how optimistic the husky was. He then pushed her towards Wuyue. “Wuyue, patch her up please.”
Nangong Wuyue summoned a healing orb and placed it near Lily’s wound. The gunshot wound then slowly started to heal. Seeing that Lily was doing all right, Hao Ren turned towards the direction in which the former had come from. “Just right ahead?”
“Not too far ahead, but after shooting me, that bastard seemingly fainted, probably too heavily injured…”
With Lily as the head, the group found the crash site within the thick jungle.
A giant wreck had fallen there, and near the crash, all plantlife had already been burnt by the massive fire that followed. A heap of metal wreckage lay within the circular impact point, and witnessing the scene, the first thing that came to Hao Ren’s mind was, how could someone have survived such a crash?”
Then he saw the “survivor” in the wreckage.
It was a female, at least based on its appearance. She lay lifelessly within the twisted tubes and metal. Her body was badly burnt in many areas, and her left arm was missing while the right was holding a black tinted weapon. It was most likely the weapon that injured Lily. There was no lower body as it had been blown apart. Only a few wirings were exposed from the wound and sparks jumped around from time to time.
This was the survivor Lily was talking about.
Vivian looked at the female’s seemingly torn robotic lower body before she turned to Lily, rolling her eyes. “All right, looks like she’s really ‘injured’. I think you didn’t even realize that this was a robot.”
“I didn’t see it clearly.” Lily ruffled her hair. “She suddenly shot at me, and my vision was pretty much trained on the bullet…”
