Chapter 168 Chapter 168 Scare Yourself
Li Hua used the [ground] card to dig through one weathered layer after another, and with a speed more efficient than that of an excavator, he brought the buildings of one city after another back to light.
They found a lot of bodies, but like the three they saw at the beginning, they could not scan for DNA, and without exception, they all showed signs of being burned by fire.
The remains of Mars were well preserved, so Benjamin and Li Hua could easily tell from the surrounding traces that the source of the fire was not from the surroundings, but from the corpses.
Li Hua: "But how can a person catch fire by himself?"
There is wind on Mars, too. The howling wind blows into the buildings that have turned into tombs, and the sound of the wind is like howling, roaring, and like a cry for help.
Even though the wind didn't actually hit Li Hua because of the space suit, when the wind blew, he still felt a chill that penetrated his bones and he subconsciously curled up his arms.
No wonder Martian Manhunter and his niece are reluctant to return to Mars.
"You've seen swampfires and flame men before. They can catch fire, so maybe Martians can too," Benjamin said. "Maybe the disease caused them to lose control of their flames, which is why they spontaneously combusted. Remember, Martian Manhunter said that the virus was transmitted telepathically and was only effective against Martians."
Judging from the locations and postures of the bodies, they had tried to escape from Mars, tried to hide, and some were just living a normal life, but they all spontaneously combusted for unknown reasons.
The ice ghost cubs have no idea what their parents are doing, and the newborn lives curiously travel among the ruins of ancient civilization.
Suddenly, an invisible ice ghost cub bumped into something. The cub cried out in confusion and some grievance as its head was hurt.
His other brothers and sisters heard the sound and gathered around out of curiosity.
This was the first time they encountered something they couldn't pass through, except for their brothers and sisters and parents in an invisible state!
Out of curiosity, the cubs banged their heads and knocked on the door they couldn't open with their undeveloped hands, unaware that their biological parents and godfather were almost scared to death.
Especially Li Hua.
Just think about it, being in a ghost town, with strange causes of death, the sound of wind swirling overhead like the howling of wronged souls, and now there's a knock on the door where several bodies lie...
This is worse than the enemy appearing directly in front of you. If the enemy appears directly in front of you, you either fight or die, which doesn't give you such great psychological pressure!
Only Li Hua himself knew the sense of redemption he felt when his hair stood on end and he and Benjamin were ready to fight as they followed the sound, only to find when they shone the flashlight that it was his own child banging his head against the wall.
The adorable cubs squawked and danced to their guardians, describing their own setbacks. This comforted their guardians, whose hearts were nearly leaping out of their throats. Li Hua scooped up the two cubs that had flown in front of him, rubbing them twice and smiling with relief. "I thought they were ghosts, but it turned out to be you naughty little ghosts."
"Remember what Martian Manhunter and the Hammerhead Shark boss at the space station said?" Benjamin walked to the door and found it was locked from the inside. "The Martians can also turn intangible, and they've developed technology that can block intangibility. Also, due to their amazing innate abilities, Martian security technology is also advanced... but I wonder if they have any anti-Nakfuji technology."
Benjamin knocked on the metal door, pointed at the lock, and said, "Come on, kids, spit out the most powerful ice for Mommy!"
It turns out that the Martians really don't have anti-Nakfuj technology...or perhaps this door, which has been in service for hundreds of years, has lost this technology.
Under the icy breath of the Ice Ghost, the door lock became brittle, and Li Hua knocked it with his bird-beak staff and the head and body were separated.
Li Hua kicked open the door that was frozen to the wall by the ice. In the darkness ahead, he saw a ferocious, pale face. His heart stopped beating instantly.
【Calm down, that's not the enemy.】
The voice of No. 666 exploded in their heads before Li Hua drew the [Dismiss] card and Benjamin snapped his watch.
If there were ghosts on Mars, the Martian Manhunter would have returned eight hundred years ago to live with his family and friends. And wouldn't it be better if there were ghosts? He could just capture them and ask where the cemetery is, saving you the trouble of searching.
When Benjamin shone his flashlight, the two men realized that the white face belonged to a white Martian who was sitting against the wall in the middle of a pile of human-shaped ashes, holding something like a gun in his right hand.
The Omnitrix announced: "Non-Earth human DNA detected. DNA data collection in progress. The Martian DNA gene bank data has been updated. The life code...does not require an update."
At this moment, Li Hua suddenly realized that the white face was exactly the same as the form that Martian Hunter had briefly shown, and the mini projection form that briefly appeared on the Omnitrix dial, the only difference was the color.
So this face is not a ferocious one, but this is what the prototype of Martians looks like.
"I'm sorry." Li Hua lowered his head and apologized to the deceased Martian, who was either originally white or had turned white after death. He whispered, "Rest in peace."
"I'm sorry to scream at you," Benjamin said after walking down the stairs and surveying the scene. "He...or she, committed suicide with this gun in her hand."
The white Martian and several of his companions hid in a room that was still able to operate in protective mode centuries later, but the plague still came. In such a desperate situation, he (she?) bravely snatched control of his own destiny from the plague doctor.
Because of this feat, his (her?) remains were able to preserve DNA, and eventually he (she?) boarded the Ark of Life from another universe.
The room was not big, and judging from the several safe-like objects stored inside, it might have originally been a room used to store valuables.
It is for this reason that these Martians, who may not yet know how the plague is transmitted, try to hide here and use security systems to block the plague.
Li Hua hammered open one of the boxes and took out a document made of some special material that was similar to a real estate certificate or business license. He learned that this seemed to be a store similar to a loan or pawnshop.
No wonder there are such security measures.
"There's nothing here." The basement wasn't big. Benjamin scanned the area with his flashlight but couldn't find another Martian whose DNA he could scan. "Let's go."
Li Hua and Benjamin opened one dusty building after another, finding charred bones one after another, but they were unable to find a body that could be scanned for DNA.
The flight time of a space suit is limited. After three hours of searching, Li Hua and Benjamin returned to the spacecraft to recharge their space suits, then drank the mineral water they brought to replenish their energy and analyze the current situation.
Li Hua: "Why did you take us to those secure buildings?"
They went to three buildings, all of which had security measures. These three buildings were not adjacent to each other, but Benjamin took Li Hua to skip the other buildings along the way and chose these ones.
Benjamin: "Actually, I didn't know there were security measures in those construction departments. It's just that I can't see through those areas when I'm transformed into a Kryptonian."
He couldn't remember the entire map of Mars, but he could still remember the locations of a few scattered punctuation marks in a small city.
"The Martian city is so huge that we would waste countless hours just searching for it. So I think we can use this to our advantage and check those protected areas. Maybe we can find a second intact body from which we can collect DNA."
"That's a possible solution. Let's narrow it down further," Li Hua said, pulling out his phone from the spaceship's trunk and taking a picture. "Didn't we go to the ruins of a police station earlier? I found this in one of the rooms and asked No. 666 to record it."
It was a detailed map of this fallen city.
Li Hua continued to zoom in on the map with his fingers, pointing to a Martian place name and showing it to Benjamin: "Is this area also in the place you can't see clearly?"
Benjamin didn't recognize Martian language, but he recognized it from the layout of the surrounding buildings. "Yes, there is this area. But it's some distance from our current area. We need to take a spacecraft to get there."
Li Hua: "Then we'll go here later."
"Why?" Benjamin was puzzled. "What's here?"
"There's a cemetery," Li Hua said. "These people died before the plague started. If Martians don't have cremation practices, this is the most likely place we've collected Martian DNA."
Benjamin's expression froze: "Doesn't that mean we have to..."
"What we're doing now is no different." Li Hua pulled out two folding shovels from his backpack, his expression solemn. "So to save the endangered Martians, let's dig up their ancestral graves."
"Time waits for no one. We have to go back to Bludhaven for night patrol tonight. After we dig up the graves in this city, there will be graves in the next city waiting for us to excavate. We don't have time to care about all those red tape."
Even if we get rid of the red tape, digging graves is a technical job in every sense, and digging the graves of alien technology is the most technical job among technical jobs.
It's easy to imagine that the inhabitants of a tomb protected by security measures that would still be operational centuries later were certainly not ordinary people. Since they were not ordinary people, the decoration of the tomb must also be in line with their status.
This Martian tomb is not like an open-air tomb on Earth. From its shape, it looks like a huge inverted metal pyramid with most of it buried underground.
Li Hua used a [ground] sign to clear the dirt at the door, and he and Benjamin walked along a long and narrow corridor along the door, and finally arrived at the hall in the center.
"It's incredible," Benjamin exclaimed after seeing the Ice Ghost cub attempt to become invisible and burrow into the ground but was blocked. "Centuries later, the security system of such a large facility is still functioning."
"This may be bad news for us, as it makes our archaeological work more difficult."
Li Hua activated the [Shield] and covered Benjamin.
"It's your turn now. Show off your skills in front of the kids, Mommy."
"Got it." Benjamin took off his space suit to avoid it from being torn after the transformation, and then happily turned the watch.
After a burst of green light, Crab Armored Mastermind tentatively stepped out from the dissipated [Shield]: "The temperature is higher than I expected. It seems we are in the daytime of Martian summer, quite close to the perihelion of Mars' orbit."
Li Hua pointed at the door that wouldn't open and said, "Thank you for your explanation, but please hurry up."
Otherwise, if Benjamin had turned back into a human being halfway through, this Martian cemetery probably would not have thought that it would welcome new residents centuries later.
-----------------------
The author has something to say: When I was writing this chapter last night, I was so scared that I couldn't continue writing because of the atmosphere. I am a cup of flying milk tea [burst into tears]
【Catch the bug twice】
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
