Chen Nian repeated the special forces' findings to Chen Ci: "It's a good opportunity for us to go over and verify it. If it is really related to the original creatures, then the sea king, as the most powerful original creature, must have the cleanest area around it."

Chen Ci nodded and stood up.

After preparation, the group set out again and headed for the location of the Sea King.

As soon as he stepped into this space, Chen Nian felt something unusual. The air was filled with a strong fishy smell, as if there were ten thousand crayfish rotting in a stinky ditch, making him unable to help but raise his hand to cover his nose.

Among the more than 120 people present, he was the only one who had taken off half of his protective suit because of treating his wounds. Chen Nian quickly took out his mask and put it on, and was finally able to take a deep breath of the purified air.

It doesn't taste fresh.

The state of Poseidon was self-evident; it smelled like it was dying.

Under the protection of the special forces, the four finally approached the tail of the huge creature.

Shaflay observed the hooks under the scales, and the relevant memories in the game were evoked. Except for some discrepancies in color, the Sea King Maxini he saw in the electric fantasy kingdom was exactly the same as the creature in front of him.

Chen Nian said softly, "In reality, no one has ever seen Maxine in person, right?"

"My father only used his mental power to explore the relevant sea area when he happened to pass by it. He did not fight it head-on, so there is only a rough outline in the manuscript."

“The fact that the models built by the trusted beacons are so consistent suggests that they had accurate data when the game was being made.”

Fu Tianhe: "It's impossible that the Beacons captured the Sea King to study him in order to make the game more realistic?"

"Modeling should be just a byproduct." Chen Ci paused, "Are all the sea kings we have seen in the Electric Fantasy Kingdom modeled according to reality like this one?"

No one could give an answer, but everyone understood what Chen Ci meant.

If this is true, it means that the beacon knows the detailed information of more than twenty sea kings.

For hundreds of years, the sea kings have indeed led the original creatures to attack the beacon one after another.

However, with the layers of defense of the Ring-Ocean Platform, it was very rare to directly attack the beacon.

Take Cinnabar for example. The most serious attack hit an abandoned suburb, destroying the area into ruins. More than a decade later, there were still a large number of corpses of primitive creatures left there.

Schaffray: "Nineteen years ago, Moonlight was attacked violently for several months. This may have something to do with it."

Fu Tianhe: "Did the attack occur before the collapse or after the collapse?"

Schaffray: "Both, but the strongest ones were after the collapse."

Chen Ci walked up to the huge body of Poseidon, took off the gloves of his protective suit, and raised his hands to press on the metal scales.

The protective clothing of Chen Ci and Chen Nian is different from that of others. It mainly provides the function of pressure resistance and shock absorption. Otherwise, the previous fall would have been enough to kill the two brothers.

Without having to consider protecting Ashes, their gloves and masks can be put on and taken off freely.

Seeing this, Chen Nian also followed his brother's example and reached out to touch it in an imitative manner.

The palm of my hand felt cool, and the scales had traces of rust and were indescribably rough.

Chen Nian took a deep breath, closed his eyes, concentrated all his energy, and released his mental power.

He had come into contact with very few primitive creatures in person. The only time he went to the Ring Ocean Platform was when he heard the buzzing sound of small snails and the calls of giant starfish and octopuses.

And now, Chen Nian's mental strength has improved greatly, even stronger than most AOs who have received systematic training since the age of 16.

Resonance first occurs between the existing words and existing thoughts.

The two energies come from the same source, but have slight changes due to different acquired growth trajectories.

They merged into one, like the bloodstains blending in the patterns of the moonlight gate, mixing without distinction between you and me, sensing the huge and stinking sea king.

Buzz——

The moment the dull sound came from deep in his mind, Chen Nian suppressed the shock in his heart and tried his best to keep himself as stable as possible.

He heard it, yes he heard it!

This sea king is still alive!

Incomprehensible jumbled syllables filled my mind, and just by listening to them, I could feel endless pain and fatigue.

Chen Nian continued to mobilize more mental strength. He and Chen Ci supported each other, producing an astonishing effect of 1 plus 1 being far greater than 2.

As if some energy was obtained with great difficulty from this mental force, the dull sound gradually became clearer.

【Come...save me...save...】

It is asking for help from its brothers.

Perhaps the Sea King has been lying here all along, calling out in his own unique way, hoping that someone will rescue him, but to no avail.

In places that cannot be seen, it suffered serious injuries, and the wounds were gradually rotting, emitting a strong fishy smell.

All I can do is wait for death to approach step by step.

For a moment, Chen Nian felt a moment of pity in his heart, and he didn't know why he had such a feeling.

Even in the dungeon, he could kill rats and cockroaches without blinking an eye, and on the sea platform, he could smash the shellfish and crabs on the ground with a shovel.

But at this moment, my heart was filled with pity.

Why is it so strange?

Chen Nian frowned, and he listened attentively for a few minutes, confirming that Poseidon was just repeating his message for help over and over again.

Finally, Chen Nian couldn't bear it anymore and took his hand back first.

Chen Ci looked over, their amber eyes met, and Chen Ci asked softly, "Did you hear that?"

Chen Nian nodded: "It... is asking us for help."

Similar things have happened before. A few months ago, on the beach of an abandoned suburb, the dying primitive squid cried and asked for a statement.

But Chen Ci picked out its heart without blinking an eye.

And now, maybe because his emotions have recovered, Chen Ci actually seems a little moved.

Judging from Chen Nian's performance, he probably feels the same way.

Not good.

Chen Ci: "Let's go and have a look at other places."

Chen Nian followed behind Chen Ci, grabbed the sharp scales, and climbed up to the Sea King.

"Be careful." Fu Tianhe reminded them.

After climbing more than ten meters and about to reach the ceiling, Chen Ci discovered the first eye.

Its diameter is slightly smaller than the one seen in the game, about two meters, and its pupils are a cloudy grayish-white, as if covered by a thick film.

The pupils were dilated almost to the periphery; the eyes of most deep-sea fish have degenerated during the long years of darkness.

But this Poseidon not only did not have that, but it also grew dozens more, and it should be active in shallow waters.

It had grown so big that its original species could no longer be identified. Chen Nian lowered his head and moved closer. He heard Shafley shout from below: "The compass is moving!"

"Is it here?" Chen Nian asked out loud. In fact, he didn't need an answer because he had already expected it.

Right in the center of the pupil of this eye, decay was occurring. The rotting biological tissue reminded Chen Nian of cooked brains, or tofu that had been kicked into pieces.

Chen Nian glanced sideways at the ceiling which was only twenty centimeters away from his head, and then he lay on the back of Poseidon, moving forward inch by inch.

"Be careful." Chen Ci reminded.

The sharp scales could tear the protective suit at any time, causing bleeding wounds on Chen Nian's body.

Although Chen Nian was a little chubby, he was by no means clumsy. He crawled to the eye and sandwiched his body between Poseidon and the ceiling.

Chen Nian was so nervous that he dared not even breathe. If the big thing under him moved even a little, he would be squeezed into a pulp immediately.

Fortunately, the thing I worried about did not happen.

Chen Nian stretched out his hand, but it was a bit beyond his reach, so he gritted his teeth and continued forward.

The upper body lies on the surface of the eyeball, and the feeling is very similar to that in the game, but softer.

——The dying Poseidon’s eyeballs have lost their elasticity. Will it be the same for humans?

Chen Nian lay on the eyeball from the waist up. He stretched out his right hand and inserted it into the rotten pupil in the center.

It’s hard to describe what it feels like.

If he didn't know it beforehand, Chen Nian would only feel that he had put his hand into a pool of fake water, and the liquid colloidal substance wrapped around his arm, making gurgling sounds as it went deeper and deeper.

But unfortunately, he knew exactly what he was doing, and all he felt was a strong sense of disgust.

Chen Nian heard the sound again. Even though he did not deliberately use his mental power, the painful howl still drilled into his brain.

[It hurts... It hurts so much! ]

——I’m sorry, but I really need this.

Chen Nian forced himself to ignore the sound until he had put half of his arm in and finally touched the target he was looking for.

He grabbed it and then pulled his arm out with great force!

【ah!!!】

The juice splashed onto his mask, leaving a few blurry marks.

Chen Nian resisted the urge to vomit. He looked closely and saw that what was wrapped in the grayish-white sticky vitreous substance was an arm.

He did not bother to examine it carefully, and quickly exited the narrow space, carefully sliding down along the curve of Poseidon's body.

Chen Nian was panting heavily and felt a little pain in his head, perhaps because of the screams of Poseidon just now.

He offered his arm to Shaflay and immediately turned to clean his mask to divert his attention.

Fu Tianhe counted the body parts around his waist: "We picked up a hand, half an arm, a foot and half a calf, oh, and a kidney. According to the size of the body parts and the speed of searching, it will take several days to piece the whole person together."

"Wait a minute, this doesn't look like a simple arm."

Shafulai was cleaning the stains off his arm when he suddenly discovered that there were black lines on the outside of his arm that looked like a barcode.

Chen Ci came over, took a few glances, picked up the terminal, and aimed the camera at the pattern.

drop.

The scan was completed, but after a long wait due to poor network conditions, nothing was recognized.

If we could sweep it out, it would be like seeing a ghost.

Shafley continued to examine it. He pressed lightly on the spot where the barcode was and felt something hard.

"There's a chip implanted in it."

Shafley drew the dagger from his waist. He hesitated for a few seconds, unsure whether he should cut it open and destroy its integrity.

But then I thought, she has already turned into such a broken piece of corpse, there is no need to care too much about it.

Shafulai silently said sorry in his heart.

The dagger slashed down, cutting the flesh precisely, and the tip of the knife picked out the chip buried under the skin.

Fu Tianhe took over the arm so that Shafulai could take action and study the chip carefully.

"This thing should be plugged into a special recognition machine." Shafley said, "We need to find a usable machine to read the contents inside."

"Then let's keep looking," Chen Ci said, "follow the body of this thing. I want to know how it got up here."

At this time, the special forces team reorganized the team and let the injured member walk in the middle position with the four people.

"Have you been in the special forces for five years?" Chen Nian was quite surprised.

From the conversation just now, he knew that the injured female Alpha special forces member was named Xu Fengyi.

"Yes, I served in other units for seven years before I was selected into the special forces."

Chen Nian: "That's amazing. It must be very hard."

"It's okay. After all, it's something I like, so I don't think it's that hard." Xu Fengyi smiled and said, "When I was a child, I decided to apply for the military academy because I read the news about Marshal Chen Weiyuan. Your father is the goal of many of us, don't you think so, Davis?"

Davis: "How could anyone who had attended military academy not take the marshal as a role model? He wrote several textbooks."

Chen Nian couldn't remember how many times he had heard others talk about his father. In the Veterans Affairs Academy, the soldiers who were injured, disabled, or permanently ill all spoke of the long-dead Chen Wei with the same reverent tone.

Davis sighed: "If only the marshal hadn't died so early."

Chen Nian: "Unfortunately, I don't have much memory of my father. I was very young when he left."

Xu Fengyi suddenly responded: "Sorry for bringing up your sad story."

"It's okay. I want to hear more, too."

As Chen Nian chatted with her, he felt that the inexplicable sadness in his mind had disappeared a lot.

It was as if... an invisible rope pulled him back to the human world.

Chen Ci was also there, and although he didn't say a word, Chen Nian knew that his brother must be listening carefully.

They followed the body of the Poseidon, found the broken gap, lowered the rope through the broken gap, and went down to a deeper place.

The intermittent sounds still echoed in my mind, but they were much weaker than before.

Chen Nian forced himself to ignore the discordant call. He asked Shafley if he heard anything, but received a negative answer.

As before, only he and his brother could hear it.

The team arrived at the area below the CPU side room. This was still where the beacon CPU was located, but ordinary residents were prohibited from living there. Only professional staff could enter using permission cards.

Two huge CPUs support all calculations and serve as the base of the huge building. Countless sea water is pumped for its cooling. This is the most important area of ​​all beacons.

Before losing contact, Moonlight was still able to allocate computing power to assist in the development of the game, indicating that the CPU problem should not be serious.

Fu Tianhe looked up and observed his surroundings. He saw broken lights embedded in the wall and exposed wires due to damage. He walked forward and checked with other special forces members.

"There is electricity." Fu Tianhe quickly concluded, "If it is not connected to the battery, there should be a power distribution station nearby."

This is exceptionally good news for everyone.

The presence of electricity means there is a need, perhaps the moonlight itself is still functioning, and perhaps there are still survivors alive.

After all, when Marshal Chen Weiyuan led the army to evacuate, he only took away tens of thousands of residents, while Yueguang has a permanent population of 23 million.

Those who managed to escape were just a drop in the bucket.

It is said that more than 20 million people are buried forever in the moonlight, but until now, apart from the collected body parts, they have not found any human remains.

Chen Nian suddenly thought of the drawing he saw under the table in the Veterans Academy.

Shelter 41.

Before he had time to think about it, the seventh vibration suddenly occurred.

The special forces responded skillfully, with more than a hundred guns pointed in different directions. The captain quickly determined the difference between this earthquake and other collapses.

At the same time, Shafley's voice came from the channel: "It's a worm."

The worm that was blown up by Chen Ci and thrown away due to the metal structure finally found a suitable passage and followed!

However, this time, the four of them no longer had to desperately escape.

The bullet hit the worm's head, causing its juice to splash out immediately. The worm twisted its body wildly and dived into the ground in an attempt to hide itself completely.

The rumbling sound of drilling the ground was accompanied by the vibration of the footsteps. The worm saw that the situation was not good and slipped away faster than anyone else. In the blink of an eye, it disappeared from the spot, leaving behind only a huge narrow hole and a lot of splashing mucus.

Chen Nian was so angry when he saw this. Beat him! Beat you to death, you bastard!

The team members stepped forward and collected the mucus for temporary testing.

Everyone gathered around the hole where the worm had escaped. The special forces leader held a gun in both hands and asked, "Hey guys, what did this thing eat to grow so big?"

No one could give him an answer. In fact, both the crystal creatures and the worms he had just seen were too large to be naturally generated in the moonlight.

After all, all they saw along the way were long-dead skeletons, no plants, and no sufficient food sources.

But their numbers were greater than expected, and after the battle, no Amethyst creatures were seen taking away corpses of their own kind to share.

There must be a stable food source inside the moonlight that they haven't discovered yet.

"How about we follow this worm and see what's going on?" Fu Tianhe suggested.

The special forces captain shook his head and said, "It's too dangerous. Besides, this hole is not very big. Even if we can get in, it will be difficult to maneuver inside. If the worms take the opportunity to attack, we will be sitting ducks."

He is right. To be on the safe side, it is better not to take the risk.

People went back to continue searching. Since there was electricity, it meant that some machinery and electronic equipment could be driven.

Fu Tianhe groped along the wires and finally found a small transformer in the corner. The source of electricity should be further down.

It's just that many electronic doors that require identification block the way to other areas.

At this time, the test results of the worm juice came out.

The instruments they carried were small and the results were not precise, but they were enough to give everyone a general idea.

The components inside the worm's body have many similarities with those of the Poseidon next to us, and the species origin was confirmed to be the Samarium slug worm.

This is a creature that lives in the ocean and feeds on plankton and debris. It has eight tentacles on its head that are as long as its body, which are used for breathing. Its body is covered with shorter tentacles, which are used for crawling and sliding.

But this one has obviously undergone some changes. In order to adapt to life in the moonlight, it has evolved stronger mouthparts.

"Is it related to Poseidon?" Chen Nian looked at the huge part of Poseidon's body. "Could it be the child of Poseidon and the giant Samayurgi worm? But there won't be reproductive isolation?"

Shafley: “Who knows?”

Fu Tianhe and other team members took a general look at the area.

From a structural point of view, there are no signs of crystalline organisms' activity in the buffer zone. If Poseidon had not broken a hole in the ceiling, it would have been difficult to enter.

"Just keep following it down," said Shaflay.

The team members found the loosest point beside Poseidon, expanded the crack to a width wide enough for two people to pass through, and then went down one after another along the rope.

In fact, they should thank Poseidon for helping them to open up a passage.

His feet touched the ground again and Chen Nian loosened the rope. His mental power had already explored the situation nearby during the descent.

This time, they finally found the head of the sea king.

Chen Nian gently pulled Chen Ci's sleeve, and the two brothers walked around a little and came in front of the Sea King.

Maxine does look like a gigantic lizard, except that it has eleven or twelve eyes crammed into its head, which is extremely weird.

As if those eyes sensed the approach of Chen Ci and Chen Nian, they moved.

They rotated slowly, as if the already soft and rotten tissue was squeezed, and a sticky and turbid liquid flowed out of the eye sockets.

All the cataracted eyes looked at the two brothers standing in front of them.

Compared to it, the human body is so tiny, even smaller than an eye.

The moment I was stared at by a dozen eyes, my breathing couldn't help but stop.

Chen Nian's mind was blank. The liquid that was flowing out was like tears. It was so huge that it flowed down the strange face of the Sea Emperor. Every drop could form a sticky puddle on the floor.

Chen Ci's expression became confused. He did not hear any sound. The Sea King seemed to have known that no matter how much he shouted, he would not get any response.

The two people who could hear it could not help.

"Chen Nian?" Shafley came over and patted Chen Nian's shoulder gently.

Chen Nian suddenly came back to his senses and turned around in a trance. He saw the unconcealable worry in Alpha's violet eyes.

He opened his mouth, and after two seconds, he asked, "What's wrong?"

"I should be the one asking you this."

Chen Nian raised his finger and pointed at the Sea King, saying, "Look, does he look like he's shedding tears?"

Shaflay: "That's Poseidon, Nian Nian. Maybe it attacked the beacon and killed a lot of people."

"I know." Chen Nian paused, but ultimately said nothing more.

He didn't know how to explain to Shaflay the strange feeling in his heart.

Is it because of his and Chen Ci's existence that they might be related to Poseidon?

After all, they had heard the call of the original creature from the beginning, and when Chen Ci asked the original turtle for clues about their mother, the turtle only said a series of names of the sea emperor.

Chen Nian lowered his head and stared at his own hands. They were white enough, with slight wrinkles due to labor, but no matter how he looked at it, they were definitely a pair of human hands.

He calmed his mind, stopped looking at Poseidon, and pulled the silent Chen Ci away.

As they left, the Poseidon's eyes continued to move, always staring at the figures of the young men.

A special forces member noticed this and whispered to his companions: "It's killing people. Can you make it close its eyes?"

"You can try to see if you can blow it up."

"I don't dare. It's still alive. If it gets angry, it might eat us all."