The Legendary Mechanic, page 262
“About 6,000 meters to reaching the ground,” Herlous said.
“Hold on, there might be some turbulence.” As Han Xiao spoke, he suddenly turned off the engine and the anti-gravity levitation device.
Hu!
The aircraft instantly descended forcefully.
Shocked, Herlous said, “What are you doing?”
Before Han Xiao had chance to reply, the aircraft suddenly trembled. Electric sparks erupted from the internal circuits, and at least three-quarters of the buttons on the control panel became unresponsive.
A warning appeared on the radiation detector, and a shadow that looked like a sandstorm swept toward them as seen from the screen.
“At 2,000 to 6,000 meters altitude on this planet, there is a radiation storm that can incapacitate most of the devices in a spaceship. That’s how these research spaceships crashed. However, there are still about 2,000 meters for them to buffer before crashing onto the ground, so their shield would be able to prevent them from shattering into pieces when the smash into the ground,” Han Xiao explained. “High-class spaceships can make it through, but Godora’s research spaceships obviously would not have too many high-end devices equipped.”
“What should we do then?” Herlous was stunned. “Aren’t we trapped on this planet in that case? Plus, our spaceship won’t be able to pick us up.”
“Don’t worry. Every once in a while, the radiation storm will weaken—we will be able to leave then.” Han Xiao was not worried at all; he remembered the mission process. Furthermore, when it was completed, this mission was turned into a dungeon, and the Dungeon Crystal could be earned through doing daily missions in that space station. Countless players had come to this planet before, so he was extremely familiar with it.
The gravity of the planet was quite strong, the aircraft was falling at a very fast speed. They passed through the radiation storm very soon and saw the mountains and craters on the ground, rapidly closing in. At this height, with the strength of the aircraft shield, it would definitely successfully shatter into pieces.
Of course, the three of them would not die from the fall, but the aircraft was a resource, and Han Xiao did not want to give it up easily. As he pressed a button, gliders popped up from the two sides of the aircraft. He switched the aircraft to nerves controlling method and connected the gliders to the nerve signal of his arm. It was as swift and smooth as controlling his own arms.
With the engine still off, the aircraft slowly turned from falling into gliding, quickly approaching the ground.
Boom!
Finally, the aircraft landed on the ground in a slanted angle, stirring up a huge amount of sand and dust. The shield generator was still working and flickering. The shield and the incapacitated thrust engine were not in the same system and had different fundamentals. Although the shield had been affected by the radiation storm, it had already recovered to a certain extent.
Turbulence still lasted in the aircraft for quite some time before quietening down. Aroshia rubbed her butt. Since she did not turn into energy form, her butt was hurting from the turbulence.
Han Xiao stood up and pulled down the manual handle on the hatch. The hatch popped open, and extreme coldness blew onto their faces. The temperature inside the mechanical suit lowered largely in an instant before slowly recovering to the normal temperature.
“The air temperature is about minus a hundred degrees. It is… actually higher than expected. Looks like there are bodies of water on this planet.
Han Xiao stretched his arms and legs, breathing in the oxygen from the mechanical suit. He was not planning to run around in this kind of place without wearing a mechanical suit.
Aroshia almost froze from the coldness and hurriedly turned into energy form. After entering Grade B, she had become much more skilled in using her powers. When she turned into energy form, she still maintained her human figure, including all of her facial features. Other than her body being made up of bright energy, everything else remained unchanged.
“The landing location deviated a little from the target without a radar.” Herlous looked around. “Looks like we can only slowly search for the remains of the research ships.”
Han Xiao squatted and touched the ground. Under the rough and black dust were hard rocks—the density of the planet surface was rather high. He then looked up and searched for certain markings on the sky.
Very soon, through the vision zoom of the mechanical suit, he saw the light from the spaceship outside the atmosphere. He pointed in that direction and said, “There is no need to search. The target is right there.”
Chapter 461. [Interstellar Beast] (2) |
The weather was freezing. On the empty gray planet surface, craters could be seen everywhere. The spaceship outside the atmosphere was acting as a guide, so Han Xiao, Herlous, and Aroshia walked in that direction. Although the gravity of this planet was quite high, it had minimal impact on Grade B Supers. After a while, a spaceship wreckage appeared before them.
This was a Godora research ship. Its light gold shell was covered in black dust, its body was twisted by the crash, and behind it was a fissure that stretched hundreds of meters with pieces of the spaceship here and there. Clearly, the spaceship had skidded for a distance after crashing.
Herlous looked at his tactical screen and said, “It’s dead silent, and there are no thermal signs. I think we should go there to take a look.”
“Thanks for making a suggestion that no one thought of.” Han Xiao rolled his eyes.
Herlous shrugged. “You’re really being more and more gentle in your words. I keep having a feeling that you’re targeting me.”
“I’m only well-mannered toward strangers.”
“I’m flattered.” Herlous changed the topic. “This mechanical suit of yours has quite a number of functions.”
“What, the armor your brother left you does not have these functions?”
“Ha. My brother knows me too well. He knows that I don’t like these fancy functions; the armor that he tailor-made for me has maximized combat functions. To know how strong the enemy is, I just have to fight him. What’s there to analyze? Speaking of which, these people on my home planet took my armor and have been researching it for a year. I even gave my brother’s notes to them, so they should have gotten some results by now. How about we find a chance to return there and get my armor?”
“You actually made a genuine suggestion,” Han Xiao said with a surprised tone. “How shocking.”
Herlous was speechless. I really want to draw my sword, but I have to maintain a smile.
As they casually chatted, the three of them arrived at the wreckage. This was a medium-sized research ship. It was divided into many cabins and was more than ten meters high. As they got closer, more details appeared before their eyes. There was a huge hole on the side of its body, but the hatch was still closed. Han Xiao peeked into the cabin; it was completely dark. Apparently, the system was basically incapacitated.
“Let’s go in and see if there are any survivors or corpses,” Han Xiao said. Although he remembered how the mission would go, since he came at a different time, he did not know if there would be any slight changes.
He explored inside the cabin, and no one was in it. Han Xiao switched to the tracing interface and discovered some panicking footsteps. After extracting the newest markings, he realized that these people did not leave the spaceship. There were also markings of someone being dragged along the floor in some rooms.
“Hmm, it’s obvious that the shield did not fully protect them, and some people fainted. However, none of their footsteps left the spaceship. It seems like everyone disappeared into thin air. The hatch is closed, which means that that hole was made by something else. It looks like there are some special life forms on this planet, and these things are the reason for the ship crew’s disappearance.”
Han Xiao spoke fluently. He walked around the scene and briefly investigated. The situation was not much different from the mission in his previous life, which instantly lessened his worries. Ever since his Intelligence attribute became higher, he realized that his memory had become stronger as well. Some of the blurry memories started becoming clearer.
The mission rating depended on the investigation results. Hence, although Han Xiao knew where the final Boss was, he was not in a hurry to go there. He moved to the control room of the spaceship, found the central computer, and manually rebooted the spaceship system.
Hum!
The spaceship shook, and all the rooms inside lit up.
“Reboot complete. Initiating self-diagnostics… Damage rate 72%. Most devices are incapacitated. Fuel leak detected, 3% energy remaining. Activating Advanced Power Saving Mode…”
Han Xiao pressed a few buttons. “Turn on ship recordings.”
“Insufficient energy. Request rejected.”
“Switch to manual mode.”
“Please confirm Observer ID.”
Han Xiao thought about it before taking out his communicator and searching for a while in the notes. Then, he entered Kerlodd’s ID.
“Connecting headquarters database… connection failed. Signal disrupted by an unknown source. Connecting local database… successfully connected. Authorizing access… authorization failed. This ID is not in the crew list of this ship.”
“Godora’s operation system is so damn terrible.”
Han Xiao’s mouth twitched. He dismantled the central computer shell and pulled out the smart chip directly, taking the chip back to the space station would have the same result.
He dismantled all sorts of core parts of the spaceship—all of them would increase his mission rating if he took them back. Then, the three of them walked out of the cabin. There was nothing valuable left inside.
Herlous hesitated and said, “If the crews were captured by some life form, doesn’t that mean that said life form can fly? Since there are no signs of any creatures walking outside here. How do we find it then?”
Han Xiao touched the edge of the hole—there was a layer of ice on it. “The other parts of the spaceship did not freeze; only this part has frozen markings, meaning that the water vapor was brought by that creature. With such a low temperature here, if there is a water body, it should be a geothermal hot spring that might be underground. This creature most likely used it as its nest…”
Herlous’ eyes sparkled. “So, these Observers might still be alive!”
“I don’t know.” Han Xiao gave a perfunctory reply. “There’s another spaceship wreckage nearby. Let’s go there to take a look.”
Soon after, they found the wreckage of the second research ship. Identical to the previous one, there was no one inside. However, the markings were different. There were messy footsteps outside the spaceship and even signs of a battle. The second batch of Observers on this ship were stronger than the previous ones, so they still had the strength to resist after crashing. However, their ending was clear—they had all been defeated.
“There are more ice markings one the ground but no frozen blood, so no one should have died. There aren’t many battle markings, so these Observers were clearly demolished.”
After looking through the clues, Han Xiao dismantled all the core parts of this spaceship as well and said, “Let’s go. I roughly know where that creature is.”
Following the path in his memories, Han Xiao advanced quickly without stopping. Usually, only by collecting more clues nearby would they be able to discover the nest of the Boss. However, the mission rating would not be high this way. In his previous life, there were more spaceship wreckages at that period in time, meaning that there were more clues. The clues they had now were many times fewer, which was not very beneficial. Han Xiao, however, did not have to go through so much trouble—he headed to the location in his memory directly.
Very soon, they found a hidden nest at the bottom of a crater. There were signs of burrowing, and the entrance was about four to five meters wide, rather spacious. The path was slanted downward. The three of them slid along the tunnel and finally stepped on solid ground.
Around them was the dark underground. The temperature there was much higher than that of the surface. There was only one way forward—it was a dead end behind them.
Han Xiao activated night vision, walked forward for a while, and came across a fork in the road. Without hesitation, Han Xiao took the left path. The temperature gradually increased. Herlous took off his helmet, sensed the surroundings, and said, “This temperature is quite comfortable.”
“We’re almost there. Get ready for battle,” Han Xiao said.
The three of them arrived at the end of the tunnel. Before them was an underground lake. The water was boiling with bubbles rising to the surface, causing the area above the lake to be filled with a thick mist. This lake was like a hot spring, meaning that there should be a geothermal area below it that caused the hot spring to form.
This time, an exclamation came from the hot spring.
“Who are you?” A naked Godoran appeared in the hot spring, looking at them with surprise. Water rolled down her curvy body.
Herlous first looked down, then up, then repeated the process a few times before he realized. “You’re Lenny?”
“You know me?” The female Godoran was surprised. She was indeed Nereja’s wife.
“We’re mercenaries. We accepted your husband’s request and came to save you. Where are the others?” Herlous asked.
“That’s amazing. Finally, someone came to save us. The others are…”
Joy appeared on Lenny’s face, but suddenly, her expression changed, and she anxiously said, “Don’t stand there. It’s coming out!”
Just as she finished her sentence, a small whirlpool formed in the middle of the hot spring lake. Something large was rising to the surface. A tsunami-like wave expanded from the middle and splashed onto Han Xiao and the others.
Boom!
A strange creature jumped out of the lake and levitated midair before turning toward the three people on the shore.
“What… is this?” Herlous’ eyes opened wide.
“An Interstellar Beast, a space creature born between stars,” Han Xiao quickly explained. “It can fly in space with its body and increase its speed through the gravitational force of planets to reach the speed of spaceships. Although it cannot jump like a spaceship and usually has to fly alone for thousands of years, its lifespan is almost infinite. They can keep molting and renew their cells—they’re very rare. Mages can summon Interstellar Beasts through an ancient ceremony. The spell is unidirectional and ignores physical distance. However, they summon Interstellar Beast mostly to hunt and kill them. After all, an Interstellar Beast’s body is a very rare material.”
The Interstellar Beast before them looked very strange. It had a slender, violet body that was tens of meters long. It had no scales or hair and was very smooth. Its skin had a translucent texture, emitting a dim light under its skin. It had no limbs—its front and tail were narrow while the middle of it was wide, looking like a fin. There was only a long tentacle on its head and nothing else. At the end of the tentacle was a clear crystal. It looked similar to marine life forms.
The Interstellar Beast spun in midair like a fish swimming swiftly in water. Its tentacle vibrated, and Han Xiao suddenly felt an invisible force trying to pull him to the Interstellar Beast. His body started levitating uncontrollably.
“Ha!”
Herlous acted first. He slashed his Battleship Slicing Blade, sending out a beam of blade shaped light, directly hitting the Interstellar Beast’s body. However, it shattered in an explosion, and the Interstellar Beast was unhurt; it did not even move an inch.
“Don’t hope to hurt an interstellar creature that can travel through the universe with its body this easily.” Han Xiao pulled out an electromagnetic firearm and fired. The bullet bounced off the Interstellar Beast’s body, and a damage number “1” appeared.
The Interstellar Beast’s attributes appeared on the interface.
_____________
[Interstellar Beast]
Level: ?
Class: [Space Creature—Interstellar Beast] (END to HP conversion rate: 1:500)
Attributes: ? STR, ? DEX, 500 END, ? INT, ?MYS, 153 CHA, ? LUK.
Energy: 0
Energy Rank: ?
Health: 249,986
Status: Normal
Talents: Unknown
Abilities: Unknown
_____________
Han Xiao nodded in his mind. He had known the Interstellar Beast’s attributes since the start. As a Space Creature, its health was outrageous. Without a doubt, it was a true Boss. Furthermore, its Physical Resistance and Magic Resistance were very high, so attacking its body would deal close to no damage. The players in his previous life had been wiped out once before finding a way to defeat it.
The weak spot of the Interstellar Beast was its tentacle crystal. It almost had no resistance, so basically, every hit on it would deal True Damage.
Every time the damage accumulated to 50,000, the Interstellar Beast’s entire body’s resistance would decrease by twenty percent, which would allow attacks on its body to deal some damage. The Interstellar Beast’s attacks were controlling objects with its mind, similar to Psychic. It was good at disabling enemies and could redirect the ballistics aimed at its vital spot. The good thing was that its damage was not very high. The only way to defeat it was to take it slow.
However, to Han Xiao, as long as the enemy’s damage was limited, it would not be a threat.
Chapter 462. Pet (1) |
The enormous body obstructed all of Han Xiao’s vision. Compared to its size, Han Xiao was tiny. It was like the difference between a sparrow and an elephant.
The invisible Psychic power surrounding Han Xiao’s body did not express any intention to attack. It seemed like the Interstellar Beast just wanted to pull Han Xiao to him and observe him out of curiosity. The attack earlier was no different from a scratch to the Interstellar Beast.
