lcionline Chapter 12 Fields
Chapter 12 Fields
Recalling the terrifying moment just now, Fu Chen still felt lingering fear.
His ability to reach the battlefield at the most critical moment was entirely due to the guidance of the Whale-class transport ship.
Because of the mutation in the Crystal Tomb, the signal base stations deployed on the surface of the planet Golun were paralyzed, and various artificial satellites flying in space orbit quickly became headless flies.
After entering low Earth orbit, the Whale-class transport ship allocated most of its computing power to take over satellite access.
When the exoskeleton made contact with the spacecraft, three-quarters of the satellites above Golun were already functioning normally.
Only with the view provided by these satellites could the remaining agents on the transport ship discover the advance team members who were in danger.
Fu Chen gave a hand signal, and two of the three Special Operations agents behind him split up, and two exoskeleton units rushed out from the left and right to begin cleaning up the battlefield.
The crystal rock golems that were originally knocked down by the advance team but were still able to move had their skulls and limbs cut off, rendering them unable to move.
The last medic rushed toward the heavily wounded demolition expert, pulled out medical equipment from the exoskeleton, and was the first to inject a needle into the expert's muscle.
The demolition expert, whose fate was previously unknown, let out a howl and sprang up like a fish out of water, before falling silent once more.
The others breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing this; with the Bureau's medicine, at least the demolition expert wouldn't be in mortal danger.
Fu Chen maneuvered the machine to leap between the two slime mold acid stone men, and the mechanical arm lifted the vice-captain from the stone men's corpses.
Fang Shu, the leader of the advance team, and the sniper sat against the rock wall, breathing heavily with their mouths open.
"Are you alright?"
Fu Chen placed the vice-captain next to the two of them, jumped out of the machine, and looked at Fang Shu.
"Brother Fu, thank goodness you came. Cough cough cough..."
During the battle with the Crystal Rock Man, Fang Shu was hit multiple times, and despite the protection of his combat suit, he still suffered considerable internal injuries.
The support team members worked with the medical personnel brought by Fu Chen to apply medicine and bandage the wounded.
While receiving treatment, Fang Shu looked up at Fu Chen:
"Brother Fu, when did you arrive on Golun Star? Can you contact the branch office now?"
Fang Shu's tone was quite worried. In his view, without means of communication, any subsequent actions would be extremely difficult.
"The new rescue team just landed not long ago, and communication has only just been restored; otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to find you."
Fu Chen pressed further:
"What happened to you after you landed? Why were you attacked by the Crystal Stone Men?"
Fang Shu smiled wryly:
"Because the spaceship crashed, we were forced to use the map that the branch office had given us to find possible survivor gathering points."
He pointed to the cave behind him: "On the way, we encountered them being chased by stone men. We escorted them all the way but couldn't shake off their pursuers, and finally got cornered here."
Fu Chen cast his gaze into the deep cave.
From the darkness, four figures emerged, three of whom were blond-haired, white-eyed humans, quite different in appearance from the races commonly seen in Chengming.
The last person had a brown horse's head on his head, with a pair of glasses perched on the horse's nose; he was a half-orc.
Fu Chen's eyes widened as he stared at the blond, white-eyed boy protected in the center. The boy's image perfectly matched a video file he had seen before setting off.
"Are you Fields?"
The boy nodded, his eyes shining as he looked at Fu Chen and the exoskeleton behind him:
"Wow, you're amazing! Are you an operator from the Anomaly Management Bureau? Your mech looks so cool!"
Fields was the name of the only son of the president of the Interstellar Explorers Association.
I never expected to see him in this kind of situation.
Fu Chen waved his hand, ignoring the incessant chatter of Fields: "Let's go back to the temporary camp first, we'll talk about it then."
He could tell that neither Fields nor the three people around him were in good condition at the moment.
Apart from this young master Fields, the other three all had some injuries, clearly having suffered some hardship after the anomaly in the Crystal Tomb.
"No problem! I'll follow your instructions, brother!"
Fields readily agreed.
The five-man advance team fighting valiantly against the enemy, and Fu Chen appearing like a divine warrior, inspired him to place his full trust in them.
When Fu Chen led Fang Shu's team and Fields' group back to Valley Thirteen, it was already getting dark.
The logistics staff were preparing dinner at the camp, and a group of researchers had already carefully chopped the crystal rock man into minced meat.
When Fu Chen saw Wen Mu again, the latter's expression was even colder than usual.
Even after cutting open the Crystal Rock Man sample from head to toe, the group still couldn't find any trace of the Crystal Rock Tomb's influence on these Crystal Rock people.
It was as if an invisible, intangible thread had fallen from the sky, controlling the movements of the Crystal Rock Clan corpses.
However, when Wenmu saw Fields and the others, his expression clearly brightened.
When the anomaly at the Tomb of Crystal Rock first occurred, Fields and his group were on Golun Star, and they likely possessed firsthand information about the unusual changes.
This is precisely the information and intelligence that the researchers present needed most.
Fang Shu's team was placed in a special sanatorium by Fu Chen to treat the injuries they sustained in the battle.
After a brief check to confirm that they were unharmed, Fields and the others were taken to the operations room of the metal fortress.
Senior members of the rescue team, including Hu Zhou, Cui Tang, and Wen Mu, as well as employees involved in the anomaly research, such as Cheng Xu, were all present.
Seeing such a large group, the young explorer Fields was not intimidated and began to recount his experiences in a fluent and engaging manner.
It turns out that Fields and his group had obtained approval from the Administration Bureau a week ago to enter the Crystal Tomb on Golun Star.
"About a month ago, I accidentally bought a very special stone while browsing the interstellar black market."
Fields drew a circle the size of a human head in front of his chest with both hands:
"That rock was about this big. It was an irregular dodecahedron with a lot of rock fragments stuck to each face. It was quite ugly."
This boy, who had just turned eighteen, seemed to be very talkative, recounting the whole story in great detail.
After obtaining the peculiar stone, Fields tried many methods, but none of them could uncover any special secrets hidden within it.
It wasn't until he had it appraised through the Explorers' Guild that he was told the stone was very likely related to the Anomaly: Tomb of Crystal Rock.
Fields was a curious person who was always busy, so he immediately decided to take the stone to Golun Star to see if he could trigger a reaction from it.
The two men following behind him were bodyguards sent by his father, while the horse-headed orc was an explorer who had visited the Crystal Rock Tomb many times before and served as a guide in the group.
"And then what? Where did that stone go?"
Fu Chen remembered that when he first met Fields and the others, he didn't see any stones at all.
Fields paused, then shrank back somewhat guiltily:
"On the second day after we entered the Crystal Tomb, that stone... it flew away."
"???"
The others in the operations room had huge question marks on their foreheads.
What does it mean that the stone flew away? Are you making fun of us?
"It's true."
Recalling that day, Fields couldn't help but feel a sense of absurdity.
"When I first arrived on Golun Star, the surface of that stone was getting hot. I was quite amused at the time, thinking that it would crack open after a while and a good treasure would pop out from inside..."
"It got hotter and hotter, and before I knew it, the stone flew into the sky and disappeared."
Everyone looked at each other.
Some people have already begun to imagine a terrible possibility.
"Could the strange occurrence in the Crystal Tomb be caused by that stone?"
Fields immediately jumped up: "Brother, you can't just eat anything or say anything carelessly. It's just a slightly special rock, it shouldn't have that much power, right?"
As he continued speaking, Fields' voice grew softer and softer.
Clearly, he was aware of this possibility beforehand, but he certainly wouldn't admit it voluntarily.
On the one hand, although the strange stone exhibited abnormalities after arriving on Golun Star, there was no conclusive evidence that it was the culprit behind the anomaly.
On the other hand, the Crystal Rock Tomb has undergone a dramatic change, and one cannot take the blame for it.
If this speculation is true, not only Fields himself, but also the Explorers Guild behind him will be in big trouble.
"Okay, okay, calm down. It's just a guess."
Hu Zhou comforted Fields.
"You said the stone flew away, but which direction did it fly in? Do you remember any other details?"
Fields recalled for a moment and quickly answered: "I was in the vicinity of Valley Five at the time, and the stone flew in a northwest direction."
"When it flew into the sky, I could vaguely see some of the rock fragments it had attached to falling off."
Hu Zhou remained silent. The line extending northwest from Valley Five would just pass through the core area of the Crystal Tomb.
"If we only consider the direction, it's not impossible."
Cui Tang raised a new question: "But if we consider the time frame, there was at least a four or five-day interval between the stone flying away and the outbreak of the anomaly."
"That's true," Hu Zhou agreed.
Everything at this point is speculation, and the Authority cannot arbitrarily pin the blame for the abnormal changes on Fields.
But it's certainly not normal for a stone to fly away on its own, especially since it happened just before any unusual changes occurred. To say it was purely a coincidence is hardly convincing.
That stone might be related to the Crystal Rock Tomb. Everyone kept this in mind.
"later?"
Wen Mu spoke, and his "translators," Dai Shan and Dai Chuan, quickly got to work.
"Director Wen wants to ask, what did you do after that stone flew away?"
"What happened to you after the anomaly at the Crystal Tomb, before you encountered our Bureau's advance team?"
Seeing that the people from the Administration Bureau did not delve into the matter of the strange stone, Fields secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
His white eyes rolled upwards, as if lost in thought:
"Let me think. After that stone disappeared, we searched for two or three days in the direction it flew away, but we found nothing."
"I couldn't find it no matter how hard I looked, so I had to give up. Since I'm already here, I'll continue exploring inside the Crystal Tomb, hoping to find some rare ores or other valuable items."
The people around him nodded in agreement, indicating that Fields was right.
The two bodyguards even took the initiative to supplement their young master's exploration route and details.
"Later, we suddenly discovered that communication with the association's base had been cut off. Then we ran into Captain Fang and the others, and learned that something had happened at the Crystal Rock Tomb."
Fields was on the verge of tears.
For him, he simply wanted to come to Golun Star to satisfy his boundless curiosity and, incidentally, explore the Crystal Rock Tomb for some excitement.
As a result, the stones they brought were lost, the thrill-seeking turned into a real thrill, and they even faced life-threatening situations several times.
"We initially wanted to return to the association's base, but we were blocked by those stone golems along the way."
"The stone golems attacked us. We were just out exploring and didn't bring many weapons or equipment, so we had no choice but to run away."
The two bodyguards rubbed their foreheads, their faces filled with shame.
They were indeed experienced in guarding, but when faced with stone men who were three meters tall and incredibly strong, their lack of firepower was exposed, and they couldn't even scratch those big guys.
After a moment of hesitation, the blond boy took out a wooden doll with a somewhat strange posture from the backpack behind him.
"Thanks to it, we were able to escape the stone golem's pursuit time and time again until we met Captain Fang."
When they saw the doll, most of the people present were confused, but Hu Zhou, Cui Tang, Wen Mu and other knowledgeable people stood up abruptly.
Cheng Xu gasped, his back teeth feeling a little sore.
"【Imitation Doll】...The president of the Explorers' Association is really something else, even letting his son bring out an anomaly."
[Imitation of a Doll], Security Level Anomaly, Anomaly Number D-73182.
Cheng Xu had seen this unusual file before, and it was indeed an unusual document belonging to the Explorers' Association's collection and management.
It is said that an explorer discovered it in the ruins of a lost civilization and later sold it to the Explorers' Association for a high price. It is just unexpected that it would be seen in this kind of setting.
The function of a mimicry doll is simple: to imitate the actions of the target object and create a kind of "cognitive misguidance" similar to a rule system.
For example, when a person holding a replica doll encounters a ferocious beast, this unusual item will create a cognitive barrier around the holder.
This barrier can perfectly simulate the appearance, physique, and movement details of a ferocious beast at a cognitive level.
In the eyes of a wild beast, it will only see another of its own kind in front of it, and will fully accept this fact deep in its mind, without being aware of any sense of incongruity.
With this unusual item for protection, it's not surprising that the group was able to escape from the Crystal Rock Man.
"We mimicked the appearance of those stone figures and slipped through the encirclement while the situation was in disarray."
Fields was still shaken.
If it weren't for the extraordinary life-saving item his father insisted on giving him before he set off, they would probably have been smashed into mincemeat by the Crystal Rock Man and evenly smeared on the rock.
"But now that you've all escaped, why are the Crystal Rock People still relentlessly pursuing you?"
Cheng Xu raised his hand. He seemed to have discovered a new blind spot.
Logically speaking, after escaping as one of the Crystal Rock People, one shouldn't be hunted down.
However, according to Fields' account, they were chased by the Crystal Stone People all the way and faced life-or-death crises many times.
Fields was stunned.
Yeah, why is that? Every time we escape, there's no trace of the stone golems around anymore, right?
Why are they still able to accurately lock onto you and emerge from all sorts of nooks and crannies to launch an attack?
Something is wrong!