Wu Haibo's introduction made Meng Chao respect the Earth warriors on the relief sculptures.
It has to be known that even half a century later, the superhumans in Dragon City still swung their crystal sabers and spirit energy guns to fight against monsters. Their fights were still terrifying and arduous.
It was difficult to imagine how the Earth warriors, who had just transmigrated and had yet to awaken to supernatural abilities, managed to use bayonets, hand grenades, and semi-automatic rifles that used normal gunpowder to fight against the ancient demonic creatures that were even more terrifying than monsters.
Meng Chao turned around with a stern expression and bowed deeply to the Earth warriors on the relief sculptures by the sides of the tunnel.
When he moved through the tunnel, the temperature dropped by more than ten degrees Celsius. It was as if he had arrived in a freezer.
However, what was frozen here were not normal monster flesh and blood. Instead, they were monstrous specimens that bared their fangs and claws.
The first specimen was a lifelike humanoid stone statue.
Aside from being pale and lifeless, it was exactly the same as a human.
But his right hand had clearly withered, revealing the white bones underneath.
It was as if some mysterious power had turned most of the pitiful person's body into stone. Only his right hand retained the characteristics of a carbon-based creature.
Meng Chao immediately remembered what Battle God Lei Zongchao had told him about the deep-seeker who had been lost in the ancient ruins for five minutes before he was dragged out and instantly turned into stone.
Just as Meng Chao expected, the corners of the statue's eyes and mouth were so wide that they looked like they were about to tear. The word "fear" seemed to have turned into black flames that were about to gush out of the cracks of the statue.
Even Meng Chao had never seen such a shocked expression when he was in the Apocalyptic Nightmare.
From this expression alone, he could imagine just how terrifying the ancient demonic creatures were.
The second specimen's lower body was a pair of perfectly intact human legs.
However, its upper body had turned into a blooming man-eating flower.
The red petals were plump and thick. They were covered in green adhesive liquid, and there were spikes at the edges of the petals that looked like shark teeth. At the center of the petals were clusters of shining stamens that looked like tentacles and nerve cords.
Since the entire specimen was sealed in a substance that was similar to a crystal, Meng Chao could smell the foul, sticky, and thick stench of human organs coming from the depths of the stamens.
The third specimen was a deformed person whose left and right half of his body did not match.
The left half of its body was like that of a normal human.
The right half of his body swelled up abnormally, making him look like a three to five meter tall giant. A large number of colorful spirit runes appeared on the surface of his body, and there wasn't a single inch of clean skin.
Compared to the spirit tattoos that superhumans obtained through scientific cultivation and were relatively stable and controllable, the deformed giant's spirit tattoos were like weeds that grew madly. They gave off a chaotic, savage, and brutal air, and when people looked at them, they felt uncomfortable. It was as if there was some sort of chaotic power in their bodies that kept swelling up and were eager to test it.
There were still many deformed specimens behind.
They were monsters that normal people would not even dream of in their deepest nightmares.
Wu Haibo told Meng Chao that these were demonic creatures infected with the ancient germs, or rather, demonic humans.
Chen Lie's intention here was naturally to remind everyone who ventured deeper into the ancient ruins of exactly what kind of dangers and mysteries they were about to face.
Meng Chao observed the ancient demonic creatures with the eyes of a veteran harvester.
He had to admit that their mutation was even more deformed than the monsters that fused the characteristics of reptiles and mammals.
However, Meng Chao also noticed an interesting phenomenon.
He noticed that quite a number of the ancient demonic creatures' physiological characteristics were actually very similar to the physiological characteristics of the Other World races in his previous life.
For example, there was an ancient demonic creature that was about 1.5 meters tall. Its skin was so black that it looked like it had been burnt, but it was covered in red spirit tattoos. Its canine teeth were incredibly sharp, and its hollow body was like a needle tube. It was similar to the dark elves and vampires in Meng Chao's previous life.
Also, the specimen he saw just now was smaller on the left and bigger on the right. It was so deformed that it was clearly a product of incomplete evolution.
If the left half of its body was enlarged, it would look like the overlords of the north of the Other World — the ice barbarians and frost giants.
Of course, compared to the Other World races in Meng Chao's previous life who had primitive intelligence and had the standard of medieval civilization, these ancient demonic creatures were clearly more barbaric, crude, and crude. They were more like the early experimental versions of the former, or rather, they were more like the relationship between primitive humans and modern humans.
'Interesting. Could it be that the Other World races are really connected to the ancient ruins?'
Meng Chao thought to himself. 'If we rely on the independent ecosystem of one planet in the Other World, we definitely won't be able to produce elves, vampires, dragons, demons, undead, magical humans, technological humans, and dozens of different carbon-based intelligent lifeforms at the same time.
"Could it be that the so-called 'natives of the Other World' aren't real natives but were summoned to this place from their home planet by a mysterious power from the primordial era, just like Earthlings? Then, they were infected by the primordial germs and slowly mutated and evolved?"
Meng Chao hid this question in the depths of his mind.
He followed Wu Haibo and moved past the last two specimens that had five pairs of bat wings and had their faces covered by tentacles. Then, he went through a tunnel and went through three rounds of disinfection before he finally stepped on a new lift.
The movable arc-shaped roof in front of the lift slowly slid to the sides.
Meng Chao's vision cleared up. He found himself in a huge underground space.
"…"
Even if Meng Chao was mentally prepared for the mysteriousness and size of the ancient ruins, he was still shocked, and for a period of time, he could not say anything.
The Battle God Temple at the top of the Supernatural Tower was as tall as a palace, and it had already amazed him.
But this underground palace was the size of dozens of Battle God Temples. It could practically fit a small town inside.
Since it was too big, artificial light could not illuminate every corner. The edges of the underground space were shrouded in a faint layer of fog, which made it look even bigger.
Meng Chao gathered spirit energy in his eyes and looked into the distance, but he could only barely see the walls of the underground space. They were filled with intersecting things that looked like metal pipes.
They were not human-style metal pipes.
No, they were not pipes at all. They were organs, blood vessels, and nerves of living creatures.
It was like they were inside the body cavity of a gigantic metal beast, and they were just parasites in the beast's body.
'Wait …'
Meng Chao suddenly felt that something was off.
The length, width, and height of this underground space were definitely more than one thousand meters.
It was a huge space that was at least a few cubic kilometers, and it did not have a single pillar supporting it. How could it still stand under the pressure of millions of tons of rocks?
No, the more important question was, how could there be such a huge underground space under the Supernatural Tower?
Meng Chao remembered clearly that the area occupied by the Supernatural Tower was not as big as one square kilometer.
Right in front of the Supernatural Tower was the public square, and on its sides were the offices of the Survival Committee. Behind it were the headquarters of a few mega corporations.
The Dragon Citizens had been meticulous in their planning and used every opportunity they had. Not only had they filled up the space around them, they had also dug a lot of underground buildings that were made of honeycombs. Along with the air-raid shelters, underground shelters, and underground armory that Dragon City already had, they formed an underground world that was as complicated as a maze.
If they continued digging from the bottom of the Supernatural Tower, in less than three hundred meters, they would reach the air-raid shelters, underground shelters, armory, and munitions factories.
But as far as Meng Chao's eyes could see, all he saw was empty space. Where had all the underground buildings that should have been around him gone?
"Looks like you've already discovered the problem."
Wu Haibo smiled and said, "Using the theory of the three-dimensional world, we can't explain the phenomenon of … space overlapping. However, the primordial civilization that left behind this ruin was most likely a four-dimensional civilization. Their method of modifying the world is completely different from ours.
"It's like activated charcoal with countless fine holes in it. If you expand all the holes, one gram of activated charcoal can expand to a large area of one thousand square meters.
"Perhaps in the three-dimensional universe, an area of one square meter can contain an entire city or even an entire planet when it's expanded in another dimension.
"In any case, the ancient ruins under the Supernatural Tower are not in the same dimension as the underground space in Dragon City. You can understand this simply. We didn't take a normal elevator just now and reached hundreds of meters underground. Instead, we transmigrated and arrived in an unbelievable alternate dimension.
"We can only enter this alternate dimension through a few space-time rifts that are similar to wormholes. If you stand on the public square and dig diagonally, even if you dig three feet underground, you won't be able to find the ancient ruins. This is one of the reasons why we spent so much effort to build the Supernatural Tower. It's to ensure the long-term existence and stability of the space-time rifts."
Meng Chao came to a realization.
It was no wonder then why he felt that the elevator had been moving for too long. It was far longer than the time it took to travel one hundred meters underground.
Space folded and dimensions expanded. It was unbelievable!
"This … is a dimension opened up by the ancient civilization?"
Meng Chao looked around and was a little dazed. "Just what is the use of such a large space?"
"Up to now, we haven't come to a clear conclusion. With the current level of Earthlings' technology, exploring the ancient ruins is no different from a blind man trying to figure out an elephant. Perhaps it's just as I said during the project introduction meeting. There's a transmigration engine under Dragon City, and the entire city is a huge spaceship. This is naturally the dock or port that receives spaceships."
Wu Haibo smiled and said, "This question is too unfathomable. It won't be too late for us to research it in the future. In any case, right now, this is the largest black technology research center in Dragon City. Come, let's go down and take a look at the ancient gift!"
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