Meng Chao and the exploration team set up a circle of firing points near the portal and formed a small forest fortress.
Then, they set up a lot of landmines outside the fortress.
Last time, one of Lu Siya's squads had mysteriously disappeared behind the minefield.
This time, aside from the landmines, they also set up a lot of crystal bombs that could detonate with a delay.
These bombs required humans to send a safety signal every once in a while so that they could continuously delay the detonation.
If something happened to the humans, the bombs would detonate on their own and release a lot of smoke created by the friction of crystal powder. It would serve as the most eye-catching guidance for the artillery squads dozens of kilometers away.
Once they were done, Long Feijun and Meng Chao mobilized a group of their best exploration team members and brought nearly one hundred bread crabs and peregrine falcons with them.
This was because the Piranhas and Lu Siya's teams had already mapped most of the terrain in Hidden Fog and left behind a lot of landmarks that contained unique radiation.
The third exploration team advanced very smoothly. They did not get lost in the space-time rifts and did not run into any fierce monsters.
The green tide on both sides of the mountain trail seemed to be asleep and did not move. They ignored the "invaders".
There was only dead silence, and it felt like a cold scalpel was slicing at everyone's cerebral cortex.
This was especially so when the ten exploration teams approached the sinkhole from different directions. Meng Chao and Long Feijun felt even more uneasy.
"Senior Brother Long, don't you think that our operation is going too smoothly?"
Meng Chao was finally unable to hold himself back and whispered, "If this is really a natural lab, the mastermind behind the monster civilization should have arranged some spies and guards here to create trouble for us, right?
"A centipede dies, but it doesn't fall down. Even though the monsters have been scattered by us on all fronts over the past half a year, when the remnants of their defeated forces gather together, they are still a force that cannot be underestimated. If they really rely on the harsh terrain, the green tide, and the Blood Flowers in Hidden Fog to put up a stubborn resistance, they'll be hard to deal with.
"Based on the map, why is it that we're already close to the heart of the monster civilization, the mysterious sinkhole, but there's still no movement around us?"
"It's indeed going a little too smoothly. When we fight, what we're most afraid of isn't fierce monsters, but unknown monsters we've never seen before. The unknown is the most troublesome."
Long Feijun frowned. "But we can't just turn around and run away just because our operation is going too well, can we?"
This was naturally impossible.
Besides, the ten exploration teams had marched straight in and surveyed a lot of the terrain. They had ascertained the direction, reserves, and composition of a lot of crystal mother lodes. They had also found a lot of strategic targets that were densely forested and of high density. Their trip had not been in vain.
No matter how many schemes the monster civilization had hidden, under the humans' bombardment, they would all be reduced to ashes. Earthlings were just that simple and crude.
While the two of them were mumbling, the "bread crab" that was leading the way suddenly flashed with a green light.
This was the signal that they had arrived at their destination.
After passing through a few trees that grew at an angle, their branches intertwined together like an arched door. There were also vines hanging down like curtains of a towering tree. The area in front of them suddenly opened up, and the mysterious sinkhole crashed into everyone's field of vision without any warning.
"Hiss —"
Meng Chao and the other exploration team members could not help but suck in a deep breath.
They had been trudging through dark, humid, and cramped forests for too long, and claustrophobia had gradually enveloped their minds.
When they saw the sinkhole surrounded by clouds, it looked like a lake with a vast expanse of green water. The visual impact was so great that it lifted their spirits.
However, there were plenty of times when a lake surrounded by mountains was even more terrifying than the deep sea.
Besides, this was not a lake.
Instead, it was a sinkhole that contained the ultimate secret of the monster civilization.
Strong winds that resembled wild beasts moved through the mountains in the area all year round.
When the wind blew away the clouds, they could vaguely see the swaying forest in the sky hanging at the center of the sinkhole.
Aside from the green moss, lichens, and fungal carpet, there were also a lot of colorful flowers and fruits growing in the forest.
However, all the plants were really bright. They were so beautiful that they looked like they had been injected with low-quality pigments and were about to rot.
If they did not know the background of the green tide, this scene might give them the feeling that it was full of life.
But when they thought about how there might be billions of monster carcasses piled up in the depths of the forest, the exploration team members could not help but feel their mouths go dry, and they shuddered.
Clouds gushed out endlessly from Fog God Mountain behind the sinkhole, blocking their vision and interfering with the humans' surveying equipment.
For the time being, they could not see the situation on the other side of the sinkhole, and they could not measure the perimeter, diameter, and depth of the sinkhole.
However, the wind would occasionally blow away the clouds, and they could see the curve of the sinkhole.
The sinkhole was not straight up or down. It was like a semicircle.
This matched the characteristics of a meteor impact.
The exploration team also noticed some crystalline and glassy rocks at the edge of the sinkhole. They should be the product of different crystals and metal ores melting and gathering together under high temperature and pressure.
"So, this is a meteor crater?"
Meng Chao asked the geologist in the exploration team.
"It's strange. This sinkhole matches all the characteristics of a meteor crater, but …"
The geologist typed quickly on the military computer to combine a large number of parameters and make calculations. The data and curves on the screen became more abundant, but he frowned even more.
While the geologist analyzed the data, he shook his head and said, "But there are two things that are very strange. First, this meteor is too big."
Meng Chao and Long Feijun looked at each other and continued asking, "Is there a problem with the meteor being too big?"
"There is."
The geologist pushed the computer screen to the two of them. "Even though we can't accurately measure the diameter and depth of the sinkhole, based on the relative distance between us and the other nine exploration teams and the curve of the sinkhole, we can estimate the general volume and mass of the meteor that created the sinkhole.
"The problem is, the meteor traveled through the galaxy and was captured by the planet's gravity. It moved through the atmosphere, and in the end, it crashed into the planet's surface.
"When I input the minimum mass and speed of the meteor we estimated into the computer, the power of the impact is ten times greater than that of the meteor that destroyed the dinosaurs on Earth.
"You have to understand that the Other World is about the same size as Earth. The composition of the atmosphere, the thickness of the crust, and the pattern of plate movements are about the same. A meteor that is ten times stronger than the one that destroyed the dinosaurs can be described as a world-destroying crisis. It will definitely change the terrain within thousands of kilometers or even tens of thousands of kilometers.
"But even though the terrain from Hidden Fog Desolate Region to Monster Mountain Range is fragmented and uneven, compared to the meteor's mass and speed, its power is still too small."
Meng Chao and Long Feijun were confused. "So, why did the power of the meteor crash become smaller?"
"The power of a meteor crashing into a planet is determined by its speed and mass," the geologist said.
"If the meteor's mass is about the same as what we estimated, then it's not as fast as we imagined it to be. It didn't come from outer space at lightning speed, but was thrown down from somewhere very close to us."
"Um, I studied in the martial arts course in university. Can you explain it in a simpler way?" Meng Chao asked for advice humbly.
"For example, it was thrown down from low-Earth orbit," the geologist said.
"If that's the case, it's understandable why the power of the impact became smaller."
"Low-Earth orbit …"
Meng Chao and Long Feijun looked up at the sky.
The sky was covered by a gray fog.
It was as if there was an invisible iron wall in the atmosphere that separated the planet from outer space.
It had been more than half a century since Dragon City transmigrated.
Before they transmigrated, Earth's space exploration abilities and Dragon City's full military facilities might not have been able to send out manned spaceships or deep space exploration satellites, but they could still send out weather balloons that could travel at a cruising altitude beyond the atmosphere.
But all the weather balloons, high-altitude reconnaissance planes, and single-use small rockets that Dragon City sent out were blocked, killed, and destroyed by some mysterious power before they could rush out of the atmosphere.
Battle God Lei Zongchao told Meng Chao that he had once tried to use maglev and levitate. He tried to use his Deity Realm power to rush out of the planet known as the Other World so that he could see its full form from outer space.
With Lei Zongchao's cultivation realm, the low temperature, lack of oxygen, and radiation above the atmosphere were not fatal obstacles.
But when he reached the edge of the atmosphere, he was blocked by a mysterious power.
That power was even more terrifying than any Apocalyptic Beast he had ever encountered.
Lei Zongchao's original words were, "It swatted me down like a fly."
Even now, the area beyond the atmosphere of the Other World was still a forbidden area for Earthlings.
Launching satellites into the synchronous orbit and building man-made facilities was even more whimsical.
Based on Meng Chao's previous life's memories, there were only a handful of powerful life forms known as the extraordinary beings of the Other World who could move freely through the atmosphere.
But based on what the geologists said, a long time ago, some sort of power had tossed a huge meteor from orbit beyond the Other World's atmosphere, and that was how it created the sinkhole.
This scene was too big. Just thinking about it made his heart tremble.
Meng Chao sucked in a deep breath and composed himself. "What else? You said there were two strange things. What's the second?"
"The second is that we found a lot of geological features that only volcanoes have at the edge of the sinkhole," the geologist said.
Meng Chao was confused. "Wait, is this a meteor crater or a volcano?"
"I can't tell."
The geologist shook his head slowly. "The energy that falls from the sky and the energy that erupts from the ground have completely different effects on the surrounding environment. However, the samples that we collected from the edge of the sinkhole, after preliminary analysis, show that both types of changes occur simultaneously. It's like …"
It's as if … It's as if a huge meteor was blasted from orbit and accurately hit a volcano that was releasing energy madly. "
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