The forest swallowed the city, and the plants replaced the buildings. The 'spirit of all things' built a brilliant civilization with fire and steel. But nature only needed a little time to erase these traces, and even devour and assimilate everything into a part of nature.
The civilization on this planet had been declining for many years. This could be seen from the desolate ancient ruins. Many of the ruins had not only collapsed, but they had also become the nests and territories of wild animals. The builders had carefully designed these things to show off the wisdom and power of humans, but now these results could only benefit the birds and beasts in the forest. These "tenants" obviously did not care what their nests were originally for.
A few alien beasts with bristly short hair, which looked like wild boars, ran away in panic and disappeared into the depths of the forest in the blink of an eye. Lily just released a little bit of her aura, and these animals with low intelligence were scared out of their wits. It seemed that Nolan's previous judgment was right: there was nothing threatening on this planet, and the beasts in the forest were not much stronger than the tigers and wolves on Earth.
"This civilization seems to have developed quite a lot. These ruins have been around for thousands of years, but they have not completely weathered. Their material technology is as good as Tannagost, or even better." After driving the beasts away, Hao Ren and the MDT went forward to check an ancient relic that had once been occupied by the animals as a nest. It was a hemispherical metal shell, which seemed to have been a large pressure vessel used to store dangerous liquids. It was now distorted and only half of it was left, but its strength had not changed much. Except for the rust on the surface, it was still hard and stable. "It's a complex alloy, resistant to high temperature and corrosion, and very strong."
Vivian rubbed the rough rust on the surface of the metal container with her finger. "How did they die?"
"Maybe it was the First Born. Even if it was not, there are countless reasons that led to the demise of this level of civilization," the MDT said in an emotionless tone. "Civilization is very fragile. Even if they can go into space, they are not that strong. Disease, war, natural disasters, in the face of these things, the resistance of most civilizations is not as strong as they think. It's still impossible to analyze how the native civilization of this planet went extinct, but I think we can get more information from the city ruins. "
Lily looked up into the distance. Because of the jungle and the terrain, they could not directly see the ruins of the city from here. But her special vision could still capture some things: the occasional steel in the forest, or the cement fragments that were lifted into the air by the giant trees. These things were getting denser, which showed that they had actually reached the edge of the city ruins. But because of the forest erosion, this part of the ruins was almost completely obliterated.
"I didn't expect there to be such a place in The Plane of Dreams." Hao Ren could not help but sigh. "A mysterious astral zone sealed off by a spatial fracture, an ecological planet hidden in a corner, and an ancient civilization that has perished... Life is such a wonderful thing. It always feels rare and precious, but it can always appear in all kinds of places."
"Compared to these, I am more concerned about the problem of us being attacked in space." Vivian frowned. "The attack was obviously targeted at us... But the drones had scanned our jump point back and forth countless times. They only lit up the route after confirming that it was absolutely safe, right?"
Speaking of this, Hao Ren's expression also became serious. "Yes, the drones had scanned the jump point countless times, and until we jumped over, there were probes scattered by the drones in that area. The probes emitted a strong signal, but they were never attacked."
If not for the fact that the route was safe in advance, Hao Ren would never have led a spaceship of people to jump into an unknown galaxy and risk their lives. But this time, the situation was awkward because they had clearly confirmed that the destination was safe, and even specially used probes and drones to test for a long time, but in the end, something still happened.
Hao Ren could not help but think that it was really a trap, and a very clever trap, and it was very likely that there was someone behind this trap.
Or at least, there was a set of complex and smart judgment mechanism controlling this trap.
He rubbed his chin. "The storm in space later showed obvious characteristics of divine power, so it was driven by the power of the gods, and there are not many who can mobilize this power. In the Plane of Dreams, there are only three parties: the goddess of creation and her guardian race are born with this ability, the deicidal race can achieve a similar effect through runic technology, and the last one... is the corrupted goddess of annihilation. As for the Mad Lord, it does not have the intelligence to set up such a trap. "
"The probability of the goddess of annihilation is higher," Lily pondered. "The goddess of creation is in the righteous camp, so she probably would not do anything harmful. The deicidal race was actually used by both sides, and they did not have the initiative at all. Only the goddess of annihilation, she has the ability and the motive. And think about it, Mr. Landlord, haven't we always suspected the star map in Vivian's head? The way I see it, it is a trap left by the goddess of annihilation, and we have fallen into it... "
Hao Ren frowned. Although Lily's idea sounded reasonable, he still felt a sense of dissonance. But he could not explain where this feeling came from, so in the end, he could only shake his head. "Don't jump to conclusions, let's figure out the true nature of the divine storm first."
In order to collect data on the local environment, Hao Ren and his team did not move fast. After collecting enough data, they came out of the forest. When the first ray of sunlight pierced through the clouds, they stood at the edge of the ruins of the city in the middle of the forest.
It was bigger than expected. Nolan only had time to take a few pictures of the ruins when he was flying in the air, so he could only see the part of the ruins that was visible from the air. But when he looked down from a high place on the edge of the forest, he could see the parts of the ruins that were hidden by the forest at a glance. It should have been a highly developed city in the past. Even after years of vicissitudes and the erosion of disasters, the traces of its glory could still be seen. Hao Ren saw many neatly arranged tall buildings in the center of the city, and some hollow structures crisscrossed between these buildings, and at the center of the city was a huge quadrangular pyramid shaped building, magnificent, but unknown.
All the buildings were severely damaged, and there were signs of collapse everywhere in the city. Although the neatly arranged tall buildings could still be seen, but Hao Ren could also see that there were many more collapsed buildings than those still standing. This civilization had advanced material technology, and the tall buildings they built were many times stronger than those built by humans on Earth. Just like the Golden City of Tannagost, a small part of these buildings could still stand for thousands or even ten thousand years after the end of the world. But even so, the power of nature had ravaged these strong man-made materials. The spreading forest twisted the sturdy steel, bent and collapsed, and giant trees grew from the inside of the buildings, piercing their branches through the walls of the buildings, turning the entire building into a layer of outer clothing, and the dense canopy directly swelled and grew on the top half of the buildings.
The bridges became the skeletons of vines, and the roads were broken and twisted together. This was the result of the counterattack of nature after the end of civilization.
Hao Ren also saw two huge lakes in the ruins of the city, which should have been caused by the collapse of the city's underground structure. The subway system or something else first could not bear the weight of the superstructure, causing the city to collapse and sink. Then these pits became good places to store water. After the forest spread over, the largest pit also became a lake, a water source for animals.
Dawn had come, and the world was getting brighter. The sounds of birds and animals made the ruins and forest more lively, and a flapping sound joined the dawn sonata. Vivian's little bats flew out of the dense forest and flew to various parts of the city, looking for valuable things.
The MDT rose into the air, ready to scan the energy response of the entire ruins from the air. Based on experience, this kind of civilization would try to leave some traces of information if there was time to react. Even if it was not deliberate, there was a high possibility that there were prehistoric relics such as databases buried deep in the city ruins. Perhaps such databases could withstand the erosion of time, and even after thousands of years, they would still be operating. This was what the MDT was looking for.
While waiting for more information, Hao Ren climbed up a nearby boulder and looked at the entire city and its surrounding scenery from a high vantage point. Suddenly, a sense of incongruity made his eyes stop in a certain direction.
"Mr. Landlord!" Nangong Wuyue's voice came from below. "What are you looking at up there?"
"Come up and have a look. I feel something is wrong over there."
Nangong Wuyue wagged her tail and climbed up the big boulder in no time. She then raised her upper body and looked into the distance with Hao Ren. "What's wrong?"
Relying on the increased height of her tail, she was much better than Hao Ren in grabbing the high ground.
"The plants over there are very sparse. The forest seems to have been cleared by something, and I don't see any intact ruins. Not even a pile of ruins on the high ground." Hao Ren pointed into the distance. "It feels like it has been bombed."
"Looks like it." Nangong Wuyue wagged the tip of her tail. "So this civilization was destroyed by war?"
"No, it's not just that." Hao Ren frowned. "Even if the city was destroyed by bombing, after so many years, the forest should have filled in the bombed places."
Before he could finish, the MDT's voice suddenly rang in his mind. "Buddy! I see something over here! "
Hao Ren led Nangong Wuyue back to the ground and met up with Lily and Vivian. A moment later, the MDT also descended from the sky. The MDT did not say a word, but directly projected a high-altitude video in front of the four of them.
In the northwest of the city, a towering mountain range rose from the end of the forest and spread along the edge of the forest. The mountain range was dark brown with a hint of green, and its lines were not as sharp as ordinary mountains. Instead, it looked quite smooth and round.
Lines?
Hao Ren finally realized what the image was.
It was a tentacle, a huge, mountain-like tentacle that spread from the depths of the ground.
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