One could not be too serious with the sprites, because they would not even realize that one was being serious with them, and they would not understand what it meant to be serious …
So Hao Ren and the rest decisively gave up on asking why they had forgotten such important information, and turned to ask more questions about the Lair of Nightmares that the sprites knew about.
Of course, it was not wise to linger in the ventilation ducts near the core area for too long, so they followed the sprite's lead as they headed deeper into the tunnel.
Just like what the sprite had said, she did not know much about the Lair of Nightmares.
The sprites that survived on Amantir were only a small portion, and even those that survived had a limited range of activity. To survive, they had to fuse with the planet's core and build a powerful barrier to completely isolate the outside world. While this ensured their safety, it also meant that all the sprites were locked in a tight cage.
The sprites' only channel to the outside world was through the crystals buried all over Amantir, and these crystals had basically been corrupted by the Mad Lord's power, or destroyed by the corrupted monsters as a source of energy. Less than ten percent of them were usable, and even if they were usable, the sprites did not dare to activate these channels of information too openly. They could only use the narrow bandwidth produced by the resonance of the crystals to gather information on the "upper" regions, and three or four of the crystal veins happened to be near the Amantir crystal and the Lair of Nightmares, and this was the only channel the sprites had for information on that land of terror.
From the sprite's messy narration, Hao Ren learned that there was no underground space beneath the Amantir crystal. Before the fall of the planet, the ground below the control center was a thick and dense rock layer, and the rock layer extended all the way to the mantle, and further down was the "crystal pillar" and "grid" that supported the entire planetary fortress, and the Lair of Nightmares was formed out of thin air after the collective "fall" of the guardian giants.
It was formed not long after the Great Equatorial Rift was torn open.
The Lair of Nightmares was not directly beneath the Amantir crystal, but slightly to the south, which allowed it to avoid the rift zone of the equatorial rift. The lair itself was a vast ellipsoidal region, and it was enveloped by a powerful and strange energy field. The sprites could not sense what was going on inside, and they could only roughly understand that it was a complex cavity, and many monsters were living in it.
The Lair of Nightmares was right next to the equatorial rift, and part of its "contents" had penetrated the energy barrier and extended to the bottom of the rift. There, the corrupted monsters had built a large number of facilities to use the structure that extended out, and that was the "summoning platform" that Hao Ren and the rest saw.
As for the "monster in the center of the Lair of Nightmares" that the sprites repeatedly emphasized, Hao Ren had no idea what it was, and he could only think that it was an unprecedentedly powerful derivative of the Mad Lord, and it had extraordinary spiritual and dream powers, and this power might even be close to Lockmarton's. To create an endless supply of soldiers for Amantir, the monster was in a long slumber, and it was weaving a massive nightmare, and its nightmare was projected into the real world through the structure at the bottom of the rift.
There, a large number of brain monsters gathered around a device called the Pillar of Nightmares. Their mission was to enter the dream with the 'big monster' in the Lair of Nightmares, and to 'lure' the monsters that were constantly being born out of the nightmare faster.
And this entire process was closely related to the Amantir crystal.
The sprites could not tell what the connection between the two was, but through the sprites' surveillance, they could see that the energy of the Amantir crystal was connected to the Lair of Nightmares below, and they were exchanging information on a large scale.
This made Hao Ren very uneasy.
He was worried that the Amantir crystal had been completely corrupted by the power of the Mad Lord, and if that was the case, it was hard to say if it could recombine with the other two crystals to form a waymark.
"Say, do sprites come up here like you usually?" In the deeper passage, Hao Ren curiously asked the sprite who was hovering above the MDT in her holographic form. "The presence we sensed at the start was you, right?"
"We don't usually come out!" The sprite immediately said. "The world above is filled with those monsters, and once we come out, we might not be able to go back. A few sprites who came out to scout died just like that. We only send an observer up here on average every hundred years. But this time, one of the surveillance lines we set up in the upper area suddenly sensed a very strange energy fluctuation. Then, we discovered a group of people we've never seen before. They recklessly ran into the monsters' base. That's why I was sent out to investigate the situation. "
As she said, she puffed up her chest. "The presence you sensed before was of course me! I've been following you for a long time, but you're too stupid. You didn't even realize it, and you even rashly attracted the monster's attention. If I didn't act at that time, you'd be dead by now. "
"Good, good, good. Thank you for saving our lives." Hao Ren grinned at the sprite as he looked around. "By the way, where is the passage to your sanctuary?"
The group had been moving underground for a long time, and from the map, they could see that they had left the underground of the control center, and had even entered an unmarked underground passage. The surrounding walls had unknowingly changed from metal to solid and shimmering rocks, with large and small glowing crystals inlaid in between the rocks. This made the passage bright enough even without lighting, and there was no longer the buzzing of mechanical equipment in the passage. It seemed that the team had left the base full of mechanical facilities and entered the more primitive depths of the planet.
The sprite now had to rely on the various sensing modules of the MDT to sense the outside world. Although it was many times more sensitive and accurate than her original senses, there was still a layer of data structure between them and the problem of proficiency. So it took the little sprite a while to locate the location in the stratum. "Oh, we're close to the crystal column layer. Beyond the crystal column layer is the big grid, and further down is the place where the sprites are hiding. But we don't need to drill through the crystal column layer and the big grid, there's a passage that leads directly to the sanctuary."
"What's the crystal column layer and the big grid?" Little Y 'lisabet asked curiously.
"This planet was built by the Goddess of Creation, so it is not the same as a naturally formed planet," the sprite explained. "Beneath the crust is not an ordinary mantle, but a large crystal-like structure. That is the crystal pillar layer. There are many automatic energy units and ancient facilities there. Because they support the operation of the entire planet, even the monsters dare not touch the crystal pillar layer. The large grid is the barrier between the crystal pillar layer and the planet's core. It is responsible for making the planet more stable and coordinating the energy and information transmitted from each crystal pillar. Part of our monitoring circuit is connected to the large grid."
The demon little girl was fascinated by the incredible celestial structure that the sprite mentioned. She opened her mouth and exclaimed, "Wow —"
As they spoke, the team suddenly got out of the long underground cave. Hao Ren's eyes suddenly opened up, and the underground scenery stunned him.
Magnificent and fantastical colors filled one's field of vision, almost dazzling them.
Instead of the dark and oppressive atmosphere that he had expected, the vastness and brightness of the underground world were completely beyond everyone's imagination. Hao Ren only saw a crystal jungle spreading out in his field of vision. Everything in sight was made of crystal. The jungle, the canyon, the stream, the shrubs … Everything in sight was reflected in a colorful, illusory light from an unknown source.
It was like a world of ice.
And in this endless crystal world, Hao Ren saw the huge crystal columns that supported the upper structure of Amantir. They were neatly arranged in the crystal world, like the giant pillars that supported the heaven and earth in the myth. The diameter of the giant pillars was probably enough to build a city on its cross-section, and the top of the pillars extended into the dark beyond sight.
They actually came down from one of these crystal columns.
The lower half of these giant crystal columns was surrounded by a faint light, and in the light, Hao Ren saw many strange structures that looked like suspended rings revolving around the crystal columns. Those must be the ancient facilities that the sprite mentioned.
The automatic mechanism deep in the underground of Amantir had been operating in this underground world since the day the goddess of creation created this starship. Even when the world on the surface had changed, and the power of madness had swept across the world, this place did not seem to be affected at all.
No, it was not unaffected. Hao Ren's eyes swept across the crystal world, and he quickly found that some of the crystal columns were actually contaminated. They were glowing in an abnormal purplish-red color, and the ring-shaped facilities that revolved around the crystal columns were constantly emitting violent dark electric arcs. It looked extremely dangerous.
"I … I have seen something like this in the illusion of the Throne of Destiny," Vivian mumbled as if she was sleep-talking. "But there were many small animals, and a crystal stag …"
"What you see should be the crystal column layer under the Heart," the sprite explained. "The Heart, like the three planetary fortresses, was created by the goddess of creation, and the structure inside is actually very similar. The crystal column layer of Amantir used to be very lively, and many crystal animals lived here. But as the crystal columns began to mutate, the living space of the animals became smaller and smaller, and now they have basically disappeared. Even the forest you see … is actually dead, but the crystal plants do not rot after they die, and that is why you can see them. "
"Even if the monsters do not come down, the corruption has already spread here." Y 'zaks looked at the crystal columns in the distance, which had obviously mutated, and shook his head. "So even if you hide in the core, you will be devoured sooner or later."
"I know, but we don't have anywhere else to hide." The fairy on the holographic projection spread her hands. Her small body made her pretentious act quite amusing. "The gate to the sanctuary is right in front of us. I'll show you the way."
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