It was not possible to reach the propulsion unit directly from the maintenance tunnel, but it was possible to reach the rear maintenance area of the propulsion unit. The thruster used by this space island was an unusually large piece of equipment. Its main body was hundreds of meters long. If placed on the surface, it would be like a hill, and its rear half of the maintenance area was a factory-shaped equipment room. This place was full of machinery, pipes, magic arrays and flashing indicators. It was located tens of meters below the city, at the rear of the propulsion unit. When the propulsion unit exploded, it did not completely tear the place apart, but it had opened a huge crack in its upper shield.
Hao Ren found himself in a very spacious room, surrounded by strange equipment that he could not name. The artificial gravity here had completely shut down, and the most intense acceleration of the propulsion unit had passed. There were a lot of equipment debris and other debris floating in the air. The roof of the room was slanted to one side, and there was a huge crack on the alloy roof. Dazzling light shone in from the crack, and the broken floating objects cast a strange and dazzling silhouette on the opposite wall, looking strange and dangerous.
The first thing Hao Ren did was to check out the equipment that looked like a control panel. He knew that he was already inside the propulsion unit, and if he could shut down the system from inside this big guy, that would be the best solution. He may not know how to operate these things, but he could transmit what he saw directly to the MDT, and then let the MDT show it to the elven experts above. But he quickly gave up on the idea: all the equipment was obviously broken, and the dim and cracked crystal control panel would not work.
Y 'zaks was surrounded by a layer of scorching lava shield. He was ready to unleash his power. After carefully sensing the flow of energy around him, he came to a corner of the room and punched a huge hole in the wall. "This should be the place where the propulsion unit went out of control."
Hao Ren ran over curiously and found that there was a blinding light everywhere. After his vision had adjusted, he could see the structure of the room clearly. In front of him was the propulsion unit's "combustion tube" or something else. He could see a huge, tubular tunnel extending outside, and at the end of the tunnel, he could vaguely see the stars in the distance. As he looked carefully, the shadow of another floating island flashed by at the end of the tunnel. There were many parallel rows of small pipes on the walls of the passageway. The light was mainly emitted from those pipes. There was a ten-meter buffer zone between the scorching small pipes and the maintenance area, and there was a ring of huge equipment arranged in a circle. Although there was a ten-meter buffer zone, Hao Ren still felt a burning sensation. It was probably just a psychological effect.
Y 'zaks tore a bigger hole in the wall and leaped out. He stood in the middle of the buffer zone and stretched his body. A crimson cloud of fire quickly enveloped his body like tumbling magma. His body rapidly expanded in the surging demonic cloud, and in a blink of an eye, he turned into a huge demon more than five meters tall.
Hao Ren jumped out as well. "I haven't seen you like this in a long time."
"Hah, it's more comfortable this way." Y'zaks stretched his limbs. Fortunately, the two of them were communicating telepathically. Otherwise, he would have spewed sparks of fire the moment he opened his mouth. "I'm going out to take a look. It's hard to determine how big the propulsion unit is from here."
Hao Ren grunted. As he looked down, he suddenly noticed something not far away.
He gestured to Y'zaks to wait, and then floated over with great effort. Just as the MDT said, he could indeed move in vacuum without any external force. In the process, Hao Ren could see a long series of faint shadows behind him. But this did not mean that he was floating very fast. It was a spatial afterimage caused by some kind of coordinate displacement. When he moved in this way, he felt his senses split into countless parts and distributed throughout his entire path. This caused severe dizziness, and he had to be careful not to move for too long. When he floated to his destination, he saw what was lying on the ground. It was an Aerymian elf, wearing a strange spacesuit, and looked dead.
Hao Ren suppressed the shock and nervousness in his heart. He went forward and flipped the body over. Under the transparent mask was the face of a young male elf. There was no sign of pain on his face, but his eyes were closed as if he was in a deep sleep. Hao Ren did not find any obvious wounds on his body, so he was curious about the cause of death. That was until he suddenly noticed a very small tear on the back of the spacesuit. He died of decompression.
Perhaps the physiological structure of elves and humans were different. When they died in vacuum, it was as if they had fallen asleep.
Hao Ren looked around and found that the elf had fallen in front of a control panel. His hand was stuck on one of the control panels. He tried to decipher the words beside the control panel, and finally translated the blurry words: emergency stop.
Hao Ren suddenly understood. It seemed that before the propulsion unit exploded, the maintenance area was already aware of it. The elf was probably a staff member on duty. When he found out that the propulsion unit had malfunctioned and lost contact with the surface, he wanted to rush to the combustion tube to shut it down, but he failed.
An ordinary Aerymian elf died in the line of duty. Even though he risked his life to protect the island, his last effort did not work.
"We'd better move his body to a safer place." Y'zaks looked down at the elf. "This place is going to explode soon."
Hao Ren nodded silently. He fastened the dead elf on his back and floated back to the tunnel as fast as he could. He placed the elf near the second gate. That should be the safest place they could find.
After that, he and Y'zaks rushed out of the propulsion unit along the huge combustion tube. It was a rather thrilling journey. Hao Ren never imagined that someone would be so daring as to rush out of a space thruster hundreds of meters long with a deadly deflagration. At first, he was even worried that his Steel Membrane Shield would not be able to withstand the high temperature and impact. But it seemed that the quality of the Empire's products was really good. Other than a severe headache, he did not suffer any other injuries.
But the Steel Membrane Shield did consume some of its energy.
A huge pillar of light, more than ten kilometers long, swallowed and spat out in front of the two. It was a terrifying and ghastly sight.
This was the flame of the propulsion engine. There were three main nozzles in the engine, but only one was running. One of the other two nozzles had been extinguished, and the other was torn into pieces by the explosion. But in any case, they were far from being completely destroyed. It seemed that the elven spellcasters on the other side of the wall had made a big mistake in their judgment of the engine's condition. And near the huge engine, Hao Ren also saw the attitude adjustment nozzles. They were distributed under the hoops of the floating island, spitting out smaller flames in a haphazard attempt to correct the fatal tearing of the floating island by the main engine. But it only made the situation worse.
Y 'zaks stood next to Hao Ren. The raging flames on his body could not be extinguished even in the vacuum. These flames burned into a fireball in the absence of gravity, making this terrifying demon look like a small sun, full of awe and awe. He frowned as he looked at the structure of the engine, which was not easy for him to understand. He compared it with a few key features that the elven mage had told him. "Looks like we just need to blow that thing up. Anyway, the situation can't get any worse."
Then he began to brew an unprecedentedly huge super fireball mixed with green demonic flames. Hao Ren took the opportunity to look around. He saw some small bright spots in the distance. Those were the Aerymian cruisers that came to rescue the accident but could not get close due to insufficient equipment. The elves could only watch from afar. They were confused about Hao Ren and the demonic form of Y'zaks: these two must be "strange creatures" beyond their worldview.
Hao Ren was finally seen as an "alien" for the first time.
A moment later, Y 'zaks' super fireball was ready. Hao Ren stared at the giant fireball, which was more than ten meters wide, spinning rapidly in front of him, and connected to Y 'zaks' hands by a few runes. "Is it really okay to hit them with this thing?"
"It has been precisely calculated," Y'zaks nodded confidently. He then turned twice on the spot and swung the huge fireball at the propulsion unit!
A huge light burst out of the out-of-control engine. The power... was indeed smaller than what Hao Ren had imagined. It seemed that Y'zaks' precise calculation was true: the gigantic fireball did not blow a bigger hole in the floating island.
Hao Ren watched the smoke after the explosion nervously. Was the crisis... over?
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