Chapter 508: Spectre III
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
There was a rather giant hole at the cabin of the mech, which should be the "creative" work of the red-tailed beast. Ye Chong shook his headN no one would have survived from that tail attack under such circumstance. Ye Chong had seen this model before, twice - the first being back in Crysound where he saw 10 golden units zooming by in the sky at the ruin; the second being at Centuria University, during which 12 mechs were fighting against 5 red-tailed beasts, the golden mechs joined as a trio and stole the kill immediately. That was the only time Ye Chong ever saw the golden mech performed.
Well, the pilots of the trio were not particularly good, not as competent compared to himself, but they certainly had no problem handling the red-tailed beasts even in a 2 on 1 fight. Practically speaking, only an elite could fight off a red-tailed beast alone.
Judging by the debris of this mech, it should belong to the series of those golden mechs, though the weapon setup was a little different - the mech was wielding a golden ancient lance. Ye Chong believed in the capabilities of this ex-pilot, he or she should be about the level of the trio he encountered.
But that would be odd. Assuming they were at similar levels, it should not be a problem for this pilot to knock out one red-tailed beast. The pilot should have won. And that was when Ye Chong noticed the few tiny scratches around the debris. The layout of the scratches were messy, which some looked pretty new on top of the older ones. However, these scratches weren't old. That would mean the mech had suffered a considerable amount of damage before encountering a red-tailed beast. It was in another fight, an intense fight too.
Han Jia proceeded with his team, only to discover more debris of mechs along with carcasses of the red-tailed beasts. Some of the carcasses still looked fresh, while some had darkened with dried body fluid all over the body. And again, the debris resembled the same mech series Ye Chong had first spotted. The shocking discovery however was the burn marks across the carcasses which was clearly caused by heat ray firearms. They also found out a golden mech armed with ranged weaponry. It was a golden laser shooter, of a real, non-streamlined mechanical design with the code "G-Z" printed.
It was the first time Ye Chong saw a ranged weapon that could hurt the red-tailed beast.
"Such gun!" Shang hurriedly discarded his Farqua and picked the G-Z up, "I knew it, it's a good gun," he muttered. Well, it was a good gun indeed, but... it looked kind of odd being held in the hands of a blue-white mech. Gold with blue and white?
Shang turned on the gun and shot once. A golden beam with breadth of an arm escaped the muzzle and created a crater on the rock nearby. Clear burn marks could be seen around the edge of the crater. The golden beam had a strong color, the energy seemed highly condensed, probably the most condensed ray Ye Chong had ever seen, not even the laser cannon of a spaceship could be this condensed. A laser fired by spaceship weaponry might be far brighter and broader but could never be as condensed as this, which explained why the golden beam could cause actual damage on red-tailed beasts.
The next discovery after G-Z was the number of debris around.
They had at least discovered over 200 scraps of such golden mech model around, while the carcasses of red-tailed beasts should go up to 400. That would mean... at least 200 supreme pilots had been here, while... there were more ahead of them.
Ye Chong was pretty much astonished.
No word could be used to describe the earth-shattering experience he had.
If there was only one pilot or a pair of these pilots, Ye Chong would not be surprised as it would clearly be just another tragedy of exploring pilots being engulfed by the beasts. But there were at least 20 of them, all elites and whoever owning them must only be from either of the aristocrats, or an organization with a similar authority - an authority as strong as the Sangs perhaps.
But they were in Gray Valley, so obviously, only Research Consortium could have owned these!
Research Consortium was the sole force that could possibly fight against the aristocrats...
However... would that mean...
Ye Chong pulled the lever and proceeded, his speculation grew stronger in his head, as he sighted more debris and carcasses, the craters and the burns.
It must be a brutal fight.
Both Ye Chong and Shang remained silent. Caution would be the topmost priority now. The place was blatantly a hazardous zone. They had heard stories about Spectre and there was simply no way the folks could cook up these stories out of nowhere. There must be something going on, although Ye Chong had yet encountered anything that spelled "hazard". There were only surprises so far. He never expected the consortium would send men to check out here, a large troop it was too. It was a relief however, the sight of these debris had proven that the consortium frequented this area, they must be watching out from somewhere too.
Han Jia dashed forward with Shang wielding G-Z as followed carefully behind. Shang would cover Ye Chong if anything went wrong. They accelerated, disregarding the messes around them.
Ye Chong had fully recovered from the shock.
They could not find anything alive.
They then took a break after five minutes. They seemed to have found the target.
It was a valley of a breadth about 5 kilometers, where one could see the steep, rocky walls below the cliff into nothing. The dust on the ground would swirl occasionally as a gale blew by. The valley supposed to look grand, but it was all clogged by the metallic debris and bloody carcasses. Ye Chong could imagine the smell of bloodshed.
"Ye, 3534 dead red-tailed beasts had been detected," reported Shang something important.
Now Ye Chong could estimate the scale of the war, though the figure was a bit of a shocker to him. They discovered over 200 carcasses the very first moment they got to Spectre, summing all up the number of red-tailed beasts should reach about 4000, which was a horrible number for humanity.
That explained the heat detection from some of the carcasses by the system. The carcasses were indeed fresh. It was not war of a single day, the war must have lasted for days - that would justify the piling carcasses.
Both Ye Chong and Shang then zoomed to the very bottom of the valley and hovered a few meters above, they certainly would not want to tread upon the disgusting bin of the slaughterhouse.
Ye Chong took a look around, something caught his eyes. There seemed to be a piece of rock loosened from the edge of the wall. He zoomed in with his camera and revealed a corner of an alloy plate behind the rock. The piece of rock was leaning against the wall, so one would not be able to see anything unless from side.
It was a camouflage!
An alloy plate... It must...
It must be a base! There's a base right here?
Ye Chong suddenly worked up.
The discovery alone was more than enough to make the entire Gray Valley boil. The creepy planet, Spectre, had a secret base. For what? Why? Those would be the interesting part of the story. Spectre had always been rumored as the most terrifying, ghostly, paranormal place by the residents in Gray Valley. Well, the name "Spectre" was self-explanatory. But the discovery of this gate started to make Ye Chong feel that if those rumors were an intended propaganda to keep this base forever in the dark.
"Kek!" Shang laughed, "Spectre of the Spectre huh?"
Ye Chong's mind ran fast as he suddenly remembered the golden debris they encountered before. Perhaps, those elite pilots were not camping somewhere near Spectre but in Spectre itself! Right inside this base! Well, that would make better sense. No way the consortium would invest its precious elite workforce in guarding a haunted planet merely for "safety" of the people who would "accidentally" trespass the area. The workforce was meant for guarding something really, really important on the planet, like this base for example.
They pulled the rock off and system said it was another pitch darkness welcoming them.
They turned on holographic translation to reveal a pathway within. The gate was huge, about 200 meters tall and 300 meters long. The two pieces of alloy were tightly shut together and were covered with a thick layer of rocks. It was a clever design to utilize the darkness and the rocks of the valley to keep everything in stealth.
Han Jia flew into the gap between the gate. Shang tailed after and prompted the holographic detection system to project the visual.
It was a region far more spacious than Ye Chong imagined beyond the gate. It almost felt as if it wasn't a base. It felt more like a city, like the Nine Gates City, the same underground urban jungle he had been to!
And Ye Chong was not wrong. He was welcomed by also a city, only much more larger than Nine Gates! His sight could not reach the end of it despite viewing from height. The city seemed to have far more superior technology than Nine Gates. Well, the height of each building justified it. Even the lowest building had a height of 20 kilometers, while mechs were flying smoothly inside.
The top of the sky was giving off a gentle white light. You would never be able imagine how there was a white glow coming off your head, showering towards every zone within the proximity of a few hundred meters. It was a really soothing glow yet it gave the entire city daylight. It was as if Ye Chong was the god, bestowing the underground the light. Ye Chong took a closer look at the top, only to find out the source of light being a kind of moss...?
The roof of the underground world was veiled by a layer of glowing moss.
Ye Chong thought Nine Gates was the greatest, that it could send him a stunning spell, that he thought he would be immune to anything else ever since, yet he zoned out a little upon seeing the city.
The catch was... despite it being the probably the fascination of civil development itself, the city was silent, horrifyingly silent, like a dead city.
Ye Chong lowered the altitude, only to see something.