Broken tal fragnts scattered across the vast ground, a giant ’rock’ about thirty ters high seed to have been destroyed by a powerful force in an instant, revealing an internal structure wrapped in thick tal lines.
"What is this?"
Vigina stood before this massive shattered rock, sowhat bewildered.
"It’s probably a speaker."
Soft footsteps passed behind her, He Ao lifted his head and looked ahead.
At this mont, the place where he stood was a ’slope’ with a not very steep angle, the slope was very wide, and at a glance, its diater would not be less than a thousand ters, made up of not very high stone blocks and rubble.
So from a distance, this slope looked like a giant platform.
And at the edge of the slope, within the reach of his gaze, stood densely packed dozens of these thirty to forty-ter high ’rocks’.
Most of these ’rocks’ had already been destroyed and shattered, with a few remaining intact, yet covered in fine cracks.
They quietly surrounded the edge of this slope, like rivets that once fixed invisible chains, nailed to the earth.
"The Kewort Group used these ’speakers’ disguised as rocks to control the Dark Lizard?" Vigina followed behind He Ao, scanning over this sowhat desolate area, "The Dark Lizard is afraid of sound?"
"It should be so special frequency," He Ao shook his head slightly, speaking softly, "The Dark Lizard is probably very sensitive to certain specific frequencies of sound."
"How exactly did the Kewort Group discover these," Vigina looked down and gazed at the rubble underfoot that resembled a desert, "Moreover, they secretly built such a huge ’area’ in such a dangerous place."
She gazed again at the damaged speakers, pondered and said, "However, if sound is really effective, if we can get the corresponding frequency, can we use it against the Dark Lizard?"
She withdrew her gaze, "But it seems there are no records of frequencies in Colin’s docunts..."
Before she finished speaking, she saw that He Ao’s figure had disappeared in front of her, and he was quickly moving forward along the edge of the desert.
She imdiately gave chase.
By this ti, He Ao had already stopped before a patch of completely shattered ’rubble’ and ’tal’.
There seed to have once been a giant object disguised as a ’rock’ here as well, but at this mont, this object had been completely destroyed, leaving only exposed steel and concrete indicating the foundation that went underground.
According to Colin’s ’mory’, this should be the location of the ’control console’ for the entire area.
The music chips used to ’hypnotize’ the Dark Lizard and those used to ’provoke’ the Dark Lizard were all ’read’ and ’played’ here.
He Ao slightly raised his gaze, scanning the various shattered tals and stones around.
Judging from the condition of those destroyed ’rock speakers’ across the entire area, the Dark Lizard must have been very agitated when it left, it only released an attack after partially destroying these annoying things, and then imdiately left.
But this ’control console’ clearly did not suffer only one attack.
It was clear that the Dark Lizard also knew where the real ’control console’ was and completely destroyed it.
However, He Ao was not surprised by the current scene.
Colin’s mory did not include the scene of the Dark Lizard breaking free of control, because Kailuo had set it to play with a delay, and he fled first, and after Kailuo left, he played dead and ran directly into the canyon.
Even with the Seven-color Flower in hand, he didn’t want to face the Dark Lizard in its angry state head-on.
It wasn’t until after the Dark Lizard left that Colin returned here, trying to ’retrieve’ those ’music chips’.
And then he saw these ruins, uncertain whether the music fragnts had been completely destroyed, making it very difficult to search for chips under the night sky.
At the ti, he didn’t have the ti to search for chips, so he could only leave directly, planning to co back to find them after things settled.
Of course, He Ao also knew these ’things’ from his mory.
He looked down at the scene on the ground mixed with rubble, broken tal, shattered motherboards, and fractured wires.
These fragnts spread out over a hundred ters, scattered into every corner.
Back then, in the darkness, Colin had not fully confird the damage to the control console.
And judging from the current situation, the concept of damage to this control console had exceeded his estimate.
It was evident that the Dark Lizard indeed detested the ’frequency’ that could provoke it and also this control console.
"Is this...?" Vigina had already walked up to He Ao’s side, watching the fragnts on the ground, "So kind of chanical equipnt fragnts? Damaged so thoroughly?"
She frowned slightly, combining He Ao’s actions, it seed she realized sothing, and said in a low voice, "The chips storing those special ’sound data’ were inside this equipnt?"
She glanced at the fragnts in front of her, let out a light sigh, "Already completely destroyed?"
Most of these fragnts were very small, so even smaller than her little fingernail, and the impact that could cause such damage could destroy virtually any chip.
"It seems so." Listening to her words, He Ao nodded lightly.
But he didn’t stop his steps; instead, he kept his gaze on the fragnts on the ground, quickly searching along the way.
Vigina followed his actions, lowering her head and quickly starting to search around as well.
Soon, she spotted sothing that seed to be a chip fragnt, but upon examining it, it appeared to be so sort of mory chip, already snapped in the middle, leaving only half of it.
"Caw—"
At this mont, a sharp, piercing bird cry echoed from the distant sky.
Instinctively, Vigina looked up toward the source of the sound, only seeing a vague sky.
"That’s an Iron-beaked Bird, they like to flock together, their sound sharp and penetrating, even capable of causing so sound wave damage, they prefer to nest on cliffs and in canyons," in front, He Ao, without lifting his head while examining the fragnts on the ground, explained casually, "When we ca over, there were lots of Iron-beaked Birds’ traces on the ground, there should be a nest of theirs nearby."
"So that’s the Iron-beaked Bird." Vigina nodded slightly.
She had read about Iron-beaked Birds in Federal Bureau of Investigation records, a unique bird-like exotic beast of the Denno City southern wasteland, known to attack large man-made objects, especially large airborne crafts, possessing strong aggression and a drive to attack.
This was one of the reasons why airship routes had to bypass the Denno City southern wasteland.
However, records stated that Iron-beaked Birds had sowhat lesser intent to attack small floating warplanes equipped with anti-aircraft devices, as long as one didn’t venture too close to their nests.
Though she hadn’t seen what Iron-beaked Birds actually looked like, this simple exchange still gave Vigina a sense of seeing book knowledge manifest into reality.
Her understanding of Denno City was so limited that oftentis, she had very few concrete impressions of many things in Denno City.
Even as her thoughts revolved, her hands continued moving, diligently searching for anything that might be a chip fragnt.
At this ti, He Ao in front slowly stopped his steps, picking up a broken tal piece from the ground.
A fragnt of a ’storage chip’ about one-third the size of a thumbnail is embedded in this tal sheet.
He Ao quietly gazed at the fragnt, then turned his head to look around.
Eve’s scan projected into his field of view, finally converging at a shadow beneath a piece of rubble not far in front of him.
He Ao walked over, reached under the shadow of the rubble, and retrieved a storage chip about the size of a fingernail.
This storage chip is more complete in structure compared to the one on the tal sheet he holds, but the entire structure is also distorted and covered with cracks.
Under normal circumstances, the data in this chip cannot be read.
He Ao quietly gazed at the chip, roughly compared its appearance to the chip in Colin’s mory, then put it away.
No matter if it works or not, it’s worth a try.
In fact, coming here, he didn’t really have high expectations, just set a ti to search a bit, and if he couldn’t find it, he would leave directly.
He glanced at his wristwatch and noted that he was half an hour ahead of his planned ti.
Of course, he wasn’t really searching randomly by luck. He was following Colin’s mory of the chip’s position and the positions of various structures in Colin’s mory.
Then find fragnts of those structures, confirm their locations, and have Eve construct a rough ’fragnt’ model to estimate the drop location of the chip.
Only then did he start searching.
Taking a slight breath, He Ao returned to Vigina, who was still searching the ground, and smiled, "Let’s go."
"Huh?" Vigina was taken aback, raising her head to look at He Ao’s back, "Found it?"
She glanced around at the densely packed parts and rubbed her eyes.
No way, could it really be found?
If this were a ga, she would suspect He Ao was using a cheat with a perspective view.
"Caw——"
A sharp bird cry sliced through the sky, Vigina withdrew her gaze, quickly caught up to He Ao, and returned to the floating warplane.
······
In the distant sky, shadows seed to drift by, the tiny floating warplane quickly ascended, heading slowly towards the enormous and deep canyon.
Inside the floating warplane, Vigina looked down at the fragnted chip He Ao had collected in a box and said regretfully, "Can it be restored?"
"It’s very difficult," He Ao shook his head, "but we can go to Ains and find soone to try."
"Okay." Vigina straightened her body and looked ahead.
The whole world seed to be divided into three parts ahead.
The sky, the wasteland, and the pitch-black canyon below the cliff line that crossed the world.
At that mont, they were floating over this canyon, traversing the entire Slorx Grand Canyon.
"How deep is this canyon?" Vigina looked down at the pitch-black canyon below.
Even though the scorching sun was so bright, the sunlight seed unable to reach the very bottom of the canyon or illuminate the dark depths.
"I don’t know," He Ao also glanced down at the canyon and shook his head, "No one has ever tested it. Many explorers have tried to reach the bottom of this canyon, but none have successfully returned."
"Thinking about that," Vigina slightly regained her senses, "the Kewort Group’s mines didn’t truly delve into the canyon but were located at a place akin to a halfway point down the canyon, which used to be the dark lizard’s habitat."
She turned her gaze towards the nearby monitors, only to find the image on the screens exhibited obvious distortions and stripes, "What’s this?"
"A kind of electromagnetic pulse-like phenonon emitted from the depths of the canyon," He Ao explained softly, "it severely interferes with all electromagnetic equipnt, worsening the closer to the canyon."
Simultaneously, accompanied by a series of piercing alarms.
Error ’notifications’ had already appeared on the screen.
Whistling winds swept across the canyon sky, gently rocking the floating warplane like a small boat.
Vigina quickly raised her hand, clearing away those error notifications, and directly switched the warplane to full manual control.
Her skills were excellent, swiftly regaining control of the warplane’s status and course, restoring stability to the vessel.
She sighed in relief, turned back to look at the cliff face on the opposite side of the distant canyon, and remarked with slight surprise, "There seem to be no dangerous exotic beasts nearby."
Her mory of the canyon’s records said traversing the canyon would encounter various dangerous and terrifying exotic beast attacks, yet the area they passed through was unusually quiet.
There were almost no flying exotic beasts, let alone attacks.
However, Vigina quickly realized, turning to He Ao, "Because the dark lizard had ’stayed’ here for a long ti, though it was ’controlled,’ its aura still spread and this place was deed its ’territory,’ no other exotic beasts would co."
She quickly added, "And now the dark lizard is gone; this area has beco truly blank, forming a short-term ’safe passage’."
At that mont, she felt the knowledge she previously acquired about the wilderness and exotic beasts had lded together in her mind, reminiscent of the joy from achieving success during her youth studies.
He Ao nodded gently at her excited appearance, "That’s right."
Right then, Vigina seed to notice her slight lapse and prepared to discreetly restrain herself.
"Caw——"
It was at this mont that the piercing bird cry again sounded from the distant sky.
Vigina turned her head toward the direction of the sound, vaguely seeing a continuous flock of birds hovering above the canyon.
"Iron-beaked birds?" She hesitantly murmured.
Iron-beaked birds also have the possibility of attacking floating warplanes.
There seed to be many iron-beaked birds here.
She grasped the control stick, intending to change course and steer clear of those iron-beaked birds.
But at that mont, she felt her wrist pressed by a hand, halting her movent.
"There’s sothing abnormal about those iron-beaked birds’ movents," He Ao stood beside her, observing those distant birds with a slight frown, "Let’s follow them to take a look."
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