Capítulo 590: Chapter 515: Stellar Ring
The Green Train departs from the Abyss, traveling through various terrains and landscapes.
Occasionally gliding in the sky, flying side by side with countless brown jellyfish-like atmospheric creatures, each over a hundred ters in diater;
Sotis burrowing into rock layers, soaking and swimming freely in magma over a thousand degrees.
Sitting inside the unnad train, one truly understands the wonders of the killing field.
Li Cheng and the others even saw through the windows tens of thousands of snow creatures covered in white fur, gathered around a deliberately constructed brick altar, lighting a bonfire.
As the unnad train traversed the sky above the altar, the group of snow creatures celebrated excitedly, pinning a snow creature noble adorned with gold and silver onto the altar, cutting open its chest and abdon, extracting its organs, and presenting them towards the train.
Clearly, these native snow creatures of the killing field have started to possess self-will and intelligence, yet they still reside in a primitive society, treating the train as so kind of divine entity to be appeased.
“Is this the Shang Dynasty, Maya, or Aztec,”
Wanli Sealed Blade wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, “What a classic nostalgic blade battle suit.”
Where there is the backward, there naturally exists the advanced. As the Green Train entered an ocean, an underwater city spanning over two hundred square kiloters appeared.
The whole city was established around the seabed volcanic crater, extracting energy from geothermal sources.
Its architecture was made of living coral material, adorned with glowing seaweed. Transparent chitinous pipelines connected the buildings, inside which were high-speed directional ocean currents capable of rapidly propelling vehicles (fish-shaped chanical submarines).
When the Green Train appeared, the living electric ray turrets on the city walls all turned to aim at the train, watching it leave with great vigilance.
Reyes, White Horse Tombstone, and Li Cheng marveled in astonishnt, sowhat regretting that the inhabitants of this marine civilization were literally fish, shrimp, crabs, and even sponges and starfish, rather than the beautiful rfolk with human upper bodies.
“From the architectural style and energy utilization efficiency, the technological advancent of this marine civilization is roughly equivalent to Earth’s mid-20th century.”
Claudia took a deep breath, believing that the stones from other hills could be polished jade, managing to survive in the perilous environnt of the killing field and even develop civilization suggests so remarkable reasoning.
If one could bring back all the civilization from the underwater city to the slums, the Witch Alliance and other guilds would definitely not be stingy with the reward.
“Sothing doesn’t feel right,”
Li Cheng’s voice interrupted Claudia’s daydreaming. He rubbed his chin and said seriously, “I’ve read a paleontology paper from Evil Science Alliance before. From the fossils collected everywhere, it appears the history of the killing field far exceeds the history of the human species.”
The carbon-14 precise dating thod often heard of in popular science doesn’t apply to killing field fossils, and the reason is simple: carbon-14 originates from the interaction between cosmic ray neutrons and atmospheric nitrogen nuclei, conditions absent in many killing field locations.
Moreover, carbon-14’s half-life is only 5730 years, with an effective upper limit of just fifty thousand years.
Nevertheless, scientists can still asure the age of rocks, minerals, and biological fossils through radioactive isotope decay thods, optical dating (asuring the electron numbers after minerals last exposed to light), amino acid racemization dating (the left-handed structure of amino acids in buried dead animals gradually transforms to right-handed with temperature changes),
and other thods.
Based on the samples obtained so far, the oldest rock minerals in the killing field can date back over thirty billion years, with the oldest biological fossils also dating back over a billion years.
It’s worth noting that the explored area of the killing field is as large as the entire Solar System, and the habitable regions greatly exceed Earth; the rich ecosystems everywhere prove it’s not surprising to have life, but rather strange to have none.
This also raises more bizarre questions, since the habitable areas of the killing field are vast and ecological systems are rich, why hasn’t a native species civilization erged that could completely occupy, and even obliterate, the killing field entity?
Homo sapiens took thirty thousand years to understand social cooperation and learn agriculture.
It took ten thousand more years to transition from agriculture to the steam era.
And less than a hundred years to proceed from the steam era to the electrical era, with technological advancent accelerating exponentially.
With just a little longer, reality’s human civilization doesn’t even need the killing field’s arrival to accelerate growth; in another couple of hundred years, it surely could produce Von Neumann’s cellular automaton,
like the base car in science fiction novels, utilizing surrounding environntal materials to self-replicate, branching out continuously, exploring the killing field.
Even at the most conservative estimate, a million years should be enough for the automaton to traverse the entire killing field, planting flags in every accessible corner (so spatial anomaly regions, such as micro black holes, would need to be bypassed).
The question arises: given the favorable conditions for nurturing life within the killing field entity and its vast ti span, why has no civilization erged far surpassing humanity?
The seemingly advanced underwater city of Atlantis was only at the level of mid-20th century technology. When the Green Train appeared, everyone was on high alert.
The possibilities inherent in this are terrifying when you think deeply about it.
Aside from Gray Rain, everyone present was smart, including White Horse Tombstone, who realized this. They all turned their heads to look at Wanli Sealed Blade, who had the highest level and oldest qualification.
“Why are you all looking at ?” Wanli Sealed Blade said, bewildered.
Reyes put on a slightly fawning smile, “Brother Xiao Dao, you are well-inford, haven’t you heard any rumors about this?”
“Rumors… I think there are so.”
Wanli Sealed Blade scratched his head, “A long ti ago, I heard Cold Water Stone ntion sothing about a big filter theory among those top-tier players of theirs.”
Reyes quickly asked, “The details, the details!”
“I didn’t inquire further,” Wanli Sealed Blade said confidently, seeing Li Cheng and others look shocked, pained, and frustrated, he shrugged imdiately, “You guys are still naive, you’ll understand when you reach my age that when you’re mixing in a killing field, there’s really no need to get to the bottom of everything.”
“This… brother, aren’t you curious?”
White Horse Tombstone couldn’t help asking, “The root of the killing field, the origin of the Summoner’s na, the significance of the Player’s existence, and even the way to escape fate.”
“First, I don’t think top-tier players fully know what you’re asking. Second, knowing too much can’t help you increase your survival rate; instead, it can beco a ntal block, if not a ntal demon.”
Wanli Sealed Blade said frankly, “Have you seen Infinite Horror? Do you understand the fourth-stage ntal demon of the Genetic Lock?”
“This…”
White Horse Tombstone, Claudia, and Reyes exchanged glances,
Li Cheng rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “Indeed, sotis the more you know, the more unfortunate you beco. It’s like so flashy-looking street shops that, in reality, serve lymph at and zombie at.”
He paused, suddenly realizing there were others here, and quickly waved his hand, “I an takeout vendors, not the Star-casting Anvil.
We at the Star-casting Anvil would never shortchange, substitute inferior goods, misrepresent, or fleece custors. Every custor is like my beloved family.”
Gray Rain, lying in the seat and snoring away, heard the keyword and instinctively chid in, “Forum followers, follow Star-casting Anvil ow, follow Star-casting Anvil thank you ow.
Our Star-casting Anvil may go bankrupt, but we will never deteriorate zzz…”
While a few people were chatting, the carriage door opened again, and the Headless Reindeer casually returned and greeted, “I just finished talking with Tung Bone. This ti, he’s out to hunt specific Divine Calamities. As long as you don’t provoke him, he won’t co looking for you.
The next stop, the Star Ring Ancient Battlefield, is my destination, so I’m getting off here, see you around.”
With that, the Headless Reindeer took a fishing rod, a bucket, and a small stool from the seat.
Li Cheng rummaged in the Three-dinsional Warehouse and found so titanium alloy fishing rods he had prepared a long ti ago to give to Brother Reindeer as a gift. He casually asked, “Star Ring Ancient Battlefield? Do the train stops have nas?”
“The station doesn’t have an official na; I made it up myself, as for the reason… look outside the window.”
Everyone turned their heads to look out the window, only to see the Green Train charging out of the ocean, and just as it was about to hit the do, it suddenly jumped to a vast space.
In space, there were a large number of cots ford from molten tal, and an asteroid with a surface area no less than the Australian continent, covered in burns, explosions, and earthquake marks.
On the outskirts of the asteroid, countless ice particles, rock fragnts, dust, and tallic parts disintegrated by ti into a nearly unrecognizable state floated, forming a flat belt arranged like a planetary ring.
“It’s rumored that tens of thousands of years ago, here a Transcendent at the level equivalent to your human Level 40 had an interstellar war with an opponent. They tore space apart, fused the layers of rock, and cast the land into space, but with such Mighty Power, they still couldn’t escape the erosion of ti, leaving only the traces of battlefield.”
Headless Reindeer said with a sigh, then spirit rising, “The good news is that there are fish that can survive in space living in the planet ring. I brought radiant lures this ti, for sure, no empty trip today, a guaranteed catch.”
Amidst everyone’s blessings and goodbyes, Brother Reindeer, carrying a fishing rod and bucket, gleefully got off the train, floating towards the planetary ring.
And when the train started again, neither Reindeer nor the people on the train noticed that in the canyon depths of the dark and sunless side of the asteroid, sothing large peered at the train’s departing direction.
To be more precise, it was looking towards the rear of the fifteenth carriage, at the astronaut leaning against the glass window, still utterly unaware.
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