Chapter 432 Farewell and Return!
It was another evening, the sky was gray, and the night of the Far North seemed to be approaching.
The orange-yellow sun hung on the distant horizon, the snowy ice field in the distance reflected the dim light, the cold wind was howling, and white ice crystals like sand and dust were floating on the ground. The whole world was filled with a feeling of death and gloom.
However, as time went by, the setting sun in the sky did not completely fall.
It moved slowly across the horizon, as if it was moving horizontally. Its moving trajectory was almost parallel to the horizon, and the angle of change was very small, as if it would never fall.
This amazing sight can only be seen in the polar regions of the planet.
People who have lived here for a long time understand that they will experience this kind of life for many months to come.
This is midnight.
There is no night, only light, and the sun shines twenty-four hours a day.
At this moment, the far northern region is experiencing polar day for six months a year, while the far southern region is experiencing a long polar night.
At this moment, on the thick ice sheet in the far north, a slight sound suddenly came from a certain area.
“Swish—swish—”
Listening carefully, the sound came from under the ice sheet. It was very continuous, with some rustling sounds, as if some animal was digging through the ice below, trying to get above it.
If polar scientific researchers heard the sounds here, they would be very surprised, because the ice here is already fifty or sixty meters thick. What kind of creatures would move in such an ice layer?
Could it be the legendary Arctic monster?
More than ten minutes later, the strange sound approached the ground, getting closer and closer.
A few minutes later, there was a cracking sound, and a sharp metal fragment spun rapidly, penetrated the ice, and flew into the air.
On the vast ice field, this tiny piece of metal is inconspicuous.
The hole it penetrates through the ice is only about one centimeter in diameter, and a cold wind will blow in some tiny ice crystals to bury it.
But soon, a tiny mechanical crawler crawled out of the coin-sized hole.
After the little reptile came out, it spread its wings and rose with the wind, higher and higher. Its body seemed to have no weight. In just a few minutes, it flew hundreds of meters into the air, overlooking the world below.
[No signs of activity from mechanical creatures were found, searching the area within 500 meters]
A message was passed to Su Xia, and along with it came the vision shared by the mechanical crawler.
At this moment, Su Xia is under the ice.
His face was serious, his brows were furrowed, and his mind was highly concentrated. He kept sending out more nanorobots to explore the way.
This area was exactly where he chose to go ashore.
Contrary to all the speculations from the outside world, Su Xia did not choose an island or the edge of a continent, but came under the thick Arctic ice, forced his way through the ice, and created a place for himself to go ashore.
The Arctic ice layer in this world is much thicker than that on Earth, causing Su Xia a lot of trouble.
"I didn't expect that it would take more than ten minutes just to make a hole the size of a coin." Su Xia sighed. The ice here was harder than he had imagined. He spent a lot of spiritual energy to make a passage.
"Well, am I right? There are no robots outside!" said the big whale complacently and proudly.
This area was actually chosen by him for Su Xia.
Before that, he released mental fluctuations and, as a hegemon, drove a large number of sea creatures. It took him two or three days to select this location for Su Xia.
In order to ensure safety at sea, he even drove some creatures on land, such as Arctic foxes and Arctic wolves, to this area as reconnaissance forces at all costs.
You know, most of these creatures live in the Arctic tundra and rarely come to such inland areas.
"There is indeed no sign of the mechanical race, thank you very much." Su Xia expressed his gratitude to the big whale.
"What's there to thank? We're all fellow travelers anyway!" said the big whale casually.
At this moment, Su Xia had put away the large submarine and boarded the small sightseeing submarine, floating under the ice.
He looked up and saw through the sturdy sightseeing glass an uneven layer of light blue ice, which looked like the sky of the underwater world. It seemed as if he could touch it with his hand, giving off a somewhat mysterious feeling, making him feel as if he were in another world.
The giant whale was floating next to Su Xia. Its huge body, over 300 meters long, could not be seen at a glance in the dark and cold sea water. Only a part of its body could be seen.
"After leaving here, you know how to get there, right?" he asked Su Xia.
"I know, I have a map." Su Xia nodded.
"Once you leave, I don't know when you will come back. The next time we meet will probably be many years later." The big whale sighed. Although he had not been with Su Xia for a long time, he was very reluctant to leave. He hoped that Su Xia would stay for a while longer and explore the mysterious areas of the Far North Sea with him.
In his long life, he had never made any human friends.
To a sea monster like him with a long life, friends are very precious creatures.
He had lived for so long that he had almost forgotten how many years he had lived. All the friends he made in his childhood were long dead now, some from old age, some from fighting sharks, and others from being hunted by humans.
It has been so long that he even forgot what his old friends looked like.
After years and days of boring life, the only ones who could be considered his friends were those sea monsters who were also aliens.
"Don't worry, I value time very much." Su Xia smiled, "It won't take many years, I will come to see you in half a year at most."
"Half a year?"
The big whale didn't quite believe it and asked doubtfully: "Can you defeat those robots in half a year?"
"Half a year is enough. The war is imminent and the final storm is about to start." Su Xia said, "When I go back this time, it won't be long before a racial war breaks out on land. It may spread to the sea by then. You have to prepare early."
“So soon?”
"Well... Actually, I already smelled the scent of war before I entered the seabed."
Su Xia looked up at the bottom of the ice with deep eyes, thinking a lot.
To the mechanical race, the undead are ultimately an uncontrollable factor.
They will not allow any uncontrollable factors to grow, and the best option is to strangle them in the cradle.
At the same time, wreckage of alien spacecraft are also surfacing one by one around the world, and the next war may involve the competition for these wreckage.
The final winner will surely be able to break out of this planet, become the representative of civilization on this planet, and lead everyone into the interstellar age.
As Su Xia was thinking, more and more information was transmitted back.
[No signs of activity from mechanical creatures were found, searching the area within 2,000 meters]
[No mechanical tribe found...]
【……】
More than half of the nanorobots were dispatched by him.
For safety reasons, the small robots no longer maintain their reptile form, but dispersed one after another, activating environmental invisibility, and transformed into shining white ice crystals, like sand in the desert, floating gently in the wind in this white world.
They are mixed in with ordinary ice crystals, and there is no abnormality at all. They are no different from other ice crystals.
In addition to them, there are also Arctic foxes and Arctic wolves driven by the great whale using its spiritual power.
Soon, the area with a radius of about ten kilometers was completely explored. It was dead silent, and there was almost no sign of life except themselves.
"It should be safe now."
Su Xia looked at the time, then something occurred to him and he released dozens of tiny metal fragments.
Under his control, these metal fragments began to spin rapidly, like sharp blades that would not stop, and began to cut through the thick ice.
This time, he wanted not just a coin-sized hole, but a passage that could accommodate him in and out.
“Swish—swish—”
The cutting speed was very fast, and in just a few moments, a circular hole with a diameter of more than 40 centimeters gradually took shape.
As the cutting progressed, countless tiny ice crystals were scraped off, looking like floating white catkins in the water, one clump after another, and finally dissolved into the sea water and gradually disappeared.
"You are really capable." The big whale is a little envious. "If you become a construction worker, you can build a tower in one day, and you can earn the salary of hundreds of people... If you go to the vegetable market to sell watermelons, you don't have to put magnets under the scale..."
"You also know the trick of placing magnets?" Su Xia was surprised.
"I have lived for hundreds of years, so I still know these things."
“…”
As the two communicated, time passed slowly and the hole was dug deeper and deeper.
At the same time, Su Xia also carefully looked at the outside Far North world through the shared vision of the nanorobots.
This was his first time in such an extremely cold world, so he was naturally curious.
"I heard that there is a period of time every year in the Far North when you can see the aurora, but unfortunately it's not the time yet." Su Xia felt a little regretful. He didn't have the chance to see many things on Earth. He could only rely on games, hoping that they could come true in the game.
"There's nothing to see. I'm tired of seeing it." The big whale said casually, not caring at all.
"Of course you are tired of it..."
Su Xia pursed her lips, too lazy to argue about these issues with the big whale.
Under his careful control, the metal fragments in the hole spun rapidly, constantly cutting and scratching the ice, and had already reached a depth of three meters.
"Next, there is still fifty-four meters of thickness." Su Xia took out a few spiritual energy replenishing potions and replenished himself with energy.
The energy is consumed too quickly. If it is not replenished, the blue bar will be exhausted.
This is a very boring process, very tedious, with constant repetition and repeated cutting.
"It's a pity that the ice is too thick, otherwise I could experience the feeling of a submarine breaking ice." Su Xia often saw the shocking scenes of nuclear submarines breaking ice in various military videos and always wanted to give it a try, but now there is no chance.
Many ideas could only be realized after the war.
Time passed slowly, and the cold wind on the ice never stopped, as if it had been like this for thousands of years.
In such a cold and dead place, time seems to have lost its meaning, nothing will change much, and the world is all white.
I don’t know how long it took…
Finally, with a crackling sound, a thin piece of ice broke, and more than a dozen tiny metal fragments broke out of the ice.
With Su Xia's unremitting cutting, a vertical passage large enough for a normal person to pass through was created in the nearly sixty-meter-thick ice.
"It's time..."
Su Xia let out a breath, and her whole body felt exhausted. A feeling of exhaustion surged up from the bottom of her heart.
Controlling the metal for such a long time consumed not only the energy in his body, but also his mind. After all, he had to stay focused .
Above him, at the entrance of the passage, the sea water was rippling and a bright light appeared, as if it was the entrance to another world.
The sea and the ocean are indeed two different worlds.
"I should go now." Su Xia turned to look at the big whale, her voice calm.
"Okay... take care on your journey!"
The big whale didn't say anything to try to keep Su Xia. He knew that Su Xia had a heavy mission, so he just gently swung his tail, stirring up a gentle stream of water as a farewell to Su Xia.
Su Xia smiled gently and said, "Take care of yourself too."
After that, he pressed the submarine's exit button, and seawater instantly poured into the submarine, balancing the internal and external pressures. The submarine's hatch then slowly opened.
The chill of the sea water instantly surrounded Su Xia, corroding his skin and making him feel as if he were being pricked by needles all over.
Su Xia swam out of the submarine, waved, then folded the submarine and swam to the entrance of the passage.
Looking up, the sky was white and the sunlight was a little dazzling.
Su Xia narrowed his eyes slightly, and without hesitating for too long, he rushed up, along the smooth and cold ice channel, rushed out of the sea world, and returned to the land he had been away from for a long time.
With a few snapping sounds, the sea water on his body instantly turned into ice and turned into ice chips that fell to the ground.
Whoosh!
The cold wind was biting, whistling past him like a knife cutting through his wet body.
The temperature of dozens of degrees below zero instantly formed a thin layer of ice on his clothes. His skin, which was contaminated by sea water, instantly lost sensation and was numb from the cold.
"Huh...this temperature..."
Su Xia exhaled a puff of white mist, and her whole body trembled in the cold wind. She was almost unconscious, and she rubbed her arms subconsciously, and ice crystals fell off her arms.
In just over ten seconds, a thick layer of frost formed on his hair and eyebrows.
The Far North is indeed a forbidden zone for life.
Looking around, the whole world is white with only ice crystals, ice and snow, and freezing cold for thousands of miles.
Su Xia immediately took out some blood-activating medicine, gulped it down, and then wrapped himself in several layers of thick coats. Only then did he feel a little more comfortable.
"From here, heading south, the ice will gradually become thinner, and then we will pass through the North Sea Bay. After crossing the North Sea Bay, we will reach the Scandinavian Peninsula. After passing the peninsula area, we will head southeast, cross the Ur Mountains, and enter the Great Plains..."
Su Xia calculated the distance. This route goes from north to south, from high latitudes to low latitudes, almost spanning the entire northern hemisphere.
Pure flying can save him a lot of time and the speed is much faster than on the seabed.
While Su Xia was looking at the map, the big whale under the ice suddenly moved, causing a wave.
The big whale transmitted a spiritual power through the ice and asked Su Xia: "Why aren't you moving? Are you frozen to death?"
"No, I'm just calculating the route." Su Xia said with a smile.
"Oh, I thought you were frozen."
“Not really.”
"Have you figured out the route?"
"alright."
Su Xia looked relaxed. He put away the system map and had already memorized the specific route.
He looked into the distance, his body slowly rising, then he looked down, smiled at the big whale under the ice, and said the last words.
“Let’s go!”
