138: Mirage? ?

Under Qin Shuang's stern gaze, Xu Jingzhe had no choice but to walk over, muttering under his breath, "Such good treasure, but I can't take it. My heart aches."

Qin Shuang looked at Xu Jingzhe and said in a serious tone, "Your Second-level Alloy Battle Suit is damaged, why didn't you tell me?"

"You were near that object for so long, your body functions might be impaired. Come here quickly, let me check."

Xu Jingzhe thought to himself that the massive fragment looked thin, but it was incredibly hard; even if he managed to break it off, he probably couldn't carry it away.

With Qin Shuang carrying Zheng Peng and Xu Jingzhe carrying Yang Shuang, the five of them exited the underground cave.

Just as they left the cave, a rumbling sound echoed, and the underground cavern was buried.

Deep inside the cave, near the junction where the metal fragment met the rock, several red lights were flashing. The rays emitted by these lights were blocked by the falling rubble, so Xu Jingzhe did not notice them.

Under an ancient tree, Zheng Peng and Yang Shuang had already woken up; they had simply lost too much blood, but otherwise, they were fine for the moment.

Under another ancient tree, Xu Jingzhe stood, wearing only his tight-fitting boxers.

Qin Shuang, fully geared up, applied medicine to his body. After finishing, she extended her palm, and ripples flashed across her five fingertips.

She was using her Second-level Alloy Battle Suit to check his body functions to see if he had suffered any functional damage from the intense radiation.

She let out a long breath and said, "Fortunately, I haven't found anything wrong with your body for now."

"If you feel unwell at any time from now on, you must tell me."

Xu Jingzhe nodded and put on his Second-level Alloy Battle Suit.

He was still thinking about what that fragment had fallen from, and how it could cause the system to crash.

After eating some food to replenish his energy, the five of them continued on their journey.

The sky in the Pollution Zone was rarely sunny; most of the time, it was gray and hazy.

Zheng Peng wore a gloomy expression, looking quite depressed.

He considered himself a genius, and his strength was no weaker than a 23-year Contaminator. Why did the team have to be saved by someone else every time they fought?

He looked at Xu Jingzhe's carefree back, a trace of imperceptible jealousy flashing deep in his eyes. Like a drop of water falling into a vat, the ripples quickly dissipated.

In the afternoon, they encountered a 10-year Contaminator.

Zheng Peng rushed up, went on a killing spree, and successfully killed it.

The five of them continued to head deeper, following the trail of other contestants.

For three consecutive days, they fought eight battles of varying sizes, obtaining a total of five 10-year pollution cores and three 15-year pollution cores.

These pollution cores combined were not even one-thousandth the value of the main core.

The only regret was that they had not encountered any Contaminator teams; presumably, it was because they were still on the outskirts of the Pollution Zone.

The four of them stood on a high slope, gazing into the distance.

The direction they were traveling was an endless desert, with no end in sight. A few tall cacti could vaguely be seen standing in the desert, lonely like guardians.

"Should we change direction?" Xu Jingzhe asked.

Qin Shuang shook her head and said, "We can't take a detour. We have already been in the Pollution Zone for a week, and the competition only lasts for a month. With only this little harvest, how can we win?"

"Besides, we must go to a small town called Tark City to check in, otherwise the competition results will be invalid. That city is very hidden; it's a stronghold of the Chemical Zone in the Pollution Zone."

Xu Jingzhe and the others all looked confused, as this had not been mentioned beforehand during the competition.

Qin Shuang smiled bitterly and said, "I only received the news two days ago. I suspect the Compound Zone Alliance did it on purpose."

"It's meant... to incite us to fight and eliminate some of the weaker ones first."

Xu Jingzhe's expression was heavy. If a powerful team was deliberately waiting at Tark City for other teams to arrive, only to attack them and forcibly seize their pollution cores...

"Look, we are still far away." The LCD screen on Qin Shuang's arm appeared, displaying a map showing only the distance between Tark City and them; nothing else was visible.

"Boss, look up, at 70 degrees to the left!"

Suddenly, Bai Binger's voice came through Qin Shuang and Zheng Peng's earpieces. It was clearly urgent, but became intermittent due to various radiation interference.

Qin Shuang and Zheng Peng looked up at the same time. Both were stunned, mouths agape, speechless.

Seeing that the two were silent, Xu Jingzhe and Yang Shuang looked in the direction of their gaze. Immediately, the shock in their eyes was indescribable.

Over there, a colorful canopy appeared, as if hanging down from the sky into the human world, dreamlike and illusory.

Inside the canopy, there was a team of giants, about twenty people. Each giant was over ten meters tall, wearing aviation suits that wrapped them up completely.

In each person's hand, they held a metal box, and one could see mysterious patterns engraved on the surface of the boxes.

Behind the giants sat a cigar-shaped spaceship that must have been several thousand meters long, with two rows of indicator lights flashing incessantly.

"Is this... a mirage?" Xu Jingzhe muttered.

This scene was too shocking!

The giants in the canopy were simply too realistic. If he didn't know about mirages, he would have thought they were Contaminators from the Pollution Zone.

This sentence reminded Qin Shuang.

"Let's go, get to the canopy and record the coordinates!" She rushed out in one stride, very anxiously.

Xu Jingzhe appeared beside her, jumping up and down, and asked, "Isn't this a mirage? Formed by the refraction of light? I saw it in... I saw it in a book."

Because her mind was entirely on the coordinates of the canopy, Qin Shuang didn't think anything was wrong with what Xu Jingzhe said and explained, "There is no such thing as a mirage; that's just a cover story made up by the higher-ups in the Chemical Zone to fool people."

"The real reason is that a folded space exists there. The appearance of the canopy is because the connection point between the two spaces has suffered a huge shock. Or perhaps the barriers at the two connection points have had their restrictions partially destroyed by the erosion of time, making it visible due to spatial instability."

"If the space is unstable, space-time turbulence will appear. They say that even Contaminants can't get close to it. Isn't this too risky?" Xu Jingzhe looked at the canopy area with concern.

Qin Shuang glanced at him, moved faster, and said, "The technology in the folded space far exceeds the current technology of Blue Star. If we can determine the coordinates and enter it, the harvest would be unimaginable. Perhaps the civilization level of Blue Star could be greatly improved."

"This little bit of danger is nothing!"

"What if the giants in the folded space are alive? If we can discover them, can't they discover us?" Xu Jingzhe warned again.

He felt a faint uneasiness in his heart!

At this moment, Qin Shuang finally looked deeply at Xu Jingzhe, a playful smile on her lips as she said, "Don't you know that if a folded space appears 'actively', it proves that there is no one left to 'maintain' it?"