360: Flood of Corpses

On the temporary defensive position, members of the Spear Falcon squad held their breath, their eyes fixed on the images relayed through their tactical goggles.

High in the sky, drones, like vigilant Spear Falcons, repeatedly swept the silent base and its surrounding areas with scanning beams of different frequencies.

Underground, several Di Shu (Mole) reconnaissance robots, like actual moles, silently drilled through soil and rock layers, transmitting collected geological samples and abnormal readings in real-time.

"Surface scan complete, no recent activity detected. A non-natural cavity structure was found approximately ten meters beneath the base, initially identified as an abandoned storage room or pipe system, with no life signs," the drone operator reported, a hint of disappointment in his voice.

If it was just abandoned facilities, that clearly couldn't explain everything they had witnessed shortly before.

Chen Liya's brows were tightly furrowed; her intuition was still screaming a warning.

It was too clean; everything here was too "normal," so normal that it was eerie.

Even if a border monitoring station were evacuated, it would be impossible to erase all valuable clues so completely. Unless, they wanted to hide something, or something had helped them "clean up" the scene.

'Could it be the monsters? Can those monsters handle such meticulous work?'

"Di Shu Number Three has a special feedback," the robot operator suddenly spoke, with clear surprise, "Approximately thirty meters beneath the eastern perimeter wall of the base, it drilled into an abnormally hard alloy structure!"

"Penetration difficulty is extremely high; it's not conventional building material!"

"Also, the signal feedback indicates it's hollow behind, with a very large space!"

Upon hearing this news, everyone's tension immediately tightened.

Chen Liya immediately ordered: "Concentrate all Di Shu (Mole) units, try to find an entrance or weak point in the alloy structure! Hound Three and Four, lower altitude and conduct precise ground-penetrating radar scans of the area outside the eastern perimeter wall!"

A few minutes later, a shocking sketch of an underground structure gradually appeared on the team members' tactical goggles. The ground-penetrating radar showed that deep beneath the eastern side of the base, a massive tubular passage, far larger than imagined, was hidden. Its diameter was roughly estimated to be over fifty meters, winding and extending into the distance.

And that hard alloy structure seemed to be a maintenance entrance or ventilation shaft for this passage, just cleverly disguised and buried.

"This is definitely not part of the Trisolarans' underground transportation network recorded by the company!" Ma Si compared it with maps in the company's database, stating with certainty, "When the company supervised their construction of the underground city, the largest recorded passage diameter did not exceed twenty meters."

"This one is too large, and its direction is completely different, like another independent system."

"Could it be a secret passage the Trisolarans built themselves? What could it be for? To avoid company oversight?"

Ma Si started muttering to himself again, but clearly, no one had an answer for him.

"Entrance found!" The Di Shu (Mole) operator reported excitedly, "There's a hidden hydraulic gate on the alloy wall, complex in structure, but it seems to have a gap due to disrepair or deliberate damage! Di Shu Number One has already squeezed in!"

The main display on the tactical goggles switched to the real-time footage from Di Shu Number One.

Before the camera was a dark, eerily wide tunnel. The walls were smooth, dark alloy, covered with thick pipelines. Fine dust floated in the air, dancing in the robot's spotlight beam.

The scale of the tunnel far exceeded expectations; the Di Shu (Mole) robot's light couldn't even illuminate both the top and bottom simultaneously.

"Release the 'Float Spheres' for holographic scanning and modeling!" Chen Liya decided on the spot.

A team member quickly retrieved three fist-sized spherical detectors from an equipment box, emitting a soft blue glow.

These precise devices had smooth surfaces, without any visible thrusters, yet they could float in the air, defying gravity.

The team member carefully maneuvered them through the narrow gap created by the Di Shu (Mole) robot, sending them into the unknown darkness.

The Float Spheres silently glided into the passage, immediately dispersing as if alive, hovering several meters above the ground.

Complex patterns lit up on their surfaces, and then countless fine blue laser scanning beams projected outwards. These beams, like living tendrils, rapidly swept every corner of the passage.

The grooves and patterns on the massive alloy walls, the faint signs of wear on the ground, the unidentified pipeline structures hanging from the ceiling... Then, the three Float Spheres began flying along the passage at a speed of 80 meters per second, and the sight before them made the team members hold their breath.

This scene reminded them of a sci-fi movie from the old era of Blue Star over half a century ago, where an exploration team used scanning spheres to build a 3D map when entering an alien spaceship.

However, what they faced now was not an alien relic, but an astonishingly large unknown structure hidden beneath a familiar planet.

The data transmitted by the Float Spheres quickly rendered into shape. A digital grid woven from blue light spread like a tide, rapidly constructing a high-precision 3D map of the passage's interior.

As the scanning range expanded, a holographic model of a magnificent, deep, and clearly not easily built by human hands, massive underground passage gradually became clear.

The model showed that this main passage indeed exceeded fifty meters in diameter, with an incredibly smooth inner wall, as if it had been shaped in one go by some immense force.

The passage was not horizontal but descended into the ground at an extremely gentle angle with a complex trajectory. Overall, it resembled a giant screw boring into the earth's crust.

Along the way, countless forks appeared; some led to smaller passages, while others connected to equally massive branch tunnels. The entire structure was like a vast underground labyrinth.

"The sheer scale of this engineering... it's astounding!" Ma Si's voice was filled with shock, "What on earth have the Trisolarans been secretly building right under our noses!"

Chen Liya stared at the holographic model of the spiral passage, which seemed to lead to the depths of hell, her sense of unease growing stronger.

This unexpectedly discovered vast underground network clearly had significant discrepancies with the intelligence the company possessed.

And the end of this passage likely concealed the true source of this disaster.

"Float Sphere energy is limited; we must choose the most valuable direction for exploration," Chen Liya forced herself to calm down and analyze, "Have the Float Spheres proceed along the main passage. At intersections, choose the direction with relatively older ground traces and seemingly higher usage frequency."

The Float Spheres received the "command" and, like ghosts, sped along the dark passage, bringing more unknown areas into their scanning range.

And as the exploration deepened, the sheer size and complexity of this underground labyrinth far exceeded everyone's imagination.

The transmitted data continuously updated the map. The passage wound and twisted, seemingly bottomless. Along the way, occasionally, scattered, unidentifiable mechanical parts or weathered, shriveled organic residues could be seen, adding to the eeriness.

Time passed minute by minute, and the Float Spheres' energy readings continuously dropped, approaching the preset return critical point.

Chen Liya was about to order the Float Spheres to return to base to save the data from the explored area. Suddenly, the team member monitoring the Float Spheres' real-time footage gasped, his voice trembling with extreme shock: "Cap... Captain! Look at this!"

The main screen instantly switched to the scene captured by the Float Sphere's front camera. The passage here had a massive bend, and at the end of that bend, the Float Sphere's light illuminated a sight that chilled everyone's souls.

In the incredibly wide passage, countless monsters, densely packed, like a slow-moving, filthy river of flesh and metal, silently advanced into the depths of the earth.

They were diverse in type; some could be described, while many were simply beyond words. What was even more horrifying was that these monsters were not empty-handed; most of them were carrying human corpses in incredibly bizarre ways, such as lifting them with limbs, sticking them with mucus, or even coiling them with tentacles!

The number of corpses was too vast to see an end. Limited by the bend in the passage, within the Float Sphere's field of vision, over tens of thousands of corpses could be clearly identified!

And this was only a small segment of the torrent of corpses.

After the bend ahead, who knew how many more there were! Most of these bodies were wearing Nova People soldier uniforms, some were in civilian clothes, and a few even sported distinctive Trisolarans attire.

They were like harvested crops, being "numbly" transported by these monsters to an unknown hellish depth.

The entire passage was filled with a silent clamor, only the rustling of monster limbs dragging on the ground and the dripping sound of mucus, forming a suffocating background soundscape.

"My God..." Ma Si's voice was dry. Even after experiencing the most brutal "Trial of Courage" in the company's simulated training pod, modeled after Zerg, he had never witnessed such a horrifying scene.

That endless tide of insects, though despair-inducing, and that mountain of corpses and sea of blood, though terrifying, were ultimately just data, just code.

Even if he didn't realize it at the time, he would feel at ease afterward knowing it was just a "dream."

But now, this silent torrent of corpses before him was a real, incomprehensibly massive slaughter!

Although it was clear that those corpses were Nova People and not truly human, "grief for one's own kind" is the instinct of most people.

Chen Liya felt a chill run from her spine to the top of her head, and her stomach churned.

Her voice, rigid from extreme restraint, commanded: "Keep the Float Spheres concealed, record as much footage as possible, especially the origin of the bodies and the types of monsters!"

"Then, return immediately!"

She finally understood why the Trisolarans base was empty but orderly, and why the Nova People's outpost was completely destroyed.

This was no war at all!

And the "existence" hidden beneath the abyss, its appetite and level of terror, the events unfolding on this planet, and the difficulty of this mission, all far exceeded their initial imagination!

The Float Spheres silently ascended, firmly recording this hellish scene in their storage cores.

On the squad's temporary position, there was a deathly silence, broken only by the heavy breathing of the team members.

They had inadvertently uncovered a corner of a vast horror, and this truth, heavy enough to crush the mind, had to be immediately brought back to Honeycomb Experimental City.