224: Chapter 224 Searching for the Mercurians

There was a massive transmitter on Pluto.

Gao Gan tried to stand up, but as he struggled, he realized his legs were gone, replaced by a snake tail.

He was stunned...

What is this?

Gao Gan watched helplessly as his aircraft passed right through Pluto as if it had no physical form, its speed suddenly accelerating...

He could see the surrounding scenery coming to a standstill.

Only he and the aircraft beneath him were flying...

He began to pass through the Kuiper Belt, through the Oort Cloud...

Gao Gan saw a human warship lingering in the Oort Cloud, seemingly bound by some force. With a shift of his divine sense, Gao Gan could even see inside the warship; Su Dai, the young master of the Su Family, was sitting there, his expression eternally frozen in pleasant surprise...

He would likely stay here for thousands, even tens of thousands of years, until the Solar System was destroyed...

Gao Gan glanced back...

The sun had already become a faint, flickering speck of light.

What about Gao Qiu?

Gao Gan didn't know, but he knew that he might never see Gao Qiu again.

...

On Neptune, Gao Qiu wore a smile. He saw that Pluto had just exploded...

Countless meteorite fragments were hurtling toward Neptune.

"Commander..."

"It's time to go! Our mission is complete! Isn't it?"

"Yes..."

Boom! Countless high-energy rays burst forth from Neptune. This was likely the highest temperature Neptune had reached since the birth of the Solar System.

...

Gao Yuan returned to the Real World with a sense of listlessness. Ahead, Mercury was growing larger and larger.

This is the planet closest to the sun in the Solar System, enduring the sun's scorching heat day and night!

Normally, based on distance, Gao Yuan should have reached Venus first.

But at this time, Venus had orbited to the other side of the sun. In terms of distance, Mercury had become the planet closest to Earth!

Mercury had also been baptized by the jupiter wind. Gao Yuan first sent probes to fly past Mercury and Venus for observation.

The temperature difference between day and night on Mercury is nearly six hundred degrees. During the day, the temperature in sunlit areas reaches as high as 427 degrees, while at night it can drop to -173 degrees! If the Mercurians' genes were similar to those of Earthlings, it would be impossible for them to live on the surface of Mercury under such conditions.

If there were people, they would surely be concentrated in the North Pole region. At Mercury's North Pole, the sun always lingers near the horizon, and the average temperature is around 40 degrees. There are also some craters here that store a large amount of water.

Therefore, the key monitoring area was Mercury's North Pole.

The monitoring satellites flew over Mercury's North Pole.

They discovered a large number of city ruins. Cities indeed existed here once, but they had now been destroyed by the jupiter wind.

However, compared to Earth and the surface of Mars, Mercury's situation was much better.

Gao Yuan suspected that Mercurian cities might still exist underground at the North Pole.

Because when a civilization can leave its home planet, it definitely has the ability to build an Underground City.

It's just that Mercury's situation is special; the temperature in an Underground City would be very high and would require artificial cooling. Unless necessary, one wouldn't go through the great trouble of building an Underground City.

Gao Yuan was currently checking the data sent back by the monitoring satellites in real-time.

There were no space stations or satellites on the outskirts of Mercury. Clearly, they had all been destroyed by the jupiter wind.

Gao Yuan concluded that even if there were an Underground City at Mercury's North Pole, its scale wouldn't be very large.

"New Model Mecha Team One, First Mecha Battalion of Mother Ship No. 1, execute the Mercury landing mission immediately to search for Mercurians!"

Soon...

Large mechas carrying smaller mechas began to enter the surface of Mercury.

Both types of mecha had their pros and cons. The new model mechas were larger and more powerful, equipped with Faster-Than-Light Particle Beam Weapons, giving them an absolute advantage in space combat. However, the small mechas were more flexible in landing operations, able to go deep into various terrains for searches with faster reaction speeds.

Gao Yuan sat back and waited for the results...

...

Chen Ming was from Linzhou and was the only person from Shannan in the New Model Mecha Team One. He had always admired Gao Yuan. As Gao Yuan's fellow townsman, he was quite envied by the others.

At this moment, they were singled out to be the first unit to land on Mercury, which made Chen Ming very excited.

He was the first to dive toward Mercury, starting the search for the entrance to an Underground City.

As long as he found the entrance, he would have the primary merit in this battle. With merit, he could obtain a medal, and with a medal, he could apply for two custom-made beautiful female robots to take care of him.

Living here for a long time, as a hot-blooded man, it was inevitable to feel lonely. But the male-to-female ratio on warships and mechas was nine to one; it was very hard for him to find a girlfriend. If he wanted to find one, he had to wait for his off-duty days and return to the aerospace carrier to encounter a woman!

Chen Ming had dated before, but it was a lot of trouble. A comrade told him that beautiful female robots were much more reliable than girlfriends—except for being unable to have children, they were no different from real people.

So Chen Ming swore he had to achieve military merit this time. As Gao Yuan's fellow townsman of a similar age, while the other was already fighting for all of humanity, he was still agonizing over whether he wanted a real person or a robot!

While he was searching, the other mechas had also come down.

They began a carpet search.

Chen Ming was a bit anxious. If someone else found it, how would he get the primary merit?

He began to observe his surroundings and suddenly saw a crater in the distance. This crater was huge, even larger than the Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon.

But the ice layer inside was very thin...

Chen Ming was stunned...

If there was an Underground City, they would definitely need water. Could they be right here in this crater?

There were many advantages to having an entrance in a crater. First, it was concealed... second, it was convenient for water usage and wouldn't cause other disturbances. Third, Chen Ming remembered the captain saying Mercury was hot, very hot. If that were the case, the Underground City would be even hotter, so if there was an ice layer, it could also be used for cooling...

Chen Ming immediately walked toward the crater.

He was very excited in his heart...

Maneuvering the mecha into the crater, he began to break through the ice layer to look for clues, while simultaneously firing the Electromagnetic Cannon to test the surrounding rock walls...

Just as he was searching, a white light suddenly flashed before his eyes...

Hundreds of laser beams flew toward his mecha.

"Holy crap..."

At such a close range, and with laser beams, it was impossible to dodge...

By the time you see a laser beam, you've already been hit.

Chen Ming thought he would be heavily injured if not dead, but to his surprise, he only felt a slight hesitation before everything returned to normal...

At this moment, he wanted to laugh. When this mecha was being refitted on Earth, the Academy of Sciences said they would add a layer of special coating that could withstand most light-speed ray attacks!

He hadn't taken it seriously then, but now, he truly felt the power of this new coating.

Since the opponent couldn't beat him, it was time for him to show his might...

He fired an Antimatter shell...

Boom!

A large hole was melted into the rock wall ahead, revealing the buildings inside.

Chen Ming shouted, "Found it! It's here..."

After shouting a few times, he remembered they couldn't hear him, so he opened the communication channel: "I've found the entrance, follow me in!"

With that said, he took the lead and charged forward!