Having mostly understood the situation on Sethlun, Bai Luan put away his phone.
"I understand the situation now."
Bai Luan turned to look at Sethlun and said,
"I can go explore underground anytime."
"Understood."
Sethlun rummaged through the research lab, pulled out a stack of archives, and placed them in front of Bai Luan.
"These are all the intelligence we've collected over the years, from top to bottom, from earliest to latest."
Bai Luan had intended to refuse.
But then he remembered what Sethlun had said earlier.
"At least… we know countless dead ends."
This pile of archives in front of him might not just be a record… Bai Luan picked up one of them.
It was left by a pilot named Alex, the very first pilot.
It would probably take a lot of time to read through all of them.
Never mind, I'll just go into the Little Black Room.
Bai Luan flipped through page after page, quietly reading his story.
He watched him, driving the first-generation machine into the ground.
[Communication Log]
[Communicator: I'm sorry, son… fuel consumption exceeded expectations. After calculation… you can no longer return.]
[Long silence, only the faint hum of equipment operating]
[Alex: Is that so.]
[Alex: Then I request to use all remaining fuel to continue exploring downwards.]
[Communicator: …]
[Alex: Mom… don't cry for me… please be proud of me. At least at this moment, I am the person on this planet… closest to hope.]
[Signal noise increased, finally turning into a piercing busy signal]
[Record Note: Drill vehicle signal exceeded maximum communication range.]
[Alex set a new record for the deepest exploration at the time, forever remaining underground.]
Bai Luan slowly closed Alex's archive, his movements as gentle as closing the eyelids of the deceased, then picked up the second one.
Matteo.
[…Drill bit broke, unable to return, trapped underground for three days. Late at night, a gunshot echoed in the communication channel.]
[Confirmed dead]
Leopold.
[…Positioning system malfunctioned for unknown reasons, lost direction and wandered aimlessly underground. Fuel ran out, trapped underground.
His last words were: 'Mom, I'm scared.']
[Confirmed dead]
One archive after another, one sacrifice after another, only a few managed to return safely.
The end of most archives was a cold "Confirmed dead" or "Signal permanently lost."
After an unknown amount of time, Bai Luan picked up the last one.
Sethlun's son, Milton.
[Milton: I will find the water source, Father.]
[Milton: After all, I carry everyone's hope.]
…[Communicator: You have broken all previous exploration depth records.]
[Milton: No signs of a water source yet.]
[Milton: Has the machine reached its limit?]
[Communicator: All parameters are stable, not yet at theoretical limit.]
[Milton: Request to continue exploring downwards.]
…[Communicator: …The leader has approved. May hope be with you.]
…[Milton: I hit an abnormally hard structure, not rock… Feedback signal shows it's some kind of high-strength alloy.]
[Milton: Attempting to break through… ]
[Milton: Successfully broke through! I'm falling! I'm falling! Below here is… ]
[Piercing noise, signal fluctuated violently then completely cut off]
[Final judgment: Confirmed dead.]
Bai Luan put down Milton's archive.
His gaze swept across the mountain of stacked archives, almost obscuring his vision, each one like a heavy tombstone.
Herta walked to Bai Luan's side.
As soon as Bai Luan entered the Little Black Room, she realized he was back.
But seeing Bai Luan's expression as he read the archives, she chose to speak only after everything was over.
"So, knowing all of this."
She spoke, her voice exceptionally clear in the quiet Little Black Room.
"What are you going to do?"
"There was a time when I couldn't see hope either."
Bai Luan turned to look at Herta.
"But now…"
His voice gradually grew stronger, each word like a heavy hammer striking the anvil of fate.
"I can become their hope."
Herta let out a light chuckle.
"Heh… I knew you'd say that."
She nodded slightly.
"Go on, genius, do whatever you want."
The next second, Bai Luan disappeared from the Little Black Room.
In reality, Bai Luan put down Alex's archive, then pretended to scan all the archives with his mecha.
"I'll read the contents on the way. Let's go."
Sethlun looked at Bai Luan, noticing that his eyes seemed to hold something more than before.
His gaze seemed to say… I must save you all.
Facing such a gaze, Sethlun said no more, only nodded heavily.
Under everyone's watchful eyes, Bai Luan stood before the deep pit. Over the years, countless pilots had driven drilling machines into it, never to return.
Bai Luan had already connected to their communication channel and was ready to begin the underground exploration at any time.
He took a deep breath, then activated his mecha's full combat mode.
Nanobots surged out like a tide, instantly covering his entire body, forming a streamlined yet powerful silver-white armor.
The thrusters on his back spewed out ethereal blue plasma flames, propelling him slowly into the air, hovering directly above the wellhead.
Powerful detection waves had already spread out, and dozens of faint signal points representing the remains of his predecessors were coldly marked on the mecha's internal display screen.
Bai Luan looked at Sethlun, who was watching him from the control room. Sethlun's eyes were filled with various emotions: apprehension, unease, expectation, pleading… Faced with such a gaze, Bai Luan chuckled softly, his voice echoing in the communication channel:
"Don't worry…"
He raised his left arm, and the nanobots around him, as if summoned, frantically gathered, combined, and transformed onto his left arm—
"I told you already…"
Those sacrifices… those expectations… those unyielding beliefs… finally, on his left arm, they converged into an enormous, unimaginably complex, and furiously accelerating—
Super-sized Force Field Drill!
"My drill!!!"
The roar of the drill instantly drowned out everything else, and the violent energy fluctuations even caused the needles of distant instruments to swing wildly!
"It can pierce the heavens!!!"
The massive drill quickly began to rotate, and then Bai Luan's figure plunged straight into the ground.
Then… it effortlessly broke through the rock!
"So fast! The speed is incredible!!" The monitor exclaimed, staring at the light dot on the screen that was plummeting downwards as if teleporting, completely unable to comprehend such terrifying penetration efficiency.
Sethlun gripped the edge of the control panel tightly, his knuckles white from the effort, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the red dot representing Bai Luan.
He watched it, with an unstoppable force, furiously approach the extreme depth that his son Milton had sacrificed his life for, once considered an abyss of despair.
"Go… "
His cracked lips trembled, and uncontrolled, cloudy tears already streamed down his cheeks.
"Go!!!"
The next moment, the screen showed Bai Luan's signal suddenly encountering the abnormally strong metal barrier that had broken countless drill bits and cost Milton his life!
Everyone's hearts were in their throats.
However, the signal, which symbolized absolute obstruction, lasted only two or three seconds before abruptly disappearing!
He broke through!
Bai Luan entered through the opening, and after he passed, the opening behind him was immediately blocked by rubble.
Although it was pitch black underground, Bai Luan's mecha's night vision system allowed him to see everything clearly.
Ruan Mei's guess was correct; this was clearly an underground storage facility of an ancient civilization.
Bai Luan scanned the entire storage room with his scanner, and the mecha displayed the structure of this storage room… it was a storage room for liquid resources, but it seemed to have been depleted.
Suddenly, the scanner detected a drilling vehicle and… a corpse.
Milton… Bai Luan slowly landed, silently walking towards Milton's body… Soon, Bai Luan saw Milton.
His body was kneeling on the ground, blood soaking his protective suit and flowing out from damaged areas, pooling on the ground beneath him. In his hand, he still tightly clutched an iron pickaxe.
And in front of the body, there was a small pit, once filled with blood, but now dry.
Clearly, Milton did not give up digging downwards until his very last moment.
And from the results Bai Luan scanned with his scanner, there was a pipe connecting from here to below.
This meant that a little further down, they would be able to see the ancient civilization's underground city, which had been moved underground to combat the Swarm Disaster.
Bai Luan squatted down, looking at Milton. On his face, which bore some resemblance to Sethlun's, was frozen an expression of extreme unwillingness, endless regret, and the immense pain of not being able to complete his mission.
"Well done, Milton, the rest, leave it to me."
Bai Luan patted his shoulder, then placed his remains back inside the drilling vehicle.
A drill once again appeared on the mecha's arm, aimed at the small pit Milton had dug in the last moments of his life.
"I will… bring hope back to them for you!"
The drill whirred into motion, making contact with the metal floor, sparking countless fires!
The sparks illuminated this dark underground, this pitch-black storage room, and lit up Milton's face.
The structural layers below disintegrated one by one. Finally, with the shattering of the last partition, Bai Luan felt the ground give way beneath his feet, and his entire being plunged into an even vaster, unimaginable space!
He immediately stabilized himself, hovering in mid-air.
The darkness disappeared.
In its place was a soft and enduring natural light, provided by countless giant glowing algae or crystals, dimly enveloping this underground world.
Directly below him was an endless, shimmering… body of water.
Clear water rippled under the faint light, exuding the breath of life.
And further away, an unimaginably vast, exquisitely structured giant city ruin stood quietly, surrounded by water, like a sleeping ancient beast, telling the glorious and tragic story of a lost civilization.
Bai Luan took a deep breath, connected to the communication channel with the surface command center, and transmitted the footage captured by his helmet camera back.
At the surface command center, Sethlun and everyone else stared blankly at the main screen, at the scene that surpassed all imagination—endless, clear water, appearing like a miracle deep underground.
In the deathly silence, Bai Luan's voice came through the communication channel.
Calm, yet carrying a power capable of piercing the soul, it echoed clearly in Sethlun's ears:
"Sethlun, come and see the sea."