Chapter 331: The First Lunar Expedition Team Loses Contact

The tracks of the heavy exploration vehicle suddenly bit into the lunar dust, and the entire vehicle shook violently in the black dust, beginning to move backward.

Li Xiang quickly switched the navigation route.

"Return to the second set of relay stakes along the original route, at a distance of 11.4 kilometers. Do not deviate from the track tracks."

"I know."

Old Liu's voice was very steady.

But the veins on the back of his hand were already bulging.

The car headlights illuminated the road they had come from.

The two tracks left by the tracks were still there, but they looked much fainter than when they arrived. There's no wind on the moon, so the lunar dust shouldn't have filled in on its own.

A Golden Core guard whispered, "The path is wrong."

Li Xiang suddenly looked up: "What's wrong?"

"When we came, there were three sharp rocks on the left."

The guard pointed to the external image.

"There are only two left now."

The carriage was silent for a moment.

Old Liu didn't look back.

"It might be a problem with the angle."

He didn't even believe it himself after he said that.

The next second, a dull thud came from under the vehicle.

boom!

The entire probe suddenly tilted to one side.

"The left rear track is stuck!"

Li Xiang immediately scanned the image under the vehicle, his face darkening: "It's not a rock, it's a hard lunar crust protrusion. It wasn't on the map just now."

"Cut the robotic arm."

Old Liu didn't waste any words.

The engineering robotic arms on both sides of the vehicle extended out and plunged hard into the ground, attempting to lift the vehicle up.

But the moment the robotic arm touched the ground, the black lunar dust seemed to come alive, collapsing in a fine, dense way. Instead of supporting the hard rock layer, the robotic arm sank into some kind of extremely fine, extremely cold powder.

Old Liu cursed and immediately activated the backup recoil nozzle.

boom!

A brief blue-white trail of flame flashed in the vacuum as the rover was forcefully pulled out of the dent.

When the vehicle landed again, everyone was jolted by the impact.

"Can we walk?" Li Xiang asked.

Old Liu looked at the dial.

"It can move, but the left track is damaged, reducing its speed by half."

Zhou Huai remained silent.

The crack in the bone talisman in his hand had grown longer.

On the grayish-white bone surface, a layer of dark lines faintly emerged, as if something was seeping out from within.

"We can't go back the way we came," Zhou Huai suddenly said.

Old Liu looked at the rearview screen: "Reason."

There's something behind us.

"What is it?"

Zhou Huai's Adam's apple bobbed slightly.

"They're not following us."

He looked up, his face ashen, as if he had just been pulled out of the water.

"It's the path we've walked that's becoming a part of it."

No one understood what he was saying.

But everyone sensed something was wrong.

Li Xiang immediately pulled up the rear track image.

The two clear tracks that appeared when they arrived are gradually becoming blurred.

It wasn't covered by moon dust.

Instead, it was as if it were being slowly smoothed out by some force from below.

It's as if this far side of the moon is unwilling to admit that anyone has passed through here.

Old Liu was silent for half a second.

"Change routes."

Li Xiang quickly switched to the topographic map.

"There is a shallow slope three kilometers to the right that can be used to circle back to the second relay point, but the bottom of the slope is unknown and the detection data is missing."

"The unknown is better than the original path."

Old Liu suddenly turned the steering wheel.

The probe, dragging its damaged tracks, began to deviate from its original route.

The headlights swept across the dark gray ground, and the shallow slope ahead gradually came into view.

It was an extremely wide slope.

Its surface is covered with fine black lunar dust, like an endless layer of ash.

Just as the probe vehicle started climbing the hill, the voice of the Guanghan Base suddenly came through the communication channel.

Intermittent, interspersed with harsh noises.

"Deep Exploration Team... Please respond..."

Li Xiang immediately connected.

"This is the Deep Exploration Team. The third relay has failed. We are suspected of encountering unknown geological activity and are evacuating to the second relay point. Repeat, evacuating."

"Data...incomplete...your current location..."

Just as Li Xiang was about to send the coordinates, the coordinates on the screen suddenly jumped.

The previously stable latitude and longitude data began to drift.

The entire positioning system seemed to have been rewritten, and began to pull their positions back towards the rift valley.

Li Xiang's expression changed.

"The location has been contaminated."

Old Liu said coldly, "Manual."

"Manual operation can only rely on inertial navigation and track mileage."

That's enough.

Li Xiang completely shut down the automatic navigation system and replaced it with raw inertial data.

The map on the screen suddenly became rudimentary.

Only a white line remains, representing the movement trajectory they recorded when they arrived.

But the moment the white line appeared, it also began to twist slightly.

Like a plastic filament softened by fire.

Zhou Huai suddenly lowered his head.

With a crack, the bone talisman in his hand split open again.

"Don't look at the map."

Li Xiang paused.

Zhou Huai's voice tightened: "It's coming in by following what you're looking at."

These words left Li Xiang's hand frozen in mid-air.

Old Liu roared, "Turn off all electronic displays, leave only the mechanical gauges on!"

"Are you crazy?" Li Xiang blurted out instinctively. "How are we supposed to drive it without external monitoring?"

"Look out the window."

"Visibility outside is less than 100 meters!"

"Then let's look at the 100-meter dash."

Old Liu turned off most of the auxiliary screens.

The carriage darkened.

Only a few old mechanical instruments remained, still glowing faintly.

The external searchlights were turned on to maximum.

One hundred meters.

Now, all they can believe is this hundred meters.

……

Guanghan Base, Command Center.

When Li Xiang's last report came back, the data packet had been torn to pieces.

The screen was filled with snowflakes.

The voice sounded like it had been bitten by something.

"Third relay failure... Unknown geological formation... Evacuate..."

Then came a series of piercing low-frequency noises.

The duty officer turned pale.

"Deep Exploration Team's coordinates lost."

"Is there still a signal on the second relay?"

"Yes, but it's very weak."

"Can Lunar Orbit Station 1 fill in the gaps in coverage?"

"Lunar Orbiter 1 has just turned out of the rear window, and the next transit will be in 26 minutes."

Twenty-six minutes.

On the ground, there's only enough for one pot of tea.

In the shadowy area on the far side of the moon, twenty-six minutes is enough for a lot to happen.

The head of the Guanghan base said in a deep voice, "Report to the Earth control room immediately."

"Where are the rescue teams?"

"Prepare, but do not set off rashly."

He said this in a very calm voice.

But everyone could tell he was suppressing his anger.

……

The moon is on a shallow slope.

The damage to the left track of the reconnaissance vehicle was getting worse, causing noticeable jamming with each rotation. But they did not abandon the vehicle immediately.

This heavy-duty exploration vehicle is more than just a means of transportation.

It is their only mobile shelter, communication node, and low-frequency array carrier at present.

In places like this, flying on a sword is certainly faster.

However, once you start flying on a sword, it means a severe consumption of your true energy. No one can guarantee that once the flying sword takes off, it will still lock onto the direction it came from.

Moreover, the thing deep in the rift seems to have been waiting for them to expose themselves.

Therefore, the car must not be stolen until the very last step.

With the help of a robotic arm, Lao Liu slowly moved the vehicle up the hill. Two Golden Core guards had already opened the observation port on the roof and were kneeling on the support frame, their flying swords hovering beside them, but not fully drawn.

"Fifty meters ahead, the terrain breaks off."

One of the guards suddenly spoke up.

Old Liu slammed on the brakes.

The searchlight swept across.

The hilltop is not ahead.

It is a crack running across the slope.

It is no more than three meters wide.

But there is no bottom in the crack.

Li Xiang gritted his teeth: "This crack isn't on the map."

Old Liu sneered, "The map doesn't seem to want to work today."

He glanced at the remaining power in the vehicle.

"You can jump over it."

Li Xiang looked at him: "The left track is damaged."

"So we need to be quick."

Old Liu pushed the thrust to its limit.

"Hold on tight."

The next second, the probe suddenly accelerated.

The damaged tracks emitted a terrifying tremor, and the entire vehicle, like a wounded iron beast, dragged itself toward the crack with a cacophony of mechanical noise.

Two Golden Core guards simultaneously unleashed their true energy to stabilize the vehicle's center of gravity.

The robotic arm retracts.

Ignition via recoil nozzle.

The probe broke through the edge of the crack and briefly lifted off the ground.

In that instant, everyone saw the depths of the crack.

It's not empty there.

Deep within, a layer of dark red patterns slowly flashed by.

Like blood vessels.

It also resembles the lingering glow inside some enormous object.

The car crashed heavily onto the opposite bank.

boom!

The left track broke completely.

The probe slid forward for more than ten meters, crashed into a black rock, and finally came to a stop.

An alarm sounded throughout the carriage.

"The left track has come off."

"The vehicle's airtightness is normal."

"Thirty-one percent of the main force remains."

"Communication link..."

Li Xiang looked up at the screen.

"It's broken."

Everyone fell silent.

Old Liu took off his gloves and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

How far are we from the second relay station?

Li Xiang glanced at the mechanical instruments and manual logs.

"About seven kilometers."

"perhaps?"

"I can only give an approximate estimate right now."

Old Liu nodded.

"Then abandon the car."

They began to organize their equipment.

The low-frequency array is too heavy to carry around.

Portable drilling cores must also be abandoned.

Old Liu left behind only a spare life support kit, a Taiyin pressure anchor, a handheld communicator, and a set of manual beacons.

Li Xiang looked at the abandoned equipment and his lips moved.

Old Liu knew he was reluctant to part with it.

"Life is more valuable than equipment."

Li Xiang nodded silently.

Zhou Huai was the last to get off the bus.

As soon as he stepped onto the lunar surface, a slight vibration suddenly came from the rover behind him.

Old Liu turned around.

The heavy exploration vehicle that had accompanied them for several hours had a layer of dark frost rising from its outer shell.

This is not ordinary freezing.

It looked more like some kind of fine black lines, creeping up little by little from under the car.

"Walk."

The five people proceeded down the slope towards the second relay station.

……

Twenty minutes later, Lao Liu nailed the first manual beacon into the rock strata.

The beacon glowed a faint blue light.

However, it did not connect to the Guanghan base.

It ejected a piece of compressed data backward.

It contains all the anomalies they have recorded so far.

Rift Valley.

Dark red light.

The third relay failed.

Map pollution.

There is a suspected underground cavity.

The beacon flashed three times.

The blue light was then swallowed by darkness.

Nobody knows if it was sent out.

After walking for another ten minutes, the second Golden Core guard suddenly stopped.

"Team Leader Liu."

Old Liu turned around: "What?"

The guard raised his hand and pointed forward.

"There is light there."

Everyone looked in the direction he was looking.

In the distance lies the location that should be the second relay stake.

There is indeed light there.

The blue light is not from a repeater.

Instead, it was a dark red.

It shines quietly in the darkness.

It's like waiting for them to come back.

Li Xiang's face turned pale instantly.

"The second relay has also been contaminated."

The bone talisman in Zhou Huai's hand finally shattered completely.

The fragments did not fall to the ground.

Instead, it turned into a wisp of grayish-white mist in the vacuum, swirling around his wrist once.

Zhou Huai closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again, his voice was calm.

"I can activate the Echo of the Nether once and send out what we see."

Old Liu looked at him.

"And the price?"

Zhou Huai did not answer.

Old Liu cursed.

"Don't give me that. Don't use it until the very last resort."

"This may be the final step."

"I said no, so it's no."

Old Liu grabbed his shoulder armor and pushed him back a step.

"Change route. Avoid the second relay."

Li Xiang immediately said, "After we go around that route, we'll have no more teleportation points."

Old Liu looked at the dark red dot in the distance.

"If we don't go around, we might be dead right now."

They deviated from the route and headed towards a higher rocky ridge.

But after walking less than a hundred meters, the ground suddenly shook.

This time, the tremors did not originate from deep underground.

Instead, it came from all directions.

It's like the shadow on the entire far side of the moon is slowly tightening.

Then, a voice came through everyone's communication channels at the same time.

It was a very low, very slow noise.

The moment that static sound rang out, an image suddenly flashed through Li Xiang's mind.

A huge gate.

Buried deep within the rock strata.

On the other side of the door, countless things are sleeping.

He suddenly knelt down and pressed his hands tightly against his helmet.

"Don't listen!"

The Golden Core Guardian's flying sword instantly went out of control, its blade trembling wildly in mid-air.

Old Liu rushed over and kicked Li Xiang, knocking him off his feet.

"Awake!"

Li Xiang crashed heavily into the moon dust, and the door in his field of vision finally shattered.

Zhou Huai did not hesitate.

He raised his hand and pressed it to his forehead.

A grayish-white ghostly aura seeped from his seven orifices, transforming into a faint shadow that suddenly lunged at the communicator in his hand.

"Guanghan Base"

His voice no longer traveled through electronic channels, but instead followed a colder, more sinister path, crashing headlong into the distance.

"This is the lunar far side exploration team."

"We encountered unknown pollution."

"Second relay failed."

"Don't believe in red light."

"Do not approach the rift valley."

"under……"

The sound abruptly stopped there.

A dark red hue was reflected in Zhou Huai's eyes.

With his last ounce of strength, he managed to squeeze out a sentence.

"There's a door down there."

boom--

A silent darkness swept over from the location of the second relay station in the distance.

The armor lights on all five people went out simultaneously.

Manually turn off the beacon.

The vital signs returned and then went out.

The entire far side of the moon fell silent again.

It was as if no one had ever been there.

……

Guanghan Base Command Center.

A red alert popped up on all screens simultaneously.

[Living signals lost by the lunar far-side exploration team]

[Second relay pile lost contact]

The duty officer was pale, his finger hovering over the control panel, unable to press it for a long time.

The final echo was played repeatedly.

hoarse.

broken.

It has a cold, icy quality that doesn't belong to radio.

"Don't believe in red light."

"Do not approach the rift valley."

"There's a door down there."

No one spoke in the command center.

A few seconds later, the person in charge slowly looked up.

"Notify Kyoto."

"Prepare the rescue team."

He paused, his voice so low it was almost inaudible.

"Prepare according to the highest pollution level."