Alien Hotel.

Chapter 422 Crystal Cemetery
Hu Li walked out of the gate with a chicken leg in each hand and a smile on his face.

Then she immediately handed one of the chicken legs to Yu Sheng: "My benefactor, eat the chicken leg!"

The well-fed fox obviously looked in a good mood.

Yu Sheng took the chicken leg and started chewing it, then turned his head and pointed to the "main excavation pit" not far away: "The people brought by Engineer Sun are digging down, go over and help after you finish eating."

"Oh."

Hu Li agreed happily, and quickly ate the remaining half of the chicken leg in his hand, including the meat and bones. Then he walked forward a few steps and lay down. In the blink of an eye, he turned into a huge silver-white fox demon, and ran to the edge of the excavation pit with joyful steps.

Thanks to the efforts of a group of civil engineering guys, the main excavation pit has been expanded a lot again, so that a creature as huge as Hu Li can jump directly in to dig the pit - and at the bottom of the pit that has just been dug, large areas of crystal structures can be seen exposed.

The inactive "crystal branches" crisscrossed through the rocks and soil, entangled like some kind of giant root system. Even though the workers had expanded the excavation pit several times in all directions and downwards, they still hadn't found the "source" of the crystal branches. The deeper they dug, the more they discovered that the proportion of these crystalline substances was increasing, and there seemed to be a "trunk" structure at deeper depths that was far more robust than the superficial part.

Engineer Sun was somewhat curious about the excavation instructions that seemed so persistent and had a clear goal: "What exactly are we going to dig for? Are we going to dig out all the crystalline structures under the crater?"

"No," Yu Sheng shook his head slowly, "I'm looking for its 'heart'."

Mr. Sun's expression suddenly changed: "...Heart?!"

"This is a huge living organism. In the previous battle, I used...some means to understand its structure. There should be some large cavities underneath it, which contain its core parts. In fact, I don't know if that thing should be called a 'heart'. After all, it is not a normal 'living thing', but the large crystal located in the central cavity is definitely the most important part of its body."

Engineer Sun listened in a daze, while Xu Jiali beside him muttered thoughtfully: "This reminds me of digging insect nests on Taronim-7... Damn, I get goose bumps just thinking about it now."

Irene, who was sitting on Yu Sheng's shoulder, had not spoken much since before (which was quite rare for her), but at this moment she suddenly said, "Such a large thing was buried in this pit. How come no one has discovered it for a thousand years?"

Hearing Irene's muttering, Yu Sheng frowned slightly and nodded gently.

"Yes, I was wondering about that, too—something is wrong."

His eyes swept around.

Those pale strange crystal clusters were not completely buried deep underground - when they arrived here, a considerable portion of those crystal clusters were exposed on the surface, and those "branch" structures located underground were directly connected to the crystal clusters on the surface. The shallow part was not buried very deep, and even if they did not dig down, a little exploration should be able to detect the huge "foreign object" hidden under this crater.

A thousand years ago, Yun Qingzi died here. An ancient strongman suddenly died in battle at the border. This could not be a trivial matter in the Feiyu Star Region. Judging from the subsequent handling and records, Taixu Lingshu did attach great importance to this matter at the time and sent people here to carefully deal with the aftermath - but in the information provided by Xuan Che, there seemed to be no mention of the crystal structure buried under the ruins of the battlefield.

...Is it because these crystals have been dormant for so long that they were considered harmless "relic minerals" by the staff at the time? Or is it because these crystals did not drill out of the ground at the time, and they gradually "grew" to this size after a long thousand years?

No matter which possibility it is, there is something extremely wrong behind this matter.

Garrison-3 is extremely remote and desolate. It is normal that no one has visited this place for hundreds of years. But even if Taixu Lingshu has forgotten this remote place, what about the nearby Garrison?

This place is right under Shuji's nose - doesn't Shuji's "Star Guardian" check this place when he patrols the surrounding satellite planets every year?
While Yu Sheng was thinking hard, the civil engineers who were mainly digging the pit withdrew with their equipment.

Because the noise made by the lizard digging the pit was too loud, they couldn't stay nearby...

The huge nine-tailed fox plunged its entire body into the expanded excavation pit, lowering its head and digging quickly without looking up. It just kept fiddling with its claws without caring about anything. Dirt, rocks, and broken crystals were constantly thrown out of the pit. The surrounding area of ​​dozens of meters was filled with flying sand and rocks. For a moment, even the efficiency of the machines was not as high as hers...

But just when she was digging hard, Yu Sheng suddenly heard a dull cracking sound coming from the bottom of the pit.

Before he could react, he saw the fox girl who was digging a hole suddenly sink down. With a cry of "Ah Aah", the huge fox demon disappeared from everyone's sight in the blink of an eye.

"I go!"

Yu Sheng suddenly broke out in a cold sweat and ran towards the digging pit.

There was a hole at the bottom of the pit - as if the structure that originally supported the "dome" of an underground cave had broken and collapsed. Below the hole was a dark and wide underground cavity, and one could vaguely see a lot of glowing crystalline substances covering its depths. In the darkness, a silvery-white figure could be vaguely seen.

Irene lay on Yu Sheng's shoulder, leaned her head and shouted to the bottom: "Silly fox, are you okay?" Hu Li's voice soon came from below, sounding quite energetic: "I'm fine, but I was startled! This collapsed suddenly - benefactor, there is a very spacious place below!"

Yu Sheng turned around and looked at Irene and Luna.

"Let's go down and take a look," he turned and shouted towards the big pit, "Come up with your tail!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a flame rose from the bottom of the pit, and then a large silver-white tail flew up from it and floated in front of Yu Sheng.

Engineer Sun was stunned watching from the side. Lingling, who was following Xu Jiali, jumped back several times the moment she saw a fox tail flying up. This "Jipro Girl", who had always seemed to have little interest in her surroundings, stared with her eyes wide open. She showed great vigilance and the urge to breathe out at the flaming fox tail. After holding it in for a long time, she stammered to Xu Jiali, "Boss, yes, it's a bit weird, meow!"

Xu Jiali's expression was a little dull, but after all, she had dealt with Yu Sheng many times before, so she reacted quickly and comforted her "attendant": "It's okay, things around Yu Sheng are basically weird, you'll get used to it."

Yu Sheng had long been accustomed to the reactions of people around him who made a fuss about these insignificant details, so he didn't take it seriously. He just carried Irene and climbed up the Fox Tail, nodding to Engineer Sun at the same time: "The situation down there is unclear, Engineer Sun, you guys don't come down, let's go down and take a look."

"I'll go down with you," Xu Jiali stepped forward, "Lingdang and I have experience with this kind of mission."

Yu Sheng thought for a moment and said, "That's fine... Do you want a tail?"

"No, no," Xu Jiali waved her hands quickly, "My equipment can fly short distances, and the bell can fly by itself."

Yu Sheng nodded, without saying anything more, and flew towards the bottom of the pit on the fox's tail. Beside him, Luna took a step forward out of thin air, and her body turned into a series of phantoms flashing between shadow and reality and followed.

Xu Jiali looked at the scene with a subtle expression, turned her head and waved to Engineer Sun, and the thrusters of the power armor started up with a bang, and jumped down from the edge of the pit.

Lingling was staring at the weird scene of Yu Sheng riding on the fox's tail with wide eyes. She was a little slow to react and hurriedly chased after him: "Boss, wait a minute, meow!"

Before she finished her words, the mechanical ball in her hand floated up, and the whole person flew lightly into the air and quickly caught up with Xu Jiali.

The group quickly passed through the big hole dug by Hu Li.

The surroundings gradually darkened, and as his vision slowly adapted, Yu Sheng began to see the amazing structure below. He first saw a huge intersection that looked like a "road junction". The vast underground space was surrounded by a large number of cave entrances and exits leading to other areas. In every part of the underground structure, you could see large and small crystals, or crystal clusters in the cracks of the rocks, or vein structures that crisscrossed like huge roots, or pillars that supported the entire cave...

Crystals are everywhere, just like bones, flesh, and internal organs, filling this boundless underground world.

The fox's tail slowly lowered its altitude, and in the center of this "crystal cave", Yu Sheng saw the fox that had just fallen.

She had regained her human form and was now sitting on a large rock, holding a fresh chicken leg in her hand, chewing on it while waiting for Yu Sheng. She looked quite comfortable.

"My benefactor!" Seeing Yu Sheng coming down, Hu Li immediately came forward happily.

Yu Sheng rubbed the fox's head happily, confirmed that the other party was okay, and then focused his attention on the surroundings.

Wherever he looked, the various crystals everywhere made him frown subconsciously.

Irene, who was sitting on his shoulder, shrank back noticeably, and Yu Sheng could even feel that the little doll's whole body was tense.

"The atmosphere of this place... makes me feel uncomfortable," Irene muttered, "It's... like I'm inside a dead body. There's a... 'foul smell'."

Yu Sheng did not say anything, but silently raised his vigilance. At the same time, based on the weak connection coming from the bottom of his heart, he was looking for its core structure in this underground maze "cast" by crystal.

He narrowed his eyes slightly.

The vast and complex crystalline world flashed through his mind like a glimmering skeleton in the darkness.

"This way."

(End of this chapter)