The plunder of the heavens begins with the Spirit Cage.

The entire mountain was hollowed out and transformed into a defensive fortification. Most of the reinforced concrete defensive layer that originally covered the mountain wall collapsed, exposing the bluish-gray rocks inside.

The explosion-proof steel door, more than ten meters thick, was smashed into twisted scrap metal. It's unimaginable that anyone inside is still alive.

After a barrage of bombardments by the airship, accompanied by lasers and cannon fire, the alien creatures entrenched in the surrounding area were finally wiped out.

The remaining monsters hiding in the ruins scattered and fled, indicating that there were quite a few intelligent beings among them.

Lu Qianwei instructed the captain to stay on the airship with the wounded and wait for orders. He then drew his sword, jumped off the airship, and stepped onto the gravel ground.

Following the collapsed slope, Lu Qianwei hadn't gone far when he saw a giant crack, nearly a hundred meters wide, stretching along the mountainside and seemingly endless, not far away.

A large amount of thick white mist kept pouring out from this crack. Three or five alien monsters, each the size of a small car, darted upstream along the mist, only to be cleaved into pieces by Lu Qianwei with two slashes as soon as they appeared.

Lu Qianwei stood on the cliff edge of the crack, the otherworldly hot wind mixed with the smell of blood rushing towards him.

According to energy detection data from the wrist-worn device, the energy substances here are quite different from those on Earth.

It's confirmed. This is definitely not some native creature emerging from the Earth's depths; it really is an entrance to another world.

Chapter 243 The Mist 3

A hundred meters away from the crack, in a clearing of rubble, countless indistinguishable remains of creatures, including limbs and flesh, were being hauled away by truckloads of robots like garbage.

Inside and outside the camp built around the crack, hundreds of men in matte black and red power armor looked around on guard.

Any creature that dared to emerge from the cracks was mercilessly killed by the soldiers!

At the edge of the crack, a dozen staff members in research uniforms were busy working in front of several high-end pieces of equipment.

The screen flashed blue light continuously, and a dense stream of data rolled rapidly.

Someone was holding a handheld rangefinder and aiming it at the giant crack to calibrate the parameters.

Some people crouched down to record the residual extraterrestrial energy overflowing from the ground, while others operated wired detection drones, repeatedly shuttling around the edge of the white fog to collect space samples.

A middle-aged man wearing black-rimmed glasses and a chief employee badge around his neck walked briskly up to Lu Qianwei.

"Sir!" Cole lowered his voice, his tone serious and solemn, "The detection data of the wormhole space has been fully analyzed."

Lu Qianwei stared at the massive fissure from which mist continuously poured out, glancing slightly to the side.

Cole pointed to the erratic ripples on the screen, "This wormhole is extremely unstable and has no fixed spatial coordinate anchor point."

Conventional passages are fixed, point-to-point connections, but the other end of the crack connects to a chaotic mess.

"So if we go there, the place we end up in will be random?"

“Yes.” Cole nodded emphatically. “Simply put, any region or coordinate on the other side of the world can randomly enter this Earth rift.”

This is also the fundamental reason why the fog continues to spread and why there are so many different sizes and species.

"We detected that the curvature and energy frequency of the crack space are fluctuating every second, and the spatial faults are intertwined and disordered. It is impossible to predict what kind of creature will be launched from the other side next or how large the channel will be."

Long-term monitoring shows that this fissure not only will not close, but is also continuing to expand slowly…

Lu Qianwei nodded slightly, but he didn't actually care about that.

"Tell me, did we humans have any history?"

“I don’t recommend you do that,” Cole shook his head. “The instability of space could easily lead us into a dangerous zone.”

"I suggest you send a Terminator over there."

Hmm... at least one squad should go.

We then proceeded to investigate via the stargate shuttle.

"Sir, to be honest, I don't believe that there are no advanced civilizations in that world. It's better to be on the safe side."

Lu Qianwei nodded after hearing this.

There's really no need to take the risk. Let's leave it to the Terminators. They've got too many problems with robots like that.

Soon, the 100 Terminators at the forward camp were divided into 25 reconnaissance teams of four, with each unit carrying a stargate shuttle.

The task is clear and simple: go through the crack, find a safe area, and open the door.

"issue!"

As the order was given, twenty-five squads leaped down the churning crevice in quick succession.

The randomness of the landing point dampened the enthusiasm of the exploration team from the very first second.

The first squad had just completed the space jump when they appeared directly in the center of the lava pool of an active volcano on an alien planet.

The high-strength carbonized armor didn't even last ten seconds before being melted into twisted scrap metal by the ultra-high temperature magma. The terminal only displayed half a frame of geological parameters before going completely black.

The third squad was even more unlucky, as their jump landing point was in the troposphere at an altitude of 10,000 meters.

Before it could activate the armor thrusters to slow down, it crashed straight into a tectonic rift valley thousands of meters deep. The thick armor shattered into pieces, and the signal was immediately lost.

Another small team landed over the open ocean and, just as they turned on their detection radar, stumbled into the foraging range of a giant sea monster that spans hundreds of kilometers.

The team members worked until their energy was completely depleted, but all they managed to get back was a message that "the bioenergy index is severely overloaded," and then they lost contact completely.

Some squads landed in the crossroads of spatial turbulence, and were immediately torn to pieces by the turbulence upon landing, unable to send out even a complete signal.

Over the next dozen or so hours, bad news kept pouring in.

Seven squads strayed into the turbulent zone and were instantly sliced ​​into pieces by invisible spatial blades.

Three squads fell into a swamp filled with corrosive miasma. Their armor shells were gradually eroded through, their energy cores shut down one by one, and their signals disappeared one after another.

Four other teams were unlucky enough to land near some indescribable, enormous, and dangerous creatures, and were instantly crushed to dust.

Of course, the Terminators are not to be trifled with; their core energy source is no less than that of a small missile.

At the moment of their death, the creatures that killed them were either dead or severely injured...

The seventh squad eventually discovered a ruined city buried in the forest.

They descended the mountainside into the ruins of the city, recording the remains of the colossal, collapsed crystalline structures.

Some weathered walls still bear faded bas-relief inscriptions.

Many of the broken domes have even been cracked by towering trees that would take more than a dozen people to encircle.

The entire city was so quiet that only the whistling of the wind brushing against the ruins could be heard.

There were hardly any living intelligent creatures, not even large alien beasts; only a few low-level predators roamed the crevices of the ruins.

"Without any signs of active intelligent life, the residual energy in the building, converted to Earth years, indicates that it has been abandoned for at least 30,000 years."

The Terminators were scanning and analyzing each other, exchanging words.

"It's safe here!"

"But insurance is still needed!"

"Find a safe area."

"We also need to clear out the surrounding creatures..."

Computer communication is often that simple; you just start doing it.

The four Terminators quickly spread out in a diamond-shaped tactical formation, their shoulder-mounted multi-purpose weapon racks automatically unlocking, electromagnetic armor-piercing rounds being loaded, and high-energy cutting blades on their wrists flashing cold light as they gradually cleared the way through the ruined streets covered in vegetation.

The carrion-eating dog, which had been hiding behind a broken pillar and was hunting for food, was cleaved in two with a single blow as soon as it pounced. Its filthy blood, glowing with fluorescence, splattered onto the weathered wall.

The swarm of poison wings, which had been lying on the ruins of the dome waiting for a chance to launch a surprise attack, was swept into pieces by a burst of electromagnetic bullets before it could even take off.

In less than an hour, the gunshots and the wails of the otherworldly creatures completely disappeared.

After clearing out the scattered predators in most of the outer area, the Seventh Squad advanced along the streets to the center of the ruined city.

This is a giant plaza built from a single block of granite.

It is flat and sturdy, and most importantly, it is wide, making it suitable for large troop movements with heavy equipment.

Apart from a few broken stone sculptures lying in the grass, the four Terminators could no longer detect any living creatures.

However, at that very moment, the Terminator, who was at the head of the group, stepped onto the stone slab in the center of the square.

The rock strata beneath our feet suddenly trembled violently, and a half-meter-thick granite paving stone flew off along the crack.

The dark brown, rotten, chitinous leg segments suddenly pierced through the soil, instantly penetrating its breastplate, just as the energy core was about to self-destruct!

The entire metal shell was flung out violently, exploding into a dazzling firework in the air.

Hidden beneath the plaza is a giant, multi-legged worm, eighty meters long. It has been dormant underground in this dead city for who knows how many years, but the Terminator's gunfire has finally awakened it.

As its massive shell arched halfway out of the ground, its scythe-like mandibles swept across again, bringing a stench that instantly severed Terminator Number Two in half before it could dodge.

The acidic bodily fluids dripped down the jaws and feet, instantly eroding the dense granite into black holes.

"Danger Level Three!"

The remaining Terminators, number three and four, immediately retreated to create distance.

All the weapon ports on the armor plate popped up, and infrared sensors locked onto the arthropods' weak points.

Stimulated by the smell of metallic energy, the giant insect charged through the remaining foundation like a madman, spewing out a large amount of corrosive mist from its mouthparts, instantly dissolving half of Terminator No. 3's shoulder armor, and even corroding half of the energy cannon, causing it to tilt to one side.

Despite the corrosion damage, No. 3 stood firmly without retreating and directly activated the intact twin-barreled siege cannon mounted on its shoulder.

This was a powerful assault weapon specifically designed for exploration and clearing the way. Two light blue energy beams, each as thick as a bowl, shot out with a bang, directly shattering most of the giant insect's head. Milky white brain matter mixed with foul blood sprayed all over the ground.

The giant worm, now even more frenzied after suffering heavy damage, dragged its mangled body toward the designated landing point of the stargate, intending to destroy the anchor point and perish together with the worm.

Upon seeing this, Terminator No. 4 immediately activated the high-explosive grenade mounted in his chest cavity.

Using the ruins as cover, he circled around to the side of the giant insect, and under the cover of the explosion smoke, he leaped onto the insect's back. The entire warhead pierced the wound that had been blasted open in the giant insect's head shell. He then activated the delayed detonation, jumped down, rolled more than a hundred meters away, and used his armored shield to block the shock wave.

After the deafening explosion, the massive shockwave blew up trees and rubble around the square, and the 80-meter-long giant worm was blasted into scattered pieces.

Once the smoke and dust cleared, the two damaged Terminators slowly walked to the center of the plaza, confirmed that there were no signs of any living beings in the vicinity, and then scanned the space three times.

It then killed all the hundreds of parasitic offspring hidden in the underground nest.

They finally felt relieved enough to take out the stargate shuttle and open the door.

There were 25 teams, and four portals were opened in total.

After observing the environment inside several doors, Lu Qianwei and Cole quickly chose the seventh door, which was filled with urban ruins and traces of civilization.

The first vehicles to pass through the passage were four wheeled heavy armored assault vehicles, their large anti-skid tires rolling over the gravel on the square, which was still stained with the blood of the giant insect.