Chapter 840
Chapter 840
Queen Eda brought Shen Lang to the ninth floor of the pyramid.
She had countless questions, but there was no time to ask them now.
The ninth floor appeared to be a library, its floor polished like a mirror.
When she activated a mechanism, an entrance appeared on the floor.
Queen Eda, with Shen Lang still tucked under her arm, entered the opening, which led to a small room.
The moment she pressed another device, the small room began to descend continuously, like an elevator.
Of course, it wasn't an elevator but a contraption powered by some other force.
*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.*
The descent was so fast that Shen Lang's eardrums could barely stand it.
After descending continuously for about five hundred meters, the device finally came to a halt.
“We’ve arrived!”
Queen Eda finished speaking and stepped out of the device with Shen Lang.
‘This is beneath the pyramid? There’s nothing here. It’s just an empty stone chamber, completely vacant.’
Shen Lang stood on the spot, motionless.
“What are you waiting for?”
“The next explosion.”
The two then fell into silence.
“Your Majesty, you can put me down now.”
Shen Lang was still tucked under Queen Eda’s arm.
When the queen set him down, Shen Lang felt a twinge of disappointment.
This world was truly capricious.
Just moments ago, earth-shattering explosions had been going off one after another, but now that he was waiting for one, nothing happened.
But just then.
*BOOM!*
Another earth-shattering explosion occurred.
The fifth small pyramid, the last remaining one, had exploded.
One could easily imagine that everything within a radius of several dozen li around it had vanished like smoke.
The underground chamber where Shen Lang stood also trembled and shook.
But at that moment, a beam of light suddenly appeared on the wall in front of them.
Upon it appeared numerous letters—Greek letters.
It seemed the explosion was the condition for these letters to appear.
The light beam was designed to appear when intense vibrations occurred underground.
Shen Lang quickly ran forward and pressed the Greek letters.
He was entering a password.
What was the password here?
The Greek letters for Ares, the god of war.
That was the god worshipped by the Amazon warrior tribe in Greek mythology.
After he finished entering the password.
*Rumble…*
A sound echoed as a door opened in the seamlessly sealed wall before them, revealing a small room.
Queen Eda was dumbfounded.
‘What is this? Why didn’t I know about it? This is clearly my home, so why does Shen Lang seem to know it better than I do?’
After entering the room, Shen Lang pressed a mechanism installed at the front.
*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.*
The small room descended continuously, like an elevator.
This time, it went even deeper than before, descending for several hundred meters.
***
Finally, the descent stopped. The door to the small room opened, and Shen Lang and Queen Eda stepped out.
The moment she left the room, she was so astonished that she was completely stunned.
Outside the room was a long passage, at the end of which was a giant sphere more than a hundred feet in diameter.
If his guess was correct, this giant sphere was the core energy source for the entire pyramid.
Surrounding this sphere was a vast, circular space with a diameter of over several hundred meters.
This was the core area of the entire great pyramid.
Even Queen Eda had never been here in her life, nor had she ever seen it mentioned in any records.
Her mission was singular: to protect the pyramid.
She had never tried to explore the pyramid, much less thought of gaining anything from it.
This was because she believed the pyramid had already given her far more than she could ever wish for.
*BOOM!*
Suddenly, the entire ground trembled violently again, and the giant sphere before them began to turn red.
At that moment, even if Eda didn't understand everything, she could make a guess.
The source of the explosions was this very sphere.
So, what was inside this sphere?
The impact of the recent explosion was as astonishing as a nuclear bomb. Could this be a nuclear bomb?
Of course, it wasn't.
Then was it an energy projectile?
That wasn't it either.
When Shen Lang read the relevant materials, he initially had no idea what this was.
Because even Jiang Li hadn't known about it.
However, after reading descriptions of such things in ancient records, Shen Lang boldly hypothesized that it contained metallic hydrogen.
This wasn't a hydrogen bomb.
Hydrogen exists in three states: gas, liquid, and solid (in some sense, metallic hydrogen is also called the fifth state of hydrogen). In most cases, hydrogen is in a gaseous state.
But it could still explode as a gas.
And when the pressure reaches a certain level, gaseous hydrogen becomes a liquid, but if the pressure increases several times more, it becomes a solid.
Metallic hydrogen is extremely rare on Earth, though Harvard University once managed to create it.
However, it is abundantly distributed throughout the solar system, and the amount stored on outer planets like Jupiter is astronomical.
It even accounts for eighty percent of the mass of the outer planets.
Metallic hydrogen is an excellent conductor and the best substance for storing energy.
Metallic hydrogen has another characteristic: when it explodes, its power is dozens of times greater than TNT.
So, if the giant sphere before them, thirty meters in diameter and filled with metallic hydrogen, were to explode, what terrifying power would it unleash?
Perhaps someone might ask if metallic hydrogen could be used as a weapon.
But that was a ridiculous notion.
Even if Shen Lang pushed all his abilities to their absolute limits, he couldn't control this substance, let alone store and transport it.
The people of this world couldn't control it either; it was clearly an artifact from the ancient civilization.
Just then, the large metallic sphere before them grew redder and began to tremble.
Queen Eda could tell that it was about to explode.
If it exploded, the great pyramid would be reduced to dust, perhaps even instantly melted, and the Amazon Queendom itself would vanish like smoke.
“How long until it explodes?”
Queen Eda asked. Shen Lang replied.
“About half a quarter-hour. Your Majesty, I now need a period of absolute quiet.”
Shen Lang took out a rather crude version of an oxygen tank from his backpack and began to inhale deeply.
The amount of air here was surprisingly low.
He wasn't like Queen Eda, who could hold her breath underwater for thirty minutes; he felt he would soon pass out from oxygen deprivation.
*Thump, thump, thump.*
The entire ground shook violently, and an ear-piercing sound came from the metallic sphere in front of them.
Soon, light appeared on the surface of the sphere again, and lines of Greek letters emerged one after another.
He had to enter another password. What was it this time?
The giant metallic sphere before him was the core energy of the entire pyramid, like a seed of fire.
In Greek mythology, there are two prominent names associated with the spark of fire.
Prometheus and Mount Olympus.
No, three.
There was also Hephaestus, the god of fire.
The password had to be one of these three, but which one should he choose?
Moreover, there was clearly only one chance to enter the password.
Prometheus stole the spark of fire for humanity, and that spark was on Mount Olympus.
So, the password must be one of the two.
While pondering, Shen Lang suddenly asked her.
“Your Majesty, between Prometheus and Olympus, which would you choose?”
“Olympus.”
Shen Lang decisively entered the Greek letters for Prometheus.
That's right! Shen Lang had tried this trick many times, and it always worked.
Choosing the opposite of certain women's intuition was always the correct choice.
Sure enough, the cover of the giant metallic sphere opened.
Inside, an object both very familiar and unfamiliar to Shen Lang appeared.
It was a Nightmare Stone.
However, this Nightmare Stone was much larger than the one Shen Lang possessed, and its internal structure was bound to be far more complex.
It was likely used to control this metallic sphere.
This Nightmare Stone had already been tampered with by someone, and its self-destruct sequence was activated.
The ear-piercing sound grew more urgent, and an increasingly bright light emanated from the sphere.
Observing the frequency of the sound and the changes in the sphere's light, Shen Lang used his chip to instantly calculate the scheduled detonation time.
‘There are still 295 seconds left. Less than five minutes. Dammit. Time is too tight.’
Shen Lang took a deep breath.
He didn't act immediately but closed his eyes and thought.
What sequence should he follow?
How could he stop the self-destruction of this large metallic energy sphere?
The ancient civilization didn't have things like calculators; stopping it should have been as simple as entering a password.
But to do that, he had to modify the internal structure of the Nightmare Stone to halt the self-destruct sequence and make the metallic sphere operate normally again.
‘My god! I’ve studied this. I’ve studied this. In the ancient records I read at the ruins of the Savage Tribes, I read hundreds of thousands of characters and saw thousands of diagrams about Nightmare Stones.’
‘I’ve definitely seen a Nightmare Stone like this. Remember, remember.’
A moment later, a diagram of this type of Nightmare Stone surfaced in Shen Lang's mind.
‘Damn it. This is too complicated.’
The Nightmare Stone in the metallic sphere had more than ten times the components and circuits of the one Shen Lang wore around his neck.
Shen Lang quickly scanned the data stored in his chip and organized a solution.
All the while, time continued to tick away.
Why hadn't he organized this information beforehand?
Shen Lang had to see the specific structure of this Nightmare Stone to identify which type it was among those described in the ancient records.
The ancient records described numerous types of Nightmare Stones, and Shen Lang's chip had a massive storage capacity, like a hard drive, capable of holding vast amounts of data.
However, Shen Lang's direct memory and the knowledge he had mastered were like RAM.
A hard drive can store nearly infinite data if desired, but RAM's capacity is limited.
No matter how intelligent Shen Lang was, he couldn't keep this much data and information in his head at once; he always had to look it up when needed.
Now, the self-destruct countdown of the metallic sphere was getting closer.
One minute passed, then two, and soon only 163 seconds remained.
The chip calculated the fastest solution for Shen Lang.
This was the advantage of the chip.
The chip's calculation speed was much faster and more accurate than Shen Lang's own.
Shen Lang took a deep breath of oxygen and immediately went to work.
His hands had never moved this fast in his life.
He planned to change the arrangement and combination of the gems inside the Nightmare Stone, then alter the circuit layout.
To do this, he had to complete over five hundred steps in total.
But with only about 160 seconds left, he had to complete nearly three steps per second.
Shen Lang worked at a blistering pace, so fast his hands could have cramped, while Queen Eda watched the entire scene in utter amazement.
She was an incredibly strong warrior, a person who passionately pursued power.
In the past, she hadn't worshipped wisdom, but now she had to change her mind.
The power of wisdom was so great, so mysterious, and even possessed an infinite charm.
She had no idea what Shen Lang was doing, but his actions, while incomprehensible, were undeniably impressive.
The Shen Lang before her seemed immensely powerful, possessing a strength she couldn't comprehend, but could only revere.