When I opened my eyes, I could see an unusually large, unusually bright silver-white metal hall.

In this huge space, which is more than four hundred meters long and wide, and more than a hundred meters high, except for the streamlined and flickering runic light on the ceiling and the four walls, there is nothing, nothing can be seen, everything is blank, and not even air exists in the entire hall, it is an incomparably thin vacuum.

The scale of the hall is unusually huge, which is the proportion and structure that ordinary humans simply cannot accept, and the sense of incongruity and instinct produces an illusory feeling, which can make everyone in the hall feel as uncomfortable as entering the Giant Kingdom.

The bright light released by the runes around them is a special kind of torture, and the light waves containing special energy fluctuations stimulate the nerves of all irradiated creatures, making them absolutely unable to sleep and fall into insane exhaustion - not to mention the vacuum, the inability to breathe, which is a fatal torture that most creatures cannot endure.

And in the middle of this vacuum hall, which seems to be wide and bright, but is actually some kind of special prison, there are five translucent crystal pillars towering, and on the five crystal pillars, five human-shaped metal cans are suspended in the air by some kind of sealing circle, unable to move.

“…… Where is this? ”

Knight Clark opened his eyes blankly, he had just woken up from the impact of the failed teleportation, but when he opened his eyes, he saw not the desolate land of another world (which is most of the time), but a hall that was clearly a civilized creation.

Soon, the knight found that he was now bound by a circle, tied to a crystal pillar that was clearly sealed.

"You've woken up, and sure enough, your mental quality is the worst of the five of us."

From the communicator on the inside of the helmet, the voice of the cleric with a slight electronic voice suddenly came out: "Don't do anything, keep your original position, and pretend that you are still unconscious." ”

Although the knight was said to be the least qualified, he was just as quick to react to his teammates as the caster, and then as the priest said, he kept his body still and pretended to be unconscious.

At this time, the five of them were all wearing the 'Otherworldly Exploration Magic Energy Armor' specially made by the Moldavian Collar, which is a special full-body armor that is fully sealed and fully covered, and its outer armor is forged from 'active metal alloys', which has a certain self-repair and strong ability to adapt to the world, and will not melt due to overheating, nor will it become brittle due to overheating. The inner armor is made of a special 'self-healing material' obtained from analyzing the body of the legendary demon lord, which also has unparalleled suitability, and it can even temporarily assimilate with the wearer's skin, providing nerve sensing and becoming a part of the wearer's body.

For some reason, none of the five of them had their magic armor removed, and it was precisely because of this that they could live in a vacuum environment for so long, and the armor's own self-circulation system could allow team members to survive in the void for a while, and the vacuum was really nothing.

"What's going on?"

The knight felt bad for a while, he knew that he and the others must be involved in something bad again, so he hurriedly asked his teammates: "Captain, let's ...... this"

"You'd better rest for a while, I'll ask first."

However, when the mage decisively interrupted a crow's mouth, he interjected directly, and said to the other side, who was also motionless and pretending to be unconscious, "Captain, you mean to say that we have been captured by a group of high-level intelligent beings from the other world, and now they are planning to torture us through all kinds of torture and ask questions that we don't even know the answer to?" ”

"That's right."

The mage's tone was full of resentment, but the question was clear, so Priest, who had been thinking calmly, immediately replied, "That's the way it is. ”

"At the last moment of our teleportation, an inexplicable attraction sucked us into a strange steel altar, when you were almost all unconscious, and I was just as dizzy as I was...... And it was then that I saw a very strange otherworldly life...... came to us. ”

When he said that it was very strange, Priest's tone was a little strange, and he used the communication function of the magic armor to send the images of the otherworldly creatures to the other four people.

It's a bizarre, spider-like crustacean creature - but it's definitely not a true crustacean.

They have a grayish-black carapace, sharp eight legs, and a disc-like body with distinct 'visual organs', 'mouthparts', and crab-like forelimbs...... In this alone, no matter how you look at it, it is just some kind of strange big crab, but the most important thing is not this body, but a mushroom-like object that 'breaks out of the shell' from the center of the disc's body.

Is that a creature? Or is it a plant? Or is it really some kind of fungus? No one can confirm this without touching it with their own hands, and unlike the huge body, the fungal body is relatively thin, and if you have to compare it, it is probably like a finger and the entire palm. Its oval-shaped canopy glowed with a distinctly magical glow that shone regularly, proving that it was indeed an intelligent life.

“…… It looks, a bit like a parasitic fungus. ”

The well-informed alchemist expressed his opinion, he has been dealing with all kinds of strange plant creatures and fungi for many years, so he can see the peculiarity of this life form at a glance: "I don't know if you have seen it, there is a fungus that can parasitize the body of insects, control the movement of insects, and finally eat them completely...... This thing looks similar, and the crab below is probably just a parasitic body. ”

"Indeed, when they interrogated me, they did focus on this pillar of fungus above."

Priest took over, and he continued: "This otherworldly life has extremely powerful spiritual power, it takes advantage of our coma to try to peep into our spiritual world - but because the species gap is too big, and the thinking logic is completely different, it can't do this, and then when it forcibly tortured me through spiritual communication, 'how to find them', I deliberately cut off my brain oxygen supply and passed out. ”

Speaking of this, Priest seemed to think of something funny, and he smiled in the communicator: "These otherworldly beings seem to think that the 'magic armor' is also a part of our body, and the active metal alloy does have some biological properties, so they have been torturing the armor, whipping and cutting, and cutting off a few of my 'fingers', but they just didn't think to peel off the armor - they seem to think that we are such a powerful species with a strong body and a strong ability to regenerate themselves." ”

In this regard, even in such a serious environment, everyone couldn't help but laugh - sometimes, the gap between species and civilization is indeed large enough to cause such a misunderstanding.

Soon, though, the topic returned to seriousness.

"These otherworldly beings, who seem to call themselves 'fleets', are supposed to be navigating the void, just in time to lead our failed teleportation."

"Based on what I know, I can roughly deduce that they must be engaged in some kind of covert operation, which is why I was very nervous about us who suddenly appeared, and kept interrogating us about how we found them. ”

"What are we going to do next?"

The priesthood was concise and to the point.

"Wait for the opportunity, gather intelligence, and after roughly understanding the situation, use the 'Return Beacon' to leave directly."

Priest didn't talk nonsense, he said solemnly: "These otherworldly creatures think that the armor is our body, and it is impossible to analyze the contents of the inner layer of our armor in a short period of time, whether it is a necessary life-sustaining organ - as long as these things are not noticed, we can return through the beacon at any time." ”

"Although it's a bit of a pity that I have to leave before I finish anything, it is not useless to know the existence of such a special kind of otherworldly intelligent life."

The mission of the Department of External Exploration is, in the final analysis, to find other worlds that can be colonized, valuable resource worlds. At the same time, it is also an important task to find otherworldly civilizations, whether it is a primitive civilization with great potential but still very weak like the dragonmen of the world of Chronos, or a huge and advanced otherworldly civilization like the world of Xinghai.

Although Captain Kita has repeatedly reiterated that the return beacon may be worth more than all five of them, but this is just some kind of good-natured joke, and it should still be used, and Priest can't help but be a little glad that they happened to have this thing with them this time, otherwise they would have been trapped in this strange place all the time.

However, just as Priest asked the players to remain silent.

Airplanes.

A dull hum rang out from one side of the hall.

A circular 'door' was opened.

A large amount of air was rapidly injected, and the turbid gas was mixed with gray-yellow spores, releasing extremely obvious magic fluctuations, and in just a dozen seconds, the huge hall that was originally empty and pale was filled with air that was obviously from the other world.

And a team of eight-legged fungi walked out of the circular gate and came to the five people who were bound to the crystal pillar by the magic circle.

This team of eight-legged fungi has arc-like magic shields rotating around them, and they are not here for interrogation, but for other purposes - while everyone in the exploration team is holding their breath and nervously paying attention to what these otherworldly beings are going to do, with a burst of magic fluctuations, five crystal pillars rise from the ground and float in the air.

The canopy of the eight-legged fungus at the head of the leader flashed with a magical glow, which seemed to be some kind of spell-casting 'gesture', and then, five translucent energy wires were connected to the crystal pillar, and it just like that, pulling the floating crystal pillar, and the five people on top of it began to walk.

Da-da-da, da-da-da.

The conversation between the eight-legged fungi relied on some kind of strange and high-pitched hissing sound, maybe even some kind of ultrasonic vibration, and the human ear could only hear a partial part, but at this time, neither Priest nor the others heard the slightest hiss, and all the eight-legged fungi moved forward in silence and left the hall.

'They're not going to get rid of us, are they?!' ’

Through the Magic Armor's built-in communicator, the Knight sent a group text message, and by looking at the punctuation marks, he could tell that he was nervous at this time: 'Throw us in pieces, throw us in the garbage, or even in the heart of the Magic Engine...... I heard that the lord threw a lot of demonic beasts into it at the beginning, but the death was miserable, miserable, miserable! ’

'Shut up! ''Shut up! ''Shut up!'' ''Evil beast! Everyone, including Priest, was about to be stunned: "You crow's mouth, if you speak again, I won't let you go even if I die!" ’

The eight-legged fungus is not aware of the communication within the exploration team, but they do not need to know either.

After leaving the vacuum-sealed hall that seemed to be a 'quarantine captivity', the five people who had been proven to be non-contagious and non-dangerous were brought into a truly alien environment by this group of gray-black eight-legged fungi.

Suddenly, all members of the exploration team forgot to communicate, shocked and immersed in what they saw.

The huge prison hall was a rectangular metal chamber suspended in mid-air, and Priest originally thought that this was big enough to be a giant structure that would be difficult for humans to adapt to, but what he didn't expect was that outside of this hall, a building like this was not worth mentioning at all.

INTERVIEWER What a big world is this?

Above the hall, there is a rumbling and trembling, constantly chimeric and reorganized 'metal sky', and below the hall, there is a vast and boundless 'living continent' that never ends at a glance.

It was a man-made environment with a round sky, a half-metal, half-living 'sky' constantly wriggling, and a fungus-like pillar of material formed the main structure of the semicircular dome, and at the very top of this dome, a huge magical sun lamp released a bright orange light, illuminating the flat earth.

And the earth itself is also a living, wriggling column of fungi. The land is filled with all kinds of towering living structures, and honeycomb-like structures abound, where tens of thousands of eight-legged fungi move in and out, carrying supplies and carrying out work.

The Prison Hall, a high-altitude extension facility belonging to a giant central hive located in the center of the world, is a group of eight-legged fungi with the crystal pillar of the Seal Exploration Team on a gondola that looks like a pitcher plant, and then continues to lead them forward.

There was no time to think, react or sigh, everyone present subconsciously turned on the photography function of the magic armor and began to frantically record the surrounding image data.

Priest felt that his eyes were not enough - at this time, the group had been led into the giant central hive, and the eight-legged fungi seemed to have no sense of secrecy, and let them observe their surroundings at will, and they rode the cable car, entering one of the entrances of the hive vertically, and going to its very center.

In such a short period of time, Priest observed countless extremely valuable intelligence information during the movement of the cable car.

By filling with various organic substances and outputting a large amount of mana, it should be a funnel-shaped white organ of the 'energy engine'.

Cutting, filling, separating with magic, there are dozens of eight-legged fungus processing chambers where they work.

Grow a plant, or a production base for half-plant, half-biological oddities.

A translucent enclosed chamber soaked in a pale golden liquid could be faintly seen, with several eight-legged embryonic shadows floating in the chamber.

Priest even subconsciously forgot that he should hide his actions, he turned his head slightly, looked around, and looked around at the moving cable car, which was a unique sight of otherworldly creature civilization.

As the cable car progressed, he saw that the structure inside the hive was becoming stronger and stronger, similar to metal, and he saw countless prisms made of crystal-clear material inserted into the fungus column, as if controlling its growth and movement through the flow of magic. Priest found that the deeper he went into the hive, the brighter the light became, and the self-luminescence caused by the high concentration of magic made it possible to see everything around him clearly without any light source.

Not only Priest, but the five members of the exploration team all saw that around the cable car, white fungus bubbles floating in the air began to appear - the surface and interior of these fungus bubbles were covered with obvious and incomparable special runes, and the fungus bubbles collided with each other and fused with each other, forming an extremely huge fungus bubble from time to time, and then this large fungus bubble quickly split and turned into thousands of small fungus bubbles again. It was as if they were engaged in some kind of calculation and information exchange, and every time the bubble fused and split, it was equivalent to a spark of thought and inspiration, and a slight sound of magic resounded in mid-air.

It's huge.

If the giant beehive is the size of a person, then the captivity hall, which is hundreds of meters long and wide, and a hundred meters high, is only the size of a person's fingernail. Diving deep into the heart of the central hive, Priest felt as if he had entered an immensely large biological center.

In the creature's body, countless eight-legged fungi are moving back and forth, like bees and ants, toil and tirelessly move from one giant fungal structure after another.

And in the center of the hive, which was already bright enough to shine as bright as midday, the eight-legged fungus and the destination of Priest and his party had appeared. A giant regular hexagonal prism 'palace' located at the lowest level of the central hive.

'Court of the Star Shepherd'.