Super Gene

"Captain, let the guards follow you." The leader of the guards, Li Lu stood up and saluted.

The guards were all the combatants that remained on Daphne.

"Captain, let me lead the team," the only surpasser on the warship Zhao Ping said.

"Quartermaster, you should stay on Daphne. This is our base. If anything goes wrong on the ship, it would be meaningless even if we bring back everyone. At that point, we would all be faced with death. In addition, I am only going to investigate and will not go deep." Ji Yanran looked to the guards, thought about it and said, "Li, you pick four soldiers good at warframe to come with me, and you shall come as well. The rest of the team stay on the ship."

"Yes, Captain." Li Lu named four soldiers and asked them to report to Ji Yanran. Ji Yanran told everyone to prepare their own warframe and looked at Han Sen. She hesitated and said, "You go prepare as well."

"Yes, Captain," Han Sen answered and went to take his warframe.

The seven of them quickly left the warship and got on a field truck to go to the excavation site. Because it was not far from the warship, it only took them half an hour to get to the destination.

Looking out of the field truck, all sorts of equipment were intact. Nothing was damaged, and there was no evidence of a fight. The only thing broken was the multifunction excavator.

Seeing no blood, everyone felt relieved. At least those people were not under attack.

The field truck could no longer go deeper INto the site. Ji Yanran asked two soldiers to stay on the truck, while she took Li Lu, Han Sen, and two other guards to drive their warframes down the truck, going toward the entrance.

"Maintain the order... Transferring scanned data... Communications good..." All sorts of information kept flashing on the warframes, some sent from the truck, some from Daphne. Their warframes were also transmitting data back.

Although everyone had been highly vigilant, nothing really happened. They reached the entrance the professors found with no trouble.

It was a black crystal gate more than 100 feet tall, decorated with lots of complicated patterns. There were dots and circles and lines, as well as some triangular shapes. There were no obvious rules to how they were put together. It looked sort of like the guts of a mechanical clock, quite mysterious.

At this point, the black crystal gate was already prized open. A one-man warframe could easily pass, but larger mechanics could not enter.

"Captain, shall we go inside to take a look?" Li Lu asked Ji Yanran.

Ji Yanran did not answer Li Lu and felt astonished at the black gate. She quickly said to Han Sen using a private channel, "Han Sen, I will take people down and have a look. You stay here."

"Why?" Han Sen knew she must have noticed something. Otherwise, she would not have said that.

"This is the ruin of some Crystallizer royalties, and it’s still running. It is too dangerous down there. Since you know nothing about Crystallizers, you might trigger some dangerous traps. Just stay here," Ji Yanran said.

"I will follow you," Han Sen said.

"This is an order," Ji Yanran said seriously.

"Your order is not valid on me," Han Sen said softly.

Ji Yanran was trying to say something else when she suddenly heard screams from the field truck. All of them quickly looked to the truck and saw the two soldiers stationing in the truck had gone out, rushing to them in warframes.

"What has happened? What has happened? Please report... Please report..." Li Lu tried to ask what had happened through the commlink but found all he could hear was noise of current.

Han Sen quickly checked his comlink and found his warframe had lost all communications to Daphne. The system was down.

Ji Yanran had noticed that as well and told the rest of her team, "Maintain the order. We will go have a look."

The team quickly approached the warframes of the two soldiers. Before Ji Yanran asked what had happened, they already knew the answer.

Behind the two soldiers, lots of fist-sized red crystal were floating in the air like red light bulbs. With a glance, one could not tell how many there were, but there were at least hundreds or a thousand of them.

"Simulating crystal... How come there are so many..." Everyone was shocked.

No wonder the two soldiers started to run. Whoever saw so many simulating crystals would do the same.

Previously, Han Sen had already witnessed how powerful a simulating crystal was. As long as it scanned something, it could turn into the exact same thing.

If hundreds or thousands of simulating crystals scanned the warframes or field trucks, they would be killed instantaneously facing all those vehicles.

In addition, more simulating crystals were coming this way, growing in numbers. There was no telling how many there were.

"Retreat that at the retreat into the ruin..." Ji Yanran had understood were the expert panel had gone, and she had to repeat their option.

Boom boom boom!

The closest simulating crystals had already caught up with the two soldiers. With a flash of red light, the crystals flashed at their warframes like a camera and quickly turned into red crystal warframes of the same style. They landed quickly and continued to chase the two soldiers. More and more simulating crystals became warframes and joined them.

Li Lu could not help drawing laser guns to attack the red crystal warframes to save his two comrades.

"No!" It was too late for Ji Yanran to stop him.

Li Lu’s shot made a huge hole in one of the red crystal warframes. However, instantaneously, all the red crystal warframes drew their laser guns and shot in their direction.

Boom boom!

The warframes of the two soldiers closest to the crystals exploded immediately, turning into burning crap iron, while the red crystal warframes were still shooting this way.

"Retreat into the ruin." Han Sen operated his warframe to go into the black crystal gate.

"Retreat to the ruin, immediately," Ji Yanran followed Han Sen and commanded in a clear voice.

Li Lu whose eyes were bloodshot gritted his teeth and ordered the other two soldiers to retreat into the ruin while covering them by going last.

Boom!

As Ji Yanran and Han Sen just entered the black crystal gate, they heard a loud noise. The warframe of Li Lu had already exploded.