"Okay, stop talking about those irrelevant things and hurry up. We have to reach the transfer station before dark, otherwise we will all freeze to death."

…

Two hours later.

Ke Lan and the four of them finally arrived at the place marked as "Transfer Station No. S0159" on the map, but what appeared in front of them was a ruins that had long been deserted.

"It looks like it was hit hard by shells." Layton analyzed, "I wonder if there is anything left."

The hound that was the first to rush in had already come around from the other side of the ruins and said: "It's empty. All the underground warehouses have been emptied. It was done by the exiles, and they are the only ones who can loot the transfer station.

"

The hound's nose twitched slightly and continued: "There is a faint smell of gunpowder in the air, um... and the smell of blood. It should have happened in the past two days."

"But there are no corpses, not even the stumps." Ivan emerged from a relatively intact room and shook his head.

"Humans are also a type of resource. Living people can be captured and used as slaves, and dead people can be used as food or fertilizer. Even the mud rubbed off their bodies, those bastards can refine two ounces of oil for you." Hound.

He said expressionlessly that among the four people present, he knew the exiles best, but the more he knew, the more he hated these people... In order to survive, those guys have completely abandoned the most basic moral concepts of human beings.

, cannibalism is simply a normal thing in their eyes.

"There are ruts here." Ke Lan, who was squatting on the ground, suddenly said, "The marks are not shallow. The load must be very heavy, and it went in that direction."

He pointed in the direction of true south.

On the map of Ark, it is an uninhabited land. There are neither Alpha ruins worth exploring nor resources such as mineral deposits around it. Therefore, there is no transfer station... From this point of view, there is a high probability that there will be

A settlement of exiles exists.

"Should we go there? The exiles should regard us as enemies, right?" Layton hesitated a little. He was in a very bad state now, and his confidence in speaking was naturally a little weaker.

"I have a way." Hound chuckled, "Fortunately we haven't had time to take a shower on the ship."

As he spoke, he gathered all the Gauss rifles, individual howitzers and other weapons in the hands of the four people, dug a hole and buried them in it, leaving only the two most basic Type 01 rifles, which he then dismantled.

The optical sight and various tactical accessories on the Type 01 rifle were completely scratched with a stone. Finally, a few tattered rags were torn off from the clothes and randomly wrapped around the barrel and machine.

On top of the box.

In addition to weapons, the clothes and equipment on their bodies were also treated similarly, and their faces were stained with sand and water - now they were basically no different from the exiles who had been crawling around in the wilderness all year round.

They followed the ruts for almost another fifty kilometers, and finally found the exile settlement just before sunset.

This settlement located on the leeward slope of the valley is quite large. Hundreds of shacks made of wooden boards, plastic sheets and scrap metal are crowded together. Considering that each shack can accommodate five to ten people, this settlement is at least

There must be more than two thousand people.

On the side close to the hillside is a simple farmland. There is a half-man-high fence surrounding the farmland. An exile in charge of overseeing the work can be vaguely seen squatting on a stone carrying a wooden stick and staring at a dozen people in the field.

He works hard with a stooped figure.

There are two exits at the front and back of the settlement, and a sentry tower about seven or eight meters high was built at the exit. However, there are no searchlights installed on the sentry tower - it may be possible to monitor the situation of the entire settlement during the day.

, at night, the light source from the torch probably only shines twenty to thirty meters away at most.

The settlement's security was very lax. The sentinels who were supposed to be standing guard on the sentry tower slipped away without knowing where they were. The few exiles guarding the exit were gathered in a corner, warming themselves by the fire and playing cards.

"Can you sneak in?" Ke Lan turned his head and asked the hound.

"It should be possible. Generally speaking, a settlement of this size will exchange information with exiles from other places. If there are too many people coming and going, it is impossible for the sentries to write down everyone's appearance." Hound touched himself.

Hu stubble said, "It's just that such settlements usually have a core figure, just like the local emperors in the old era. This kind of person is a symbol of absolute power in this settlement. We'd better be careful."

The sky has gradually darkened, and the temperature has dropped below zero, and is still falling. If the person in the wilderness cannot find a place to spend the night at this time, his fate will be to become a lifelike ice sculpture.

"Let's go, move more naturally, don't be so stiff." The hound blew his nose and took the lead in walking towards the settlement.

When they were still fifty meters away from the settlement, the guards who were playing cards had already discovered them, but no one was willing to leave the warm fire and come over to question them - they didn't even look at this group of outsiders.

At first glance, he focused more on the homemade playing cards in his hand.

"They actually ignored us..." Ivan whispered, with a hint of surprise and luck in his tone.

"That's because we carry guns... The main task of the guards is actually to prevent the captured slaves from escaping, and we are not slaves." The hound curled his lips and walked into the settlement in a swagger.

Ke Lan noticed that almost every shack was filled with poorly clothed exiles. These people were all slaves. They were almost skinny and skinny, and their skin had large areas of ulcerated marks - all of them were

Radiation sickness patients have to work in an exposed environment most of the day without any protective measures. It is impossible to avoid getting sick.

Even the sentries and overseers were equipped with rudimentary protective equipment, let alone slaves who could not even afford food and clothing.

They stared at the four Ke Lan who entered the settlement with extremely dull eyes. The self-personality of these slaves had long been obliterated by the heavy work, and only the instinct of survival was still driving the zombie-like bodies.

Except for food, they have no interest in anything else. In the words of hounds, these slaves are no longer human beings, they are just a group of livestock in captivity.

This should be a trading settlement with slave trading as its main source of income. More than 80% of the people living here are slaves who are treated as "commodities", and normal exiles only account for a very small part.

"This settlement should have a strong armed force. They will regularly loot Ark's transfer station or other weaker settlements, and then train the captives into slaves and sell them to some people with trade contacts.

settlement in exchange for living supplies and weapons." Hound said.

"Look, there's a shop over there." The person who spoke was Ivan. He was pointing at a shack that didn't look that shabby. Ke Lan turned around and saw a wooden board hanging outside the shack.

Charcoal writes things that can be traded.

The hard currency used to purchase goods is not credits or precious metals such as gold and silver, but gray potatoes, which are a native crop of Alpha Planet. They are similar to potatoes and store starch in fat tubers.

They are the most important staple food for the exiles - but compared with potatoes, they taste worse, carry radiation, and contain trace amounts of neurotoxins. The consequences of long-term consumption are radiation sickness and hemiplegia.

One pound of meat of "unknown origin" can be exchanged for five to ten pounds of gray potatoes, depending on the quality of the meat and the radiation content; the 8.8-caliber full-power rifle bullet used in the Type 01 rifle produced by Ark is worth one pound.

One hundred and fifty kilograms of gray potatoes; as for a male adult slave who was "strong enough to do heavy work", he only had sixty-five kilograms of gray potatoes.

The most expensive one on the price list is a drug called "Xiaofu Ning", which can reduce the radiation content in the human body, inhibit the development of radiation sickness, and extend the life of patients with radiation sickness... The asking price for one pill is as high as

Seven hundred pounds of gray potatoes, and only three can be sold a week.

But it is not difficult to understand. Whether it is bullets or other things, as long as they have simple tools, handicraft workshops in settlements can imitate them. Although the quality is not the same, it is at least barely usable. But radiation elimination

Ning is something that can only be produced on Ark. If the exiles want to obtain the medicine, the main way is to attack the transfer stations set up by Ark around Alpha Star - but this behavior is extremely dangerous. Once it is used by Ark, it will be very difficult for them to do so.

It may lead to catastrophe.

"Do you need anything?" Seeing the four people staying at the door, the shop owner quickly got out of the shack. This was a fat man with a fat body - being able to have a fat body under such conditions shows that this guy's life is good.

He must be doing well.

"We are selecting slaves, and they will come to you after choosing them - don't follow us, we don't like to be stared at, and we don't need others to make suggestions." The hound said in an extremely arrogant tone, and demonstrated.

He touched the Type 01 rifle hung at his side.

"Okay, okay, no problem," the fat man nodded knowingly, "Counting from here, from the first shack to the corner over there, they are all my slaves. You can choose whatever you want. The one surnamed Li is the one ahead.

The territory has been lost, and all the slaves in his family are infected with the disease and will not live long. Every one he buys will suffer a loss."

"I can see for myself." The hound said coldly, then ignored the slave trader and continued to walk forward.

At this moment, Layton suddenly pulled him and pointed the direction of nine o'clock with his eyes.

It was a shack that was bigger than the "shop", almost four or five meters high. From a distance, it gave people the feeling of standing out from the crowd. The outside of the shack was covered tightly with black canvas, making it airtight.

Even the door curtain is a thick black blanket with some strange patterns painted on it with white lime.

"What's wrong? Do you suspect that the person living inside is the leader of this settlement?" Hound asked.

However, Layton shook his head: "That's not the key. Look at the glass tube inserted in the door frame, the one that emits light... That thing is not a light, it is a crystal tube with a complex structure. Only the Alpha civilization can make it."

...is one of the core components of 'Death Ray'."

"The core component of the death ray? Are you sure? But...the people who ambush are not exiles..."

"I'm sure, but there must be tens of thousands of such transistors in a 'Death Ray'. They might have picked them up somewhere..." Leighton said cautiously.

"Go over and have a look." The hound decided.

"Didn't you say you shouldn't get into trouble?"

"You've already been faced with trouble, how can you hide from it? It's a blessing, not a curse. It's a curse that you can't avoid. Have you heard this saying?"

After saying that, he walked towards the shack, but before he got within ten meters, two men in black cloaks came out of the corner next to them and blocked the hound's path.

"...'Praise the glory of the true God, praise the greatness of the true God'." The two people looked at the four of them up and down, and one of them suddenly said such a word without beginning or end.

The hound's heart tightened: "Damn it, why is there still such a thing? Is this sentence some kind of incision?"

He subconsciously grabbed the short knife hidden in his sleeve, and at the same time tapped the heel of his right foot lightly on the ground - this was the code previously agreed upon by the hound and the other three: "Ready to fight."

Praise the glory of the true God... Just when the situation between the two sides was at a stalemate, Ke Lan felt that this sentence was vaguely familiar... It was the inscription. There was this sentence on the inscription over there, although it was difficult to accurately translate it into human language.

Language, but the general idea is almost like this!

Then the next sentence should be...sacrifice yourself? Or dedicate yourself? Ke Lan searched for his memory as much as possible... The next sentence on the inscription, if it were said using similar human rhetoric...

"'I am willing to dedicate everything I have to the victory of the true God.'"

Ke Lan almost blurted out, and even the hounds and the others were stunned for a moment. After hearing these words, the two men in black were shocked and backed away!

Oops...is this revealing the secret? Doesn't it have anything to do with that stone tablet at all?

The hand hidden behind Ke Lan's back has already opened the safety of the rifle. As soon as the hound pulls out the dagger, he will immediately raise the muzzle of the gun and shoot at the two men in black.

As for what to do next, we can only escape from this settlement alive first.

But what Ke Lan and the others didn't expect was that in the next second, the two men in black knelt down together, pressed their bodies close to the ground, and said in a trembling voice: "I didn't expect that the person who came was actually the Prophet! We didn't

I can welcome you from afar, but I only ask for forgiveness from the Prophet!"

Lord Prophet?
Chapter completed!