Space Odyssey from Abandoned Mining Space Station

Chapter 522: Chapter 173: Arranging the Bait

At the same time that Chen Ming had a clear idea in his mind.

The robot he had previously arranged to send to the location in the video, where something from space entered the planet’s atmosphere, finally arrived at its destination.

However, five months had passed since the day the video was recorded.

The location of the landing point was entirely covered by the planet’s unique, gigantic vegetation.

Except that the plants here were slightly sparser and grew slightly worse compared to their surroundings, indicating that the vegetation had been damaged and had regrown.

No traces were left behind.

Fortunately, Chen Ming had anticipated this possibility and prepared some tools in advance.

He immediately sent a set of geologic survey equipment to the robot near the landing point.

He instructed the robot to start collecting soil from the area near the landing point and from underneath the landing site.

The results of the geologic survey came out quickly.

Chen Ming found no traces of asteroids or meteorites.

No unique space minerals or metallic elements were brought onto the planet.

Instead, beneath the soil, he found some fragmented gray-green growths.

Without needing further research, it was apparent these growths were left by the Insect Race.

Only traces of insects were found, but no evidence of meteorites that traditionally would have brought the insects into the atmosphere.

This implied something that made Chen Ming’s already unsettled emotions waver again.

Perhaps these insects... he did not need to eliminate them.

Aside from the traces found here, Chen Ming also realized a few issues.

First, he could estimate based on the state of the vegetation at the landing point and the density differences between the subterranean soil layer at the landing point and the surrounding soil layer, as well as the size of the brightly glowing red area caused by atmospheric friction in the video.

He concluded that this was something of Destroyer size belonging to the Insect Race, wrapped with almost entirely filled insects inside, that landed here.

Moreover, the insects that previously attacked the Mechanical Race’s city obviously exceeded the number of insects that could fill a Destroyer hundreds of meters long.

This indicated that the Thorn Insect Race was indeed breeding on the planet as he previously suspected.

The insects that attacked the city were surely only part of the Thorn Insect Race currently on the planet.

More of the Insect Race must be reproducing in some dark, underground cavern.

Chen Ming could attempt to backtrack the location of the Insect Nest through the tunnels dug by the Insect Race.

Even though the tunnel in the middle of the city was completely collapsed by the barrage of artillery from the Mechanical Race’s [Heavy Machinery · Blazing Silkworm].

He could still use a few of the [Small Machinery · Tunneling Insect] he just controlled for such work.

But Chen Ming had a better choice.

Letting Supreme Point enter the planet’s atmosphere to conduct full-power scans without atmospheric interference was far more efficient than having Tunneling Insects dig back through the Insect Race’s dug paths.

Once the insects’ locations and specific situations were confirmed, he could decide how to deal with them.

However, this matter could not be rushed; he had other things to attend to first.

Chen Ming forced himself to stop thinking about the insects, as they were still on the planet under Supreme Point’s surveillance, and they definitely could not escape.

He now had his robots take samples of the insect corpses and allied Mechanical Race onto the landing craft, returning to space, back to the Defender.

To prevent any possible emergencies, Chen Ming preferred to spend a little more time freezing and preserving the insect corpses on the Defender.

Waiting for an opportunity to send them back home.

After completing this task, Chen Ming involuntarily began pondering about the insects again.

After all, if his hypothesis was correct, then the Insect Race might bring some unique benefits to him.

These thoughts made him restless, eager to quickly resolve the insect matters and determine if his ideas could be realized.

Even though Chen Ming should be handling both the Mechanical Race and Insect Race issues now.

He couldn’t resist focusing all his attention on the Insect Race.

Under his control, Supreme Point soon brought Brilliant into the planet’s atmosphere, leaving Defender on guard in the planet’s orbit.

Deliberately maintaining a distance from the Mechanical Race city, Chen Ming arrived at the insects’ landing site, activating the Star System scanning array at full power, targeting the surface below.

A high-power scan, capable of covering the entire Star System, penetrates from the planet’s surface into its mantle.

Conducting fine scanning within this range.

The Mechanical Race in the distant city seemed oblivious to the towering Supreme Point floating far above, continuing their futile activities.

A few minutes later, Supreme Point’s scanning equipment penetrated a few kilometers underground along structures distinctly different from the surrounding soil and rock layers.

Here, Chen Ming finally locked onto his target.

An enormous underground Insect Race nest covering an area nearly equivalent to the city’s surface area.

At the very center of this nest was a massive Insect Race creature over a hundred meters long.

It was still alive, possessing a slightly elongated symmetrical appearance.

And within its body, it was connected to the core existence of the Insect Nest, the Insect Queen.