The Mech Touch novel Chapter 347

The ground abruptly turned into an opaque white crystal that stretched from one end of the city to the other. It formed the base for the majestic spiralling structures that stretched out into the sky for at least two-hundred stories.

A large number of statues had been placed between the spiral structures. Most of them consisted of strange geometric shapes that resembles runes of some sort. They shone in a soft white light but otherwise showed nothing special at all.

The city would have looked impressive if not for its size. The tallest spiral structures merely reached a head above his own heights. The streets were so narrow and small that Ves would have to walk sideways if he wanted to squeeze between the spiral structures.

"It’s like I’m the giant now."

He found the shift in perspective to be odd and amusing. Ves remembered some of the dramas he saw as a kid. Back then, giant aliens often showed up to threaten human cities.

The diminutive size of the ruins filled him with a bit confidence. It was hard to fear a dead alien species the size of his finger.

After shrugging off his idle thoughts, he resumed his attempt to find a way back home. The alien city would certainly contain a clue.

Ves tried to decipher the meaning of the runes but came up nothing. Not even his comm had been able to match the runes to its database of languages.

Humanity had never encountered these ruins before. The aliens who build this place must have lived a long time ago.

The galaxy was old. Aliens rose and fell since the birth of the galaxy many billions of years ago. It was a different time then. The universe was smaller and space seethed with excitement. Countless stars came into being and clumped together in vast agglomeration of galaxies centered around the largest black holes known to man.

Many theorists believed that the vast majority of exotics emerged from this time of cosmic turmoil. The first aliens who emerged from their planets and gained the ability to traverse the stars took advantage of the abundant amount of exotics within their reach.

Many aliens also evolved with the help of certain exotics, granting their races an unprecedented level of power in exchange for becoming dependent on their supply.

These early forbearers of the galaxy erected mighty mights that lasted for eons and changed many planets and even stars to suit their own species. Monuments of their works could be found everywhere in the galactic center.

Much of it had already been discovered and dismantled by humanity. As a race in ascendancy, it wouldn’t do to leave the relics of other races alone. What if humans started worshipping the aliens?

Thus, true alien relics became something of a rarity in the galaxy. The galactic center had been scoured long ago while the purging of the galactic heartland still continued to this day.

The only place where people could reliably bump into undiscovered alien relics was the galactic rim. It was too vast, sparse and barren for humanity to control in its entirety.

The Komodo Star Sector happened to be one of humanity’s most remote star sectors. Lucky prospectors constantly uncovered a handful of alien remains every standard year.

Most of them consisted of lifeless ruins, but a couple of remnants still possessed enough power to work.

Sometimes they even killed their discoverers. Ves almost shared the same fate.

Thus, even if the miniature city looked dead and frozen, Ves still kept his vigilance.

"Even if they’re small, their technology surpasses humanity’s in many areas."

Ves experimentally fired a spiral with his Amastendira. He dialed down the power setting to the lowest one possible.

The laser beam hit a spiral, and instead of destroying it, the spiral absorbed the entire beam!

"What?!"

The spiral structure glowed and pulsed until it released a strange white energy in every direction. Its spiral shape allowed it to hit every other spiral in sight without fail. Those spirals started to glow as well until they pulsed out their own lights, affecting other structures that hadn’t been touched by the light before.

The entire city appeared to have been built like an array!

The strange phenomenon continued until each spiral structure glowed with white. They pulsed and pulsed, but the excessive splitting had dimmed the overall luminosity of the glow. There was too little energy to go around. After half a minute of flickering, the glows died down, and the miniature city fell back to sleep.

Ves almost had a scare when the entire city lit up. Something wonderful or awful might have happened and he hadn’t been prepared at all. Who knew why the aliens turned their own abodes into energy emitters?

He didn’t understand their purpose. He lacked too much context to make sense of the city. The only thing he knew was that if he pumped a sufficient amount of energy in the city, something drastic would happen.

"Is this a way home for me?"

On second thought, he didn’t think it would be so easy. The entire arrangement appeared to be a defensive measure. If an enemy race came and tried to bombard it with directed energy weapons, they would probably receive a nasty surprise.

As for other weapon types? "They look tough enough to withstand kinetic strikes."

Ves experimentally picked up some rocks and threw them at the spirals with force. The crystals never showed signs of breaking.

After this, Ves considered his options. In order to escape his strange state, he should be doing everything he could to find a way back home.

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained."

He decided to brave the unknown because he lacked any alternatives. Without a map or any kind of overview of the terrain, finding another artificial settlement like this would take weeks or months.

Perhaps this planet might not even host any other signs of alien presence!