Redd continued to add annotations on that picture, using different colors of ink to distinguish the connection between the passages and the altar, making the path relationship between them clearer.
After the current repair and cleanup work is completed, he plans to organize a special team to enter the underground passage, bring enough kerosene and lighting equipment, explore down the large crack, and gradually remove the remaining creatures in the passage.
And destroy those altars one by one, cutting off their function as space beacons, so that outside channels from other worlds can no longer use this underground network to send new power over.
This plan requires time and manpower, but he is willing to wait because he is convinced that as long as he is still on Valyrian Peninsula, those underground passages and altars are the biggest hidden dangers that have not yet been eliminated on this land.
He sat at the table, marked the last key connection point on the drawing, and then closed the drawing.
Put it into the document bag on the table, then walk out of the tent and look at King Ghidorah standing quietly in the darkness in the distance and the firelight outside the camp.
Redd sat in the tent all night, with two maps spread out on the table. One was a surface topographic map drawn by the ground surveying team, which marked the locations of camps, ports, ruins and all known rifts;
The other is a map of the channel direction drawn by the exploration team after they went deep into the ground. The path extending downward from the large rift is marked with a dotted line. After encountering the magma river, the dotted line divides into two branches. The left branch is biased towards the direction of the old mine, and the right branch leads to a deeper unknown area.
The two maps were placed side by side, and Redd's eyes moved back and forth between them, comparing the marked points on the ground with the underground passages one by one, trying to determine the exact location of the orcs' core area from the bends and intersections of those lines.
His finger stopped at the end of the left branch line, where the dotted line broke, leaving a large blank space behind.
It was at this location that the exploration team encountered an ambush by orcs, and was forced to withdraw after two people died.
Since then, no one has gone down there.
Redd knows that the blank area is where the orcs are most likely to hide, and it is also where the otherworldly passages and altars are most concentrated.
If the place is not cleared, the orcs can emerge from the ground at any time, harass the camp, destroy the port, and attack Demon Dragon, just like they did a few days ago.
That attack cost him fourteen Demon Dragons and hundreds of soldiers. The repair work of the port was delayed for nearly a week. If it happened again, the losses would only be greater.
But he also knew that going underground meant giving up all existing advantages.
On the ground, he has air support from the King Ghidorah and Demon Dragon regiments, defensive fortifications of camp walls and trenches, and supplies and personnel that can be quickly mobilized from the port.
Once underground, all of this is lost.
The underground passages are narrow, rugged, and hot. Demon Dragon cannot hover in the air. Although King Ghidorah's size can barely pass through the great rift valley, its range of activities will be greatly restricted in the deeper passages eroded by the magma river.
What made him even more hesitant was the doomsday disaster.
Fourteen volcanoes on Valyrian Peninsula once erupted at the same time, which directly destroyed the entire Valyrian Freehold.
If when he took King Ghidorah deep underground, those volcanoes became active again, the underground magma river suddenly surged, or the ground collapsed on a large scale, he wouldn't even have a chance to escape.
He opened the system panel, and the light blue light curtain appeared particularly clear in the dim tent.
The data of King Ghidorah shows that its status is "sub-adult", and its attributes are slowly increasing, but it is still a long way from adulthood.
The estimate given by the system is that at the current natural growth rate, it will take at least several years to reach adulthood.
If you want to speed up this process, you need to consume a lot of Energy Points.
He took a look at his Energy Points balance: 197551 points, nearly two hundred thousand.
This number has slowly accumulated in the past few years of battles. Every battle and every kill will bring a certain amount of Energy Points, but the consumption is also astonishing.
Two thousand points were deducted for the treatment given to Ehm, and various small-scale system assistance is also continuously consumed.
King Ghidorah The Energy Points needed to transform from sub-adult to adult is a million level, and now he does not even have one-fifth of it.
The system has no loan function, no installment payment, and no option to enjoy now and pay later.
Even the most basic treatment function needs to deduct Energy Points before it can take effect. If he runs out of Energy Points one day, the system will not give him credit because he is about to die.
He turned off the system panel, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a while.
The crackle of the fire and the footsteps of patrolling soldiers came from outside the tent, and those sounds were particularly clear in the night.
He recalled the scene when he encountered an undersea volcanic eruption last time at the Smoking Sea - sea water boiled, steam shot into the sky, magma gushes from the bottom of the sea and quickly cools to form a new reef, which then shatters and sinks in the subsequent shocks.
That time he almost didn't make it out alive.
If a similar accident occurs underground, and the flow of the magma river suddenly increases and the channel is filled with lava, no matter how strong he is, he will not be able to withstand being buried alive by tens of thousands of tons of magma.
King Ghidorah may be able to hold on for a longer time, but if the entire passage collapses and the rock layers hundreds of meters deep are pressed down, even the strongest scales and bones will be crushed.
He thought about it for a long time, from late at night to the dawn of day.
The torches outside the tent gradually extinguished, and the morning light penetrated through the gaps in the door curtain, casting a light strip of light on the ground.
Redd finally stood up, rolled up the two maps and put them into a waterproof leather case, and walked out of the tent.
The air was filled with the coolness of the morning and the faint smell of sulfur from the volcanoes in the distance. The soldiers in the camp had begun a new day's shift. The sentries on the wall were changing the guard. The fire was rekindled and the first batch of smoke came out of the chimney in the cooking area.
Douglas was already waiting for him in the open space in the center of the camp, holding a work assignment sheet for the day in his hand. When he saw Redd approaching, he took a step forward, ready to report on the day's repair progress.
"Today we will stop to repair the port," Redd said, "pick a hundred elite men and bring enough dry food and water for three days, as well as kerosene and lighting equipment.
I will lead the team down, and King Ghidorah will follow me. You stay in the camp, while the Ehm and Demon Dragon troops stay on the ground and are on standby."
Douglas did not respond immediately.
He stood there, his eyes resting on Redd's face for a few seconds, confirming that Redd was serious, then nodded, put away the work allocation form, and turned around to arrange personnel.
His pace was a little faster than usual, but there was no extra movement, and he didn't ask Redd how long he was going to go down or what he would do if he couldn't get out.
There is no need to ask those questions, and asking them will not change Redd's decision.