True Apocalypse Game

"...Everyone for me, I for everyone... The future is one, the past is one, the present is one..."

A strange and twisted low chant echoed through the communication system, sending a chill down the spines of the expedition members inside the submersible.

All around them were motionless stone statues, and it was as if the chant came from the statues themselves, shouting in unison.

"Everyone for me, I for everyone? This... Isn’t that a saying from the revolutionary forefathers? Is materialism being haunted? This isn’t scientific..." Kong Yan mumbled, his face pale.

Jiang Bing’s face was grim. "Shut up," she said. "Listen carefully. They’re not saying ’for.’ The word is slightly different... it sounds like ’are’!"

Everyone for me, everyone *is* me. I for everyone, I *am* everyone!

"’For,’ ’are’? What are you talking about?" Joe asked from beside them, a confused look on his face. "That voice has a flawless London accent..."

"That’s wrong. It’s Russian," Ivan countered.

The four of them looked at each other, their hearts pounding with anxiety, with no idea what was going on.

’Four people, hearing three different languages. What in the world was happening?’

The chanting only lasted for a few seconds before it faded, and silence returned as if nothing had happened at all.

"Hidden Dragon, Hidden Dragon, what happened? Why did we hear chanting?" The voice from the command center crackled over the communicator.

The people at the ice cap base and at the headquarters in Reykjavik had also heard the chanting over the comms, but what they heard was hundreds of languages being chanted at once—a chaotic and even more bizarre cacophony.

"We... we’re not sure... It seemed like... radio interference?" Jiang Bing said slowly, frowning as she looked out at the statue held by the mechanical arm. "The situation at the ruins has changed. Requesting permission to terminate the mission and return immediately! Over!"

As a veteran deputy leader of the Ice Dragon Expedition Team, she had encountered her fair share of dangerous situations during expeditions. At this moment, her intuition was telling her that they needed to leave this place as quickly as possible!

Whatever that sound had been, it made her deeply uncomfortable...

The other three expedition members glanced at one another. Although they didn’t entirely agree with Jiang Bing’s decision, they said nothing.

They were all alone, thousands of meters deep on the ocean floor; they had to trust one another.

Especially their leader.

Back at headquarters, the high-ranking officials from various countries overseeing the operation exchanged puzzled glances.

They were reasonably familiar with these team members, especially Jiang Bing.

Although Jiang Bing was a woman, she was resolute and decisive, and known for being extremely bold during scientific expeditions. What was wrong with her today?

The sound just now had been strange, but it was possibly caused by radio interference in the communications and didn’t represent any tangible danger.

To retreat just like that felt like a bitter pill to swallow.

However, they also understood that in this kind of scientific exploration mission, the psychological state of the personnel on the front line was the primary consideration.

Since Jiang Bing had already requested to terminate the mission, it was best to let them come back.

"Alright, you..." The chief commander took a deep breath, just about to order them to return.

Just then, a rumbling sound came from the seabed. A ruined building not far in front of the submersible came crashing down!

It was the very building that had once been a disease control center!

A collapse underwater is different from one on land. As the structure fell through the water, the debris descended much more slowly, as if in slow motion.

The submersible immediately vented compressed gas, backing away by several tens of meters.

"Hidden Dragon, hold your position! Do not move! Watch for your safety!" came the immediate order from the command center, who had seen the event through the camera and communication feed.

The ruins were filled with towering high-rises. If the submersible moved erratically, it could trigger a massive chain-reaction collapse and be buried under the rubble.

Soon, the building’s collapse subsided. Fortunately, no other structures had fallen.

Though the building had completely collapsed, a single wall remained standing tall.

Faintly visible upon its surface were some deeply carved symbols.

"It’s writing! Writing has appeared!" Kong Yan shouted, his eyes wide.

The other members of the expedition saw it as well, all of them overcome with excitement.

Writing—the hallmark of a civilization, and the vessel for its information!

This writing was the key to unlocking the secrets of the underwater statue ruins!

Perhaps, through this writing, they could finally unravel the mysteries of the statue ruins!

The chief commander’s voice came over the communication system again:

"Hidden Dragon, Hidden Dragon, please report your situation. Have you located written artifacts? Also, please check your visual systems. We have currently lost your video feed! I repeat, we have currently lost your video feed! Over!"

In the headquarters, Li Tongchen, Lu Ran, and the hundreds of other personnel were all incredibly tense.

Just as the tower had finished collapsing, they had caught a faint glimpse of the single remaining wall, still obscured by sand and dust stirred up from the seabed. But at that very moment, the video signal suddenly went dead.

The screen went black, showing nothing.

Fortunately, they still had voice communications.

’Could the underwater collapse have damaged the visual feed system?’

The submersible hovered in place, its searchlights sweeping over the wall. The image of the wall appeared on the monitors inside the cockpit.

Ivan quickly checked the imaging and communication systems, discovering they were both completely intact. The submersible had not sustained any damage.

He immediately reported:

"Dragon Nest, the camera and signal transmission systems show no problems. We suspect a line failure. Over!"

There was a moment of silence over the communicator. Clearly, the decision-makers in the command center had no solution.

There was no second submersible available to go down and repair the cable at the moment, and with a cable several thousand meters long, no one knew where the problem was.

"Hidden Dragon, your primary objective has changed. Please take detailed recordings and bring the written artifact back. I repeat, please take detailed recordings and bring the written artifact back. Over."

’If they couldn’t see it, then they would just have to bring it back.’

Besides, the submersible’s own cameras were still working. As long as they recorded everything, the data could be brought to the surface for analysis.

Jiang Bing frowned, but she replied, "Hidden Dragon copies. We will conduct detailed recording and bring back the written artifact. Over."

Although she had been wanting to return as soon as possible, and that feeling of unease had now grown even stronger, they hadn’t encountered any real threats. An order from headquarters had to be obeyed.

The other three crew members were now ecstatic.

They had originally come down on what was supposed to be a token mission, but they never imagined they would find written artifacts. This was an event that would absolutely be recorded in the annals of history!

If they could make some sensational discovery from these written artifacts, people like them would go down in history, just like Armstrong and the first crew to land on the moon!

Maneuvering the submersible forward until it was in front of the lone stone wall, the crew looked out through the monitor, and their eyes all went wide.

Deeply carved into the stone wall were two extremely complex chemical formulas, along with some small lines of explanatory text!

Without a doubt, these statue ruins had to have come from a highly advanced civilization!

Without a moment to think, Joe operated the submersible’s mechanical arm, extending it to gently pierce the stone wall on either side of the text before slowly prying it loose.

The wall in front of them shuddered, and a piece of stone the size of a round tabletop, engraved with the two chemical formulas, was gently lifted away.

Everyone let out a long sigh of relief.

The mission was ninety percent complete.

All that was left was to ascend.

Jiang Bing immediately reported, "Dragon Nest, Hidden Dragon has retrieved the written artifact. Requesting permission to return. Over."

’That feeling of unease was getting stronger and stronger. She didn’t want to stay in this godforsaken place for a second longer.’

"Hidden Dragon, you are cleared to return. Good work. Over."

Having received the order from the command center, the Hidden Dragon 9 submersible immediately vented compressed gas, returned to the main cable, latched on, and then began its journey back, pulled by the main cable.

As the submersible slowly ascended, watching the deep-sea ruins and their tens of thousands of statues sink back into the profound darkness, the four expedition members couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

The mechanical arm outside the cockpit was now clutching the stone slab. As long as they brought it back safely, their mission would be a resounding success.

Kong Yan joked with a wide grin, "Captain, do you think we’ll win a Nobel Prize for this?"

Ivan corrected him with a deadpan expression, "Kong, there is no Nobel Prize in Archaeology."

"Hahaha, Ivan, you’re too seri—."

As they were joking around, the submersible suddenly gave a violent shudder, shaking them all violently in their seats.

Immediately afterward, a jaw-dropping scene appeared on the monitor:

The submersible’s mechanical arm seemed to suddenly malfunction. It exerted a sudden burst of force, squeezing inward and crushing the stone slab with the writing directly into tiny fragments!

The stone slab turned into a cloud of fragments, which drifted down toward the seafloor!

Within the submersible’s control system, Shen Feng casually ordered the mechanical arm to crush the stone slab. After a moment’s thought, he also deleted every last bit of the saved camera footage. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

It was as if the writing had never existed.