With that said, he took a deep breath of the freezing air, and was the first to shine his flashlight beam into the depths of the unknown darkness, carefully lifting his foot and stepping over the threshold that emitted a faint blue glow.
His figure, along with the camera lens, was instantly swallowed by the impenetrable darkness.
Behind him, Billy, Mike, and the other team members gritted their teeth, gripping their weapons, and followed closely, one by one, disappearing behind the ancient and eerie giant door opened by the iceberg.
The drone hovered outside the door, its camera recording the team members' backs as they vanished into the darkness, and the faint blue light on the door frame.
The biting cold wind was largely cut off as soon as Te Ye stepped into the passage.
Only a colder, heavier dead silence pressed against their eardrums.
The metal grating underfoot was bone-chillingly cold; even through the thick polar boot soles, the cold seeped in like needles.
The flashlight beam became the sole light source, cutting oscillating light spots in the narrow, towering passage.
The air was filled with an indescribable smell—like aged engine oil mixed with metal rust, intertwined with a faint, icy, and pungent scent, as if it were the millennia-frozen breath of some colossal creature in slumber.
"Damn it… this place…"
Mike's voice in the helmet communicator was accompanied by heavy breathing and static.
He nervously licked his chapped lips, his gun barrel twitching left and right, trying to catch any possible movement beyond the light and shadow.
The flashlight beam swept across the wall; its material was certainly not any known metal or alloy, presenting a matte dark gray.
The surface was incredibly smooth, yet it was covered with intricate, dizzying geometric patterns and hieroglyphs.
These patterns occasionally had an extremely faint, ethereal blue glow flowing through them under the light.
It was fleeting, like residual energy in the blood vessels of a sleeping giant beast.
Billy followed closely behind and to the side of Te Ye.
His fingers were tightly pressed on the cold trigger of his shotgun, his knuckles white from the effort.
"Boss, the signal… the signal is completely gone.
GPS, satellite phone, even shortwave is just static."
His voice was strained with tension.
"This damn place is like a giant Faraday cage.
Are we… are we really going to go further in?
This feeling… it's too wrong.
That door, how did that door open?
Just by you tapping it a few times?"
He recalled the rhythm of Te Ye's tapping on the door panel, and the more he thought about it, the more bizarre it seemed; it wasn't like testing a switch, but more like… activating some ancient code.
The live stream screen went completely black.
But the red light on Te Ye's helmet camera was still on, faithfully recording everything, the slow whirring of the memory card in the cold being the only background sound in the silence.
Although the live stream was disconnected, millions of viewers were still frantically barraging the black screen with comments, various speculations, worries, and even curses swirling in the virtual space.
Te Ye stopped.
His flashlight beam steadily illuminated the endless darkness deep within the passage.
He took a deep breath, the cold, metallic-smelling air stimulating his lungs.
He turned his head, his face behind the helmet visor appearing unusually serious in the flickering light and shadow, his eyes burning with a light that was a mixture of fear and extreme excitement.
"Content?"
His voice, clear and powerful, came through the communicator into everyone's ears, low and firm.
"Billy, Mike, guys.
We are treading where no human has ever set foot!
Perhaps it's an alien ruin, perhaps a sanctuary of a lost civilization, or even… a door to another dimension!
It would be strange if this feeling was 'right'!
But retreat? Leave the answers to those who come later?
Let those bureaucrats sitting in warm offices drinking coffee decide whether to explore here? No!
We are explorers!
This is our mission, our 'destiny'!
Fear? Normal!
But to hell with it!
Keep moving forward, objective—the center!"
He waved his hand forcefully, the beam piercing forward like a sharp sword, and he took the first step.
The team members exchanged glances, seeing the same horror and a spark of ignited, do-or-die determination in each other's eyes.
They said nothing more, only gripped their weapons tighter, adjusted their breathing, and with heavy steps, followed behind Te Ye, sending themselves deeper into this unknown metal labyrinth.
Each "clunk" sounded like a hammer striking the heart.
Time seemed to stretch, every second incredibly clear, with only footsteps, heavy breathing, and that omnipresent, suffocating dead silence.
The passage seemed endless, and the sense of oppression reached its peak.
Just as Mike felt he was about to be driven mad by this metal tomb, Te Ye in front suddenly stopped, and his flashlight beam sharply lifted upwards.
"Holy Shit…" Te Ye's voice in the communicator was reduced to a mere gasp, filled with unparalleled shock.
The space suddenly opened up!
They stood on the edge of a colossal circular platform.
The platform was made of the same dark gray metal as the passage walls, with a diameter estimated to be over two hundred meters!
The dome was incredibly high; the flashlight beam couldn't reach the top, disappearing into pure darkness.
The platform was terrifyingly empty, devoid of any equipment, any trace of life, only the cold, smooth metal floor reflecting the faint flashlight beam, and that suffocating, absolute silence that seemed to absorb all sound.
However, everyone's gaze was instantly fixated on the sight in the very center of the platform, their minds blank.
A mountain!
A mountain composed purely of ethereal blue, translucent ancient solid ice.
It rose from a circular abyss in the center of the platform!
Its scale completely defied physical laws, extending upwards, its top also hidden in the endless dark dome, and downwards, it was unfathomably deep.
It was like a massive, frozen blue heart, embedded in the center of this cold metal space.
At the core of the ice mountain, a being was sealed.
A creature!
It was so enormous that it made one's Soul tremble.
Just the part of its body exposed at the waist of the ice mountain was so thick that it would take several people to encircle it!
Its entire body was covered with colossal scales of pure, seemingly solidified liquid gold.
Each scale was as large as a millstone, with distinct edges.
Even under the Seal of countless ages of ice, it still emanated an inherent, brilliant luster like molten gold, carrying an ancient, sacred, yet absolutely tyrannical metallic texture.
Its torso coiled and sprawled, its muscle lines still clearly visible beneath the ice, filled with explosive power.
Most heart-wrenching were its heads—three of them!
Three ferocious, majestic, and distinct golden Dragon heads, raised high from neck-like mountains!
Although their massive mouths were tightly shut, the outlines of their interlocking, sword-like tusks were still clearly visible, as if they would pierce through the ice and let out world-shattering roars in the next second!
Their enormous eyelids were tightly closed, covered with equally golden, fine scales.