Fate's Choice: Livestream at the Start Summoning Billions of Ravens

The deep-sea overlord crossed 8,500 meters.

Nine thousand five hundred meters deep, on the surface of the cocoon, Funina placed her right palm on the black crystal layer and poured the power of water into it layer by layer.

She didn't look up.

Her senses had already scanned the slowly falling metal capsule from above half a second ago; the horizontal distance of 120 kilometers and the vertical drop of 1,000 meters were just two insignificant coordinates in her water perception map.

The entire shell is made of titanium alloy. Two of the six sets of passive sensors are broken. A fiber optic cable connects to the iron shell above, which is disguised as a research vessel. There are seventeen people on the shell, four of whom have a heart rate of over 90 and are so nervous that their palms are sweating.

She did not lift her hand from the surface of the cocoon.

The entity beneath our feet, which has been trapped for countless years, sends a signal every fourteen seconds. The dimming light within that signal is ten thousand times more important than the two-hundred-million-dollar iron pipe overhead.

Take pictures of the iron pipe if you want.

It's not too late for her to clean up after filming.

She refocused her attention entirely on the cocoon, and the purification boundary in her palm expanded outward by another three centimeters.

Inside the Pentagon command center, Patterson labeled the third frame of the photo as "Abyssal Blue Light, Possible Evidence of Target Activity."

He typed a sentence in the last line of the photo caption column, with the font size one size smaller than the main text.

"Evidence No. 1 from the Senate Hearing".

The deputy saw the words behind him, his lips moved, but no sound came out.

Eight thousand kilometers away.

Xianyang, 3 a.m.

The drilling site was completely enclosed by municipal fencing. From the outside, it looked like an ordinary heating pipe maintenance site. Inside, the lights leaked out through the gaps in the fencing, but were only partially obscured by the matte-coated waterproof tarpaulin.

The folding table in the command vehicle was covered with sixty-four high-resolution photos.

The dark red metal wall reflects a calm luster under the LED lights. The precision of the curved section can be seen with the naked eye. The curvature is continuous and there are no splicing marks, as if the entire passage was carved out of a single piece of metal.

The passageway extends diagonally downwards, disappearing beyond the edge of the last photograph.

Academician Qi stood in front of the table, his hands resting on the edge of the table, and looked at it for nearly five minutes without saying a word.

Zhao Gong stood next to him, holding a marker pen in his hand, the cap of which was bitten in his mouth.

"The gas analysis results are in."

The engineering corps squad leader walked over from beside the borehole, still wearing his protective gloves, and handed over a printing sheet.

Academician Qi took it and scanned the three lines of data.

"Oxygen content is 20.9 percent."

He read it out very slowly.

"Nitrogen content is 78%, and carbon dioxide content is less than 150 parts per million."

Zhao took the pen cap out of his mouth.

"That's not right. In a sealed space for two thousand years, whether it's microbial metabolism or metal oxidation, the oxygen content couldn't possibly have been maintained at this level."

"Unless it's not sealed."

Academician Qi placed the printed paper on top of the photograph.

"Or rather, unless there's something inside constantly maintaining the gas circulation."

Engineer Zhao remained silent for a few seconds.

"What about the wall temperature?"

"Constantly 17 degrees, with a fluctuation not exceeding 0.3 degrees."

Academician Qi turned his head to look at the direction of the drilling, speaking slowly.

"Two thousand years of constant temperature, breathable air, and arc-shaped channels polished to millimeter-level precision."

He paused for a moment.

"This is not a tomb, Engineer Zhao."

"What is that?"

Zhao's voice was half a tone lower than usual.

"It's a facility that's still in operation."

After he finished speaking, there was a silence in the command vehicle for nearly ten seconds.

The walkie-talkie crackled to life, and the engineer squad leader's voice came through the loudspeaker, carrying the metallic echo characteristic of the passageway.

"Report: Proceed to the 83-meter mark and stop. The passage has widened into a semi-circular doorway about four meters high."

Academician Qi walked to the walkie-talkie.

"What's going on with the doorway?"

"The two dark red metal doors were tightly closed, and I couldn't push them open or exert any force. It felt like touching a mountain when I pressed my palm against them."

There was a two-second pause.

"There is a groove on each side of the doorway, about the size of a human hand, with patterns carved inside."

Academician Qi paused for a moment.

"What pattern?"

"The mountains, rivers, sun, and moon are exactly the same as the tiger tally brand in the briefing."

Everyone in the command vehicle turned to look at Academician Qi at the same time.

Academician Qi closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again, his expression was completely calm.

"Take a picture and send it back."

Three minutes later, a high-resolution close-up photo of the palm-shaped groove appeared on the folding table.

The groove is about two centimeters deep, with extremely smooth edges. The palm print is engraved with fine mountain and river patterns, and the fingertips have five slightly raised sun and moon patterns. The size and proportions are perfectly matched to the right hand of an adult male.

Academician Qi stared at the photo for a full minute.

The security supervisor walked in, glanced at the photo, and spoke cautiously.

"Will the second infiltration plan proceed as originally planned, with groups of three?"

"It's been changed."

Academician Qi straightened up, shifting his gaze from the photo to the small screen in the corner of the command vehicle that was playing medical monitoring footage.

In the video, Zhou Dazhuang is sitting on a cot in a sterile camp, doing his 40th push-up. His pace is steady and his breathing is even.

"In the second batch, he went down alone."

The security supervisor's expression changed.

"Academician Qi, I cannot sign off on the entry of a person into an unknown space alone without any protection."

"If you can't sign it, I will."

Academician Qi did not look at him, but pointed his finger at the center of the palm-shaped indentation in the photo.

"See this pit?"

The security supervisor looked down for three seconds.

"The size of this pit, the direction of the palm lines, the distribution of the sun and moon patterns on the fingertips, and the geometric parameters of the tiger talisman brand on Zhou Dazhuang's right palm will not deviate by more than two millimeters."

Academician Qi's voice was not loud, but he pronounced each word very clearly.

"The person who built this door two thousand years ago left a lock on it, and the keyhole is shaped like a right hand."

He paused.

"Before this photo was sent back, I was still hesitant about whether to let him go down, but now I don't have to hesitate anymore."

The security supervisor opened his mouth slightly, but no sound came out.

"That pit was dug for his hand; no one else's hand could fit in it except his."

Twenty minutes later, Zhou Dazhuang stood next to the drill hole.

In the early morning, there was not a breath of wind in the suburbs of Xianyang. The construction lights inside the enclosure illuminated the 1.1-meter-diameter borehole, revealing layers of geological strata on the borehole wall. The top layer was mixed soil, the middle layer was granite, and the bottom layer was a dark red metallic cross-section.

Academician Qi stood next to him and handed him a photo of a palm-shaped indentation.

Zhou Dazhuang took the photo and looked at it for five seconds. The brand on his right palm twitched the moment he grasped the photo.

"Is this the door lock?"

"right."

Academician Qi pointed to the drill hole.

"Go down 83 meters, and at the end of the passage there is a door. There is a groove like this on each side of the door. The engineers can't push it open; you'll need to do it by hand."

Zhou Dazhuang returned the photo and glanced down at his right palm.

The dark red lines of the brand gleamed with a metallic sheen under the camp's incandescent lights, and the beating frequency was faster than five minutes ago. It wasn't his heartbeat that was accelerating; it was the brand itself that was speeding up.

What's down there?

"have no idea."

Academician Qi's tone was exactly the same as it was in the Qinling ward last time.

"But the people who made these things two thousand years ago left locks and keys. The key is in your hands; they want you to go in and take a look."

Zhou Dazhuang raised his head and took one last look at the night sky.

The sky over Xianyang was very dark, with no stars, only the lights peeking out from the edge of the fence casting a thin halo of light in the low sky.

He clenched his right fist, and the pulse of the brand quickened a little. The sleeping heart fifty-four meters below seemed to sense something, and its rhythm increased by thirty percent compared to thirty seconds ago.

Zhou Dazhuang loosened his fist and fastened the seatbelt buckle around his waist.

"Put me down."

The hydraulic winch started, the steel cable tightened, and his body slowly sank into the borehole.

The lights on the ground shrank into a smaller and smaller circle overhead, and the dark red metal of the passage walls reflected the light from the headlamps, causing it to recede to the sides. The air, at a constant temperature of seventeen degrees Celsius, rose from beneath our feet, carrying a very faint smell that did not belong to any known mineral.

The brand on his palm was so hot that he had to open his right hand. Dark red light spilled out from between his fingers, illuminating the wall of the passage half an arm's length away.

The rhythm of the light was not his heartbeat.

It's the thing behind the door below that's jumping.

Getting closer.

faster and faster.