When the four team mbers finally slid down the cold, smooth back of the last giant bronze serpent statue to the broad granite platform on the opposite shore, safe but shaken, everyone's back was soaked through with a layer of cold sweat.
They had succeeded.
In a manner both sacrilegious and efficient, they had conquered that ceaselessly churning river of the underworld.
They hadn't yet cald down from the adrenaline surge brought on by that heart-stopping high-altitude operation.
In the even deeper cavern at the far end of the platform, a man-made object quietly moored there drew everyone's gaze, seeming utterly out of place amidst the surrounding magnificent underground temple.
It was a kayak.
A strangely shaped small kayak, resembling neither the common European exploration dinghies nor the native Egyptian papyrus boats.
Its main body was made of a deep gray unknown material, with a texture similar to hard rubber but more resilient and lightweight.
The entire hull of the boat had no tal components, and the two oars inside the cockpit were also crafted from deeply carbonized black ebony.
And the most eye-catching detail was on its weathered, aged bow: a faded white dye spray-painted a mark that had beco blurred with age but was still recognizable.
It was the I.A.R.C. emblem.
And below the emblem, a line of equally blurred Gothic script initials.
"A· v· H."
"My God..." Julian froze for a mont upon seeing that emblem.
He rushed forward, stroking that "holy relic" from nearly half a century ago.
"It's... it's his boat! A· v· H…… Alexander von Humboldt! This is the expedition craft he used when he entered this temple back then!"
This discovery sent a shockwave through everyone present, a tremor that transcended ti and space.
They were following in the footsteps of a great, lost pioneer.
And this pioneer had very "thoughtfully" left behind an ark for these "successors" decades later, allowing them to continue their journey.
Lin Jie carefully scanned several subtle scratch marks on the kayak's hull. The marks didn't look like physical impacts but more like they had been instantly seared by high energy.
They delayed no longer.
After a simple check confirming the main structure of this kayak was still sturdy, they boarded this "Noah's Ark" carrying the will of the great explorer, one by one.
William, relying on his rich wilderness survival experience, naturally took the seat at the bow, responsible for observation and vigilance.
Julian and Ethan sat in the middle, while Lin Jie chose to sit at the stern to control the direction.
As the ebony oar in William's hand began to paddle slowly, this pioneer's boat made of special insulating material, carrying four 19th-century seekers, departed from the safe harbor and began to paddle deeper into the churning subterranean river.
Their surroundings fell into a heart-palpitating, deathly silence.
The previous trendous roar of the water flow miraculously vanished after their small craft rged with this underground river.
It was as if an invisible soundproof barrier had isolated them from all external noise.
The entire world was reduced to the monotonous, rhythmic "splash-splash" sound of their oars cutting through the viscous, rcury-like black water.
And their own amplified, tense heartbeats.
The light emitted by the handheld carbide lamp seed insignificant in this profound darkness.
The illuminated area only extended a few ters ahead of them;
beyond that was a thick, tangible darkness dense enough to swallow everything.
The massive bronze serpentine statues lining both sides of the river channel, with their classical Greek style, resembled two rows of silent giants. In the fleeting lamplight, they revealed their cold, pharaoh-like majestic faces, only to be swiftly swallowed by the darkness behind, creating a pressurized, eerie cycle.
Ti and space lost all aning in this monotonous and oppressive environnt.
They didn't know how long they had been paddling, nor how far they had ventured.
They only knew the sulfur sll in the air was growing stronger, the river water temperature was becoming colder, and a primal chill from the depths of the abyss was slowly seeping through the thick hull into their bodies.
Ethan, sitting in the middle section of the boat and responsible for guarding the right-side waterway, suddenly sensed sothing extrely subtle and abnormal.
He felt the air seed to have beco sowhat dry and viscous.
The hairs on his arms stood on end uncontrollably.
Ethan's pupils contracted. Instinctively, he turned his gaze towards Julian, sitting diagonally in front of him.
By the dim light of the carbide lamp, he clearly saw several strands of this French scholar's curly hair were floating upward slightly!
"Static electricity?"
This word instantly leaped into Ethan's mind.
The next second, William, who had been sitting perfectly still at the bow, suddenly stiffened his back.
He raised his right hand, spreading his fingers, making a tactical gesture that represented "Highest Level Danger" and "Cease All Action Imdiately" in the I.A.R.C. field operations manual!
The small craft imdiately stopped moving forward.
Julian and Ethan imdiately gripped their weapons, vigilantly scanning the impenetrably dark surroundings, trying to locate the source of the danger.
Lin Jie, however, fixed his gaze on the grotesque armant on William's face, which still emitted a faint glow in the darkness.
"What is it?" Lin Jie asked in a breathy whisper.
"Ahead..." William's voice was pressed extrely low, as if afraid of waking a terrifying existence slumbering in the abyss, "...in that even darker section of the river channel we cannot see..."
What his eyes, equipped with [Zulu's Gaze], saw was not physical darkness, but an "ocean of emotions" violently churning like the eye of a storm on the spiritual level!
"There's a massive spiritual reaction! A spiritual reaction carrying 'violence,' 'hunger,' and 'absolute territorial instinct'!"
The intensity of that spiritual reaction far surpassed that of the hellish Black Dog ford from the gathered resentnt of countless miners they had encountered on the Dartmoor Wilderness!
There was a living creature in this river!
And a horrifyingly terrifying one at that!
The mont William's words fell.
"ZZZZAP!!"
A brilliant, massive electric arc, like a blue lightning bolt fallen from the highest heavens, suddenly shot out from the dark waters ahead of them!
That electric arc was so swift! So blindingly bright!
The mont it appeared, it illuminated the entire dark underground space as bright as day, also allowing everyone to see its shudder-inducing true form.
It was a pure energy body, composed of countless tiny blue currents, with a diater exceeding an adult's waist!
It traced a perfect parabola in mid-air, then, at a speed impossible for the naked eye to follow, accurately struck the nearest giant bronze serpentine statue located on the left side of the river channel!
Imdiately after... ca the ear-shattering thunderous roar!
Before everyone could recover from this sudden, Divine Punishnt-like spectacle.
An even more grand and terrifying chain reaction occurred!
That bronze serpentine statue struck by the blue lightning seed to have been injected with a "demonic soul" from the depths of hell.
Its pharaoh-like eyes, cast from bronze, suddenly lit up with a terrifying blue light!
A powerful, visible current, strong enough to distort the air, wildly surged through the complex "conductors" inside the statue, showcasing ancient Greek engineering wisdom, and poured into the statue's base.
Then, following the massive, hidden bronze tracks laid beneath the turbid river water long ago, it was transmitted in a domino-like chain reaction to the next statue, and the next, and countless statues further away!
"BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!"
In just a few short seconds.
All the hundreds of giant bronze serpentine statues lining both sides of the entire river channel, silent for nearly two millennia, were simultaneously ignited by this terrifying current from the abyss!
Hundreds of pairs of simultaneously lit blue eyes hung like stars of death on both sides of the river of the underworld, dyeing the subterranean world an ominous, eerie blue.
And this was only the beginning.
"ZZZAP! ZZZAP! ZZZAP!"
Lethal blue electric arcs began to madly leap and link between those activated statues!
They swiftly wove an [Electromagnetic Cage] constructed of high-voltage currents in the air above the river channel!
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