Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 110: Greenland’s Shadow (4)

Dragon Raja 3

“It was autumn, ten years ago…” Schneider began slowly.

“Someone with the ID ‘Prince’ posted online, saying his tugboat had hauled strange bronze fragments from the depths of the Greenland Sea. He posted photos, and from them, it was evident that the fragments bore complex ancient characters that perfectly matched the ‘Ice Sea Bronze Pillar Record’ secretly held by the college.

“The Ice Sea Bronze Pillar record is considered a rare relic from the Dragon Raja era. It once stood in a city built by dragons. Dragons used pillars to record history, with a colossal pillar at the city’s center. However, the Ice Sea Bronze Pillar Record was only a portion of a broken pillar, believed to be less than one-third of its original length. It is the most detailed Dragon language artifact humanity has found, chronicling the Dragon Raja’s wars, but we have been unable to decipher it due to the lack of comparable texts. Those characters are just meaningless patterns to us. At that time, I was still a young assistant professor, passionate about decoding Dragon language. I thought that if there was another bronze pillar in the depths of the Greenland Sea, perhaps by comparing the texts, we could decipher the true history of the Dragon Raja. So, I contacted ‘Prince’ anonymously, claiming we were from an ancient script research institution and wished to purchase the fragments.”

“At the time, someone offered an astronomical price, but Prince said he was willing to donate the fragments to a research institution rather than sell them to a merchant. He sent us the fragments without asking for a penny, along with the coordinates where he had fished them up. We immediately dispatched an elite team to that part of the sea, using sonar to scan the seabed. Initially, we hoped to find a gigantic column, but instead, we detected a strange heartbeat signal, right there on the ocean floor.

“The Greenland Ice Sea isn’t as deep as the Japan Trench, and it’s home to large animals like belugas and tiger sharks. So at first, we didn’t think it was a dragon embryo. But we observed it for months, and whatever was on the seabed never moved. We had to shift our attention from the column to this heartbeat signal—it was too strange. If it were a whale or a shark, it should’ve been hunting. If it were some unknown type of giant sea turtle in a dormant state, its heartbeat shouldn’t have been so strong. Someone suggested a startling idea—that it was a dragon embryo. The seabed was its burial ground, and it was undergoing a transformation, a rebirth into an embryo, experiencing a long incubation.

“The idea was bold, but that heartbeat signal was too bizarre, too alluring. We were all captivated by the possibility. Since the Secret Party’s establishment, we had only ever obtained one dragon embryo—a weak one from a third-generation species, its bloodline severely diminished. If we could obtain a powerful embryo, analyzing it would allow us to learn more about these ancient beings.”

“So you decided to dive?” Manstein asked.

“No, we weren’t that reckless. Since everything was just speculation, the safest way before drawing a definite conclusion was, of course, to send a remotely operated underwater vehicle to investigate. But every time the ROV approached that seabed, it would lose control, and when we retrieved it, we found the circuits inexplicably burned out. This was further evidence that the thing on the seabed was a dragon embryo. According to legend, ancient dragons create a protective field during incubation, and anyone entering that field would experience lethal hallucinations. Biologically speaking, hallucinations are ultimately caused by stimulation of the cerebral cortex, and electric currents are the easiest way to stimulate it.”

“So the embryo’s field burned out the ROV’s circuits?” Manstein said.

“That’s what we thought, but we still weren’t ready to send people down. If the embryo’s field did burn out the ROV’s circuits, then its stimulation of the cerebral cortex would be terrifying. Although my students all had ‘A’-level bloodlines, I couldn’t be sure they could resist the embryo’s field. In hallucinations induced by dragons, only hybrids with the strongest wills can maintain their self-awareness. Any crack in their mental defenses, and the hallucinations would crush them. This has been recorded in the Secret Party’s archives,” Schneider said. “But then the School Board intervened, ordering us to dive as soon as possible and confirm the target. Their reasoning was that we couldn’t afford to wait for the embryo to hatch—we had to act, even if it meant taking risks.”

“The dive was ordered by the School Board?”

“Yes. Today, they sent you to stop Project Dragon Embryo, but back then, they were the ones behind the Greenland project.”

“Under pressure, we drafted a diving plan. We purchased the most advanced diving bells from Germany at the time, which were all-metal diving devices. Metal is an excellent conductor, capable of forming a static shield that should reduce the impact of the embryo’s field. Each member of the dive team was wrapped in a fine metal mesh and took nerve sedatives. They were the best hybrids we had, and we believed that once fully equipped, they could withstand the embryo’s influence. Plus, the dive team had six members. If one person got into trouble, the other five could forcibly evacuate him. To eliminate the dangerous embryo, we equipped the dive team with custom underwater rifles loaded with bullets made from the Philosopher’s Stone—a deadly weapon against dragons.

“Although they were on a dangerous mission, the students were excited. Young people are fearless, and they had a chance to get close to a dragon embryo. It was like being allowed into the divine realm—who wouldn’t be thrilled?

“The weather was unexpectedly good on the day of the dive. The six-person dive team descended in three diving bells while I provided support from the ice surface. At first, everything went smoothly—the ocean current was calm, marine life was calm, and they even saw belugas. But at a depth of 170 meters, the dive team leader suddenly shouted in excitement over the comms—they said they saw a door. This was very strange, as the seabed in that area was 300 meters deep, and they were only at 170 meters, meaning they were still 130 meters above the bottom. Visibility on the seabed is very poor. If they saw a door, was it suspended in the water?

“I was on high alert, worried they had already entered the embryo’s field and started hallucinating. They were excitedly discussing the door over the comms, which was against protocol. They shouldn’t have been chatting like that in the comm channel—communication underwater must be brief and clear to avoid misunderstandings. I yelled at them not to approach the door. I didn’t know if the door was real, but my instincts told me that door should not be opened. They completely ignored my calls. All I could hear was their rapid breathing mixed with strange noises, like someone reciting something from the depths of a well, sighing as they spoke. Then the leader exclaimed, ‘The door is opening!’ and then suddenly shouted, ‘No! Don’t go in!’ Gunfire erupted, which meant the dive team had opened fire with their underwater rifles. There were also splashing and breathing apparatus sounds, indicating the team had exited their diving bells and were fighting something. The situation was chaotic—people were yelling in the channel, but I couldn’t make out anything due to electrical interference.

“I had initially instructed the dive team never to leave the diving bells, as the static shield inside was their most important protection. But why they disobeyed me has never been fully explained. Five minutes later, all communications were cut off, and we never received any more signals from the depths of the ice sea. I decided to forcibly recover the diving bells, which were tethered by safety lines to the icebreaker. But when we pulled back the safety lines, we found they had been cut—with a diving knife. From the fiber at the cut, it was clear it was one of the diving knives we had issued to the team. They had cut themselves free.

“I was desperate and decided to dive down myself to rescue them. There were no more diving bells available, but I was confident in my physical abilities—I could dive to 300 meters without equipment. I made it to 170 meters in one breath, arriving at the area where the incident had occurred, but I saw no door, no bodies. The water was clear—there wasn’t even a trace of blood, yet I had clearly heard gunfire over the comms. The water temperature around me had dropped below zero—supercooled water, which would freeze quickly if disturbed. Suddenly, I sensed something was behind me, silently swimming alongside me!”

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