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Susan Stone was so excited because if they could discover any useful information, whether about the origin of species or planetary evolution, it would surely shake the entire academic World.
Correspondingly, the stock price of Doom Group would skyrocket to the heavens!
By then, all personnel who had directly participated in the Quantum Gate Project would see their net worth surge, achieving both fame and fortune.
However, for Victor Von Doom at this moment, things like stock prices and academia were all irrelevant.
He only cared if he could find a way to rescue his mother's soul in that space!
Therefore, he had to go there himself to find out.
Staring at the mysterious Shadow enveloped by an unknown light at the end of the picture in the lower-left corner of the large screen, Victor Von Doom impatiently ordered:
"Alright, have them bring back the exploration device and that monkey!"
Susan Stone nodded, then relayed the command.
"Return sequence will begin in 5 seconds; relevant personnel, please put on your glasses..."
"Five, four, three, two, one!"
Accompanied by a dazzling blue light, the exploration device and the hibernation pod reappeared out of thin air on the launch pad.
Victor Von Doom asked with concern, "Quick, check on the monkey! How is it?"
"All vital signs are normal; our experimental subject 01 is in excellent physical condition."
Susan Stone threw herself into Victor Von Doom's arms, cheering excitedly:
"It's a success, Victor, you succeeded... The first organic life form experiment has been safely completed!!"
Watching the staff carry out the chimpanzee from the hibernation pod—the animal either ecstatic or terrified, flailing its limbs—Victor Von Doom's heart instantly stirred, and he murmured with burning eyes:
"Next... it's my turn."
But whether it was an illusion or not, he always felt that the chimpanzee seemed much older than before the transmission?
Could it be that the time flow in that dimension was different from that of Earth?
Never mind, that wasn't important!
Victor Von Doom gently pushed away the gesticulating Susan Stone in his arms, straightened his expensive suit, then stepped out of the control room and addressed all the staff present with a passionate voice:
"Gentlemen, ladies, you have not disappointed my expectations; the achievements created by the Quantum Gate Project will soon shock the World,
And all your efforts and sweat will receive their due rewards and praise!!"
"Here, I express my sincere gratitude for your contributions... Now, everyone, hurry to the catering department and celebrate properly; the staff there have already prepared a grand party for you!!"
In terms of treating his meritorious subordinates, Victor Von Doom's style was very similar to Karl's; he was never stingy.
After all, both possessed the business acumen of top capitalists!
After everyone dispersed, Victor Von Doom approached Reed Richards and pointed a finger upwards.
"Congratulations, Reed, my big toy in space is now yours."
"Next, Susan will arrange all the details for your launch... So, I wish you success!!"
With that, he ignored the hand the other party extended, and like a Victor, he put his arm around Susan Stone's waist and strode away amidst a triumphant laugh.
...
Two days later.
Inside the Quantum Gate Project laboratory.
"Mr. Victor, Ms. Susan and Dr. Reed's space shuttle has just successfully launched and is expected to arrive at the space station in six and a half hours."
Male assistant Matt helped Victor Von Doom adjust his spacesuit while earnestly persuading him:
"Sir, you really don't need to risk going into that space yourself; you can leave such matters to your subordinates."
"What if... I mean, what if something unexpected happens to you? That would be an incalculable huge loss for the entire Doom Group... No, it should be said, for all of humanity."
"Don't worry, nothing will happen, Tzeentch... cough, I mean, the Gods will protect me!"
Victor Von Doom confidently patted his assistant's shoulder.
Although he had a wild night with Susan last night, he was still full of vigor today.
As for Susan going to space with her old flame Reed Richards, and whether their old feelings would rekindle, cuckolding him, he wasn't worried at all.
Because even if the two of them really got together, it wouldn't be a big deal.
For Victor Von Doom, his career always came first!
If anything was more important than his career, it was how to rescue his mother's soul from hell.
And women, to him, were merely a little embellishment to spice up his boring life... To put it bluntly, Susan Stone was just a plaything he could discard at any time.
Although Susan could always bring him a different kind of freshness in bed.
But honestly, being with the same woman for too long... really gets boring!
So he wished Reed Richards could help him take over and clean up.
After getting dressed, Victor Von Doom impatiently walked onto the launch pad with three accompanying researchers.
Click—
The capsule-shaped hibernation pod's hatch closed tightly, then locked from both inside and out.
After a ten-second countdown, accompanied by a dazzling blue light, the detector first vibrated violently, then returned to calmness.
"Are we there?"
Victor Von Doom cautiously opened the hatch and first observed the surrounding environment, finding that although the landing spot this time seemed to have a slight deviation from the positions seen in the previous two experiments.
It was still that Planet with an extremely barren surface.
He was so certain because, at the end of his vision, he saw the special temple that had appeared in the reflection of the Fire of Fate.
The sky of this Planet was covered by continuous dark clouds, and in the far distance, there seemed to be a large area of severe thunderstorms; only occasionally, through breaks in the clouds, would wisps of light similar to sunlight scatter down.
It was in this dim environment that the distant temple, emitting bursts of fluorescent green light, appeared particularly "conspicuous"!
"Oh, Mr. Victor, we succeeded!"
The three accompanying researchers seemed not to have noticed the anomaly in the distance; they excitedly took various detection instruments from the detector and began to sample and analyze the surrounding soil and the air composition of this Planet.
"Mr. Victor, I think you should come and see this; there seems to be some kind of energy beneath the surface here?"
Soon, a researcher responsible for sampling let out an exclamation.
Everyone quickly gathered to check and found that beneath the soil layer he had just drilled open, there was a pool of liquid energy emitting an unknown fluorescent green light.
Victor Von Doom tentatively moved his palm slowly closer to the green liquid energy in the pit.
But before he could even truly touch it, the green liquid energy already began to pulsate rhythmically.
It looked like some kind of special luminous organism with life.
"This thing actually reacts to physical stimulation, like some kind of neural impulse!"
Victor Von Doom had never seen such peculiar energy before and immediately became interested.
And another researcher, looking at the data displayed on the energy detector in his hand, exclaimed in disbelief: "My goodness, it's incredible! These substances actually... have absolutely no energy loss?!"
"Is it some new type of energy?"
A hint of joy appeared on Victor Von Doom's face.
If it was truly as he suspected, then they had really struck it rich this time.
It was even highly probable that this new type of energy would propel Earth's industry and technology, leading to an early entry into a brand new era of civilization!
Victor Von Doom forcefully suppressed the excitement in his heart and redirected his gaze to the distant alien temple, which also emitted a fluorescent green light.
As if in the darkness, a voice was calling him to go there and explore.
After a moment of thought, he raised his hand and pointed towards the temple, saying: "The energy seems to be all converging there. One person come with me to check it out; perhaps we can discover something in the ruins of that alien civilization!"
"What ruins?"
The three researchers looked in the direction he pointed, but only saw a huge Shadow enveloped by a fluorescent green mist.
"Based on its scale, that should be a mountain, right?!"
Victor Von Doom, however, did not explain much.
If he hadn't seen the temple in the Fire of Fate, he would have probably ignored it like these people.
So, at his insistence, a researcher accompanied him toward the temple.
It took the two of them over an hour to successfully arrive at a dilapidated but magnificent giant temple.
The temple was at least a hundred meters tall, with a rectangular colonnade in front, but for some unknown reason, whether war or something else, the right side of the colonnade had largely collapsed, turning into a ruin.
But the left half still had 9 giant stone pillars, about 50 meters high and 5 meters in diameter at the base.
The stone pillars stood in three rows, defiantly in front of the portico, supporting the uncollapsed portion.
The main body of the temple behind it was roughly circular, topped with a hemispherical dome.
And in the center of the dome, there was an obelisk-shaped structure made of some black stone, reaching straight into the sky, estimated to be at least three hundred meters tall.
Like the colonnade in front, the right half of the main temple body had also largely collapsed.
But from the remaining parts, it was still clear that the overall style of this building was extremely similar to the Hall of All Gods (temple) in the northern circular plaza of Rome.
Humans standing before this magnificent alien temple seemed as tiny as ants.
Victor Von Doom couldn't help but marvel at the level of civilization that must have existed on this Planet to build such a magnificent and grand structure.
However, he quickly suppressed his curiosity and shock, ignoring his companion who was still gasping in surprise, as if discovering a new continent and falling into ecstasy.
Following the guidance of the faint "calling sound" in his mind, he walked alone into the temple through the uncollapsed section.
The collapse inside the temple was far more severe than imagined.
The huge space, which should have been as spacious as a football field, was largely covered by various architectural debris.
Victor Von Doom could only painstakingly search for a path that could continue forward.
But during this process, he keenly noticed that the uncollapsed walls beside him were covered with huge shell craters and deep scratches left by what seemed to be blades or claws.
It seemed that a very fierce battle had taken place here previously.
Could this be a Planet abandoned by aliens?
But if so, how could the green energy beneath the surface be explained?
Surely no civilization would voluntarily abandon such a completely inexhaustible energy source?
After a while longer, after enduring hardships along the way, Victor Von Doom finally successfully arrived beneath the Black Stone Obelisk.
Within the limited range, he carefully examined it with the lights on his spacesuit.
He found that these huge black creations seemed to have grown directly from the ground, as he saw no reinforcing base at the bottom.
How could a three-hundred-meter-tall building not have a foundation?
This clearly goes against architectural common sense!
Could the foundation be buried deeper beneath the temple?
Victor Von Doom did not delve too deeply into this question, turning instead to observe the dense, rune-like alien inscriptions carved on the surface of the Black Stone Obelisk.
Although he could not understand these alien inscriptions, he still felt a mysterious power emanating from them.
"What you want is there!!"
Just then, the voice he regarded as "divine revelation" in the unseen realm sounded again, pointing Victor Von Doom in a direction.
Victor Von Doom did not hesitate, immediately walking toward the area to the right of the Black Stone Obelisk that was buried by rubble, and digging deeper with both hands.
"Oh? This is... a logbook?"
A moment later, Victor Von Doom excavated a special "book" made of metal from the ruins.
Although the entire book only had about ten pages, it looked quite thick!
The reason it was called a "book" was because it was filled with unknown alien text and several vivid dynamic illustrations composed of countless tiny and precise mechanical gears.
However, Victor Von Doom confirmed that the text in this "book" was not the same as the inscriptions on the surface of the Black Stone Obelisk.
And through the content of those few illustrations, Victor Von Doom roughly deduced that it seemed to record how a creature with horns, resembling a demon, invaded this Planet.
But in the last illustration, there was a scene of refining a demon into a kind of green energy.
Σ(⊙▽⊙"a???
Wait a minute?
Could it be that the green energy beneath the ground earlier was formed by refining demons?
Victor Von Doom was startled by his own guess.
After all, he had only heard of demons "eating" people, and had never heard of anyone being able to use demons as an energy source!
However, if that were truly the case, then the characteristic of this fluorescent green energy having no loss would seem to make sense.
After all, that's not ordinary energy!
"Damn it, if only I could read the alien text in this 'book'..."
The more Victor Von Doom looked, the more impatient he became, urgently wanting to know the true content of the "book."
Because this not only concerned the true origin of the fluorescent green energy outside and whether it could be used safely.
It also involved whether he could successfully rescue his mother's soul in the future!
That's right.
If possible, Victor Von Doom would definitely go to hell himself, and while rescuing his mother's soul, he would refine Mephisto and all the demons under his command into this green energy!!
Σ(⊙▽⊙"a!!!
Suddenly, Victor Von Doom thought of the magical Tzeentch's Blessing.
Perhaps he could learn this alien language through Tzeentch's Blessing?!
After all, the Fire of Fate before was "fast-tracked" like that!
However.
Just as he was about to try it immediately, he suddenly heard the slightly anxious calls of his companions from outside.
"Mr. Victor, are you alright in there?"
"Um... the weather in this area has suddenly turned bad, and a thunderstorm will probably arrive soon. For safety, should we return to Earth first?!"
Victor Von Doom's face showed a hint of annoyance at being disturbed.
But then he reluctantly replied, "I'm fine, I'll be out in a moment."
...
An hour later, Victor Von Doom and the researcher successfully returned the way they came before the severe thunderstorm arrived.
"Mr. Victor, it's so good that you're alright!!"
The other two waiting by the detector were already pacing like ants on a hot pan, fearing that something might happen to them.
No, it should be said that they were more afraid that they wouldn't be able to return to Earth normally due to the interference of the severe thunderstorm!
And, whether it was an illusion or not, they always felt that something was strange here.
The longer they stayed, the more unconsciously panicked they felt.
It was as if countless invisible eyes were quietly observing their every move.
Making one feel a chill down their spine inadvertently.
"Is the sampling work complete?"
"Don't worry, Mr. Victor, we've completed sampling for air, soil, minerals, and that new green energy!"
"Good, then let's go back!"
Then the four re-entered the detector's hibernation pods, and then used the built-in transmission system to contact the laboratory.
Then the return system successfully activated.
Accompanied by a dazzling blue light, they returned to the Quantum Gate Project laboratory.
However.
Just after Victor Von Doom and the other three left.
In the boundless desolate Planet, a violent red fluctuation suddenly surged in the space.
Immediately after, the scene suddenly changed, transforming into a special maze with countless entrances and exits!!