Chapter 364: The Beginning of the Crisis

"So, does that mean the threat from the Gaia entity has decreased? If the real danger isn’t coming from Gaia... then what is it?"

Jason racked his brains, desperately trying to recall any overlooked intelligence.

Suddenly, several heavily armed soldiers burst into the conference room, their faces pale with anxiety. High-level strategic meetings were heavily guarded, and unless it was an absolute emergency, no one dared to interrupt.

Moments later, Marcus, the tactical team leader, sprinted into the room. The sudden intrusion instantly captured everyone’s attention, and the atmosphere grew incredibly tense.

Marcus rushed to Jason’s side, whispering something urgently in his ear. Hearing the report, Jason flinched in shock, all the color draining from his face!

But this was no time to panic. He forced his racing heart to calm down and addressed the room. "Gentlemen, our ground forces have captured a new batch of natives and extracted critical new intelligence. Please take a look at this."

Hearing the underlying anxiety in Jason’s voice, a heavy sense of foreboding settled over the room.

Marcus hurried to the central console and tapped in a few commands. An interrogation video popped up on the main holographic screen. It showed a well-dressed native man with wide, manic eyes, babbling excitedly in his alien tongue.

While a few civilians had managed to seek refuge in the massive underground fallout shelters, the vast majority of the survivors were former high-ranking government officials. This cowardly "leaders go first" mentality earned a collective look of disgust from the Federation officials.

"What is he saying?" a senior diplomat asked.

Marcus, still panting from his sprint, used trembling fingers to forward the translated transcript to everyone’s personal tablets. "He claims that his nation’s satellite network once recorded a flying saucer rising from the ocean and flying directly into space!"

A UFO?!

The term struck the room like a thunderbolt. The mere mention of an unidentified flying saucer was enough to instantly trigger everyone’s deepest fears.

Was there another alien faction hiding on this planet? The implication was absolutely terrifying.

A starship launching from the ocean depths meant there could be an entirely different, highly advanced civilization lurking at the bottom of the sea. Could this unknown civilization be the true source of the impending crisis? Even Jason felt a deep, chilling unease.

Stunned by this revelation, the Senior Scientists sat in stunned silence. Had this hidden civilization been watching the Federation’s forces this entire time? What were their intentions?

A moment later, the room erupted into chaos. The frantic shouts and debates were so loud they drowned out what Jason was about to say.

Left with no other choice, Jason slammed his fist onto the table. "Quiet! Everyone, silence!" he roared. "Let Marcus finish his report!"

He immediately turned and fired a barrage of questions at Marcus. "When and where did this UFO appear? What was its size? Did the interrogation yield any specific details?"

"It happened roughly twelve years ago!" Marcus quickly replied. "The launch point was located in the southern hemisphere of Planet Dige... likely somewhere in this oceanic grid. I’ve just forwarded the detailed coordinates to your consoles."

"The UFO only appeared briefly, captured for a mere few seconds by a military satellite, so it didn’t cause widespread panic at the time..."

"Furthermore, the native civilization was already tearing itself apart in global chaos due to the Gaia entity. The government was desperately trying to survive and had zero resources to investigate an extraterrestrial sighting. Consequently, very few people ever learned about it."

Marcus paused to steady his racing heart. When he had first heard the report, he had found it equally unbelievable.

He pointed to the native on the screen. "This prisoner used to be a high-ranking military general, which is why he had known this classified intelligence... As for the size, he estimates the saucer was roughly two hundred meters in diameter. By our standards, that’s a relatively small spacecraft."

Jason felt his pulse pounding against his temples. Frowning, he pulled up a planetary geographic map on the central console.

The geography of Planet Dige was fairly straightforward. The major continents were clustered in the Northern Hemisphere, while the Southern Hemisphere was almost entirely an endless ocean, dotted only by a few barren, uninhabited islands.

Because the Southern Hemisphere was completely isolated, shipping lanes rarely passed through those waters. It would be incredibly easy for a two-hundred-meter spacecraft to remain hidden in the deep ocean without ever being discovered.

A UFO that launched into space twelve years ago... What did it all mean?

"Do we have satellite photos of the craft? Exact launch coordinates?" Jason asked, his tone urgent.

Marcus shook his head sharply. "Negative, Commander!"

"All the original satellite data was lost during their global war. The server mainframes were completely vaporized by nuclear strikes! According to the general’s memory, the craft looked like a massive sphere of light that breached the ocean surface and shot directly into orbit... We do not have the exact launch coordinates!"

"Currently, our only intelligence is based entirely on this prisoner’s verbal testimony. All written records are gone."

Hearing this unbelievable report, the room erupted into murmurs again as the officers threw out wild theories.

Suddenly, Alex, a prominent member of the Federation’s strategic think tank, gasped as a terrifying possibility clicked in his mind. The realization made his heart race so fast he practically vaulted out of his chair!

At that exact moment, he recalled a fragment of a native religious myth they had analyzed weeks prior. The ancient text went something like this:

[Thirty thousand years ago, a brilliant white sphere of fire descended from the heavens, tearing across the northern sky with a deafening roar.]

[It was the divine will of the Sea God, solemnly watching over the chosen people of this world.]

[Emperor, commoner, and slave alike fell to their knees in awe, for all were equal under the Sea God’s gaze.]

[Half a day later, the burning star plunged into the southern oceans, returning to the deep... for all things in the universe must eventually return to the sea.]

When the research teams first translated that myth, no one paid it much attention. They simply assumed it was a historical account of a large meteorite streaking through the atmosphere, which the primitive natives had predictably worshipped as a divine miracle.

The scientists had subconsciously dismissed the story. Ancient religious texts were always filled with hyperbolic rhetorical devices; it was impossible to take every single myth literally.

But now that Alex brought the specific wording of the myth to the table... the pieces fit together far too perfectly.

"Could that ancient myth actually be describing... this exact UFO?" Austin asked, his voice filled with incredulity.

"You’re saying this starship landed in the ocean thirty thousand years ago?" Another officer chimed in. "It’s entirely possible. It breached the atmosphere, flew across the sky, and was mistaken for a divine miracle by the primitive natives! It fits perfectly!"

The conference room exploded into animated debate as the officers scrambled to uncover the truth. Several analysts immediately began frantically cross-referencing other native religious texts, looking for more hidden clues.