It was precisely as my hand settled upon the forehead of the giant insect that the surface of its brow immediately began to shift.

Several translucent, blue-glowing appendages, much like feelers, slowly emerged from the insect's head.

Then, those things writhed, growing longer and longer, drawing close to my face.

Immobilized, I could only squint at the tentacles, cold sweat beading on my brow with tension.

The feelers moved like some bizarre octopus, constantly stroking my cheeks—a sensation slick and cold, punctuated by sharp, prickling pains like low-voltage shocks that made my eyes twitch and raised gooseflesh across my entire body.

But what happened next was even more devastating.

After the tentacles had stroked my cheeks a few times, two of them swiftly burrowed toward my mouth.

Caught completely off guard, and utterly unable to move, I could only allow the two feelers to extend into my mouth, forcing my jaw wide open.

Then I felt the other tentacles also slide into my mouth, tracing the path down my esophagus, drilling toward my stomach.

A wave of nausea hit me, and I retched several times, only to find my consciousness beginning to fade.

My vision plunged into absolute blackness after three seconds, and after an indeterminate amount of time, a woman’s voice echoed in my mind.

“We… mean… you no harm. Please look…”

Hearing this, my awareness slowly returned.

Look at what? I thought, and then I slowly opened my eyes.

The moment I saw my surroundings clearly, I gasped in shock.

I appeared to be floating above the surface of the sea.

The wind was tremendous, and the sky was a deep, oppressive black, like spilled ink.

Countless waves were forming on the distant ocean, gradually rising, whipped higher and higher by the gale until they reached heights of ten meters or more, with the shortest still being seven or eight meters tall.

These colossal waves moved slowly, like massive specters patrolling the River Styx.

“Is this… the end of the world?” I murmured softly, finding the sight almost unbelievable.

But no one answered my question.

I saw a wave, easily fifteen or sixteen meters high, surging toward me—a sky-obscuring black shadow pressing down with palpable menace. Countless spray droplets shot out, accompanied by a deafening, roaring sound, robbing my limbs of all strength.

“Run!” Instinct screamed, urging me to move my feet and dodge the onslaught, yet my body felt as if it were cast in lead, refusing to budge. Glancing down at my feet, I realized I wasn't standing on land or aboard a vessel; I was barefoot, suspended in the air above the sea.

As astonishment struck me, the giant wave crashed down in an all-encompassing deluge.

I squeezed my eyes shut, and my vision instantly went black, yet there was no jarring impact of the wave hitting me, not even the chilling dampness of being soaked.

I paused, trying to process what was happening, when suddenly the darkness dissolved, and the massive wave seemed to pass right through my body.

Suppressing the violent palpitations in my chest, I looked up again.

The sun in the sky was almost entirely obscured by dark clouds, leaving only a faint white disc.

Everything around me was dark, made even more indistinct by the mist churned up by the titanic waves.

Logically, visibility should have been near zero, yet a colossal volcano, rearing up from the sea in the distance, was erupting, spewing immense and brilliant flames.

I cannot adequately describe the horror of this eruption; it transcended anything a human mind could imagine, a spectacle more terrifying than any science fiction film had ever depicted.

The giant volcano acted like an enormous cannon aimed at the heavens, blasting mushroom-cloud-like fireballs skyward.

The fireballs emitted a monstrous roar, slowly ascending until, just as they neared the cloud layer, they detonated, sending down a rain of smaller fireballs, the size of meteorites, trailing thick smoke—initiating a cataclysmic firestorm.

Innumerable volcanic eruptions combined to forge this overwhelming rain of fire.

I craned my neck to look up. Amidst the howling gale, vast quantities of white volcanic ash, mixed with what looked like snow, drifted down, blanketing the sea in a hazy, ash-gray quilt.

I held out my hand, attempting to catch these feather-like particles of ash, only to watch them pass straight through my palm, an utterly bizarre phenomenon.

It was then that a blinding white light pierced the sky.

This light was as pure as an angel's unsullied robe, piercing down from the vast firmament, seemingly intent on sucking all the seawater away, instilling a profound sense of dread.

When I discerned the source of this beam, I involuntarily sucked in a sharp breath and whispered, “What in God’s name is that?”

Within the pitch-black clouds, an immeasurably vast, elliptical shadow was intermittently visible.

Given the thickness of the cloud cover, anything behind it should have been obscured. But this object was too enormous; every time there was a gap between the clouds, I could glimpse its edge. Its sheer bulk occupied nearly half the sky, making the atmosphere even darker and the wind fiercer.

My jaw practically dropped to the floor as I stared intently, realizing the thing was not entirely static; it was slowly resolving into focus.

A sudden thought struck me: was this colossal mass about to collide with Earth? Wouldn't that shatter the planet?

Just as I considered this, I noticed a change occurring within the white beam cast down from the center of this massive, disc-shaped object.

Looking closely, I saw a smaller disc rapidly descending within that shaft of light.

This much smaller disc was still considerable in size, descending with a deafening, strange sound, trailing a long plume of fire created by its friction with the air.

Before I could process what was happening, the distant ocean erupted with a colossal boom, sending a wave seventy or eighty meters high rocketing skyward.

That towering surge triggered a chain reaction; I saw seven or eight successive waves, each fifty to sixty meters high, rushing toward me.

Then came the impact of the waves, and the world plunged into darkness once more.

This time, the wave did not pass through me, for I waited a long time, and the darkness remained absolute.

While confusion held me, several harsh, grating bird cries suddenly pierced my ears.

Then, my vision slowly brightened again.

This time, before me lay an expansive primordial forest.

All around me grew countless strange plants, requiring ten men to encircle them, reaching heights of thirty or forty meters.

What made these plants strange was that despite their immense stature, their bark was incredibly smooth, glossy black, and patterned with scales like a serpent's.

Any single one of these scales was as large as my own palm.

I looked up toward the canopy; the treetop formed an umbrella shape, crowned with dense, enormous leaves.

As a paleontologist, though I had never seen such a tree in person, I had encountered it countless times in research materials.

This was the Jurassic period, two hundred million years ago, home to giant ferns that dominated the Earth’s flora.

With a touch of excitement, I placed my hand on the nearest fern, hoping to feel the texture of this beautiful, ancient species, but where my hand touched, there was no sensation at all.

I sighed in disappointment, then suddenly a realization dawned on me.

Everything I had witnessed in the previous location must have been a vision of Earth in its nascent stages—a time of only massive volcanoes, magma, hurricanes, and tidal waves; an era devoid of life.

If that colossal disc was indeed the spacecraft of the so-called Atlanteans, then two things became clear: first, the history of Atlantean civilization was far older than humanity knew; and second, their arrival during the planet's savage infancy might suggest they had played some role in the genesis of Earth's biology.