Chapter 261The DragonGP’s treads rattled against the fractured terrain as the storm parted enough to reveal the full enormity of Olympus Mons. The vehicle slowed instinctively, engines humming a low, reverent note. Even after all the warnings, all the impossible phenomena they had witnessed, nothing had prepared them for this.It wasn’t just a mountain. It was a colossus. A monolith of red stone and crystalline veins stretching skyward like a jagged crown. Its peaks were lost in haze, a blur against the Martian sun, and its sheer scale was impossible to quantify—Mount Everest and Kilimanjaro added together tenfold would still pale in comparison. Every jag, every crevice, every vein of glowing mineral etched across the slopes screamed of engineering beyond human comprehension.Jackson’s hands trembled as he raised the camera, snapping photo after photo, even though his memory cards were already full. “I… I can’t stop. Every shot looks wrong. The scale… you can’t fit it in a single fra

The DragonGP came to a slow, deliberate stop on a terrace of violet-glowing crystal, the pulsing lattice beneath their treads vibrating softly like a heartbeat slowing after a crescendo. The view ahead was staggering—endless geometric formations spiraling upward and downward, towers that pierced the mist above, and terraces that vanished into shadows below. Olympus Mons had revealed only a fraction of itself, yet even this glimpse was enough to overwhelm.Jackson lowered the camera, breathless. “I… I need a moment. Every inch we go, the scale just… expands. I’ve been taking photos non-stop, and I don’t think a thousand frames would even begin to capture this.”Emily’s eyes stayed glued to her console, fingers dancing over the controls as harmonic readings spiked again. “We’re at a convergence point. Signals indicate that multiple layers of the lattice are interacting here. If we proceed downward—or deeper into the inner chambers—the energy flows will change, and not in predictable way