Each side stubbornly held their own points of view, and finally, all eyes fell back on Star Lord and Rocket Raccoon perched on his shoulder. Quill sighed, glanced at Wanda, glanced at Riley, and said:
"Honestly, for me, whether or not we can bring back an investigation report isn't that important. But I think we must figure out what happened here."
"Without a detailed report, do you think S.H.I.E.L.D. or NASA would give up continuing to send people here? And without strength like yours, how many investigating agents or scientists would be able to leave here alive?"
Quill's words hit close to home for Riley. His expression started to waver because he knew Quill had a point. If they returned empty-handed, those coveting the treasure wouldn't cease their investigations.
Even if these superpower users repeatedly emphasized how dangerous it was here, there would be powers continuously sending people to their death here. This was something none of the Spider Men wanted to see.
Seeing Riley wavering, Wanda also softened her tone. She said, "We don't have to rush in recklessly. We can use magic or some sort of mechanical detection to explore first. If there's danger, we'll request backup on the spot."
"If the danger is too great for us to handle, then naturally, someone capable would come to handle it." Jarvis added, "Whether it's ordinary people or mutants, no one wants to see any uncontrollable danger on Earth. We are not a lone force."
Riley let out a deep sigh. The rhythm of his Spider-sense remained unrelenting, but he could only compromise. He lowered his head and said, "Fine, but we'll need to conduct at least two rounds of checks before advancing."
Quill walked up and patted Riley's shoulder, pulling a set of equipment out of his travel bag. It was a mini floating saucer and a monitoring screen.
Quill snapped his fingers and said, "This is a Skrull Empire surplus military item that Yondu bought from the black market. Even bathed in the energy of a star's explosion, it can hang on a little while, enough to send data back."
With that, he remotely controlled the mini saucer to fly toward the location of the sphere. Everyone gathered around to watch the images on the monitoring screen. The screen was pitch-black, showing nothing. After flying for a while, the mini saucer neared the sphere and then couldn't go any further.
"It looks like this is just a lamp?" Quill said, somewhat puzzled, "Apart from giving off light, no strange energies were detected. There was nothing behind it either, just an ordinary passageway. Perhaps we've been a bit oversensitive."
Seeing this, Wanda walked up and took several deep breaths, striving to concentrate. Her red energy, like a ribbon, spread forward. The faint red light illuminated the passageway, but they still didn't find the monster they'd imagined in the passageway.
Upon getting close to the light, the red power coiled around it, but it didn't trigger any strange reactions. The point of light hung there, like a large light bulb.
"Hey, I thought it would stir up a bigger event." Rocket Raccoon extended his claw to touch his nose, saying, "This might just be an alien light bulb. We're just overthinking it, convinced there's a monster lurking behind it.".
"The passageway behind it seems pretty long. There might be some rooms or whatever further ahead. I think we need to hurry up."
Since no monsters rushed out of the darkness, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Riley also shrugged and said, "Alright, I was being overly nervous and oversensitive. Let's go."
"Are you sure about that mystic sense thing?" Rocket questioned.
"It's not mystic." Riley frowned, seemingly unsure of how to explain, but he'd grown used to this sort of sensation. Most people didn't trust such senses, thinking them to be illusions that arise during times of mental stress.
Truthfully, Riley himself wasn't entirely certain if his Spider-sense was accurate. Or one could say, the genuine Spider-sense might be accurate, but he was, after all, a clone. It was hard to say if there might be a malfunction.
After multiple checks confirmed the absence of danger up ahead, Riley did his best to block out the buzzing in his head and followed the team forward.
But as the long, narrow passageway gradually grew smaller in their view, two enormous skulls disappeared into the darkness. Strange retracted his gaze, turning to Stark to say, "They've made a foolish decision."
But Stark seemed lost in thought. He asked, "Have you heard of a deep-sea fish called an 'anglerfish'?"
"Of course."
"People always say the lightbulb on an anglerfish's head isn't a very clever trap, and the only ones who fall for it are stupid fish."
"But if we look at it from a different angle, humans, living on land, must have a higher degree of visual evolution than deep-sea fish. So from our standpoint, we can't understand why some fish only see the lightbulb and not the terrifying giant maw behind it."
Stark's eyes flickered with a glint. He said in a low voice, "Perhaps at times, humans are those foolish fish. In some aspects, we haven't evolved enough to clearly see the trap behind the lightbulb."
Then, the two men's gaze once again fell upon the figures on the map. By now, the Scarlet Witch, the figure at the front, was near the glowing lightbulb.
"No, wait! Wanda, don't go!!!"
Suddenly, a roar echoed down the passageway. Riley clutched his head, violently shaking it as if possessed. The intense alarm from his Spider-sense could not be ignored in any way. But it was too late.
The entire passageway started to shake violently. A bright light swallowed up all darkness, yet light did not come, only endless falling.
The previously bright sphere suddenly became a tiny dark hole, and the storm of power, like a sea vortex, sucked in all the debris, spiraling them into the lightless abyss.
The pattern formed by the vortex and the small, dark hole in the middle made an image like a pupil. The gray eye blinked, and Shiller sitting at the desk kneaded his tense wrist.
At that moment, another small figure jumped onto the desk. Spider-Pig sat on the edge of the desk and looked at Shiller, asking, "What's special about the cosmos that the teleportation gate from the Spider Totem you had me open leads to?"
"Special? Nothing special." Shiller shook his head and smiled, then added, "...except that it's particularly dangerous."