Falling into the Abyss

Waking up in advance was not a good experience. Ethan’s consciousness felt like it was grabbed by claws and torn from the chaos of his dreams. He had recently had terrifying dreams before waking up, mostly about falling from somewhere high or drowning. In one of his dreams, he had been caught by a huge eyeless eel with a terrifying appearance. It dragged him into the deep sea, where all he could inhale was the smelly seawater. It poured into his lungs, and then he felt his lungs burst one after another. When he woke up, he felt as though he was still suffocating and spasmed, sucking in a breath of cold air with an expression of horror.

His body was still wet. It was evident that the freezing liquid had just retreated, their bodies forced out of slumber without being warmed up first. He looked around in a daze and saw Samuel next to him, holding onto the edge of his sleeping capsule while gasping for breath. Horror was painted on his face. Not far away, other nonhumans continued to wake up, but there were no medical robots nearby waiting to check on their physical condition.

Something was wrong. This was definitely not a standard wake-up procedure.

Ethan also noticed that the capsules containing Tanisiel, the other two Eves, and the chief security officer were empty. His first thought was that Tanisiel had betrayed them, but thinking it through, the three Eves and the chief security officer had gone to sleep earlier than they did. Once they entered deep sleep, they would not be able to wake up on their own and needed to be awakened by Diana. They also couldn’t have modified the sleep program. Derek had set a complex encryption on his modified instructions and continued to check them until the last second before he fell asleep.

The rest of the nonhumans were still a little confused, but Derek had already exited his sleeping capsule and rushed to the door of the sleeping cabin. He typed a series of instructions on the key screen. However, Diana’s soft voice sounded, “I’m sorry, Mr. Derek, but I can’t let you out.”

After she spoke, everyone began to panic. Samuel strode over to Derek and heard the young man speaking calmly, “Diana, I thought we reached an agreement on who you’re going to serve.”

“Indeed, in the absence of other senior commanders from Earth, you and the Eve guests are my clients. However, Sergeant Sofia Wafa had survived and contacted me to ask me to wake up Sergeant Rafael Schneider, the chief security officer, and the three Eve guests, and take them away before waking all of you up. Her spaceship is now docked in the Magic Flute.”

It was as though all the nonhumans were struck by lightning. They thought that the Mothership was empty because the God of Disorder had already infected and absorbed everyone, and they didn’t expect that some people had survived.

“What?! Why didn’t you report to me that there were survivors!”

“When the unexpected event happened, approximately 100 people left in small and medium-sized spaceships. However, they lacked supplies and could not navigate using warp drive. They were not in contact with me and had a low chance of survival, so I counted them as missing people like the others,” Diana answered smoothly and briskly, but every word drove Derek insane. He kicked the wall with his foot and let out a series of swears.

“Damn it! This computer is so cunning. I was duped!”

Samuel’s expression morphed, and the other nonhumans rushed to smash the door with all kinds of heavy objects they found lying around. The scene was incredibly chaotic. In contrast, Ethan was unusually calm.

He previously had a hunch that they wouldn’t be able to escape. Now that it had really happened, although confused, he still felt calm, like a stone that had fallen over.

However…in his heart, he still harbored a tiny little hope……

Would Tanisiel plead for him?

His sense of reason told him that it was silly of him to hope. He knew that what had happened between them was merely two people seeking comfort and using each other for their needs. It had even been Tanisiel who had comforted and cared for him more. Who would whitewash a useless criminal just because of a one night stand?

However……he probably would have to make a statement…… For example, if they asked him if the nonhumans ever coerced him, maybe he would say something nice about him?

Diana’s voice rang out again, “Sergeant Sophia Wafa has asked to speak to you.”

Without waiting for them to respond, the round wall projected a female Beta’s face, the chief of the special forces troops sent by the Earth Union for the task. She was not especially beautiful but had a determined appearance and looked at them with a cold and disgusted gaze, like a god looking down at a sinner. “We have now regained control of the Magic Flute. I can order Diana to reactivate the electric collars around your necks at any time. If I want to, I can electrocute all of you until you foam at the mouth before taking you back. I urge you to surrender immediately and not resist unnecessarily. Otherwise, not only will you be punished, but your family’s moral values will also be seriously affected. I’ll give you three minutes to think about it before I open the door. Anyone who resists will be killed!”

The projection shut down before one of the steel balls could hit the ground. She didn’t want to listen to any of the nonhumans’ responses.

The veins near Samuel’s temple were bulging slightly due to how tightly he was clenching his jaw. Cavin had already opened his mouth and was constantly spitting out, “Fuck!” All of the nonhumans were sharing their opinions. Some tried to urge others to surrender, while others said that they would be killed once they surrendered. The two opposing parties continued to argue. Ethan felt a buzzing sound in his ears, causing him to have a splitting headache.

Samuel suddenly yelled, “Shut up!”

The entire area quietened.

“How many people intend to surrender?” he asked in an authoritative tone.

Three people raised their hands, including Ethan and Derek. Samuel gave Derek a look of surprise, but the boy simply said, “I still have my parents and brother. I don’t want my brother to be unable to go to a good university because of his stupid brother.”

Even Ethan was surprised. Since this child could experiment on his brother, why would he now consider his brother’s moral value?

Cavin spat on the ground and said, “Hmph, a bunch of cowards!”

Ethan pushed his glasses up and hesitated, before speaking out, “We won’t be killed if we surrender. After all, we are the only living humans who have ever made contact with Shub-Niggurath on Red Earth, and they need more information from us. And I’m sure the Eves will speak for us.”

Samuel gave him a cold look. If looks could be turned into knives, his gaze would already have shot through his heart.

“Hmph, what would they say? That we threatened them and said that if they dared to resist, we’d bind them into dumplings like the chief security officer and sell them to the pirates as slaves? Save it. How can those people from the upper echelons take us nonhumans seriously? You spineless fools, I don’t want to go back to that damned Forbidden City. I’d rather be shot!” Cavin retorted scornfully.

Ethan said with a wry smile, “It’s true that I’m spineless due to worrying that my parents will suddenly be deprived of 30 moral value points by the court of ethics without doing anything. Their communication systems will be closely monitored, and they’ll have to return home before 10 p.m. every night. They’ll even have to be searched every time they go out to eat. I don’t want them to become the sort of people who watch others every day to find opportunities to report other people’s misconduct and earn moral value points. They are truly misfortunate to have a son like me, so I don’t want them to live the same life that we did in the outside world!”

After speaking, Cavin, standing opposite him, was rendered speechless. Then, Chen Zeng smiled kindly and patted Ethan on the shoulder, saying, “What this young man said is very reasonable. To not implicate my supporters, I also agree that we should surrender.”

Now, only Samuel and Cavin were the only ones that had yet to express their opinions. Ethan looked at Samuel and continued, “Things probably won’t be that bad. We can explain that we tried to modify Diana’s central command because the Magic Flute was empty, and we merely wanted to go to the Third Empire to use their wormhole messengers to send a message to the Earth Union. After all, it would be three years before the Mothership’s message would reach Earth. As for the chief security officer, we can say that we wanted to isolate him because he displayed signs of infection. Those people also saw the horror of Shub-Niggurath, so they may keep an eye on the chief security officer, which would be beneficial for us.”

Three minutes later, other than Cavin, they had reached a consensus to surrender.

The subsequent events were chaotic yet logical. After the door opened, more than a dozen or so special forces soldiers with laser weapons swarmed in, and they trapped the nonhumans’ hands firmly behind their backs. No one spoke to them, and no one asked them anything. They were thrown directly into the cargo hold in the lower part of the Mothership, shivering in the dark and cold for about two days.

During those two days, the nonhumans seldom talked. Numerous muddled thoughts flashed through Ethan’s mind before his mind finally drifted back to Shub-Niggurath. He found it really amazing that people on Earth had been aware of the God of Disorder’s existence hundreds of centuries ago, but they, the advanced interstellar humans, had no idea about it. He suddenly wondered whether it would have been better for him to have merged with the Goddess of Fertility?

At least when he had briefly been in contact with her, he had not felt pain.

However, he had chosen to live for the future. He didn’t know how many more times he would have to experience such terrifying ‘Atonements’ and how long he would have to spend in the Forbidden City.

Two days later, they were once again transported into the sleeping hall and locked into the sleeping capsules as the ship prepared to enter warp drive. After falling asleep and waking up, they would have returned to the Forbidden City.

And Ethan never saw Tanisiel again, even when the Magic Flute landed on Earth.

T/N: Idk if anyone’s worried about not seeing Tanisiel again. If you are worried, you don’t have to worry.