Falling into the Abyss

The day after Ethan and the other nonhumans arrived, they were ordered to move their camps. Pales had 29 hours and 30 minutes in a day. They were woken up at about 6 a.m. and hastily put away their tents. Under the command of several soldiers, they helped to transport some boxes with unknown contents into the military aircraft, but while Ethan had imagined that they would be flying there by aircraft, the nonhumans just watched as the large aircraft carried groups of soldiers away one after another, leaving only a small group of soldiers to lead them on foot into the forest to search for the rebel forces.

Of course, they also left them with some weapons.

However, all of them were cold weapons that came in strange shapes and sizes. They didn’t have any weapons that could shoot bullets.

Samuel took a blue weapon, which appeared like a machete and was made of an unknown material. He weighed it in his hand and asked the red-haired Sergeant Wilson, “What is this?”

Sergeant Wilson said with a toothpick in his mouth, “It’s a knife.”

“If we really meet the horned people, do you expect us to use these unearthed cultural relics to fight against them? Are you playing a joke on us?”

Sergeant Wilson stood in front of Samuel, and the two men of similar heights glared at each other fiercely.

“It’s already good enough that the bunch of you scums have weapons,” Wilson muttered, gnashing his teeth.

Next to him, another female Alpha team leader glared at Wilson and explained, “These weapons were seized from their temples. They seem to think that these weapons cursed them, and the souls of those who are killed by these weapons will be destroyed, so they are terrified of these weapons. Believe me, these things may work better than guns.”

The nonhumans lined up in rows to receive their weapons. Ethan got a short knife, which seemed to be some kind of polished crystal. At dusk, it seemed to contain a flowing purple glow. If one looked at it carefully, they would notice that there were many runes carved on the knife. They were in the language of the horned people, so Ethan didn’t understand the runes.

But why were they afraid of these “sacred tools”?

The nonhuman troops split up into ten groups. Each troop was led by three soldiers, and they were to enter the forest from different angles and directions. Their destination was Anas City, one of the horned people’s cities about 100 kilometers away that human forces had just taken over. The city had been occupied by the rebels not long ago, but after the city’s destruction, the horned people rebels who were not killed in the bombings had fled into the vast expanse of forest before them during the night and disappeared. The mission given to the nonhumans was to search for them and drive them out. Subsequently, the regular army would catch them all.

The forest was very humid. Water vapor had condensed into frost, covering each tree’s trunk and branches so that when one looked at the entire tree, it would look like a silver sculpture. Many insects that could emit light, like fireflies, were disturbed by their intrusion. All of them flew out from the leaves and floated in the night wind that had come quietly and unknowingly. The scene was so surreal and beautiful that Ethan could not help but try to imprint it in his mind to pass it on to Tanisiel.

Then, he actually sensed a message from Tanisiel.

The message was akin to a sudden surge of emotions and was warm and genial, as though it carried the warmth of a smile. Ethan clearly knew that the feeling was not his but one that Tanisiel had passed on to him.

They were clearly 500 light-years apart, but both of them could see the same beautiful scenery. Ethan felt a touch of light happiness.

The cry of some kind of bird reverberated around them, sounding hollow and mysterious amid the dim light. After listening for a long time, it sounded like a person. The ground was covered with dense vegetation, and there were unknown creatures hidden around them. The soldiers walking in front of them and behind them turned on the sonar devices installed at their waists. The infrasound frequency that human ears could not hear would be able to drive away some nearby insects. Still, they did not dare to turn the frequency of the device up too high because horned people had much more sensitive hearing than humans, and they could capture frequencies that humans couldn’t.

Because they were stumbling along, they were not moving very fast. The oxygen in the air on Pales was not as high as that on Earth, so it was necessary to take a few oxygen bags out of their backpacks to breathe into. In this situation, if a fierce fight occurred with the horned people, it was estimated that they would be wiped out quickly……

Ethan has seen horned people on TV. They had a layer of short translucent hair covering their skin. From a distance, it looked like a layer of skin that could reflect the surrounding environment. A pair of hard horns that curved inwardly grew on their foreheads, appearing similar to that of a ram’s. Their eyes were elongated and slender, and the whites of their eyes were not visible. One could only see a pair of black eyes that resembled a cat’s. They could see in the dark, but they couldn’t stand too much light. That was why, if the humans wanted to cause them to lose their combat effectiveness, they could temporarily blind them by shining something extremely bright on them. However, with the invention of goggles, this move wouldn’t work every time.

The horned people didn’t like foreigners. They insisted on wearing their own heavy and dark-colored clothes and eating uncooked food. At most, they would sprinkle some salt and condiments on the food. They had their own cities and culture, but they still used modern computers and machines to advance their knowledge. Additionally, they kept their bloodthirsty temperaments. Every year, each city would hold a hunting contest, and the horned person who won first place would be considered a hero.

The Earthlings always thought of them as uncivilized barbarians. They would even think that their intelligence was not as high as other planetary races that were comparatively more open to other people. Still, Ethan always thought that people just didn’t understand them enough. Every time he saw their uniquely cold and dull expressions on TV, they would always give him an uncomfortable feeling. He always felt that there were clusters of light shining in the depths of those eyes, and there were invisible sneers hidden in the corners of their lips.

Ethan didn’t want to mess with them at all.

For an entire two days, they didn’t see even a shadow of someone. On the third day, Derek found a strange spherical object hanging on a tree, made out of wooden rods and string knotted together. Some people said it was a bird nest, but it was obvious that the knot had been tied by someone. As they went forward, they passed more braided balls hung on the trees, and Ethan grew increasingly uneasy. He suspected that they were similar to the wooden figures that witches used to hang on trees to curse people in ancient times.

They were now deep in the forest on the mountains, far away from any horned people’s cities. Could it be that the fleeing horned people rebels made these things?

Did they really have the time to craft so many of these objects that appeared very complicated?

Of course, he didn’t believe in witchcraft, but he had an inexplicable intuition that the current situation was not good. Recently, he didn’t know if it was a coincidence or not, but his intuition seemed to have grown sharper. It was as though he was more sensitive to the surrounding environment, but similarly, he would also perceive fear stronger than ordinary people.

However, what he needed to control most was fear.

He whispered to Samuel, “We shouldn’t go any further…”

Samuel glanced at him. “Do we have a choice?”

Typhoeus patted him on the shoulder as if to comfort him. Ethan just shook his head with a wry smile and tightened his grip on the knife in his hand.

They set up camp at about 26 o’clock that night. On Pales, the time on each day was too long, and the difference between day and night was too small. They spent a day walking, but it felt like they had walked for two days and nights. After dinner, Ethan was exhausted as he lay in his sleeping bag. However, when he was about to sleep, he suddenly heard a strange sound coming from somewhere in the forest. He didn’t know whether it was a singing or hissing sound.

He sat up and listened, trying to decipher if it was a bird. However, after a while, he was sure that it was someone’s voice, though he was unsure whether they were crying out in pain or joy. He also had no way to determine the direction the sound was coming from. It seemed that no matter how he turned his head, the sound came from every direction. It seemed especially creepy among the faint rustling of the grass and the buzzing of flying insects.

Several other soldiers and nonhumans also sat up alertly, so it was evident that he did not imagine the voice.

Wilson took out a gun and quickly pointed to some nonhumans and another soldier near him, and quietly ordered, “You guys, come with me. Don’t make a sound.”

Ethan was not among those chosen, but Samuel followed him. Typhoeus moved to his side and said in a low voice, “Could it be a horned person…… I’ve heard that they have very strange beliefs, and they often scream and jump around as though they are crazy. They also tie up living animals and directly cut their stomachs open to wipe the blood on their bodies.”

Ethan didn’t know how to evaluate this matter, so he could only reply, “Anyway, it’s unlikely that it’s our people who are calling out.”

“They’re planning something.” Leaning against another tree, Derek chewed on gum that came from who knew where and said, “I helped the big wigs intercept some information from the Ophiuchus Alliance. They had contacted the horned people rebels and said they would help them prepare to rebel.”

“Prepare? What preparations?” Ethan asked.

Derek shrugged. “That’s not something I would be able to ask about. Anyway, it can’t be good if the Ophiuchus Alliance is involved.”

About an hour later, Wilson and the rest came back, but they all looked puzzled and worried. The other soldiers asked about the situation, but Wilson just waved his hand casually and said, “It seems like it was a bird’s cry. It was a false alarm.”

A bird’s cry?

Ethan was pretty sure it wasn’t a bird’s cry. He looked at Samuel, who just shrugged. “We looked for the source of the sound and saw a fire in the woods. However, when we snuck up to the fire, the fire went out within mere moments, and the sound disappeared. On the spot where the fire should have been, we couldn’t even find a charred branch, and we didn’t see a shadow of anything. We were close enough that if someone tried to run away, we would have seen it. But, no one was there, and the fire seemed to have never existed,” Samuel said, shaking his head, “It couldn’t be that we were all collectively hallucinating, right?”