Falling into the Abyss

When Ethan woke up, the first thing he smelled was the thick, choking smell of blood. After his eyes gradually focused, the first thing he saw was the color blue, overlapping in deep and shallow layers, covering everything in sight. And then, he saw the debris that strewn all over.

At first, he couldn’t tell that they were human corpses at all until he noticed the mixtures of hair stained with blue liquid and some hands sticking out of the pile of corpses. Horned people’s limbs soaked in blue blood were scattered all around and had attracted many strange birds with red feathers that were pecking at the bodies with eyes that wouldn’t shut.

A rumble rolled out from Ethan’s throat. It was a whimper that he had never heard himself make before. He saw that there was a lot of red and blue blood mixed everywhere. There were human limbs scattered on the ground. Half had their heads cut off, and their upper bodies that had been cut at their waist seemed to be trying to crawl somewhere far away. The only thing he could see surrounding him was death.

He felt pain at the back of his neck and felt something strange floating in the air. It was an extremely strange feeling……as though his body seemed to have stretched out……and he could see many strange colors? They were totally incomprehensible colors that spread out all over the skies. How could he see the forest behind him? How could he overlook the whole empty space from a height far above that of his own?

It seemed that the chains beside him had already been melted by someone.

What about the others? Where was Samuel?

What was going on? Was this hell? Why were so many people dead?

The shock he received from his vision caused him to bend over and vomit. However, when he saw the filth he vomited, he could not stop himself from vomiting more. He coughed and choked awkwardly, and from time to time, he would hiss in horror.

There was a lot of flesh and blood within his vomit, among which he even saw a purple eyeball.

Something was moving behind his neck, and when he turned his head slightly, his blood froze.

It was a very ugly black tentacle. At its tip, more black tentacles were extending from it, dripping translucent mucus. The mucus dripped on his left hand, which was still shackled. The chain hissed ominously and quickly dissolved, but his skin didn’t react to the mucus. He merely felt that it was as sticky as saliva, causing his hair to stand on end.

As soon as his left hand was liberated, the first thing he did was reach for the back of his neck.

Then, he let out an inhuman scream.

His shirt had been ripped into pieces. Countless cold but firm tentacles had emerged in a cluster extending from the back of his neck to his shoulder. It was definitely not a number of tentacles that his body should be able to bear. He could feel the sensation of himself touching the tentacles and even instinctively knew how to stretch and wave around these extra limbs that had suddenly emerged. The eyes at the end of some of the tentacles gave him a vast field of vision that humans were unable to see. The horrible jaws at the end of others could devour human bodies that his own body definitely couldn’t swallow.

These tentacles were part of his body.

Ethan kept screaming as though he could do nothing but scream.

Finally, he stopped screaming and looked around in a daze. He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, telling himself: Calm down, calm down, calm down.

“Samuel! Samuel!” He cried, searching for familiar faces among the pile of corpses in fear. However, he didn’t find him. He also did not find Derek, Cavin, or the bodies of some others.

There were so many horned people around him previously, but none of them were living now.

Did he kill everyone?

Ethan was dizzy and confused, unable to distinguish reality from his dreamscape. He remembered nothing. His mind was terrifyingly blank, and his gaze was empty, akin to the dead.

If you can’t overcome fear, embrace it……

Tanisiel’s words suddenly appeared in his mind. A severe headache accompanied by dizziness made him almost fall to the ground. Some fragmented memories and sensations surged towards him like chaotic movie clips. Tearing internal organs, sucking bone marrow, shrill screams that sounded as pleasant as sounds of nature, the endless strength, his body extending to the sky, people shaking and kneeling in front of him……

His knees softened, and he knelt on the ground……what had he become?

The cold night wind from a different planet blew on his thin body, causing him to shiver. Boundless loneliness fettered his lost soul like heavy shackles. His eyes were dry, his body was numb, and the new limbs behind him were too heavy for him. For a moment, he thought it might be better to die.

However, when he saw those lumps of meat on the ground, he again felt that death was disgusting.

The headache gradually eased, and the feeling of nausea finally subsided. He slowly calmed down and decided to head to the cave where they had first been held to see if he could find anyone. He tried to control the tentacles behind him, but it was to no avail. In the end, he had to drag the pitch black, twisting things behind him and move slowly in the direction of the cave.

Just when he finally approached the entrance of the cave where a torch was lit, a figure rushed out.

It was Samuel.

Ethan breathed a sigh of relief. Just as he was about to smile, his expression froze. That was because Samuel’s first reaction was not joy. Instead, he immediately took out a laser gun that the horned people had acquired from the Ophiuchus Alliance and aimed it at him. He didn’t know where he found the weapon from, but that pair of dark eyes no longer revealed familiarity and trust but boundless fear.

Ethan suddenly realized what he looked like in his eyes. He stepped back timidly and cried out, “Samuel? It’s me……”

Samuel still stared at him with fear and anxiety. He tried to stabilize the hand holding the gun, but it still trembled up and down slightly. “You……what are you……”

At this time, another person had rushed over. It was Typhoeus. Typhoeus, his former colleague and friend who had once grasped onto him like a saving straw, screamed at him and immediately hid behind Samuel. He was followed by Cavin and Derek. When Derek saw him, he shot at him without hesitation.

The laser beam instantly penetrated Ethan’s body, but he didn’t even feel pain. He lowered his head and saw a small hole in his chest. The black, sticky blood slithered down like black threads.

Then, the flesh and blood burned by the laser began to grow and heal rapidly. Finally, except for a black bloodstain on his chest, not even a scar could be seen.

“Monster……” Cavin said in a low voice and took out a purple dagger that looked like the one used by the priest from his waist. “I’ll fight you till my death!”

The unfamiliar and frightened gazes of Samuel and Typhoeus made Ethan feel as though he had fallen into a cellar, especially Samuel’s eyes. He was probably the only friend Ethan trusted in the Forbidden City.

In order to prove that he was not a monster, Ethan quickly retreated, but he nearly tripped over his tentacles. He quickly raised his hands and tried to show he was harmless. “Samuel! It’s me! I’m Ethan! Ethan, the one who lived with you!”

Ethan’s cries that sounded like he was begging lowered Samuel’s vigilance, even though the one before him was a……creature with terrifying tentacles on his back that possessed Ethan’s body and face. Although there were winding black lines on both sides of his cheek, the shape of his eyes was a little different from before. He wasn’t wearing glasses, his coat was torn, his whole body was covered with those black lines, and he looked like some kind of primitive wild animal possessing some sort of dark aura……

His voice did belong to Ethan, and his eyes, which were always cautious and timid, also belonged to Ethan. He had the most harmless soul, but his image of him now forcibly blended together with the nightmarish tentacles behind him.

Samuel saw the fear and helplessness in Ethan’s eyes and suddenly realized that Ethan was back.

An hour ago, the unforgettable God of killing was not Ethan but a monster that had temporarily occupied his body.

Therefore, Samuel lowered his gun slightly and took a step forward tentatively, but he was suddenly held back by Typhoeus. Samuel asked, “Ethan? Is it really you?”

Ethan nodded desperately. “I don’t know what happened! What’s going on?” He reached out and touched the limbs growing from the flesh and blood behind his neck. “What are these?”

“You don’t remember anything?” Samuel stared at him in disbelief, while the rest of them did not trust him. Cavin said, “Don’t be fooled! After coming back from the Second Universe, some people mutated. Adam is another example. He must have mutated too! He was infected by the second law of the universe……” Before he could finish speaking, a black tentacle suddenly waved in the air, wrapping around Cavin’s neck before lifting the strong nonhuman. His face quickly turned purple because of his blood flow being obstructed. He kept making choking noises because of lack of oxygen, and his feet kept kicking. The knife in his hand scratched at the tentacle, but the strong tentacle seemed to feel no pain. Instead, it tightened its grasp.

Everyone sucked in a cold breath and turned to look at Ethan. There was a kind of cold anger burning on the Beta’s face, and his green eyes shone in the silent night.

“I never offended you, so why are you always forcing me to do this?” Ethan’s voice was low. It was like he was squeezing out his voice from the bottom of his throat. “In the second universe, you wanted me to die, just like them. Why don’t you die yourself?”

“Ethan! Stop it!” Samuel yelled loudly and lunged at him, but he was slapped away by Ethan’s tentacle as a conditioned reflex and hit the stone wall heavily. Samuel’s cry made Ethan suddenly wake up. He immediately released the tentacle that held Cavin, unable to believe what he had just done.

The sudden fury burst of fury, which he had easily suppressed in the past, now completely dominated his actions. He had almost killed Cavin.

Just like how he had killed 3,000 horned people and dozens of nonhumans outside……

“I’m sorry……I’m sorry……” Ethan wanted to apologize but saw that the four people looked at him like a dangerous and unstable beast. Typhoeus helped Samuel up, who had been badly injured, and said to Ethan, “Ethan……if you’re Ethan, then can you leave us a path and let us live?”

Derek carefully aimed his laser gun at his head and spoke in a cautious tone, “We just want to get out of here. Let us go, okay? We swear we’ll never tell anyone about you.”

Ethan shook his head hard. He realized what they were saying and reached out to Samuel, begging, “Don’t……Don’t leave me behind……”

He could not remain stuck on this planet that was shrouded in eternal darkness with this appearance.

Samuel stared at him with a sort of despairing gaze, and a trace of guilt gradually replaced the hesitation in his eyes.

At this time, the roar of an aircraft came from the sky, and a smooth line of silverish gray metal hovered over the bloody killing field. It was an Earth Union aircraft, probably out there for a search and rescue mission or to bomb the horned people’s secret strongholds. This was a good opportunity for Samuel and others to get out of this dense forest. Derek and Cavin tried to move around Ethan. They were careful, as though he was a bomb that could explode at any time.

Ethan did not stop them and just whispered to Samuel, “Don’t leave me here alone…”

However, Samuel finally lowered his gaze. He pushed Typhoeus away and slowly walked over to him.

”Ethan, you can’t go back.” Samuel pursed his lips tightly, and a sort of deep despair spread into the depths of his eyes. “They’ll kill you.”

Ethan knew that Samuel was telling the truth. If the Earth Union’s troops saw a monster like him, they would immediately fire at him. Although, it seemed that laser guns couldn’t hurt him, so who knew what kind of weapons they would use?

Even if he didn’t die, he would be sent to one of the laboratories under Mars that the people of Earth Union had forgotten, and they would dissect him bit by bit?

But what could he do? Live in this forest forever as a monster?

Samuel glanced at Ethan kneeling on the ground with a pair of blank and empty eyes before looking at the terrifying tentacles squirming on the ground behind him. They didn’t look as long as they did on the altar, but they were still disgusting. This man, who used to be introverted and gentle, who had once protected and took care of him while he was in his most vulnerable state, had now become something similar to the monster from Red Earth. Samuel felt his heart ache. He never thought he would feel like this again after he had severed ties with that man.

“I’ll try to find someone to save you,” Samuel whispered in his ear, “But for now, you need to hide. Don’t let anyone see you.”

T/N: Thank you Kofi-Supporter for the Kofi!