Falling into the Abyss

The earliest members of the Ophiuchus Alliance were the elites who migrated from ancient Earth to outer space to develop a new planet. At that time, the Earth Union had not yet been established. Later, a nuclear world war broke out on Earth, which almost ended human civilization and caused Earth to no longer be habitable for humans. When everything fell apart, the Ophiuchus Alliance announced its independence from Earth.

Strangely, although the two planetary states had the same origin, they embarked on completely different development paths in the late interstellar era. The gap between the two countries had deepened due to differences in thinking and culture. After the Earth Union was established later, Earth, which was initially backward, experienced rapid growth in its science and technology, especially in the aspect of weapons. The spaceships developed by the Earth Union were even comparable to the most advanced models of the Ophiuchus Alliance, resulting in a decrease in the number of weapons manufactured by the Ophiuchus Alliance. Not only armaments, but the Earth Union’s portable capsule sales also exceeded those of the Ophiuchus Alliance’s wristband databases. The Earth Union even developed medical nanorobots before the Ophiuchus Alliance. Although their use of human experimentation had been criticized, more than half of the planetary states relied on the Earth Union’s medical nanorobots for gene modification surgeries.

After Earth went through a nuclear world war, the newly established Earth Union government gave up the liberal and democratic systems widely respected in the interstellar world. Instead, it established a sort of violent political system and advocated the fallacy that “absolute freedom was evil.” All of these things caused the other planetary states to scoff, thinking that Earth would never recover from this setback. Who would have thought that in just a few centuries, their growth was close to that of superstar governments like the Ophiuchus Alliance. This caused the people of the Ophiuchus Alliance, who had always thought they were the elite descendants of the Earth, to feel very uncomfortable. They even began to feel threatened, so they tried to contact other planetary states to ally themselves to suppress the Earth Union’s scientific and technological development and trade by means of economic sanctions and suppression of public opinions.

Therefore, it was not surprising that the Ophiuchus Alliance was behind the horned people’s rebellion.

However, Ethan never thought that they would send him.

In fact, Ethan did not see him clearly since he didn’t have his glasses, but he could still recognize that man at a glance. Even if that person turned to ashes, he was afraid that he would still recognize him.

Roland.

The man didn’t see him immediately. He and an old horned person with many heavy ornaments hanging on his neck were standing in the corner of a platform made of local red coral wood in front of the largest oval building, talking attentively. Ethan felt his heart beat so loudly that he suspected that Tanisiel could hear it. As if he knew his worries, Tanisiel turned his head slightly and gave him a few intentional glances. Then, his gaze turned to the Alpha man on the stage with unruly dark brown hair, violet eyes, a jaw covered with stubble, and a strong body.

When they walked under the tall platform, Ethan didn’t know whether he was mistaken, but he felt as though the other party had seen him. However, he did not dare to look up and instead forced himself to stare at Tanisiel’s back.

Thus, he didn’t see how Roland’s gaze froze on his back, and his smile stiffened slightly when his eyes had swept past him unconsciously.

Ethan and Tanisiel were temporarily locked up in a nest-like building with a similar structure to the other houses. They walked along the Lingzhi-shaped stairs spiraling around the body of the tree. It looked small from the outside, but the space was surprisingly spacious, with room for tables and chairs and even living rooms and bedrooms. After they shut the door, Tanisiel casually reached out and twisted a red agate-like fruit from the fruit tray before placing it in his mouth. The red juice made his lips appear more beautiful.

However, Ethan couldn’t relax and paced the room anxiously. He wanted to get out of this place.

“Was that human just now the spy named Roland you mentioned?” Tanisiel asked coldly.

Ethan’s footsteps halted, and he pursed his lips so tight they turned white.

Tanisiel chuckled. “Your current mood feels like a volcanic eruption, very wonderful.”

“I have nothing to do with him. He should not have seen me.” Ethan didn’t know whether he was trying to convince the priest or himself.

Ethan was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not notice that Tanisiel had approached him until he squeezed his jaw, forcing him to look up before he bit his lip.

Ethan let out a cry of pain, and he tasted his own blood. He hurriedly reached out to push Tanisiel away, but the other party remained unmoving as he trapped Ethan. His silver-gray eyes stared intensely at him.

“Ethan Eldridge, I first want to tell you that I became a priest when I was seventeen. I haven’t dated a lot, so I’ll get hurt easily. Therefore, if you dare to rekindle your old flame, Roland, I may first put the fluid of the God of Disorder into his dinner and watch him turn into a bug, before locking you in my secret underground basement on Eve. Then, I’ll strip you naked, tie a chain around your neck, and torture you daily, making you both hate and love me until you’re so afraid that you can’t leave me. What do you think?”

Tanisiel’s voice was like a mellow wine, mild, soft, smooth, calm, and gentle, but the words he spat out were a dark poisonous poppy. Ethan was stunned by his “threat,” but he perversely felt that his proposal sounded very sexy. His Adam’s apple slid up and down, and he felt thirsty.

“Are you threatening or seducing me?” Ethan raised his head and narrowed his slightly, asking in a husky voice that sounded similar to Tanisiel’s.

Tanisiel’s hand had slipped dishonestly into his robe, kneading the muscles and one of the fruits on his chest. However, they suddenly heard someone knock on the door.

Tanisiel retracted his hand gracefully and rearranged the front of Ethan’s robe, before calmly turning to face the front door that had slowly opened. The horned person that had come told them that the chief was ready to see them.

Like the other “nests,” the chief’s was made using the dark purple trees, and the interior was much more spacious than how it appeared from the outside. The old male horned person was dressed in a heavy collared robe with many silver and gold ornaments hanging between his horns. He was kneeling on a round futon chair facing the door with his legs bent backward like a deer’s joints, folded under his body at a strange angle.

The chief’s long white face twisted toward them, and he appeared as though he was smiling, but the smile did not reach his eyes. He spoke a string of words in the horned people’s language. At the same time, his voice was translated into the Eve’s language by a capsule hanging on his neck.

Ethan did not understand him, but he could guess that the other party was welcoming them.

Tanisiel also gave him a standard priest’s greeting. The two people shared some words that Ethan could not understand, which made him a little confused. Still, later, he thought that it was probably better that he didn’t understand, so he started to observe the two Omegas. There was a man and woman standing on both sides of the horned people’s chief.

Were they the chief’s concubines? Ethan had heard a long time ago that the horned people’s chief could marry more than one wife.

He didn’t expect that even Omegas would look so strange…… Was the male Omega pregnant? Did their children develop horns in their stomachs? Would their horns pierce their stomachs……

It was probably because the look in his eyes was too obvious, but the chief was obviously a little unhappy and snorted heavily. Tanisiel turned to him and said, “You go out and wait for me.”

Ethan raised his eyebrows but did not argue with him. He obediently turned and walked towards the door.

A horned person was standing guard outside the door ignored him, so he wrapped himself in the priest’s clothes and walked down the Lingzhi-shaped stairs. He wanted to wait in the room where he and Tanisiel were being held before they came here. After all, it was too cold outside. He was too thin and was shivering due to the cold after his body recovered. It was a miracle that he had not caught a cold.

However, the horned people did not allow him to go too far, and they couldn’t understand what he was saying. They spoke a lot to him in the horned people’s language, but he couldn’t understand them without a capsule. Finally, he gave up and kicked one of the nearby trees with dark purple leaves and red fleshy flowers several times, before sitting down on one of the thick roots under the tree and shrinking into a ball to warm himself.

His emotions still felt unsettled, and there were a lot of impulses running wildly around in his brain, barely suppressed by his sense of reason.

He could clearly feel the pain, heartbreak, anger, hatred, and grievances that he thought he had forgotten, as though it had happened yesterday. He wanted to shake the man’s collar and ask him why he had been so cruel and chose to destroy Ethan? And after asking, Ethan would punch him in the face so that his handsome face could never smile again.

However, that person was a spy. Even if he had the chance to strike, how could a scholar like him be able to defeat him?

Unless he mutated. He could use his tentacles to make that person cry and beg for mercy or something……

Ethan laughed bitterly at his unrestrained bloodlust, but suddenly he heard a voice sound from behind him, “What are you laughing at?”

Ethan’s back turned cold, his hands clenched into fists, and he trembled slightly. It was impossible to tell whether he was cold or angry.

“Go away,” Ethan said coldly.

“How have you been?” The other party did not intend to leave and used a familiar tone as though they had just met yesterday, as if nothing was wrong.

Ethan wanted to yell at him: I’m not fine, not fine at all. Just because Ethan believed this spy, his originally bright future had disappeared. He had his moral value points subtracted and was thrown into a damned place like the Forbidden City. His father cut off all father and son ties with him, and he was unable to see his mother for the last time before she passed away. Every time he had to perform an atonement mission, he had to go through life and death experiences, and he was finally infected and became a bloodthirsty monster. Even in the Forbidden City, he was isolated and trapped in the labyrinth of underground pipes brimming with specters. When he called for help, no one cared or would reach out for him. Ethan could have lived a happy and stable life, but because of Roland, he had become neither a human nor a ghost, and he didn’t know whether he should continue to live.

However, all he said was, “Scram.”

“Ethan, why won’t you look at me?”

Ethan could no longer bear it and stood up, wanting to leave, but his arm was caught. He immediately shook off the other’s hand as though he had been scalded and finally turned around to face the source of his unresolved mental trauma.

Ethan’s eyes were red, but he bit his lip, unwilling to shed any tears.

After seeing him this way, Roland seemed to be moved, and his full lips moved several times, but he did not speak.

Ethan was filled with hatred. After a year and a half, Roland didn’t seem to have changed at all, but he had. He became pale, thin, and dry, and he didn’t know when those nauseous tentacles would pop out from his body.

The two people stood facing each other. The air between them was tense, but both of them remained silent. Neither of them knew what to say.

Finally, it was Roland who asked an unimportant question, “Why are you here?”

Ethan suddenly laughed and showed a twisted smile. He had never known that he could smile like this. He sarcastically asked, “Is that really what you want to ask me?”

“I gave you a chance to leave with me. You refused.”

“So I deserved it?”

“You know that’s not what I mean! Look, I want to help you. These people are not good people! And who’s the Eve with you?” Roland looked serious and nervous, and his gaze always paid attention to the movements of the people around them.

Ethan suddenly realized that Roland was probing him.

He was probing the relationship between the Eves and the Earth Union.

Ethan laughed angrily and turned to leave. However, Roland once again grabbed him by the arm and pulled back hard. He spoke in a low voice by his ear, “The horned people are planning to collect a thousand human living sacrifices for the Great Wise Man they believe in. You are currently in danger!”

Suddenly, a heavy cough traveled from the direction of the platform the chief’s house was on. Ethan looked back and saw Tanisiel looking down at them. His silver-gray eyes were narrowed slightly, and although he was still smiling, Ethan could see a whirlpool of mist and shadows within them.

It seemed that the priest had gotten angry?