Falling into the Abyss

The Ophiuchus Alliance was a large country that spread out across two neighboring galaxies. More than 60% of the population were Earthlings whose ancestors escaped from the long nuclear war that almost destroyed the earth, before the establishment of the Earth Union. Hundreds of years later, their descendants settled in distant galaxies. Because they were headed for Ophiuchus α star’s direction during the navigation, they chose to settle down in the two galaxies known as the Ophiuchus Alliance. Perhaps those ancestors would not have thought that one day their descendants would regard Earth as their enemy.

Starwind was moored in the spaceport near Dominic V, which was the environment best suited for human survival in the Dominic galaxy. Everyone was required to wear isolation protective clothing on the ship, and they were supervised by special personnel to fly to a city near the ocean in the largest continent in the northern hemisphere of Dominic V. It was the heart of the galaxy—the location of the presidential palace of the Ophiuchus Alliance and many major government agencies—Dendrobium.

Ethan was completely isolated and brought into an empty room. After a series of disinfection procedures, he wore the simple white shirt and black trousers they gave him. The medical staff wrapped his whole body tightly and drew his blood, measured his blood pressure and pulse, and even took him into a room for an x-ray. He was now sitting alone in that room, surrounded by concrete walls and ceilings, with only the same chair in front of him. He sat upright, his hands on his knees, his eyes looking at the space in front of him as if he saw nothing.

The door in the room, which was so plain that it almost seemed integrated with the wall, opened, and a middle-aged male Beta in a suit entered. He gave Ethan a friendly smile and sat down in the chair opposite him. Ethan noticed that there was a small pin attached to the collar of his suit, and there was a round object in his ear that was probably a headset.

It seemed that outside this room, someone was looking at them. Although he didn’t know where the camera was hidden or whether these walls were actually single-sided glass with a projection function.

The man was holding a small, folded paper-like object in his hand. After unfolding it, it turned out to be a thin transparent board—This was the Ophiuchus Alliance’s portable information storage tool, which was currently depicting some lit-up blue words. He said to Ethan, “Hello, Mr. Eldridge. I’m Vincent Brandt, a special operations officer for the Ophiuchus Alliance.”

Ethan said, “Just call me Ethan.”

“Ethan, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting so long. However, the current epidemic situation in the Earth Union is very serious, so we have to take more precautions. ”

Ethan nodded and said nothing.

“We learned from Commissioner Sean Di Canio that you met with some accident on board?” Brandt seemed to be looking at the information in his hand, but he was actually raising his eyes to examine Ethan’s reaction.

Sean Di Canio… It took Ethan a few seconds to remember that it was like Roland’s real name… He remembered that he heard the female agent call Roland “Sean” on Pales.

Ethan shrugged and said, “It was not an accident. It’s just that I entered my pupa state.”

“Pupa state?”

“I have Heavenbounder lineage. Your Ophiuchus Alliance’s information net is so wide, it couldn’t be that you haven’t heard of the physiological characteristics of a Heavenbounder, right?”

Brandt laughed sincerely. “We know that the growth and development of Heavenbounders are a little different from those of ordinary people, and they will age rapidly when they enter adulthood. However, the details are not so clear. After all, Heavenbounders are very rare, and they are very secretive about their physiological changes, so it is difficult to find written records.”

“Ordinary Heavenbounders may age, but I might not,” Ethan said.

Brandt looked at him with some surprise. “Why?”

“I have enough of the substance I require to keep me alive in me,” Ethan said, the corners of his mouth upturning slightly. “Don’t you have my blood? Can’t you find out what’s in it?”

Ethan didn’t have these eggs in his blood, but his gene composition was surprisingly similar to that kind of insect. That was to say, it was not a human’s genetic sequence at all. At the same time, they found that the genetic sequence contained in Ethan’s blood was not even stable and that a mutation may occur if they tried to replicate it. It was reasonable to say that such a person should have gotten cancer all over his body long ago, and one would be afraid that even the current medical technology could not save him.

But he was sitting here, appearing like a normal person. A scan of his body did not reveal any blackened areas, and he was more healthy than the average person. Even a scar couldn’t be found on his body.

The rumor seemed likely to be true, that Ethan was the origin of that disease. Now, it seemed that he probably didn’t belong to this universe at all.

At present, Ethan did not display any aggressive behavior, but the massacre in the Forbidden City still made the higher ups in the secret service very nervous. They had dozens of No. 3 robots called “killing machines” surrounding Ethan’s room layer upon layer. If there was any abnormality, they would fire at the same time, and the whole room would be exterminated, with not even ashes remaining. In order to avoid arousing his aggression, they originally wanted to find an Omega who would voluntarily go in and talk to him, but no one wanted to lose their lives, even if they were offered an attractive remuneration. Finally, Brandt, as a Beta, volunteered to go in, provided that the government was responsible for providing sufficient medical expenses for his mother, who was bedridden all year round, invited experts to take care of her, subsidized her children to go to the most acclaimed institutions of higher learning, and ensured that all his family members would have no worries about food and clothing for their entire lives.

Brandt smiled, slightly embarrassed. “We do have your blood sample, but we’re not sure how to interpret it.”

“Which part are you unsure on how to interpret?”

“It says that you were born on Earth, your father is Adrian Eldridge, and your mother is Liliana Shael’zas. Your previous blood test results were normal.”

Ethan said, “Yes, I was infected. No, it should be said that I have been ‘purified.’ The goddess of fertility purified my body that had been disguised under the forces of order and gave me a new life.”

He said this without emotion and an imperceptible trace of mockery in his tone.

“What is the goddess of fertility that you are referring to?”

“Shub-Niggurath.”

“Is that the faith of the Eves?”

“It’s not just the Eves. Many people from different planets have worshipped her. There were believers on Earth, but we have forgotten about her.”

Brandt’s expression did not reveal whether he believed his words, but he nodded thoughtfully. He asked casually, “Were you asked to do something after you were purified?”

Ethan suddenly laughed. “Do you want to ask whether the plague in the Earth Union was caused by me?”

Brandt was surprised. “Do you know about the plague in the Earth Union?”

According to Sean, or rather Roland’s information, Ethan was taken to the Eves’ planet before the plague started. Even after he escaped, he remained in a dormant state until he was intercepted by Starwind two months later. How did he know about the plague in the Earth Union?

Ethan said, “When I was in my pupa state, I felt a lot of things. Plus, I remember doing something to a guard on Earth… I wasn’t sure what I was doing at the time, but now I know.”

“So……you admit that it was you?”

Ethan kept smiling and said frankly, “It was me.”

At that moment, beads of sweat emitted from Brandt’s forehead. He knew that as soon as such an answer came out, someone might give an order to destroy the room at any time, burning both of them to ashes.

However, he had to ask this question.

For a few seconds, no one spoke in the room, and the suffocating silence enveloped everything. Brandt realized that he was still alive, so apparently, the upper echelons were still waiting.

He cleared his throat and continued, “How did you do it?”

Ethan turned his head slightly and asked, “What you want to ask is whether I plan to do this in the Ophiuchus Alliance?”

The threat in this sentence was obviously higher than that of the “it’s me” from just now. Brandt could feel that cold sweat had soaked his back.

“Don’t worry, I don’t plan to do that,” Ethan said, “I want to go to a place, and I’d appreciate it if you could help me.”

“Where to?”

“An asteroid on the border of the Third Empire. Your Commissioner Sean should know where I want to go.”

Of course, Brandt had this information in his hand. Obviously, Ethan Eldridge was involved with Tanisiel, the Eve priest who held a special identity and who had repeatedly intervened by rescuing Ethan when he was a nonhuman in Forbidden City previously. According to Sean Di Canio’s report, Ethan and another Omega named Jonathan Samuel were rescued from a badly damaged Eve spaceship on the verge of a crash. They learned from Jonathan Samuel that there was another person on the ship, namely Tanisiel. But by that time, the spaceship had fallen into the atmosphere of a desolate planet called “Black Gate” on the border of the Third Empire, and it was almost impossible for him to have survived.

“You mean the Black Gate? Where your ship crashed?”

“That’s right.”

“You should know that the person you are looking for may have already…”

“Even if it’s just a body, I want to find him.” Ethan’s tone didn’t change a bit, but soon, he laughed again. His smile seemed a little cold. “Of course, I know you won’t let me go easily. Your president might even be ordering the end of me now.”

“You worry too much……”

Ethan interrupted the poor negotiator and slowly stood up, opening his arms in the direction of the peeping people in the void, and said, “Come on, fire.”

Brandt stood up, pale. “Mr. Eldridge, please calm down. We’re not going to end you!”

Ethan looked at him like he didn’t care and said, “Don’t be afraid. You won’t die.”

The people watching them seemed to be hesitating. Ethan said with a smile, “If I want to leave, then you can’t stop me.” With that, he reached out, and a long, black tentacle sprang out from his fingertips……

All of a sudden, hot beams of light came from all directions, and the sky burst into flames. The temperature in the center of the room reached as high as 3000 degrees Celsius, similar to the central temperature of an atomic bomb explosion. Any living creature would instantly turn into gas.

From a distance, there was a terrifying explosion in the wasteland where the room was located. The smoke and dust rose to cover the sky, as if doomsday was arriving.

After the smoke dispersed, the people behind the scenes immediately sent drones to check, but the sight surprised them.

A crater has been blasted into the surface of the planet where the room was initially located, just like a crater on the moon. However, there was a black sphere in the middle of the pit.

If you got closer, you would find that it was not a “sphere” and was instead a mass of thick and terrifying black tentacles with barbs and mucus dripping. They were so tightly interwoven that there was no visible gap between them. However, some naked mouth and eye-like organs were still opening and closing slightly and spitting out streams of mucus and bubbles, which made their stomachs churn.

The president of the Alliance sat in front of the screen with other senior officials. He was stunned by the sight and muttered, “What’s that?”

No one could answer him because both the secretary of defense and the director of special operations were speechless.

Those dirty and terrible compound eyes seemed to see the approaching UAV. The next moment, the sphere suddenly loosened, and countless tentacles were raised in the air, before all of them were sucked back into the person’s body.

Ethan was still standing there, with no dust on his body. He looked at them with disappointment and sighed, as if regretting that they had not killed him. At his feet, Brandt was paralyzed, and his trousers were wet. Even the two chairs remained intact.

“Look, like I said, you can’t stop me.” Ethan looked at his fingertip, which was still wriggling, and muttered to himself. He didn’t know who he was talking to.

The author has something to say:

The tentacled shou’s omnipotent life begins……

I also revised a detail that I forgot to explain.