Falling into the Abyss

Ethan sat alone in another empty room similar to the one he was in yesterday. Soon after the explosion, he was surrounded by heavily armed soldiers. Brandt was taken away, and he was blindfolded, stuffed into a windowless aircraft, and brought directly here.

He didn’t see anyone again, and he never left the chair.

He found that he didn’t want to sleep or eat. His right hand unconsciously rubbed at the place with the emblem on his left chest, and his eyes were empty.

Time seemed to have lost its meaning for him. He was neither arrogant, impatient, nor bored. Even the guards who watched him through the camera holes hidden in the wall felt a little sweaty.

Finally, the door opened, and this time Roland came in.

Roland was also nervous. This was not the first time he had seen Ethan, but since Ethan came out of the medical room, he could no longer regard him as the Secretary of the Energy Bureau.

However, his boss thought that he was the most suitable person to communicate with this terrifying and unpredictable mutant.

He stood in front of Ethan and gave him the same charming smile. “We meet again.”

Ethan raised his eyes and looked at him, before lowering his gaze and pulling out a barb from his index finger with a serious expression. “How long do I have to wait? I’m running out of patience.”

Roland said, “The Ophiuchus alliance can send you to the Black Gate planet and even help you find the priest named Tanisiel. However, it will take a little longer to negotiate with the Third Empire.”

“How much longer?”

“Another day or two.”

“That’s too long.” Ethan stood up and looked at Roland calmly. “I’m leaving now. If you don’t want to have casualties, please don’t stop me.”

With that, he went straight around Roland to the door, but just as he passed by, his arm was caught. Roland’s deep eyes gazed at him, but suddenly there was some tenderness. “Ethan, I’ll help you. How do you plan to go without a spaceship?”

I’ll help you. That was what Tanisiel said to him over and over again.

Ethan looked back at him indifferently.

“So, you were sent by them as a honey trap?” There was some obvious mockery in Ethan’s voice.

Roland looked at him seriously and said, “I really want to help you.”

Ethan sighed and slowly drew back his hand. He continued to stride towards the door.

“It doesn’t matter to me whether you are sincere or not. I’m leaving now. If you don’t help me, then you’re my enemy. Besides, you can’t kill me.”

As he spoke, he reached for the door handle. The door was locked. However, a lot of black threads sprung out of Ethan’s fingertips, twisting into the gaps between the door and the door frame. A moment later, the sound of the door unlocking came from the other side, and it opened.

Facing the door were three giant high-frequency cannons, which were currently in their warm-up stages at the moment. The fierce heatwave buffeted Ethan’s hair, and the hot light made Roland unable to open his eyes. Ethan’s figure was like a strand of grass in front of the three giants, but he didn’t shrink back at all. He walked forward as if he didn’t see anything.

This was a military camp, and there were many armed soldiers standing behind the high-frequency cannons. At the moment, seeing the naked Ethan slowly walking out, they all stepped back in fear. Ethan glanced around slowly and said in a cold voice, “Do you also want to be infected with the plague from Earth? Get out of the way!”

“Don’t fire!” Roland rushed out of the room and stood in front of Ethan. “Get out of the way!”

After receiving the order, the soldiers parted to both sides. Ethan asked as he walked, “Where’s Samuel? Bring him here.”

Roland looked at him, then suddenly took off his coat and put it on Ethan. “Give me an hour, and I’ll persuade them to take you to Black Gate!”

Ethan turned his head slightly and looked at him. “You want me to believe you, a man who betrayed me three times?”

Roland seemed to grow speechless for a moment and said, “I know that you didn’t really want to spread that plague on Earth, and you don’t want that terrible thing to kill thousands of innocent people in another country.”

“Innocent?” Ethan chuckled. “I haven’t seen many innocent people in my life.”

Maybe there were. He could only think of Schneider, but he had been killed by other people that were not innocent.

Look at the people of the Earth Union. Each of them had their own dark story, but they were just deeply buried. They cheated others and themselves and lied to themselves that these dark stories didn’t exist. They cheated on their partners, secretly reported their friends who were better off than themselves, pretended to be someone else on the internet, wantonly attacked and abused others, and even encouraged someone to die when they wanted to commit suicide. In their company, they didn’t dare to throw a fit, but when they got home, they started to abuse their wives and children. They were full of hostility. Give them a belief that they could rely on, and they would soon become the most violent executioners. They would wantonly kill everything they didn’t understand under the guise of “morality.”

All this happened around Ethan every day, but before he entered the Forbidden City and experienced everything later on, he thought that this was normal.

Now, he was just tired.

“Roland, you don’t know me,” Ethan said, “I’ve killed a lot of people. I’m not a good person. I’m not even a human being. So, I can do anything.”

He spoke with a matter-of-fact tone and the way his eyes didn’t even blink when he spoke chilled Roland’s heart. Ethan had changed a lot. Maybe it was all his fault.

Roland said, “One hour, I only need one hour!”

Ethan looked at him for a moment, then finally sighed and said, “Fine, I’ll give you an hour.”

An hour later, Ethan and Samuel got on the spaceship to Black Gate. Under the intensive negotiation with the foreign ministry, the Third Empire had agreed to allow them to enter their country with a small number of soldiers from the Ophiuchus Alliance and was willing to help provide information about the crashed spacecraft.

Ethan changed into a set of clean and comfortable clothes, sat on the soft and wide bed in the deluxe guest room arranged for him on the second floor, and looked at the distant rotating galaxy through the transparent wall opposite him. He was holding a vodka with ice in his hand, occasionally sipping so that the high-proof alcoholic drink would sting his cheeks in his mouth. He remembered that Tanisiel had said that he would invite him to taste the Eves’ wine, because the wine on Earth was too awful to drink. But in the end, they didn’t have a chance to.

Someone requested to enter the suite, and Ethan agreed. From what he was at, one could directly see the door to the suite on the first floor, so he knew the person entering was Roland.

He raised the whiskey bottle in his hand towards Ethan. His smile was as calm and charming as ever, but Ethan knew that it was just a mask on his face. Ethan put down his cup and walked slowly down the stairs.

“What’s the matter?”

A tinge of caution could be deciphered if one concentrated on his face. He put the bottle on the bar and took two cups. “Before arriving at Black Gate, I think it would be better to tell you something in advance.”

Ethan stood where he was. “Speak.”

Roland handed him a glass of wine. Ethan looked at his smile and suddenly felt the urge to ask, “Are you tired?”

Roland was stunned.

“It’s tiring to wear a mask every day, isn’t it?”

Roland suddenly felt that the green eyes staring at him seemed to be able to pierce his skin, making him uncomfortable. He still maintained his expression and did not want to be easily looked down upon by the “task’s target” he had won over so easily previously. “Fortunately, in my line of work, after a long time, I no longer know whether my true self still exists behind this mask.”

Ethan took the glass and shook the ice in it. He turned around and sat down on the sofa. “What were you going to tell me?”

“After your ship crashed, the Third Empire sent people to investigate. They said that the spaceship had disintegrated, and parts were scattered everywhere. In this case, no one could survive.”

“Where’s the body?”

“It wasn’t found. The Eves’ also happen to know this and are sending people to negotiate with the Third Empire, wanting to go to Black Gate to find it.” Roland paused. “You escaped from the Eves’ planet, didn’t you?”

Ethan nodded.

“This time, if they know you are also going, I’m afraid…”

“I’m not afraid of them.” A cold light flashed in Ethan’s eyes as he said, “It’d be good if I’m able to meet them. I have something else to ask them.”

Roland originally wanted to be nice and say that the Ophiuchus Alliance would protect him, but he didn’t expect that Ethan wouldn’t care at all. He hesitated and said, “Don’t worry, we won’t let them touch you.”

Ethan drank all the wine in his glass and casually placed it on the tea table in front of him. “I know that you can’t kill me at present, and you’re afraid that I’ll infect you to become that kind of insect, so you will grant all of my requests. If I’m not wrong, I’m afraid there was something in the glass just now.”

His words caused Roland to grow pale.

Indeed, there was a newly developed neurotoxin in the wine which could paralyze people, though not to death. Roland had an antidote in his pocket. If he had no choice but to drink it, he would just have to take the antidote in half an hour, which would allow him to be saved.

But now, looking at how Ethan was just fine, it seemed that he had failed again.

Fortunately, the spaceship had left the fifth planet. If Ethan decided to infect the whole ship in a rage, he still had time to inform the headquarters to start the spaceship’s self-explosion process.

This seemed to be a task that would send him to his sure death.

But Ethan just smiled and looked at him with a somewhat pitying expression. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill you. Destroying the Ophiuchus Alliance doesn’t mean anything to me. If all of you want to try to do it, you can continue. Just don’t get in my way.” With that, he turned around and planned to go upstairs.

Roland felt that he had never been dealt so heavy of a blow in his life.

Clearly, he had already made up his mind to magnanimously give up his life, but he had been easily “pardoned” by the person who used to be so insignificant before him.

He felt that who he was facing was not a person, but an existence that did not take him seriously and had exceeded his existence by way too much. He finally gave up his cool, and his smile fell apart on his face. He grabbed Ethan by the wrist and easily stopped the Beta from moving. He clearly still looked like a scholar without the power to bind a chicken. How could it be……

“You……what exactly are you?!” Roland asked, almost gnashing his teeth.

Ethan didn’t even try to break free. In this position, he lowered his eyes slightly and replied seriously, “I don’t know what I am.”

“What are you going to do! Will you spread the disease to the whole Milky Way?!”

“I already said it,” Ethan said, with the patience one would have towards an ignorant child, “All I want is one person, Tanisiel.”

“He’s already dead!”

“Dead……” Ethan said, with a layer of sadness in his gaze. He slowly closed his eyes and continued, “Even if he went to hell, I will bring him back.”

But at this time, he suddenly heard the mainframe announcing that Samuel was requesting to come in, and a very noisy kick came from outside the door. Even through the soundproof door panel, Ethan could hear Samuel yelling, “Ethan! Ethan! Are you alright? I heard that Sean came here!”

As soon as Ethan let him in, Samuel rushed in like a whirlwind. As soon as he saw Roland grabbing Ethan’s arm, he immediately flew over. Roland let Ethan go and rolled away.

“Ethan! Did he do anything to you?” Samuel stared at the man on the ground, and Roland returned his stare with a sharp glare. Damn, why was this Omega more fierce than any Alpha he’d ever seen……

Ethan pressed down on Samuel’s shoulder with a gentle smile. “I’m fine. We were just chatting.”

Roland got up from the ground, but he was too embarrassed to continue the conversation. Ethan didn’t say that the wine was poisonous, which made him feel worse. He clenched his fist and turned to leave, but Ethan said behind him, “Commissioner Sean, don’t forget your wine.”

Looking at the man’s decadent figure, Samuel also felt strange. He turned to Ethan and looked him up and down.

Since he came out of the medical room, he hadn’t had a chance to look at Ethan carefully. Now, he saw that Ethan had really changed a lot.

He seemed to have become quieter, and the slender irises in his green eyes made people feel a little uneasy.

“Samuel, what can I do for you?”

Samuel nodded. He looked down, hesitating for a moment before he said, “I wanted to say goodbye to you in advance. After I head to Black Gate with you this time, I plan to return to Earth. I’m afraid I’ll leave in a hurry, and I won’t have a chance to tell you.”

Ethan frowned. “Why?”

“My father is still on Earth, and now the plague is intensifying, so I…..I don’t know what happened to him,” Samuel said, pursing his lips and scratching his head in a very irritated manner. “I want to make sure he’s safe.”

“But the Earth Union has put up a warrant for you now. Going back would be a dead end.”

“Now that the plague is so serious, I just need to be careful, and I should be fine.”

Ethan looked at him and squeezed his shoulder. He laughed, though with some sadness. “You’re right. It’s time to go back and have a look.”