Falling into the Abyss

That was the last scene they saw. In the next moment, all the projections and lights went out at the same time.

The developer’s base obviously had backup generators installed, but they were not turning on for unknown reasons. The crowd suddenly descended into a darkness so black that they could not even see their fingertips, causing them all to scream in surprise. Ethan’s heart started thumping loudly, and he shouted, “Gina!” However, the AI had descended into silence along with the rest of the electronic devices and never replied.

Everyone jostled each other after losing their sense of direction. The nonhumans with weak willpower went crazy and started to panic, crashing into others like headless flies. At this time, Ethan suddenly heard Chen Zeng’s steady voice break through the barrier of shrieks. He spoke calmly and loudly, “Don’t panic! Lean against the wall!”

He repeated his instructions over and over again. There was a certain hypnotic power in his words. The people who had been running around randomly finally regained a wisp of their sanity. They clung to the instruction given to them and stopped running, looking for the nearest wall. After a while, Ethan only heard the sound of intermittent heavy gasps and cries, with the rest of his surroundings quiet.

Samuel swore while he searched for his lighter, and finally, a small flame appeared in the dark. However, the fire was so weak that it couldn’t disperse the thick, black, velvety darkness.

Ethan felt that the uncomfortable humming in his ears had grown so loud that he could not even hear some people’s cries clearly. The high-frequency sound waves continued vibrating, causing him to be in so much pain that he felt as though his skull was going to crack. He panicked, his fists continuously clenching and unclenching as he reached out to grab something. His hands swung wildly in the air until they were suddenly caught by another hand and pulled him away from the crowd.

Tanisiel’s low voice flowed into his ear, “Follow me.”

His feet stumbled as he was led by the other man to run in the unknown darkness until the nonhumans’ voices faded away. Although there was no light at all, the priest carefully avoided all the obstacles as though he could see perfectly. Tanisiel’s hands were delicate and warm, reminding Ethan of the sun on Earth in early summer. It was the same comfortable feeling as being gently kissed by the sky. He had only felt that kind of sunshine when he was a child, traveling on the surface of Earth.

At this moment, he had unconsciously developed feelings resembling dependence and trust towards that hand. He had forgotten about how he had doubted the priest’s real purpose for coming to Red Earth not long ago.

Finally, they stopped moving. Ethan gasped out, “Where is this? Why did we come here?”

“The central control room.” Tanisiel let go of his hand, causing him to feel a sense of loss. He listened to the sound of the priest’s footsteps and figured out that he had walked a few steps away from him and had begun to fiddle with something. “Ethan, I need your help.”

Every time Tanisiel called him by his first name rather than by his last name, there was something wonderful about it. Perhaps it was the priest’s mesmerizing, calming voice, but whenever the priest called out his name, he was unable to reject the other party’s requests.

“What do you want to do? What’s going on out there?”

“Her name in our Eve language is Shub-niggu, the Mother Goddess of Disorder. She feeds on vitality and gives birth to eternal chaos,” Tanisiel’s melodious tone seemed to be reciting a poem, “She lives in the gaps between parallel spacetimes. Perhaps, this planet may be a small crevice in our spacetime that can accommodate a part of her body.”

“Part of her……body?”

“Lucky?!” Ethan’s voice went up an octave, “Are you kidding? We are all going to die!”

That’s right, they’re all going to die. Ethan suddenly realized that this was the very event that Tanisiel had mentioned previously, when the God of Disorder would descend, and the mothership would lose supervisory control of the nonhumans. And right now, they were stuck in a man-made building where they could be easily spotted—Base No.18. They had also already lost both Gina and the base’s protective barrier.

They were like a flock of sheep, trapped lambs ready to be slaughtered at any time. Yet Tanisiel still spoke lightly, sounding pleased, “We’re not going to die.”

As soon as his voice fell, a faint blue light appeared suddenly and swiftly swirled around like a tide. The light came from the palm of the priest’s hand and illuminated his face, causing him to appear rather demonic. As he opened his hand, he could see that it was an oval object. Tanisiel proclaimed, “Because I want to catch her……at least one piece of her body tissue.”

——————————

The nonhumans who stayed in the lobby did not notice the departure of Tanisiel and Ethan. Currently, the ten nonhuman leaders, including Samuel, had managed to stabilize the nearly out of control crowd. All of them had found lighters for starting fires in their backpacks, and the faint lights scattered the thick darkness, lighting up pairs of eyes that were dampened due to tears of fear.

Right at this moment, they heard a thumping sound not too far from them, as though someone was kicking the metal door at the entrance. The timid Betas huddled together, shivering and about to cry again. Samuel growled impatiently, “Stop crying! That’s the rescue team sent by the mothership!” With that, he ran in the direction of the entrance to open the door for the people who had just landed and unfortunately met that thing.

However, Derek suddenly blocked his way. His big eyes seemed extraordinarily dark at this moment as he said, “We don’t have to open the door for them.”

Samuel stared at him and asked with an inscrutable expression, “What do you mean?”

“All of the electronics are currently out of order, including these,” he replied and touched the collar around his neck, “We don’t have to be controlled by them.”

His young, innocent eyes were filled with a thick sense of malice. He even laughed, his exposed canine tooth giving him a childish appearance. “If we let them in, then they will only drag us down. It’s better to keep them outside to attract that thing’s attention. Maybe we could even seize their spaceship.”

Seizing their spaceship, so they could fly away and never return to the damned Forbidden City. Samuel was stunned. He hadn’t thought about this possibility at all……

After three years, had his sharp edges grown too smooth?

His eyes darted around, and he looked at the other eight people, including Otto, who did not seem to object to Derek’s words. It appeared that they had discussed it before.

When had they begun to discuss matters behind his back?

The banging on the door had become increasingly urgent. The survivors outside were likely shouting hysterically at the moment, but their voices were blocked by the heavy gate and couldn’t be heard inside the building. However, they could tell just how scared and desperate they were only by listening to them pound on the door like heavy rainfall.

“Have you considered that maybe with their help, we would have a better chance of survival?” Samuel did not intend to give in and argued, “Do you really think that thing will stop after eating a few people out there?”

Cavin also stood up. With anger brimming in his eyes, he confronted Samuel, “Don’t forget that they have weapons in their hands. If they are allowed to come in, then we will become their bait.”

“There were only about a dozen of them, and who knows how many of them survived. We have fifty people here. What are you afraid of?” Samuel wasn’t as confident when he spoke again because he felt that his reasoning was rather shoddy……

But……what if that person was still alive……

Under the dim light emitted by the lighters, Cavin took a few steps forward and approached Samuel, stopping very close to him. His eyes were full of threats and provocation as he confronted Samuel’s cold eyes. Both of them pulled their shoulders back and flexed their muscles, both taking fighting stances, akin to two lions in a standoff.

“I heard you have a good relationship with the chief security officer?” Cavin’s voice was hoarse, rumbling from the depths of his throat, “What benefits did you give him, or did he give you?”

Samuel narrowed his eyes, and his nostrils flared slightly, anger radiating from his body unabashedly. Among the nonhumans, especially the highly respected leaders, it was taboo to cozy up to the guards. It was considered a shameless betrayal. By saying this, Cavin was directly challenging his authority and calling him a traitor, a coward, and a dirty “rat.” Just as Samuel was about to give him a lesson with his fists, Chen Zeng stood up in time and said, “I think what Samuel said was reasonable. Now that the base’s protection system is gone, if they use their weapons to bomb the gate, they would definitely be able to enter. However, if we take the initiative to open the door, then we will gain the upper hand.”

As the leader of a cult, Chen Zeng now enjoyed a large amount of prestige among the timid nonhumans. As soon as he finished speaking, many nonhumans agreed with him. Regardless of whether Cavin agreed or not, Samuel strode in the direction of the gate. At the same time, Cavin clenched his fist and glared at Chen Zeng, spitting out, “There must be something wrong with him! If you trust him too much, you’ll regret it sooner or later!”

Chen Zeng just shook his head and whispered something to Otto.

Ethan thought that he must be crazy.

Currently, he was entering his identification number to log into the mainframe in the central control room, attempting to connect to the three wireless transmitters around Base No.18. The computer, which was supposed to have run out of power, was shooting beams of blue light and projecting dense characters that only Ethan could understand. And the source of this energy was from what Tanisiel was currently holding in his hands.

Tanisiel was operating the human-made mainframe with surprising ease while simultaneously explaining that he had secretly taken the object out of their temple. It was a treasure that the Eves had found after searching newly born planets in remote galactic regions for thousands of years. It had the ability to transmute elements and isotopes that were incomprehensible by their current level of interstellar science and technology. If used properly, it could generate a steady stream of energy that could even be used to extend Savaga’s lifespan, the red giant star that Eve orbited around. It was a pity that up until now, the Eves had not been able to fully discover its capabilities. The priests called it the God of Order’s egg.

Ethan does not think that this egg was truly one of the so-called God of Order’s eggs, but if one ignored the magical blue light it was emitting, it did look like a quail egg. He didn’t know whether it was a sophisticated mainframe or artificial intelligence program, or some kind of dangerous radioactive material……but it did provide the mainframe a bit of power in their bizarre predicament, where even the generators had stopped working. It wasn’t much energy, because Tanisiel didn’t want Gina to wake up or the Mothership to see what they were doing.

Tanisiel was fascinated by the God of Disorder to a horrifying degree, even saying that this little egg could catch the thing that was covering the sun and sky outside.

So why did he agree to help Tanisiel……

After he was done logging into the mainframe, it indicated that the main signal transmitter was heavily damaged. However, Tanisiel insisted that it did not matter. Ethan watched as the priest carefully connected the egg to the transmitter, quickly and skillfully performing a series of modifications before booting up the signal transmitter. Ethan looked at a string of characters on the computer being generated rapidly, displaying the information transmission’s progress. He didn’t know what Tanisiel was transmitting. What was in that egg?

At this time, they heard a loud noise in the distance, appearing to come from the direction of the hall. Tanisiel remained unmoved and stared intently at the egg. However, Ethan was unable to ignore the noise. Looking at the suffocating darkness outside the central control room, he quickly searched through drawers until he found some handheld flashlights. He shook them until his hands were aching, but the flashlight only gave off a soft glow. It seemed that ever since that thing appeared, everything that required the use of electricity had failed. It wasn’t just a hardware failure, but electricity and light itself were both greatly weakened.

So why was it that one egg could continue to power and even operate three giant wireless transmitters?

Ethan carried the flashlight that appeared as though it would be extinguished at any time. He walked forward quickly while shaking the flashlight. Darkness approached him from all directions, squeezing him into a small crack. It was a tortuous journey. He couldn’t imagine how Tanisiel had felt when he brought him here, in the depths of darkness.

His steps suddenly faltered when his flashlight’s light shone on one of the corridor’s walls.

There were numerous black spots, as though mold had grown.

Was it because this area was damp? Although the materials used to build the corridor were not suitable for mold to grow, it shouldn’t be impossible for it to grow? But……why did he feel that the black spots were slowly growing?

Maybe it was due to the flicker of the flashlight, causing him to imagine it?

There was also the persistent humming in his ears. He felt a strong sense of pressure, as though he were about to be crushed by something.

The light from the flashlight flickered, and he shook it fiercely before the light finally stabilized. Suddenly, he felt a chill at the back of his neck, and instantly, he aimed his flashlight at the opposite side of the corridor. The thin beam of light revealed a fuzzy human figure at the end of the forked corridor.

A chill crept up his spine. He immediately blinked and looked over again, but the end of the corridor was deserted.

He suddenly heard a boom, accompanied by the sound of angry curses. Ethan had no time to look closely at the corridor before he turned to continue rushing towards the hall.

kat: that was so ominous…what could the figure be?? a ghost trying to warn him? or something related to the god of disorder?

yuzu: what was that? creepy ah ( ⁰д⁰)