Falling into the Abyss

At dawn, the three returned their keys, and they took the driverless car back to the spaceship management registry of A city. After they quickly signed the leasing contract, the receptionist named Les took them to the spaceship parking lot outside of the building. On the vast land, there were rows of silver privately-owned spaceships, which were properly maintained despite the sandstorm, shining with a fresh metallic luster.

Les led them to one of the small spaceships that could hold about five to ten people, used for long-distance flight, and explained the rental rules. When he left, he murmured something to the priest. His face was so close to the priest that Ethan had the impulse to rush up to the priest. Samuel looked at him with a gloomy expression.

Ethan felt the gloomy aura around Samuel, and he turned around to see Samuel sitting in the swivel chair in the driver’s seat. It seemed that he had just averted his gaze. Ethan asked, “Are you okay? Is there something wrong?”

Samuel answered perfunctorily, “No.”

“Is your estrus approaching?” Ethan suddenly grew worried. This time, they had to enter warp drive again. Ethan still remembered the critical situation on the spaceship during his first mission after entering the Forbidden City.

“You’re really managing me too strictly. Since when have I needed you to help me calculate my estrus period?” Samuel impatiently rebuked.

Ethan, who was met with a rebuff, felt that it wouldn’t be appropriate to ask again. Of course he was concerned about Samuel, but there was a lot of selfishness in his concern. After all, there was only one Alpha on the ship this time, and he didn’t want this Alpha to have anything to do with the only Omega on the ship……

Suddenly, Ethan was anxious for Tanisiel’s favor and was worried about losing it. He turned his head and looked at the priest, who was smiling at the Omega receptionist. A worry that he had never felt before appeared in his mind. Although the Eves had strong control over their instincts, Tanisiel was an Alpha regardless. His nature made him attracted to Omegas. And Ethan could never satisfy his strongest desire to own an Omega.

He had never felt possessive over the priest before, and even when he found that he had fallen in love with Tanisiel, he never thought that he would be with him forever. That was because his wounded and vigilant heart had been telling himself not to expect too much and not to sink into such feelings easily. But now, he found that he was grasping onto the priest more and more tenaciously and was even beginning to think about the future.

It was strange because he was not even sure that he had a future.

Les finally left, and Tanisiel locked the cabin and began to set the course of the spaceship. Ethan didn’t know how to fly the spaceship, so he sat in the back seat and watched the priest and Samuel busy about. In a daze, he gently touched the thick scars and bulges on the back of his neck with his hands, feeling that they had spread all the way to his shoulder blades. It seemed that they were still spreading down his entire back. He was distracted and unable to concentrate because of the occasional itchiness.

“Ethan, wait for us in the sleeping cabin first.” Tanisiel turned to see that Ethan’s spirit didn’t seem to be good, so he said that to him.

Since the ship could hold up to ten people, the sleeping cabin was smaller than that of any other spaceship he had seen before. Ethan took off his clothes in the dressing room and looked at himself in the mirror. He could see his ribs faintly, which surprised him. He didn’t know when he had become so thin. The well-proportioned body he had when he used to work out in the gym had long since disappeared, and his ruddy and healthy appearance was gone. He touched his body and became more and more disgusted with himself.

Ever since he saw his mother wither during adulthood, it had been Ethan’s nightmare that he would turn into something like her.

When he went home to visit his mother after she had fallen ill, he used to sit in front of her bed, hold her wrinkled hand, and listen to her tell him what would happen when he entered adulthood. This was because she wanted to give him enough time to prepare for his own fate.

She said that when he entered adulthood, he would be extremely tired for a period and wouldn’t want to see anyone. He would always be in a state of inexplicable fear and anxiety, would want to stay in a safe place and be alone, and he would lose his appetite completely. This period of time will last for about one to two weeks. Then, there would be two to three days during which he would feel a sudden burst of special energy, and his appearance would be extremely beautiful. However, after this period, he would quickly age and die. It was like a butterfly. Once it broke out of its cocoon, it could obtain a moment of beauty, but the rest of its time was spent eternally withering and dying.

Ethan remembered the time when his mother locked herself in the room, the things his father told him about his adulthood, and the way his mother looked when she emerged from the room. At that time, she was as beautiful as the Virgin Mary in an ancient church. She was the same person that she had been previously, and she seemed to shine all over. But just three days later, her former beauty disappeared like a popped bubble, wrinkles covered her once plump and beautiful cheeks like cobwebs, and her skin lost its luster.

He hated the current him who was so anxious about losing his favor, as if he fell into the strange cycle of falling in love with Roland again.

When they left the territory of Earth Union and entered the territory of the Eve’s planet, they would have to pass through an automatic detection barrier. If the spaceship’s mainframe didn’t receive a legal identity, it would trigger an alarm, and they would be stopped by an electromagnetic net. Fortunately, Tanisiel seemed to have prepared another false identity before he came to Earth, so they could pass the test smoothly without even breaking their dormancy. It was not until the spacecraft entered the Eves’ domain that the mainframe began the wake-up process.

Ethan took a bath and sat in his own room in his comfortable bathrobe, watching a movie as he sipped a glass of red wine slowly, the light and shadows projecting a desert of different planets around him. All of a sudden, the mainframe said that someone requested to enter. Ethan opened the door and saw that it was Samuel.

He was stunned and asked, “Samuel? What’s the matter?”

“Can’t I come if I have nothing to do?” Samuel passed straight Ethan by with a gloomy look. Ethan noticed that he was carrying several cans of beer.

Samuel sat down on Ethan’s bed, which was in the center of the desert, appearing extremely lethargic. He shook his head from one side to another, and cracks sounded from his neck. Next to him, a warrior in black iron armor was slowly lifting up a rusty knife dripping with blood, as though he was going to cut Samuel down. Ethan quickly made a gesture to turn off the movie.

“Your priest said we’ll be at the Eves’ planet in three days.” Samuel opened a can of beer, took a big sip, and let out a comfortable sigh.

Ethan nodded, sat down on the edge of the bed next to Samuel, and reached for a can.

“You think he can protect you?” Samuel asked.

Ethan swallowed the bitter alcohol. “Yes, I believe him.”

“And after that, will you stay on the Eves’ planet all your life?” Samuel snorted and said, “It seems that your father is still in the Earth Union. If they threaten you with your father’s safety, what will you do?”

“……I don’t know…… Let’s talk about it then.” Ethan smiled at him. “I don’t know if I can live until then.”

“What do you mean?”

“You should also have noticed how I look. Do I look like someone who can live for long?”

“Didn’t Tanisiel say he had a way to treat you?”

“Samuel.” Ethan raised his green eyes and looked at him. “I am not even considered a human. How can he save me?”

“What do you mean? What does not being considered a human mean. Aren’t you alright?”

“Have you forgotten what I was like when I turned into that?” Ethan’s smile became more and more ghastly. “You were so afraid of me at that time that you didn’t dare to approach me. Did you forget all about it?”

“I was not prepared! It was temporary, and you’ll get better.”

“No, I won’t……” Ethan rubbed his eyebrows. When he opened his eyes again, his pupils elongated, and the green in his eyes became denser. “Because, the second time I turned into that, everything I did was what I really wanted to do in my heart,” he said with a grin. His teeth were neat and white, but for some reason, his expression looked a little strange. “It’s not so much that I can’t control myself as not being able to suppress my true self anymore……”

Samuel gulped down a whole can in silence and then opened another one, “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” he said in a hoarse voice. He added an understatement, “Those people should all be damned.”

Ethan felt the pain in his voice, and Ethan felt his mood falling. Therefore, he put a hand on Samuel’s shoulder.

“You know, I never said I liked or loved him.” Samuel raised his head and looked at the slowly rotating projection of the stars on the ceiling.

Endless regret and remorse spread in silence. Ethan didn’t know how to comfort him. “It’s too late now. Maybe he just exists in this universe in a different way?”

“Tanisiel said that in the extreme chaos, the boundaries of time and space are blurred, and maybe we will have a chance to meet the dead.” Samuel turned his head and looked at Ethan. Suddenly, he placed his hand over Ethan’s and held his hand firmly. “If I could, I would do anything.”

Deep in Samuel’s eyes, there was a fanatic look that made Ethan somewhat uncomfortable, but he didn’t understand what Samuel meant.

However, at this time, a light drawl came from the unclosed door, “I am not interrupting, right?”

Ethan quickly took his hand back and stood up as if he had not done anything. “Why are you both running to my side?”

Tanisiel came straight up to him and suddenly hugged Ethan’s waist in front of Samuel before lifting his jaw and giving him a deep kiss. Ethan couldn’t react to his series of natural actions. After being kissed for three seconds, he struggled and exclaimed, “Can’t you pay attention to the atmosphere!”

“What’s the matter? There are only three of us on this ship. Do you mind, Samuel?”

Samuel gave him a cold glance and didn’t speak, standing up to leave. However, the priest put his hand out in front of him and said, “Wait a minute, I have something to discuss with you first.”

The Omega had no choice but to stay where he was. The priest threw his ten-thousand function sphere into the air. Several beams of light were projected into the air to form some boxes and words, which were quickly arranged into a shape similar to a pyramid.

“Before entering the Eves’ territory, I think it’s necessary for you to have a general understanding of our social structure and customs. Otherwise, you may encounter many things that you don’t understand.” Tanisiel showed a “kind” smile akin to a teacher’s to the two students in front of him.

The Eves were the only remaining religious and cultural planetary state in the present galactic civilization. Their religion was collectively known as the Eve religion, but it was divided into two opposite but inclusive branches—the God of Order faction and the God of Disorder faction. In the Eves’ history, the two factions had fought openly and secretly, and even bloody wars had broken out. Each faction had once occupied a dominant position in history. In the interstellar era, the use of war as a means of solving problems was obviously out of date. Because of the liberal influence of some powerful planetary states such as the Ophiuchus Alliance and the Third Empire, the priests began to advocate the doctrine of balance for the sake of the interests of the entire Eve temple system. That was, how belief in the God of Order and God of Disorder were neither orthodox nor unorthodox, but representative. In this way, Order and Disorder attained equal status. But in fact, modern society on the Eves’ planet was still dominated by belief in the God of Order.

Due to the state being highly religious, the management of the nation centered on the Eves’ unique temple system. The two most important temples were the nameless Temple of the God of Order faction and the Abyssal Temple of the God of Disorder faction. The two temples were not independent. Whenever they wanted to issue a command, they had to obtain the consent of the other party. And the head priests of both sides, which included silver-robed priests and above, had to meet once a month to maintain the close cooperation between the two temples.

Under the two temples, there were four first-class temples whose functions were to assist the highest temple in formulating some rules and regulations and to urge the lower-level temples to implement them. Under the first-level temple, there were a series of complex monasteries, which were responsible for supervising some specific and trivial rules. These included those specialized in the formulation of educational regulations, the dissemination of culture, and commercial trade. Below these first-class temples were the state-level temples, which generally governed the eight continents of Eves and the temples of other planetary states. They were responsible for regulating the order of their entire continent, including some divided planets. Further down were the domain-level temples, city-level temples, and even the most basic five-level temples. They were responsible for making rules and regulations in their respective jurisdictions and were responsible for acting as mentors of the spirit and soul to the local Eves.

The Red Moon Temple where Tanisiel was located was a state-level temple, but the continent they managed was special, as it was the continent where the Eve royal family was located, and it was also considered as the origin of the Eves civilization. Although it was a state-level temple, they had great power and could even directly influence the decision-making of the first-level temple or even the highest-tiered temples. The Red Moon Temple was built in Siloan city, the capital of the Eves planet. In name, it was a temple of the God of Order faction. But in fact, in recent years, the head priest of the temple, the purple-robed priest Theonile, had grown inclined towards the God of Disorder faction, and there were a lot of rumors regarding the Red Moon Temple’s inclination towards the God of Disorder faction.

This kind of news made the nameless temple outraged. They even considered deploying Theonile to another state-level God of Disorder temple. It was a pity that Theonile was very popular and had many relations with the royal family, even having aristocratic blood. In addition, he placed a lot of pressure on the Abyssal Temple, so they didn’t do it.

As for the Eve nobility, they were responsible for controlling some more secular government departments, such as the police, schools, hospitals, and so on. Therefore, their power should not be underestimated. Although they were also subjected to the management of the temples, they had a more cooperative relationship with the temples, as they both feared and depended on each other. Especially in recent years, some important members of the royal family had joined the ranks of priests, making their relationship more delicate.

As Tanisiel spoke of this, Ethan suddenly asked, “I remember you told me before that you were a noble?”

His question interrupted Tanisiel’s narration, and the dozing Samuel slightly woke up and asked, “Ah, what nobility?”

“Yes, my father’s title before his death was Duke of the Western River. If I had not become a priest, I would have inherited this title,” the priest answered.

“What, what, what? You are a nobleman?” Samuel obviously didn’t wasn’t on the same wavelength as them. Ethan pushed his head aside impatiently and continued, “So……what standing does the Duke of the Western River possess?”

Ethan had read about the status of archdukes on Earth, but he didn’t dare to believe…… Maybe the Eves’ system was different from Earth’s?

Tanisiel just shrugged his shoulders and said, “He was the brother of the current Eve king.”

The author has something to say:

Ethan: My husband is also a man with a background~

T/N: For those who made fanart of ABYSS, do you mind if I share it on CG on newest chapters, with the other readers? (You can reply me in the comments, on reply me via discord (daylite#7399). I will also create a page to host ABYSS fanarts, and give proper credits to you guys~