Falling into the Abyss

The God of Order’s egg was still firmly held in her palm, but her expression had changed subtly. It was as if a mask was pinned on her originally vivid and charming face. However, there was no visible tinge of suffering in her expression. On the contrary, she seemed at peace, like the mask worn on a corpse’s face in a mausoleum.

“Angela?” Roland asked nervously. Benji, who was close to her, went forward to touch her, but the priest suddenly put out his hand to stop him.

“Don’t move, or I don’t know what will happen to you,” Tanisiel said solemnly.

Benji anxiously grabbed Tanisiel by the collar and asked, “What did you do to her?”

“I didn’t do anything. I just gave her the God of Order’s egg as she instructed.” Although Tanisiel had been grabbed by him, he was not nervous. There was a smile of ridicule on his lips as if he was planning to watch a good show.

Roland took a few steps forward and looked at Angela with concern. “An, can you hear me? What’s the matter with you?”

She remained in the same position she received the God of Order’s egg in, and her whole person seemed to be frozen in time. Her lips suddenly moved, and she said in an almost inaudible voice, “Save……me……”

As soon as her voice fell, she saw a cloud of smoke rise from the palm of her hand where she was touching the God of Order’s egg. Her line of sight lingered and twirled around her fingertips and seemed unwilling to leave them. Then, from the palm of her hand, her skin quickly turned black, and it began to spread slowly towards her fingertips and arms.

There was clearly no fire, but her skin had begun to carbonize!

“Angela!” Benji loosened his hold on Tanisiel and rushed forward to take the God of Order’s egg from her hand. However, Tanisiel sneered and said, “She has already started to attain order. Once it starts, it’s impossible to stop the process. If you touch her now, you may turn black with her.”

Roland suddenly took out a gun and pointed it at Ethan’s head without hesitation. The tenderness in Ethan’s eyes seemed to evaporate. “You’re just causing trouble! Let her go, quick!”

Ethan’s heart seemed to burn with a cold fire, and he could taste bitter anger in his throat.

The smile on Tanisiel’s face gradually turned sharp. He played with the ten thousand function sphere flying around his fingers and said slowly, “As I said, once the process has begun, there is no possibility of turning back. When she chose to touch the God of Order’s egg, she should have understood that the process of attaining order is irreversible. However, if you return Ethan to me, I’ll take back God of Order’s egg now. She will probably live a few more years, just like the first Eve scholar who came into contact with God of Order’s egg.”

Benji and Roland look at each other and then at Ethan. The Beta, who hasn’t spoken all this time, stood quietly in the same place, as if what happened before him had nothing to do with him.

“What do you mean! What happened to Angela!” Benji cried out impatiently.

Tanisiel glanced at him before continuing, “Although the power of Order dominates our universe, Order and Disorder are two sides of the same coin. Without certain freedom, that is, disorder and variability, life itself is impossible. Too much disorder or too much order will lead to terrible consequences. Your Angela, she is now transforming from an unstable state of life to an extremely stable form of matter.”

“An extremely……stable state.” Roland’s face gradually turned pale.

The most stable substances that were currently known were inert gases like helium, right?

No……impossible. How could a person in perfectly good condition become a gas?! It must be the cunning priest who lied to them!

However, then what was the mass of smoke rising from her hand, which had almost wholly blackened? Why were her fingers becoming thinner? It was like she was a doll in a strange position as her hand slowly withered away. That charcoal-like blackness was gradually climbing up her finger.

And……the priest said that the first person who touched the God of Order’s egg disappeared many years later, and his roommate said that he was eaten by his own “shadow.”

That shadow……could that person have simply gradually carbonized?

Roland stared at Tanisiel with an expression that Ethan had never seen him show before. Benji was already panicking. He strode over to Roland and whispered, “Let’s give him back first! If anything happens to Angela……”

Roland gloomily looked at him and grasped onto the gun in his hand tightly before finally putting it down. He said to Ethan dispiritedly, “You……go with him.”

Ethan gave him a cold look and suddenly laughed. “Weren’t you going to take me to Ophiuchus Alliance? Have you changed your mind?”

Roland looked at him with a complicated expression, almost as though he was in pain. “You……”

Ethan’s green eyes were looking at him now, and Roland saw a frightful presence in his gaze that he had never seen in Ethan before. Roland suddenly felt that this Beta had changed a lot this year. Had the Forbidden City changed him, or was it this demon-like Eve priest in front of him?

“Ethan, come here,” Tanisiel commanded. His voice was full of possessiveness, and the slightest displeasure leaked into his tone.

However, Ethan actually heeded to him and went to the priest obediently. After Tanisiel made sure that he was close enough to him and far enough from Roland, he reached out and touched the God of Order’s egg a few times before picking it up lightly. However, even after the God of Order’s egg left her palm, Angela remained in her original position. The spreading blackness immediately stopped and retreated a little, but one of her arms was almost entirely black.

“Angela!” Benji shook the female Beta, but she still had a stiff expression and was unresponsive. Her eyes were empty, as though her soul had drifted to an unknown place. Benji reached out to touch her blackened and withered arm. However, the slightest contact with his fingers caused her arm to suddenly spread out and disperse into the air, disappearing like scattered ashes.

The unexpectedly cruel sight caused Benji to cry out. Roland glared at Tanisiel and raised his gun again, accusing, “You said you would let her go!”

Tanisiel habitually pulled Ethan behind him to shield him before confronting the tall Alpha opposite him, who was giving off a dangerous aura. “I already said it previously. This process is irreversible. Her brain may have been the first to be slightly affected, so she isn’t responding now, but it would take about three or four years before she completely gasifies.”

“You son of a bitch!” With a roar, Benji pulled a small gun from his waist and pulled the trigger at Tanisiel. Ethan didn’t have time to think about anything before he pushed Tanisiel away.

However, the pain he had expected to bloom on the chest did not occur, and the air suddenly quieted down.

Ethan slowly opened his eyes to see a wall in front of him, woven by many thin earthworm-like tentacles. The ends of those tentacles spread all the way to the back of his head, shooting out from under the skin of the back of his neck. When he suddenly regained control of his mind, those tentacles also contracted back in an instant, just like an illusion.

The entire process only took a few seconds, but the two spies from the Ophiuchus Alliance on the scene clearly saw it. Roland had an expression of shock, while Benji fell to the ground in horror, before pointing to him and saying in a trembling voice, “That……what was that!”

Ethan was also terrified and stepped back and bumped into the priest’s chest. He looked back and saw Tanisiel’s shocked expression.

“I……I didn’t mean to……” Ethan didn’t know what he was trying to explain. He felt for the back of his neck with a trembling hand and found a black bloodstain. He felt nauseous, but when he bent over, he couldn’t vomit out anything.

So last night……wasn’t a dream?

Tanisiel pulled his arm and stepped back towards the door, but the door wouldn’t budge. He took out the God of Order’s egg again and threatened Roland, “Open the door, or I’ll turn your friends into helium now!”

At this time, Roland seemed to have calmed down. He suddenly raised his gun and aimed not at them but at Angela’s head.

A light beam traveled across the room, and Angela fell to the ground silently. A bloody hole on her forehead gurgled out bright red blood, and white brain matter also slowly flowed from the hole.

Ethan and Tanisiel were shocked by his sudden change in plan. Benji yelled out, but he was not able to stop him in time.

Roland said expressionlessly, “Anyway, we are all going to die. It’s better to cleanly die now than to live like a ghost for three or four years.” Then, the muzzle of the gun pointed at Tanisiel again. “What’s the matter with Ethan?”

Before Tanisiel could answer, Ethan suddenly laughed. His laughter gradually increased in volume, and in the end, it sounded a little crazy.

“What’s the matter? Didn’t you see that?” Ethan raised his green eyes and gloomily looked at Roland as he spoke with a broken and shrill tone, “I’m a monster.”

“No, Ethan,” Roland’s voice suddenly softened, and his blue eyes seemed to return to the tenderness they used to have when they first fell in love. “You’re just sick. It’s the priest next to you who did something to make you sick. Don’t you see that? He is a cruel psychopath! Come back with me, and I’ll find the best doctor to treat you!”

Although he was smeared by the other, Tanisiel did not get angry or defend himself. That was because Ethan was still standing beside him, and he showed no signs of leaving.

Ethan shook his head and said with a bitter smile, “If I go back with you, then I’m afraid I won’t be treated but instead dissected.” He paused, then as if he had made up his mind, he said, “Roland, do you remember what that horned person who was covered in blood said at the horned people’s banquet? What he said was all true.”

Roland frowned as if unable to believe what he said. Ethan pursed his lips before finally taking a step forward, straightening up. For the first time, he kept Tanisiel behind him and took a protective stance. “If you don’t let us go, then you and your friends will come to the same end as those horned people.”

In fact, him threatening them was just to forcefully maintain their façade, because he had no idea when those tentacles would grow out.

Roland didn’t give in, and the guns in his and Benji’s hands were still pointing straight at the priest and Ethan. It seemed that they were determined not to let him and Tanisiel leave. However, at this time, there suddenly was a commotion in the yard. After listening carefully, they realized it was the patrolling soldiers from the Earth Union’s army shouting that they wanted to conduct a raid.

Roland and Benji suddenly grew nervous. When they were distracted, Tanisiel suddenly rushed at Benji. The other party shot at him quickly, but with a raise of Tanisiel’s hand, his aim was skewed, and the laser immediately shot through the roof. Roland immediately fired at Tanisiel. The priest was shot in the shoulder, and rose-colored blood suddenly dyed his white clothes. However, he didn’t have time to stop and grabbed Ethan before jumping out through the window.

T/N: We’re halfway through the novel now. :>