Falling into the Abyss

Chapter 5: Atonement: Red Earth (III)

Tanisiel admitted that Samuels pheromones were extraordinarily strong. When Ethan opened the entrance to the nest, his whole body trembled from the delicious scent of the Omega. The smell seemed to entangle him like countless threads, causing his heart to beat faster and him to have difficulty breathing.

The scent alone could shake the firm self-control of an Eve priest. What a powerful character he was.

Ethans eyes almost rolled to the skies. Tanisiel had claimed that his races mental strength was very strong and that he wouldnt be driven by his instincts, but in the end, the expression on his face was just that of an ordinary Alpha being driven by their instincts. However, because he was good looking, although he looked indecent, he also looked strangely sexy.

Sure enough, this world only cared about appearances.

At this time, Samuel, who had been in a coma, suddenly woke up as though he had sensed something. A pair of dark eyes filled with hunger and thirst immediately locked onto Tanisiel, just like someone who had been hungry for three days and suddenly saw a large plate of roast chicken.

An Alpha, a powerful and beautiful Alpha! The Alpha hormones diffused in the air like a strong, mellow wines fragrance, sending a fatal temptation into Samuels nostrils. His eyes appeared muddled by endless desire as he gazed at Tanisiel, and he propped up his tired body to crawl in his direction.

But he was dragged back by Ethan.

You, calm down! Ethan quickly turned to Tanisiel and shouted, You go out first! I cant do anything right now! After shouting, he was knocked to the ground by the powerful Samuel. It was unknown whether the Omega was angry or irritated as he howled in pain. However, after struggling to raise his head to look at Tanisiel, his eyes cleared up momentarily.

Go away! He gathered the rest of his senses and yelled at the strange Eve.

Seeing this, Tanisiel knew that it would be better for him to retreat temporarily, so he left in silence. Ethan quickly ripped open Samuels old clothes, and found several inhibitors and Alpha camouflaging inhibitors. He picked up the electronic needle and looked at Samuel, hesitantly asking, He said that youll experience strong side effects if you use this during your estrus period. Are you willing to bear them? Maybe your estrus will end soon

It wont end soon. I havent had my estrus for almost three years, Samuel gritted his teeth and ordered, Do it!

Ethan saw that Samuel had been tortured by desire to the point that he was sweating like a dehydrated fish. Adding on that the musky scent had yet to be diluted and was rushing relentlessly towards him, he gritted his teeth and injected the inhibitor into his arm.

The light blue liquid quickly flowed into his boiling blood vessels, flooded with hormones, and travelled through the countless veins and meridians in his body. Samuel let out a moan, and the entirety of his body shivered. As the injection gradually took effect, his flush gradually faded, and his rapid heartbeat slowed down. The scent of pheromones that had previously felt like countless tentacles wriggling in the air stopped flapping and trying to catch someone. Samuel laid on the ground, exhausted after finally receiving relief. He curled up, and Ethan quickly grabbed a thick sleeping bag, wrapping it around him tightly before wiping his face with a torn cloth.

He crawled out of the nest sluggishly, only to see Tanisiel leaning against a row of dark-grey pipes with his eyes closed. Ethan couldnt tell if he was dozing off, but as soon as he took a step forward, Tanisiel opened his eyes and looked at him, inquiring, Hows his situation?

He fell asleep. He appeared to be quite tired. Ethan said, taking a deep breath of fresh air and wiping the sweat from his forehead, It doesnt look like there are any side effects.

Its too early to say that. Although the side effects of inhibitors on the market are not as bad as they used to be, they should not be used continuously for more than a year. Otherwise, it will likely result in a hormonal imbalance, which may lead to severe headaches, irritability, emotional disorders, and other problems. On a more serious note, an Omega may even become infertible, as well as increasing their risk of cancer, Tanisiel threw out the names of many side effects to Ethan as if he was reciting a textbook. Ethan felt dizzy from hearing all the side effects. Tanisiel continued, If you care about your friend, youd better persuade him to stop using them as soon as possible.

Ethan rubbed his aching temples, his back sliding down the wall until he plopped on the ground, and spoke in a tired voice, Thats his own problem. Its none of my business.

But you seem to care about him?

Hes my backer. Helping him is equivalent to helping myself. Ethan glared at the priest and asked, Why did you want to see him so badly? What exactly do you want?

What do I want? The point is that I helped both of you, so now, you both owe me a favor, his tone was still friendly as he spoke to Ethan, If I need help in the future, the both of you better remember what happened today.

Ethan frowned and replied, Youre a priest from the upper-class. What can we nonhumans help you with? Besides, if you need the assistance of nonhumans, you should be telling the government instead.

You will know when the time comes, Tanisiel said as he handed Ethan a small bottle of medicine, When he wakes up, give this to him to ease his headache. Anyway, how much do you know about the Red Earth?

The higher ups havent told us much, and just said we were to help with the rescue work. Although, I dont know what kind of rescue work would need nonhumans, Ethan sneered sarcastically, but he realized that this was a good opportunity to inquire about it.

The Eve priest had a high status, so wouldnt the higher ups tell them more detailed information regarding the rescue mission? What kind of rescue mission required the use of nonhumans and rewarded a lot of moral value? Ethan asked in a low voice, Could it be that they want us to become some unknown alien creatures prey?

Tanisiel looked at him for a long time, but it was difficult to decipher the look in his eyes. He slowly said, The Red Earth was discovered at the same time by both the Earthlings and the Eves. It was not long before the both of us sent preliminary developers. It is a rare planet thats suitable for both biological reproduction and living, as well as a large ocean. However, the average temperature is slightly higher than that of Earth, and its gravitational force is weaker than Earths. At first, the developers were operating smoothly. Both the Earthlings and Eves bases sent back logs and reports on a regular basis, but after three years the reports suddenly stopped being transmitted.

Ethan said, I heard about it. After that, didnt someone send a search and rescue team?

Yes. The Earth Union rescue troops arrived first, and sent back video reports after a one year delay. They found that the gates to each development base were still sealed, and although they were dusty, most of the machines and internal facilities were still in good condition, and there was even sufficient food stored in the chiller. However, there was no trace of anybody. They checked the base logs, and discovered that the last few days had been operating smoothly. Only one of the Eves base recorded a very chaotic audio recording in their last log, with a lot of screaming in the background. The base commander stated that there was a serious emergency, and they were giving up the base. They requested to retreat, and asked the Eves to rescue them quickly. The audio was cut off after that, and they did not even have the time to record the rest of their message.

After listening to the audio, the rescuers began to use the first two satellites launched to orbit around the Red Earth in order to conduct a global search, and it took more than a year before they concluded that they couldnt find traces of anyone. Those people had just disappeared, and they couldnt even find their corpses.

Ethan pondered, In the late Renaissance period of ancient Earth, there was a colony called Roanoke, with a population of more than 100 gathered on a small island. Three years later, the people who had been providing them with supplies travelled there and found that everyone was gone, leaving only the word CROATOAN engraved on the wall.

What does CROATOAN mean?

Its the name of an American Indian tribe as well as an island. The man who had been transporting supplies was the leader of the colonists, and his own daughter and granddaughter were part of the missing colony. He suspected that they might have moved to an island called Croatoan because they were running out of supplies, but then why didnt they leave him more information than a simple word? Additionally, they had never used the agreed upon method to request help. He never found them, and no one ever saw any of those 100 people ever again. There were no traces of an invasion, and some of the demolished houses even appeared to be personally demolished by the colonists themselves. Anyway, where those people had gone became a mystery.

Tanisiel lowered his head and gazed at Ethan with a surprised expression, asking, How do you know matters of the past so well when we are in an interstellar age?

I majored in Earth history while I was in university, he said as he pushed his glasses up shyly, I always thought that they might have moved somewhere themselves when their supplies were finally exhausted. On the way, they may have met with the American Indians, and then some were killed, while others assimilated by Indians. At that time, it was inconvenient for people to communicate, and losing contact with others was common. So, will it be the same situation on Red Earth? After all, its so far away from both Earth and Eve here. A message even took a year to reach the authorities. Maybe they boarded their spaceships and sailed away?

We speculated that, but then one day, even the rescuers line of communication stopped being transmitted back. Their final message was a video clip filled with bizarre images.

Bizarre?

The video was very short, about a dozen seconds. At that time, it should have been morning on Red Earth, but we could see that the sky behind the rescue teams leader was dark, and that there were countless thin objects stretching down, as though the sky had rotted and grown mold. As the video continued  to play, the sky stretched open.

Open? What do you mean?

Its hard to describe. Its kind of like when you pull apart a cheese stick. However, instead of cheese, it was the skythe black sky was pulled apart.

Ethan froze for two seconds, before rolling his eyes and saying, Dont you priests have a commandment that says you cant lie to people or something?

Tanisiel spoke solemnly, No, because we priests are chosen by the gods and only speak the truth, so a situation in which we lie does not exist.

Ethan hated that the whites of his eyes werent enough. If he could, he would already have rolled his eyes to the back of his head.

But if he considered it from the Eves overly spiritual perspectiveit seemed that there was nothing wrong with him saying something like that

Besides, I didnt lie to you, he added after seeing Ethan remain silent with a skeptical expression. It seemed that Ethan regarded him as a low-life Alpha who spoke nonsense in order to get close to an Omega in estrus. Tanisiels serious expression contained a trace of complaint.

Listen to what youre saying. You said that the sky grew hair or whatever, and that it even opened up like a slit. Although Im a nonhuman that doesnt reach many books, you cant look down on my IQ.

Tanisiel looked at him for a long time, before quietly pulling out a black polyhedral ball-like gemstone from the pocket of his trousers. When one looked closely, countless lines were visible on it. It was a smart tool used for storage and communication that was carried by the Evesthe ten thousand function sphere. Some Eves, for the sake of convenience, would keep the ball in an active state, so that the small gem would automatically revolve around its owner. The owner only needed to give it instructions before they would be immediately carried out.

After Tanisiels ten thousand function sphere was awakened, it flew up from his palm, and several of the fine lines covering it lit up. A beam of projection was projected out.

It was a short video.

A Beta Earthling man about 40 years old was staring at the camera in horror and spoke incoherently, In the skythere are strange things in the sky! What is that!!! Help us!!! Help us!!!

Behind him, the sky was dark, and there seemed to be a massive object that wasnt a cloud solidifying in the darkness. Because there was no giant red star in the Hera galaxy system, the only light source came from the developers base, searchlights that shot up into the sky in every direction. The lights revealed some thin black threads hanging down from the sky like flagella. Some of them were like soft earthwormscurling and stretching around. It seemed that they were looking for the people fleeing in panic on the ground. After about three seconds, the black objects in the sky suddenly wriggled and twisted, before opening a hole near the horizon that was huge enough to stretch beyond the cameras view.

As for what was in the hole, it couldnt be seen clearly. However, the ten seconds long shaky video gave Ethan an oppressive feeling of fear that seeped into his internal organs.

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