Falling into the Abyss

Chapter 57: Atonement: Pales (VI)

Warning: The contents in this chapter may cause discomfort. 

Summary: Ethan realized that Tanisiel couldnt save him after he was placed on the altar. He recalled what Tanisiel had told him, to either die miserably or to embrace fear and become a monster, and decided to embrace fear, allowing him to mutate. After mutating, he let out his dark side and Kaneki-fied (reference to Tokyo ghoul), and grew a bunch of tentacles from his neck. Samuel was shocked to see his transformation and tried to get him back, but Ethan couldnt seem to hear him. According to Tanisiel, he should allow no one to live to know of his secret, so he started wiping out the horned people and some nonhumans.

Samuel turned around and yelled at all the other nonhumans, Charge! After all, no one wanted to die like this. They smashed at the horned people around them, trying to get out of the tight encirclement. Ethan also charged left and right with the others, but in his heart, he knew that it was impossible to escape. After all, they were surrounded by 3,000 horned people, and so many of them had guns. In addition, they were tied together like grasshoppers, so even their actions were restrained.

Their resistance was soon pushed back by the tide of horned people, and the chains that bound their hands and feet caused them to fall like dominoes. One of the horned peoples soldiers seemed to be angry, and he yelled something. Then, he grabbed Wilson, Little A, and another female Alpha before dragging the three of them to the altar.

Wilson cursed loudly, but when his hands and feet were tied to the wooden frame, Ethan saw the tall man trembling with a panicked look in his eyes. When the female horned peoples priest came dancing towards him with a knife, his trousers were clearly soaked in urine.

Little A and the other soldiers were also in the same predicament as him. If it wasnt for the chains, Ethan was afraid that they would already have curled into balls. Soldiers like Sergeant Wilson had been stationed on Pales for a long time. They were the strongest soldiers of the human race, but no one could blame them for being so weak in the face of a cruel death. People should not die like this. It was simply crazy, too crazy to have people suffer through horrific events, only to experience a dream-like numbness after.

Ethan was so numb that he didnt even feel scared. He watched as the two priests lifted the skulls of the three humans individually. He saw Sergeant Wilsons brain exposed to the air and how his eyes rolled back and his mouth opened unnaturally. It seemed that he could no longer control his facial expressions. He also saw those giant worms lured by the call of the bell and the sweet scent of the brains. They extended their huge, pillar-like bodies from the deep underground again before devouring the three living humans with their ugly mouths, sucking on their flesh and blood, and crushing their bones and internal organs. Ethan couldnt imagine what it would feel like when his body was wrapped in that mouth, his skin peeled off his body, and his brain crushed.

The two priests kept singing. Ethan couldnt understand their language, but they kept repeating the same word: Yog-Sothoth, Yog-Sothoth, Yog-Sothoth.

The next three to be pulled to the altar were him, Samuel, and Derek. At this moment, even Derek, who had always been indifferent to everything, shook his head in horror and struggled with the remnants of his strength. However, he was still lifted onto a horned persons shoulders and carried to the wooden frames at the top of the altar.

Ethan didnt struggle, so he was just pushed up. He was unexpectedly obedient. He thought of Tanisiel and kept calling out for the priest to save him. Tanisiel would surely come, just like every other time in the past.

This timeI dont know if I can make it in time.

He wouldnt make it in time to save Ethan.

After Ethan remembered, he found that he had not been desperate before. Deep in his subconscious, he always believed that Tanisiel would suddenly appear and give him salvation, like a God. Before he knew it, Tanisiel had subconsciously become his salvation, and he had utterly submitted to the priest.

But now, his last hope had shattered.

He was really going to die, and no one could save him. His brain would be exposed to the cold air, and before he died, he would feel the pain of being torn to pieces by countless sharp teeth. Then, he will return to nothingness and never exist again. His short, boring, and pathetic life was about to end, and his existence had not stirred up even a tiny wave in history.

Next to him, Samuel kept talking to him, repeating, Its okay! It will be okay! It will be over soon! Listening to his trembling voice, Ethan was afraid that Samuel himself didnt know whether he wanted to comfort Ethan or himself. But no matter who it was for, it wouldnt work.

The purple dagger was so similar to the one that Ethan used to kill before. The female priests face, which was slightly longer than that of humans, had an exaggerated smile that made him shudder. It was the smile of the god of death.

At the same time, Ethan remembered. He remembered everything, all of the demonic-like things Tanisiel had whispered into his ears.

If you cant overcome fear, then embrace it.

You can either die miserably or embrace it

And then, stay alive as a monster.

It was like a part of his brain was suddenly resuscitated. A burst of numbness and itchiness quickly turned into a splitting pain, spreading from the black bulge on the back of his neck. Many thin black lines grew rapidly, and like a tattoo, the veins quickly spread to his back, while several other black lines twisted and grew onto both sides of his cheek. Two thicker black lines extended to the corners of his eyes, and then to his pupils As the lines lengthened, the green color of his irises appeared purer.

Ethan did not know what had happened to him, and he simply felt comfortable. His vision grew very clear and was full of strange colors he had never seen before. The terror, despair, and madness that had flooded his whole body just moments ago did not dissipate. They still brimmed in every cell in his body, but they were no longer negative feelings. On the contrary, they became similar to feelings of happiness, joy, boundless ecstasy, and serenity, which made him very comfortable. It was like his consciousness was suddenly released from his body, and it suddenly surged up. After breaking through the dim clouds, he came to a beautiful fairyland.

It was the fairyland that Tanisiel had woven for him. The verdant water, the wine-red duckweed, the blue and purple shrubs, and the huge ancient tree with the leaves as crimson as blood. He lay on the water, empty and carefree.

But there was another part of him, one that was more real, that remained in the body bound to the ground. His trembling lips suddenly formed a strange smile.

That part of him had been sleeping in his subconscious. From the moment of his birth, it would occasionally turn into a dark shadow that spread all over his subconscious mind, but he would soon be suppressed back to deep sleep by layers of his consciousness. That was until the external DNA sequence changed the body he was born with using the power of Order. Until this moment had arrived.

The priestess had just raised her dagger when something penetrated her throat.

The priestesss eyes suddenly widened as if she could not believe what had happened to her. Her body was lifted into the air and tossed around a few times like a puppet before she was lightly thrown onto the ground under the altar. When she landed, her limbs were twisted to impossible angles, and her head turned 180 degrees. Her purple eyes turned gray, and she still had a look of surprise.

A wave of deadly silence rapidly spread throughout the originally noisy space. The slender eyes of the horned people fixed on the altar where the scene had just taken place, and the nonhumans also showed the same blank expression.

Trapped on the wooden frame, Ethan raised his face filled with black lines, and countless black tentacles burst from the back of his neck, just like a black firework blooming in an instant. They extended endlessly until they blocked out both the sky and the sun. Some of them had green eyes at their tips, some of them were like the worms hiding in the depths of the underground caves, and some had sharp spines full of sticky venom. They all descended crazily from the skies, and all the horned people within reach were swallowed, cut into two, or had their skin melted by the acid coming from the tentacles suction cups. They all let out shrill screams.

Their positions were flipped in an instant, and the scene quickly spiraled out of control. The nonhumans were suddenly forgotten and pushed into the crowd of horned people. To everyones surprise, quite a few of the horned people did not run away and instead knelt with their hands raised high, expressions ecstatic as tears ran down their faces. They muttered in their own languages and kowtowed to the platform high up, worshipping the pale figure that was shrouded in a black flower of death.

However, it was calm on the platform above the altar. Samuel, who was tied beside Ethan, was stunned as if his brain could not comprehend what he was seeing. Those horrible black tentacles did not hurt him, and they even bypassed him and Derek, who was also stunned. However, he could not help but watch how they entangled the body of the male priest and listened to his cries as the tentacles wrapped around his body and crushed his bones. When the tentacles casually released the male priest, the things that fell on the ground could no longer be deciphered. There was only a pool of flesh and a few pieces of broken horns.

Ethan Samuels murmur was drowned by the horned peoples screams like a sea from hell, but Ethan slowly turned his head and looked at him.

They were the same green eyes, but the darkness, evilness, and madness within them made Samuel shudder.

Ethan! Ethan! Samuel called out to him, but Ethan didnt seem to understand. He just looked back at him with a strange and empty smile before slowly turning back.

The horned peoples pious act of kowtowing did not win them forgiveness. A tentacle sprayed acid, which instantly melted their bodies into a pool of flesh and blood.

Not only the horned people, but many of their own were also not spared. The nonhumans Ethan did not know or were not familiar with were also lifted up by tentacles and thrown into the air. When they fell, their brain juices splattered everywhere.

A scene of darkness was blooming, like hell in disguise. Under the sky that was eternally night, a symphony of death was woven as the cries and shrill screams of victims echoed. Even the giant worms in the deep holes seem to be beckoned. They rushed out of the caves before opening their huge mouths like black holes, pressing the horned people that had transformed from hunter to prey onto the ground.

Do not leave anyone alive. This was another sentence that Tanisiel had whispered in his ear.

The author has something to say:

Everyones long-awaited mutation

In addition, Ethans tentacle massacre references the Silent Hill movies Alessa, Time Raider movies Snake Empress, Spider Mans Doctor Octopus, and Inuyashas Narakus appearance.

T/N: I guess this is what youve all been waiting for?