Abyss Descension: I Perform Rituals to Evolve In The Apocalyps

Chapter 46 - Crucial Breakthrough!

A group of people were gathered in a loose circle inside a hall as one of them spoke.

It was Lena.

She had finished sharing the things she had experienced after arriving in the abyss.

"That's all that has happened so far. You guys saved us just when we were about to die."

Kev's gaze hardened as he looked around, then focused on one of the survivors. He pointed at him and asked, "Is he the one who put everyone's life at risk?"

The survivors followed his finger and saw a burly, shirtless man covered in tattoos. They immediately nodded. "Yes. It's him."

"Come here," Kev told the gangster.

"What do you want?" the gangster asked nervously.

Kev was covered in monster blood, and it was easy to tell he'd killed his way here. Not to mention, there was an undeniable pressure emanating from him, making the gangster who was taller than him feel incomparably small in his presence.

He didn't need two brain cells. One was enough to tell him that Kev was more dangerous than Doctor Bell and the monsters in this hell hole. He feared his head might fly off if he offended him so he behaved humbly.

"Have you apologized?" Kev asked coldly.

The gangster hesitated, then shook his head. "It's not that I didn't want to. I just didn't get the chance."

"Is right now not a good time? Apologize," Kev demanded.

He wasn't going to keep a trouble magnet who refused to learn from his mistakes or behave like a proper human. If the gangster didn't comply, Kev would force him to find his own way out of the Abyssal Burrow.

"Sorry. Please forgive me." The gangster's apology sounded half-hearted, clearly uncomfortable, but he said it anyway to appease Kev.

The survivors accepted the apology, though they could tell it wasn't sincere. They were just eager to move past the tension.

Kev motioned for the gangster to bring his ear closer. When he did, Kev leaned in and whispered coldly into his ear,

"This time, I'm letting you off easy. But if I ever hear Lena complain that you looked at her strangely again, I'll gouge out your eyes and shove them down your throat. It's the same for others women in our group. Don't behave with them inappropriatly or you will answer to me. Am I clear?"

The gangster nodded stiffly, his face pale with fear. "Crystal clear."

"Ahem! All of us experienced pretty much the same thing." Doctor Bell cleared his throat and said. His next words were for Kev and Agatha. "Now it's your turn. What have you gone through so far?"

Agatha lowered her gaze. A dreadful memory hit her like a splash of cold water, a bead of sweat formed on her head and slid down her skin.

"As soon as I arrived, I was ambushed." Her lips trembled as she recalled that moment. "It was a monster with the upper body of a human female and the lower body of a spider. It knocked me out before I could resist and brought me to its den. Spun webs around me, wrapped me up like a cocoon. I thought I was done for. But Kev—" she looked up at him with gratitude and a swirl of other emotions in her eyes "—Kev saved me."

She didn't share any details about the dream that lasted for ten years, a dream in which she had been happily married to Kev and had borne three of his children.

It was all a lie anyway, a lie that had greatly messed with her head.

She didn't want to talk about it. She didn't even want to think about it.

Kev respected her choice and didn't mention it either.

After Agatha walked them through everything she had endured in the abyss, everyone's expectant gaze turned toward Kev.

He was covered in monster blood and seemed to have experienced a lot. They felt they would benefit greatly from hearing him speak about this place.

"I've been through much. It's a lot to explain. I will just tell you what you really need to know. We're in an Abyssal Burrow. The main threats in this place are the Revenants. They're the dead, brought back to life by a curse," Kev explained.

"So they're like zombies?"

Kev felt like laughing at the words of the young Indian boy, Chandu.

"I wish they were. But they aren't. Don't mistake them for your run-of-the-mill zombies, or you'll regret it. They're incomparably more dangerous. Some of them have intelligence on par with ours. Some of them... can turn our memories against us, trap us in illusions while they move to eat us alive. Others can use sound-based attacks or tunnel through the earth like moles."

Hearing Kev's words, Chandu felt a chill crawl up his spine. Even the zombies from his favorite games and TV shows weren't this threatening.

"You said they're created by a curse? Tell me about it," Doctor Bell said.

"I don't fully understand the curse. I just know it triggers periodically and turns the dead into flesh-hungry monsters. While they are a threat to us, there are benefits to killing Revenants. We're their food source, and they're our means of growing stronger—our key to breaking past our limits," Kev replied.

Kev continued, "Besides Revenants, there's one more threat to worry about in the Abyssal Burrow."

He told them about the unusual beast.

Since the knowledge he was sharing was crucial to their survival, everyone listened with rapt attention.

While the others were still digesting what he had told them, Kev turned to stare at Lena. She felt his gaze and tilted her head to meet his eyes.

Although she knew that he was aware of her feelings for him, she didn't feel embarrassed about locking eyes with him. Her feelings were pure, not unnatural—there was nothing to be ashamed of.

"Lena, you said you guys appeared in this place days ago, right? But you disappeared just hours before me. So how could you arrive in the abyss days before I did?"

Kev scratched his head in confusion.

Lena was a simple girl who had aged out of the system just a few months ago. Coming from such a background, how could she be expected to answer such a complex question? The others around them looked equally confused by this discovery.

Kev's gaze shifted to the beauty by his side.

"Agatha, what do you make of it?"

"There are two possibilities. The first is that the flow of time in the abyss is different compared to our world. One hour back on Earth could be about twenty hours here."

"So like... time dilation?" Kev asked.

"Exactly." Agatha nodded.

"What's the second possibility?" he asked, curious.

"The second is that I was wrong. We didn't just experience a space displacement phenomenon like I originally thought. We experienced space and time displacement."

"Space and time displacement? How do you explain that?" Doctor Bell asked.

"You won't get it if I explain it abstractly. Kev, help me draw two lines on the floor. It'll be easier to explain then."

"Sure, my lady," Kev replied.

He manipulated the shadows, quickly fulfilling Agatha's request.

The others were stunned to see the shadows in the hall bend to his will. He hadn't mentioned his powers before, so this was the first time they were witnessing them.

'This guy is supernatural,' Chandu stared at Kev in amazement.

"Big brother is so cool!" Wang Yuxin exclaimed, amazed by Kev's ability to control shadows. "Will I also be able to cool stuff like this in the future?"

Kev chuckled hearing her words.

"Perhaps. We will need to get the permission of your parents first."

"Pinky promise?"

"Pinky promise."

The big man and the little girl locked pinkies. It was a heart warming scene.

A few moments later.

"See these two lines here?" Agatha pointed at the two dark lines on the floor and said, "Think of the first line as our last moment on Earth and the second as the history of the abyss.

When we disappeared from Earth, we were scattered along the second line... like sparkles on a donut."

She raised her head to look around, only to find most of the group staring at her blankly, like monkeys.

Her throat felt dry, and she asked suspiciously, "Don't tell me... no one got that?"

"I did," said the doctor.

Kev raised his hand. "Me too."

Chandu said, "Me three."

"Me four." Wang Yuxin joined in because it seemed fun.

"Oh? And what did you guys understand?" Agatha asked.

Kev answered first.

"If the second possibility you mentioned is true, then people who disappeared from Earth at the same time might not necessarily arrive in the abyss at the same time."

The doctor picked up where he left off.

"There could be discrepancies. For example, someone might have disappeared from Earth after us, yet arrived here before us maybe even years earlier. Likewise, others might arrive in the distant future, shaped by the actions of those who came before them. That means our actions could directly affect the fate of earthlings who end up in the abyss after us. This also means that the actions of the earthlings who arrived in the abyss before us might or might not have created troubles or benefits for us."

"What's this bullshit about timelines? I didn't understand a thing," the gangster said.

"Me neither," Parwi said. "Can we just move on from this topic?"

"If you don't speak, no one will know you're stupid," Sidhu was the type of guy who spoke the truth whenever the opportunity arose.

Parwi was aware of her husband's straightforward and somewhat humorous nature, so she didn't take offense. But the same couldn't be said for the gangster.

"You—!" The gangster pointed at Sidhu and wanted to explode in rage, but he was cut off by a glare from Kev.

"Sit down."

Kev, the man who could slay monsters like they were nothing, commanded. How could the gangster not obey? He sat down, mumbling incomprehensible words under his breath.

"And please keep quiet. We're having a serious conversation here," Doctor Bell added.

"Which of the two possibilities do you think is more likely?" someone asked.

"With so little to go on, it's hard to say," Agatha replied.

"It's the second one," Kev said firmly.

"You sound confident. As if it's a fact, even though there's no proof," Doctor Bell said.

"Who said there's no proof?" Kev grinned.

"There's proof?"

Several pairs of eyes looked at him in shock.