Chapter 193: Abyss

Seven moons hang in the sky, unmoved by time, illuminating a dark land that had no sun.

Crimson, dark-pink, dark-golden, greyish-blue, dark-green, orange, and brown—those were the colors of the moons.

The light they gave to the land was faint, but the combination of the colors made it look almost ethereal.

However… that didn’t help much in making it look beautiful.

Strangely, some parts were still covered in darkness, as though the darkness were physical matter that prevented light from passing through.

The earth itself seemed to be made of cursed dirt and soil. Some parts were glowing with a suspicious green color, some were covered with fungus or twisted grass, some parts were molten lava, and some parts were frozen like ice.

The sight was completely chaotic, as even lava and ice existed next to each other, which was illogical to normal common sense.

The land was filled with old corpses from different species, some could even make the toughest warriors tremble in fear, wondering what killed such terrifying and gigantic creatures.

Next to them existed what couldn’t be described with normal words. The remains of metallic beasts lay lifeless next to them, as though they were what killed what were now corpses.

Some of those metallic beings had the shapes of small and large beasts, while others looked humanoid. However, their appearance showed that they were, at the very least, deeply connected or even from the same species.

As for the living beings, it started with plants.

A tree rose from the ground with human bones instead of wood, catching Rank 2 pig-like beasts and dragging them underground. What happened next was a fountain of blood that burst from the hole.

A horde of abyssal hunters moved through shadows, hunting the weaker beasts individually and the stronger beasts by the power of numbers, treating everything in their path as food.

But even for those Rank 3 beings, there were hunters that feasted on them.

It was a small snake, the size of a small finger and the color of blood.

Once it appeared, the Abyssal hunters froze, giving no further reaction.

Not when the snake cut their legs with bloody scythes.

Not when the snake ate them one by one, its body extending to swallow them despite their sizes.

Not when they were getting digested rapidly, which happened in less than a minute.

And certainly, not when they had to watch that process over and over again.

The abyssal hunters, the beings that could cause disasters in Terra, with numbers that could kill even the strongest masters… were getting slaughtered with no resistance at all.

Even though they were beasts, they had some intelligence. They didn’t know about the complex concepts that humans had created, but the concept of: “Like me are good, not like me are bad,” was enough to give them some emotions.

And those emotions made them witness a small snake devouring what they had treated as close connections, knowing that their turn would come eventually.

Such was the cruel life of this world, where the strong ate the weak with no mercy, where the darkness couldn’t be erased, where life was so fragile.

This was… the Abyss.

And here, there were no laws… except for some very special cases.

And one of them was a fortress that was built behind a sequence of caves. The fortress was protected by a high wall and was covered with a barrier that ensured full protection.

As for the guards, they were giants!

They were taller than humans, clad in armor, wielding all different weapons, and observed the area with absolute seriousness.

They chatted like normal beings, but they didn’t dare to waste a lot of time and be careless.

If they ever show some carelessness, that could be their end. The ones before them had witnessed that tragic outcome.

What that fortress actually was?

It was a prison!

The abyssal prison was the biggest prison that Uldor had made. Ironically, it didn’t exist in Uldor, but in another realm.

In the middle of the prison, a pillar of light rose to the sky, which was the exit of this place.

And for the prisoners, that was the only way to escape and leave this hell.

“We are under attack again!”

All of a sudden, a giant shouted while launching a fire meteor to the horizon.

From the horizon emerged tens of abyssal hunters.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Hundreds of attacks were shot toward the abyssal hunters, but most of them missed.

But the soldiers didn’t care, because the next moment…

ROAAAAR!

The ground beneath them crumbled, and a gigantic wyvern with a pair of horns attacked them.

It had a pair of wings that covered most of the moons, and the claws of its legs were sharp enough to cut steel.

Its mouth was dripping acidic saliva that melted rocks, and the fact that its teeth were completely okay spoke volumes about their durability.

It caught an abyssal hunter and took it up in the sky, then while crushing the abyssal hunter’s body with its claws, the wyvern bit its head off and swallowed it, killing the abyssal hunter in an instant.

Before the abyssal hunters could react, more and more wyverns emerged, hunting the abyssal hunters one by one and eating their dark bodies.

When the giants attacked, their target was to notify the wyverns!

Gradually, the numbers of the abyssal hunters decreased. The wyverns weren’t without casualties, as some suicidal hunters were able to take a wyvern down with them, but that didn’t change the fact that the wyverns had the upper hand.

“They aren’t eating properly. They are leaving over 80% of the corpses uneaten.” Watching the fight, a man remarked with a frustrated sigh.

“What can we possibly do?” Another man shrugged: “We are starting to face the beasts more frequently than usual. The wyverns can’t eat endlessly, can they? We have more mess to clean now because of that.”

“But isn’t this strange?” A woman narrowed her eyes: “Why are the beasts suddenly being attracted to us? A few months ago, we would face them only once a week or something, but now, it’s becoming daily!”

“It keeps getting worse and worse. If nothing changes, we’ll start dealing with two waves of beasts a day, then three waves, and maybe four! And what if a being of a higher rank approaches us? Lord Valor isn’t here to save us this time!”

Hearing her, the giants couldn’t help but feel threatened. If that really continued, they’d be in real trouble.

But what could they do? They already searched for anything that could have caused this and found nothing. At the end of the day, they agreed that it was likely because of some bad luck.

They couldn’t control luck, could they?

“Wait, wait, wait!” A giant’s eyes suddenly widened as he got everyone’s attention: “Maybe it’s the new lunatic prisoner! He was a user of chaos magic according to King Valor, so maybe it’s related to him!”

“Did not those things start after we got him? Maybe we should investigate him again. I refuse to believe that it’s a coincidence.”

The giants looked at him with hard expressions.

“Do it yourself then.”

“I won’t go there again.”

“The higher-ups already did that several times and they found nothing. Do you think you’ll make a difference?”

The giant frowned: “I’m not going to do it myself exactly because I’m suspecting him. Everyone that interacted with him face-to-face left that cell with the same thing, bad luck! You all are afraid of bad luck, which supports my claim that he’s likely responsible for that.”

“And they still got nothing.” The woman covered her face: “He’s the only Rank 2 prisoner who we didn’t force to do labour exactly because of those concerns. We rarely get prisoners nowadays, so we can’t let him stay near someone and give him a heart attack due to that bad luck. We should confirm whether he’s truly cursed or not first. The chances that it’s all a chain of logical coincidences aren’t zero.”

“We can’t kill him either because that would need Lord Valor’s acceptance, but he’s too busy to communicate with us. There is nothing we can do about him until we get a chance to communicate with our king.”

The man clicked his tongue: “I’ll ask the higher-ups regardless. I won’t wait for the king of the Abyss himself to attack us before realizing that he’s cursed and cursing us with him.”

“Sure, whatever.”

“Do it, please.”

“No one is stopping you.”

After the conversation ended, they quietly watched the fight of the wyverns and the abyssal hunters.

With no doubt, the wyverns won, leaving a mountain of corpses. The next moment, the wyverns looked directly toward the walls before returning to their hole and using magic to cover the hole.

“The deal is still ongoing, I guess.” The woman wiped her sweat and laughed nervously.

They had a deal with the wyverns.

The wyverns weren’t living in a hole because they were forced or enslaved, it was a trap to catch prey by surprise. And the wyverns agreed completely to that trap.

The only job of the guards was to inform them.

Was that defensive mechanism dangerous?

Yes.

But was it effective?

Also yes!

Plus, they had backups in case they had to fight the wyverns. For now, everything was under control.

But in the Abyss, and with the presence of a certain prisoner, the future couldn’t be predicted.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep