Chapter 71
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Chapter 71: Title
Not everyone who is tainted by the Abyssal aura loses their sanity. A rare few retain their rationality beneath the Abyss’s corrosion—this was precisely the sort of individual Ye Linlang sought.
Creatures stripped of reason by the Abyss became mere monsters, and monsters held no value in advancing her schemes. Worse, they might disrupt them entirely.
Though Blue Star housed nearly ten billion humans and countless other organisms, Ye Linlang required a human vessel. She harbored no current intention to let the Abyssal aura dominate other lifeforms, for humans already bore the mark of infection.
By a trash bin, a homeless person scavenged for food.
Ye Linlang observed as the man retrieved a half-eaten loaf, tore off the bitten portion without hesitation, and consumed the remainder.
This world held both radiant souls and those clinging to survival through gritted teeth. After a brief pause, she turned away.
Those with crumbling willpower and extinguished hopes—the walking dead—would squander any opportunity granted. No miracle could salvage hollow vessels.
The fed wanderer bundled himself in newspapers and scurried toward the subway. Winter’s cruelty spared no homeless soul, leaving him oblivious to the life-altering chance he’d just forfeited.
Outside the station, Ye Linlang’s impassive gaze settled on a girl being harassed by burly men.
Disgusting, she mused.
The cowering girl’s terror suddenly crystallized into defiance. A single punch launched her 1.9-meter assailant airborne, his body shattering the reinforced glass wall behind him.
The impact birthed a spiderweb of fractures before the entire pane exploded, crystalline droplets showering the unconscious man.
Silence gripped the crowd. The harassers recoiled while the girl gaped at her fist, disbelief etched across her features. When bystanders comprehended the miracle before them, envious stares followed her—this power transcended the ordinary.
Outside, a black-dressed silhouette melted into the shadows.
What did the Abyss crave? A destroyer wielding cold rationality, one who could unleash boundless desires without becoming their puppet.
—The darkness entwined with light never sought the world’s end. That hunger belonged solely to the Abyss.
Ye Linlang found her vessel in an orphanage—a girl with paralyzed legs, sculpted by fate’s cruel chisel.
Congenital physical disability, systemic humiliation, and bitter contempt for a world she deemed rotten to its core…
When Ye Linlang materialized before her, the girl displayed neither fear nor astonishment, merely steady observation.
—The Abyss mirrors its gazer’s deepest desires, though most perceive only swirling black mist.
Previous candidates had glimpsed Ye Linlang as formless black mist, proving their inadequacy. Those who couldn’t perceive the Abyss’s true visage would spiral into madness upon merging with its aura—an unacceptable outcome for nascent Abyssal disciples.
"Fascinating. No surprise?"
"Modern humans grow bold. Your ancestors fled screaming at my approach." This incarnation of Ye Linlang favored verbosity over silence—a deity starved for conversation after eons of imprisonment, now savoring communion with her chosen priest.
The girl’s faintly lavender eyes intrigued Ye Linlang. Such unusual pigmentation perhaps marked those destined for extraordinary paths.
"Who are you? Why come here?"
As the girl stared, her expression shifted from wariness to intoxicated fascination—the smart madness Ye Linlang despised remained absent.
Though roommates slumbered nearby, the space felt hollow save for their two presences.
"I am the deity who shall reshape your destiny." A regal tilt of the head accompanied the declaration. "As my inaugural priest here, I pardon this momentary impertinence."
"The Abyss shall be your ultimate destiny; surrender to it without defiance." A wisp of Abyssal aura projected from Ye Linlang’s palm onto the Disabled Girl.
The girl’s eyes widened momentarily before she collapsed, consciousness slipping away without comprehending the transformation. Yet this mattered little – upon awakening, her new reality would manifest with crystalline clarity.
"I’ve heard the primal cry echoing in your soul’s hollows," Ye Linlang murmured to the unconscious form, her words dissolving into the stagnant orphanage air. "The power you crave shall be yours… at the cost of your mortal autonomy."
No banquet comes without price, no manna descends from empty skies. The Abyss of Hell proved more exacting than the sternest moneylender – every borrowed ounce of power demanded pounds of flesh in return.
Thus stood the Abyss’s immutable law. Ye Linlang’s replicated version required equal rigor; any flaw in this fundamental principle would unravel her entire design.
Beyond Blue Star’s dimensional veil swirled her artificial abyss – a gravitational maw mimicking celestial phenomena, its foundational codex stolen then reforged from hell’s original template. The principle of equivalent exchange governed all transactions here.
By Abyssal calculus, this broken vessel offered insufficient collateral. Even a lifetime of service and eternal soul couldn’t balance the scales for becoming a Priest of the Abyss. Yet the girl’s world-annihilating desires intrigued Ye Linlang – not madness, but brutal logic forged in unseen crucibles.
Light demands shadow, justice requires transgression. If cosmic scales tipped too far towards virtue, Ye Linlang would simply add counterweights of corruption.
"Flawless compatibility," she observed as obsidian tendrils seeped into pale flesh without rejection. "The Abyss claims its vessel."
Since the Heavenly Dao’s awakening, latent talents emerged across humanity – Light Attribute prodigies, mystical savants, and now this perfect conduit. Tracking specific individuals among billions challenged even Ye Linlang, forcing reliance on the System’s divinations.
New York’s coordinates glowed in her mind’s eye. The System’s guidance proved infallible, being but one neural pathway in the Heavenly Dao’s vast consciousness.
Black mist erupted from the girl’s pores as Abyssal transformation accelerated. A chitinous cocoon enveloped her body, crackling with dark energies. While incapable of true healing, the Abyss excelled at brutal reconstruction – shattered bones reforged, atrophied muscles reborn.
Ye Linlang departed before dawn, America’s shores fading behind her. Tomorrow’s chaos required meticulous preparation.
*
Simultaneously, seismic tremors rippled through Hell’s Eighteen Layers. Demonic Statues adorning the Hell Gate screeched in disharmony, their stone lungs inhaling Abyssal discord. Lower-tier demons froze mid-debauch, wine cups slipping from clawed hands.
"By the Seventh Pit! When last did the Abyss of Hell stir so?"
"Ten millennia? Twenty?"
"Summon the Demon King! Where’s Lucifer?"
In the obsidian spires of the Demon King’s Palace, Mammon’s hooves clattered against basalt floors. The Hell Prime Minister found his sovereign gazing pensively from the black throne, crown gleaming with trapped starlight.
"Your Majesty," Mammon genuflected, "the Abyssal seals…"
"Hold." Lucifer’s voice distilled millennia of frost. "Heaven’s watchtowers blaze with alarm fires as we speak. Let the seraphim taste fear first."
Memories surfaced of the last Abyssal war – the Dark God’s shattered throne, falling archangels screaming through atmospheric burn, his own wings molting from gold to charred leather mid-plummet. That Heaven’s former darling now ruled Hell’s deepest circles amused him endlessly.
"The Abyss hungers," the Demon King mused, tracing a claw along his jawline. "But this time… we’re not the main course."
