154. The Abyss Requires You

After the live broadcast feed was abruptly cut off, Chen Shang remained frozen in place for a full five seconds before he bit down hard on the tip of his tongue, using the sharp pain to pull himself out from the grip of encroaching terror.

Even though he had only caught a fleeting glimpse of the monster in the video, the sight alone had instilled a dread so profound it seemed to pierce straight through his soul and down to his bones.

Had it not been for the psychological fortitude granted by his "Will of Destruction" mental state, he likely would have lost his mind entirely from pure fright.

The entities dwelling within the abyss were unfathomably terrifying and beyond human comprehension. If the broadcast had not been severed when it was, at least tens of thousands of people in Nightspire City would have gone completely insane by tomorrow morning.

"Black Carliss, are you alright?" Chen Shang drew a deep breath and asked tentatively.

"What the hell was that thing?" Black Carliss replied, her voice still trembling with lingering panic and sounding somewhat weak.

"Are you scared?" Chen Shang's complexion remained visibly pale.

"To be completely honest, if you dropped that monstrosity into a horror movie, it would probably scare the audience to death on the spot," Black Carliss complained without hiding her feelings.

"It's not even necessarily about how horrifying it looks, but rather its presence... It emanates the most terrifying aura."

"Indeed, that's precisely how I felt," Chen Shang muttered, running a hand through his hair and nodding in agreement.

"The abyss truly harbors countless entities that defy common sense and elude human understanding."

"So that's why you went to such great lengths to lure the Corporate Syndicate in, just so they would take a massive hit?" Black Carliss asked.

"Nah, messing with the Corporate Syndicate was just on a whim. After all, I don't have any deep grudge against them~" Chen Shang whistled, hopping down from his bed.

"As you can see, the more you explore such a dangerous place, the more 'friends' you need along the way. I don't have any malicious intentions; I just want these corporate friends of mine to pave the path ahead so I can find that goddess."

"You really have been tormented to no end by that goddess. Figures it all traces back to that problematic book..." Black Carliss sighed.

"What are you planning to do once you find her?"

"Ask for her hand in marriage, perhaps~?" Chen Shang narrowed his eyes and joked.

"What did you say?" Taken aback, Black Carliss didn't process the statement immediately.

"Nothing. Did I say something?" Chen Shang deliberately played dumb.

Unbothered by Chen Shang's nonsense, Black Carliss continued, "But the Wasteland Smelting District has already been sealed off by the Corporate Syndicate. Even if they actually locate the goddess, you won't be able to get there, right?"

"That is true, so I can only wait for an opportunity~" Chen Shang answered unashamedly, showing no signs of distress.

"I am not an omnipotent god; I can't always have everything under control. Sometimes, a bit of luck is required."

"And when is your luck supposed to arrive?" Black Carliss asked.

"Tomorrow, for instance~" Chen Shang replied.

...

Inside the main command room of the Abyss Expeditionary Force, the officers were in absolute turmoil. Ignorant of what had transpired within the abyss, they had only received a report from a soldier stating that their camp was under attack by a monster, followed immediately by watching the vital signs radar of their own troops blink out of existence at a visible pace.

"What kind of monster attacked our forces? How could so many people die all at once?" an officer roared at the communications operator nearby.

"Have there been any other reports from the frontline?"

"Reporting... negative!" The operator tried to connect to the soldiers' communication devices, but was met only with heavy static and faint, distant screams.

Suddenly, the operator managed to establish a connection with a soldier's communicator.

"Hey! How is the situation on your end?" the officer quickly demanded.

Yet the soldier only replied in a dying, breathy whisper: "I heard... Him... He is furious... He's going to kill us all... and then..."

With that, the soldier's voice was cut short amidst a burst of agonizing screams.

"Quickly pull up the soldiers' bodycam feeds, let me see the situation on-site!" the officer snapped in exasperation.

The operator nodded, preparing to switch the display monitor's input. At that moment, another officer slapped the operator's hand away and shouted, "Stop!"

"What are you doing?" the first officer asked, utterly bewildered.

"Look at this!" The second officer thrust his smartphone directly into his face.

The screen was playing the final three minutes of the Abyss Live stream before it was cut off. The officer quickly watched as a massive monster emerged from the fog, effortlessly eliminating all the soldiers and crew members on the scene with a mere wave of its hand.

"This is..." The officer's face contorted into an expression of sheer terror, though fortunately, the emergency device implanted in his body triggered just in time, injecting him with a tranquilizer.

"Cough, cough... How could a monster like that suddenly appear in the Dead Tomb District?" The officer was still shaken to the core, his collar soaked in cold sweat.

"Indeed!" another officer chimed in. "None of us anticipated that the monsters lurking in the abyss would be far more terrifying than we imagined."

"In any case, order the troops to fall back immediately!" the officer decided on the spot. "We need to notify the Commander-in-Chief at once!"

...

Two hours later, the command headquarters of the Abyss Expeditionary Force was plunged into a dead silence.

"So..." The Commander-in-Chief, seated at the head of the table, was a robust and sturdy middle-aged man, yet his face now looked as withered and aged as a dying old man. "What was the final outcome?"

"Out of the thirteen hundred soldiers garrisoned in the Dead Tomb District, only two hundred managed to retreat in time before being killed by the monster..." an officer reported with a grim expression.

"And the rest were all killed and forcibly teleported back?" the Commander-in-Chief asked.

At these words, the command room lapsed back into a heavy silence.

"What is it?" the Commander-in-Chief pressed.

After a moment of hesitation, the officer answered, "They did return, but eighty percent of the soldiers are exhibiting extremely severe psychological abnormalities. Quite a few have even shown tendencies toward self-harm and violence against others, causing dozens of casualties within the military ranks... All of them have now been hospitalized for observation and psychiatric treatment."

"What the hell is this! Wasn't the Dead Tomb District already fully explored? Why would a monster like this suddenly crawl out?!" Furious, the Commander-in-Chief slammed his hat onto the ground and cursed, "How am I supposed to explain this massive mess to the higher-ups?!"

"What should we do now?" another officer reminded him.

"The Syndicate has placed high hopes on us, and the public has already been fed propaganda that our conquest of the abyss is a guaranteed success. It's going to be very difficult to clean this up if things continue like this..."

"What else can we do?" The Commander-in-Chief's voice raised several decibels as he slammed a mechanical fist onto the table.

"We lost over a thousand men in an instant, and the Dead Tomb District has been lost. At this rate, we have no choice but to temporarily announce a retreat!"

"Well, it's not like there isn't a way." At that moment, another official spoke up.

"What way?" the officer asked.

"Actually, we could recruit civilians to help us explore," the official proposed.

"However, unlike before, instead of opening the abyss for them to enter freely, we recruit them under the guise of official military enlistment with standard benefits and high pay, and then drive them to explore for us."

"And who is going to pay their wages?" The Commander-in-Chief raised an eyebrow, looking rather dismissive of the proposal.

"Commander, why would we need to pay them?" The official scratched his head in confusion.

"We aren't providing them with life insurance or death benefits anyway. Once they go insane or die in the abyss, will they even be alive to collect their wages?"

Hearing this, the Commander-in-Chief suddenly lifted his chin, an expression of sudden enlightenment dawning on his face.

The next morning, Chen Shang discovered two headline announcements on his social media feed.

The first announcement was an apology regarding a malfunction during the "Abyss Broadcast" hosted on the Abyss Expeditionary Force's official account. However, they merely claimed that the broadcasting equipment had experienced technical difficulties and stated that the stream would resume in a few days.

The other announcement was a recruitment advertisement. Upon opening it, the user was immediately greeted by a poster featuring a man in a suit pointing forward with one hand, accompanied by bold text:

"The Abyss Expeditionary Force is Enlisting! Generous Pay and Benefits! We Need You!"

"Oh, wow..." Chen Shang's lips twitched slightly.