Abyss Descension: I Perform Rituals to Evolve In The Apocalyps-Chapter 49: Solution

Kev couldn’t understand what was happening to him.

Horrific thoughts flooded his mind, and his heart overflowed with greed and madness.

He wanted to spare no one.

From Lena to Yuxin, he wanted to kill them all and collect their corpses.

An uncountable number of ways he could kill them flashed through his mind, some so brutal, they would make cannibals look like saints in comparison.

Suddenly.

He felt so insanely disgusted with himself that a wave of nausea took over.

His body lurched forward as a guttural retch ripped from his throat.

Hurk!

A thick stream of bile burst from his mouth, splattering onto the cold stone floor.

When he finished puking, he slumped against the nearby wall.

His breath came out in ragged gasps, his chest heaved, but there was a sense of relief in his heart.

This relief emerged from knowing that the terrifying impulse boiling in his heart was no longer irresistible, traces of rationality blooming in his mind like flowers after a violent storm.

In his blackened eyes, clarity clashed with madness powerfully, but neither side gained an inch of advantage over the other, and the victor remained undecided.

In this moment of terrifying instability, a person came to Kev’s mind. It was Natasha. Quickly, he sent out a summon to have her attention.

"Now what did you summon me for?" Natasha asked in annoyance.

Had it even been three hours since he last summoned her to answer his doubts? Her irritation was understandable.

"Natasha," Kev said, his voice trembling, "I just had an intense urge to wipe out my entire group just so that I can collect their corpses. I ran away to protect them from myself. Do you know what’s happening to me?"

"Did you conduct the ritual without understanding the risks involved?" Natasha asked.

Kev froze.

"It comes with risks?"

"Nothing comes for free in the Abyss," she said. "The rituals grant power, but they come with severe drawbacks. It’s not harmless, no matter what anyone tells you."

Why didn’t I know about this?

Kev pondered for a moment, then the answer hit him like a hammer.

Either my inheritance was incomplete... or the Memory Eater erased something vital when I let it in.

’It has to be the latter.’

His inheritance had been quite extensive.

There was no way the Abyss Dweller who left it behind would forget to mention something so crucial.

It had to be the Memory Eater.

Just how many pitfalls has it left for me?

Kev clenched his jaw.

He wanted to pull the monocle out and throw it away, but he knew better.

If he mistakingly destroyed it, the soul trapped inside might be released. It had been trapped for over a hundred years already. It should be burning with hatred. Its revenge would be devastating. And since he had something to do with the Dark King, it would first kill him and everyone he knows or cherish before finding other people to terrorize.

If he discarded it and someone else picked it up, in that case, all the deaths that would follow would be on him.

"Explain the drawbacks to me. Please," he said, trying to stay calm.

"Even though you’ve rudely woken me up from my beauty sleep time and again, and this is the second time in my life that I haven’t slept properly..." Natasha sighed, finding his half maddened state pitiful. "I’ll do it. I will do it for you."

She continued, her voice now softer, more instructive.

"You already know. Class Holders have duties to fulfill. If we perform these duties, we are rewarded. However, when we ignore them, the Abyss makes sure to remind us. The reminder comes in various forms. Yours happens to be an intense impulse to do wrong for the sake of collecting corpses."

In the past three hours, he hadn’t managed to collect a single corpse, hence why he now faced the drawbacks of being a Class Holder.

"Is there a way to fight back against it?" Kev asked.

"Fulfill your duty, and it will get better," Natasha answered. "But don’t take a shortcut. If you give in to your impulse even once, it won’t be long before you give in again. Not to mention, I refuse to interact with evil. If you do something morally wrong by my standards, that’s when I’ll snap the thread that connects us, once and for all."

"You won’t need to do that. I’d rather kill myself than do something as ridiculous as indulge in madness and harm the innocent," Kev said with utmost conviction, even as the endless battle between the crumbling fortress of reason and the rising tides of chaos raged on in his mind.

"Words mean nothing. Many have said the same thing, that they would live and die with their humanity. But when they stood at the crossroad between the dying embers of their humanity and the devouring maw of their madness, not many kept their word. We had to hunt them down to stop these raging maniacs from destroying more lives than they already had."

Kev couldn’t clearly hear what she said. His ears were buzzing, and the traces of clarity in his eyes were quickly being snuffed out as his impulse surged.

Pa!

He slapped himself again, the sound echoing in the air.

"Get it together, Kev."

His breath came in ragged gasps.

"I need to stay strong... for their sake." 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Seeing him like this, Natasha felt pity for him.

"Currently, the biggest threat to your group seems to emerge from you, and it will remain that way until you curb your madness."

"How do I do that?" Kev hastily asked, losing his sanity to an irresistible wave of madness.

"You are not in your sane mind right now, so you’re finding it hard to realize that you just need to collect a corpse. Just collect a corpse and it will all be over. Don’t you have one in your magic pouch?"

It was the corpse of the female corpse spider.

"Ah! I remember!"

Kev quickly pulled it out and collected it.

Immediately, his mind cleared up, returning to its original state!