Chapter 1550 - 978: Demon Hunters Walk in the Abyss

Chapter 1550: Chapter 978: Demon Hunters Walk in the Abyss

After a brief bout of dizziness—like his soul had been torn apart and then forced back together...

His boots came down on something solid—or rather, on a kind of ground with a very distinctive Abyss flavor to it, sticky and stinking of scorched sulfur.

A stench so intense it was impossible to put into words suddenly flooded his nose.

It was the acrid reek of rust mixed with heavy sulfur, the sickly-sweet rot of old blood dried to crust, the nauseating stench of corruption distilled from countless Deaths and madness left to ferment.

The air was heavy and scorching hot; every breath felt like swallowing viscous liquid full of grit, a faint burning instantly flaring in his lungs.

If the specialized helmet Filter system hadn’t kicked on automatically, they’d probably be hacking their lungs out right now.

That was all these customized helmets were really for: Filter the air a bit—and this was about the only situation where they could actually use them.

After all, a normal Life, before ever entering the Abyss, can hardly adapt to what waits inside it.

Only their heads were still spinning, the aftereffects of the teleportation still clinging to them.

This wasn’t a Legend within the world, after all, but the Legend that bridged the world to the Abyss—the distance crossed was beyond imagination.

The Abyss’s nature weakened parts of it, but it was still far harsher than any stable teleportation within the world.

Before they could straighten out their thoughts, before they could settle their Status—

What surged into their ears next was a tidal wave of sound, a hundred times louder and a thousand times more chaotic than anything in the Main World camp.

No longer the orderly bark of commands or the hum of machinery.

But a tangled roar of countless tongues and countless accents—screaming, bellowing, shouting, cursing, the metallic clang of Weapons colliding, the muffled thumps of explosions, the deep rumble of some massive machine turning...

These sounds came from every direction at once, both right beside them and impossibly far away, raw violence and agitation crashing against their eardrums with no pattern at all.

Most of the languages were unintelligible, but the killing intent, rage, and despair in those tones could not have been clearer.

Threaded through those voices were muttering, decadent notes, sounds that seemed to pierce straight through their souls, trying to burrow into their ears.

Sharp Claw jerked his head, trying to dispel that sickening feeling. He lifted his gaze...

What met his eyes was a sky of eternal, crushing dark red.

Thick clouds hung low over the land like congealed filthy blood, with no trace of sun or stars anywhere.

The air was laced with a faint red mist tinged with sulfur, warping and blurring everything in the distance.

The huge steel fortress loomed as a cold silhouette, half-hidden by the red haze. At its peak, the floating Iron Flower Structure was shedding a soft Order glow, struggling to Purification just a small pocket of the foul air around it.

"Fuck..." Sharp Claw swore without thinking, his voice muffled by the helmet. "This fucking hellhole... even the air stinks like shit!"

They’d steeled themselves mentally before coming, but actually setting foot here still blew past everything they’d imagined.

Nightingale’s fingers clenched around her gun as she swept her gaze over the bustling, solidly powerful scene within the fortress.

Even with the Peaceful Heart Stone Ring guarding her, that omnipresent chaos still kept her nerves drawn tight as wire.

She took a deep breath of the Filtered air—still carrying that sulfur undertone—and murmured, her voice filled with shock and a faint, almost unnoticeable tremor:

"So... this is the Blood Battle Battlefield of the Abyss?"

Sharp Claw could feel his blood surging restlessly beneath his skin, like countless tiny poisonous insects gnawing at his bones.

It wasn’t a foreign agitation—in the Main World, whenever he hunted a Demon or his bloodline grew unstable, that Abyss-born Whisper would Shadow Following Form behind him.

But now, that Whisper’s intensity had been cranked up a hundredfold, a thousandfold!

It was no longer a vague hum at the back of his mind, but countless razor-sharp howls laced with temptation and malice, ramming straight into his skull, clawing at his sanity.

"Nnngh..."

Nightingale’s stifled groan came from beside him. Her face had gone pale; her fingers dug into the rim of her helmet, veins pulsing at her temple.

Rock had his jaw clenched tight, his breathing rough, his gaze unfocused. His massive frame was actually trembling.

Sleepyhead, of all people, had lost his usual lazy sag; his pupils shrank, and his back arched like a startled cat.

Even the most composed of them, Shadowstep, had violent conflict whirling in those ghostly green eyes, his breathing harsh and clear beneath the Metal mask.

"Motherfucking... place..."

Sharp Claw forced the curse out through his teeth, his voice ragged.

The voices were shrieking, promising Power, mocking their faith in Order, luring them to unshackle the Demon’s Blood in their veins and embrace the "source" of this Abyss.

The sense of corruption was like thick tar closing in from all directions, trying to soak through and drown their souls.

They were the first Demon Hunters to set foot in the Abyss, and the bloodline in their bodies—born of the same origin—had become the brightest beacon for the chaotic will, drawing a level of "attention" far beyond what any normal person would endure.

This kind of raging spiritual erosion was something no briefing, no Peaceful Heart Stone Ring could ever truly simulate.

Just as the five of them felt their consciousness flicker like candles in a gale, about to gutter out—

Vmm!

The Iron Flower Structure hanging above the fortress suddenly flared with a ring of Order light unlike anything they’d seen before.

A wave of coolness like water, yet carrying an invisible toughness, swept across the entire fortress like something solid, brushing sharply over Sharp Claw and the others.

Like a scorching brand plunged into an icy spring.

The decadent Demonic whisper in their heads was seized as if by a giant invisible fist, its volume brutally throttled down, blurring and fading.