Chapter 292: Special Skills
"I can probably guess how to leave this place. Those pseudo-humans might not have lied to you—the method to escape this space should be related to this platform."
Lin Ye had plenty of experience with the Abyss, so he had been sensing his surroundings throughout the climb.
During their ascent, they had been continuously influenced by the Abyss. Unless they shook off this influence, no matter where they fled, they would remain within the Abyss.
"...Don't tell me we have to jump from here?"
Ethan also came to the edge of the platform. There was nothing above the black platform. If they couldn't continue climbing upward, and if there truly was an exit here, then the only option was to jump down.
"It's not just about jumping from here. We're already inside the Abyss, so to leave this place, we must break free from the Abyss's influence during the fall. Am I correct?"
Lin Ye turned to look at the Phantom.
"Correct, but only you can leave this place. You can use the power of the Abyssal Relic to escape alone. They will all die here."
The Phantom didn't deny it. For it, fate had long been decided—words couldn't change the outcome.
"Is that what fate told you?" Lin Ye looked at the Phantom with some surprise. He had thought the so-called fate would be more accurate.
"I cannot control your fate, but I can see the traces of fate and deduce the outcome from them."
The Phantom remained unmoved. It didn't believe Lin Ye had any other options. The moment Xia La was chosen by the system, the outcome was already predetermined.
Xia La would die here. Lin Ye would have his system rating lowered due to mission failure, and ultimately die during a system mission.
He wouldn't die immediately, but his fate of death was already sealed.
"But I never intended to use that ability from the beginning, so your deduction was flawed from the start."
After seeing the system's note, Lin Ye had decided not to use that Special Ability.
He wouldn't let a pure life completely unrelated to him bear what he should bear himself. That was his bottom line, so he wouldn't use this Special Ability.
"...So you choose to fall into the deepest layers of the Abyss with them?"
The Phantom couldn't comprehend this choice. This truly wasn't within the destined fate, but it held no meaning.
"No, I choose to take them all away from here."
Lin Ye opened his tightly clenched palm. In the center of his palm was a colorful Glass Sphere, currently emitting a faint red glow.
"What are you going to do now? If you summon the Abyssal Evil God here, its true body might directly descend. When that happens, none of us will escape."
Little Red appeared warily beside Lin Ye.
The man naturally lowered his head when he saw Little Red.
"Don't worry, I won't summon the Abyssal Evil God. This time, I only need to connect to the divine seat."
Lin Ye wouldn't do something as foolish as summoning the Abyssal Evil God within the Abyss. He still wanted to leave this place alive.
"Connect to the divine seat? What are you going to do?"
Little Red asked curiously.
"To do what a deity should do. Deities are beacons in the mental world. Although this isn't the mental world and I'm not a proper deity, I will lead them out of here."
A faint red glow shimmered around Lin Ye's body. Without saying more, he decisively leaped from the black platform.
Xia La and Ethan followed Lin Ye, jumping into the Abyss. They simply had no other choice.
After Lin Ye jumped from the platform, the red seawater suddenly deepened, transforming into a true Red Sea.
Little Red sat on the platform watching the three fall. With just a glance from her, the red seawater immediately parted to the sides, creating a dry passage through the Red Sea that stretched all the way to its end.
"You're only wasting your power like this. It would be better to give up now, sever his connection to the divine seat, and find a new successor."
The man stood on the other side of the portal, speaking respectfully with his head bowed.
"Do you think he cannot leave this place?"
Little Red countered.
"His mental energy is indeed strong, but it's not enough to escape the Abyss, let alone help others leave here. If you don't help him, his fate will end here."
The Phantom interjected.
"Rest assured, I can only help him part the Red Sea. Beyond that, I can do nothing, since I don't even have a body. As for that insect, you don't need to hide over there—I probably can't even defeat your avatar now."
Little Red spoke with her back to the man, smiling faintly.
"That reassures me... or so you'd expect me to say? As you said, I'm merely an insect to you. No amount of caution is excessive."
The man didn't cross through the portal. His impression of that esteemed one remained vivid.
"Suit yourself."
As they spoke, the faint red glow in the dark world below gradually dimmed, seeming as if it could extinguish at any moment.
"He's going to die, unless he immediately activates the power of that Abyssal Relic."
The Phantom was quite satisfied with Lin Ye's outcome.
As the red glow was about to vanish, Little Red watched the fading light, recalling distant memories from the past.
Lin Ye was falling into the Abyss.
He didn't know how long this fall had lasted—time and space held no meaning here.
His mental energy was continuously depleting. The consumption rate wasn't fast, but it seemed like it would never stop.
As his mental energy exhausted, the vigorously growing Seed of Spirit gradually withered, and Lin Ye's consciousness began to blur.
The dilapidated divine seat faded into the distance, the red glow dimmed, and the world plunged into eternal darkness.
Lin Ye had overestimated his consciousness. Compared to the bottomless Abyss, he was merely insignificant dust.
Just as his consciousness was about to disappear completely, a voice sounded by his ear.
"Baa baa."
"Sorry, I don't want to use that ability."
"Baa baa."
"I understand."
Lin Ye rejected the final path to survival. In a place like this, he wasn't sure if he could start over, but even if he could, he would probably walk the same path.
After Lin Ye refused the Goat's proposal, just as the darkness was about to completely engulf the red glow, a brilliant crimson light suddenly surged from within Lin Ye, thoroughly illuminating this dark world.
A massive red cross appeared within the Abyss. Simultaneously, the Cross Scepter materialized in Lin Ye's hand—he was truly grasping this relic for the first time.
At this moment, Lin Ye completely understood this relic's effect and usage conditions.
Only those who could truly adhere to their own principles could wield this scepter—or rather, only genuine obsessives could use the Cross Scepter.
And Lin Ye was precisely such an obsessive.
The Cross Scepter's effect was amplification and diffusion, with the magnitude related to the user.
But if the user couldn't uphold their bottom line, the Cross Scepter would weaken the user to the point they'd be inferior to ordinary people.
This weakening would never disappear.