Abyss Descension: I Perform Rituals to Evolve In The Apocalyps-Chapter 32: A moment between life and death

"Which path do you think I should choose?" Kev asked.

"I don't know. Decide it with a coin toss," Natasha replied.

"Sounds like a good idea," Kev said, stuffing his hand into his pocket.

When he pulled it out, a coin could be seen pinched between his fingers.

This coin...

It held a lot of sentimental value to him. So he always kept it close.

It was the last gift he had received from his biological father.

Before he watched him burn and die.

What was that day like?

It was supposed to be a day of celebration.

They were supposed to eat out at his favorite restaurant to celebrate his sixth birthday.

But a drunk driver ruined everything.

He came from nowhere with his massive truck and crashed into their car, sending it flipping through the air like a toy hurled by a spoiled child throwing a tantrum.

Before the family of three could even realize what had hit them, they found themselves trapped in an overturned vehicle already showing signs of combustion.

The culprit panicked and drove off without hesitation, making a run for it.

But while there was no shortage of evil people in the world, there were still good ones too.

Cars stopped. People stepped out. Strangers came to help.

Kev's father begged them to save his son and wife first, despite being trapped in the same deadly situation.

The brave passersby managed to pull Kev and his mother out of the wreck that was about to go up in flames.

But they couldn't save his father in time. He was trapped too deeply, and help came his way too late because he had redirected it earlier to save what mattered to him the most. His family.

Kev remembered screaming his lungs out, crying until his tears ran dry as he watched the overturned car combust with his father still trapped inside.

But it didn't change a thing.

He had lost his father to the reckless driving of a drunk bastard.

A day that was supposed to be memorable became one of the most painful memories of his childhood. But not the worst.

"What are you thinking about?" Natasha asked, seeing him lost in thought.

"Nothing," Ken said after seeing the words that had appeared in the book.

"Well, it didn't look like that. But since you don't want to talk about it, I won't press you," Natasha said, letting the matter rest there.

Immediately, Kev developed a better opinion of Natasha.

"Besides being knowledgeable and greedy for corpses, my guide is also quite sensible."

He didn't hesitate anymore, tossing the coin into the air.

"If it lands on heads, I will take the path on my left," Kev thought.

If it was tails, he would go right.

The coin flipped through the air before dropping to the ground. It bounced a few times before coming to a stop, revealing heads.

Kev picked it up, dusted it off, and put it back in his pocket. Then he stepped into the path to his left and began exploring.

"Hopefully it will be the way out. Are you excited about reaching the surface?" Natasha asked Kev, but got no reply.

For some reason, Kev wasn't responding.

This aroused Natasha's concern.

Sitting on the edge of her bed, she leaned forward, staring intently at the mirror before her. Either her gaze contained some kind of power, or the mirror possessed the power to respond to her innermost desire. The view reflected on its surface quickly shifted, zooming in to show a close-up of Kev.

There.

In the dead of the tunnel.

He stood frozen like a statue, his posture tense, every hair on his body standing on end.

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His jaw was clenched tight, with beads of sweat forming on his temples and rolling down his skin.

There was unmistakable fear in his eyes.

But it wasn't the only emotion present. His eyes also reflected desperation and madness.

Natasha had seen that look before.

It was the face of a man who refused to go down without a fight, even while knowing death was upon him.

Death could claim his life only if it earned it.

How had it come to this?

It all began when a chilling sensation stirred Kev's scalp before slithering down the back of his neck.

It coiled around his shoulders, ran down his spine, wrapped around his torso, and crept all the way down to his toes, making him feel suffocated as if a massive, unseen serpent had twined itself around his body.

Kev knew this wasn't real.

It was just his mutated soul reacting to danger and sending out a signal to warn him.

No invisible serpent was actually coiling around his body... but that didn't make it any less terrifying.

After all, the more intense the warning from his soul, the greater the danger he was in.

The warning he had just received was incomparable to the one he'd experienced when he was almost assaulted by Dakun.

It indicated he was closer to death than ever before.

"Where is it coming from?"

His eyes darted around in search of danger.

Pinpointing where the danger to his life would come from could determine whether he would live to see another day.

However, there was nothing in sight that screamed danger.

But that shouldn't be.

He thought hard.

Suddenly, a glint of realization flashed in his eyes.

The chilling sensation had started from his scalp and then moved downward.

That meant whatever was about to reap his life would strike from above.

"Overhead?"

He looked up and saw a giant-sized hole.

In that hole, a massive figure was plummeting rapidly through the air.

He was standing right where it would crash after shooting out of the hole.

It was worth noting that its jaws were already wide open in anticipation of the moment when it would trap him beneath its body and bite off his head in a single, brutal snap.

"Like hell I'm dying here!" Kev roared and pushed off with explosive strength, cracks erupting from beneath his foot as the ground gave way. His body shot backward like an arrow loosed from a bow.

A blink later—

BAM!

A monstrous figure slammed into the spot where he'd stood just an instant ago. The impact was like an explosion. A thunderous boom echoed through the tunnel as a crater burst open, clouds of dust surged into the air, and shards of debris blasted outward in every direction.

Whoosh!

Some of the debris shot toward Kev like daggers.

Thwack!

He deflected them with a swift swing of his sword, which seemed to have appeared in his hand out of thin air. But in reality, he had pulled it out from his magic pouch, using its instant-equip function to arm himself in a heartbeat.

"Let's see what it looks like."

Everything had happened too fast, so fast that he hadn't yet gotten a clear look at the thing that had attacked him. Its figure was still a blur in his mind.

To see what it looks like, he raised his head and narrowed his eyes.

His intense gaze pierced through the settling dust to focus on his adversary.

"What the hell?"

What he saw left him stunned.