After rushing for some time, Foo had finally reached a new sight. Huge walls and a wide gate, all made of grotesque and pulsating flesh.
The gate seemed to be made of tentacles, which would usually entwine each others from all sides of the archway. However, right now they were just shivering limply, providing none of its intended functionality.
Thus, Foo stepped inside the walls, and finally reached a plaza... of flesh.
Greeting him were the sight of a huge glowing crystal, some abominations chatting anxiously and a lump of meat that were rolling around. The lump might or might not consist of two freaks, trying to strangle each others' immortal bodies.
At Foo's arrival, the high concentration of miasma at the location went shivering. Although the miasma no longer were actually running away, as it did before when he got a sphere of pure...ish air.
The miasma were now just a small distance away from his body, making sure to not touch it. Constantly giving the feeling of being prepared to escape if it senses anything untoward.
Although the miasma had calmed down, the dread were still there within it, sending shivers through the world.
Noticing the shivering, all present went quiet. Their eyes quickly turned towards the source, and thus spotted Foo.
Normally, they would be able to sense that someone were coming from far away, but the matter with the miasma had dulled their senses. Only when the miasma were shivering again, did they notice this stranger.
After being frozen for some seconds, they started to whisper:
"Who is that?"
"I don't know!"
"When did anyone get such a perfect body?"
"I haven't heard of anyone that lucky!"
"We all are here, so who could it be?"
Even though there were a seal, there were still ways that they could use to interact with the world of the living. However, none of the ways were able to permanently allow them access to the other side.
Thus they suspected that someone had got hold of a good body, but that thought were quickly abandoned, as the ones that were powerful enough to achieve such a feat were all here, and no one would let a subordinate of theirs keep such a treasure.
While the abominations were guessing on who Foo was, he was distracted by another sight:
########
Congratulations!
Your knowledge in multiple languages have gained you the title [Polyglot]!
---
[Polyglot]
Master of languages!
Have knowledge of any language they encounter.
########
Happy at such a nice title, Foo realized that the beings before him must be speaking in the spirit language or something. And that his [Otherworlder] title must have considered this place, although a part of another world, a world of its own.
Thus he had learned its main language. And due to the amount of languages that he had then mastered, which included dozens if not hundreds from his old world, he seemed to gain a nice title.
Foo were pleasantly surprised that the title was so... normal. Based on what he knew about the system, it would usually use the title `Language junkie` or something...
In the mean time, the abominations had started to get close to the answer. It took some intelligence, although wicked, to plan evil plots all day, and to survive in a world like The Abyss. And as such, they quickly realized that this stranger had came from the direction of the earlier disturbance, and that the miasma were still seemingly acting up around him.
"You! You were the one that scared the shit out of the miasma earlier!"
"Yes! It must be him! Even now, the world is shivering around him!"
To this... accurate... accusation, Foo could definitely not confess. What if they found out that there were a huge plot of decorations missing? Or if they misunderstood things, and thought that he was evil?
Thus swiftly making plans to shift the blame, Foo opened his mouth to speak.
"Hell yeah! That was freaking scary! Even the miasma fled! Even the forest of terrors uprooted and took off! No matter how you look at him, he does not look like—"
The skull had interrupted before Foo could smooth over the situation. He was even prepared to use the effect of the [Silver tongue] title to increase the chances to convince them. But with the skull's testimony, it would be a lost case before he even started.
In order to stop things from becoming worse, Foo quickly dropped the skull on the ground, and stomped on it a few times to bury it there.
Giving an innocent smile, Foo then said "Don't mind him! He is most likely delirious!"
However, the abominations were not easy to fool.
"There shall be a day when the world shivers, and the miasma flees."
"The Devil will appear, and The Abyss will cease to exist."
"When the Devil hides his skull in the ground, the end is nigh."
They mumbled together.
Coming to realization, one shouted: "You! You are the Devil!"
Panicked, Foo could not help but to spurt "Crap! How did you know?!"
"Indeed, he must be the most evil being in existence. The reaction from the miasma were nothing that the one we proclaim to be the Devil could ever archive!"
Almost starting to cry, Foo insisted: "I am not evil! It is just a misunderstanding! I just got the title as a joke! A joke!"
At this, all the abominations gasped. This stranger not only were so humble that he did not accept the recognition that everyone here were fighting hard to get, but he even mentioned that he was recognized by the system as the [Devil]. The system!
Normally, they would have thought that someone that looked that weak would not have anything to do with the prophecy. But the facts were clear.
The arrival from the direction of the disturbance, the affect on the surrounding miasma, the skull's reaction and the constant denial were all suspicious.
At once, everyone forgot about the lacking appearance of this man. There were no doubt that he was the most evil man in existence. In fact, to appear like an innocent human, were this not another evil plot?
He was even so evil that he emulated such a pure soul! Even though everyone here knew that he was more evil than them, they might mistake him for a saint if they were just to look at that soul.
It was the prefect disguise to enter the world of the living, to go undercover until he could break the seal. He even seemed to be training his acting now, refusing to be called evil.
...
No one would be able to miss the thoughts of the abominations, especially not Foo. Their appearances were clearly screaming that they thought that Foo were evil.
Massaging his forehead, Foo was trying to make up a plan.
Then suddenly, a huge humanoid giant that had quietly been sitting on a luxurious throne on the side of the plaza arose.
The abominations gathered in the plaza calmed down, and instinctively greeted "We bow to The Devil, the ruler of The Abyss and conqueror of the worlds!"
To which they got a booming laughter "HAHAHA, yes! I am The Devil! The ruler! And that just happen to be the best vessel for me to use when I travel to the world of the living! How lovely that you delivered it to me!"
With those words, the huge body of the self-proclaimed Devil suddenly collapsed backwards, while a translucent dark shape rose from it. The shape that reeked of evilness then dived straight for Foo and entered his body.
"Muahahaha! The perfect vessel! I can finally... Hey! What the—"
*BOOOOOOOM*
A huge explosion sounded, caused by a huge amount of miasma escaping from Foo's body. The force was huge, and even brought down some walls, and made a dent in the plaza.
But the abominations were all the strongest of The Abyss, such force did not do anything more than startle them. Had the miasma been utilized to do harm however... they would at least been heavily injured.
Their subordinates were another story, smashed to smithereens.
And luckily, the crystal of life were properly protected. And as such, no damage were incurred.
"How can this be?! My miasma! It's... gone!"
The voice of the self-proclaimed Devil sounded out, now sounding feeble.
"It's not possible! My life's hard work! I can't even feel it's existence any more!"
Startled by the happenings, Foo mused that miasma were indeed rejected by his body, but it seemed that souls, or spirits if that was not the same, was fine. And that made sense, as he obvious had a soul or something.
But Foo were cleverly avoiding thinking too much on the subject; what would happen if he suddenly were to reject souls too...
Thus diverting back his thoughts at the matter at hand. He had been quite confident that his body would help to protect him, but he had not expected that a spirit could still enter his body.
He was feeling a faint tingeing in his mind where the spirit seemingly tried to wrestle control of his body. Cute thoughts of horrors that almost seemed childish were also transmitted from the spirit. Compared to even the horror games that Foo had played, they were nothing to talk about.
"Impossible! How can someone have such a sturdy mind?! This amount of willpower is so extreme!"
And that would be expected. Not everyone would be able to do exactly the same action in a game for many days in a row, just to find out ways to... improve the performance... of the action.
Not everyone would play immersive games with no pain filtering, just because they found out that there was some... opportunities... that revealed themselves during some actions with the pain filtering off.
And no one would explore such actions that included being under a pain increasing curse...
One needed to have extreme willpower in order to endure the hardships of science.
As such, the spirit could not even make Foo twitch.
But the spirit was getting noisy. Impossible this, impossible that.
Foo soon had enough, and transmitted a tiny bit of evil thoughts to the spirit.
"Such vast evilness! I have been a toad in the well!" Were the response, before the spirit finally hid shivering in a corner.
Frowning, Foo were annoyed that yet again someone said that he was evil. It was even the entity that were seemingly the evillest one here... How could anyone present believe that he were not evil now?
However, Foo had a plan. If one could seem evil by projecting evil thoughts, what if he were to project nice thoughts?
"Stop calling me evil! See for yourselves that I'm not evil!"
After his statement, Foo began to project nice thoughts. Back in his old world he had helped lots of vulnerable persons. Even the dead man's switch that would empty the bank accounts of his enemies upon his death would distribute the money to charity organizations that he had founded.
Added to that were all kind of nice thoughts, like giving good reviews with 5 stars on the webnovels he likes and giving nice comments on its chapters. And even topped it by thinking of giving power stones to it too.
...
As Foo were projecting nice thoughts, a divine light were emitting from his body. When it touched the flesh on the ground, the flesh went wriggling as if in agony, while it started to dissolve.
And upon coming into contact with the abominations, they could feel their beings be corrupted. The miasma in the surrounding and in the abominations were converted first to normal mana, and then into holy light.
This holy light were then burning the abominations, as their entire existences were made of pure evilness.
They were no longer beings that were corrupted by evil; there were not a single part of them that were not evil any more. And as such, the threat that the holy light posed to them were lethal.
Luckily for them, they had some prowess, and as such could survive for a while, while the holy light spread outside and corroded the evil constructs on its way.
"Shit! He must be someone sent to eradicate us! If this continues, The Abyss will cease to exist, and a pathetic land of virtue would take its place!"
Realizing the implications, the now wounded abominations gasped again.
"The prophecy! `There shall be a day when the world shivers, and the miasma flees. The Devil will appear, and The Abyss will cease to exist. When the Devil hides his skull in the ground, the end is nigh.`"
"Indeed! It was not referring to us braking out of the prison known as The Abyss! It was referring to us and The Abyss in its entirety getting eradicated!"
"And the passage `When the Devil hides his skull in the ground, the end is nigh.` seems uncomfortable familiar!"
"Indeed!" someone added, and they all turned to look at where the skull had now managed to make his way up.
"The phrase `the end is nigh` did not refer to the living world! It was referring to us!"
"That would also explain the death of the one that told the prophecy! Even I feel like vomiting when seeing such radiance! And it is still increasing! There is no way that anyone could survive seeing it till the end!"
"Shit, what should we do?! At this rate, we would cease to exist even before we could invade the world of the living!"
"Only the crystal of life can pave the road of our salvation." a few of them chanted in chorus, which led all of them turning their heads to look at the crystal.
"Hurry! We must activate it! Only by banishing him to the world of the living would we be able to survive!"
"But how should we set the destination? The vessel that we prepared would not fit! Sending a whole body would need us to prepare a new pathway!"
"You seem to forget something! He must have come here somehow! Most likely, the old pathway that he used is still attached to him, and as such we can force it open to send him back!"
"Brilliant! Lets to it!"
For the first time since... ever... all the abominations were in mutual agreement. In an jiffy they prepared the crystal and activated it.
Startled awake by the sudden strange feeling, Foo interrupted his projection, and calmness returned.
Forgotten in all the commotion, the skull had also made its way to Foo, and were now resting on his foot.
A light enveloped Foo, and space seemed to distort around him as he was sucked into the crystal, which then exploded in pieces.
Waiting for a few minutes to ensure that the process went well, they sighed in relief. They couldn't care less whether Foo reached the destination, they just wanted to make sure that he did not come back.
After calming down, they looked at the plaza. Or rather, what used to be the plaza. Given everything that had happened, there were only a crater left. And there were even grass growing in it! Grass!!
The holy light that had bathed the surroundings seemed to have given birth to all kinds of growth. The sight of the verdant ground sent shivers down the abominations' spines. How disgusting!
All of them shuddered in horror on the thought that all of The Abyss might have been covered in such filth, had they not been fast enough.
The injuries they received were also disgusting, threatening to corrupt them if they did not recover by doing some evil stuff right away.
As they decided to leave this plaza-turned-into-hell, they could hear a panicked voice full of despair:
"SAVE ME! THE CARROTS ARE INVADING!"