The Dark Rebirth of Pandora: Revenge of the Abyss

Chapter 137: Devour or be devoured

After a few minutes, I’m able to stabilize my mana again, and I’ve also managed to evolve and adapt. Now the chaotic mana is no longer a problem, even though I absorb it.

Although even after absorbing this chaotic mana, I still can’t use it. Fortunately, I adapt to extreme environments very quickly, or it would be difficult to even last a day here.

’Now I’m without a dress, wounded, and my mana is low...how wonderful’ I managed to screw myself up in less than an hour in this place, now the only clothing I have is my panties.

I was in so much pain that I didn’t even care about tearing the dress, it was the first time I’ve felt so much pain since being born as the Demon King.

At least I gained some things from this, like discovering that my natural advantages can become weaknesses depending on the situation, since my high absorption of ambient mana caused me severe problems.

Another thing was that in a moment of desperation, I discovered how to create mana cores and connect them to my body, which is useful since if I’m in a life-or-death situation in the future, I can try to create a core to keep myself alive.

’I need food...’ Normally I could easily go 20 days without eating, but this environment is too bad for that, and I was wounded and lost a lot of mana.

I think I can only last 2 to 3 days without food at most, I noticed that even the air in this place is difficult to breathe, if it wasn’t for my extremely fast adaptation, I would have serious problems and probably die in the first few days.

I think if someone comes to this place, they need to come with previously prepared equipment, unlike me, who came with just the clothes on my back.

I start looking for something to hunt, although I can recover my mana by eating anything thanks to the [Devourer] passive, it’s still not a good idea to just start eating anything.

I need something alive that has meat instead of eating the wood from the trees or the dirt on the ground, I’ll only do that in an emergency.

To recover from the damage, I climb a tree and start jumping from one tree to another. Being without a dress has increased my natural mobility, so I make no sound as I leap from one to the other.

’I hate this hunger...’ I’m getting hungrier by the second, the reason for this is already clear to me. Although I’ve solved the problem with the chaotic mana in the environment, my mana is still constantly being consumed.

Because this ambient mana is destroying my mana as quickly as it regenerates, which naturally increases my hunger, and this is not a problem for my body, so I can’t adapt to it.

It’s just annoying because my mana is now regenerating absurdly slowly while I’m feeling very hungry.

And for some strange reason, my hunger seems to keep increasing and increasing endlessly, although I don’t understand the reason, I just feel that it is increasing, so there must be more than one factor making me feel hungry, and I don’t know what the other factor is.

I can see a monster up here from the tree, I hang from the branch using my tail while observing the monster upside down.

It seems to be some kind of Orc, but it looks different from the common ones it’s gray and smaller in size, although it seems to have a lot of mana. Even though it’s smaller than common Orcs, it’s still around 2.5 meters tall.

I grip the tree and start descending head-first, my nails digging into the wood as I let my instincts take over. It feels so natural to hunt this way.

My tail sways slightly, avoiding making any noise in the branches, showing excellent control during the hunt.

A hunting style completely different from humans, more akin to a wild beast.

I’m soon above the Orc, who seems to be resting under this tree.

Crack

”!!!” I jump from one tree to another, narrowly avoiding an Orc’s punch. It heard the small crack of my nails digging into the wood, showing impressive hearing.

I had planned to cut its throat with my nails for a quick death, to save more energy, but it seems I underestimated how strong the monsters here can be.

”Oh, what’s a little thing like you doing around these parts?” The Orc speaks, surprising me.

’Intelligence?’ It observes me with a certain lust, seeing that I’m without clothes, but its stance still has no openings, and it’s ready to defend against an attack if I try.

I feel my rationality diminish as my instincts sharpen. I think I understand what the librarian meant this hostile and extreme environment, combined with the hunger, awakens a more primitive side of me that I didn’t know I had.

”I’m just looking for an easy prey,” I say without hiding anything, while searching for any openings to kill it.

”Seems you’re new around here, do you really think you’ll survive long being so weak?”

”...” This annoys me. How dare he call me weak.

”For someone who calls me weak, you don’t seem that great yourself,” I start moving from one tree to another, jumping super fast around him.

”Haha, seriously? Do you think you can rely only on your magic in this place, little thing? Look at those marks on your body, I’m sure you’ve been struggling with the mana not too long ago.”

”In other words...”

”!!!” I barely dodge when he made an attack so fast that he almost hit me. I saw it perfectly, but I could barely evade.

”You’re weakened... and I bet you’re very hungry too. I doubt you can even form magic circles because your mana veins must be completely detonated.”

He’s right. Although mana is no longer a problem since I’ve adapted to it, there are still several other factors, like the fact that the chaotic mana is constantly consuming my mana.

And worst of all, the severe damage to my mana path, which greatly hinders mana release. Currently, I can barely strengthen my body with mana, and I can’t even call for Violet’s help.

Since if I call for Violet’s help and she appears, she’ll be affected by the ambient mana, and I don’t know how she would react to that.

”Why can you speak?” He doesn’t seem like an evolved monster, so I decide to keep conversing with him while looking for openings, fortunately there are many trees around, so I can use the environment to my advantage.

”Do you think you’re the only one? Just because you have this form, you think you’re special? Many monsters are smart enough to speak, don’t think you’re unique in that way.”

’He can’t sense my presence as the Demon King... is it because of my [Beloved by the Abyss] passive?’ This passive makes evil beings feel affinity towards me, and thus they become more susceptible to being allies or not attacking me.

More precisely, it also functions as an aura that probably conceals my presence as the Demon King, to a certain extent I can control the forces of certain passives.

So if I wanted to, I could make him feel that I’m the Demon King, but I quickly give up on that idea.

As the master said, I’ve become too accustomed to the comfort. I need to connect more with my monstrous side, and what better way to do that than fighting, killing, and devouring everything in my path?

”You’re right, I apologize for the rudeness. So, to show you how special I am, I’ll devour you,” I say with a maniacal smile as I look fixedly at him.

He probably thinks I’m an evolved monster because of my appearance, which is why he’s being cautious, but that also means he’s not an evolved monster himself, just a monster with intellect.

”Try it, little thing. After I rape you, you’ll be my feast,” he says as he gets into a fighting stance. In this place, it’s kill or be killed the law of the strongest prevails.

And I will be the strongest.

I leap from the tree towards him in a straight-line attack. He positions his fist back, and when I’m closer, he punches. As his fist is near my face, I use my tail to grab his hand and reposition my body, clinging to his arm.

I bite the part of his arm near the shoulder. He moves his arm to smash me against a tree, breaking the tree and causing it to collapse. I feel pain in my back but ignore it.

Soon I’m thrown away by the force of his movement.

”Y-You miserable little thing.”

Of course, I didn’t leave without my prize. My bite can be considered one of the strongest in the world thanks to the [Devourer] passive. This passive doesn’t always activate, but when it does, I become capable of chewing and digesting anything.

The part about digesting anything is always active, but the part about the bite only activates when necessary.

14=Devourer - Capable of eating and digesting anything, regardless of what it is, recovering by eating something, the degree of recovery depending on the value of what was eaten.

So I tore off his entire arm with that bite.

I hold his arm and start eating, the sound of bones being crushed easily audible as blood splatters on my face and body, my hunger speaking louder.

The Orc, meanwhile, compresses the muscles to stop the bleeding. In less than 5 seconds, I completely devoured his arm, feeling my mana recover a bit, but not by much.

Also, my mana path hasn’t recovered at all, and I’m still very hungry. The blood, meat, and bones only served as a small appetizer.

I lick the blood on my face as I get into an attack stance, positioning myself on the ground like a wild animal. Forget fencing or martial arts, the hunger and the thrill of the hunt surpass those things.

All I need to do is advance and devour him, regardless of whether he’s still alive.

”I’m so hungry...” I want much more. This Orc alone is not enough, I haven’t felt this kind of hunger since I was a baby, back then the hunger was uncontrollable, but after a while, it passed.

And now I feel that same hunger again, but here there are no maids or servants, I must obtain my own food.

”Damn thing, don’t think you’ll be my meal so easily.” The Orc’s skin starts turning red, and his size increases, now he must be around 3.5 meters tall.

”Great, it wouldn’t be fun if the meal just surrendered on a platter.”