Chapter 52

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[2 MONTH]

Tartarus was worse than I thought… worse than I could've prepared for….the books did not do this hellish nightmare any justice... the pain that I feel... or rather that I felt before was overwhelming, and even now that I had adjusted to this harsh and cruel environment with my dark magic... I could still feel my body suffering in silent agony. Soul consumption, it was a spell that allowed me to become stronger, in exchange for a soul, a simple yet disgusting transaction, consuming a soul was… terrible, both for the poor soul and the consumer, you can feel their agony as what makes them… well…. them, disappear inside of you, for a brief moment, you can see everything they have seen… and then… nothing… just a cold feeling…

It was a truly terrifying spell. One that I had been forced to use to survive, I wanted to survive, at any cost, and as a bonus objective, I wanted to kill Luke, so my morals… were out the window for now.

So… I did what I had to do to survive, I started to consume the souls of the monsters lurking around, and by monsters, I didn't mean things like the Minotaur, or the likes, no I meant people, humans so bad that they had been sentenced to live for all eternity inside the worse realm in existence.

I'm not gonna lie, the first time I consumed a living soul, from a human living in Tartarus, it haunted me... the cries of despair of the humans, the tears while they begged for their lives…. It was something I was not mentally prepared to deal with, I knew they were bad, and the reason they were here in the first place was that they were the worse of the worse, but it still was… a hard situation to deal with, but everything must come to an end, and so did my caring, day by day, their screams and tears started to bother me less and less, to the point I simply stopped considering them humans, for me, they were prey now, they were what kept me alive in this hellish realm, and I would be damned if I didn't survive.

As for the pain, it was still there… no matter how many hundreds of humans I consumed, the pain would always remain, but it was tolerable now, it kinda felt like I was back to my old body now, not worse, so I suppose it's an improvement.

"The… the devourer!" A man shouted, his eyes widened in terror, if only he had kept his mouth shut, I would've passed right past him.

"Boo," I yawned, as aimed my hand at him glowing with a green almost black color and shot a blast of mana that destroyed then man, "Oh well," I sighed, pulling his soul to me, I then opened my mouth and swallowed the soul… and immediately after the disgusting sensation of despair the man was feeling as my power consumed him shocked me, but what shocked me the most was the new feelings that rushed through my body… this man knew who I was, that much I was able to gather, and his fear for me… was overwhelming.

Of course, it was I concluded for myself, these people… they all keep some hope they will be able to escape this realm… and I represent a true end, one that eats away their hope, what an ironic result… sinners now fear me, an innocent man in Tartarus, "Even I can see the cruel irony there… the joke is poetic," I laughed, not sure if there was any emotion behind it, but I laughed.

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[6 MONTH]

How long have I been here? Six months, at this pace I will end up devouring every human soul inside this realm, is Hestia even trying to help me? Or was I simply another mere moment in the life of a Goddess, "Oh, well… look at the bright side," was there any? "Yeah, I'm still alive," Death would be mercy now.

"No, dying would be the easy way out… I have the tools to survive, and I will survive," I declared as if I was having a conversation with someone, well I was… with my inner pessimistic self, who had lost hope in being rescued, "I have become stronger than ever, so there is that… smile Adam, just smile," I reminded myself… as long as I smiled…. As long as I lied to myself, I would have a reason to keep going.

"You!" I turned around, to see my friend the minotaur… had found me once again, no matter how many times I killed him, he would come back to fight me, "I will end you!" and yes, he could talk… I was surprised too, who would've guessed the big sirloin could talk.

"Must we do this?" I asked him, my eyes narrowed at him, "I have killed you seventy eight times, at one point it should get boring… at least for me it did," I could've consumed his essence, the spell worked on him too… but for some reason, I just never did it… with any monster for that matter.

With a growl, the ferocious Minotaur charged at me in blind rage, thrashing anything in his wake with his might, "I hope you taste as good as a steak…" I sighed, and with a simple move of my hand, I bound the monster to the ground, "If you were more attentive you would've known… that thanks the thousands of souls I have consumed my magic can easily subdue you," I tapped his forehead with a slight smirk forming on my face, "But I suppose you got the brains from your father," I laughed, killing the beast with a swing of my sword, one that I had found in this wretched realm, I then proceeded to consume my first monster… and it was worse than with humans… the Minotaur was rage incarnated, and I could feel him even to his bitter end trying to fight, it felt like I had swallowed lava.

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[1 YEAR]

Consuming monsters was… systematically better than consuming sinners, they had more power, more raw material to work with…. So since the day, I ate Mr Sirloin, I started to hunt monsters and sinners alike, funny thing is that as much power as I was getting, the gap between me and some of the… Titans I had briefly felt was basically the same, which terrified me to no end, if any of them captured me, Kronos would make me suffer for all eternity.

"Food…?" I stopped dead on my tracks, right now I was on my way to… well… nowhere, in particular, Tartarus was confusing as hell, but the point is I was walking, and a very familiar voice caught my attention, "Food…?"

"Well hello there," I smiled at the sight of the thing that almost killed me during my first mission, "So glad to find you here,"

"Food!" The blind amalgamation screeched in mad delight, rushing at me.

"One of us is," I shot back, cutting her legs and arms with my sword… this time her movements were slow, painfully so, "I wonder, how do you taste like?"

"Food…. No… monster," She was afraid, good, "Devourer… no no NO!" in fear the monster tried to free itself from my grasp but failed to do so… "YOU NO FOOD… YOU MONSTER!"

"Oh, I'm a monster?" I chuckled ripping her soul out, "Never heard that one screamed to me today,"

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Time in Tartarus = 1 YEAR

Real world = 12 MINUTES