CHAPTER 456: ABYSS!!!

"I’ll meet you soon, older sister! If you find our mother, tell her I want to have a few words with her!!" Pandora says as I step into the portal to the Abyss. I take one last look at her.

"Sure... see you in the Abyss..." I say as the portal closes. This is an ability I’ve had for some time now; it allows me to come to the Abyss, but my mother made it clear that I shouldn’t keep coming to this place without a reason.

"..." I immediately appear in a black forest. The ground, the sky, and everything in the environment is completely black, yet they are different shades of black that allow me to distinguish that there are trees here.

The Abyss, contrary to what one might think, is literally a place. It has trees, although they aren’t vegetation; "rivers," even though it’s not water that flows through them; forests, plains, mountains... it’s almost like a normal planet, yet completely black and full of powerful creatures.

The environment itself is black due to the lack of certain concepts. In the Abyss, there is no time, no horizon threshold, and no light. This alone makes this place a complete mess within existence.

The creatures of the Abyss don’t exactly have a lifespan; their lives depend on what they themselves believe their lifespan to be. If they don’t die from external causes, when they reach the end of their self-defined lifespan, their own bodies self-destruct.

Not because they’ve actually reached their limit, but because they defined that as their limit. Because living in the Abyss takes a heavy toll on one’s very existence. In other words, their lifespan is defined by how long they can endure living in the Abyss before self-destructing.

Naturally, since there is no time, one second here could mean millions of years outside the Abyss, or billions of years here could mean just a few hours outside, leaving the place isolated from the reality outside.

It also doesn’t have a definite end. You can walk in a straight line as much as you want and will never reach the end, because the Abyss has no edges, or barriers, or spatial horizons to reach.

It is "infinite" as long as you don’t break the point where you are standing. To leave the Abyss, it’s only possible with portals, or if you erase the piece of the Abyss where you are, allowing you to connect with the space outside.

"I missed this place," I murmur, stretching. It’s much better than that shitty seal I was trapped in. For that, at least, I thank Pandora. If she hadn’t released me, I might have actually died.

Even if I had gotten out of the seal on my own, what would I have been able to do? Probably, Elysia would have pulled me to her side within the seal, making me appear in front of her, and that would have been my end since I was weakened.

’It seems I’m already surrounded.’ I sense the presence of numerous beings lurking around. They are waiting and gauging how strong I am. Fortunately, the wild monsters of the Abyss usually have levels between 80,000 and 100 million.

And the ones right now seem to be around the 90,000 mark, which isn’t a problem for me.

’I have power at level 150,000... I’m practically at rock bottom in terms of strength here in the Abyss... However, I didn’t lose the power I have; it was merely reduced due to damage...’ I decide to use the first release.

Pandora might not have noticed, but on that planet, surpassing level 100k is difficult because doing so damages the planet. That’s the reason I didn’t release more of my power there.

But now that I’m in the Abyss, I can use the 3-stage release to recover 25% of my original power.

"..." When the first release happens, my magic crushes everything around me. The monsters, the trees, and the entire environment are devastated as my power jumps to 50 million.

"...Still too low..." Probably, in the second release, my power will jump to 1 billion.

"But it will have to do..." I need to get my mother’s attention. She fused with the Abyss, and although she can’t truly know 100% of everything that happens here because it’s exhausting, she can still notice abrupt changes in any part of it.

So, if I cause a massive release of magic, she will notice me and pull me to her. Pandora, of course, won’t be so lucky. With her low level, she is like a speck of dust in our mother’s vision.

"With a bit of luck, when Pandora enters the Abyss, she might just die..." I say this to myself with this slight desire to be the only one again and a bit of envy. Pandora’s children are hybrids, so although they are some competition, they still don’t compare to Pandora herself.

"..." I start walking through the Abyss cautiously. 50 million level is still low in this place, so I should remain cautious until I can reach at least 1 billion in level.

Since from that point on, I will be considered very dangerous. Momentarily, I open my status, looking only at the part concerning my level.

[Level= 100,000,000,000/100,000,000,000 (Currently Weakened/ Manageable Power = 50,000,000)]

’...It’s as bad as I expected...’ I lost levels. I had a maximum level greater than 100 billion, and although it wasn’t much more than that, my maximum level has returned to the same level as the goddesses.

My maximum level before was 110 billion, and those extra 10 billion levels compared to other goddesses made me extremely powerful. The fact that I lost them means that to survive inside the seal, my body sacrificed a small portion of the levels I had.

"Elysia, you damn bitch, just wait until I recover my powers. I’ll rip your head off with my own hands." A dreadful red aura leaks from me, amplifying my anger. The drawbacks of being the representative of the sin of wrath.

’Calm down... I can’t give in to the anger again...’ I calm myself as the aura retreats back into my body. I can’t leave my position so exposed.

"..." I decide to think about Pandora. Despite my slight aversion to her, she is still my younger sister. Even if she is the one who destroys the meaning of my existence, perhaps we can still coexist peacefully.

’Pandora seemed to want closeness with me... I wonder why the interest.’ For her, I should be competition, so it’s strange to see her trying to treat me friendly.

She is... a strange girl. We are both competing for our mother’s love, so why would she try to befriend me? Her daughters are also... strange, not exactly in a bad sense.

But their way of treating the world makes me question my own past. Perhaps if I hadn’t failed at birth, I would be very different because I wouldn’t need to desperately chase after affection.

’...This is really so unfair.’ I dig a hole in this dark earth to bury myself in the ground for the next few hours. I don’t want to wander around while I’m this weak.

...

...

...

"Lady Echidna, your eldest daughter seems to have entered the Abyss." A servant comes to me, bowing as they deliver the news. I momentarily pause my meal, slightly surprised.

"That failure got out of the seal?..." I think about it for a brief moment until I arrive at the answer. Obviously, it was Pandora, because I know Azraelith wouldn’t have left that seal by now.

"Hmph, what a failure. Can’t even get out of the seal on her own. How much more will she disappoint me? Frankly, she might as well have died in there if she’s going to fail so stupidly at the simple task of getting out of that seal," I say irritably.

What’s frustrating about this is that the fact she needed help clearly demonstrates the problem I’ve always seen in her. For most, just surviving inside that seal would be impressive.

But not for the Tenebris Abyssus race. This race is focused on adaptation, meaning it was natural to adapt to that seal and manage to get out before dying. The fact that Azraelith took so long to get out clearly shows how inferior her adaptation is to what I wanted.

"Frankly, Azraelith should be ashamed of needing her younger sister to free her. Why can’t she be like Pandora?" Pandora, naively, still doesn’t seem to have noticed how absurd the learning curve is regarding talent in adaptation.

Pandora’s current power, who is nearing 3 years old, is the same power that Azraelith achieved when she was around 6 years old. For many, a 3-year difference wouldn’t be a big deal.

But for a race focused on adaptation, 3 years is enough time for thousands of adaptations. The most correct way to calculate it would be to say that if in one year Azraelith can adapt 800 times, then in one year Pandora can adapt 8,000 times.

This is because the adaptation curve isn’t a straight line. In other words, with every second I hear news about Pandora and Azraelith, the more disappointed I become with Azraelith, who failed me.

"Lady Echidna, what will you do regarding your eldest daughter?" the servant asks, while I don’t even need to think.

"Ignore her. If I didn’t perceive her, it’s because she’s too weak. She’s not even worth the effort to bring her here. Perhaps if I leave her be, she’ll die and stop tarnishing my image. And when she regains enough power for me to sense her, then I will move to bring her to me," I say coldly.

She doesn’t even deserve my attention if I still can’t sense her. Whether she lives or dies doesn’t matter to me. If she survives, then I can use her for something.

In the end, Azraelith has disappointed me so much throughout her entire life that now, for me, she has only one function: to impregnate Pandora, so that a pure Tenebris Abyssus will be born.

In other words, Azraelith has fallen so far in my estimation that now she only serves as a breeding animal so that Pandora can have more children and spread this species throughout the universe.

Other than that, I truly don’t see any real use for Azraelith. All I wish for is that she doesn’t cause me any more shame now that she’s in the Abyss.

"Understood, Lady Echidna. I will take my leave now." The servant speaks and departs. With that, I return to my meal, all the while wishing for Pandora to come to the Abyss. I have high expectations for her getting stronger when she arrives here.