Devil Slave (Satan system)

Chapter 1070: Sufferring And Awareness

She had once been surprised to find a semblance of hope in this desolate world. Hidden among the tortured souls and jagged rocks, she thought she might endure, perhaps even escape. But she did not know how wrong she was. This devil that haunted this wasteland had marked her, and it hunted her relentlessly.

The second time it found her, it took her nose bridge, biting it off her face with a grotesque crunch. The pain was excruciating, a searing agony that made her vision blur and her head swim. Blood gushed from the wound, warm and thick, threatening to choke her as it filled her mouth and throat. She gagged and sputtered, struggling to breathe, each breath a desperate rasp against the blood flooding her airways.

The devil, with its cruel, twisted sense of amusement, used its chaos magic to stop the bleeding. The wound sealed with an eerie, unnatural quickness, leaving her to gasp for air, the metallic taste of blood still heavy on her tongue. It had let her go again, its mocking laughter echoing in her ears, a chilling reminder of her helplessness as it disappeared again.

It did not take long for her to realize she was nothing more than a half-eaten bag of potato chips kept in the fridge, to be nibbled on whenever the devil felt snackish.

Every time it grew hungry, it would find her, no matter where she tried to hide. The icy landscape offered no sanctuary, the rocks and tortured souls bearing silent witness to her torment.

The devil didn’t restrict her movements, almost as if to mock her, to show that no matter where she went, it could always find her. It even went so far as to protect her from other devils, ensuring that her suffering remained its exclusive entertainment. She was both its nourishment and its diversion, a toy to be played with at its whim.

At another time, it came for her again. This time, it took the second eye. The process was brutal, the devil’s claws digging into her face, wrenching the eye from its socket with a sickening pop.

This time around, she could not hold back and she screamed, the sound raw and desperate, echoing through the caverns. Blood streamed down her face, mixing with her tears, the pain blinding and all-consuming.

She was left no eye, her world completely dark, a mirror of her pain. The devil seemed to revel in her agony, its laughter a haunting melody in the cold, dark air.

Now, she was blind, stumbling through the freezing darkness, her hands outstretched to feel her way around the jagged rocks. She had no nose bridge, her face a grotesque mask of mutilation, her breathing a harsh rasp through the exposed wound. The icy air stung her raw flesh, the pain a constant reminder of her torment.

Each day was a new nightmare, the devil’s presence a looming shadow over her shattered existence. She was alone in the dark, her senses heightened to the sounds and sensations around her.

The whispers of the damned souls, the crunch of ice underfoot, the ever-present chill that gnawed at her bones. She could feel the devil’s eyes on her, always watching, always waiting.

In this place where hope was a cruel illusion, she was trapped in a cycle of pain and terror. The devil’s laughter haunted her every step, a reminder that her suffering was far from over. She was its prisoner, its plaything, a living soul in a frozen hell, enduring a torment that seemed to have no end.

But when there was extreme pain, the universe also sought to teach or rather to gift.

Athena had always possessed incredible senses. She could tell if a person was lying by simply smelling their breath.

At one time, she had even been able to determine where Lenny had gone three days later by sensing the direction of the wind. Practically speaking, she was unparalleled with her senses. Now, in unimaginable pain and blinded, she started to sense the world in a different light—literally.

It all began a short while after the devil had come to tear flesh from her forearm. She could hear the grotesque chewing sound as the devil walked away.

By this point, tears no longer fell from her eyes; she was beyond weeping. All she could do was listen in the direction it walked.

However, surprisingly, even though her flesh had been torn from her body, she could still feel it—not on her skin, but inside the stomach of the devil that had peeled it off her. It was as if that part of her was screaming to reconnect with her, and she both felt and heard that cry.

And that was when she noticed something else. Within her body, her cells were communicating with each other. It was a terrifying sensation that seemed to want to overwhelm her, and she even fainted twice. But by the third time, she had begun to reduce the noise at will and listen one cell at a time.

In her heightened state, she discovered how they communicated. It was through energy—a pure, true energy that coursed through her body like a symphony of life.

This new awareness brought a strange clarity. She could sense the energy fields of the tortured souls around her, the pulsating life force of the rocks embedded with damned spirits, and even the sinister aura of the devils that prowled this frozen wasteland.

This revelation was both a gift and a curse. The pain remained, sharp and unyielding, but now she had a tool—a way to navigate the darkness that had engulfed her. Athena began to harness this newfound ability, focusing on the energy around her to ’see’ in a way she never had before.

As she listened, she realized that she was not one person as she had always believed. But that did not mean that she was more than one person. Rather, it meant that she was not a person, yet not an object nor a subject of sorts.

Instead, she was energy with an understanding of its self awareness.