"Where am I?" With furrowed brows, he muttered to himself in confusion and disarray. His mind was in chaos as focus slowly returned to it. He slowly raised his body by pushing away from the ashen ground that he was lying on, and then he set on it.
Karna felt the ashen ground underneath his butt and hands, the odd wind that gently blew against him. His breathing was erratic; he felt that the air around him was different than the earth.
Because the shortness of breath that he was feeling didn't match the abundance of air around him. It took him a whole minute before his erratic breathing returned to normal.
Calming himself, Karna looked around himself, and the next moment he realized that he was not standing in front of the goddess Rebecca anymore.
Then memories of everything that had happened in that throne room resurfaced in the sea of his mind. The last thing he remembered were the words spoken by Luxuria.
"So I-I'm on Pandora." He murmured under his breath. His body started to tremble without stopping.
He looked toward the sky; the sun was hidden by the clouds in the sky, only slightly visible, making his surroundings visible. He could also see the terrestrial body called Deucalion in the sky.
He then turned his gaze toward the land to find out that he was sitting on ashen land that was devoid of any greenery.
He was on a broad alluvial slop extending from the base of a mountain range out into a basin forest with a hilly area. Here and their weathered stones could be seen laying on or submerged in the ground.
The mountain range was long and vast, to the point where it looked like a wall of mountains reaching the sky and surrounding everything in his vision.
The mountain range consisted of soaring, tall mountains with steep-sided, jagged peaks. Even from this distance, he could not help but feel intimidated by the imposing nature of the mountain range.
Behind his back, the hilly forest consisted of gray-colored trees; even the leaves had a dark gray color, giving the forest a deathly aura.
Karna, who was still trembling, felt an eerie feeling from the forest that made him gulp in fear. He thought about his parents, which only made his eyes fill with tears, but the next moment, remembering the words spoken by the goddess named Luxuria, he bit his lower lips and steeled his resolve.
He tried to get up from the ground but fell again because of the sudden pain he felt in his head.
He heard a voice devoid of any emotion in his head: [Initializing the World Devouring System].
[User detected]
[Verification required]
[Scanning the user for identity confirmation]
Karna started to feel a mind-splitting pain in his head. He fell to the ground, vomiting out the contents of his stomach.
It was just that his belly happened to be quite empty at the moment, so he could only dry heave. He started convulsing on the ground in a crouching position. The pain only kept increasing with the bombardment of unknown words in his mind.
[Scan complete] [The user's identity does not match the recorded identity in the system database.]
[Switching to the second mode of verification]
[Connecting to the Mana Archive of Pandora]
[The name of the user from the Mana Archive of the World has been acquired.]
[Error! The user's name does not match the recorded name for verification.]
[Error! Verification is incomplete!]
[Security System Online] [Unverified user detected; process of self-destruction started]
[The system will self-destruct in t-minus 30 seconds.]
And after those words, the pain that was barely bearable multiplied. making him howl in pain.
"AHHHHHH!" His pain-filled howl reverberated in the surrounding area.
[Error! Error!] [World Devouring System is online] [Warning! Unauthorized system starting is detected. Error! Error!]
[Forceful editing in the Mana Archive has been attempted. Error! Error!]
[Forceful editing in the Mana Archive is being detected.]
[Editing Unsuccessful!]
[Attempting again.... Editing Successful!] [The name of the unverified user has been changed to Lucas Theon.]
[The second mode of verification is reattempted.] [Unverified user is verified]
[Unverified user's status has been changed to verified.]
[World Devouring System is online.]
[Completing the process of soul bonding with the user] [50% → 60% → 65% → 75% → 80% → 100%]
[Soul Bonding Complete. System restarting...]
After those last words, he heard no more words in his mind, and all the pain he was feeling also started to slowly die down. But Karna was still lying on the ground, convulsing.
Only after an unknown amount of time had passed did he stop convulsing; he was now only left with a bitter feeling of confusion in his mind.
Karna, lying on the ground, thought about what had just happened. He was cursing his luck for making him suffer that same mind-splitting pain twice in a day.
His mind was already having a hard time processing everything that was happening.
Karna, who had been lost in his thoughts, was jolted awake when he suddenly heard a rustling sound from the grey-colored forest side. He quickly stood up from the ground to see two figures walking toward him.
Both of them, at first glance, looked like humans because of their attire and body structure, but they were definitely not humans.
The two beings were standing on two tall legs like humans, and they also had the same body structure as humans.
However, these human figures had glowing red skin, and not only that, they had two grey horns that were extending towards the sides. The sclera of their eyes were pitch black, while their iris and pupils were red. One of them had a short, fat body, and the other one had a tall, thin body.
They were looking straight at Karna with an amused expression, then the fat one turned to glance towards the thin one. He said something to him in an unknown language. They then both laughed together in disgusting manner.
The fat one then glanced at Karna and stopped laughing. He again spoke something in an unknown set of words.
Karna, who was nervously standing, looked toward the two approaching beings. His heart was beating like crazy and seemed to want to burst from his ribcage.
The distance between him and the two beings was not very much; it was only 20 feet. As Karna was nervously thinking about how to deal with this situation, suddenly the unknown set of words became understandable to him.
"Haha; To think that we would find a human being out of nowhere. I told you, didn't I, that I heard a human howl from this direction?"