"Where am I?" Atlas gazed inebriated at the strange world around him.
It was a world devoid of color, light, and darkness, but the young man could sense a presence around him.
His movements were limited. He could only move his head, but only slightly.
"Is anyone there?" Atlas shouted.
Fear was beginning to take over. After all, he did not even know how he had ended up there, and he certainly did not want to stay there, especially under those conditions.
The young man continued to shout, but no one answered, so time passed indefinitely.
It was only when a mood broke that terrible silence that Atlas found some hope again...
"Atlas..."
"Nihilir... is that you?"
Hearing the word chosen, the question arose spontaneously.
"No... young man..." The voice reappeared after a while, but to his disappointment, the interlocutor was not Nihilir: "... I'm the remnant power of a forgotten wanderer... It's not important who I am, but that you are here..."
The young man wanted to interrupt him, but strangely, no sound came out of his mouth.
"... it is useless... a devourer is nurtured by everything from this endless Universe... even the sound can feed his insatiable hunger."
Atlas had heard his words, yet he couldn't stop his mouth from moving again.
"Well... we don't have much time, so let's not waste it and instead use it wisely..."
The situation was surreal. Still, Atlas listened to the Being's words.
"The Devourer of Chaos is one of my precious creations. I designed and made it perfect throughout my long life. Let me show you the greatness that one day you may reach..."
Suddenly, the space before his eyes changed, and an enormous Chaos Stone appeared.
There was nothing strange with that, but soon, a terrible sound right from behind the young man distorted the void.
"Ohuuuu..."
Following that noise, the Chaos Stone started to disintegrate, and in a couple of minutes, nothing was left behind, bringing that space to its original shape.
Atlas didn't know what had just happened, yet that wasn't the end. In fact, something else appeared right where the Chaos Stone stood before.
It was a creature, a giant quadruped creature that Atlas didn't recognize.
He tried to observe that thing, yet before he could even start, a black spear stabbed the creature and killed it on the spot.
Blood splattered everywhere, making that scene even crueler, yet the scene changed again when the energy started flowing out from the corpse.
The energy slowly floated toward the void, yet not all of them could escape because the same sound and the same result from before occurred again.
A minimum part of the energy flowed back toward the unknown being behind Atlas, bringing the vast space to its original space for the second time.
The story wasn't there. Indeed, more absurd things appeared before Atlas.
More monsters were killed and devoured...
A planet was destroyed and devoured...
A galaxy made the same end...
Everything in front of Atlas was devoured, yet he noticed an important detail. In fact, the energy consumed by the corpses was only a tiny portion for some strange reasons.
He didn't know the meaning behind that, but he found it quite peculiar.
Soon, the empty space calmed down, and nothing happened until that voice reappeared: "This is the Devourer of Chaos... you can absorb and digest the Universe itself... Ohuuuu..."
That disturbing noise reappeared again, yet there was nothing to devour in that emptiness. Nothing other than the young man...
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"AHHHHHH!!!!"
All happened too fast, and the pain was unbearable, but at least he was freed from that space.
Atlas reappeared in the world, wailing in desperation and tormented by that tremendous pain. Luckily, it wasn't the reality but a mere impression instilled in his mind by that book.
His trembling knees fell to the ground, and his hands planted not too far, holding his body up from entirely collapsing on the soil.
"What was that?? What the hell was that?"
Atlas remembers everything that happened before. All those emotions assaulted his mind altogether.
"Uhhh..."
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It took him a while to recover from that sudden influx of sensation. But, in the end, he cleared his mind of unwanted thoughts and started recalling the several pieces of information that had infiltrated his mind after that strange event.
Indeed, the Devourer of Chaos wasn't a simple book with a weird story written on those old pages, but a mystical cultivation manual that opened his limited mind to the wonderous mysteries of the Universe.
The complete version, with its complicated instructions and details, was branded in his mind.
He ignored those five tomes waiting for his return in the library and instead sat cross-legged: "The Devourer of Chaos... Every living thing is composed of Chaos Energy, so make that energy your own. Become an unstoppable force and devour the Universe."
The details forcefully imprinted on his mind were astronomical.
There was a part related to the usage of Chaos Stones and the method for rapid refinement.
Then, it was described to perfection how to absorb and purify the energy released by creatures at the moment of death, when the realm of the dead was opened to lead souls to the underworld.
It was an incredible method that did not harm the poor souls of the dead. Rather, it got in sync with them and took the bare minimum, never crossing that insurmountable boundary that would have led him toward a path from where he could have never returned.
And it didn't end there. In fact, there were several other complicated methods that the young man couldn't even imagine.
Atlas immersed himself in his own little world and unconsciously began to operate the method given in the manual.
He entered into perfect synchronicity with the world, absorbing small amounts of Chaos Energy into his body.
The energy began to fill and stabilize his Chaotical Core, making him slightly stronger. His body was slowly evolving, marking the young man's entrance into the world of cultivation.
Crack!!!
Crack!!!
There was a strange noise, much like the sound of broken bones, and then a mighty dome of energy expanded from the young man's body outward.
"Mmm... What a great feeling... my body has become more robust."
At this time, Atlas' power equated to a martial cultivator at the Initial Stage of the Primordial Chaos Realm, the so-called warriors who were part of the lowest rank in the world.
"It's amazing... but absorbing the energy from the universe is way too slow, so let's test out this..."
Atlas had tested only one way to absorb energy, yet it was too slow. So, he took out a single Chaos Stone.
It was only a Low-Grade Chaos Stone, but more than enough for now.
The Chaos Stones were used as the currency of this world for a simple reason because they held the purest form of energy in large quantity.
Absorbing the energy contained in them was way quicker than collecting it from the surroundings.
Atlas had witnessed the process with his own eyes many times in the past. Yet, the one described in the tome, the Devourer of Chaos, was slightly different.
Holding that stone wasn't enough, and so he lifted his hand and brought the stone closer to his mouth. Recalling the abstruse flow of energy described inside the manual, Atlas started shaking his internal energy and then opened his mouth.
The stone was only a few inches away from his teeth, but this was more than enough for the mystical technique to commence.
In the end, Atlas breathed in, and in that short period, the Chaos Stone turned into dust entirely. It happened all too fast, yet Atlas still saw the tiny blue particles flow from the stone to his mouth.
It was such a marvel that Atlas couldn't help but moan in pleasure: "Oh... that was great..."
His body was brimming with pure energy, and that sudden sensation was way more potent than the slow process from before.
Atlas closed his eyes for several minutes, absorbing more than nine stones, and finally, the young man's body was enveloped in a golden glow.
The process of stabilization of the core was rapidly operating, and soon...
Boom!
The glow vanished, showing the young man's body again.
"Incredible... this kind of speed is monstrous... alas, something is blocking me from growing further... what is that..."
Indeed, he couldn't extract the energy from the eleventh stone no matter how he tried. Even the energy from the world didn't respond to his call.
A bit alarmed, Atlas closed his eyes again and inspected his body, yet there was nothing strange.
Initially, the young man found this situation weird, but soon he realized something: "How can I be so stupid..."
Holding his face with the hand, Atlas couldn't help but laugh at his stupidity.
"Like my grandparents had told me, the cultivation path is an arduous lane... you can't be too greedy and just sit like a statue. Indeed, one must absorb and consume repeatedly the energy and let the body slowly adapt..."
His grandparents were right. There were cases where one could sit in one place for all his life and achieve greatness, yet it was a slow and tedious way to live. If he was so frightened of the outside world, Atlas could stay in his small house and live like a hermit. Alas, that wasn't the case.
"Well... I still have to test out the other process of assimilation... and I can even solidify the foundation of my power in that way, so I should leave this small mountain as soon as possible..."
Indeed, there were many other ways to absorb the energy within the Devourer of Chaos manual, and one of them needed a prey to test it out, something that he could kill and devour...
It's a somewhat controversial process, but in this world filled with perils, battles for resources were inevitable.