Truth be told, I didn’t care all that much about their shenanigans unless, of course, it affected me directly…which brings us back to this situation, wasn’t doing “that” in an open environment like this, immoral? That’s why I forbade any uncivilized conduct that wasn’t safe for work.
Because of that, those rodents were unable to find a wife to get their bones honed, poor things. Previously, they used to be able to go spelunking in the slime cave whenever and wherever they wanted to; privacy wasn’t even a concept to them.
Compared to them, the dogmen were a lot more obedient and did their utmost to complete the task I set out for them —exactly like a real dog. In fact, I was starting to feel a little bad about treating them like back up rations.
Speaking of dogs, after consuming that five-star soul, Violet Snow didn’t end up evolving as I expected. Her body showed no outward changes at all and the only thing that was different was that her mana pool increased.
However, setting aside all these unnecessary things, it was now time to push onwards. Just like before, the Abaddon Rodents were on vanguard duty.
The traps I envisioned didn’t appear in the end, in fact, we weren’t even ambushed as we proceeded onwards. Naturally, there was no chance of us taking a wrong turn since it had been a completely straight road up till now without any forks. Thus, the days passed in such a peaceful manner and even I began to miss those undead attacks. As for why that was so…that’s because we ran out of food.
Prior to entering the Door of the Dead, I had no intentions at all of preparing too much rations. Back then, my plan was to fuel our battles with battles. Besides, food storage was extremely impractical in hell. However, as if fate itself was teasing us, we didn’t encounter any large scale undead assault other than that bone pillar and those titan skeletons. Truly, there was no danger to be had at all. But that didn’t make me feel happy at all because that meant my plan was ruined!
‘In the end, there’s really no choice but to eat ourselves,huh…oh, I mean to eat our comrades.’
As the saying goes, man is iron, food is steel, one meal missed is a day of panicked hunger. This was especially so since we were still faced with an unknown danger ahead of us; at any time, an enemy army could waylay and destroy us. Thus, our bellies had to be filled up in order to ensure we had enough stamina for any future battles. In the light of that, the only option available to us was what I had planned at the start…eat those rodents…
(TL: Iron is weaker than steel so man is weak to hunger.)
Just like that, with no food leftover to speak of, the Abaddon Rodents became our back up ration source starting from their lowest ranked members.
On the second day of our food shortage, I gave the command myself to slaughter two thousand Abaddon Rodents in order to fill our stomachs. Truth be told, giving out that order left me feeling extremely helpless. After all, those rodents were my slaves and as slaves, I had still had a host of tasks for them to complete such as, being fodder, lab rats, etc. However, for the sake of our progress, I had no choice but to send out that cruel command.
The moment that command was sent out, no matter who they were, whether they were the rodents who were about to be slaughtered or the dogmen who knew that they were only a little further up the totem pole, they all had a conflicted look on their faces. On the other hand, there wasn’t that much of a reaction from the other races. Feeding on each other was something they were used to already.
No matter how much those rodents protested, it was useless. In the face of absolute power, those rodents only had to obey. Those who resisted were slaughtered on the spot and became ration themselves.
If they were humans, I definitely wouldn’t have given out such a cruel command because I still identified as a human at the end of the day and not a devil. Perhaps deep down, I was nothing but a racist.
Honestly, the moment those words left my mouth, I was struck with an indescribable sense of guilt. Yet, what was I to do if not so? Heading back wasn’t an option anymore so all we could do was advance.
Furthermore, allowing them to starve would have only worn down our army’s unity and might even cause a rebellion. Lizardman might turn on lizardman for food. Even my trusted allies, the devils, medusas and harpies would most probably start a war with each other let alone the temperamental demonic werewolves.
Thus, I had to nip this problem in the bud even though innocents would have to be sacrificed in the process. Besides, I enslaved them with the idea of using them as fodder and rations in the first place. Other than that sense of guilt, I wasn’t all that opposed to it…probably.
Unknowingly, I became an even colder person.
For the next few days, nothing really changed. There were still no signs of an ambush and we had to subsist on rat meat. Because I didn’t know how much longer this would last and also because our rat supply was dwindling to begin with, I had my warriors control their appetite to the best of their abilities. With each passing day, I lowered the number of rodents we slaughtered but even so, nearly all 8000 of those rodents were slaughtered in order to sustain us for ten days.
Once the eleventh day passed, all the rodents, barring those I sent to Mo Xixidi, were all re-accommodated into our bellies. Even so, our bellies were never satisfied, not even for a day. With the spectre of starvation wearing down on our sanity, we had to find a food source soon or the entire army might collapse.
As I had suspected, the lack of rations created a rift between the different races. The most combative race, the demonic werewolves, were already on the verge of revolting. Thankfully, Habona had an iron grip on her clan so the situation didn’t worsen any further.
After the finishing off our last meal of rat steak, I summoned the heads of each race to discuss our future plans. However, neither of us were able to come up with a solution till Weslin finally made the suggestion that we feed on the dogmen for now. Thus, the dogmen became the next sacrificial lamb.
Without a doubt, the ones who were most affected by that meeting were the dogmen.
Throughout those ten days, those dog headed fellows were in a constant state of panicked wariness. They received the least rations of the races and yet they had to lug those titan bones around while enduring the strange stares the other races gave them. Even while sleeping they had to wake up from time to time to check if their companions were missing or if they were missing a limb or two.
Thankfully, the planned massacre never happened because at the end of the eleventh day, we finally entered a new region.
Without any warning whatsoever, the tunnel opened up into a vast clearing filed with tens, even hundreds of bone pillars. Each bone pillar were spaced far apart with at least a hundred meters between each of them
Seeing that, I finally understood why no one was able to leave the Prison of the Dead after countless years…
At the very beginning, we encountered that strange bone pillar that not only was able to disguise its intent but also possessed a veritable sea of skeletons within it. I wouldn’t be surprised if some careless idiot was caught off guard and ended up failing right away.
Yet, that was merely the first obstacle.
The next obstacle, those titan skeletons, weren’t a joke at all. Their defense could be said to be invincible amongst those of the same level. Any army who didn’t possess magical abilities able to counter such defenses or perhaps some weapon at the level of Shadowfang would have been shattered by those colossal undead…no, they would have been wiped out.
There was one simple reason for that. The strongest titan skeleton was a six-star. Even though it had its level suppressed to four-stars, its defenses were still that of a six-star’s. With no way to defeat it and the undead being as relentless as they were, that titan would eventually wipe you out unless you found a way to penetrate its defenses. After all, it doesn’t matter how agile you were, as long as you were a living creature, you would get tired one day…
The third obstacle was that Silent Hell we just endured…that was the name I gave to that stretch of road that forced us to feed on each other.
In those ten over days, we encountered zero resistance which meant we had no way of replenishing our supplies…to survive, you had to kill your comrade.
Before us, the majority of the teams who attempted to break out of the prison were probably of the same race.
For example, devils would enter the Door with devils. There was basically no chance that another army of devils, lizardmen, medusas, harpies and demonic werewolves had ever formed in the long history of the Prison. In other words, even if those devils were able to make it past the second stage, they would most likely fail at the third.
Sticking to one’s race meant that said army wouldn’t have much numbers to begin. Take Mo En for example, he was basically a local tyrant in the Prison. Even Habona, with her formidable skills, showed deference to him. Even so, he only had 2000 devils under him…while that meant their consumption rate was low, their combat strength would suffer proportionally as well. Because of that, passing the first two obstacles would have been impossible to begin with.
As for those who made it to the fourth obstacle, I doubt their situation could have been any better than ours.
Naturally, how our predecessors fared was none of my business. All I knew was that my warriors weren’t in a good shape right now and the prolonged fasting had caused their tempers to reach a boiling point. Had it not been for the fact that we still had 3000 dogmen handy, a rebellion might have already occurred. Those 8000 rodents were only able to sustain our basic functions and prevent us from starving to death.
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