THE GOD EATER

He cracked the whip through the air with an air of familiarity. Then his eyes gleamed with unconcealed ill intent as he said, "She is unconscious right now, so I will create something to serve as a reminder. When she wakes up, make sure to tell her what I said and show her what I’ve done."

He smiled with undisguised cruelty on his face and said, "Trust me, she will want to see this."

After he said this, he raised his hands into the air. Then he swung it down with force. This made the whip in his hand slash down and strike Loki in the back.

It was a good thing that his head was already bowed, and his back was exposed, so the whip didn’t hit him in the face. But the whip shredded the rag he was wearing, which ruined it. This was what went through Loki’s mind before the pain of his skin being split open struck him.

The pain was so much that he felt it in his bones and in his heart. It was a strange feeling that made his heart seize for a brief moment and forced him to grit his teeth to endure it.

Despite the great pain, he didn’t dare to cry. Instead, he continued to beg for mercy.

He wasn’t the only one who was begging for mercy. Both his father and his innocent six-year-old sister were begging for mercy, too. But the slave manager didn’t pay heed to pleas.

The slave manager struck him with the whip again. Then again. And again. Each time the whip struck him, it split his skin and came up with blood.

It seemed the pain only got worse with each strike. Eventually, the pain became as bad as being burned alive. Then his consciousness gave out.

He fainted, but the slave manager didn’t stop. The man continued to beat him as if he were possessed by something unnatural.

Because of this, Loki’s body was torn until his skin became the same as the bloody rags on his back. He was slowly and surely becoming the item that the slave manager wanted to create to motivate his mother.

Loki watched all of these happen as an ethereal spirit standing above his body. His form was golden and translucent. No one could see him, but he could see and feel everything.

As the whip struck him into a bloody mess, he said, "This is the part I hated the most. It wasn’t even the fact that this was the first time I would be beaten unconscious or that this beating was the worst one I had gotten. It was the fact that I didn’t do anything to deserve it."

"I didn’t steal even when I was starving to death. I didn’t talk back to my masters. I always bowed, and I always obeyed."

"I didn’t become angry because he raped my mother. I even begged him for mercy because the rape got a little too rough for his liking. Yet, he still beat me until I almost died."

Before this event, he had fought many battles in the cage of death, where only one child could come out alive. So he had killed many boys and girls just to stay alive. That experience had been bad, but at least he had some control over whether he would survive it or not.

In those death matches, he could use his wit and his strength to eke out some survival and some food. If he did everything right, he would survive the fight. He would even get to eat some moldy jerky from time to time.

But this particular experience topped all of that. This experience made all of his near-death experiences in the death matches trivial. After all, what use was struggling so much to live just to be killed by someone for doing nothing wrong, literally?

At that time, something broke within him when he woke up from a coma. He didn’t want to go on living if whether he would live or die had nothing to do with his actions.

He believed that if he could be killed for doing nothing wrong, then life was not worth living. So he had wanted to die in bed and put an end to his life of suffering.

As this memory went through his mind, he smiled and said, "But then I realized that I had indeed done something wrong. I realized that my sin was that I was weak."

"I was weak. So even though I shed emotional attachments to avoid emotional pain and followed every rule like an obedient slave, I was still nearly whipped to death. That’s when I realized that I had to acquire strength at all costs."

After that epiphany, he realized that life could be worth living if he had enough strength to secure his life.

The lives of his masters gave him an example of this. The Rein Family was strong and could have slaves. Because of their strength, they get to be so high up on the food chain that even the managers they employ can bully their slaves.

When he thought of them back then, they became the models of power that he should look forward to. In order to reach their level of power, he decided to give his all to achieve it. So he didn’t kill himself and continued living.

At this point in his recollection, the world froze around him. Then a question came unbidden to his mind, "Was it worth it? Was everything you gave up so far for power worth it?"

He didn’t know where that question came from, but it made him laugh when he heard it. He laughed so hard that tears of blood streamed down his face.

The tears felt like lava on his face. They stung and burned his face. Despite the pain, he just couldn’t stop laughing. So the tears kept coming. He found that question to be amusing.

After laughing for a while, his eyes became cold, and he said in anger, "Of course it was worth it."