# **Chapter 1: Birth in the Abyss**
**Word Count: 2000**
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### **1**
Consciousness returned like a knife to the brain.
A sharp, throbbing pulse of awareness—then *pain*.
*Where—?*
His thoughts were formless, half-drowned in a murky haze. He tried to open his eyes, but there were no eyelids to lift. No limbs to flail. No lungs to scream.
Only *pressure*.
Crushing, suffocating, *wrong*.
*I'm underwater.*
The realization should have been impossible. He remembered—*something*—before this. A life. A name. A death. But the memories slithered away like eels in the dark.
All that remained was the abyss.
And hunger.
A deep, gnawing void in his core, screaming at him to *eat, eat, EAT—*
He twitched. A ripple passed through his tiny, silver-scaled body.
*Body?*
Yes. He had one now. Small. Weak. A flicker of silver in an endless black ocean.
A *fish*.
Panic surged, but there was no air to hyperventilate with. No voice to curse with. Only the slow, terrible understanding that he had been reborn as *prey*.
Then—
**Glow.**
A speck of light drifted past him. Bioluminescent plankton, pulsing softly in the dark.
His hunger *howled*.
Without thinking, he lunged.
His tiny mouth gaped, swallowing the plankton whole.
---
### **2**
**System Alert.**
The words flickered behind his eyes, cold and mechanical.
```
[Absorption Activated.]
[Biomass Converted: 0.0001%]
[Absorption Efficiency: 0.1%]
```
He froze.
*What—?*
The plankton's energy seeped into him, a trickle of warmth in the crushing cold. It was barely enough to keep him alive. But the System's message lingered, undeniable.
He could *absorb* what he ate.
And he was *terribly* inefficient at it.
A shadow passed overhead.
Instinct screamed at him to *move*.
He darted sideways just as jaws snapped shut where he had been. A sleek, razor-toothed fish—three times his size—glared at him with black, pitiless eyes.
*Predator.*
His tiny heart hammered.
The fish circled, slow and deliberate.
He had no weapons. No strength. Only the desperate will to survive.
And the System.
The predator lunged again.
He *twisted*, flinging himself downward into a crevice of jagged coral. The predator's teeth scraped stone, missing him by a hair.
Safe.
For now.
---
### **3**
Hours passed.
The predator had given up, but the abyss was never silent. Distant screeches echoed through the water. Things *moved* in the dark.
He huddled in his crevice, trembling.
*I need to get stronger.*
The System was his only advantage. If he could increase his Absorption Efficiency, maybe he could survive.
But how?
The answer was simple:
*Eat.*
More plankton drifted by. He devoured them, one after another. Each gave a minuscule trickle of energy.
```
[Absorption Efficiency: 0.11%]
```
A *0.01% increase*.
Pathetic.
But it was *something*.
He ate until his belly ached, until the coral around him was stripped clean.
Then he waited.
And planned.
---
### **4**
Days blurred together.
He learned the rhythms of the abyss. The currents where food gathered. The times when predators prowled.
He grew bolder.
A sickly razorfin fish, slower than the others, strayed too close to his hiding spot.
He struck.
His tiny teeth sank into its flank. The razorfin thrashed, but he held on, *chewing*, *tearing*—
```
[Biomass Converted: 0.01%]
[Bite Force: 1.3%]
```
The rush of energy was intoxicating.
For the first time, he felt *strong*.
But the kill had been messy. Blood clouded the water.
And blood attracted *scavengers*.
Something *large* stirred in the depths.
He fled.
---
### **5**
The System was his only companion.
```
[Absorption Efficiency: 0.5%]
[Bite Force: 4.1%]
[Swim Speed: 2.7%]
```
Progress. Slow, grinding, *agonizing* progress.
But he was no longer the weakest thing in the abyss.
He had killed.
He would kill again.
And one day—
He would *devour* this world.
---
### **Chapter 1 End.**
**Next Chapter Preview:**
- **The Eel's Shadow:** A relentless predator begins hunting the MC.
- **First Major Battle:** A 50-chapter struggle for survival.
- **System Discovery:** New skills emerge under pressure.
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