The Dark Rebirth of Pandora: Revenge of the Abyss

Chapter 753: Pandora’s Name

"...Seriously?! Pandora was once human!?" I ask, shocked. Echidna has been telling me all sorts of secrets about her, but now we’ve reached the point where she’s simply spilling everything about Pandora!

"Yes, Evangeline, Pandora was once human. She’s that hero who was executed, as I’ve mentioned before." When she says this, all I feel is complete surprise. Pandora never seemed or showed signs of being someone else in the past, even though certain behaviors of hers were strange.

"You know, sister, you’re an evil goddess, so why would you accept some random human as your daughter?" I don’t understand it. Echidna doesn’t seem like the type who would allow that. Pandora is amazing, but she had no way of knowing Pandora would become what she is today.

"It was a gamble. I had my eye on trying to make the next demon king. It was very situational, and I wagered a lot. It could have all gone wrong... but I trusted it."

"Trusted what?"

"The hatred that human had. There are certain types of rage and hatred that don’t cool and cover everything. Of course, I don’t expect you to understand, but Pandora and I do. As long as Pandora gave me freedom, I wouldn’t care if she wasn’t perfect! And she did it. She freed me, gave me what I needed."

"So I decided to bet that Pandora’s hatred would be like my hatred for the goddesses! And it worked. Of course, Pandora is quite autonomous and did what she wanted most of the time, but I don’t care about that, because she truly put in a lot of effort for me." Echidna seems happy about this.

"Hmmm... it’s because reincarnated souls are no longer the same being, right?"

"...For the most part, yes. I knew Pandora’s soul would change when she reincarnated. If Pandora had remained ’human,’ I wouldn’t have chosen her. I imagined a few things." I look at Echidna, who seems very proud of her creation.

"So you chose her purely, merely, and totally just for the hatred she showed?" I don’t mean to criticize, but her criteria are horrible.

’Don’t you agree?’ I ask the other Evangeline, who agrees with me. Echidna’s criteria for creating her daughter were horrifyingly low and poorly planned. She got lucky!! She literally left the success of her plans to luck.

"Sister, are you an idiot?" I ask seriously, which makes her put on an indignant face.

"It worked, didn’t it? If it worked, then everything went as planned."

"You left your life and freedom in the hands of a random person!! No plan justifies that!! You got VERY lucky that Pandora didn’t want to betray you or abandon you!! Even with your supposed biological security systems, Pandora still could have abandoned you even if she didn’t betray you."

"Not to mention Pandora could have ended up like me with a split personality! Or worse, Pandora could have just broken!! You talked about the burden on the soul!! A human soul can’t handle that much magic!!" Pandora literally had all her power restricted because if not, she would literally implode, bursting from the inside out.

And even with her powers restricted, she still could have been killed, her soul crushed under the pressure of its own power!! From what I understand, Pandora’s body was like a capsule.

And inside that capsule was an extremely dense mass. Inside that mass was Pandora’s soul. In other words, Pandora was constantly being crushed spiritually by her own power!!

The chances of Pandora dying on her own were literally gigantic!! And worse, if Pandora didn’t constantly expend magic, she would already be dead. This only got resolved after she became very strong.

It means that before Pandora had her level 100,000 completely unlocked, she could die from overload at any moment.

The chance of death is so ridiculously high that I’m shocked at how lucky these two are!!

"Please, Evangeline, don’t say it was all luck! It was a series of factors... yes, there was a touch of luck, but it wasn’t just luck. There was Pandora’s adaptation, my adjustments, her body, the type of life she led. It’s the same with you."

"You also might not have been able to bear having such a strong soul in a human body! You and Pandora are similar." When she says this, I’m confused for a moment.

"Oh! That’s right... Pandora and I... we are similar. The only difference is that we reversed the exchange. She went from human to monster, I went from goddess to human... w-wow!! I never thought about how similar we are." I just realized this fact.

"But Echidna, if you chose her by pure chance and anyone could have been chosen, does that mean you never cared about your daughters until the moment they became important?"

"...Something like that... I never liked Pandora from the start. To me, she was just a convenient piece. So much so that I avoided helping her or communicating with her by spending my powers on it."

"But as she progressed, I came to like her. So no, I never liked Pandora from the moment she was born. She was more of an object that got promoted to daughter over time."

"So it was Pandora’s own merit to win my maternal love and favoritism. Besides, Pandora is very respectful towards me. She never tried anything she deemed disrespectful to me."

"Echidna... why did you choose the name Pandora?! Why is Pandora named Pandora?"

"..." She tenses up for a moment. I’ve never seen her like this before.

"...Pandora is a personal choice... In the past, a girl appeared in the abyss. She came from another universe. Her name was Pandora. She explained to me what the name meant."

"And she helped me a lot with something related to the eggs I created for my daughters to be born. This girl was from some strange monster race that laid eggs. She taught me how to generate eggs even though it wasn’t part of our biology."

"W-Wait, those huge things were generated inside you!!" Her eggs were over a meter long. Pandora’s is close to two meters, I think, and Azraelith’s was slightly larger!!

"Of course they were. They were obviously generated inside me. My real size is much larger than this. But what matters is that that Pandora helped me a lot. Of course, she left on her own after a while, so I don’t know where she is. But since I really appreciated her help, I decided to use her name for one of my daughters. Azraelith was almost named Pandora, but I changed my mind because she wasn’t what I expected."

"It’s great to know why Pandora is named Pandora. I always had that question!" I tell her as she strokes my head.

I never imagined a goddess like Echidna would name one of her daughters in "tribute" to someone for their help, although Grimm did the same thing with her daughter, so it seems common among powerful beings to do that?

’Pandora has a much more special name than I expected...’