Chapter 303: Chapter 302: I come back
The elder stood at the edge of shadow.
His face was still veiled, every line of his body wrapped in robes that shifted like smoke clinging to flesh.
Even his hands—those pale, skeletal instruments of will—remained hidden, sleeves trailing across stone as if they feared to reveal what they once wrought. He did not step closer, not yet. He only watched.
Watched Atlas.
Watched the three demon kings, each seated below the mortal, though each was sovereign of his own fief, master of his own lands, ruler of legions that bent knee to none. Yet here they were—like chained wolves crouched beneath a firebrand they could neither consume nor ignore.
The elder’s mind unfolded in silence, not to Atlas but to the others—his kin, the elders cloistered in the deep sanctums of the Fourth Layer. His voice slipped into the hive of their communion, a whisper of both awe and warning:
The Chosen one.... has come.
The words rippled outward. Not one elder ignored them. Half of the them answered at once, threads of thought coiling with his own. Their tones wavered between curiosity, hunger, suspicion, fear. Together they breathed the same revelation:
THE PROPHET walks the pit.
Atlas did not look at the elder. His eyes were elsewhere, cast toward Aurora, his voice low, iron weighted with unease.
"Why do I need them?" His words cut with the sharpness of mistrust. "Why do I need the hands of kings who bow to no one, when each one of them would slit my throat for a better deal?" His gaze flicked toward the Lion King with contempt. "What if the lion decides mid-battle that I’m the juicier kill? What if the hive-bitch is offered a fresher body by the last boss we’re about to face? Tell me, Aurora—why should I fight with them at my back? Why not drive my blade through their skulls and keep mine whole?"
Azazel chuckled from his seat, the sound low, hungry. "Careful, my lord. Keep insulting your allies and you may find them enemies before the battle even begins. Some of us don’t take kindly to being called ’bitch.’"
"Then stop acting like one," Atlas snapped back, his hand twitching into a knuckle.
Aurora’s hand lifted in a quick, sharp gesture. "Enough! Both of you. There isn’t time for your egos to duel here."
Her wings, singed from battles past, rustled as she tilted her head. "Because you cannot win alone, Atlas. Not here. Not against what waits."
Her words held no softness. They were iron too—but the kind forged to restrain, not cut.
"You speak as though I’ll fall." His jaw tightened, a spark of rage igniting beneath the surface. "After all the strength I’ve shown, you still think I’ll be crushed."
"I know your strength," she said quietly, and for the first time, her voice wavered. "But I also know death. Mine. Yours. Ours. The demon kings will rise again if they’re broken—they are bound to this place. But us? We don’t return. Not here. Not now. If we fall, we are gone. Forever."
The Lion King’s mane rippled as he leaned forward, laughter like gravel rolling in his chest. "Your woman is right, mortal. You may kill us, but you cannot bury us. Perhaps that is why you fear us."
Atlas’s gaze was molten. "I don’t fear you. I fucking despise you."
The words lanced the chamber. Beneath the surface of his anger, something else stirred—something rawer, more fragile.
He did not like that Aurora thought him defeatable. He did not like that even now, after everything, she could not place her faith wholly in him.
His pride bristled, and his silence screamed louder than his words.
In the stillness, Atlas glanced inward—into himself, into the strange lattice that had grown within him since the beginning of this cursed descent.
His system.
Its pulse thrummed faintly, numbers etching themselves across his mind’s eye:
Progress: 83%
It had crawled upward since his arrival, one agonizing percent at a time. Slow as rot, merciless as a tide.
And yet he knew—when it reached its end, the dam would break. He would not only wield his brute strength but every hidden mechanism, every spell lattice, every skill combined and reforged by his unique trait.
World Understanding.
He could see it even now in fragments, like threads of fate strung taut across a loom.
Combinations waiting to be discovered. Patterns yearning to be bent. If they believed him mere muscle, they would choke when they saw the truth.
Not just a beast, he thought. A mind that devours worlds.
But that was still locked behind the last stretch. That damnable 17%.
Azazel’s smirk cut across the silence. "What’s the matter, my lord? Counting your blessings?"
Atlas did not answer. He didn’t need to—the fire in his eyes was answer enough.
Aurora’s hand brushed his, a whisper of warmth against the cold roar of his fury. "Atlas," she said softly, "accepting weakness is not defeat. It is another weapon.
Let them fight beside us—not because we trust them, but because the alternative is death. And we still have a friend to save."
Her eyes flicked toward the memory of loki, of the key, of Amrit itself—the only prize worth this damnation.
Atlas’s chest rose and fell, slow and jagged. His silence held for a long breath, then another. Finally, he nodded—not in surrender, but in grim acknowledgment.
"...Fine. But know this, Aurora—when this is done, if they so much as twitch against me, I will paint the stone with their skulls."
Her lips curved—not in amusement, not in warmth, but in weary relief. "I wouldn’t expect less."
The hive-demon king hissed, a sound like boiling tar. "We are not children, Atlas. Threaten me again, and I may decide to test how fragile your flesh really is."
Atlas’s reply was a single step forward, a sneer carved from iron. "Try me."
The elder stirred.
He drifted closer, robes whispering like oil on water. His voice slipped between worlds, smooth and serpentine.
"Then... does the Chosen accept my hand? Will you walk with us, Atlas, as brother and burden both?"
Atlas did not turn to meet his hidden face. He spat into the dust, the gesture harsh and unyielding.
"Do whatever you want," Atlas growled. "Follow, don’t follow—it’s your choice, not mine. But know this, elder: you walk behind me. Not beside."
The elder inclined his veiled head. His tone was mild, almost amused. "Behind, yes. For now. But shadows often pass before flame."
Aurora’s eyes twitched, uneasy at the weight beneath those words.
They moved.
Out of the cavern, into the bruised light of the layer above.
The sky greeted them not with stillness but with thunder. It rolled across the heavens, low and trembling, like the growl of something vast.
Atlas lifted his gaze. His jaw clenched.
Floating shapes blotted the horizon.
One by one, wings unfurled against the bruised light—black and white, ragged yet whole. Dozens. Scores. A storm of winged figures casting their shadows upon the broken land.
And one descended.
He struck the ash with the grace of a predator, armored in plates gleaming with Heaven’s false fire.
Four dark wings spread from his back, healed, strong, radiant in mockery of what had once been torn. Her gaze burned like coals, fixed upon them as if they were the only prey in existence.
Atlas’s breath hitched—recognition stabbing him. This was no stranger. This was the one who was caged, the one who had been binded at the dungeon cell. In Titus.
The fallen was whole again. Worse than whole.
Aurora’s hand hovered near her blade. "Impossible... I saw her drained. I felt her life seeping away."
The fallen’s smile was cruel. "Heaven does not waste its toys. And I am Heaven’s sharpened edge."
And above him, the sky broke open further, a legion of fallen angels pouring downward like blackened stars.
Atlas turned, his fury snapping like a whip toward Lidia.
She stood smaller than them all, lips caught in a guilty curl, her fingers fiddling with her hair as though she were a child caught stealing bread.
"You," Atlas snarled. "Explain..."
Lidia blinked, lips pursing into a sheepish smile.
"...Oops?"
Atlas’s hand twitched toward his blade. "Oops?" His voice was thunder, the word spat like venom.
She shrugged, shoulders rising and falling like a careless tide. "I forgot to mention...the fallens might have taken over Titus.... My bad."
The Lion King roared with laughter, mane rippling like fire. "Your allies are liars, Atlas. You choose your company poorly."
Aurora’s rustled in disbelief. "Lidia... you, why not fucking tell us."
"I foorrggoott..," Lidia corrected with a sing-song lilt.