Chapter 290: Chapter 289: Birth
Doom!
Doom!
The sound was not just in the air—it was in the bones, rattling marrow like a drum of war.
Sonic waves split the sky apart, scattering smoky clouds like fleeing beasts. Atlas ripped through the high air as though the heavens themselves were fabric and he, the tear.
His speed was unnatural, the kind of speed that mocked distance and laughed at restraint.
On his back, Aurora sat like a queen refusing to be disturbed, her robes snapping violently in the slipstream, her eyes half-lidded, studying, calculating. She had long since given up trying to imitate his way of flying; whatever laws of the world Atlas bent or broke, they remained his alone.
And then there was Azazel.
Clutched at Atlas’s side, the demon whimpered, his black wings flayed raw by wind like a thousand invisible blades.
The air itself gnawed at him, stripping away breath, voice, and pride. His lips trembled, his throat tried to form words, but sound abandoned him. Even his curses drowned in the storm.
Atlas shouted over the roar.
"Far, isn’t it? The great Dominion of Galiath!" His grin was wild, manic, as though the speed itself were a drug. "What’s it like, huh? His city?!"
Aurora did not smile. Her voice was calm, detached—precisely because she felt the danger in what awaited.
"You’re not going to like it."
She leaned forward, her hair snapping against his shoulders like lashes. "Galiath is not your normal demon king. He was never flesh, never bone. He was... a shard. A thought. A memory."
Atlas squinted, brow furrowed against the wind. "The fuck you mean—memory?"
Aurora’s lips curved faintly, but not in amusement. "He was part of the consciousness of the Empress. The one who rules everything below. Once, he was nothing more than a fragment of her mind, her nightmare given shape inside her thoughts. But..."
Her eyes sharpened. "One day, the memory woke up. It realized it was alive. And it escaped."
For a moment, Atlas almost forgot the air tearing past him. The idea crawled into his skull and sat there like a thorn.
"That’s not—no. That’s not even possible. How the hell does a memory escape a mind?"
Aurora tilted her chin, her gaze half-hidden by lashes. "Your friend Veil... born from Jormungandr’s shadow. You tell me what’s possible."
Atlas almost choked on his own laugh. Shadows birthing people. Memories walking out of skulls.
How many more abominations did this world hide? He spat into the wind, though the spit was instantly torn away.
"This world’s fucked. Absolutely fucked."
Aurora’s tone was patient, almost professorial. "When life force grows too dense, too heavy for the vessel containing it, strange things happen.
New souls hatch—whether you want them to or not. Some gods were born not from wombs, but from the tears of the Mother of Realms, back when she still had a form, a body.
The demi-gods? Many of them came from accidents. Sweat drunk by crocodiles. Blood spilled into sacred soil. A shadow lingering too long on stone."
Atlas gagged theatrically. "Sweat-drinking crocodiles giving birth to demi- gods? Why can’t people just—fuck normally, have babies normally, like everyone else?"
Doom! Doom!
The air cracked as he surged faster. Azazel’s body shook violently, teeth rattling.
Aurora, unruffled as ever, responded with a faint smile. "Because, Atlas... high concentrations of life force do not obey rules. They make their own. You, of all people, should know."
That struck too close. Atlas’s laugh faltered. "...Me? What the hell does that mean? Don’t start with your cryptic shit."
Aurora’s eyes glowed faintly as she glanced at his profile. "It means you will be the same. At some point. You will birth something—whether you want to or not."
Atlas barked back, almost panicked. "No! No, no, no. If I’m having kids, it’s the proper way. A wife. A swollen belly. A child who kicks before he breathes. Not from my sweat. Not from my fucking shadow."
He almost snarled at the sky. "I don’t want a freak accident—I want blood, flesh, and love in the making of my child."
Aurora tilted her head, her tone laced with irony. "The way your life is? I doubt you’ll get to choose."
Before Atlas could respond, the horizon shifted.
The world peeled open to reveal the Dominion of Galiath.
It wasn’t a city. It was a wound.
A grotesque castle rose at the heart of the land, its stonework stitched together like flesh pulled taut.
Webbing of some black-glue substance clung to towers and buttresses, shimmering as if alive.
The walls pulsed faintly, breathing. Around it, the ground moved—not still earth, but a hive of writhing forms.
Countless species crawled, marched, slithered in patterns that were too orderly to be natural. It was as if the whole dominion were a body, and every creature within it was a cell obeying a brain.
Aurora’s face hardened. Her tone was reverent and disgusted at once.
"We are here."
Atlas’s lips curled into a grin that should not have belonged to a man staring at a nightmare. "Disgusting. Ugly as shit...." He cracked his knuckles, already rolling his shoulder. "Perfect for a remodeling job."
Aurora smirked despite herself. "Epic entrance, then?"
"Epic entrance." Atlas’s eyes glowed with anticipation.
"My man," Aurora whispered with a small laugh, shaking her head.
Atlas leaned forward, his entire body coiled like a spring. "Get ready for impact."
His fist hummed with energy, veins glowing faintly as if his blood had turned molten. The castle grew larger, filling the horizon, and still he accelerated. Faster. Faster.
And then the first barrier hit.
It wasn’t visible until it shattered, a dome of glasslike force exploding around his head. His skull cracked it open like a ram against a gate. The impact slowed him, staggered him, but it did not stop him.
The second barrier rose before he could draw breath.
Then the third.
Then the fourth.
Each time, he broke through, his laughter jagged between clenched teeth. But the speed drained from him, each shield leeching more momentum. By the seventh barrier, he was slowed enough that his fist faltered mid-swing.
Aurora slid gracefully from his back, dropping to the ground with her staff tapping stone. "Soft landing it is," she remarked dryly.
Atlas grunted, rubbing his forehead where blood trickled from a shallow split. "Soft, my ass..."
The final barrier stood before them, glimmering faintly, humming like a living thing.
And then, as if recognizing them—
It dissolved.
The air rippled with a voice not of sound but of mind.
{Welcome.}