Chapter 298: Chapter 297: Dreaming
Aurora’s gaze flicked to the Elder, then back at Atlas. "Not yet," she muttered, almost inaudibly.
Atlas’s eyes glimmered, half-lidded, calculating, simmering. "Then tonight... we rest. Tomorrow, we move. And if either of you dare whisper a plan that isn’t mine—" His eyes snapped toward the Elder, golden fire sharpening. "...you will see exactly why mortals bleed, and why gods tremble."
The Elder’s teeth flashed once more, a small, knowing grin. "As you wish, prophet. Rest, if it strengthens you. But remember... I am patient. Patience is eternal."
Aurora turned, voice low, almost a hiss. "Even patience is a weapon in his hands. And I doubt he will rest while you do."
Atlas exhaled, shoulders relaxing slightly as the tension between threat and necessity coiled in the chamber.
Lidia leaned against him, her body finally succumbing to exhaustion, feathers brushing his side.The Elder and Azezal exchanged glances, each calculating, each ready, but neither breaking the fragile silence.
Above them, the vaulted ceiling groaned, the very layer itself alive with its breathing. The air tasted of iron, incense, and old war, heavy on the tongue, reminding them that the world outside this hall would not wait.
Aurora turned away from the drama. Her gaze sought something else—the succubus queen. Jenny lay collapsed, her once-alluring form reduced to a flattened husk, a half-corpse clinging to life by threads too thin to see. Her lips moved faintly, as though murmuring to some unseen ghost.
Aurora knelt beside her. Her fingers brushed damp hair from Jenny’s face, and her voice lowered to a whisper only Jenny could hear. The words were not for the others, not even Atlas. Jenny’s eyes fluttered weakly, and at the end of Aurora’s murmuring, she gave the slightest nod. A covenant of silence passed between them.
When Aurora rose, her face was unreadable.
"There is noo such thing as bed here...so," she said aloud, her tone clipped, decisive. "...atlas, forget your precious bed and rest wherever you like...."
Atlas’s eyes lingered on her, golden fire dimmed to a dull glow. He exhaled slowly, as though conceding not to her but to necessity. "Fine," he muttered. "One night. Then we move." His gaze shifted to Azezal and the Elder, his voice hardening like steel. "And if either of you boil my head with your poison before dawn... I’ll choose who dies first."
The chamber fell into silence.
The Long Night
They made camp not with fire, but with silence. The air of the third layer burned with its own dim glow, red veins running through the stone like blood beneath skin. Shadows flickered on the walls without flame, as though the very architecture of hell remembered the torches of ages long past.
Atlas lay against a broken column, head tilted back, eyes half-closed. Every part of him longed to end both Azezal and the Elder in one motion, yet he stayed his hand.
Why?
The question gnawed at him even as exhaustion tugged. Because they were useful? Because Aurora hinted at dangers he had not yet seen? Because something deeper told him that every step forward was a step into a game not of fists, but of shadows?
His fist twitched against the stone. He hated shadows.
Nearby, Azezal whispered to himself, tail coiled, eyes darting like a rat’s. He kept glancing at Atlas, as though rehearsing a plea he dared not speak.
His pact was the only thread of worth he had—rebirth from Atlas’s blood. But what was that compared to the Elder’s grand promises? He feared being replaced, erased, discarded. His goat hooves scraped nervously against marble with each shift.
The Elder sat opposite, perfectly still. His robe did not stir even when the cavern’s wind shifted. He had the patience of stone, the confidence of one who knew that time itself was his ally. His teeth glimmered occasionally in the dark, and whenever they did, Azezal flinched.
Aurora sat cross-legged, third eye dim but open, as though refusing to grant herself the vulnerability of blindness. Her hands rested on her knees, but her mind was elsewhere. She replayed Jenny’s whispered nod, her faint acceptance of words unspoken. A bargain had been struck—one she would not reveal yet.
Lidia curled at Atlas’s side, wings wrapped around herself like a blanket, though sleep did not come easy. Her body shook with exhaustion, yet her eyes kept opening, searching to confirm he was still there, still real. She feared waking to find only shadows.
It was a night heavy with silence, but silence louder than battle.
Atlas drifted into the dreaming, a place not entirely of sleep but of memory, of possibility, a liminal space where visions bled through reality like water through cracks in stone. His body slumped against the broken column, muscles slack, yet his mind was alive in a strange clarity.
In the beginning, the dream was warm, soft—the rare memory of sunlight on his mother’s terrace, the memories of the past atlas, a sky untouched by fire or blood. He could hear the faint hum of bees, feel the cool edge of marble under his bare feet, smell the faint sweetness of jasmine drifting through the air. For a heartbeat, Atlas almost allowed himself to smile. Almost.
But the warmth faltered. A pull—a tuging force he could not resist—stretched through his consciousness, yanking him from the dream-bubble like a fish dragged from water. His chest tightened. The familiar sweetness became acrid, the sky crimson into bruised purples and angry blacks, streaked with molten veins that pulsed with a rhythm he felt in his bones.
The dreaming realm had opened fully. Here, there was no air, no weight, no mercy. Only presence. Only intent. Like the bottom of the sea.
And then he saw him.
A figure, radiating the faint glow of divine wound-magic, a demi-god Atlas recognized instantly. The same one who had left scars across the first layer, the same one who had made Aurora bleed and terrorized countless others in that opening assault.
The demi-god’s eyes met his across the surreal expanse, twin pools of silver fire. There was a crooked smile, as if the memory of their first encounter carried some private amusement. "Atlas," the demi-god said, voice like gravel sliding over ice. "I wondered when you’d sleep, when you would answer the call."
Atlas’s jaw clenched, muscles taut even in this formless realm. His golden eyes narrowed, radiating heat that even here seemed to bend reality. "I answered it the moment you dared show your face. And I will answer it again, if I must—You come as you must... but you will die for it...."
The demi-god tilted his head, letting a faint laugh escape, carried on the invisible wind of this realm. "Always blunt, Atlas. Always the prophet who wears fire in his eyes. I admire that. But tell me... is it fear? Or boredom that drives you? To threaten me here, and ever so easily, while mortals like you should tremble at my feet...what are you. Really?"
Atlas exhaled, a hiss more than a breath, feeling the pulse of the dreaming realm echoing the drum of his own heart. " I am warning. I’ve seen what happens to those who overreach to impress gods and goddesses... their lives vanish in a whisper of regret.
Do not waste your precious existence to shine for your divine fathers and mothers. They do not care for you—they care for what you can do for them. I care nothing for them either, but I care for this world, and for those I protect."
The demi-god’s grin deepened, silver light flickering over his skin like frost on steel. "Ever the moralist... yet I wonder if your righteous fury blinds you, Atlas. You threaten, yet you hesitate...like you hesitated for....haha."
Atlas stepped forward, though the ground beneath him had no weight, no resistance. "I do not hesitate. I simply do not waste motion like you fools.
Move foolishly, and you will find the void is not kind. Move as I have warned, and perhaps you will live a moment longer than those who came before you."
The demi-god’s gaze shifted slightly, as if weighing Atlas’s words—not with doubt, but with interest. "You speak as though you know the end of every tale, like you have played this world like a game..... Yet, I wonder... do you?"
A shiver ran through Atlas—not of fear, but of awareness. He felt the pulse of the dream echo a truth he could not entirely name: that even here, even in this malleable place, some destinies were already bending toward their breaking points. "I know enough," he said, voice low but unyielding. "And that is more than you will have if you continue as you do.
I do not kill without reason, but I do not forgive without cost. You tread on an edge... One misstep, and the cost will be yours alone...."
The demi-god’s smile faltered for the briefest of moments—a fraction of a second that burned brighter than any flame. Then it returned, though less confident, less sharp. "Very well... prophet. I will heed your warning... for now."
Atlas’s gaze did not waver. "For now," he echoed. "Because the next time we meet, there will be no dreams, no shadow-realm to hide in. The world itself will judge, and you will find your silver fire insufficient against what I bring."
The demi-god inclined his head slightly, a gesture of acknowledgment, but the underlying tension—like a taut wire straining to snap—was unmistakable. "haha....lets see..." he said, fading from the dreaming, leaving behind the echo of silver fire in Atlas’s vision.
"...let’s see huh...." Atlas muttered.