Chapter 208: Chapter 208 - [TW!] A Door Too Late
Atlas trailed close behind, watching Milo charge up the stairs two, three steps at a time, his frantic footsteps pounding like war drums. He reached the door at the top and seized the handle, twisting, yanking, rattling it desperately. Locked.
A curse tore from his throat, sweat dripping down his face. Without a moment’s hesitation, he threw his thin body against it. Once. Twice. Each time he was thrown back, his frail frame hitting the floor with a painful thud.
On the third slam. CRACK! The wood splintered, and Milo stumbled through, crashing to the ground in a heap.
Atlas followed him in, and froze.
At the far end of the room, Milo’s wife was struggling helplessly, her wrists bound, her muffled cries stifled by a cloth stuffed between her lips. A man stood behind her, one hand cruelly gripping her face, pinning her in place.
Milo scrambled to rise, but before he could move, two other figures slammed into him. They tackled him hard, driving him to the floor. One delivered a vicious kick to his ribs, and Milo’s breath exploded from his lungs in a strangled gasp.
"Damn it!" Atlas growled, his fists clenching. "Who the hell are they? Robbers?"
Then his eyes caught their faces. He faltered.
One of them... Atlas had seen him before.
"No... you’ve got to be kidding me."
They weren’t thieves. Not strangers.
They were colleagues. Jealous rivals.
And they had gone this far.
This far, to break Milo. To take his wife. To ruin his life!
"Serine!!" Milo screamed hoarsely, struggling beneath the weight of the men pinning him down. "Let her go! Don’t touch her!"
One of the men grabbed his head and slammed it into the floor, while the other drove his knee into Milo’s back.
"LET HER GO!" Milo roared in pain, but the difference in strength was overwhelming.
"Let her go!! I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you if you touch her!"
Milo’s voice cracked, a mixture of desperation and fury, each cry echoing through the room like a raw wound torn open. The walls shook with his rage, but outside... silence.
No neighbor came pounding at the door. No security rushed to intervene. No police stormed in.
Atlas’s chest tightened. He knew this scene far too well.
Just like with Mira’s past. No one came.
And in this world, like in so many others, people chose safety over justice. They were too afraid to be the next victim, too terrified to draw the monster’s gaze. So they turned away. Closed their doors. Pretended they heard nothing.
"Damn it! They’re just watching while lives are in danger!"
"DON’T TOUCH MILO! LET HIM GO!" Serine’s voice cut through the chaos.
She kept screaming, her muffled cries somehow rising louder than the fists, louder than Milo’s gasps for air.
"Don’t touch Milo! Let him go! Don’t touch him! Don’t touch him!"
Atlas froze.
The words.
They weren’t just pleas from a terrified wife. They were the exact same words Milo would scream even now, in the present day.
Every time someone reached for him. Every time anyone got too close.
Was this it?
Was this the wound that had been carved so deep it never closed? The moment that etched fear into his very bones. The moment that birthed the trigger which would someday split him apart, turning him into Raze?
Atlas felt it then. A coil of something dark twisting tight in his chest, anger and sorrow mixing into something heavy, and suffocating.
"This... this is where it began, isn’t it?"
Milo struggled, trying to free himself from the weight pressing him down. But the two men atop him showed no mercy. They kicked and stomped, fists landing against his sides, his chest, his face.
And it was clear, Milo didn’t have the strength to fight back.
He was thin, his build more suited for finesse than brute force, and no amount of desperation could overpower the sheer weight of his attackers.
His wife, still pinned at the other side of the room, screamed through the gag, her eyes wide with horror. Her muffled cries, though broken.
"Let him go! Stop! Don’t hurt him!"
"Is Milo awakened yet? Is he not? He has to be, right?" Atlas’s mind raced. "If he were awakened, he should be able to fight back, like Mira did."
But he wasn’t. Maybe
And that question settled in his gut. Was Milo chosen as a Lord before he awakened? Was that even possible?
Or... was this the moment that pushed him to awaken?
But then. Something happened. Something even Atlas couldn’t bear to watch.
Milo let out a broken, primal scream, struggling beneath the attackers. He tried to lift his head, and his eyes locked on Serine.
And in that moment, something inside him... snapped.
Atlas’s gaze faltered. His breath caught. He couldn’t even keep his eyes on what was happening.
He didn’t want to see it. He turned toward the door, away from the memory, trying to block it out.
But the sounds wouldn’t leave him.
Flesh against flesh. Screams. Something breaking.
The noise dulled, like it was fading into the background, but not disappearing.
And then, Milo’s voice, ragged and filled with rage, cut through it all.
"I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU!!"
Blood ran down his face, his eyes now glowing deep red, filled with fury and helplessness.
"LET HER GO! LET HER GO!"
Atlas turned again, just in time to see Milo’s body convulsing, the veins around his eyes glowing unnaturally.
"I’ll kill you! I’ll kill all of you!!"
It wasn’t just rage. It was the beginning of something darker.
And Atlas knew it. This was the moment.
The moment Milo broke.
Milo, bleeding, enraged suddenly broke free, his strength flaring with raw adrenaline.
With a guttural cry, he threw one of the men off him, slamming the attacker into the nearby wall. The thug yelped, crashing to the floor with a loud thud.
The second man scrambled to grab Milo’s arm again, but Milo. His face now almost unrecognizable with blood and rage, lunged forward, his fist slamming into the attacker’s face.
Again. And again.
Flesh met bone, and the man beneath him shrieked, trying to block the onslaught, but Milo didn’t stop.
The third man, the one who had been holding Serine, charged from behind, arms reaching to choke Milo into submission—
But Milo grabbed a nearby metal shoe rack, and with a grunt, he slammed the edge of it into the side of the man’s skull.
Atlas winced, turning his head away.
He couldn’t watch. This wasn’t a fight. This was a storm of wrath, years of pain condensed into a moment of violent release.
And it wasn’t the Milo he knew. Not the timid magician. Not even Raze.
This... was something darker. Something broken.
And no, Atlas could feel it. Milo hadn’t awakened yet. There was no mana, no surge of magical power.
Only raw, human rage.
The fight dragged on for only a few moments more, but the brutality of it was beyond anything Atlas had expected.
By the end of it, the room was soaked in blood.
Atlas floated in silence, nausea churning inside him, unable to find words.
In the corner of the room, Milo knelt on the floor, holding Serine tightly in his arms. She was still alive, trembling, tears streaming down her cheeks, and he clung to her with everything he had, as if trying to hold on to something real, anything, in the midst of the horror around them.
The rage was gone now. Only the emptiness remained.
Atlas hovered in silence, his body unmoving, his spirit heavy.
The room was still filled with blood, grief, and the weight of something that would never quite leave. What was going to happen now? he wondered. How could anything possibly continue after this?
He didn’t want to watch anymore. He’d seen too much.
But then, Serine slowly pulled back from Milo’s embrace, her tear-streaked face turning toward him.
"Serine?" Milo said, his voice barely more than a whisper.
She brought one hand to her abdomen, holding it gently, her face twitching with sudden pain.
Milo’s expression shifted instantly. "Let’s go to a doctor, now!" he said, already trying to lift her carefully.
But then, Atlas’s breath caught.
Wait... her stomach... it’s... was she pregnant?
He hadn’t noticed before. But now that he looked. Yes, her belly was slightly rounded.
"No..." Atlas whispered. "Don’t tell me..."
Before Milo could move, a faint humming began beneath his feet.
A glowing magic circle spread outward, the symbol of Lord Selection.
"Milo! What’s happening?!" Serine cried, her voice trembling as Milo turned to look at her, his eyes filled with disbelief.
He didn’t answer. He simply froze, and then, with visible hesitation, he lowered her gently to the floor.
"Milo?! Milo, answer me! What is this?!"
He didn’t speak. Instead, he leaned down, pulled her close, and hugged her one last time.
And then, his body began to dissolve in light.
"MILO!!!"
Serine’s scream tore through the room as she reached desperately for him. But it was too late. He was already gone. Turned into a Lord, ripped from his world and forced to leave everything behind.
Atlas’s fists clenched. Yes, Milo could have returned for her, at least in theory. Lords could revisit the lower lands. But how long had it taken? How much had Serine suffered in his absence, enduring pain and fear alone?
The memory began to unravel, light dimming at the edges, the scene crumbling into shadow until only darkness remained.
Atlas’s body grew unbearably heavy, his mind searing as though burned by the vision itself. His voice slipped out, low and bitter.
"I didn’t like this at all."