The air hung heavy—choked with smoke, blood, and the iron scent of burning mana. Corpses lay in ruin across a battlefield that no longer resembled terrain but a scorched altar, baptized in ash and agony.
He could see it all. Every collapsed body. Every shallow breath from the wounded. Every glint of steel hidden behind smoke. But more than that—he saw intent. Malice blooming like spores through the cracked ground, concentrated in the north quadrant, past the fallen watchtower.
"Found them," he muttered. His voice barely rose above the wind, but it carried—a grounded, commanding growl sharpened by focus. "I’m going ahead, Claire. Enemies are there—stay behind."
There was no hesitation in the way he spoke. No uncertainty. Just fact. The kind spoken by n who had seen too many battlefields to confuse instinct with fear.
Claire stood just behind him, her cloak whipping around her like the frayed wings of sothing angelic and furious. The gusts born from Atlas’s rising aura caught her hair, sending it into wild disarray, but she didn’t brush it aside. Her eyes remained fixed on him.
What did he see?
She tried to trace the line of his vision, but all she could make out were the shadows—wriggling at the edge of the fog, shapeless and coiled like predators biding their ti. Her hands tensed at her sides, her magic instinctively rising—but she stopped herself. He was already moving.
Claire didn’t protest.
She’d known long ago that he wasn’t human in the ways that mattered. Atlas didn’t fight like a man. He moved like sothing the gods had abandoned out of fear. Power clung to him like a second skin—unforgiving, unnatural. When he stood still, it was patience. When he ran, it was execution.
"Be careful," she whispered—but the words were lost, torn away by a sudden concussive burst of wind.
Atlas was gone.
Even now—after years of following him, fighting beside him, bleeding for his cause—Claire could not suppress the visceral chill that chased down her spine every ti he did that.
"There he goes," she muttered, voice hoarse with breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Her arms crossed slowly over her chest, the way one does to cage a heartbeat before it escapes. Her eyes never left the path he carved through the war-smoke. "My fucking beast."
The silence around her buzzed with static, the battlefield reacting to his energy. She could feel the pulse in the stones beneath her—resonating with the vibration of that singular willpower. Soldiers near her glanced toward the horizon, sensing sothing shift, though they didn’t know what.
She knew.
It was the mont when the enemy realized they were no longer fighting mortals. That sothing else had entered the field.
And then, far ahead, the screams began.
Not the usual cries of pain, but sothing more shrill.
Panicked.
Terrified.
The kind that only
Atlas arrived like a storm caged in flesh.
Atlas tore across the battlefield, past collapsed pillars and scorched flags, the wind splitting around him in howling protest. His boots barely touched the ground, the air itself bending to his presence. Behind him, Claire could only shield her eyes from the gale his speed left in his wake.
The field ca into view. A place that stank of blood, sweat, and the kind of silence that followed only after sothing unholy had happened.
Denish was on the ground—chained, battered, wrists bruised black, his face a mask of pain and rage. Three imperial knights held him down, gauntlets dug deep into his arms, pressing until the bone began to groan. A fourth stood over him, sword raised.
Atlas didn’t hesitate.
His body beca motion.
The first knight didn’t even scream. His chest caved inward as Atlas’s hand plunged through his armor like a blade through parchnt. Blood sprayed, hot and fast, painting the stones.
Before the other two could react, Atlas moved again—less a man than a blur of vengeance. tal clanged, ribs cracked, and then they were on the floor—gurgling, twitching, dead.
Denish gasped for air, eyes wide, struggling to comprehend the shift from certain death to stunned survival. His gaze t the golden glow of the man before him. The one the world had once nad a prince. Now, simply: ’Atlas.’
"Your Highness..." Denish rasped. "Atlas..."
"You held enough, Commander Denish," Atlas voiced.
His eyes—those burning, unforgiving eyes—were locked elsewhere.
Behind Denish.
Beyond the gore.
To a shadow barely breathing.
To ’Kury.’
Her crimson armor was shattered, her body collapsed like a broken sword. One leg twisted unnaturally. Her skin was pale from blood loss, and her gaze—once fire—was glassy, dazed. Her fists were still clenched, teeth grit, as if her very soul refused to surrender even after her body had been brutalized.
Atlas’s jaw clenched, his breathing shallow.
She had been his ally.
She had been a symbol.
And now she had been shattered.
Not just defeated—humiliated. Sothing unspeakable had occurred here. He didn’t need the details. The horror was etched into every inch of her bruised and trembling fra.
He stepped past Denish, slowly.
The pri knight—ash-haired, his aura cruel and steady—smirked as if welcoming a worthy challenger.
"You’re too late, weaklings...," the pri sneered. "The ssage has already been written. All that’s left is the signature. My signature...." He voiced, steadying his dick.
Atlas’s reply was silence.
Then—
’Boom.’
A pulse of crimson energy burst from his chest, cracks spiderwebbing across the ground beneath his feet. The walls trembled. Loose stone shattered from above. The remaining soldiers stumbled, their confidence faltering.
He was no longer holding back.
He would be the reckoning.
Atlas stepped forward, slow and deliberate.
Boom!!
The impact cracked the air like thunder. The pri’s body was flung upward, snapped from the earth like a leaf in a hurricane. His limbs flailed, caught in the rciless grip of inertia as branches above slashed at his skin. Bark tore into flesh, drawing fresh crimson lines that crisscrossed the stains already sared over his fra.
"What the—!" the pri tried to shout, but it ca out strangled, breath knocked from his lungs as he crashed through the treetops and slamd into the forest floor with a gut-wrenching crunch. The dirt rose in a thick plu, the earth groaning under his weight. He rolled once, twice, before coming to a stop—mud, blood, and broken pride clinging to every inch of him.
Silence followed.
Then a groan.
He staggered to his knees, bruised ribs catching on every breath, spitting a glob of red onto the scorched soil.
Back in the field, Atlas stood—half-shadow, half-wrath. The remnants of his shirt drifted to the ground like ashes, exposing a body carved in war and forged in pain. His skin glowed faintly with residual mana, veins burning red, his eyes glowing gold-hot as if lit from within by so divine forge.
He walked forward slowly.
No words.
No threat.
Just presence.
At his feet, Kury’s ruined body lay still. Her skin pale. Her hair caked in blood and sweat. Her thighs bruised and torn. She looked like a statue carved from grief itself—once proud, now broken.
Atlas knelt, his jaw locked tight.
With trembling care, he lifted his cloak and covered her.
Not for modesty.
For dignity.
The fire in his chest threatened to consu him. Rage blurred his vision. Not just at the pri, but at himself—for being late. For not stopping it. For being the kind of man who *could* have.
"I’m sorry..." he whispered. His voice was barely audible. But it held the weight of a mountain.
The chamber pulsed with silence. That quiet before gods draw blades.
Behind him, Denish coughed weakly, propped up on one elbow, blood streaming from his scalp. His hand clutched a stolen blade, knuckles white from the effort.
"Your Highness..." he rasped.
Atlas turned to him briefly. Their eyes t.
A thousand words passed between them in a glance.
"I failed her," Denish whispered, barely audible.
"No," Atlas replied, rising to his full height, eyes narrowing toward the trees. "You lived. That’s enough for now."
A snarl echoed from the forest’s edge.
The pri.
He limped out of the treeline, wiping blood from his face with a shaking hand, eyes wide with disbelief—and sothing close to fear.
"Who the fuck are you?" he croaked.
Atlas turned, his golden eyes glowing brighter, like two stars caught in eclipse.
"....Your DEATH."
User Comments
0 comments from readers