The mountain lood like a petrified god, its flanks carved into streets, its veins hollowed into tunnels where torches flickered like fireflies trapped in stone.
Ancient magic—woven into the very marrow of the mountain—had been bartered from a demon empress herself, drawn from the layers below.
A veil of power wrapped the city, shimring faintly in the air like heat rising from stone. Titans passing through its threshold bent and folded, their colossus forms collapsing into human scale the instant they crossed the field, as though the mountain itself refused to house anything greater.
Atlas’s eyes widened, a sharp breath catching in his chest. The artistry stunned him. Every ridge, every carved slope, every archway and tower had been hewn with an intelligence he recognized all too well. It wasn’t brute force that shaped this.
It was vision. He’d spent years in system design, crafting fraworks that demanded foresight, patience, the ability to see structures before they existed. This was the sa language—only written in stone and eternity.
"...from my imagination, he must have sculpted this city, as a titan," Atlas murmured, voice heavy with reluctant reverence. His gaze climbed higher and higher, past balconies that clung to cliffs, bridges that seed too delicate to hold their own weight, up to the palace spire that pierced the heavens themselves.
The peak vanished into storm-dark clouds, jagged bolts of light skittering across their bellies. His throat tightened.
"But this mountain... it’s enormous. Bigger than Everest." He tilted his head back until his neck ached, asuring the impossible distance with his own eyes.
"Even if he were a titan taller, broader than Loki himself... it would take years. Centuries."
The words fell in a hush, less a calculation than an admission—because the more he looked, the more impossible the feat beca. And yet here it was, real beneath his feet, daring him to doubt it.
The magic crawled across his body, searching, tasting. It was not a barrier but a hand—an ancient, jealous hand—that asured him, judged him, then let him pass.
He whispered, almost involuntarily, "...This isn’t stone. This is mory carved into matter."
The streets ahead pulsed with life. Goblin-faced netizens scurried in crooked lines, demon-blooded rchants bellowed in tongues he couldn’t understand, beasts with too-bright eyes haggled over wares that reeked of brimstone and violet fla.
The air was thick, sulfur threading with the tallic tang of mana so dense his tongue stung with every inhale. His skin prickled as though every pore was drinking more than air—it was drinking history.
Beside him, Lidia smoothed her wild hair, her eyes holding both pride and bitterness.
"Yeah... this was supposed to be my mountain." Her lips twisted. "But that piece of shit took it. Weeks we fought. Weeks."
Atlas blinked, so part of him faltering. Weeks? That wasn’t the kind of scale he wanted to hear.
Weeks ant chance. Weeks ant attrition. Weeks ant the titan king’s victory had not been imdiate. A dangerous thought flickered—was Orcus rely lucky? Weak beneath the monunt of his legend?
But then—
"...And after I lost," Lidia admitted, her voice quieter now, "I lost my authority. My domain powers. Gone."
Atlas’s eyes narrowed, catching the fracture in her bravado. "So he is stronger than you. Much, much stronger. Strong enough to crush a queen with her throne still beneath her."
Her smirk was forced, brittle. "Much, much... yes. He was strong before. Now, with my authority stolen? He’s untouchable."
Atlas’s chest tightened. A paradox ford in him. Part of him thrilled at the idea of a true opponent—one whose existence made his own survival miraculous.
Another part recoiled. The old engineer in him wanted to map, to categorize, to control. But Tartus was a labyrinth, and Orcus was its heart.
"Then why wait?" Atlas’s voice carried a hungry edge. "Why let him breathe a mont longer? What was his na again?"
"Orcus." Lidia’s voice carried the weight of mory and venom. She faced him, her chin high. "Yes, crush him. Let them all know—the husband of Lidia is not a toy."
Atlas’s palm t her forehead with a soft smack, annoyance threading his awe. Her laugh cracked the tension, briefly.
But as they moved deeper, the force field’s echo still clung to him. His bones humd. His blood shivered. His thoughts bent strange, as though the field had left fingerprints on his mind.
And Tartus itself watched him.
From windows carved into sheer rock, from alleys too narrow for daylight, from rooftops slick with moss—they watched. Titans disguised in human fras. Demons half-hiding their sigils. Goblin-faces frozen mid-gesture.
Atlas could feel it: observation pressed to his skin like damp cloth. He did not slow.
Lidia’s whisper slid sharp against his ear. "...Should I kill them?"
Atlas’s reply was instant, steel-threaded. "No. Let them. They can only do one thing."
She tilted her head. "And that is?"
His smirk was a cut. "Observe."
The city buzzed like a hive. Stalls overflowed with spiced ats that bled smoke, crystals that pulsed with their own heartbeat, scrolls written in languages that bent the eyes if stared at too long.
Children with horn nubs darted between legs. Bells chid from towers shaped like claws. And everywhere, everywhere, the thick choke of sulfur burned Atlas’s throat raw.
His skin ached. Not with pain—but with power. The mana here was heavier, older, thicker. Even the weakest netizen in Tartus breathed mana denser than most mortals could dream.
And it struck Atlas with a quiet horror: this was peace. Even in Hell. These creatures lived, laughed, bartered, raised children. They knew fear, but also safety—under Orcus’s shadow.
If his mory of the ga was right, this was supposed to be the Hell Arc. The point where Lara descended into the abyss to slay the demon who had struck the bargain with Atlas—twisting him into a half-demon, shaping him into the final boss of the storyline. That na lingered in his mind, sharp and poisonous. Asmodeus.
But already, cracks were showing between the ga he rembered and the reality unfolding before him. The world here was rich, layered, breathing in ways the screen had never conveyed. Back then, the "layers of Hell" were nothing more than nas in passing dialogue, empty stage titles scrolling before the next fight. No detail, no life. Just placeholders.
Now? Now the world itself was alive, suffocatingly so. The air clung with iron and ash, the ground thrumd with heat like a living heart beneath stone, and shadows seed to lean closer when his thoughts dared to wander.
When he’d first played, he hadn’t cared. He’d skipped through countless lines of dialogue, tapping impatiently, driven only by the rush of reaching the endga. The story was nothing but scaffolding. Beat Asmodeus, reclaim Atlas’s soul, roll credits. That was all it had ever been to him.
But here, the na carried weight. His chest tightened as it repeated in his mind, slower, heavier, as if the sound alone pulled the air from the world.
Asmodeus...
The Guide’s voice stirred at last, curling like smoke.
{{{{{...Asmodeus.}}}}}
The na snapped through Atlas’s thoughts like flint on steel.
His stride faltered.
’...You know the na?’ Atlas whispered inside.
{{{{{How do you know it?}}}}}
He swallowed. ’Stories... A demon in Hell called Asmodeus.’
The Guide chuckled, but it was not mirth. It was hunger restrained.
{{{{{That was the vessel I had chosen. A mouth to crawl through into the mortal realm.}}}}}
Atlas’s chest turned cold. The air felt suddenly thinner.
’...So if it wasn’t Azazel... it would have been Asmodeus.’
{{{{{Of course. If not Azazel, then Asmodeus. If not him, then Gehena, or another. I would have reached you regardless. One way. Or another.}}}}}
Atlas’s jaw clenched. The knowledge pressed against him like another weight on the city’s stone. He hated it. Hated the inevitability in the Guide’s tone. Hated the obsession that stalked him even across dinsions.
’...You’re obsessed with ,’ he spat inwardly.
{{{{{Yes. Because you are not like the others. You are chaos wrapped in bone. My greatest avatar.}}}}}
Atlas flinched as if struck. His reply was bitter, sharp:
’Different how?’
{{{{{At causing chaos, obviously.}}}}}
Atlas barked aloud, "Shut the fuck up."
Lidia blinked, startled. "I—I didn’t say anything."
Atlas’s breath caught, the sulfur taste biting harder. "Not you..." His voice trailed, unfinished.
And then the air shifted.
A shadow deepened across the street. The crowd hushed, the city’s hive-song thinning. A pressure heavier than the force field itself pressed down, thick enough that even the stones seed to bend in acknowledgnt.
Atlas didn’t need Lidia’s whisper to know.
The titan king had arrived.
Orcus.
The streets stilled, every eye tilting toward the figure at the far end of the thoroughfare.
Atlas raised his gaze—and felt his throat tighten.
The titan lord did not need to roar. His presence was roar enough.
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