Atlas had always thought he understood words. Words could wound, could bind, could lift a man higher than wings or drive him into despair deeper than the grave. Words were things he had clung to in darker nights: promises, warnings, prayers.
But tonight, standing before her, the words ca like teors. He caught their shape but not their aning. He knew the sentences, but they refused him comprehension, slipping through his grasp like smoke through a fist.
"I will erase you then, Atlas," Fate—Ureil, and yet no longer Ureil—declared.
"I cannot twist your fate, but I have the authority, as I bring upon my LAWs. The laws which the four of us agreed upon.
The law being: If one among us four is to beco a threat to the balance of this world, or thereby break the laws that form the foothold and foundation of this world—
Abusing the power as a founder—
Then that one shall be erased from the beginning of ti to the end of the world."
The void around them pulsed with her words. Each syllable fell heavy as hamr-strikes against iron, sending invisible vibrations rippling through the endless white expanse.
Atlas’s breath hitched. He heard them—he truly heard them—but his mind faltered at their edges, as if so key piece of him, so vital gear, had been stripped away. He could not comprehend the weight she placed on him.
Erased.
Not killed. Not broken. Not defeated.
Erased.
A word colder than death. A word that carried the taste of nothingness, the absence of mory, of aning, of na.
He tried to back away, to breathe distance into his body. But the mont he willed movent, he realized: his body no longer listened.
His muscles had betrayed him. His legs rooted to the void. His arms weighed heavy as stone. His chest heaved shallow, restrained breaths.
Such powerlessness.
His mind scread, but his flesh bent to another will.
The third ti.
Yes, this was the third ti he had felt this way. First, during his first death in his previous world—
Second, when he saw aurora burned and he himself burnned. And now—now, beneath the hand of Fate Herself.
Every ti he climbed higher, every ti he evolved, every ti he thought he was closer to breaking free—he was reminded. There was always soone above. Always a greater weight. Always a higher hand.
Her arm ca forward, smooth, deliberate. Fingers pale as marble pressed against his head.
He had felt that touch before—calm, once, steadying, like a cool river soothing fever.
But now—
Now her hand burned.
Not fla. Not heat. Sothing more vile, more profound.
His skull ignited. His vision shattered. His bones scread.
"Aaa—AAAAAAAAA!"
The sound ripped out of him raw, like sothing primal being torn from his chest.
He had endured holy fire. He had walked through infernos that scorched skin to ash, muscle to blackened cords, bone to cinder. He had withstood the torture of fla, of spear, of celestial judgnt.
But this—
This was no pain of flesh. This was deeper. Far deeper. It was pain that clawed at root and marrow, that crawled beneath his soul like worms through soil. His very being fractured under her touch.
mories spilled loose. Shards of his life bled across his sight.
Faces. Voices. Shadows.
Leaning back all the way to The day he struck his first deal. The day he looked into the eye of a god and accepted.
The day everything began.
And then—
It stopped.
A shock. A recoil. A light blooming across his vision.
Sothing had pushed her away.
Fate staggered back, surprise breaking the serenity of her face. Her palm trembled, faint wisps of smoke trailing from her fingers.
Atlas gasped, clutching his head. The burning ceased. His vision cleared. His body returned to him. And there, etched into his arm, his mark flared.
The thunder-mark.
The contractal seal between him and Odin.
It glowed with searing brilliance, arcs of pale lightning crawling across his skin, defying the void.
And then, a voice.
Ancient. Immovable. Divine.
The words rang not just in his ears but in his bones, in the marrow of the world itself.
Fate froze, her hand still shaking. Her wings twitched, feathers spilling like glass shards through the void.
"...Fucking viruses," she muttered under her breath, her composure fracturing for the first ti.
Atlas blinked through the haze of pain, chest heaving. "...Viruses?"
Her eyes cut back to him, sharp, disdainful.
"Should I say you are lucky, Otherworlder... making deals with scum who call themselves gods?"
Her voice dripped venom. Disgust radiated from her like heat.
Atlas’s jaw clenched. Anger rose, still raw, still trembling from the brink of erasure. He staggered forward, forcing his unsteady limbs to obey, until he was close enough. Close enough to seize her throat.
His hand wrapped around the pale column of her neck. Feathers scattered. Her wings stirred like a storm about to break.
His voice ca out low, hoarse, burning with the remnants of agony.
"...I did what needed to be done." His grip tightened. "Aren’t you both in the sa lot? Sitting up there in heaven, playing rulers with lives that aren’t yours?"
Fate didn’t fight. She didn’t even flinch. Instead, she smiled.
Not the smile of a woman choked. Not the smile of soone trapped. But a knowing curve, delicate and sharp, as if she allowed him the illusion.
"Hah... Hahahaha..." Her laughter rolled out, soft and terrible. "Your guide really isn’t guiding much, is he? If you still don’t know about us four. The cowards calling themselves gods. The one true ruler... and his one true enemy."
Atlas’s grip faltered, confusion spiking through his anger.
Them four? Gods? One true ruler... and his one true enemy?
That wasn’t in the ga. That wasn’t in any prophecy. That wasn’t in anything he knew.
His heart sank. His thoughts scrambled.
Fate raised a hand. A flick. A gesture light as breath.
Atlas flew.
The world tilted, the void spun, and his body slamd down like paper tossed to fla. He lay there, breathless, fury crawling beneath his ribs.
Fate massaged her neck with casual grace, as if brushing off dust.
"You are in the middle of it all, boy," she said, voice regaining its calm, her smile sharpening to a crescent blade. "It would have been lucky for you if you had been erased. But don’t worry..."
Her eyes glead, twin voids laced with inevitability.
"I have my eye on you now."
And then—
Snap.
Her fingers clicked.
The void fractured. Light shattered.
The ground rushed up. Heat surged.
And Atlas landed hard.
Stone beneath him. Air thick with ash and blood.
He gasped, looking up.
The void was gone.
Hell surrounded him.
Priests in blackened robes chanted in a circle, their voices thick as oil. Flas crackled along the stones, devouring shadows. The sll of sulfur and sanctity collided, choking his lungs.
And there—
There, at their side, stood Aurora.
Her eyes found him first.
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