Atlas exhaled.
"...Fuck..."
The word scraped out of his throat like sothing torn from inside, sothing heavier than breath. His chest felt tight, too tight, as if the curse was trying to wrap fingers inside his lungs, twisting, turning, tasting.
He could feel it now—feel the damn thing crawling along his mana veins like ink spilled inside water. A slow, greedy seep. Every pulse of mana inside him trembled, warped, as if the curse wanted to bend its nature, force it to beco... sothing else. Sothing wrong.
The sensation carried a strange temperature—cold at the surface, burning underneath. It reminded him of frostbite and fever at the sa ti. His skin prickled. His heartbeat stuttered.
The tattoo of lightning on his arm buzzed again, faint but insistent, like a mosquito trapped under skin. It wasn’t Odin calling. It was the tattoo warning him—foreign interference detected.
Lady Fate. She wanted to use this opportunity.
"Fucking—of all the things," he muttered, pacing. The ground under him felt heavy, as if gravity thickened in response to his rage. "She really thinks she can bind my system? Take over—my faith system?"
He had questions. Questions he didn’t rember forming, questions that burned. And now he wanted answers. Needed answers. Not tomorrow. Not after so cosmic council eting. Now.
So he walked out—rage blinding, steps echoing—and he shouted her na. Shouted it with raw fury, spat it like a curse of its own. Shouted at her because she refused to call him into her realm properly, tried to use his sister, tried to trick him like a child chasing illusions.
"Co on, where are you? I’m willing to talk here, I know you have the cure!!!"
His voice tore through the space around him like thunder.
And then—everything went white again.
A sharp breath. A disorienting pull.
Atlas blinked, once, twice.
White. Everywhere. The endless, perfect, cold white.
He knew exactly where he stood.
"...Realm of Between," he muttered. "Death’s damn foyer."
The place where he’d once t Death. The place where Fate had been bold enough to interfere with him the first ti. And yet now—now there was nothing here. No weight of unseen eyes. No cold breath on the back of his neck. Just emptiness stretching like eternity on mute.
"Lady Fate!" he shouted, and his voice sounded small, swallowed instantly by the white. "Get the fuck out here!"
Sothing shimred. Tilted. Then she appeared.
Not as herself.
But in the form of his sister—Lara—but not quite Lara. Taller. Older. Curves fuller. Hair longer. A face shaped by years Lara hadn’t lived. It was her—but a version of her that had matured sowhere else, in so other tiline Fate crafted like a puppet.
Atlas’ jaw clenched.
She crossed her arms, her voice carrying lazy annoyance.
"Why are you bothering so much?"
He didn’t hesitate. His axe was out before the last syllable fell, cold tal humming, pulsing with a faint echo of Odin’s essence. Its edge cut a thin line in the white, a shadow where no shadows existed.
"You," he said. "Did you give Lara her system?"
Lady Fate smiled. A soft, slow smile that said everything and nothing.
She didn’t answer.
Not directly.
Instead, she tilted her head. "Didn’t you co here because of the curse trying to claim your mana? Because you can’t handle it alone? Co on, beg for rcy.."
Her tone was mock-sympathy. A hand extended but with threads behind it.
Then she shrugged, drifting closer.
"Why so afraid? The Empress was playing. She wouldn’t kill her own family..."
Atlas didn’t buy that for a second. Not even half a second.
He said nothing. Silence stretched. A long, cold inhale broke him free.
"Can you ...or can you not relieve of this curse?" he asked.
Lady Fate’s eyes sharpened, just barely.
"Only if..."
Her fingers danced in the air, weaving faint silk threads. "Only if you pass on the system you carry. Give it to Lara. Or"—her eyes glowed a soft violet—"take Lara’s system into yourself."
Atlas listened. His heartbeat slowed. His thoughts sharpened.
One word caught him.
Help.
Not cure. Not cleanse. Not undo.
Help.
aning she didn’t know how. aning she was bluffing about her influence. aning she was weaker here, weaker than she wanted him to believe.
He smiled. Slowly. Dangerous.
"You don’t know how to cure ," he said softly. "You’re scared. That’s why you’re hiding in this little white cage. The Empress scared the shit out of you."
Silence.
He stepped closer, eyes dead calm.
"You’re weak. You always have been..."
The white trembled.
Lady Fate’s expression cracked. A jagged twitch. Then anger exploded out of her—raw, violent, godly. She grabbed him by the neck, fingers glowing with the runes of destiny itself, lifting him as if his weight ant nothing.
"You dare," she hissed, her voice layered with a thousand whispers. "Before —who holds the fate of all beings? I could crush the mortal kingdom with a thought."
Atlas coughed, but he didn’t look away. Didn’t blink.
"Yes," he said quietly. "That’s all you ever do. Push the weak. Manipulate the fragile. Nothing more."
Her shock was silent but visible. A tremor across her borrowed face.
Her fury roared back instantly.
The silk threads around her hand twisted, curled, hardened—turned into a spear made of woven destinies. Fate re-forged into a weapon.
Atlas tensed.
Then—
Thud.
A sound. A pulse. A presence heavy enough to cut through the white.
Both he and Fate froze.
A figure stood there. Cloaked in shadow and silence.
Death.
The air around her grew colder, like mory itself froze under her feet. The white realm shifted around her presence, bending slightly, acknowledging her authority.
Beside her...
Atlas’ eyes widened.
"...Dracula?"
Not the Dracula of stories. Not a monster. Not a king.
But the past Lord of Dreaming.
A being Atlas—no, the guide—had killed years ago in the dream realm.
Atlas stared. He blinked. He blinked again.
"You should be dead," Atlas said, voice rough. "I killed you."
Dracula stepped forward, his presence neither warm nor cold, but unreal—like he wasn’t a body, but an idea given shape. His eyes shimred with soft blues, the color of lucid dreams.
A small smile curved his lips.
"I am not alive," he said. "Oh, little Atlas... I am rely coming into being again."
Atlas frowned. Hard.
"Dreaming?" he asked. "How?"
Dracula’s voice floated, echoing at the edges.
"A mortal realm calls for . An old realm. One that desires to dream again."
The words sent a ripple through the white. A pull, a vibration in the bones.
Death finally spoke, her voice cold and even.
"Fate has overstepped her bounds."
Lady Fate snarled. "Stay out of this, sister."
Death blinked once. A single blink that carried more threat than Fate’s entire spear.
"I do not intervene," Death said. "I correct."
Atlas felt a strange sensation—his curse pulsing, stirring, reacting to sothing in Death’s presence. Like the curse recognized her. Or feared her.
Fate noticed. Her eyes darted to the tattoo on his arm, the mana veins glowing faintly beneath his skin.
Her spear rose again—but Death moved.
Not fast.
Just certain.
A single step.
The ground cracked. The white darkened beneath her foot like ink spreading.
Fate hesitated.
Dracula stepped between them. His presence gentle yet unyielding.
" Fate," he said quietly. "Your fear is loud. It echoes too much."
Her eyes narrowed. "Fear.....?"
Atlas let out a short breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
Dracula looked at him.
"You are cursed, Atlas. Yes. But it is not simply the Empress’ doing."
Atlas stiffened.
"It is layered," Dracula continued. "Twisted. Threads of ancient agreents, broken promises, divine interference... and sothing older. Sothing from before."
Before what?
Atlas felt his spine chill.
Dracula smiled again, sadder this ti.
"It is a curse of story."
Atlas blinked. "What the hell does that an?"
"It ans," Dracula said, tilting his head, "you carry too many myths inside you. Too many bonds. Too many.... Too many gods with their hooks in your spine. And now the story is collapsing under its own weight."
Atlas felt... dizzy.
Not with confusion. With realization.
Old mories flashed—Loki pressing energy into him in dreams... Lilith’s hand on his head... the guide whispering guidance he never understood... Odin’s mark seared into his arm... the Empress... the Key... the Crown...
All of it overlapping. Crossing. Colliding.
Fate folded her arms.
"See? You need ."
"No," Death corrected, "he needs truth."
Atlas swallowed hard.
"Tell ," he whispered. "Everything."
Dracula t his gaze.
"The Empress’ curse is only the surface. A trigger. Sothing beneath is awakening. Sothing tied to your genesis nature."
He stepped closer.
"And that awakening is why realms begin to pull old gods back into existence. Including ."
Atlas felt the realm tilt slightly. His stomach churned. His breath shook—not with fear, but with the weight of knowing sothing monuntal was shifting.
And then—
Fate snapped.
"ENOUGH!"
Her spear fired toward Atlas—
—but Death extended a single finger.
One gesture.
The spear unraveled mid-air, threads of fate dissolving like dust. Fate stumbled back, disbelief shattering her expression.
"You cannot touch him," Death said. "Not now....our aggremnt with the guide still remains,,"
"Why?" Fate hissed.
Dracula answered.
"Because the dream that calls ... is his...the mont he started to dream while in hell, i ...was becoming..."
The realm fell silent.
Atlas froze.
"...My dream?"
Dracula’s eyes glowed brighter.
"A mortal dream that echoes your existence. A dream that wants to beco real...."
Atlas opened his mouth, but no words ford.
Death stepped closer. Her presence chilled even the curse burning inside him.
"When a realm dreams of a being," Death said softly, "it becos prophecy."
"And when prophecy mixes with genesis..." Dracula murmured, "reality begins to warp....all the overbearing myths that surround you, that surrounds your story...you need to lighten it Atlas..."
Atlas felt the ground vibrate. His heart hamred.
His curse pulsed with heat, then cold, then heat again.
Fate’s eyes widened with a realization she hated.
"You," she whispered. "You’re becoming a convergence point...thats the curse Atlas...accept it and live...or be subrged by it..."
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