CHAPTER 235: CHAPTER 236: BE HONEST

Atlas hovered high above the palace, the sky around him a burnished violet, the clouds melting into gold as dusk approached like a slow, bleeding wound.

He didn’t feel the wind anymore. Not really. The cold brushed his skin, but it was like being underwater—distorted, distant, irrelevant. His thoughts were louder than the world. Louder than the heartbeat echoing from his chest into his throat. Louder than the truth Qin had left in his ears.

Claire.

Possessed?

He closed his eyes.

The word wouldn’t stop repeating. Like a mantra. Like a curse.

He’d told Qin to pray. That was the best lie he could offer her. Pray. Have faith. In him or in her goddess—did it matter which?

Faith was the only thing left when you had no answers.

But even as he told her that, even as he held her trembling hands and nodded like some holy knight... all Atlas had felt was the guilt of a man who knew he should have seen this coming.

He exhaled slowly, scanning the city. His gaze sliced across rooftops, many towers, Claire had built, the cobbled paths below where distant guards patrolled in flickering torchlight. He could see nearly everything from here. But not her.

Not Claire.

Not the girl whose eyes once glowed with love and now... with demon fire.

His breath fogged slightly in the cold. He clenched his fingers, barely feeling them through the adrenaline humming in his veins.

Thank Jesus she didn’t tell the Pope, he thought, jaw tightening.

If this went public, if even a whisper of this leaked into the Church’s upper chambers, the Holy Kingdom would shatter the silence like a blade to glass. The Pope was many things—benevolent, symbolic, old—but not stupid. And his enforcers? The Radiant Knights would descend like judgment itself.

The Church didn’t start wars for politics. But demons? The unholy? The impure?

They would burn cities to salt for that.

"...The dark elves are extinct anyway," Atlas muttered under his breath, the words hollow. He wasn’t sure if it was meant to comfort himself or mock the thought. "Only demons left."

He tried to remember the last demon sighting. After the Battle in the Dreaming—the one no one dared to document—demon activity had plummeted to zero. Entire traditions fell silent. Their ritualistic festivals, held every six moons in the Deadlight Basin, vanished. Silence replaced celebration.

"I should have asked the Guide," he thought. A bitter twist curled in his mouth. "Demons were always his favorite race."

He felt it before he saw it—someone watching.

He looked down.

Aurora stood on a rooftop across from him, arms folded, her long silver hair whipping gently in the wind. Her aura flickered like a tempered flame, calm and calculated. But her eyes? They saw him. Entirely.

As always.

She flew up, weightless, wind wrapping around her like a second skin.

"...So you can also fly, huh?" she asked, smirking slightly as she floated toward him.

"...Not flying," he replied. "Just... you get the point."

Aurora gave a soft laugh, her voice slicing through the wind like silk. "I felt it already. And Master told me."

She paused beside him, letting the quiet speak.

"You evolved," she finished.

Atlas gave a small nod, voice low. "...If you don’t mind, Aurora... I’m looking for someone."

There was no accusation in his tone, but there was urgency. She picked up on it.

Aurora didn’t move. She just smiled, a slight tilt of her lips. But her silence stretched long enough to press on his nerves.

Then she spoke, and her words landed like knives tossed casually.

"Use the Dreaming."

Atlas stiffened.

"I know something happened," she added. "I know you have a habit of tearing women’s hearts apart."

"...Me?"

Her look said, Don’t play dumb.

"Oh, you don’t know?" she asked, as if humored by his cluelessness. "Then you’re more of a bastard than I thought."

She counted them off on her fingers like sins.

"One. Lara. Two. The maid. Seduced."

"Three. Claire."

Her voice dipped just slightly there.

"Four... well, I haven’t even touched the nasty ones yet," she teased. "You know, Elizabeth. The Empress. You claimed her, too. How? I don’t even want to imagine....."

Atlas shifted uncomfortably in the air.

’Don’t say Isabella,’ he thought, dread blooming in his chest.

’Don’t say it...’

Aurora’s smile widened, and he knew.

"...The last one, even I won’t dare say aloud," she said softly. "I know your father doesn’t give a damn about her anymore... but you should have some respect or a bit....decency...."

Atlas sighed, dragging his hand across his face. "...Fuck."

Aurora tugged on his ear, spinning him slightly. It didn’t hurt. But he let out a yelp anyway.

"Okay, okay! I get it!"

"I know you won’t stop," she said with a half-laugh. "I’m just saying—don’t hide it. Don’t lie. Manage it. Be honest. Eventually... they’ll understand."

"Understand what?"

"That your dick can’t stay in your fucking pants," she snapped, before pointing to the book strapped to his belt. "Now use the Dreaming. The ancient beasts tried to contact her once. That means some part of her—her ego, her essence—is still in there."

Her finger tapped the red jewel inset in the Book of the Damned.

"That jewel’s a fragment. It will connect you to the dreaming...."

Atlas hesitated. His hand hovered over the book. "...Thank you, Aurora."

"You’d better mean that," she said, brushing her hand through her hair as if to wipe away the guilt that still clung to her like ash. "Because we also need to cure Loki."

His brows furrowed. "...It’s getting worse?"

She nodded, this time not smiling. Her silence echoed with pain.

It wasn’t just a wound. It was history. She had failed someone. Atlas could see it. Feel it.

Without another word, Aurora raised her hand, activating the spell. Runes bloomed from the book like unfolding iron flowers, hovering midair, swirling with crimson and blue light. They twisted and rotated, forming shapes far beyond human comprehension. Strings of reality unzipped like paper seams.

Atlas stared, mesmerized.

It was beautiful. Frighteningly so.

Every line of theory, every failure she had endured—etched into this moment. This spell wasn’t brute force. It was elegance. Calculation.

Only the new Atlas could comprehend it.

The old him would’ve called it nonsense.

The spell flared.

Aurora stepped forward and pushed him in.

Half her mana vanished in a blink, devoured by the Dreaming’s maw.

And Atlas fell—

—into blue.

The world opened beneath him. It was not water, not air. A glowing sea of layered memories and broken timelines. Whispers rose from the depths like forgotten lullabies, some soothing, some screaming.

He remembered it all.

The war.

The blood.

The bodies that floated in this sea like paper lanterns, glowing softly, lost forever.

Millions had died here. Dreamers. Demons. Everything in between.

This place wasn’t a battlefield.

It was a graveyard with no names.

He drifted downward, slowly descending, feeling the pressure mount on his chest as though the weight of all his failures decided to greet him here.

Then—

{{{...You should not have come here...}}}

The voice of the Guide slithered into his ears again.

This time, the tone wasn’t mocking.

It was worried.

But before Atlas could even speak—

The presence cut out. Gone. Like someone had ripped the connection from the other end.

"Goddammit!" Atlas shouted, voice echoing into the void. "Again? That fucker’s doing this on purpose!"

....The Dreaming trembled, like an earthquake, shaking the whole of dreaming.

A silence.

And then—

{{{{{{{{{{{{{OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

A roar so deep, so vast, the entire Dreaming shivered.

Atlas turned, slowly.

And from the far reaches of that impossible blue sea, a shape began to rise.

Enormous. Ancient. Incomprehensible.

The Leviathan.

*********

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