CHAPTER 253: CHAPTER 254:BABYLON PART 2

In different to the lizardling’s call. Aurora slid from Atlas with the slow satisfaction of someone leaving a warm fire for the cold night. Her hand lingered on him for a breath too long, as if memorizing the heat.

"Thank you," she said—soft, deliberate. There was a faint lift at the corner of her mouth, but her eyes remained unreadable.

From her sleeve, she withdrew a coin unlike anything Atlas had seen in a century—a golden disk with intricate spiral carvings that seemed to fold in on themselves if you looked too long. It caught the dim torchlight like liquid sunlight.

The guard’s pupils dilated when it touched his palm. He turned it over once—then with a furtive twitch of his wrist, slid it into his pocket as if afraid the air itself might try to steal it.

Atlas’s eyes tracked the exchange. The coin stirred a quiet recognition in him, like a word almost remembered. His mouth almost formed a question, but he kept it coiled behind his teeth. He would have answers soon enough.

The guard cleared his throat, voice carrying the forced politeness of a man who had just been overpaid and wasn’t sure why.

"What is the reason of your esteemed visit?"

Aurora’s smile thinned, a blade edge in velvet. "Entering the second layer."

And then she walked past him. Her steps didn’t hurry, but they carried a rhythm that suggested she had already decided she owned the ground. The crimson demon shadowed her, his presence heavy, each footstep deliberate as a drumbeat.

"...Azezal," Aiden’s voice came from above, the syllables dry as sun-cracked stone. He landed beside them, his expression unreadable, the kind that made lesser beings wish they had somewhere else to stand.

His gaze lingered on the crimson demon for a moment, and something silent passed between them. Azezal inclined his head—a slow, deliberate nod.

{Lizardling...} The demon’s voice was thick with disdain, as if the word itself tasted foul. His clawed hand waved lazily through the air, and the smaller figure nearby—the lizard—staggered. The world seemed to tilt around him, his eyes unfocused, like he was being lowered into a dream he hadn’t agreed to enter.

{I will ask questions. You will answer with one to five words. Understood?}

The lizardling’s jaw trembled, but he nodded.

{Is the underworld of the mortal realm still connected to the underworld here?}

"...Yes."

{What’s the state of this city—Babylon?}

"...Chaotic..."

{Why? You may answer in a few sentences.}

"...Demon Queen Senya wants the city. But our fatty lord denies it. At every end."

{...Huh... That fatty is still alive? I thought he would be dead without me by now.} The crimson demon’s voice curled around the words like smoke. There was no humor in it, only memory sharpened to a blade.

He tilted his head. {Okay... you may fall down from here.}

The lizardling didn’t speak. His eyes glassed over, his body turned without hesitation, and he stepped to the ledge. The wind rose to meet him.

Atlas’s jaw tightened, but before he could speak, the lizardling’s body was already disappearing over the drop.

The demon turned back, unbothered. Aurora’s gaze was flint, Atlas’s was molten metal.

{What? His use was done.}

Atlas’s sigh was deep, slow—a thundercloud in human form. Then he moved, stepping off the ledge without hesitation, the world blurring as he plunged in pursuit.

The wind screamed in his ears as he cut through the air, faster than thought. The lizardling’s small frame was tumbling helplessly, eyes wild now that whatever trance had held him was broken.

Atlas caught him just before the ground could. The impact still jarred them both, but it wasn’t the death it could have been. The lizardling clung to him like a drowning man to driftwood. His breath hitched in panic, his scales cold under Atlas’s grip.

When Atlas landed, the crimson demon was already kneeling—or rather, folded in on himself in a way that seemed almost ritualistic.

No, not kneeling—kowtowing. His knees dug into the dirt. His forehead pressed to the ground so firmly Atlas could hear the grain of stone scraping against skin. It wasn’t a gesture of respect. It was self-erasure.

{...I don’t deserve to live. Please take my life.}

Atlas stared for a long, cold heartbeat. Then he raised his hand and gave the faintest flick.

The demon’s body was shoved backward, carried by an invisible force until the ground vanished beneath him.

{I’m... sooorryyy...} The voice echoed as he fell, fading into the noise of the city far below.

Aurora, as if it were simply part of the rhythm, stepped from the ledge without looking back.

The lizardling was left on the ground where he shook and sobbed, the sound small against the endless air.

"...Sorry for that," Atlas said quietly, and stepped off the edge again.

Before the crimson demon could crater into the earth, Atlas’s hand wrapped around his neck, halting the fall with bone-jarring precision.

Atlas’s golden eyes burned into him. "I’m just gonna say this once—you are a very... very lucky man." His voice was quiet, but it carried the weight of a sentence passed. He dropped him, and the demon hit the ground headfirst, rolling onto his back.

From here, the city unfolded—not the fortress walls they’d seen from the outside, but something stranger. The plain stone was gone; the inner wall was a cathedral of faces.

Statues—columns carved into human forms.

No—into one human form.

His form.

Aurora landed lightly beside him, her hair catching the dim sunlight like threads of copper. "...Yeah," she murmured. "You look more handsome that way."

The statues stood in silent procession, all bearing his likeness. The same set of the jaw. The same shadow over the eyes. Some were cracked, weathered. Others pristine. All watching.

{...Nooiiiccee...} the crimson demon whispered, the sound half-admiration, half-madness.

"...what in the actual fuck is this...?!" Atlas murmured.

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