CHAPTER 269: CHAPTER 270: ORCUS

"...you...you are the prophet...aren’t you? Son of one above all!"

The priest’s voice was trembling, cracked, but it struck harder than any blade. The words unfurled like a storm in the silence—sliding into the ears of the fallens, into the marrow of their bones.

Atlas blinked once.

"...?"

Just that sound—so small, so frail—should have vanished into the chaos. But it didn’t. It clung. Echoed. Echoed again. "Prophet." "Son." "One above all." Each syllable struck like a bell toll inside the caverns of hell.

The running fallens froze mid-flight, like strings pulled taut. Feet skidded on the charred soil. Claws dug in. Their breath caught—not from exhaustion, but disbelief.

They turned.

A whisper had cut through their terror and turned it on its head.

It was only a murmur from their priest, nothing more than an old man’s quivering prayer. But the words prophet and son of god pierced them like lightning. Their eyes widened. They looked at each other, as if to confirm: Did you hear it too?

And they had.

One of the fallens—braver than the rest—saw the truth with his own eyes. The flying man, the stranger with impossible power, stood before their priest and... did nothing. He didn’t smite him. He didn’t strike. He only hovered, restrained in a silence that should not exist.

That alone was enough to splinter their certainty.

The fallen edged forward, wings twitching, nerves taut. He wanted to flee—but his legs betrayed him, pulling him closer, dragged by something nameless. Fear burned in him, but reverence tangled with it, confusing his every step. He lingered behind the priest, too terrified to stand alone.

"...Father," he called. Not with love. Not with blood. But with title—like invoking protection from fire. "Let’s leave... this is blasphemy you are sprouting..." His voice shook, but his eyes never left Atlas. His gaze was half defiance, half plea.

Atlas’s eyes lowered. The priest was still bowed, neck bent as though offering it. The old man’s shoulders trembled—not from fear, but from devotion. Atlas turned then, toward the young fallen, and his voice rolled deep, low, and absolute.

"Take him... don’t worry, I will not attack you lot."

His words rippled with a strange gravity, heavy as iron, soft as water.

The young fallen blinked in disbelief, then nodded rapidly. Relief collided with suspicion, but he obeyed. He reached for the old man. The priest followed with no resistance. No hesitation. He moved with the fluid obedience of one who had already given his life away.

And as he went, his eyes never left Atlas.

And in those eyes—a smile.

A small, trembling smile of hope, carved into a weathered face.

It stopped Atlas. It stole the rage right out of him, cooling the storm in his chest by degrees. That smile didn’t belong here, not in hell’s pit, not in this wasteland of broken wings and devoured corpses. It was too human. Too real.

Atlas remembered.

The word prophet. The word son. The One above all.

It was absurd. It was dangerous. It was too close to wounds he thought scarred over. Yet here it was again—another world, another people, calling him the same. Prophet. Guide. Son.

His jaw tightened. His chest burned with a pulse of memory—memories from his old world, a cross of light, Jesus, Jacob, the name they once whispered during prayers, when he wanted nothing but silence.

But no matter how many names they prayed to him in this world, no matter how many titles they dressed him in—prophet, guide, son of the one above all and the one below all—he knew the truth.

He was still him. Atlas.

Human Atlas.

And no matter how much he evolved, no matter how many wings, eyes, or flames clung to his body, he still felt human. And human he would remain. That was his pride once, and it was his pride now.

The priest disappeared into the crowd of fallen, his form swallowed, but the smile lingered in Atlas’s mind. It lingered like a thorn—hope pressed into his skin.

And then—

He felt it.

A pulse. A ripple. A conflicted feeling, jagged, alien, slicing against his own veins. Not his emotion—someone else’s. Something leaking into him. A presence not his own.

"What happened?" he muttered to the silence in his head. To the Guide.

{{{{{...nothing...}}}}}

And just like that, the feeling vanished.

Gone.

Atlas’s teeth ground. His temples throbbed.

"...What was with him?" His voice was low, brittle, spoken only to himself as his eyes turned toward the clouds above.

They seethed. Black, roiling, like a ceiling of smoke alive with fire underneath.

His chest expanded with a breath that burned.

"Liiidiiiiaaaa!!" His shout ripped through the storm. "I know you’re there—come down!"

The clouds split.

A flare of crimson spilled out, wings sharp and leathery, hair the color of fresh blood spilling in ropes. Lidia, demoness, smiled with rows of too-human teeth. Her voice dripped sweetness over steel.

"...Okay. As you say, husband."

She descended, laughter tugging her lips.

Atlas’s hand rose before she could land. Smack. A sharp sound cracked against her head.

"...I already have enough problems...," he muttered, heavy with disdain. "I don’t need more."

The words weren’t shouted—they were prophecy, spoken flat, immutable, like law written in stone.

Lidia’s brow furrowed, confusion twisting her beauty.

"...What’s the problem then? Just take me as well. No issue there."

Atlas exhaled slow, steady, trying to push down the weight pressing in his chest. "...Just call me Atlas. That’s fine. Now—do what Aurora told you. Summon her here."

The demoness tilted her head, eyes flicking around the barren landscape. She shut them, pressing her palms together, lips moving in silent words—urging, demanding, begging Hell itself to obey.

Nothing.

Her shoulders sank. She opened her eyes.

"Sorry... hubby. It seems I don’t even have a speck of land here. Hell is denying me in everything."

Atlas frowned. Of course. Here, even lords had no throne unless Hell itself willed it.

"So what does one need to do? To claim land, to gain authority here?"

Lidia’s gaze swept the battlefield. Her eyes darkened as they fell on the corpses scattered like broken idols. Flesh gnawed, bones vanishing into ash as the ground itself drank them down.

"The same thing those goblins and those fallens were doing," she said softly.

Atlas followed her eyes. The earth itself seemed alive—dust quivering, soil breathing, swallowing the dead in slow gulps.

"...Kill and conquer."

Her voice was casual. Absolute.

Atlas’s lips thinned. "...That’s it?"

"Yeah. Hell only likes you if you’re strong. It loves you if you’re the strongest. With its favor, it grants you authority, absolute Authority."

Her tone was nonchalant, as though describing weather, but Atlas’s gaze swept the land again. The ground pulsed with hunger, veins of black spreading like cracks underfoot.

It was breathing. Watching. Listening.

Hell itself was alive.

Atlas’s throat tightened. "...Fuck. Now this feels like hell."

"Creepy," he muttered, voice quieter, as if the earth might hear.

"So—if I kill all the goblins and the fallens here, this area will be mine? And I can summon Aurora. Anyone I want."

Lidia blinked once. Twice. Three times. "...Yes. But remember, in the third layer, Hell only accepts the authority of true-blooded ones. And you, my dear husband... you’re an enigma."

Atlas floated higher, body shimmering faintly with mana. "...Then I’ll conquer this land for you. You’ll summon Aurora and the others."

"Ohhhhhh...Okey-dokey," she said brightly, suddenly latching onto his back.

Atlas froze.

"...Can you get off?"

"No."

"..."

"Go. That way." She pointed, her body pressed against his back like a shadow he couldn’t shake. "That area belongs to the Demon Lord of the Titans. A Demi God who fell from Heaven itself. Orcus. He rules there now, after defeating me..."

Atlas’s jaw clenched. Another Titan. Another weight waiting for him.

"Then I’ll take him down," he said, and his grin flickered—sharp and merciless.

His body ignited with mana, flames of light and shadow rippling off his frame.

"Hang tight."

"Okeyyyyyyy—!"

She shrieked with glee as Atlas broke the air, his body erupting forward. The world blurred. The wind howled. The ground shattered beneath the force of his flight.

Doom!

Doom!

And Hell itself groaned, from the sound barrier being crushed within milliseconds, as if it had just awakened something it wasn’t ready for.