CHAPTER 371: CHAPTER 360: LAWSS

[Demon God’s Essence: Resonating]

[Demon God’s Core: Unsealed: level 1.]

The moment the Core awoke, the air thickened to liquid flame.

Atlas felt it first as a pressure behind his ribs, then as an expanding horizon inside his skull. Every heartbeat struck like a hammer on the anvil of creation.

He remembered.

The scene in Heaven—gold light fractured through crystal spires, the choir’s thousand-fold voices trembling under his command.

The Guide within him had asked to borrow his body, and, for a few moments, Atlas had yielded. Now, the memory returned like lightning frozen in glass. His muscles recalled what his mind had tried to forget: the perfect violence of godhood.

He had ripped out the hearts of false gods with hands of light, moving faster than thought, each motion accompanied by that voice.

{{{{{{This is only but a taste}}}}}}

The words slithered through him again, half promise, half threat. His veins pulsed silver; the scent of ozone filled his lungs.

Across the battlefield, Asmodeus felt it too—the shift, the ripple that bent reality itself. The Demon King’s eyes ignited crimson, threads of energy weaving into his mouth. The air warped around him, a visible mirage of hate and hunger.

Atlas smiled. He could taste iron on his tongue.

He raised his chin, channeling the storm through his throat, syllables forming with deliberate gravity.

{Hold}

The word struck the world like a decree.

The mountains froze mid-eruption. Ash hung suspended. Even sound paused. Reality itself clenched, waiting.

Then Asmodeus answered, voice cutting through the stillness.

{Pierce}

A single word, sharp enough to shatter law.

The freeze broke. Space convulsed. The battlefield detonated into motion. The two commandments collided—Hold against Pierce—and everything caught in between suffered.

Fallen archangels, demons, titans—creatures forged for war—were unmade by proximity alone. The fabric of existence warped and recoiled, turning them into streaks of light, dust, and memory.

Atlas’s command stuttered. Pain flashed through his bones like cracks through marble. He’s bending the Word itself, he realized. He’s speaking from beneath creation.

He forced breath through scorched lungs, his mind a chorus of voices—his own, the Guide’s, the Demon God’s.

{{{{{{Say it. Speak your dominion.}}}}}}

"No," he whispered to the inner voice, "Not yet."

But Asmodeus was already moving. Each syllable he spoke distorted the horizon, creating wounds in the world that bled radiance.

{Fall}

The command wasn’t aimed at Atlas alone—it rippled outward. Entire legions of Fallen screamed as gravity itself betrayed them, dragging them from the sky like broken stars.

Atlas clenched his fists.

{Rise}

Wings of white flame erupted beneath his soldiers, suspending them mid-descent. They rose again, silhouettes against a bleeding sun.

Between Fall and Rise, the war became a language. Every spoken law rewrote the landscape: mountains grew and died in seconds, rivers boiled, clouds turned to blades.

Atlas’s internal equilibrium faltered. He could feel the Guide stirring within—the old divinity pressing against the walls of flesh. You cannot contain me forever, it murmured. Let me steer. I can end it.

He ignored it. The scent of burnt stone filled his nostrils. The taste of copper clung to his teeth.

Across the void, Asmodeus’s laughter fractured the world like glass. "You still hesitate, prophet! Speak freely—let your truth devour you!"

"My law, my Truth does not devour," Atlas said, voice low but resonant. "It binds."

He spread his hands. Light streamed from his palms, forming runes that spun around his body like orbiting moons.

{Bind} he intoned.

The syllable expanded into the air, heavy as gravity. Chains of radiance erupted from the ground, coiling toward Asmodeus.

{Break} the Demon King snarled, and the chains shattered before touching him, exploding into dust that burned the sky.

The backlash flung Atlas backward. He tasted blood. So this is how gods wage war—not with armies, but with verbs. But with sheer reality of LAW.

Below them, the battlefield had become a storm of theology and fire. Every breath of the two kings rewrote history. Fallen and demon alike struggled merely to exist inside the pressure.

Gabriel dove through smoke, shielding what remained of the front line. "He’s rewriting us," he gasped, wings smoking. "Every word he speaks changes what we are!"

Jenny the Witch Queen raised her staff, voice trembling but fierce. "Then speak back. Let them hear us, Our laws might be weak, but it will still have effect...."

She cried a word of her own—{Burn}—and crimson light surged, forming a barrier that stabilized the ground beneath them.

Atlas felt their resonance, faint but real. They’re learning, he thought. Even demonic throats can shape creation, if they remember who they are.

He faced Asmodeus again. The Demon King hovered above the collapsing city, surrounded by the echoes of slain worlds. The armor of bone and fire reformed around him with each breath.

"You toyed with them, their faith," Asmodeus said, voice like shifting magma. "You will know in time, faith is an abyss, gods drown...."

Atlas feared, yes he feared the outcome of his lies.

" I do fear it, he admitted inwardly. But fear is still life."

He raised his hand again. {Return.}

The word rippled outward, calling back every fragment of reality torn by their clash. The broken ground stitched itself; the skies dimmed to a deep, trembling crimson.

Asmodeus’s eyes narrowed. "You restore what I destroy. Always the same. You think you can continue this on and on?."

He spat the next word like venom. {Drown}

Instantly, the air turned liquid. Oceans formed from vapor, cascading downward. Whole armies vanished beneath waves conjured from nothing.

Atlas’s pulse quickened. He inhaled, feeling the Demon God’s Core burn inside him, and shouted, {Breathe!}

The waters receded, transformed into mist. Soldiers gasped, resurrected mid-choke.

Their duel had become the heartbeat of worlds: destruction, restoration, corruption, renewal.

But with every law he spoke, his body, from the tip of his toe to his concious, something changed, he could feel it. His mind was Growing.

’What are we doing?’ the thought whispered, not his own.

{{{{It’s called Wisdom’s Delima, the more reality you bend, the knowledge of the world forces it’s wisdom on you .. don’t.Give.In....}}}}}

He couldn’t stop it, the thoughts came in.

The realization cut through his rage. For all the grandeur, the meaning was simple—they were showing creation its own reflection: that even perfection bleeds.

Then Asmodeus’s tone changed. "Enough of the play."

He inhaled, and the horizon dimmed. Words gathered around him like a storm of scripture. Symbols—ancient, forbidden—formed halos of inverted light.

Atlas recognized them or more so his system did.

[World understanding used]

The Language Before Creation. The tongue of the Demiurge. If he speaks that, reality itself will fracture.

"Don’t," he warned.

Asmodeus smiled, crimson teeth glinting. "Then silence me, if you can..."

Atlas felt the Demon God’s Core pulse. The Guide whispered again.

[Demon god’s essence : resonating ]

[Demon god’s core : level 2 ]

He almost refused. But the memory of Heaven—the moment he’d torn out the hearts of gods—flared through him like déjà vu.

{{{{It seems you’re not ready, change with me!!}}}}

’okay, but I will have it back, right after I solve this Wisdom’s Delima shit ’

The world blurred. His consciousness slipped backward into the vessel of his body. Something older stepped forward.

{{{{{....of course}}}}

The Guide opened his eyes through Atlas. And the voice that spoke was not merely sound—it was origin.

{{{Unmake.}}}

Every atom around him obeyed.

Space folded, time convulsed. The battlefield dissolved into threads of luminous geometry. The word crawled through dimensions like a living command, devouring contradiction.

For an instant, even Asmodeus flinched.

But he responded with equal ferocity: {{Endure.}}

The two commands collided. A silence followed—not absence of sound, but the death of possibility. Soldiers froze mid-motion, their bodies half-erased, half-solid. The sky turned into a mirror, reflecting nothing but their duel.

Atlas—no, the Guide within—felt the pressure crush the vessel. The human body screamed in every cell. Too much... too much weight for mortal form.

He forced himself back into control. Breath returned, ragged. Blood trickled from his eyes.

"...You’ll kill the Layers themselves....," he rasped.

Asmodeus spread his arms. "Then let them die! Let the cosmos taste freedom once more."

Lightning tore through the air between them, but it was not lightning—it was the syntax of existence splitting apart.

Atlas raised his hand, fingers trembling. "You speak like a god who envies mortals."

"And you," Asmodeus answered, "like a mortal pretending to be god."

"Great thing I didn’t pick you for my apstole...." He whispered

Their gazes locked. Between them, the war fell silent, every soldier instinctively bowing to forces older than allegiance.

Atlas inhaled, steadying. He wants me angry. He wants the Core unleashed.

He whispered a quieter word this time—almost tender. {Remember.}

Light blossomed from his chest. It wasn’t attack or defense; it was recollection made manifest. The souls of the Fallen, the first angels, the old songs of Heaven—echoes of everything he’d fought to protect—flared into being around him.

Each shimmered like a petal of divine fire.

Asmodeus’s snarl wavered. For the first time, he looked unsure.

"This... sentiment," he said, disgusted, "it weakens you."

"It sustains me," Atlas replied. "Power without memory is rot."

He spread his wings—half divine, half demonic—and for a heartbeat the battlefield saw the impossible: unity embodied.

Then both kings moved again.

Their words overlapped now, untranslatable. Every syllable spawned galaxies of sound. The world beneath them cracked open, revealing glimpses of the Fourth Layer’s abyssal light.

The Elder, watching from afar, wept shadows. "They’re tearing through the boundaries... they’ll reach the Root if this continues."

He began chanting seals, but the air ignored him. The duel had ascended beyond law.

Atlas’s body burned from within. The Core pulsed faster, merging with the echoes of Yggdrasil and Jörmungandr still dormant inside. The three essences harmonized in agony.

He tasted the edge of oblivion—and smiled. So this is what it means to be divine and damned in the same breath.

Asmodeus lunged, spear of fused light and bone aimed for Atlas’s heart.

Atlas caught it with bare hands. The impact ruptured the sky. Both combatants were hurled backward, trails of flame marking their paths.

Below, soldiers screamed prayers to names older than creation.

Atlas landed upon shattered stone, knees buckling. Every heartbeat felt like thunder caged within him. He looked at Asmodeus, who stood amid the ruin, still grinning.

"You cannot win..."