CHAPTER 374: CHAPTER 363: FATHER I UNDERSTAND

Atlas felt his essence stretching across a veil thinner than breath, until the pulse of another life became his own.

The sensation was not foreign—it was familiar, hauntingly so. The mana flowing through this new vessel matched the rhythm of his own being.

Each strand of energy thrummed with resonance, not borrowed or stolen, but born of him.

He blinked, and the world reassembled itself in slow motion: the snow of the Second Layer still fell, soft and soundless, swallowing the battlefield’s screams beneath its heavy hush. His paws—small, delicate things—pressed into the frost, leaving perfect impressions that steamed faintly as mana seeped from his body into the frozen earth.

He should not have been able to do this. Possession through his [POV Shift] skill was a mental bridge, not incarnation.

His consciousness could move, observe, but never become. Yet here he was—alive through the eyes of the Seed.

Aurora’s words returned to him like a ghost’s whisper. "When life force reaches abundance, it leaks... and gives birth to strange things. Fragments that dream. Echoes that grow. They become... unpredictable."

He had thought she spoke of danger. But perhaps she had been warning him of himself.

The air shimmered, heat and cold colliding. Across the blood-soaked snow stood his companions—Lara, Eli, Claire, and Merlin. Their faces flickered between disbelief and relief.

The cat, fur bristling, turned its golden gaze upon them, and Atlas’s voice—his true voice—rolled from its throat, low and certain.

"Lara."

Her name alone froze the wind. She stumbled forward, eyes wet, lips trembling between prayer and curse. "...Atlas?!"

Eli’s sword lowered, disbelief cracking across his features. Merlin’s one good eye widened, a spark of exhausted laughter rising before it fell into awe.

Only Claire seemed to understand the weight of it, her succubus wings folding inward, trembling at the divine pressure leaking from the small, furred form.

But one being did not move.

Michael.

The archangel’s wings, vast as heaven’s memory, folded inward. His gaze burned—not with hatred, but recognition.

Slowly, impossibly, his divine form shrank, collapsing into a more human shape. Snow hissed where his feet touched. His eyes—blue like the dawn before the first war—narrowed.

"What ...are you?" he asked. The question was not accusation—it was almost reverence, tinged with dread.

Atlas turned his feline head toward a small movement among the fallen ranks. A priest—one of the half-broken remnants of the Fallens—held a book close to his chest. Its cover shimmered faintly under the dim light of heaven’s ruin. The ’Book of Acclaim.’

His book.

Atlas’s gaze softened. It was strange to see the relic of his own faith reached second layer of hell, as though the truths he had written had drifted free of sides, finding those who still dared to believe.

"Read it," Atlas said softly through the cat’s voice. "Read the words of the new covenant. Understand what this world has become... first angel."

The priest hesitated, trembling, but Michael extended a hand. The book flew from the priest’s grip, guided by divine command, and landed in Michael’s palm.

The holy fire around the angel dimmed to a quiet glow as he opened the tome.

For a long time, there was only the whisper of pages turning.

Each word sank into him. Each verse of the new faith—the unification of light and shadow, of heaven and hell, of fallen and divine—unwound the chains that had bound his purpose for millennia.

His lips moved, soundless, as if he was reading his own salvation written by another’s hand.

Then, the sword of fire slipped from his grasp. It struck the snow with a hiss, extinguishing upon impact.

The silence that followed was not absence. It was sacred.

Michael’s shoulders trembled. A single tear, bright as liquid sunlight, slipped from his eye and vanished against the frost. Then another. And another.

He sank to his knees. The earth seemed to bow with him.

"This... this is why," he whispered. "This is why the flame did not burn you. Why heaven’s fire turned aside. You..." He lifted his gaze to the cat—the creature impossibly small, impossibly holy. "You are the one the scripture spoke of. The Prophet reborn. The bridge."

The word Prophet echoed through the field, carried by winds that remembered older wars. Even the fallens paused. The snow ceased falling for a heartbeat, as if time itself waited for Atlas’s next breath.

Within him, Atlas felt the truth crystallize. This body was no accident. The Seed had not merely survived—it had been born for this moment, this convergence of faiths and destinies.

Michael bowed lower. The first of Heaven’s generals, the blade of God, bent before a cat in the snow.

Atlas’s heart clenched. He was not used to reverence. It felt heavier than hatred.

He thought of Lara, watching him with wide, aching eyes. Of Eli, whose loyalty burned brighter than his blade. Of Claire, who bore the curse of his mother’s blood but refused to yield.

He thought of the countless souls—fallen, human, divine—caught in the endless loop of punishment and penance.

It was never about sides. Never about winning. It was about ending the silence.

Michael’s voice broke it first. "For eons, I have begged the Lord for a sign. For meaning in our exile. For forgiveness neither given nor denied. And now..." His trembling hand pressed to his chest. "Now He answers. Through you."

Atlas—, Prophet, whatever name the heavens chose—watched him quietly. Inside, he felt the strange pulse of two hearts beating as one: his and the Seed’s. One human, one divine.

"Yes," he said finally, the word carrying the weight of mountains. "It’s time."

Michael’s gaze lifted. In his eyes burned not holy wrath—but something new. Hope.

"You will lead us?"

Atlas nodded slowly. "But I cannot do it alone. I need the first son of God. I need you, Michael. Not as my witness, but as my sword."

Michael’s hands shook as they reached toward the hilt of his fallen sword. The flame reignited—not in wrath, but in worship. The fire’s hue had changed; it burned not white but gold, gentled by faith instead of fury.

The angel bowed, pressing his forehead to the pommel. "Then in your name," he whispered, "I take up the sword once more—not in judgment, but in service."

As he rose, light poured from his back, illuminating the battlefield in dawn’s pale hue. The fallen lifted their heads. Some wept. Others reached toward the sky, wings twitching as if remembering how to fly.

The holy fire flowed through them—not burning, but cleansing. Their blackened feathers shimmered faintly, streaks of white bleeding through shadow. It was not full redemption, but it was beginning.

Lara stepped forward, her boots crunching softly in the snow. "Atlas... what are you doing?" Her voice was soft, frightened, filled with wonder.

He turned the cat’s gaze toward her. Through the Seed’s small body, his words carried an impossible tenderness. "Giving them back what was stolen. Giving us all a chance."

Eli wiped blood from his jaw, a disbelieving smile breaking through. "You’re insane, always has been.."

"...Probably," Atlas replied, tail flicking. "But maybe madness is what gods left us to work with."

Merlin chuckled weakly, clutching his bleeding side. "Spoken like a prophet indeed."

Claire said nothing. Her violet eyes glowed faintly, reflecting the gold light that now poured from Michael’s wings. For the first time since her curse awakened, she felt no burning under her skin. The holy light did not hurt her. It embraced her.

Michael looked upon her and nodded. "Even the blood of Lilith is not beyond His reach."

Claire flinched, but Atlas’s voice—soft, certain—cut through her doubt. "You are proof of it."

She met his gaze and whispered, "I missed you, you freaking twat...."

Atlas almost laughed. Almost. But something in his chest hurt too much.

Michael turned toward the fallen ranks, his voice ringing like a bell across the frozen plain. "Hear me, all of you who bear wings blackened by despair! The Lord has not forsaken you. The silence is broken. The Prophet walks among us once more!"

The cry was taken up, first by one, then by many. The fallens fell to their knees, heads bowed, weeping.

Lara could not look away from the cat. From Atlas. Her brother. Her love. Her impossible miracle.

He looked back at her—and for an instant, through the cat’s eyes, she saw him as he had been: standing tall, scarred, laughing amid the chaos of battle. The man who had carried the weight of gods and devils on his back and still found room for love.

Aiden—Atlas—spoke softly, barely audible above the chant. "It’s only the beginning."

And yet, deep within him, another thought coiled. *Beginnings demand endings.*

He could feel something stirring in the heavens—a tremor, faint but growing. The calm before the true reckoning.

Michael sheathed his sword, now burning with gentled flame. He turned to Atlas and bowed once more. "Lead us, Prophet. Tell us where to begin."

Atlas looked skyward, the wind playing through his fur. "We begin with the end," he said. "The end of Hell’s laws and it’s mutiny."

The snow melted in a wide circle around him, revealing the dark soil beneath—the same soil that had once drunk the blood of angels. From that ground, faint shoots of light began to rise, tender and trembling.

Lara stared, whispering, "He’s changing the world..."

Eli answered, his voice hushed. "No. He’s rewriting it."

Merlin smiled through the blood on his lips. "The age of gods just took its next breath."

Above them, the broken sky shimmered with faint golden veins.

And through the cat’s body, Atlas felt the weight of countless eyes—divine and damned alike—turning toward him.

The new Prophet. The bridge between the forsaken and the divine.

He drew in a breath that was not entirely his own and whispered, so softly that only the snow heard:

"Father... I understand now."