CHAPTER 386: CHAPTER 375: MY WORLD?

For a long while, there was only silence.

No thunder, no screaming void. Just... air.

Atlas blinked against the brightness, eyes adjusting. The dark gate behind them had sealed itself into a single thin line of shadow, humming faintly, as if alive. And before them

a desert.

Golden sand stretched to every horizon, rippling like liquid glass. Above, a pale blue sky burned with light—too clean, too soft, too familiar.

He inhaled. The air carried warmth, dryness, and the faint scent of dust and iron. For the first time since entering Hell, it felt real—like the mortal world. His world.

Lara turned slowly, her hair catching sunlight. "It’s... beautiful," she whispered, disbelief and unease tangled in her voice.

Aurora shaded her eyes, scanning the shimmering expanse. "The mana here is stable," she murmured. "Almost... peaceful."

Even Michael, standing tall beside them, frowned slightly. "Hmmm..

Peace does not belong here."

Atlas said nothing. He only looked up—at that impossible sky—and felt something fracture in him. It was too close to what he remembered of home. The Earth he had lost.

A breeze crossed the dunes, stirring faint ripples. It whispered of heat, dryness, distance. Every sound felt suspended in a hush that wasn’t natural—it was expectant.

Behind them, the black Gate loomed like a scar cut through the sky, its edge pulsing with violet veins. He could still feel it calling, low and mournful. The sound of those who didn’t make it through.

He turned away.

Gabriel. Uriel. Everyone...

So were the Demon Kings. Only Raphael and Michael had followed through, along with Lara, Aurora, Merlin, Eli, and Claire—the core of what was left.

"Not all made it," Aurora said quietly, voice breaking.

"No," Atlas replied. His tone was low, steady, but his jaw trembled once. "Not all."

A pause stretched between them.

The sun hung motionless overhead—no movement, no shadow lengthening. Time itself felt arrested.

Eli crouched, running his hand through the sand. "It’s warm," he said. "But not burning."

Claire knelt beside him, tasting the air. "This is... breathable. Like home. Like the surface."

Aurora nodded. "That’s because it is. This isn’t the Hell I knew. Even in the Third Layer, the air was alive with malice. Here... it’s empty."

Merlin chuckled faintly, eyes reflecting the dunes. "Then perhaps we stand in the calm eye of the storm. The heart that forgot its own rage."

The words lingered.

Atlas walked a few steps away, boots crunching softly in the fine sand. The grains were pale gold but shimmered faintly silver under the light. He crouched, letting the sand run through his fingers.

It feels like the desert near the university, he thought, almost smiling. The one I used to cross every weekend back on Earth.

But the memory hurt. It burned like sunlight through glass.

Michael and Raphael approached, their shadows stretching behind them.

"My lord," Raphael said, bowing slightly. "Shall we wait here? Or go back through and assist those still trapped?"

Atlas hesitated. The instinct was to turn back—to help, to fight, to save. But the rational part of him knew: the Gate was not a door anymore. It was a wound. And wounds do not heal by reopening.

He closed his eyes and summoned his Faith System. Symbols and names shimmered faintly in his mind, threads of light connecting him to the believers who still lived.

Gabriel’s name burned there—dim, but alive.

Uriel’s, too.

He exhaled. "They’re not gone," he said quietly. "Their faith still links to me. If we go back in, that link will break. And we might never come out again."

Michael lowered his head. "Then we move forward."

"Forward," Atlas repeated.

There was weight to the word. It fell heavy in the air, like an oath.

The group began walking.

The heat pressed gently against their skin, bearable but constant. A mirage shimmered on the horizon, making the air ripple like glass over flame.

They didn’t talk much—just the sound of sand beneath boots, the occasional creak of armor.

After a while, Claire broke the silence. "Atlas," she said, voice low but sharp. "Lilith. Is she really—"

She didn’t finish. But everyone stopped.

Even the wind seemed to pause.

Raphael’s gaze turned solemn. "Forgive my boldness, oh Prophet," he said, bowing slightly. "But we deserve to know. Was she truly your mother? One of the Three Empresses?"

Atlas froze. He could feel every gaze turn toward him—their curiosity, fear, hope.

He wanted to lie. To say no.

But the truth pulsed behind his ribs like a curse.

"I don’t know," he said finally. The words came out brittle. "My memories... they’re incomplete. What she showed me—what she said—it’s all fragments." He lied..

Raphael’s expression flickered, disappointment softening into something like pity. His faith wavered—Atlas felt it through the bond, a quiet crumbling deep inside.

Atlas looked away. "Believe what you must," he said.

The silence afterward was raw.

Then Aurora spoke, her tone sharper. "So she’s really your mother....damn, I really didn’t know when she was with Henry ."

Atlas’s head snapped toward her. "You tell me...why did an empress with a status more than a god came to mortal realm..."

"So now I understand, the reason behind your rapid growth," Aurora cut in. "You said she brought you here....I don’t know what that means....but, she has the power across worlds....mortal realm and hell."

Claire stepped closer, eyes wide, desperate. "Then why? Why would she leave you, only to give birth to her heir? To make me your guardian? What was she planning, Atlas?"

He turned away, hand gripping his axe until the veins stood white.

"I don’t know, I don’t fucking know," he said again, quieter this time. "And right now, it doesn’t matter."

"It does matter," Claire shot back. "Because if she wanted you alive, it means she’s not done with you. With us."

Lara stepped forward, touching Claire’s arm. "Enough."

But Claire’s eyes flashed. "No, he needs to—"

Atlas’s voice cut through the heat like thunder. "Enough."

The sound silenced even the wind.

He looked at them all, exhaustion darkening his gaze. "We’ll discuss Lilith when we survive this layer. Not before. Right now, we need shelter, and we need to move."

He started walking again, shoulders rigid.

The others followed, the argument dissolving into the sand behind them.

Hours—or maybe moments—passed. The sun never shifted.

The desert was endless. But in the distance, a shadow began to take form—vertical lines breaking the horizon, glinting faintly under the light.

Buildings.

Tall, rectangular structures—too clean, too perfect for this place.

Michael landed nearby, his wings scattering sand like mist. "My lord," he said, voice grave. "There is a city beyond the dunes. Structures of glass and metal. Like nothing in I have really seen..."

Atlas froze.

Glass and metal.

The words struck deep. His breath caught.

He knew those shapes.

The straight edges. The mirrored surfaces. The impossible shimmer of windows reflecting the same unmoving sun.

"Show me," he said.

They climbed the last ridge of sand, and there it was.

A city—half-buried in dunes, silent and motionless. Towers of steel and glass jutted toward the blue sky like broken fingers. Sky scrapers. The windows were opaque, some shattered, some whole.

No smoke. No people.

Just stillness.

Atlas’s stomach turned. His heart thudded once, painfully.

Lara stepped beside him. "Atlas... do you recognize this?"

He didn’t answer. He was already walking downhill, eyes locked on a particular structure—a skyscraper half-sunken into the sand, its top sheared clean off.

Each step stirred old ghosts.

The city looked exactly like the one he’d known before he died. The same skyline. The same tower shapes. The same silent, buried streets.

It couldn’t be.

But it was.

He stopped at the edge of what had once been a road. Black asphalt peeked through the dunes, cracked and brittle. A streetlight leaned at an angle, its bulb shattered.

Atlas whispered, "This... this looks like Earth."

Merlin’s voice came soft, reverent. "Then perhaps the Fourth Layer is not hell at all. Perhaps it’s the memory of one...."

Atlas crouched, running his fingers over a faded sign half-buried in sand. The letters were worn, but he could still read them.

Metropolitan Complex – Sector 9.

His pulse spiked.

That was where he’d lived.

For a long moment, he couldn’t breathe. The weight of it—this mockery, this resurrection of a world that should have been unreachable—crushed the air from his chest.

Lara touched his shoulder. "Atlas," she whispered.

He swallowed hard. "This is where I died."

The words landed heavy, final, to himself.

Aurora looked around, disbelief rippling through her. "This....this architect, so foreign, like its made by...."

Michael frowned. "By who?"

Atlas looked up toward the sky. The air shimmered faintly, as if under invisible heat. "By her."

"Lilith?" Raphael asked.

He nodded once.

"She’s not testing us anymore," he said. "She’s showing me what she can do."

The group spread out, cautiously moving through the empty streets. The sand muffled their steps; each sound seemed swallowed instantly by the heat.

Inside one of the shattered towers, Atlas brushed his hand along the glass. It was warm, humming faintly with residual mana. His reflection looked wrong—older, harder, almost... divided.

"This building shouldn’t exist," Atlas voiced. "If the Fourth Layer merged with another dimension, then this city was taken from my world.

A piece of Earth, trapped in Hell."