Chapter 316: Chapter 315: A meeting with Fate
The night stretched taut, a black canvas ripped by fury and light. Atlas and Ureil spun above the jagged peaks, their bodies carving arcs through clouds and shadow, leaving trails of energy that hissed and crackled in the cold, thin air.
Each strike that landed echoed like mountains splitting, and each block resounded with a metallic, celestial clang that rattled the bones of the world below.
Torches on the cliffside twinkled like fireflies, tiny and fragile, dwarfed by the storm they could barely comprehend.
Atlas felt it first in his chest, then radiating outward, a subtle shift beneath the pounding rhythm of combat.
Ureil’s punches—the blows that had before hammered him into near oblivion—now landed with restraint.
She moved with the same lethal grace, eyes sharp and calculating, but the weight of her strikes no longer sought to harm him.
Each punch was deliberate, almost delicate, a hand holding a knife at a whisper’s distance rather than a hammer crashing down.
His golden eyes narrowed, molten fire chasing along the contours of his iris. Rage, so long his fuel, faltered. Something was different.
Something had changed. His breath slowed—not entirely, still ragged from the intensity, still tasting of ozone and ash—but enough for thought to creep between the beats of fury.
’She’s not the same’, he realized, mid-flight, ’not the berserker who matched me blow for blow. She is playing... waiting.’
The sensation was disorienting, a subtle dissonance in the symphony of battle.
And yet, Ureil’s restraint began to pierce it, to prod at the corner of his awareness.
’She’s trying to speak through the blows,’ he thought.
’She’s reaching me.’
The strike patterns shifted again. He moved at impossible speed, a blur of fists and golden aura, a comet streaking against the night.
Yet with every swing, every kick, every arc of his devastating momentum, Ureil predicted. She anticipated each motion, adjusting angles with uncanny precision.
It was no longer sheer power—it was a dialogue, a conversation of fists, feathers, and light.
Atlas’s teeth ground. ’How?’ The question was not curiosity; it was the tremor of a predator realizing the prey had evolved.
There was calculation behind her grace now, subtlety woven with lethality. Her wings, four dark spans fanning the storm, shimmered with bruised silver where residual holy fire had kissed them, yet she radiated control.
She could see him coming before he moved—not in reflex, not in instinct—but in understanding.
The first pause came with a brush of air, a micro-gestural halt mid-swipe. Atlas’s fists slowed, golden aura dimming fractionally, heartbeat echoing in his ears.
They touched down simultaneously, clouds beneath them curling and shivering under the impact, lightning crackling as if the heavens themselves braced for the conversation yet to come.
Taking another punch, he knew it, the GUIDE inside him knew it.
{{{{{{Atlas, that ain’t a fallen...}}}}}}}}
’i already know. Shut up!’
"Who... who are you?" Atlas finally asked, voice ragged, raw as molten rock breaking surface.
Ureil tilted her head, a faint, enigmatic smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Dark feathers shivered with anticipation.
"The one, the voice inside you is warning about... ," she breathed, voice low, resonant, carrying both power and patience.
Each word seemed to ripple through the night, bending the very air around them.
’Fate,’ he voiced internally, letting the concept scrape against the walls of his mind. The word tasted strange, metallic, as if layered with warning and inevitability.
’she can possess other beings...?’
Atlas blinked, golden light flickering in the eyes, struggling to comprehend.
The system whispered faintly in the back of his consciousness, mechanical and urgent:
{{{{{{Run. Now. She will erase you, not kill you, but erase you.
You used my power too much..... Retreat.}}}}}}
He ignored it.
He lunged again, speed now approaching impossible, his golden aura streaking behind him like twin suns.
Every punch, every kick, a blade of judgment flung toward inevitability. And yet, she met him, always anticipating.
Always deflecting. The impact was a dialogue rather than destruction—she made space for his words, for his violence, but never let it land fully.
"Too much noise," she said calmly, voice slicing through his aura like a chisel through stone. "I don’t want the Guide interfering."
The word Guide echoed in his head, the familiar voice of his system, cautioning, pleading.
But Ureil’s speed left no room for hesitation. Her palm pressed against his skull—not a strike, not a blow, but a subtle, invasive assertion of force. The world exploded into white.
White. Pure. Unrelenting.
He could feel it enter him, wrap around his mind, press into his consciousness, yet it did not destroy—it revealed. Memories unclaimed, patterns he had ignored, probabilities unconsidered. He was at the precipice of comprehension. ’This is not just combat,’ he realized. ’She is showing me the lattice beneath the storm, the veins beneath my rage.’
Atlas struggled against it, thrashing against the invisible constraint of understanding, mind screaming against the weight of perception. Golden aura flared, warning, flaring like molten lava spilling from a crater, yet the white held. For the first time, he felt the world bending not just to his fists, not to his fury, but to the presence of something older, wiser, and inexorably patient.
He spat air through clenched teeth, voice a growl of fury and awe. "You... you’re not mortal either."
"No," Ureil whispered. Her four wings shivered, silver tips catching sparks of lightning. "I am not. And you, Prophet, are not merely chosen. You are... necessary. A tool. But tools can fail. Tools must be guided."
Atlas laughed, bitter, jagged, molten. "Guided? I have walked through fire you cannot imagine. I have endured pain, betrayal, loss. I have seen Aurora burned, and I have risen. And you call me a tool?"
"Yes," she said simply. "Because even storms need direction. Even rage must be channeled. Even wrath must be... restrained."
The words struck him differently than any blow. They didn’t bruise the flesh—they bruised certainty, the core of his identity. Rage surged, warred against reason, clawing at the edges of comprehension. And yet, for the first time, he realized he was... *not alone.*
He lunged, fists blazing, intent to break the enigma before him. The air quaked with his motion, sonic waves fracturing cloud and night alike. And she met him, again, again, and again. Each strike pre-empted, each dodge seamless. It was no longer combat. It was education. It was revelation. And somewhere beneath the flares of fury, he understood: she could see him before he acted, *not because she was fast,* but because she was fate.
A memory flickered: Aurora, screaming in flames, his fists useless, his powers insufficient. Every time he had failed her, the world had mocked him. But now, Ureil’s presence reframed the fight. This was no longer destruction for destruction’s sake; it was revelation through chaos.
"Stop," she said finally, her voice steady as stars, cutting through his aura like a sword. "Too much noise here. Let us be alone... for a while."
Atlas froze mid-strike. Her words were calm, imperious, and utterly certain. She extended her palm once more, and white washed over him again, consuming, blinding, yet not cruel. Not violent. For a moment, time itself seemed suspended. The storm, the fury, the golden fire—all faded into silence, replaced by white.
In that white, Atlas felt the universe in a single heartbeat: the balance of stars, the weight of fate, the endless spiral of choice and consequence.
His golden aura dimmed, his chest heaving as he hovered, suspended between fury and comprehension.
Ureil’s wings trembled gently behind him, catching the final sparks of lightning, the last whispers of wind.
"You are not alone," she whispered, voice carrying through the whiteness. "But you cannot act without understanding. Without patience, your rage will destroy all you hold dear... including her."
He tasted the memory of Aurora, the acrid smoke of her pain, and he realized, with bone-deep clarity, that this was why Ureil had held back before.
Every strike had been calibrated to reach him, not to destroy him, not to land, not to end—only to allow the words to pierce through the golden armor of wrath.
He exhaled, golden light flickering weakly, a tremor of vulnerability exposed beneath centuries of learned control.
Rage did not leave, but it folded, recoiling against understanding. He could still be storm, still be fury—but now, for the first time, he recognized the anchor amidst the tempest.
"So You are.... fate," he murmured finally, voice hoarse. "The one the Guide warned me about.
She smiled. Not mockery, not challenge, but understanding. "Perhaps," she said, "this is but a part of me ... possessing this poor angel."