Chapter 313: Chapter 312: Destroyer.
The road to the cliff was rough stone, jagged and cruel, but the priests dragged Atlas along it as if the rock itself were meant to scour his body into submission.
Chains bit into his wrists, heavy iron etched with symbols old as the Fall itself. Yet one of the priests, sharp-eyed and wearied by countless rituals, noticed what should not have been possible: a fracture in the links, a hairline crack as though the metal had been gnawed from within. His lips parted.
His breath hitched. But in the next heartbeat he hissed the doubt away, drowning it beneath the rising tide of incantation, voice blending with the others until the cliffside trembled with their chant.
"Purification."
"Purification."
"Purification."
The word was not merely spoken—it was devoured, chewed by a hundred throats and spat into the world like smoke. It was a rhythm, a hammer beating iron into doctrine. The air thickened with it, vibrating in the chest, filling lungs until even silence seemed an offense.
Half of them clutched their holy texts—thick volumes bound in ash-colored leather, pages whispering when the wind dared turn them. Yet not all lips moved. Some priests kept their silence, eyes darting to the broken chain, to Atlas himself, their knuckles whitening around the weight of scripture.
For silence in such a ritual was louder than blasphemy.
In the past,
Samiel the Second, robed in crimson edged with soot, raised his voice above the storm. His wings unfurled—feathers black as the void between stars—catching the firelight that guttered along the cliffside torches.
"Brothers! Sisters! Do you not see? The prophet has come among us!"
His declaration cracked the chant, split it open like an egg dropped upon stone. Some stared at him in horror, others with trembling awe. Samiel’s eyes gleamed, mad and unyielding, the certainty of a man who had fed on visions until hunger became faith.
"The new age is upon us," he thundered. "Blessed be this night, blessed be his pain, for the world turns again!"
But prophets, like seasons, are never embraced by all. Doubt is an old language, older than prayer. Murmurs spread like frost across the gathered flock. "Heretic." "Blinded." "False flame." They spat these words at him, yet Samiel did not kneel, did not silence himself. Instead, he offered them something ancient, something terrible.
Purification.
It had been reserved for criminals—those forgiven only by fire. A mercy cloaked in cruelty: the holy blaze that scoured flesh, that marked a soul either redeemed or utterly destroyed. Some demons deserved it. Some half-breeds, born of sin and shadow, bore it as their only passage toward absolution.
Samiel’s logic was simple as it was merciless. If Atlas was indeed chosen, the fire would prove it.
The Fallens, however, despised Hell even as they dwelled within its marrow. They clothed themselves in denial, praying for light while living in shadow, building sanctuaries on bones and ashes. Most of demonkind hated them for it—their hypocrisy, their stolen air. Yet tonight, it was the Fallens who held the fire, and Atlas who bore the chains.
The echo rose again, low and thunderous. And in the cacophony, Atlas lifted his head.
Aurora.
She stood bound beside him, halo pressed upon her brow, that cruel circle glowing faintly with runes that dug not into flesh but into soul. Her body shuddered against invisible threads that yanked her essence into silence.
Her hands had once commanded storms, her voice had once summoned beings of nightmare bound by pacts older than empires. But the moment the halo touched her, all was stripped away. Her magic was no longer hers.
She was a vessel emptied, a harp without strings.
A hundred years she had fought to keep her dream alive—the dream of becoming sage, of wielding wisdom instead of power, of guiding instead of destroying. Now, shackled and muted, despair pressed against her ribs until breathing felt like betrayal.
Perhaps, she thought, her time had come. Perhaps a century was enough. Perhaps endings, too, were a kind of grace.
But then she saw him.
Atlas.
His golden eyes glimmered through firelight and shadow, unblinking, unbroken. There was no fear there, no regret. Only defiance so vast it seemed to swallow despair itself. His gaze caught hers, and something unspoken leapt between them—a thread neither chain nor halo could sever.
Not over. His eyes said. Never over.
Her lips trembled. The name fell from her, silent at first, then barely a whisper.
"...Atlas..."
They dragged him beside her, iron clanging against stone. Priests prepared the goblin, whimpering and thrashing, for the flame. But Atlas’s voice split the night like lightning.
"Start with me!"
The words were thunder, shocking both priest and prisoner.
Aurora’s whisper grew hoarse, trembling with the last remnants of strength she owned. "...Atlas..."
The priests faltered, wings rustling like restless crows. Uncertainty writhed among them, each glance cutting to another, searching for the courage to believe or the authority to deny.
"Silence!" Samiel’s command crashed over them, silencing the whisper-storm. His voice burned with fervor as he lifted the chalice of white fire, flame alive with divine hunger.
"You doubt still?" His words rang like a blade drawn from its sheath. "Look! Behold the heart of the prophet! He takes pain upon himself, refusing to cast it outward. He does not curse, he does not strike—he endures. This is no demon. This is salvation!"
His eyes gleamed with forbidden triumph. For in raising the chalice, in lifting fire without sanction, Samiel broke the oldest law of their order. But laws crumble before vision.
"You will see," he hissed, as though to the abyss itself.
The chalice tilted.
White fire spilled across Atlas’s feet.
"Atlas!!" Aurora screamed.
Chains rattled as she strained, voice raw, soul tearing itself against the halo’s grip.
Atlas turned to her, calm amid the conflagration. His lips curved—not in mockery, not in pride, but in a strange, unyielding tenderness.
"...It’s okay," he said softly, as if the words were for her ears alone. "Everything’s gonna be all right."
The fire licked him, caressed him like a serpent of light. He had felt it before—dozens of times, each flame a trial, each trial a torment that should have hollowed him. Yet this time...
This time it was nothing.
No, less than nothing. It was warmth, almost gentle, like the heat of a hearth he had never known as a child.
[Holy body is highly resistant to holy fire. The host will not be critically damaged.]
The flame climbed. First his ankles, then his calves, then higher still. Cloth curled into ash, skin gleamed with sweat that would not scald. He did not writhe. He did not beg. He did not move at all.
Priests murmured, disbelief cracking through their chant.
"does he not even feel pain?" one whispered.
"He does not move..." another stammered.
"Shhh," came Samiel’s voice, breath tight with awe. "He is not even burning..."
The wood beneath him shrieked as it blackened. Chains softened, dripping molten like blood from wounded iron. Sparks leapt upward, feeding flame with life. And yet Atlas hung untouched, a statue carved of defiance, breathing in the fire as if it were nothing more than air.
His chest rose. Fell.
Inhaled flame. Exhaled silence.
Then he rose.
Naked now, stripped bare of garments, of chains, of any mask left to wear. Fire clothed him in brilliance, an aura of defiance, until even the torches seemed to bow their light before him.
Priests staggered backward, wings trembling, mouths open in soundless revelation.
Aurora fell silent, awe robbing her of breath, despair scattered like ash.
Atlas ascended, fire curling around him, feeding, then failing, then finally surrendering. His golden eyes ignited with a light no mortal, no demon, no angel had ever borne.
One priest’s voice cracked the silence.
"Samiel ... Samiel was right!"
Another, half-sobbing: "He is our savior..."
Atlas looked down upon them all. His gaze was not mercy. Not deliverance. It was a judgment carved from centuries of war, from blood, from betrayal.
His voice fell like a sentence.
"I am not your savior," he declared, each word a thunderclap that silenced hope itself. "I am your destroyer."