Chapter 315: Chapter 314:Lady Fate
The night split open.
Atlas dragged Ureil with him into the sky, dark wings of flame scorching the dark clouds. The world below shrank, torches and priests reduced to insects crawling on stone.
Higher, higher still, until the air thinned and the cold clawed at flesh, but heat radiated from his body in waves, burning back the void.
Ureil clawed at his wrist, her silver eyes flashing as her wings thrashed against the storm he carried with him.
The strength in his grip was obscene, unbreakable; she could feel bone groan beneath his fingers. Yet she did not beg. Her gaze locked with his, calm even in pain.
"Prophet, huh. But you don’t want the title..." Her voice cracked, raw from the choke, but steadied on the second syllable. "But, mortal, You are proving them right...."
His golden eyes flared brighter, molten fury dripping from his voice.
"Right? They tried to burn her alive. Again. And again. And again..." His grip tightened, his breath hot with wrath. "There is no right....and you, four wing cunt, shield them."
The stars above flickered, as though afraid of his rage.
Ureil coughed, feathers smoldering where the white fire had kissed them, and spat blood into the wind, confused, what the man was on about. "I shield them... because someone must....now, I also understand, now I also have faith, you are chosen mortal, you are our stable ground."
Atlas’s laughter cracked like thunder, bitter and hollow. "Stable ground? I am not your balance. I am your storm, fallen cunt."
He hurled her back, releasing her throat. She spun through the air, wings flaring wide, arresting her fall. For a heartbeat she hovered across from him, bruised throat shimmering with faint healing light.
Then the heavens broke.
Atlas blurred forward, fist raised. The air itself howled as he struck.
Ureil crossed her four wings in front of her, catching the blow. The impact cracked like mountains splitting, a sonic boom rippling across the night, rattling the bones of priests still huddled below on the cliff.
Her arms trembled, muscles screaming as she deflected the strike, yet Atlas pressed on, his strength relentless, his golden aura battering against her like the wrath of a collapsing sun.
"You think," he hissed, leaning close, "that a shield can stop me?"
Her lips curled into a grimace, but not fear. Defiance. "No. But maybe a shield can slow you long enough... for you to listen."
Atlas roared, a sound that split clouds. "I am done listening! Zealots all of you fucking zealots."
His eyes blazed—white fire surged from them in twin beams.
Ureil twisted, wings snapping open, her body diving aside. The beams carved through the sky, slicing the upper reaches of storm clouds, igniting streaks of vapor into ghostly fire. Below, priests cowered as two great pillars of flame tore across the heavens like divine spears.
She darted forward, faster than most eyes could track, a streak of silver wings through the night. Her fist, wrapped in light, struck Atlas across the jaw. The blow cracked the air like a bell. His head whipped to the side, but his body barely shifted.
Slowly, he turned back toward her, lips curling into something cruel.
"You hit me once," he said softly, voice like a blade dragged across stone. "Now I’ll return it a thousandfold."
He was gone.
The world blurred. One instant he was before her, the next behind, then above. Each strike came faster than the last: a hammering storm of blows, fists, knees, wings, headbutts. She blocked with wings, parried with arms, twisted through the air with desperate precision. But he was too fast. Too strong. Every impact rang through her bones, rattled her chest, snapped sparks from her feathers.
"Oh prophet—" she gasped, catching his wrist mid-strike, golden aura burning into her skin. "You think the almighty one above all would want this?"
That name.
It froze him.
For a heartbeat, the golden inferno flickered, his fist trembling inches from her face.
God.
The one word that bound them all, and is trying to bind him. The one thread that still kept him from total ruin.
His hand shook. His chest heaved.
"Your precious god," he growled, voice breaking, "and your precious fucking faith...."
Ureil’s gaze softened, silver eyes wet with pain. "Faith is what binding us until now, and now our faith clings to you. Prophet."
Faith. That words hit him harder than any strike. His aura faltered, dimming for the span of a breath. Doubt slithered in, uninvited, whispering of truth. Faith, why? Even he denied it millions of time. This word clings to him, so much so his system adapted to it.
And in that hesitation—Ureil struck.
Her wings folded inward, glowing with searing brilliance, and she drove herself like a spear into his chest. The impact detonated across the sky, a burst of light that turned night into false dawn.
Atlas roared, body hurled backward, wings tearing trenches through the clouds. He crashed into the heavens themselves, lightning crackling as though the storm bent to his fury.
But he did not fall.
No. He rose.
Slowly, deliberately, golden light flaring once more. His chest bore a shallow dent where she had struck, skin bruised but already knitting with unnatural speed. His eyes burned hotter than ever.
[1000 faith points used]
The system whispered.
And Atlas laughed.
A low, dangerous sound.
"You can’t kill me," he said, voice trembling with both rage and something like joy. "Every wound you give me only makes me stronger. You strike once, I rise twice. You break me, I return unbroken."
Ureil hovered before him, chest heaving, feathers smoldering. "Then maybe I will not kill you," she whispered. "Maybe....
"I will save you."
For the first time, Atlas faltered. The word tasted foreign, poisonous. Reining confusion.
Save? Him? Why?
He snarled, aura bursting, drowning the stars in gold.
"You think I want saving?" His scream split the sky. "I want vengeance!"
And he dove.
The heavens shattered.
They collided again and again, blows raining like meteors, their struggle painting the night with fire and ash. Each strike tore at creation itself—clouds shredded, stars dimmed, the world below shook as though some forgotten god was stirring.
Priests on the cliff fell to their knees, sobbing prayers and curses alike. Aurora, freed but trembling, gazed skyward, her lips forming his name again and again, though the wind stole her voice.
"Atlas... Atlas..."
Above, the battle raged, neither side yielding. Ureil fought not to kill but to restrain, to remind him of the thread of humanity left in him. Atlas fought not against her, but against the universe itself, and she was simply in his way.
And still, somewhere within the fury, her words gnawed at him.
Aurora would not want this.
The whisper echoed, faint but unyielding.
And in that whisper, the battle’s fate began to turn. As fate herself watched.
[Fate is watching. ]