Tower of Heaven

'What happened?'

Atlas wasn't able to understand it on his own. Clearly, the artifact Horgen used did something to them, but what was the source of the darkness?

Atlas felt the sensation of spatial travel that he had felt many times before, but there was something much darker within. The veins on his neck bulged as he gritted his teeth, feeling a malevolent energy crawling through his systems.

There wasn't a single thing he could do about it.

Something within the blackness restricted the flow of his own qi. His dantian was locked away and unable to connect to the rest of his body.

Most importantly, this was the first time Atlas had felt it in this life.

The strength of an [Authority] bearing down on him.

'This is the force of a being greater than the Mortal Realm. It is something even I have only experienced once before…this is too dangerous.'

If he wasn't careful, he could lose his life.

'It is trying to take me somewhere. It might be better if I stop resisting.'

A sharp pain shot through his body. The energy of the blackness permeated his skin through his pores and invaded his bloodstream. It invaded his qi channels as if it was trying to take complete control over his body.

If Atlas could do anything about it, he would have. In fact, he tried everything he possibly could, but when he didn't have access to qi, most of his methods were taken away from him.

His skin was tainted black from the excess of energy within him. His body felt like it was about to burst, and it was around that same time when the fluctuations of spatial qi became stronger than ever before.

At the height of all of the pain and discomfort, Atlas' entire mind was forced to focus on something else. His head whipped back as a searing cold spread through his body. It originated from his core, in the middle of his chest, and spread to all corners of his body like a pulse of death.

Atlas couldn't tell where it came from, but if one could see within him, one could grasp what he didn't.

That energy tried to consume his soul.

It touched upon something it never should have seen.

Because in Atlas' soul was that "damn treasure" that he still didn't know the name of.

A stellar blue energy was released from his soul. It grabbed onto the foreign energy and devoured it completely. It did not care what happened to Atlas' body. That was his own problem to worry about.

However, anything that threatened his soul would not be allowed. It was an absolute immunity that Atlas did not know about until this very moment.

The darkness was shattered by the same force that devoured the foreign energy. It seemed the target of the entire phenomenon was the soul, so that damn treasure took care of the whole thing.

It felt like he had been struggling for ages, but it all played out within a few seconds. He was left feeling the aftereffects of the pain just as soon as it started, which was quite jarring.

His main feeling was confusion, but when his eyes were revealed to light again and he found himself above the clouds, his attitude completely changed.

Only then did he remember that he was not the only one targeted by the force.

He looked to his left and to his right, but there was nobody there. Only the three across the table remained.

[Please choose whether you will be transported to the 40th Floor Neutral Zone, [Minora], or to the 41st Floor.]

Atlas didn't register the message. His cold eyes were trained on Horgen and Horgen alone.

"What? How the hell…"

Horgen himself was simply confused by the fact that Atlas was still standing, but he didn't have the time to be so nonchalant.

Within the same instant, Atlas was in front of him.

Bang!

In the next moment, his head was against the ground.

"What did you do to them?"Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Atlas' question came out as a growl more than anything else.

That damn treasure saved his soul, not his body. The two of them had not returned, which meant their souls had been captured by that force.

He didn't know what it was, but he didn't need to. It was dark and malevolent and reeked of death. It was filled with the intent to kill and slaughter, to a level where anyone as weak as them could not stand against it.

That artifact was not something from the Mortal Realm.

Horus and Artemia were in danger.

Atlas' body reacted before he realized what he was doing. He allowed it to operate on autopilot because it was carrying out his will.

"Are you deaf?"

Bang!

"I asked you a question."

Horgen was a proud Cosmic Dragon. He wasn't going to stay still and allow Atlas to manhandle him. He brandished the burning hot flame qi in his system and used his great physical strength to struggle, but what he found was–

"–stop struggling. You're weak. You won't be able to escape me. Either answer me now or die here."

"I don't know how you managed to survive, but–!"

Bang!

Though his head was once again bashed against the glass-like floor, he kept talking.

"–it doesn't matter what you do to me! You think I'm afraid to tell you what happened to them? Even if you knew, you wouldn't be able to do anything about it."

Horgen grinned.

He felt a great humiliation when he thought of how he was being suppressed, but he forced himself to ignore it.

The person in front of him was merely one of Artemia's friends. He was not the main target.

His war was against the Azure Dragon Clan. Someone like this man who was so scared of the Tower that he had to wear a mask was the least of his concerns.

"That woman, Artemia Tatsuya…"

He spoke as he designated his next destination in the Tower System. His body was covered in a light that Atlas could not stop, one that pulled him away from this place.

"...I sent her straight to the depths of hell."

Atlas' eyes widened. His expression worsened into a snarl. He sent a great amount of qi into his arm and slammed it forward, aiming to crush Horgen's head into chunks of meat.

But, by the time his arm came down, his opponent was already gone.

And, the white light that covered his own body started working.

Under the astonished gazes of Tyrion and Drya, who had no idea what they'd just experienced, Atlas also disappeared.

But the expression on his face didn't change even after he found himself in Minora.

He had been climbing mindlessly. Because he killed Cain and got rid of Dusk's traces, he had been climbing mindlessly without thinking about anything else.

He had forgotten something. He wasn't the only person in this Tower. This world did not revolve around him. Even if he was moving relatively peacefully, chaos was always nearby.

He made a mistake by lowering his guard, and now…

'Now, Artemia and Horus are gone.'

They had been transported to a place that Horgen called "hell," with their life or death unknown.