Tower of Heaven

For the next several days, Atlas explored the Mystic Realm on his own. He was waiting for some sort of sign that the Death Relic was going to appear, and when a sign didn't appear, he went looking for it himself.

As he did so, all around the Mystic Realm, seven other coins were found by their rightful owners.

Among those who were dropped on the cliff when the cliff's end manor disappeared was a certain group of six. They'd chased Atlas up the cliff and were looking through the manor, searching for him, when it disappeared entirely.

From there, Atlas left with Bernan so it was only natural that they wouldn't be able to find him. They, who lost their goal, had to find something else to do.

"I'm sure we'll run into him again if it's fated," Jason said.

He was only assuring the others, but he had several plans running through his mind. To others, he was a bit goofy and clumsy, but the inside of his head was completely different from his external image.

Nadia was the only one who knew the truth of it. She was the only one to whom he confided his plans.

It was safe to say that he wanted to use Atlas to find sanctuary. He didn't care where the sanctuary came from as long as it would protect his mistress.

Atlas promised him something along those lines. He felt inclined to believe him, and frankly, compared to anything else they'd found in these months and years, he was the most promising option.

He didn't want to keep taking risks. To keep his mistress out of harm's way, he decided to take a greater risk than any other in the hopes that it would keep all other risks at bay.

However, in order to do that, he first needed to find Atlas again.

"Let's not actively pursue him. He was clearly not a welcoming person, but it looked like he respects strength. As long as we can prove ourselves a little more, we will be able to gain his interest."

He looked particularly at Nadia. Her barrier talent shined more than all of the rest of them combined. It was clear that Atlas also valued it. Perhaps it was the key to their entrance into a Society that would protect them.

As he pondered these things on his own, he led the group away from the manor so they could look for more treasure. Unlike Atlas or Bernan, they didn't come to this realm with a purpose. They only wanted treasure.

And treasure they received. They didn't know it at the time, but Jason was a person with quite a bit of luck. It seemed like even just walking allowed them to stumble upon the various opportunities hidden in this realm before anyone else did.

Even when they needed to fight, unless they faced an unreasonably strong opponent, they were able to walk away with the treasure at least seventy percent of the time.

It was as they were running around finding as much treasure as possible that it happened.

Jason tripped. It was especially embarrassing for a cultivator to lose their balance to an object on the ground, but it happened to him. He caught himself and scratched his head in shame, looking back curiously at what could have possibly caught his foot.

There, hidden in the dirt, he saw the shine of an old coin. He picked it up with a strange expression on his face.

"This is what tripped me?"

He found it hard to imagine, but there really was nothing in the dirt but the coin. The only other answer was that Jason tripped on the air, but he was certain that he felt something catch his foot.

"What are you looking at?"

"Jason, did you just trip? There's no way right?"

"Hahaha, for an ordinary cultivator, it might be weird, but I feel like I should expect it from Jason."

As the other group members laughed about the situation, Nadia approached and curiously looked at the coin.

"Can I see it?"

Jason nodded and handed it over. The moment both of their fingers made contact with the coin…

Rumble!

Thunderclouds suddenly gathered above them. Before they could react–

CRACKLE!

A huge bolt of black lightning slammed down from the Heavens and struck the old coin. Its charge swelled through Jason and Nadia, making them both release their grips.

Only, Nadia's reaction time was a bit faster. Her connection with the coin was severed first, so when its energy ran wild and consumed the last person it recognized, Jason was the one who got swallowed.

"JASON!"

His body was sucked into a black portal that seemingly shattered through the atmosphere. Nadia screamed his name, attempting to chase after him, but it was too late.

Jason was gone, and the portal closed as if it never existed in the first place.

The five of them were left with the same question in their minds.

"What…just happened?!"

***

'I expected there to be some sort of sign, but that was a bit extreme…'

Somewhere else, Atlas, who experienced the very same phenomenon, found himself taken by a very similar black portal. Really, the only difference was that he knew what was happening to him.

He had been transported to a space that wasn't nearly as black as the rest of the realm that he had seen thus far.

'Hmm…'

He glanced at the bustling city around him with furrowed brows.

'The rest of the realm is simple. Even its color was stolen and its beasts and manifestations were left barely supported by the realm itself, which made it simple for Bernan to tear them apart when he wanted to.'

Originally, the size of the Mystic Realm told him that the artifact was much more powerful than he expected. The beasts and the death energy mechanism he encountered were interesting, as were the chimera and the manor, but only now did Atlas realize that even they were meant to be much more than what they actually were.

Their power was stripped from them. The Death Relic did not care about the ecosystem of artifacts below it. It only wanted its own satisfaction.

Sensing that this Mystic Realm was going to open, it took all of the power it could possibly find inside the realm of death.

'All of that so that a space like this can be maintained.'Nôv(el)B\\jnn

What Atlas saw was a city so perfectly detailed that he thought it was a natural part of the Tower. The people who walked around him with their shoulders bumping against his felt like real people, to the point where Atlas almost believed the Tower designated Replicas to this realm.

'There should only be a few people here, because this is the stage where we fight to earn the Death Relic and break the Mystic Realm.'

Atlas didn't need a holographic window to tell him what to do here. It was as if the city itself was whispering to him.

"Find my truth."

A truth hidden in this city, a bustling place that hid a deep web of corruption.

Whoever found it first would be the final victor.