NOVEL NEXT Chapter 327: Her Doubt.
Aurora left the chamber of molten light with her steps measured.
The others remained—Atlas brooding over his new scripture, Azazel still groveling like a zealot who found his sun.
The heavy doors sealed behind her with a groan of stone, and for the first time since Atlas had spoken those impossible words, Aurora allowed herself to breathe.
Her breath trembled. Not from fear—she had never feared men, prophets, or kings—but from recognition.
He is dangerous. He always has been. But this....this is something else.
The corridors of Hell's third layer curved like the bowels of a beast. Faint orange light leaked from veins in the rock, painting her silver hair in fire. She walked slowly, her boots striking stone in a steady rhythm, each step echoing her thoughts.
Atlas had stood before her with a calm that was not human. He had spoken way more than he could achieve—fallen and demon united, faith rewritten, allegiance pulled from Heaven and Hell alike.
Yet his tone had been unshaken, his eyes like iron. No falter. No plea. Not even arrogance.
Conviction.
Aurora knew conviction when she saw it. She had seen it in generals who marched into hopeless wars, in martyrs who kissed the blade, in angels who leapt from Heaven rather than bend.
But this was deeper. It was conviction wielded not as shield but as weapon.
And conviction that dangerous could either save or ruin them all.
'does he still think, he's doing this for loki?' she thought.
She touched the wall absently, fingers grazing warm stone. Beneath it she felt the faint vibration of the molten rivers—Hell's lifeblood.
Her thoughts wandered back to his words: I will not be rival. I will be their faith.
She wanted to laugh, to scoff, to spit. But she hadn't. She couldn't. Instead she had smiled, praised him even. Why? Because something in her—the part that always calculated, always tested—knew he might succeed. And that was more terrifying than failure.
'what will happen if he did...?'
The balance of the mortal realm might be disheveled if, And now another prophet stood before her, another voice weaving visions of destiny.
She descended into the lower halls where her private chamber waited. The air was cooler here, touched by streams of shadow instead of flame. She sat before a mirror carved into volcanic glass.
Her reflection looked back: silver hair flowing, eyes sharp and calculating, but faintly weary. Always weary.
"Atlas…" she whispered, testing the name like a knife on her tongue.
What was he? A savior? A usurper? A madman? Or something worse—something the cosmos had not prepared for?
While Aurora wrestled with her silence, Atlas's words already began their work.
Samiel, the newly anointed Pope, emerged from the private chamber with the Book of Acclaim pressed tight to his chest. His face glowed—not with light, but with something stranger: certainty. His steps no longer trembled. His voice, when he gathered the faithful, rang clear as a bell.
"Brothers, sisters," he called, raising the book, "hear me! The Lord's silence has ended. The Acclaim speaks!"
They gathered, hesitant at first—worn angels with wings dulled by centuries, warriors who had forgotten glory, the broken faithful who had whispered prayers into void. They looked at the book, at the gold symbol, and something inside them stirred.
Samiel opened to the first page. The words inside were not scripture of Heaven. They were Atlas's words, his visions, his commands, written in ink dark as blood and edged with fire. And yet as Samiel read, the words felt older than time, heavier than law.
"We are not abandoned. We are chosen."
The crowd murmured.
"We are not orphans. We are destiny."
Their murmurs grew louder, hope mixing with fear.
"We are not the servants of silence. We are the voice that shall thunder louder than silence itself."
And something cracked. Something shifted. For the first time in centuries, they cheered.
.
.
The Book of Acclaim spread faster than rumor, faster than plague. It moved from hand to hand, whispered from lips to lips. Priests memorized passages and recited them in broken halls.
Warriors painted the A symbol on their armor. Mothers traced it on their children's foreheads before sleep.
The fallens who had once argued, divided by pride and old wounds, now bowed to a single word: Acclaim.
And beneath it all, Atlas watched. Silent. Calculating.
He saw how their hunger grew. He saw how easily they drank his vision. And he knew this was only the beginning.
Faith was always infectious. Spreading fast. Spreading easily.
But not all bent so quickly.
Whispers of doubt stirred. Some of the elder fallens muttered that this was heresy, that only the Almighty could crown a pope. Some clung to the silence of Heaven, insisting it was better to wait in agony than to follow a new voice.
Atlas did not silence them. Not yet. He let them speak. Let their voices rise. And then he let the crowd drown them. Faith polices itself when given fire enough.
.
.
Atlas saw it—the flicker, the fracture—behind Aurora's eyes.
It was subtle, no more than a ripple in a still lake, but it was there. Confusion, unease, the invisible weight of a choice she had not yet made peace with. She stood at his side, body angled toward him, chin lifted in agreement. She had nodded at his words. She had spoken none of her own dissent. And yet—her silence rang louder than thunder.
He did not mistake it. Aurora was a creature of iron will, her mind a fortress few had ever breached. Even now, when she yielded to his vision, Atlas knew she carried her own opinions like hidden daggers, tucked close, never shown, but always ready.
She agreed, Atlas thought, his expression smooth as stone, but she did not believe.
Atlas turned toward the fractured window of obsidian that looked out onto the abyss, gesturing for Aurora to join him. "It is overwhelming, I know," he said, voice low, steady, carrying the timbre of certainty. "we came for a key, and now we are building something, going after something that's a whole another . It must feel like too much."
Once, long ago, she had thought herself immune to such currents. Aurora, the fallen, the commander, the exile. She had carried her burdens alone, solving her own problems as she always had. Never leaning. Never needing.
Not even Loki, who had once offered her his hand in friendship, had been able to truly breach her walls.
But now, with Atlas's vision spilling like firelight across the darkness of her doubts, she felt something shift.
Could it be that this path—his path—was the fastest way to Loki's salvation?
The thought pierced her like a spear. Loki, bound in torment, the only one who had ever seen her as she truly was. Loki, her one friend.
If his chains can be broken by faith… by this new order… then I must endure it. I must.
"I will prepare the way," she whispered.
The words trembled at first, but as they left her lips, they grew steadier, louder, until they rang against the cavern walls. "I will open their hearts. I will lead them—to him, and through him, to Loki's salvation."