NOVEL NEXT Chapter 328: Their Own Mission.
Atlas stood alone in the hollow of stone and fire, the echo of the crowd's acclaim still pulsing in the marrow of the halls. The Book of Acclaim lay sealed in the hands of others now, but its weight had not left him. It clung to him like chains of light, like a crown he had not asked for yet could not set aside.
The silence pressed heavy, but it was not empty. It breathed. It whispered.
{{{{{{"You play a game you cannot win."}}}}}}
Atlas's jaw tightened. The voice was familiar now— the Guide, the shadow that had walked beside him since the veil was torn. It was not a presence of comfort, not a friend. It was a reminder.
"I have won nothing," Atlas muttered, his voice low, more to himself than to the stones. "And yet they follow."
{{{{{{"Faith is fire. It warms. It burns. It consumes. Already they hold your words as law, already their souls bend like reeds. You think this is your weapon. But faith is no man's weapon—it is its own master."}}}}}}
Atlas closed his eyes. He could still see them—Samiel raising the book, their voices crying out. That sound was not his, not truly. It had been born of their hunger, their emptiness. He had only given it shape.
"They need direction," he answered, softer now. "If I do not give it, another will. Better it be me than silence."
{{{{{{"Better? Or inevitable?"}}}}}} The Guide's voice coiled like smoke. {{{{{{"You think yourself outside the weave, Atlas. But every thread that resists only knots the pattern tighter. You have met Dream. You have stood with Death. And now you dare to brush against Fate. She is not patient. She is not merciful. Do not even let her see you, next time...."}}}}}}
Atlas exhaled through his teeth, the faintest ghost of a laugh. "If she sees me, then she will know this—I do not care. I will not stop. Not until Loki is freed. Not until Aurora is spared that choice. Not until…" He stopped himself.
{{{{{{"Not until what?"}}}}}}
Atlas opened his eyes, the abyss staring back through the fractured obsidian window. He had no answer.
The Guide did not press. Its silence was worse than its words, a silence that meant it was listening, waiting, measuring.
Atlas turned from the window, drawing his cloak tight, and the scene shifted.
.
.
Aurora marched with Azazel through the bowels of the third layer, their footsteps ringing across the volcanic stone. Where Atlas lingered among whispers, she moved forward, head lifted high, her silver hair catching the dim red glow of molten veins that pulsed like arteries in Hell's body.
Behind them, the echoes of cheers still trembled, but they carried no comfort for her. Faith did not stir her heart. Only memory did.
Loki's face—smiling, mocking, the one constant that had never broken under her distance—flashed in her mind. Chains gnawed at his wrists in her memory. Shadows curled around his laughter. He was the only one who had called her friend and meant it.
This was for him. Always him.
Azazel walked half a step behind, his frame bent forward, as though reverence itself pressed down on him. He still carried the awe of Atlas's words in his eyes, as if the prophet's shadow clung to him like armor.
"Do you doubt him?" Aurora asked suddenly, her voice slicing through the silence like a blade.
Azazel blinked, startled. "Atlas? No. I— I saw it, slayer. The fire in him. The Acclaim is no trick. He speaks with—"
"Conviction," she finished for him, her lips twisting around the word. "Yes. That is what makes him dangerous."
Azazel faltered at her tone. "Dangerous? You stood with him."
"I stand where I must," she said coldly. "Do not mistake that for ...worship."
The corridors widened, splitting into massive arches where obsidian pillars rose like the ribs of a dead god. Their path sloped downward, toward the threshold of another realm—the domain of the first Demon King they must confront.
Aurora's hand brushed the hilt of her staff. Her heart did not race. It never did. But her thoughts pressed heavy, and the Guide's warning through Atlas gnawed at her too, though she did not hear it.
This was the fastest way, Atlas had said. This faith, this movement, this tide—it was the clearest path to the Key, the only path that could break Loki's chains. And so she bore it, though the weight was ash in her mouth.
"Do you believe him, slayer?" Azazel asked softly, as if afraid to hear the answer.
She paused, her breath shifting slightly, her pace rustling against the hot air. Her eyes glimmered faintly in the molten glow.
"I believe in my mission," she said. Her voice was steel, steady, unyielding. "Our Mission."
Azazel said nothing more.
Ahead, the light shifted. The molten glow of Hell's veins dimmed, swallowed by a creeping pallor that seemed to drink color from the air. The warmth fled her skin. What remained was a chill sharp as hammered iron, sinking into bone.
The shadows thickened as though alive, no longer the casual play of stone and flame but deliberate, ancient, intentional—like hands drawing curtains across the world.
And then she saw them.
The gates rose before her—twin slabs of black stone, their surfaces grooved with wounds that glowed faint red, like scars that never healed. Each line throbbed faintly, pulsing with a rhythm older than heartbeats, older than breath.
They loomed higher than mountains, the kind of height that broke the neck to measure. Chains rimmed their edges, vast coils of iron that rattled without wind, every link as thick as her thigh.
The gates of a Demon King's realm. The Demon king who... showed her a path to sagehood. Which she had denied.
Aurora stopped.
Her forehead tightened as if the weight of their presence pressed against her skull. Her hand steadied against her staff, knuckles whitening. For a breath, her wings twitched open, instinct fighting reason, fight trembling against flight.
She could feel it—
A whisper coiled at the edge of her hearing. Not words. Not yet. Just the promise of them, waiting behind the stone.
She remembered Loki's voice in her memory, light and mocking, telling her once: There are doors in Hell that even demons fear to open. If you ever find one—run the other way, Aurora.
And yet here she stood.
No running. No turning. Only forward.
Her fingers tightened on the staff until the carved wood bit into her palm. She drew a slow breath, steadying her chest, steadying her thoughts.
For him. For Loki. I will walk where even demons break.
The chains clattered suddenly, a single violent shudder, as if the gates themselves had heard her vow.
Aurora did not flinch.
Not outwardly.
Inside, her heart struck once, twice—loud enough that she wondered if the gates themselves could hear it.
"Are you ready?" Azazel asked.
"No," Aurora whispered. Her silver hair caught the faint glow like liquid moonlight. "But we go forward anyway."
The gates shuddered, stone groaning, and the abyss beyond stirred awake.