"Huu…"
Atlas took a deep breath.
He really had no sense of how long it had been since he lost his mind. He only knew that at so point, he regained a semblance of awareness and recognized that the world around him was different.
He slowly cald his mind. [Perfect Adaptability] was working much better than it did in Purgatory. The process was similar to alchemy. Atlas felt like he was containing several energies and turning them into one perfect product.
Those several energies were not energies, but strands of thought that diverged from his main consciousness. If it was viewed from a different perspective, those strands of thought could even be considered the vestiges of the spirits he was interacting with.
They had to ld into his mind and lose their significance. Only after they beca a part of Atlas' psyche rather than forces attacking it did he find so peace of mind.
"Huu…"
He took another deep breath.
He couldn't rember everything that happened. He could hardly picture the imaginary space where his mind was. However, he rembered everything and everyone he needed to rember.
He could be satisfied with that much.
'I cannot…go through that again.'
He was lucky that his mind grew. With the Spirit-Severing Art, his soul actually beca several tis stronger as it coped with the effects of those interactions. He was able to deal with that last trip through Purgatory, but what about the next one?
The forces in his mind only beca stronger and stronger with the passing of ti. The door of light that disconnected him from Purgatory saved him from certain destruction.
'I should put it aside.'
He wanted to put it aside, but his trait wasn't at full strength. He couldn't ignore things just because he wanted to.
He had been resting for an indeterminate period of ti. Still, his mind was weary as if he would collapse the mont he felt so comfort.
'I cannot collapse.' Continue your saga on My Virtual Library Empire
He couldn't even stay where he was.
He didn't recognize his surroundings at all. He didn't feel life aura, making it obvious he was in a land of the dead, however, it wasn't necessarily bleak.
Atlas awoke seated in a cave far away from anyone or anything, but when he left and started exploring, he almost believed he had returned to the real world.
He found a city that looked just like any other.
'Were there ant to be cities in the afterlife?'
Was it ant to be so…lively?
Atlas was flabbergasted by the seemingly life-like ambiance coming from the city. It possessed a great vitality that ca from the people within as if they weren't all unliving entities.
The undead, the spirits, and all others of the sa sort walked the streets, ran stores, and seemingly had their own families in this place. They drank, ate, and gambled as they did when they were alive, simply enjoying the pleasures of life in a place without obligations.
Atlas stood out. His face was not covered by a mask, as his physical body had beco a subsidiary entity. Rather, his face looked like a blur, a mix between the features he had in both lives.
He emanated a strange aura that others didn't possess, considering his state as a living soul. He got many, many strange looks, but nobody tried to approach him.
They glanced at him secretly as if he was so sort of ticking ti bomb. Evidently, it wasn't their first ti seeing a living soul, but it surely wasn't a common occurrence.
'Is there…no gate?'
Atlas needed to find Artemia and Horus. Through his experience with Anubis, he figured that asking at the gate if his friends were present was his best bet, but was there anything like a gate here?
The first thing he saw when he arrived was already inside of this world.
'I have no clues in an environnt like this?'
He had been wandering for barely any ti, and he'd already discovered a hub like this city. Just how many more were present across this realm?
How many souls and spirits passed through these lands every single day?
'I have nowhere to go. Do I explore this land ordinarily?'
Was he ant to walk through these plains and ask around until he found a clue about his friends?
'No. Sothing like that won't be effective.'
That didn't an he wouldn't stay on the lookout for any ntion of other living souls, but he wasn't going to wantonly ask around without understanding the environnt of this afterlife.
Sotis, the afterlife was a place of punishnt. Other tis, it was a place of reward. So afterlifes combined aspects of both, while others seed like they mimicked life more than anything else.
When those kinds of things were left unspecified in the Legends that birthed them, the afterlife beca a chaotic place that couldn't be defined easily. Pleasure and pain mixed together. The line between reward and punishnt blurred, creating an atmosphere that was anything but healthy.
As Atlas walked the city, he determined that this afterlife was likely a combination of punishnt and paradise. For the most part, people lived ordinarily while entertaining their vices, but that didn't an everyone was granted peace.
'Hmm…'
If he stayed here for so ti…
'Nothing will be accomplished. They were sent to the Underworld so they could rot and die. They would not be in such a peaceful location.
He had to be honest with himself. Six months ago, Artemia and Horus were confird to be safe, but were they out of danger?
Nobody was willing to swear that to him. He already knew that they were fighting their own battles sowhere in so Underworld that he had yet to access.
'Right. I need to search for the Underworld they entered, but more importantly, I need to find where battle occurs.'
Where conflict was most prevalent, cultivators were always present. Even if they had no desire to be involved in such conflicts, their fates as people who aid for the Heavens would always lead them into such circumstances.
Atlas knew his body and mind were weary. He knew his soul couldn't stand being tornted in the atmosphere of a realm that only welcod the dead and undead.
Nevertheless, he also knew that now was the best ti to move.
'I am wide awake. The strain that I feel with every step is what keeps sane. I am still able to think properly after everything I only just experienced. I need no more proof that this state is useful.'
If he was lulled to sleep, he was afraid that he would be swallowed by the atmosphere.
It had almost happened several tis already, after all.
Shaking off his thoughts, Atlas left the borders of the city. There wasn't even a small fence separating it from the surrounding wilderness, so it wasn't difficult at all.
'They fear nothing.'
What was there to fear when they were already dead? This wilderness existed, but those living here were the sa. They had the sa ntalities, so realistically, traveling this seemingly dangerous environnt was almost entirely safe.
He shot through a dark forest, wondering where he was even planning to go.
But, the Underworld didn't have the sa laws of distance as the world outside. It was capable of shortening and lengthening any distance as needed. Atlas had no set location, sure, but he was looking for soone who could confirm or deny the presence of his friends.
Once he found that, he had to find a way to leave this realm. These were the only two goals he was entertaining.
The Underworld read his thoughts. It knew where he needed to go, and as he was a warrior on a quest for glory, it showed him so favor.
His steps crossed so much more distance than he could have ever imagined. The environnt turned into a blur of dark colors, making it impossible for him to tell where he was going.
However, without questioning it, Atlas charged ahead to his destination. He moved through planes of damnation and planes filled with the glories of life that no common man could ever experience.
He passed through every possible state a soul could reach in a realm like this before arriving sowhere that possessed nothing of the sort.
In the end, when the mosaic faded back into a true picture of the environnt, Atlas was in a plain of jagged black rock. It looked similar to Alfros if the volcanic realm lost all of its connection to fire.
It was actually very similar to that place. It had a similar origin as well.
There were curiously shaped mountains in the distance. Atlas approached them, wondering why his steps brought him to such a location, when he realized sothing crucial.
'Those are not mountains.'
No, those things in the distance that looked like mountain ranges were limbs and torsos.
They were the corpses of beings that existed on a scale that Atlas simply could not fathom.
And they…
They were scattered across these plains in every direction, numbering in the thousands at the very least.
Atlas' eyes narrowed into pinholes.
'Where have I found myself this ti?'
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