CHAPTER 236: CHAPTER 237: ENCOUNTER

{{{{{{{{{{{{OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

The cry ripped through the Dreaming like a chorus of collapsing worlds.

Atlas’s heartbeat tripped, then sprinted. No rhythm. Just panic.

That sound wasn’t just heard—it entered him. Like an earthquake threading through bone marrow. His blood felt thick. His ribs pulsed, his breath sharp and shallow.

He turned.

The creature was still far—so far that perspective struggled to hold—but it was moving. No, ascending. Its form pushing through layers of this reality like an animal clawing up through burial soil. Closer. Closer still.

Each second it grew.

A mass of dark flesh and endless tentacles swirled beneath its impossible bulk, a grotesque ballet of limbs churning the sea of memory like it were alive. Seals and sigils spun loose from its chains, flying outward, burning away like fireflies hitting open flame.

Atlas didn’t move.

He couldn’t.

He stood still, breath tight, chest heaving, every muscle screaming to run. But instinct, or maybe pride, rooted him like a blade planted in sand.

Don’t turn your back on a god, he thought.

Or maybe it wasn’t a god.

The creature’s chains groaned like dying suns as it rose higher. Even in its bondage, it looked... free. Its massive head cracked through the veil of the Dreaming like a leviathan splitting sky. Wrapped in rings of rusted iron, covered in countless circular seals, it pushed forward, the weight of its existence enough to make the horizon bend.

Atlas’s golden eyes blazed.

His mana surged, coursing through his veins like firewater, forcing back the instinctive fear clawing at the edge of his mind.

It’s too big...

Too old...

"...My strength alone cannot manage this," Atlas admitted, words cold as they left his mouth.

His hand dove into the Book of the Damned, fingers curling around a pulsing gem—Dracula’s red estone. It was warm, unnaturally so, like blood from a fresh kill. Its beat matched his own.

He clenched it.

Hard.

Law.

He remembered how Aurora had used it.

And now it was his turn.

The red stone hissed in his palm as he poured his pure essence mana into it, feeding it from the deepest well of his soul. The pressure in his chest bloomed outward.

His voice cracked across the Dreaming like a divine gavel:

{{{{{HOLD}}}}}

The word echoed.

The Dreaming trembled.

Even the sea of memory obeyed, freezing in motion. The air folded, stilled. For a breathless second, time hesitated.

And the beast—

—froze.

Right before his face.

The monster’s tentacles coiled mid-thrash. Its howl choked in its own throat. The LAW had caught it.

But the price...

Atlas coughed. His knees buckled for a moment.

A quarter of his essence mana, drained in a blink. It felt like someone had sucked the marrow from his bones.

But it worked.

Barely.

Up close, the beast was no beast.

It was an atrocity of scale. A mistake. Something that should never have been.

Atlas’s eyes took in the nightmare.

Spiraling teeth the size of buildings rotated around its inner jaw like turbines of flesh. The LAW didn’t restrain it completely—those jaws still moved, grinding softly, murmuring hunger.

He looked up.

And up.

And up.

It had no end. Its head vanished into the Dreaming’s false sky. No horizon, no border—just it. Its limbs stretched wide like it was trying to crush the concept of space itself.

He turned his head.

Left.

Right.

Down.

The beast filled everything.

The Dreaming had no room left to breathe.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...EAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

The roar hit him like a wall of knives.

Atlas screamed, more from instinct than pain, throwing up a mana shield around himself. The pressure cracked it instantly, a spiderweb of golden light fracturing across his barrier. His ears numbed. He tasted iron.

He pressed a hand to his chest.

Still breathing.

Barely.

The Leviathan roared again. This wasn’t noise—it was emotion incarnate. Hunger. Rage. Loneliness. A cosmic tantrum.

"..."

Atlas didn’t speak.

He couldn’t.

Not out of fear, but out of reverence. This creature wasn’t alive in the way a being was alive—it was a symptom. A result of existence too far gone to explain.

’This...this is no beast,’ Atlas thought.

His heart gave one sharp, reverent beat.

’No calamity... no accident.’

"This is..."

"...Apocalypse itself," he whispered aloud.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Apocalypse itself}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

The Leviathan repeated it.

Mocking him.

Or playing him.

Atlas floated back, breathless.

The creature smiled.

Or it tried to.

Atlas felt his fear sink. As if the leviathan, or the thing inside it, could breathe fear like oxygen. And now it exhaled it, into him.

"What...?" he whispered, barely audible.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{What?}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

His own words returned to him. Warped. Tainted.

"Leave me be."

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Leave me be}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

His chest tightened. He couldn’t breathe. His hands trembled.

"Stop it..."

{{{{{{{{{{{{Stop it}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

The voice warped further.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{stttttooooppp itttt}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

It didn’t just echo—it infected.

Each repetition lost more clarity, like sanity itself slipping.

{{{{{{{{{{stoppp itttt}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Then the beast shuddered.

Its body convulsed.

Its massive goo-like mass boiled inward, collapsing. Folds of black muscle twisted in unnatural spirals. A black hole formed at its core, sucking itself in. It pulled limb from limb, mass into singularity.

Until—

It stopped.

A singular sphere, still bound in broken chains, hovered midair.

It pulsed.

And then...

An arm pushed through.

Then another.

Not cleanly—grinding, bone cracking, ligaments tearing themselves into shape. Legs followed. A head formed. Jagged. Dislocated.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Wait...}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

{{{{Just...wait a moment.}}}}}}

The thing tore itself into a mockery of man. Hair sprouted. Eyes gleamed.

Atlas’s heart dropped.

"...me..." he breathed.

It was him.

It became him.

His hair. His eyes. His posture.

It even breathed like him.

{This... this is more like it.} it said, rolling its shoulders. {Oh, sorry.}

It coughed, mimicking his nervous tic.

"Ahem, ahem... there it is." The voice was exact now.

Atlas felt his skin crawl.

The arrow of Aurora’s spell behind him still pointed through this... thing. His only way forward.

He tried to step around.

But the chains pulled tight, halting the doppelgänger’s movement.

It growled, annoyed.

"...You ....you are an evolved being," it said, mimicking Atlas’s tone perfectly. "High human... no. Genesis, probably."

Atlas stayed still.

"...What do you want?" he asked finally. "Move aside..."

The thing smiled, lips peeling back too far.

"I know her... Claire, wasn’t it?" it said, mock-pleasantly. "Strong girl. Resisted my seduction like it was nothing. I even tried the dream-tangle spell. Didn’t even flinch."

A pause.

"...And what I want?" it said, voice deepening. "What I fucking want is—"

{{{{{{{{{{{{{ESSSCCAPPPPEEEEEE FRRRROOOOMMMM HEEEEEEEERE!!!}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Tentacles spilled from its mouth.

Atlas raised a hand.

The thing reined them in seconds, like trying to cover up his mistakes.

"Ahem. Sorry. Lost my temper."

Crack.

Atlas winced.

His LAW was breaking.

It wouldn’t hold much longer.

He reached for the Dreaming gem, mana pooling.

"Wait—wait, wait!" the doppelgänger shouted. "I’ll give you the path! Just wait—"

Atlas paused.

"...Then give me the fucking path."

The thing groaned, dramatic. "Ughhh, for the love of the one below all—can’t we talk a little? I’m lonely."

Atlas activated the gem.

The magic surged.

"For fuck’s sake—GO already!" the thing shouted, flinging itself aside.

Atlas didn’t respond.

He floated forward, eyes locked.

The beast watched him go.

Watched itself go.

Its golden eyes flickered with something unreadable.

"...I’ll be released soon," it said quietly. "Then the Dreaming, the fates, even death won’t hold me."

"You hear me?" it called again.

Atlas didn’t look back.

Didn’t need to.

The gem’s pull took him faster now, like a rip current dragging him deeper toward his destination.

Still—

He could feel it.

That gaze.

Not of rage.

But curiosity.

As if the beast hadn’t seen a man like Atlas before.

Back in the silence, the thing looked down at its arms. Flexed them. Human.

"...This mind..." it whispered.

"...He’s not from this world."

"...Interesting."

*********

Be TWENTY chaps ahead

Unlock the next Chapters in Privilege to uncover the moment everything begins to unravel — power, betrayal, and a truth that could change the war or...end it.

They’re not just playing the game. They’re rewriting it.

🤫

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