CHAPTER 362: CHAPTER 351: INTERFERE ME NOT.

THUNDER!!!

The skies above the Third Layer burned like an ancient forge.

Aurora stood amid the storm, her silver hair drenched in the blood of a demi-god.

The air trembled under the weight of her law — {Hold} — chains of celestial light that bound Yester, the bastard son of Zeus.

He bled gold and red, ichor and sin mingling together on the black stone of Hell. The smell of burnt divinity filled the air, sweet and vile.

Each droplet hissed as it touched the scorched ground, searing symbols of broken lineage into the stone.

Atlas watched in silence. His golden eyes mirrored both awe and unease. Every blow Aurora delivered was a hymn of fury, a song that once shook the gates of Heaven. The demi-god screamed, his voice cracked by pain and pride. For the first time in his immortal life, he sounded human.

Thunder groaned across the sky — not the storms of Hell but the pure celestial thunder that only one name could summon. Atlas lifted his head, a smile carving across his lips.

"Zeus," he murmured, tasting the name like wine and venom. "Haha...So even the heavens tremble enough to reach this pit."

A single spark of lightning burned across the horizon, and in it he felt that divine rage — the unmistakable pressure of a full god reaching through the veils of creation. Even here, in the third layer of the Inferno, the King of Heaven’s hand could still touch.

Atlas should have feared, but instead, he laughed. It was not joy. It was not mockery. It was the strange exhilaration of standing in the eye of destruction, knowing that every rule, every law, every chain, might shatter in the next heartbeat.

Aurora’s hands moved like the blades of seraphs, cutting the air, cutting the demi-god, cutting the silence. Her eyes glowed with the cold fire of justice — or was it vengeance? Atlas could no longer tell. He saw in her what he once feared in himself: the unstoppable clarity of wrath given purpose.

So this was her real power, he thought. Back then, she fought him with only half her will — half her mind. But now? Now she’s awake.

Every motion of her body radiated absolute intent. When her law tightened, the demi-god’s bones cracked like marble columns.

When she exhaled, the chains blazed brighter, singing hymns of celestial authority older than stars. Around her, the air shimmered, heavy with sacred resonance. Even Hell itself seemed to hesitate, its smoke curling back as though unwilling to touch her light.

Atlas’s grin grew as the tide began to shift. From the battlefield’s edges, the fallen legions were staggering, some crawling, some dying, some rising anew with dark wings unfurled. The Archangels — Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael — moved among them, each a storm of divine violence. The sound of their wings was the sound of judgment.

Gabriel descended like a spear through shadow, his blade humming with psalms. He cleaved through the fallen demigods as if they were nothing more than the illusions of power. Each strike sang, each impact burned a verse of holy annihilation into the ground. Uriel’s fire tore the skies; Raphael’s light mended soldiers even as it blinded enemies.

Atlas could not help but wonder: If these three, unawakened, are this powerful... then what of Michael, the radiant general of Heaven reborn? And Lucifer... the Morning Star. The First Light. The one even gods feared to look upon.

He remembered the game — the old mortal legend where he’d once played as lara, facing the impossible brightness of Lucifer’s rebellion. How insignificant that memory seemed now, when the myth itself breathed before him.

Could I command that kind of star? Atlas wondered. Could anyone? Or would it consume us all — as it once consumed Heaven itself?

He didn’t have time to answer. When suddenly The air split. A silence, deep and absolute, devoured the battlefield.

Then came the Notification.

... Disappointed....

It was not heard — it was felt. A word carried on divine lightning, shaking every layer of Hell. From the black horizon to the molten plains, even demons froze in reverence and terror.

Zeus had spoken.

The sky cracked open like an egg of light. Through it poured a single bolt — no, not a bolt, but the condensed wrath of the sky-father himself. It tore through the heavens, through the mortal world, through the thin, brittle walls of the underworld. Entire regions vaporized. The first layer of Hell split in two; the second dissolved into ash. The bolt screamed downward, unstoppable, unerring, divine.

Reaching the third layer, and it struck.

It struck Yester.

The world ended in white.

Atlas was already moving. Even before the lightning arrived, instinct had screamed its warning. He crossed the field in less than a thought, seized Aurora by the waist, and drove her into the air — higher, higher, faster — until the explosion bloomed beneath them like a newborn sun.

Sound came later — a roar that tore the fabric of silence, a detonation so vast it could have been mistaken for the heartbeat of creation. The shockwave hurled fire across miles. Atlas wrapped himself around Aurora, shielding her from shards of celestial matter, his wings absorbing the burn.

For a moment, there was nothing but blindness — light without mercy.

When the radiance dimmed, the battlefield was gone. In its place, a wasteland of glass and dust stretched to the horizon. The air shimmered with divine residue, lightning whispering across the ruin like dying ghosts.

Atlas landed, setting Aurora down gently. Her body trembled. Her armor was cracked, her law fading. She coughed, spitting blood that shimmered with fragments of light.

"Haha...so he gets a power-up, from the heavens?" she rasped, voice half-mockery, half-horror.

Atlas shook his head. His tone was quiet, almost reverent.

"No," he said. "...Death."

They turned toward the crater.

Where Yester had stood, there was nothing. No flesh, no soul, only bones — silver-white, scorched to dust at the edges.

The golden blood had evaporated, leaving behind faint streaks of lightning still crawling across the remains. The demi-god of Heaven was no more. The son of Zeus, erased by his father’s hand.

The silence that followed was unbearable. Even the wind dared not move.

Aurora stared at the bones. Her mind refused to name what she felt — pity? disgust? fear? She was, after all, his executioner before his father struck. And yet, watching what divine justice looked like, she felt small. A mortal ache in her immortal chest.

Atlas watched her expression and looked back to the sky.

"So," he whispered, "that’s how Heaven cleanses its bloodlines."

A low hum stirred the air — a vibration that felt like thought itself. The light above flickered from white to violet, and through it came another presence. Not thunder, not divine — something older. Something feminine.

The clouds twisted into the shape of a throne. From it unfurled wings woven of night. Eyes bloomed in the storm, thousands upon thousands, each glimmering like dying stars. The scent of jasmine and fire filled the air, intoxicating, royal, cruel.

"The Empress of the Sky," Atlas murmured, lowering his head. Even he — the fool who had defied archangels — bent slightly at that name.

Her voice rolled across the plains. It was the sound of law being rewritten.

...The contract is breached.....

Every syllable struck like a bell, shaking the bones of Yester, scattering them to dust. Aurora flinched. The air grew heavy, thick with judgment. The Empress’s unseen gaze turned toward the heavens themselves.

You promised, Sky-King,she said.

No direct interference.

Her tone carried no anger — only disappointment. That made it worse.

Atlas felt the weight of that disappointment ripple through every corner of creation. A god breaking a contract wasn’t a mere sin — it was a wound in reality. The balance between Heaven, Hell, and the Old Court of the Skies was fragile. Zeus’s lightning had torn that treaty apart.

Aurora straightened, though her knees quivered. "So what happens now?" she whispered.

Atlas closed his fist. "War," he said quietly. "That’s what happens."

Aurora looked at him. There was something new in her eyes — not just anger or pride. Fear. The kind of fear that came when one realized they were standing on the edge of a god’s dream, and the dream was ending.

Zeus’s lightning still pulsed faintly in the crater, its glow reflected in her eyes. "He killed his own son," she murmured. "To hide his impurity."

Atlas nodded. "And in doing so, he showed it more clearly than ever."

They stood there, two remnants of a broken covenant, watching the bones fade into dust. Above, thunder rolled again — not from wrath, but from shame. Somewhere beyond the veil, heaven itself stirred uneasily.

In the distance, Gabriel raised his sword once more, its edge glimmering with sorrow. Raphael knelt among the wounded. Uriel’s flame dimmed, uncertain. The battlefield had gone still, but the war — the real one — had only begun.

The Empress’s final words lingered on the wind, carried like prophecy:

"Heaven’s crown has cracked. Hell’s flame will answer."

And then she was gone. The storm folded inward, sealing itself as though she had never been. Only the scent of ozone and jasmine remained, haunting the ruin.

Aurora exhaled slowly, her breath trembling. "Atlas... if she declares war—"

"She won’t," he said, though his eyes betrayed doubt. "Not yet. The Empress waits for balance. But she will move when the first drop of divine blood stains mortal soil again."