CHAPTER 368: CHAPTER 357: TWO CHOSEN ONES

Atlas and Asmodeus sat across from one another at the table of light.

The glow that once seemed warm now flickered with the pulse of unease, dimming and flaring like a dying star.

The silence stretched until it thinned into something fragile. One wrong word, one wrong movement, and it would shatter.

Then Atlas spoke. His voice was calm, almost soft, but in that softness there was weight—like the whisper of a blade drawn from its sheath.

"The key."

That was all he said. Two words.

But the moment they left his lips, the entire Mirror Realm seemed to listen.

The mirrored walls quivered. The air grew dense, vibrating with invisible power.

Asmodeus leaned back in his throne, the obsidian of his skin catching the faint reflections of firelight.

His expression did not change, but the stillness of his body carried the weight of recognition.

He already knew which key Atlas meant.

For a long time, neither spoke. The hum of the realm filled the void between them, low and living, like the breath of a sleeping god.

Then Asmodeus, the last Demon King of Hell, exhaled slowly and leaned back as well.

He looked up at the ceiling of the Mirror Realm—an endless sky of dark smoke curling and twisting into phantom constellations.

"I wondered," he said at last. His voice rolled through the air like thunder barely contained. "I wondered when you would bring it up."

Atlas said nothing. His fingers brushed the hilt of his blade beneath the table—a habit, not a threat. The steel felt cold, grounding.

The silence changed texture—thin at first, then thick again, like honey hardening in cold air.

Finally, Asmodeus broke it.

"I have been piecing together your puzzle, Guide." His voice had softened, but the edges remained sharp. "For weeks, the patterns did not make sense.

Why Hell churned in chaos. Why mortals bled into our world. Why you—the chosen of the one-Below-All—marched so early, so fiercely. It was not ambition. Not faith. It was something else."

He looked at Atlas then—eyes burning with knowing.

"And now," he said slowly, almost tenderly, "you speak of the key. Now I understand the future more clearly."

Atlas didn’t move, but his pulse faltered for a moment—a single beat too long.

It was enough.

Asmodeus smiled. Not cruelly, not kindly—simply like a man who had caught the scent of truth.

".. The Amrit," he whispered.

That name—Amrit—hung in the air like sacred blasphemy.

The mirrored sky trembled. Even the realm’s light seemed to recoil from it.

Atlas’s eyes betrayed him. Just a flicker—a twitch, a single spark of recognition—but it was there. And that was enough for the Demon King.

Asmodeus leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand. His smile widened until it cut. "So that’s what you’re after. Not conquest. Not redemption. The Amrit. The nectar of one above-All. "

Atlas said nothing. He felt the words in his blood, their truth like fire behind his ribs.

Asmodeus’s laughter began quietly—low and rolling like distant thunder—but then it built, rising in waves until it filled the chamber. It was not mad laughter, but the laughter of a man who had waited centuries for the punchline of a cruel joke.

When it stopped, it ended in silence sharp enough to draw blood.

"Tell me, Prophet," Asmodeus said. "Do you even understand what you seek?"

Atlas’s gaze held steady. "Do you?"

"I AM what you seek," Asmodeus said. His smile was gone now, his tone flat and cold. "I have seen the Amrit. I have tasted it. And I watched empires dissolve trying to hold it."

He rose from the throne. The motion was slow, almost graceful, but the force of it made the air vibrate.

Every reflection in the realm shifted with him—one thousand Asmodeuses turning to face one man.

"You chase the key that opens not salvation, but undoing."

"Maybe... as you already know the future," Atlas said quietly. "But all locks deserve to be opened.

For a moment, something like sadness flickered through the Demon King’s gaze.

Then his voice hardened again. "Tell me, Guide—did Odin give you this path? The Allfather has always had a fondness for doomed wagers."

Atlas froze.

The air seemed to hold its breath.

"Odin," Asmodeus repeated, savoring the name. "Did he whisper promises of ascension into your ear? Trade knowledge for chaos? I smell his hand on you, Atlas. His scent of old trickery. You carry it like incense."

Atlas’s eyes narrowed. "You know nothing of my bargains."

"Oh, I know enough."

The Mirror Realm darkened around them. The walls shimmered with visions—fleeting, spectral images of Odin himself, draped in runes and ravens, speaking to a shadowed figure that could only be Atlas.

Asmodeus’s smile was razor-thin. "He made you his knife. And in return, you believe you hold your own will."

Atlas didn’t flinch. He didn’t deny it either.

"Can you give it to me?" Atlas said suddenly.

Asmodeus blinked, caught off guard by the shift in tone.

"The key," Atlas continued. "If you know it—if you have it—can you give it to me? We can end this war before it consumes both Heaven and Hell. No gods, no empresses, no blood to soak the earth again."

The words came fast now, laced with a rare urgency. "We can stop the true death. The final decay."

At that, Asmodeus’s smile vanished entirely.

"The true death." he repeated softly. "You speak of it as if you’ve seen it...wait, you actually have...."

Atlas’s silence was answer enough.

A strange quiet fell again—heavy, suffocating.

Asmodeus began to pace slowly, his claws scraping against the mirror floor with a sound like tearing silk.

"You think the Amrit will save you, save him...," he murmured. "You think it will stop the cycle—the endless killing of the weak by the strong, the devouring of creation by its own hunger.

But that is the law, Prophet. That is what keeps the stars turning. To break that law is to break existence itself."

Atlas’s voice was steel. "Then existence deserves to break,No I will Break it...."

The Demon King stopped pacing. For the first time, he looked almost... unsettled.

In the mirrored reflections, countless versions of him turned their heads at once, as though the realm itself was holding its breath.

Then, slowly, Asmodeus began to laugh again—but softer this time. It was a laugh full of pity.

"You really are his chosen," he said. "Not the Allfather’s. The one Below-All’s. The one who believes he can rewrite the bones of creation."

He turned suddenly, eyes flaring with red light.

"So this is your great goal," he said. "You want the key of the Three Empresses—the Sisters who rule what even I dare not touch. You want to trade the Amrit from beneath heaven’s thrones."

Atlas didn’t answer. His silence was his answer.

Asmodeus threw back his head and roared with laughter. It echoed through the realm like collapsing stars.

"You think you can take what even gods fear to name? You, a half-broken mortal who stitched himself into myth?"

His laughter twisted into a growl. "No wonder the Guide chose you over me."

For the first time, the fire behind his words was not hatred—it was something older, almost human: wounded pride.

"I was the first," Asmodeus whispered, almost to himself. "The first to crawl from the ashes. The first to defy Heaven. And yet He chose you."

Atlas’s voice was quiet. "Maybe because i bring Results...at the end, only Results matter...I am here, conquering most of hell, here you are, same spot, same throne for a millinia..."

Asmodeus’s gaze snapped up, rage flickering like stormfire.

"..."

He raised his hand.

The Mirror Realm trembled.

Shadows surged from the walls, coiling like serpents made of liquid night. The ground cracked beneath Atlas’s boots. The light warped, bending inward toward the throne.

But Asmodeus did not strike.

He only stood there—hand raised, fury trembling through him—before his expression shifted again, turning cold, deliberate, controlled.

"No," he said finally, lowering his arm. "Not today. Not you. Not yet."

Atlas remained silent, though every nerve in his body screamed readiness.

Asmodeus took a slow step forward. "The only reason you still draw breath is because you are the Guide—the chosen of the one Below-All. That is the one law even I will not break."

He gestured toward the edge of the realm. "Go, Prophet. Take your faith, your war, your foolish hope. Leave my mirror before I decide your title is not protection enough."

Atlas didn’t move.

"Go," Asmodeus said again, his tone now like stone cracking under pressure. "Before I kill you and damn the consequences."

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Then Atlas rose. His chair scraped the mirrored floor, leaving a faint scar of frost in its wake.

He looked at Asmodeus one last time. "You said I would fail."

"I promise it," Asmodeus said.

Atlas nodded once. "Then I’ll see you at the end."