Tower of Heaven

Atlas fell through the blackness with no idea where he could or would land.

He tried to look around for any sort of clue as to where he was or what he was aiming at, but it was futile.

After all, the blackness here was not the product of a lack of light alone.

Green hues covered Atlas' body as he healed himself. He was covered in burn scars, but it felt like he'd been burned so many times in Alfros that it no longer mattered to him.

'More importantly…'

He glanced around. His eyes started to get accustomed to the darkness. He couldn't make anything out specifically, but there was one thing that caught his eye.

Floating in the distance was a piece of blackness much darker than the rest. It was either the sign of a pathway or an obstruction.

'I should aim for it.'

Atlas had to remember that he was currently inside the body of the Hell Guardian.

He didn't know what kind of living entity it was. It was clearly alive and sentient, powered by vitality rather than qi, but it was also more similar to a golem than anything else.

It had to have some sort of core. Nothing else could explain its situation.

'Whether it is a true body hidden within or some sort of structure that acts as a heart, I must find it.'

The emptiness around him suggested enough about the Hell Guardian's internal structure. It didn't have anything like organs or blood. It wasn't a fleshy beast at all.

Atlas summoned his qi and pressed his foot to what he thought was the air.

But, it wasn't the air at all.

[You have made it quite far.]

HUMMMMM!

The reverberation of the guardian's voice had a different effect inside. It boomed from every direction, but it no longer had damaging properties.

[I will tell you that the decision you made is the right one.]

Atlas frowned, looking down at his foot. The environment's blackness was starting to crawl up his body.

[However, your battle only truly begins here.]

'As I thought. It is an Underworld Guardian. Fire is not its main weapon.'

To get past the blazing power of its external self was only the first test for someone attempting to enter the underworld.

Once they made it past the flames, they had to face the energy of the underworld itself.

Death.

The blackness that snaked over Atlas' feet suddenly slammed into him from all sides. It invaded his body, invaded his mind, and froze him in place, making him unable to move away.

Atlas immediately called upon wood qi in the greatest proportions he could.

The purpose of this death qi was to rid his entire body of vitality. He could feel his life force being sucked away and pushed in a certain direction, towards that darker blackness in the distance.

The vitality Atlas held was being used to supplement the Hell Guardian. Naturally, he couldn't allow that to happen.

It was strange in that he felt no pain. More so, he felt a great tiredness that threatened to consume him. His brain was fogged and he couldn't control his movements well.

He tried to tell his body to move and work. He tried to tell his mind to think as he wanted it to. However, why did nothing work?

It was as if his body had become his own worst enemy.

Wood qi was the only thing that could bring him back.

Using it and [Regeneration] in tandem was the only way for him to supplement the vitality that was being taken from him.

However, it didn't help him get rid of the death qi in his body and mind.

"Khhh…!"

Atlas gritted his teeth and hissed through them, trying to make himself acknowledge his own existence and living state.

He could hardly see his own body within the blackness, so this kind of thing was the only way he could assure himself that he was truly alive.

With his eyes closed, he looked into his body and visualized it.

He saw himself as a bundle of black death qi shaped in the form of a human. The dantian in his lower stomach shined brightly, as did the wood qi pumping through his heart and blood.

They formed shadows of veins that he could barely see within the fog, but that was enough.

They existed.

'This death qi…'

Atlas stayed within it for a moment as his vitality reached an equilibrium. For some odd reason, it didn't feel foreign to him.

Had he submerged himself in death qi before? No, did he have some sort of connection to it that he wasn't aware of?

Rather than trying to kill him, the death qi acted like an old friend who was seeing him again after a long time.

It only stole his vitality because that was its base function. It wasn't actually malicious.

'Can I…?'

Atlas pushed his hand forward. He saw the vitality within him pulse as it came in contact with death, but he didn't force it to fight.

Rather, he allowed the two energies to intermingle. He accepted the death qi and allowed it to flow through him.

It did invade his body, and it did steal his life force, but it also didn't attack him.

As long as he could maintain his own wood qi to save his vitality, death didn't try any harder to take him.

'Hmm…'

He didn't understand the relationship between the different things inside the Great Dao.

Wasn't death supposed to be something terrifying? The way he'd always seen it or perceived it, death was an inherently negative and hostile force.

'That is not the case at all. Death has no inherent nature. Death is merely something that must exist along with life. It can be beautiful, it can be terrifying, and it can be nothing.'

The death qi present within the Hell Guardian's body wasn't charged with any intent. It existed only to exist, therefore, when Atlas interacted with it, it responded positively.

It allowed him to understand it. He couldn't comprehend its deepest secrets, but as he started to slowly comprehend the base concepts of the Dao, his body started to shine with a subtle hue.

The blackness was illuminated, and the deeper blackness in the distance became clearer.

Atlas felt like he could move again. When he tried, his body glided through the air like he was born with the ability to fly.

He came closer and closer to that thing. As he approached, he realized that it was a massive structure rather than a tunnel of any sort.

Ba-dum! Ba-dum!

It beat like a heart, but it looked nothing like one. It was made of rivers of black heat and surrounded by what looked like a cage made of tree roots.

The entire structure was drenched in red stains and veins that looked like blood, and when it came to size, well…

It was safe to say that Atlas, who hovered in front of it, wasn't even a fraction of its size.

'There is no need to hesitate, is there?'

This was exactly the core he had been searching for. If death didn't want to attack him, then couldn't he immediately destroy it right here and now?

With such thoughts in mind, he pressed his hand against the wood-like roots. He felt the vitality beating from the heart, and more specifically, he felt his own vitality within.

'Aha…'

Atlas grinned.

'If that's the case, I can play the same game.'

[Guriyatra's Life Seed]
Read exclusive content at empire

It had only been a few moments since Atlas' vitality was stolen, so his connection with it hadn't been entirely cut off yet.

The energy of the life seed connected to the core of the heart through that vitality and started maniacally consuming everything around it.

Suddenly, an infinite loop had been formed.

While the death qi cycled through Atlas' body and transferred his vitality into the heart, [Guriyatra's Life Seed] took the vitality of the heart and gave it back to him.

He relished in the feeling of overflowing life force as he pressed his hand deeper into the roots. He could feel the currents they held back, the black energy that kept this guardian alive.

As long as he could touch that energy, this battle was–.

"ARGH!"

Atlas hissed and pulled his hand back as fast as he could. From a single instant of contact, his palm turned black and looked like it was about to fade into ash.

The blackness crawled up his arm. His eyes widened in slight panic as he realized what was happening.

'Move!'

He rapidly pushed his qi to meet the spreading corrosion, but it meant nothing. His qi touched that blackness and turned into the same ash as his skin.

'DAMMIT!'

He had no other choice. If he didn't act now, his entire body would soon follow.

Atlas clenched his teeth and brought his hand into the air, slicing it down onto his own elbow and cleanly severing the affected area.

"Haa…haa…haa…"

There was no pain, only emptiness.

Atlas looked up at those black rivers separated from him by only some tree roots with more fear in his eyes than he'd ever had in this life.

That force…

Whatever powered this Hell Guardian was far greater than even the strongest people he'd met in both this life and the last.