Tower of Heaven

BANG!

Atlas’ fist shot forward with great power, but it never reached its target.

Just before he made contact with the surface of the egg, a solid barrier of heat appeared and protected it. When his fist struck it, the force he’d accumulated was dispersed as vibrations in its surface. At the same time, he felt his own skin being burned off.

"Tch!"

Atlas stepped off of the air and jumped, flipping to face the egg from the other side. He had confirmed the existence of a barrier, but he had yet to give up on breaking it.

[Fist of the Mountain King]

His skill with the technique had grown. Even though he didn’t have perfect form, he was still able to manifest it to an extent.

A huge burst of qi and physical force exploded from his fist. It burned through the air and slammed into the ground below with a massive boom.

The barrier around the egg shook violently. The egg itself tipped over slightly before adjusting itself like it was a sentient being. The ground around the entity was completely destroyed and caved in as if one of the many meteors coming from the sky had fallen onto it, but it was the result of Atlas’ own force.

The barrier didn’t look like it had taken much damage. Its quaking let Atlas know that it felt the impact, and he could sense that though he was unable to crack it, his qi was able to seep inside.

’If my qi can keep sinking into the barrier, perhaps it can even penetrate the egg itself.’

It wouldn’t do him any favors when it came to stopping the dangerous qi pulses, but he would at least be able to understand what the beast actually was.

VOOM!

The hairs on the back of Atlas’ neck perked up suddenly. He jumped in the air with nowhere else to go, just barely avoiding the pulse. As it clipped the edge of his toes, his shoes burned off and he felt the bones in his foot cracking.

"Tsk…"

Landing would be a pain if he did it before his foot healed.

[Astral Step]

Once again, he used the air as a platform to cushion himself.

’It cannot aim.’

The pulses it sent out would spread omnidirectionally, but only on a horizontal plane. In essence, it could not send attacks up or down, only to its sides.

As long as he was in the air, he would be able to survive anything it did. If Feng Ziran was able to recognize this fact, she would be able to join the battle as well.

’However, unlike her, I cannot fly.’

Therefore, at some point, he would have to touch the ground.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

VOOM!

Atlas shot towards the beast and attacked it several times before he felt the vibrations of the next pulse and jumped back into the air.

When he landed again, his foot was already healed.

[Lightning Shadow Steps]

[Six-Layered Shockwave]

Boom!

In the beast’s perception, he existed as a blur. It felt no hostility from him, only fighting spirit. He clearly wasn’t its ally, but he also didn’t look like an enemy. ȒÂɴȮʙƐʂ

Because of his lack of hostility, his figure was vaguer than those who had originally captured it. Every time it sensed his approach, it tried to send a pulse to strike him, but it was unable to touch him. It could never properly predict his trajectory when its vision was blinded like so.

VOOM!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Atlas didn’t stop his attack, nor did the creature stop releasing qi pulses. It was a battle that looked unentertaining, but it had a purpose of its own.

With every attack, the qi Atlas left inside of the egg’s barrier seeped deeper into its surface. With every attack, the qi dug past the barrier and into the surface of the egg itself.

He could feel the growing connection between himself and the entity with every passing second. The image of a beast became clearer and clearer in his mind.

It was as if he’d reached a flow state.

He shot forward once more with his fist outstretched. The qi around him moved in a strange manner uncharacteristic of him. His eyes were clouded over, but the movement of each and every muscle in his body was perfectly coordinated to draw out as much power as possible from within him.

"Wait!"

Feng Ziran’s distant shout did not enter his ears.

"Atlas, wait! If you hit it with tha–"

She was not reaching him at all. Before her sentence could end, he had already made impact.

BOOM!

A monstrous sound rang out. Pieces of what looked like shattered amber flew into the air as the heat barrier was shattered. The qi in the attack connected to the qi within the egg, creating a clear path past the barrier and into the target itself.

The barrier was unable to withstand the force from both sides at once. As it shattered, Atlas’ fist continued to move without interruption until it reached the egg itself.

To Feng Ziran’s great horror, a sound rang out in the silence that followed.

Crack!

A jagged line formed in the surface of the egg. A soft yellowish-orange glow leaked out, illuminating both the surface of the egg and Atlas’ face.

However…

Feng Ziran approached carefully.

Abruptly, there were no more qi pulses. The egg’s attacks on the outside world had halted.

"Atlas…?"

The only thing was the state of the situation now.

Feng Ziran reached Atlas and the egg, only to see a confusing sight.

It was like both of them had been trapped in time. Atlas’ fist was still outstretched and in contact with the egg. Meanwhile, the crack in the egg’s surface halted, refusing to spread further.

"Atlas?"

She called his name once more, but there was no response. Carefully circling around, she reached a place from where she could see his eyes.

Those eyes had always been grey like the color of storm clouds, but they were different now. The clarity within them was gone, replaced by a foggy dissonance that indicated the displacement of his consciousness.

"This…"

Feng Ziran’s heart dropped. She tried to stop Atlas because she was worried about the safety of the young beast in the egg, but that was no longer a concern.

No, now her concern was directed at Atlas himself.

’This child…has it considered him the embodiment of all those it hates?’

Such a young beast that had no family to teach it and nobody to help it grow; how was it able to pull someone into its inner world at such a stage in its life?

Your next journey awaits at empire

The fact that it was able to do so was more than enough of a clue as to its identity, but even so, the skill to drag the consciousness of another person into an inner world by force couldn’t be obtained easily even by beasts that had already experienced several years of life.

’Either it grew immensely using nothing but the strength of its bloodline memories

…or it possessed a talent so unbelievable that it disturbed the balance of the Heavens.

For Atlas’ sake more than anything else, Feng Ziran hoped that it was the former.

After all, though both options did not bode well for him, the latter was far, far worse than the former could ever be.

Because a Divine Beast that breaks the balance of the Heavens…

The last time such a being appeared in the world, he grew up to become the Calamity Dragon.

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