Chapter 142: Hidden Secrets [5]

She was unconscious. Her body draped against the wall lifelessly. If it weren't for the slight life aura around her, Atlas would have thought that she was a corpse.His body froze for a moment when he saw her, and in the next moment, he was already walking towards her.

He was operating subconsciously. His conscious mind turned off the moment he saw the chains, and everything he did from that point forth happened on instinct.

He approached until he was standing directly in front of her and looking down at her body. His eyes were glazed over, but he was not blinded.

Atlas was instead seeing two scenes at the same time. The first was the one in front of him, and the second…

He couldn't see it very well, but he could feel it. Around his wrists, ankles, and neck, chains made of the same materials.

He heard the thoughts of that person whose mind he was seeing.

'If only I still had my qi…if I had qi, these chains would be nothing.'

Because all Darkstar metals had a weakness that he only discovered after being chained by them and forced to rot.

'If there was anyone with access to qi who was willing to aid me, I could escape.'

In reality, Atlas' arms moved towards the chains. He felt his movements being restricted by the objects in the other scene, but he reached forward regardless.

If there was anyone, even just one person willing to help these people, they would have been able to escape.

But both of them were placed in situations where they would never be found, where they could never find help, where they could never escape.

The world was being forced to forget their names and their Legends. The world was being forced to destroy them without even realizing.

But all Darkstar Metals were like that. Even the Ancient Darkstar Metal at the peak of its class was the same.

They naturally absorbed qi from anything they touched. The qi was used to strengthen and reinforce the metal itself, meaning it became stronger as time went by.

However, this kind of mechanism was actually inefficient when the metal was forged into chains. Because of the structure, the qi never spread through the metal evenly, leading to certain parts weakening and having their grain patterns changed.

In essence, those small gaps actually repelled mana rather than absorbing it.

If someone with good control could target those spots without touching the metal around them, they could chip away and break the chains.

Atlas didn't have the kind of control necessary to destroy Ancient Darkstar Metal.

But that didn't seem to matter.

He saw that scene in his mind. It polluted his thoughts and turned him into that person. For that person, the necessary control was nothing. He had already perfectly understood the disassembly method.

If only he had a chance to use the formula he recounted so often…

He only had the chance to use it now.

His hands made contact with the chains. His body continued to act according to the formula as if it were a machine, but his mind became even more detached.

The coldness, the feeling of qi being drained at an unbelievable rate, these feelings culminated into something Atlas could not control.

VOOM!

The cave was suddenly filled with an extreme bloodlust. It was a thirst for blood that threatened to tear down the Heavens themselves. It was a bloodlust that would destroy the world if it was allowed to run rampant.

It felt like the lives of millions of innocents. It felt like the aura of the most brutal slaughterer in the history of man.

That kind of aura clashed against the formation keeping the cave hidden from the real world and actually corroded it slightly. It spread through the cave and dyed the air crimson, creating illusions of war as it twisted reality with its breadth.

Rumble!

The formation guarding the entrance shook. It was the only thing containing the malevolence so it wouldn't be detected by those outside. If it was…

"Child…"

A hand suddenly appeared on his face. It was cold yet warm, slender and frail yet large enough to overpower the rampant bloodlust.

"Focus on my voice. Return to this world. This is where you belong."

The words cut through everything. The soft and subtle tone of her voice did not contain any power, but it was the only thing Atlas heard.

The visions in his mind started to fade. The warmth of that hand brought his gaze back to reality.

In that moment, he did not even realize that his mask had shattered and fallen to the floor.

'This…'

Atlas stepped back a few times, disoriented. It took a moment for his world to stop spinning, and even then, it took more time for the raging headache to go away.

The bloodlust retreated into his body as if it never existed. Silence once again reigned in the cave.

And when Atlas looked up, only he and an unfamiliar woman were left. S~eaʀᴄh the ηovelFire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

She still had shackles around her wrists, but the chains that connected them to the wall were shattered.

"Welcome."

It was not the kind of reaction expected from someone who woke up from an indefinite slumber, but she was oddly calm.

Rather than focusing on her own issues, she first did what she could to calm Atlas.

His mind was not in a great place, after all.

'What was that?'

'What just happened?'

He vaguely remembered the sequence of events. He was seeing chains and chains and chains. He was feeling the ache of those chains around his wrists. And then, it all went black.

He couldn't remember freeing the woman, nor did he understand how he arrived in this position.

"Calm down."

The woman's voice brought him back to reality once more.

"I know it must be confusing, but do not think about it. Now is not the time."

She talked him down, convincing him to sit against the wall with her.

Only after several more minutes was he finally able to get a hold of his mind.

'At times like this, [Perfect Adaptability] always leaves me alone.'

It would have been very nice if it helped him calm his mind, but it didn't even think to react. He was forced to put in the effort himself.

"Huu…"

The woman was right. Now was not the time. Those things happened and couldn't be ignored. Atlas had to eventually face the demons in his own soul.

But, that was eventually. The current Atlas couldn't do something like that.

To him, it was a gut feeling that told him so. The woman, however, knew better.

'That bloodlust…'

It awoke her in a state of panic which only calmed when she realized that the person in front of her was still an Earth Sage.

That was a killing intent that even the person who left her in this place couldn't reproduce.

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Rephrased, that was a killing intent that even a Heavenly Immortal couldn't replicate easily.

'He is a dangerous boy.'

She understood that immediately.

She was not going to treat him differently because of it, but that didn't stop her from acknowledging the truth.

He was her savior, but he was also someone who needed quite a lot of help himself.

'An interesting person has come.'

She could sense his fate from a mile away. She had been awakened and freed by someone like this. It could really only mean one thing.

'The Tower…'

'The Tower is about to face a great change.'