The climb began with silence.
Not the silence of sleep, or even of death — but the silence of a place where sound itself had been judged unworthy.
His boots pressed against white earth, not soil, not stone, but something finer, like powdered bone or ash sifted through eternity. Each step left no trace.
Above him, clouds curled and folded like the slow breathing of some endless beast. The air was thinner here, sharp, a taste like clean iron on his tongue.
And the mana. Oh the mana was just....sublime.
Atlas reached instinctively for his wings — and felt nothing. His flight powers bearing nothing.
The tether of gravity pulled heavier than any chain. He tried once, twice, to will himself upward, but his body refused. No flight. No leap of distance. Heaven's skin itself resisted him.
"Fine," he muttered, planting his boots. "Then I climb."
He did not look behind him. He would not give Hell's horizon the dignity of a farewell.
