The bottom layer of Heaven was not what Atlas expected.
No pearled gates, no radiant choirs—only mist and stone. The air tasted faintly metallic, like iron filings in his mouth, and the ground beneath him was rough with veins of crystal that pulsed faintly, as though the entire realm was alive and listening.
Atlas pressed his back to the cold surface of a broken column, his chest rising and falling with shallow breath.
He could still feel it—the echo of that force. That god. His skin prickled with leftover arcs of golden lightning.
His jaw clenched, not from courage but from the raw knowledge that he could not stand against it. Not now. Perhaps not ever.
'You are powerless,' the thought formed, but it was not his.
The voice. The Guide. It reverberated not through his ears but inside his marrow, a resonance that made his bones ache.
{{{{{If you let me possess you, the virus that you call a god....He will crumble before us.}}}}}
