Tower of Heaven

Chapter 322 Destructive Ambition [1]

Whoooosh!

Atlas' body was still covered in wounds, but his stamina was almost completely replenished by the pills he took. His mental exhaustion was a different story, but for now, it wasn't enough to make him collapse.

He dashed through the volcanic plains of Alfros, following what had become nothing more than a shadow on the horizon.

However, he left in time. Despite his inability to gain distance, he also wasn't losing it.

Atlas furrowed his brows. He had to be confused by the way he was instantly moved to action. Did he truly feel such strong hostility towards Cain?

'No, it is not hostility.'

In reality, Atlas knew what made Cain so important.

Cain was a person who didn't care if he was hurt. Cain was a person who would laugh when someone tried to kill him. He wasn't a friendly rival like Artemia or Horus, but an enemy and a rival at the same time.

Cain was someone Atlas could always fight at full power with the intent to kill without worrying about something going wrong.

He was an essential fighting partner for Atlas, and as long as he wasn't doing anything too egregious, only his personality was a problem.

Back on the 30th Floor, Atlas managed to lose Cain and kill him in the Empire of Ataraxia's apocalypse. Atlas was very pleased that he didn't have to worry about Cain's constant pursuit anymore, but that didn't mean he didn't miss the battles they fought.

He wanted to fight like that against another cultivator more. He wanted to see the limits of body cultivation that Cain could reach, and he wanted to defeat the man who had reached those limits.

Atlas had these kinds of hopes in his mind, but they meant nothing if Cain was dead.

Alkatiya's first contact with him left him with a feeling of anticipation. The shadow he saw looked like Cain, and with the context included, that anticipation became a feeling Atlas couldn't ignore.

So, he ran and thought until he sensed something changing around him. Without stopping his steps, he spread his spiritual sense and directed his eyes to the sky.

That was where it came from. Four paws made contact with the air and sent licks of flame dancing through the sky as it moved. It was graceful, far too graceful to be the same bloodthirsty beast he fought before.

However, was there another fox like that in the world?

It moved fast enough to catch up to Atlas despite him moving at full speed, and when it did, it landed next to him and matched his stride.

He looked at it with raised eyebrows as he felt something pulse in his mind.

'Is this the connection between master and slave?'

He didn't quite understand how it worked, but he could sense the fox's emotions and thoughts and interpret them into words he could understand. It happened naturally like the Heavens themselves were translating for him.

"You decided to follow me?"

Grrr…

The fox responded with a low growl. In Atlas' mind, that growl meant something more.

"We have a deal."

He was surprised to hear such a coherent sentence.

"You've accepted my conditions?"

Grrr…

The Kitsune nodded its head. After hearing what Feng Ziran had to say and taking a moment to understand its current state, it sort of instinctively realized that it was much better off with this collar suppressing it.

It had never felt such silence in its mind before. The thoughts that made it suffer every day were gone, and for now, it seemed like the people who placed the collar on its neck weren't nearly as bad as its captors.

It wasn't yet able to accept that people could be different, but Atlas did well. He gave it a ten-year deadline, he gave it the right to challenge him for its freedom, and he promised it relative freedom. The Kitsune almost found it hard to believe that it was being oppressed in any way.

Atlas looked back at the fox one more time –hearing these thoughts– before his eyes fell on the collar around its neck.

'Truly a monstrous thing.'

There wasn't another reason for its obedience and its change in attitude. Such drastic differences, such submissiveness and loyalty were being entirely enforced by that collar. The single golden band completely changed the fox's personality.

In its case, being submissive was for the better until it learned how to perceive the world properly, but what about the ordinary Divine Beast?

Atlas could understand why they had such an aversion to humans and other species when artifacts like these were being used against them. Atlas would also be furious if someone tried to suppress his will and turn him into a thinking and feeling puppet.

'Hmm…'

It was a complicated thing, but it wasn't anything for Atlas to focus on now. At the end of the day, Feng Ziran didn't have the collar for any negative purpose, and it wasn't being used for that purpose either.

The fox wasn't trying to communicate with him more than it needed to. Somewhere inside of its mind, it still existed and was still perceiving the world, so of course it wouldn't be overly kind or interested in him.

It was currently observing. Its new peace of mind allowed it to take a step back for the first time and actually try to understand the world.

Though asking a newly born beast to understand such complexities was just hopeful thinking, Atlas hoped that ten years later, it would be different.

The minds of beasts developed differently compared to humans, after all.

Atlas and the Kitsune moved side-by-side, dutifully following the shadow in the distance. They crossed through Alfros and witnessed the damage that had been done to the world already. They also saw as more damage was done with every passing minute.

The meteor shower hadn't ended. The frequency of such meteors had dropped significantly, but they were still falling all over the world.

'After I get to the bottom of this, I really do want to find what is hidden within this conspiracy.'

He wanted to know the rest of the story, but right now, his eyes were on the horizon.

That shadow stopped moving. At the speed that Atlas and the Kitsune were moving, they caught up to it in less than five minutes.

It wasn't much different from what Atlas expected.

"Haa…"

He let out a sigh of disappointment as he confirmed that the shadow was nothing more than a mirage. No, a mirage couldn't fool him, so perhaps the real Cain had been there for a moment.

Regardless of the truth, it remained the same that he wasn't here now.

Atlas had been led to a small town that was oddly free from meteor damage. The houses and shops were made of natural rock only, and they existed on only a total of five streets. The town was small enough that a single meteor could completely wreck it, but was it so lucky that it hadn't been struck?

'If such luck existed, I wouldn't have struggled so much when facing him.' Atlas thought as he glanced at the fox.

'I was called here.'

The shadow was gone. Its disappearance told him that Cain appeared near him specifically so he could notice.

'And I was being led right here.'

Atlas felt the Kitsune's thoughts inside of his mind, telling him of the strange aura it sensed from the darkest of the few alleyways existing here. It was so unusually dark that nobody would question whether it was manmade or natural, but that was also why everyone present in the town avoided that alley at all costs.

Atlas, on the other hand, started walking towards it at a moment's notice.

He had an inkling of who was waiting for him there.

It didn't need to be said that he had more than just a few questions for that person.