The silence after the storm was almost unbearable.
The Third Layer, once roaring with the cries of gods and the screams of the dying, now hung still — heavy as a held breath.
Atlas stood at its heart.
His body floating close, their edges still glowing faintly from the divine fire that had scorched them. Beneath his feet, the ground was glassed — smooth and black, reflections of lightning still trapped within. The air smelled of burnt stone and broken promises.
He did not move. He did not need to. The silence itself bowed before him.
He knew what was coming.
Chaos.
Not the chaos of demons shrieking or fallens bleeding — but the deeper, older chaos, the kind that bent creation itself. The kind that began not with armies, but with a single choice.
His choice.
He could trace every fracture, every calamity, back to himself.
The invasion of Heaven — that brief moment when he stood against the Gate of Radiance and tore open the light. Him.
