Atlas felt his soul being torn apart—dragged through rivers of void and fire—as the veil between forms collapsed.
One heartbeat, he was fur and frost; the next, flesh and flame. The air of the Third Layer hit him like molten iron, filling his lungs with the scent of sulfur and ash.
His body—his true body—shuddered as he reentered it, the tremor of his soul snapping back into place like a chain yanked taut.
The Guide was still there.
Still fighting.
The world around them was a furnace of shattered light and warring divinities. It was no longer how he had left it.
'what the fuck happened here?'
Every breath carried the echo of broken laws. Asmodeus towered in the distance, his eight wings of obsidian stretched wide, veins glowing with infernal scripture.
The earth beneath him pulsed like a dying heart, magma spilling through runes carved into its flesh. Every roar from the demon king felt like a world ending.
