Tower of Heaven

At some point, when the fox fell to the ground, it was unable to get up.

It still had some strength left in its mind, however, it was using that strength to maintain this mental realm. Unless it wanted to set Atlas free, it could not disperse this place.

And it did not want to see him go free.

He was too much of an enigma.

The Kitsune's young mind was not hard to understand, but it was hard to describe. Rather than the cohesive mixture of thoughts and emotions that existed in a being that had been alive for some time, its brain was a mush of things it couldn't understand or define.

It felt so many new emotions every single day, and the same strong emotions it didn't know how to deal with always plagued it.

Before it met Atlas, such thoughts didn't exist in its mind.

Its life before this encounter was bleak, to say the least. In the first place, it was odd for a being that hadn't even hatched from its egg to know the definition of pain.

No, wasn't the fact that there was a fox spirit inside of an egg even stranger?

In fact, this Kitsune had been born once already. It was born for no more than a few hours before it was robbed from its home and entrapped in this egg.

Within this egg, it learned what pain was.

Within this egg, it learned about torture and hatred. It learned about slavery and slaughter. It learned everything that should have been kept as far away from it as possible during its youngest years.

Therefore, what else could it know?

It didn't know how the situation changed, but at some point, it felt a great aura of heat around the egg that was actually comforting, like a warm embrace. It found that it was able to perceive the world again, and it found that when it roared, the power of those roars would affect the outside world.

It started killing, and when it killed, it felt the pleasure of its stress being released. All of the pent-up emotion, all of the hatred it had for its captors was directed at the innocent city outside by the beast cub that knew no better.

It already had too much blood on its paws.

If it had met Atlas before it tasted blood, perhaps his strange nature and the thoughts it understood from his mind would have sparked its curiosity. It may have dropped its attack and chosen to explore him instead to see what made him so different from others.

But that was no longer possible.

Seeing the beast lose its energy, Atlas tried his best to approach it.

GRRR–!

The growl that came from its throat was guttural. He could tell that it would lash out if he stepped past its line.

"Haa…"

With no other choice, he gave up. He bent his knees and sat down on the "ground," which was really just the same yellow and orange backdrop that had turned physical when he desired it.

'This is a mental realm, so you should be able to hear and understand me perfectly.'

He looked at the fox, but he didn't say the words out loud. Still, it flinched slightly, which was enough acknowledgement for him.

'This world is not the same as the one you have grown accustomed to.'

There were many horrible things in this world. As someone who was also a stranger to it, Atlas reacted to them adversely when he first arrived.

However, he learned to understand both sides of this world just as he learned to understand his own in the past. He accepted the ugliness of the world as a single part of it, and he was able to see the beauty that was usually overshadowed by those negative things.

It was hard to see if one didn't want to see it. The world was merely the world, after all. It could not prove anything to anyone. It existed only to exist, allowing anyone to perceive it as they wished.

A majority of the perception people had of the world was created only by themselves and the other people living in the world.

'You have only seen the worst people, therefore, you have only understood the worst of the world.'

If it was only allowed the opportunity to find better people and experience better things, it was guaranteed to see a different world.

'However, you cannot see that.'

Atlas could see in the fox's eyes that his words meant nothing to it.

It wasn't that the beast couldn't comprehend what he was saying. It just didn't believe him. It didn't believe that the good in the world could ever be greater than the bad.

Because for those few months before it was captured, it saw the good parts of the world.

Atlas closed his eyes.

It couldn't speak words back to him, but its message was translated well enough as their minds were connected.

'I tried my best.'

He really did try to get through to it. He tried to project his own memories of this world's beauties and mysteries into its mind, but it didn't matter.

A young cub without wisdom would never be able to internalize wise words.

The white and blue flames he'd been holding until now disappeared.

As if they had a mutual understanding, both Atlas and the fox spirit stood to their feet.

In this final moment of peace, Atlas tried just one more time.

'Don't do it.'

He knew what this beast was thinking of doing. It wanted to destroy everything and consume the world; anything to attain the power to avenge itself.

If it left this egg, he doubted that he would be able to stop himself from killing it. He knew that, and as the fox read his thoughts, it realized his hesitation as well.

If only he wasn't a stranger, that hesitation would have meant something.

In the next moment, cracks spread through the mental realm. Atlas closed his eyes once more, and when he opened them again, he felt the familiar sensation of weight that a physical body had.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The chaotic atmosphere of Alfros appeared around him once more. Feng Ziran wasn't nearby, but the flames lighting up the sky and turning falling meteors into chunks of rock that hit the ground with much less force gave away her location.

Atlas looked around for a moment and sighed as he saw the city around him. He sighed as he saw the meteors and he had the urge to sigh again when he thought further.

And then, he cleared his mind.

[Perfect Adaptability has activated]

At the same time, the glowing crack in the reddish-black egg expanded until it was a web of cracks that decorated its entire surface.

Crack!

With the sound of a single crack, the egg exploded and sent shards in every direction. Golden light filled the atmosphere and the ringing of bells filled the Heavens, announcing the birth of a "new" Divine Beast cub.

A single white tail, red eye markers that looked like eyeshadow, and a large body that was at least twice as large as an ordinary man despite clearly being the form of a cub.

VOOM!

The flames of Alfros responded to its call.
Continue your saga on empire

Compared to its power in the mental realm, its current self was much stronger. Compared to his power in the mental realm, Atlas' current self was much weaker.

And worst of all, that same fox now had access to the outside world that it wanted to destroy so badly.

One could imagine its first move.