Tower of Heaven

Chapter 168: Empire of Ataraxia [7]

The person in that cell no longer had the visage of a prince. Atlas was a cultivator. At the Sky Sage Realm, he could go for several weeks on end without food. The Prince could not. He was still at a stage where a week without eating sapped all of his energy.

These past few days, from the Dark Forest to the prison, there hadn't been a moment he could spare for something like food. Now, he was already starting to look weaker. His face was pale and his eyes were sunken in. He had the same exact empty expression as the other prisoners who were sent to this place.

His expression barely changed when that person approached.

"Hello, there!"

The snake-eyed man smiled and gave a small wave as he peeked into Kade's view.

"It must have been rough for you! You're a pretty great person, but even you're making an expression like that, eh?"

The cell door scraped against the rocky ground as it was opened from the outside.

"Was it the humiliation? I figured you'd be feeling down when I came, but not to this extent. I guess it's normal for that kind of shame to take a toll on you."

He leaned over, his body casting a long shadow over Atlas.

"Or maybe you're cultivating and this character is unconscious."

A grin spread across his face. The eyes that always remained closed opened, revealing a pair of emerald green irises that peered down at the corpse-like prince below him.

"Atlas, if you don't wake up, I'm going to kill you~!"

He spoke as he moved his fingers into the Second Prince's throat. He was someone who knew his opponent very well, someone who approached this trial in such a way that he would only find this person as his opponent.

He revealed this much with his words. If Atlas heard him, then Atlas knew who he was.

Still, he got no response.

"So you really are cultivating. In a place like this? Hahahaha! Are you stupid, or were you suddenly enlightened? Whatever the case…"

He leaned in closer.

"...since you're asleep, it's fine if I play with you a little, right?"

The fingernails that drew blood from the Second Prince's neck moved down his neckline and created three lines of blood in his skin. The cuts were clean, and as the droplets dripped off of his fingers, the attendant's face displayed more and more ecstasy.

"This body is one of the strongest cultivators in this nation, but he is hidden so deeply that it is rare for anyone to have the opportunity to play his role. You also got a good role, but mine will absolutely suppress you in any situation."

The three blood lines converged on the Second Prince's chest, directly in front of his heart.

"If I just…"

The man pushed his fingers just slightly deeper into the Second Prince's chest.

Bang!

That was when it happened.

Two arms wrapped around his body and slammed him to the ground. The chains attached to the wall shattered, sending fragments of metal flying into the attendant's body.

He didn't know how he ended up on the floor. However, he didn't have time to think about it.

"So you were awake!" He remarked in excitement, gasping for breath.

The arms that slammed him into the ground wrapped around his throat. The chains that attached him to the wall were now being used to strangle his opponent.

"Shut up and go to sleep. You are not needed anymore."

Atlas didn't say much. He focused all of the strength he could draw out of the Second Prince's body into his hands, crushing the attendant's throat.

He knew from the start. He knew from the start that his opponent had set up such a scenario to humiliate him and break his spirit. And, when he recognized the patterns, he realized that Cain had somehow arrived in the same trial as him.

That was when he formulated his plan.

The chains had been slowly weakened at the point where they were attached to the wall by the Spiritual Energy that was flowing into the Second Prince's body. Atlas waited, knowing that Cain wouldn't miss this opportunity to approach him and gloat.

He waited, and though he did indeed receive sudden enlightenment, he completed it before Cain ever arrived.

From the very moment he approached, Atlas had been waiting for the moment when his guard was down, when he became too engulfed in his fantasies to use the strength that the Third Prince's Attendant provided him.

The chains around his neck gave Atlas the advantage. The blood supply to his brain was being cut off, interfering with his ability to control his limbs. A sudden burst of qi would solve the problem and throw Atlas off, but that was why Atlas kept his knee on Cain's chest.

He pressed in while he pulled the chains tighter. The pressure made it more difficult for him to gather the qi that moved through his qi channels, which delayed that very burst significantly.

And delaying it was enough. This was not Cain's original body with its bone armor, this was the body of an assassin who didn't focus nearly as much on Body Cultivation.

His face turned blue and then turned purple. His fingernails scraped into Atlas' arms, covering the floor in his blood, but the healing physique of the Ataraxias let him ignore it as he tightened his grip.

The attendant's mouth opened and closed like a dying fish. His eyes bulged out of his swollen face, and qi fizzled out of his pores. He almost mobilized a qi burst.

He almost did it before his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell unconscious.

"Haa…haa…"

Atlas breathed heavily. It was a silent struggle only defined by the ruffling of clothes, but it was the most vital struggle of the entire trial.

[Guriyatra's Life Seed]

Atlas infected the unconscious attendant's body with a technique that stole his life force. He broke the chains on his own wrists and used what was left of them to tie the man's arms and legs together.

Taking the key that Cain used to open the cell, Atlas left it and slammed the door closed.

'I will not need to worry about him again.'

Cain was in the same state Atlas would have been in if it weren't for this visit.

Chained physically and by the limitations of the character's body, unable to escape through ordinary means.

'Without Cain as a variable, I can move freely.'

The others in this trial were all merely "characters" in this illusionary world. They would move as Atlas thought they would because they did not have their own free will.

However, he didn't move towards the exit of the prison, which was on the far east end of the prison. No, he moved in the complete opposite direction.

'I must reach its deepest depths.'

He had to reach the part of the prison where no unauthorized person could ever enter. There, where even light only existed in small quantities, was his goal.

'I am not sure if it is truly there, but I must take this gamble.'

Everything relied on whether or not Atlas' perceptive abilities led him in the right direction.