Tower of Heaven

"Khhh…Khhh…Khhh…!"

Each one was a strained breath. Atlas couldn't keep his mouth open wide enough to breathe smoothly, so he was forced to breathe through his teeth instead.

The mountain on his back stopped growing at a certain point, but he forgot where that was. The moment he passed that point, his life only got worse.

He carried with him what could be called two mountains' worth of pressure. Five kilometers into the pathway, his body suddenly shivered.

He almost dropped to the ground, but he bent his knees and steadied himself. If he fell, he didn't know if he'd be able to stand up.

The shiver coursed through his body, starting from his neck and moving down to his toes. When it reached the end of its course and fizzled away, Atlas froze.

'My eyes…'

It didn't want to start smaller? It didn't want to allow him some time to adjust by taking something like his sense of smell first? Read exclusive adventures at My Virtual Library Empire

No. Nothing like that happened. From the very first moment, his eyesight was taken from him. He was left blind, only able to feel the wind hitting his back and pushing him forward.

'That did not exist before.'

That wind appeared because his eyes were gone. It guided him forward, allowing him to, at the very least, stay on track.

But it didn't make him any faster.

His body persevered and became stronger. It became accustomed to the weight on his shoulders and to the state of always being on the edge of collapse. He knew that the moment his mind gave way, he would break, but that was why he never allowed his mind to stray.

There were no empty thoughts in his mind. There was only a single thing.

'4500. 4501. 4502. 4503…'

His every step resonated inside his mind. Even when the world went dark, this didn't change.

The world was dark, so he couldn't see how much further he had to walk. However, he was still more than aware of his environment.

Through his ears, he heard the sound of the ground beneath his feet. Its mulch-like surface squelched with his every step as if to noticeably mark his progress.

Through his back, his arms, and his legs, he felt the winds that pushed him forward and the warmth of the flames topping the walls. They always provided him with a sense of direction and an understanding of his relative position.

Spiritual sense was a matter of the mind even if his body hadn't been materialized. He used it to perfectly map the area around him, making the loss of sensation meaningless.

And like that, he moved forward another five kilometers. With each kilometer he crossed, he lost another sense. His smell and taste went away first, followed by his hearing and his sense of touch.

Ten kilometers into the path, he was left with nothing but spiritual sense to tell him where he was going.

'10212. 10213. 10214…'

Was this meant to be torture? If this was considered torture, it was laughable.

That was Atlas' opinion on the situation thus far, but did he know how crazy he sounded?

Rather, was he aware of how crazy his thought was?

He'd only moved a mere ten kilometers through this path and he was carrying two mountains without any of his five senses. Did he know how much more distance he had to cross?

The ten kilometers that Atlas had moved through thus far accounted for no more than a single percent of that distance.

The fog clouded his perception, so he wasn't able to realize it. How could the path from one Underworld to the next be a mere hundred or so kilometers long?

Realistically, it was a path that traversed thousands or perhaps even millions of kilometers of distance. However, since Hel personally set it up for him, the space was shrunk, leaving the distance at a simple one thousand kilometers.

He should have been wary of what such a shrinking of distance meant. He should've thought about why the specific effects he felt were weight on his shoulders and the loss of his senses.

These were not the tortures Hel was referring to.

These were only the side effects of moving through such a distorted space.

When Atlas made it past the ten-kilometer mark, his body completely adapted to the spatial anomalies. He didn't realize that the true torture was only just beginning.

Atlas moved in a world of pure blackness that reminded him of Purgatory. There weren't any cues giving him any sense of self in this world other than his own ego. He had to maintain his thoughts as firmly as possible, commanding his body through the sheer force of his will.

He didn't know if he was moving. He didn't even know if his body was properly responding to the commands he was giving it. Still, he gave those commands and watched the vague picture painted by his spiritual sense, awaiting a change.

The change didn't come from the outside world.

Hisss…!

It was a sound that left Atlas' mouth instinctually. He hissed as a sharp pain suddenly struck his mind.

The spiritual sense image of the world was shattered by something that looked like a large needle. It was one of many that invaded Atlas' mental world.

They flew around and completely broke his mental projection of the environment before gathering together at the back of his mind.

They waited for the moment he tried to establish his vision again. His spiritual sense spread into the world and formed an image in his mind. The moment it appeared, those nails shot out and crushed it again.

Atlas could see the world for a second at a time, but if he tried to maintain a constant picture through such obstacles, he would run out of energy quickly.

He had to be mindful of when he looked into the outside world. And, it wasn't as if the nails only interfered with his sixth sense.

Their mere presence in his mind caused great pain. His head pulsated as if his brain was threatening to break out of his skull. He couldn't feel any other sensations, but pain wasn't included.

His body was still wholly aware of the concept of pain and would continue to feel it regardless of how much time passed.

After all, though his body had been materialized, his soul was the one feeling everything. His soul translated each and every sensation into a pain far worse than anything his body would have felt.

Atlas eventually regained feeling in his body. He was able to feel the movement of his arms and legs again, though that wasn't a good thing.

He felt his legs first. Suddenly, thousands of needles came from both sides and stabbed into his skin. The "pain" felt like countless insects vibrating beneath his skin as they gnawed through his flesh.

"Khhh…!"

He made a strained sound, but it wasn't over. Not long after, his arms were struck by the same sensation.

Weight and vibration. They were the only things Atlas could feel.

Still, he walked. Or, well, he did the closest thing to walking as he could manage.

'100458. 100459. 100460…'

Still, he counted each and every step, keeping his mind grounded.

It didn't matter if his count was wrong and it didn't matter if it took him so many steps to traverse only fifty kilometers.

With every step he took, he came closer to Artemia and Horus.

To the Atlas of this moment, in this world, there was quite literally nothing else that mattered.