Chapter 283: New Circumstances

Two days later...

Eliomor had mostly stabilized within those two days. The sudden disappearance and return of everyone’s souls had been a truly shocking and terrifying event, and for a while, the entire world had been thrown into chaos.

However, once the rulers returned and began calming their respective people through various methods, the uproar gradually settled down. The people were still nervous, but at least they were no longer panicking over what had happened.

Even then, fear remained inside many people’s hearts. They couldn’t help but wonder whether something on that scale could happen again without warning. Who could guarantee that their souls wouldn’t suddenly be pulled out of their bodies a second time? They had no answer to that question, and that uncertainty alone was enough to keep many people anxious.

However, that fear was somewhat eased when Eliomor itself, for the first time in its history, revealed its existence to the entire world.

A massive orb had appeared high above the sky, visible from every Continent at once, immediately leaving countless people stunned. Many had never imagined that their World itself could possess a consciousness, let alone communicate with them directly.

It wasn’t simply an attempt to calm everyone down.

Eliomor had appeared because it wanted to properly apologize for what had happened and explain why it had interfered with the lives of every living being on the planet.

It presented itself as the parent of the entire world and explained that it could never intentionally harm its own children. It also went as far as explaining the war that had occurred between Orivian and the rulers of Eliomor, giving the people enough information to understand what had actually happened.

However, Eliomor deliberately omitted several crucial pieces of information. It didn’t reveal that Orivian was a Progenitor, nor did it explain what a Progenitor actually was.

Revealing something of that scale while everyone was still recovering from the incident would only create more confusion and potentially cause another wave of panic. Eliomor also avoided mentioning Atlas and his involvement in the battle.

Instead, the explanation given to the people was simple.

"Orivian has been killed, and the World is now safe. As for the lives taken during the war...there were actually no deaths among innocent people."

The explanation regarding the souls that had suddenly been pulled from everyone’s bodies was also straightforward and truthful. Eliomor explained that it had needed to remove all the souls at once in order to make Orivian continue believing in Eliomor until the very end.

If Orivian had discovered the deception beforehand, he would have realized what was happening and could have carried out his original plan to sell the entire World for his own purposes.

That explanation naturally produced many different reactions.

When Eliomor appeared in the sky in the form of a massive orb, almost like a God looking down upon the entire World, people reacted in completely different ways. Some were afraid of the existence that had been silently watching over them all this time.

Some immediately began worshiping it, believing that their World had finally revealed its true divine form. Others, however, were furious.

They couldn’t accept that their lives could be treated so casually. Their souls had been removed from their bodies without their permission, and even if Eliomor had done it to save the World, that didn’t change the fact that every single person had been forced into the situation without being given a choice.

Yet there was another uncomfortable truth that many of them understood.

This World had always followed the law of the strong oppressing the weak.

If a single Individual could kill another through a loophole in the rules, there was nothing the weaker side could do about it. The same logic applied here. Complaining about Eliomor taking their souls almost felt like a reminder of their own helplessness, because the entire situation had happened precisely because they were too weak to have any control over it.

That realization didn’t make everyone forgive Eliomor, but it did make the anger gradually settle.

After Eliomor apologized and explained everything that had happened, the people were also informed that the rulers would soon arrange another meeting among themselves. This time, however, the meeting would concern something much larger and, more importantly, the future well-being of the entire World.

Eliomor had intentionally avoided explaining the disaster that was going to occur two months later. The words "the well-being of the World" were merely being used as a cover for the real purpose of the upcoming meeting.

Eventually, the rulers would have to reveal the truth to the people, because that disaster would be the exact subject they needed to discuss.

But while the rest of the World was gradually returning to normal, a much more complicated situation had emerged on the Human Continent.

There was no King or Queen ruling the Human Continent anymore.

The previous Human King’s deeds had also been dug up and spread throughout the World by several information organizations that had apparently been waiting for an opportunity like this. Many of those organizations had been victims of Azarion’s rule themselves, and with his death and the collapse of his influence, they finally had nothing left to fear.

The information spread quickly.

The crimes committed under the previous Human King were exposed one after another, and anger surged throughout the Human Continent. Almost everyone was furious after learning the truth about what had happened under Azarion’s rule.

The only people who remained relatively silent were the Nobles.

While the common people were expressing their anger, the Nobles were already thinking about the future. They needed to decide who would become the next ruler of the Human Continent, and more importantly, they needed to determine how much influence each Noble faction would have under the new administration.

Naturally, none of them were willing to simply give up their positions.

Before long, the Nobles began turning against one another.

Each faction started making preparations to secure its own position, and the situation slowly became a political struggle where everyone was trying to place a knife against someone else’s neck before someone could do the same to them.

But before they could turn the Human Continent into another battlefield of political manipulation, Atlas entered the situation.

He carried out his revenge.

The remaining Nobles who had participated in the oppression and torture of the people were dragged into Atlas’s hands, and what followed was far more brutal than anything they had ever imagined. Some of them were killed in ways so cruel that even Azarion’s punishment could have seemed insignificant in comparison.

Atlas didn’t care about their status anymore.

The moment he recognized that some of those Nobles were the very people who had tortured him when he was a child, whatever small amount of restraint he might have possessed disappeared completely.

He deleted the word "mercy" from his mind.

Using Mu-Ri, Atlas altered the logic of their consciousness and prevented them from losing consciousness. Their minds were forced to remain awake as he subjected them to the same forms of torture they had once inflicted upon him during his childhood.

But that was only the beginning.

Unlike Azarion, whose pain Atlas had multiplied by one million, these Nobles were subjected to ten million times the pain they would normally have experienced. Their bodies were far weaker than Azarion’s Progenitor body, meaning Atlas didn’t need to expend nearly as much mental effort to maintain the alteration.

He continued the torture for an entire day.

Not a few minutes like Azarion’s one.

An entire day.

And yet, even after everything they experienced, Atlas eventually realized something.

Pain had a limit.

If someone was forced to endure the same sensation for long enough, their mind would eventually begin going numb to it. What had once been unbearable would gradually become something they could endure simply because there was no feeling of that ’pain’ at all.

Atlas understood that there was no point in continuing forever.

So, at the end of that day, he executed them.

Their heads were then hung in the empty air above the central city as he altered the logic of space with Mu-Ri, clearly visible to everyone who passed beneath them.

Anyone who intended to become a Noble and use their authority to oppress others would know exactly what awaited them if they followed the same path as the Nobles who had come before them.

Velmira and the other rulers never interfered with what Atlas was doing.

There was no reason for them to do so nor could they even interfere.

The Nobles responsible for the previous oppression had already been dealt with, and the message left behind was something the next generation of Nobles would understand long before they ever gained political power.

With the situation on the Human Continent finally settling down, two days had passed since Eliomor had revealed itself.

It was finally time to appoint a new ruler.

The Human Continent could not continue without a King or Queen forever. The continent needed a central authority to manage its various affairs, rebuild what had been damaged, and prevent the remaining factions from turning the power vacuum into another conflict.

However, the person who would choose the next ruler was not the Nobles.

For the first time, Eliomor itself had decided to choose the ruler of the Human Continent.

And the person it had chosen was...

Velmira Ashenworth.