Chapter 300: A Slave?

Atlas twitched his eyebrows in confusion again as he asked, "Fool the power governing these Worlds? Didn’t you just say that is something even beyond the Galaxy?" The woman nodded quickly, her expression still filled with fear as she answered, "Yes, it is something beyond the Galaxy, but we have a way to bypass its ’Detection’ of a World’s Core being stolen or absorbed."

Atlas narrowed his eyes slightly at her explanation, waiting for her to clarify what she meant.

"W-We simply replace the real Core with a False Core before taking it. As long as the False Core remains connected to the World Will, the World continues to recognize it as its foundation, even though the true Core has already been removed."

"The power governing these worlds does not constantly inspect every world directly. It only detects when the fundamental conditions of a world are violated, so as long as the world Will remains connected to something that can temporarily fulfill the role of the Core, the theft itself will not immediately trigger its Detection." She explained while carefully choosing her words.

"We then place the consciousness of the World inside that False Core, making it appear as though the World’s Will is still alive and the World itself remains intact."

Atlas’s eyes widened slightly when he heard that explanation. ’Something like that is possible? It’s the same way a smart thief works...’ He understood the basic principle immediately. They weren’t actually hiding the stolen Core from something beyond the Galaxy.

Instead, they were exploiting the conditions through which that existence detected the theft in the first place. As long as the World continued behaving as though its Core still existed, there would be nothing unusual to detect immediately.

However, one thing still bothered Atlas. "How do you even create a False Core that remains undetectable like that?" The woman answered without hesitation, "W-Well, a False Core by itself cannot fool the Detection. It only becomes similar enough to a real Core when we connect the World’s Will to it."

"The World Will carries the unique existence signature of the World, and once it resides inside the False Core, the substitute begins functioning as a temporary foundation. As long as that connection remains stable, the power governing these worlds recognizes the World as still existing normally."

She paused briefly before continuing, "But... the False Core cannot maintain that state forever. After the real Core is taken, the World’s Will can remain inside the False Core for less than a single year, that is when the governing power eventually detects that something is wrong."

Her voice remained nervous as she explained the final part, "However, by then, it is already too late. The real Core has already been taken to our World, and its life force has been absorbed into our world’s will. Once that happens, the original life force no longer exists as a separate foreign signature, so there is nothing left for the governing power to trace back to us."

She finished her explanation in one breath, her body still trembling as she carefully watched Atlas’s expression. Instead of anger or suspicion, however, his face showed genuine interest. ’It’s a very interesting method, but still risky. Well, the reward is also enormous, so that must be why they are willing to take such a risk...’

Atlas remained thoughtful for a moment before shifting toward another question. "I assume you people gain many things after absorbing a Core, right? And you must also use some unusual method to place a World’s Will into another Core, although I’m not interested in that right now. I want to know something else first."

The woman nodded quickly, "W-What is it, Sir Atlas?" Atlas immediately asked, "When you people arrived here, were there Monsters? From your perspective, they must have been weak."

The woman arched an eyebrow slightly before answering, "Y-Yes, we did encounter some strange Monsters. Although we do not know how they came to exist in such a barren World, we simply killed all of them.

We also found two strange objects with some kind of mechanisms built inside them." Atlas’s eyes narrowed immediately after hearing that. ’So it was kind of a Ruin, but in a completely different World... Hmm, and the two objects she found must have been the two Divine Relics.’ His thoughts shifted toward the distant portal as he considered another strange detail.

’If the Ruin has already been cleared, then how is the "Door" still there? It should have disappeared, no?’ Atlas couldn’t find an immediate answer to that question, but he decided to leave it for later. There were still too many things he needed to understand first, and the woman’s information had already created more questions than answers.

"Alright. Now I want to know what gains you people receive from absorbing a World’s Core." The woman nodded again before beginning her explanation. "First of all, when we absorb a World’s Core, roughly one hundred individuals from our World participate in the process."

"The Core’s life force is distributed among them through our world’s will, allowing each of them to absorb a portion of its power safely. When we complete the absorption, we gain an immense amount of life force, so much that it can allow us to break through several major Cultivation ranks in a single process."

She continued after a brief pause, "The World’s Will benefits as well, when it absorbs the Core of another World, it gains a portion of that World’s accumulated existence and undergoes an evolution of its own."

"If the World’s Will is currently at its lowest evolutionary stage, absorbing another World’s Core is enough to push it forward by one major evolutionary stage." Atlas listened carefully as he processed everything she had told him, but the sheer amount of new information surrounding Worlds, Cores, and World Wills was beginning to make even him feel that there were too many unknowns to deal with at once.

’I think it would be better to make her enter a contract through the Laws and use her to gain more knowledge about everything slowly.’ Atlas made his decision without hesitation. He had no reason to release someone who knew about him, belonged to an unknown race, had already attacked him, and could potentially return to her people with information about his existence.

Instead of killing her immediately, keeping her alive under a binding contract would allow him to obtain information about the Galaxy while also preventing her from becoming a future threat.

With that thought, Atlas spoke up, "I understand things to a certain extent. Now I need you to summon a contract between us through the Laws. The terms of the contract will be..." He paused for a moment before a faint grin appeared on his face. Atlas had no hesitation about leveraging the woman’s current situation to protect himself, especially after everything she had done.

"First, you will never harm me or anyone surrounding me, second, you will answer all of my questions whenever I ask. Third, you will participate in any battle I order you to join, fourth, if you fail to abide by any of the above terms, you will be erased from existence."

The moment Atlas finished stating the terms, the woman’s entire body trembled violently again. ’I-I knew it! He isn’t Human at all! He just wants to make me into a slave!!’ Fear and anguish spread through her heart as she stared at Atlas. She felt completely helpless in her current situation.

If she refused, she was certain Atlas would kill her, but if she accepted the contract, she believed she would spend the rest of her existence as a living slave forced to obey another being’s commands.

However, before her fear could completely overwhelm her, Atlas spoke again. "Don’t think I’m trying to make you into my slave or something. I hate that kind of thing because of my personal reasons."

His expression remained calm as he continued, "It’s simply that you brought this situation upon yourself. If you had answered everything from the beginning, I would have made an equivalent contract where both sides had equal terms, and then I would have simply left this place. But now..." Atlas’s expression gradually became more serious as he looked directly at her.

"You have already done quite a bit of damage to me, and you know information about me. Who is to say you won’t reveal everything to your people and bring an army of people here to kill me?" Atlas’s eyes narrowed slightly as he continued, "I can’t simply let you walk away after that, this contract isn’t about making you my slave. It’s about making sure that you cannot use the information you gained from this encounter to become a threat to me or the people around me."

The woman remained silent as she listened to him, still trembling slightly. Atlas had made his position clear. He wasn’t asking for her loyalty, nor was he pretending that they were equals after everything that had happened. He simply refused to leave behind an unknown enemy who possessed information about him and had already demonstrated a willingness to attack him.

"For now, you have two choices," Atlas finally said calmly. "Accept the contract and continue living, or refuse it and accept the consequences of what you’ve done." His gaze remained fixed on her as the atmosphere around them became quiet, leaving the decision entirely in her hands.