Bloodbound Codex: I Grow Stronger in Secret

Time passed by as Atlas stayed unconscious on the ruin floor with his slightly battered body. His skin had turned shadowy white now, while his attire was still worn and torn from everything that had happened before. From outside, he only looked like someone who had collapsed after pushing his body too far again, but inside his body, something else was taking shape.

Inside Atlas’s body, his blood was directly interfering with his Spirit Veins. It was not moving the same way blood normally moved through a body. It was pressing deeper, going past places it should not have reached so easily, and the Spirit Veins were reacting against it. They were not helping the blood. They were trying to stop it, because there was a deeper place inside Atlas that even his own body seemed to treat as dangerous.

Deep inside him, inside the very core of his being, a massive darkness had spread across. It was not his physical body. It was not his soul. It was not his mind, and it was not his sea of consciousness either. It was something else completely. In Kanji terms, this place could be called 虚無零, Kyomu-Rei.

Kyomu-Rei meant the Absolute Nothingness. Kyo meant Hollow. Mu meant Nothingness. Rei meant Zero and Absolute at the same time.

This space was not just empty. It was a place created by his Bloodline after it activated, and the reason Atlas had felt locked before was also because of this. During the process of creating Absolute Nothingness inside him, his body was not supposed to move at all. If he had been able to move, and if he had moved even by a very tiny amount, his body would have failed under the process and he would have died.

This was the real reason his own Bloodline had locked him up, though Atlas still thought it was the Codex. That misunderstanding was normal from his side, because every strange thing in his life had appeared through the Codex until now. The Bloodline, the Inscription, the new Attribute, the Active Vector, and even the Kanji words had all reached him through the Codex page or through the knowledge it allowed him to absorb.

Now, as one drop of his blood entered Kyomu-Rei, it floated there for some time inside the darkness. The blood did not explode or spread. It did not create some huge change that could be seen from outside. It simply floated there, then slowly changed color. The red faded away little by little until the drop of blood became the same color as his skin.

Shadowy white.

The blood did not do anything grand. Its color changed, and only this process happened inside him. But even this much took a lot of time. A lot.

An hour passed...Two hours passed... Three hours passed after that, then four, and time continued to tick by while Atlas remained unconscious. His fingers did not move. His breathing stayed quiet. The Codex remained silent. The scythe stayed embedded in the ground beside him. Five hours passed, then six, and only when seven full hours passed did Atlas’s body finally react again.

Atlas’s fingers twitched.

His breath came sharp, and his eyes snapped open. He pressed his hand against the ground and sat up slowly, looking around the ruin chamber first. He did not feel pain. There was no tearing feeling in his head, no burning in his veins, and no pressure crushing his body. Instead, he felt empty from inside.

It was not weakness. It was not tiredness either. It was just emptiness, as if a part deep inside him had become quiet and hollow.

Atlas turned toward the floating Codex and the Sanguis Stylus. He smirked when he saw them, then his eyes moved toward the scythe. It was still embedded in the ground, and after looking at it for a few seconds, Atlas spoke in a low voice.

”...You are finally going to integrate with me, If I knew beforehand that you could feel my emotions, and you even knew this would happen soon, I would’ve given you much more attention and fought with you by my side for longer.”

The scythe hummed as if it was agreeing with him. A small glow moved across the weapon, and Atlas understood the meaning without needing words. It was as if the scythe was saying that this was better. If this situation had come later, and if Atlas had used it for a longer time, the attachment would have become stronger. Then doing what he was about to do would have become harder for him.

Atlas nodded as if he understood its answer. Then he stood up, closed the Codex with the Sanguis Stylus attached beside it, and spoke.

”Terminate.”

As always, the Codex returned inside his chest.

After that, Atlas’s attention shifted toward the scythe again. He stretched his hand out and spoke in Kanji.

”不在重.”

Fuzai-jū, In simple terms, it meant the Weight of Non-Existence.

The moment Atlas held the scythe’s handle with his right palm and spoke the word, the lower point of the scythe crashed into the floor so heavily that the floor of the ruin broke apart like glass.

CRACK... BOOM!

Cracks spread across the stone, and broken pieces shifted beneath the pressure. Nothing came out of Atlas. No aura, no Spirit pressure, no visible force. The reaction came only from the scythe.

The reason was simple. The emptiness inside Atlas was now connected to Non-Existence. When this Non-Existence was applied to the scythe, the weapon reacted because it was an existing object with rank, form, material, and structure. It was not some ordinary item either. It had its own rank above Legendary and weight as a weapon. So when Atlas tried to apply Non-Existence to it, the scythe’s own Existence resisted.

And there was another reason. Atlas’s Active Vector, Kankon-Rei, was involved.

Kankon-Rei made it so that whatever Atlas applied his Null or Non-Existence to would have its rank reduced to Zero.

That meant the rank of the object would stop holding the same meaning once the Active Vector took effect. This was exactly what Atlas was trying to do to the scythe right now. He was trying to restore its rank to Zero so it could integrate with him.

But it was not going easy...Not even close.

Atlas felt his head being ripped apart from the inside. The Active Vector required too much focus and concentration, and if his other Attributes were not already fifty, he would have collapsed instantly. Even now, he was only barely holding on.

”Khuagggghhhhhhh!”

Atlas screamed as the Non-Existence released from himself clashed with the Existence of the scythe. Unfortunately and fortunately for him, the scythe was one rank above Legendary.

What did that mean?

It meant this clash could kill Atlas himself. He should not have been capable of restoring this weapon’s rank to Zero right now. The scythe was too high-ranked for his current state, and his body was not truly ready to force it down. But if he somehow succeeded, then the result would be different from simply owning a weapon. The scythe would not remain separate from him in the same way anymore. Atlas knew this much after the knowledge was directly assimilated into his mind.

And because he knew the outcome was do or die, he did not let go.

His teeth clenched. His eyes sharpened with raw hunger, not for food, but for the result in front of him. He grabbed the scythe with both hands as the handle shook under his grip and the floor beneath him kept cracking.

”Kh-khuaaaaaghhhhhhhh!”

Atlas screamed even more as he clenched the crashing scythe with both hands. His head snapped upward from the pain trying to tear through him. The clash between his Active Vector and the scythe’s Existence was too much for the current him. Spirit did not directly control this situation, but it still strengthened his physical body. His Attributes being at fifty also helped him endure, but even all of that was nowhere near enough to remove the pain or pressure he was feeling deep inside him.

Even still, Atlas did not give up.

After coming all the way from the bottom of the world’s hierarchy, he did not want to die a meaningless death without getting his revenge. From birth, he had been thrown away like trash. After growing older, he was still treated like trash. Then he was thrown into the Eternal Ruin like trash again. His life had been like that from the start, and he did not want all that suffering to disappear without making the people responsible pay for it.

Atlas’s eyes sharpened even while he screamed. His past flashed in front of his eyes, but he did not focus on every memory. He only focused on one thing. He had survived until now, so he was not going to stop here.

He closed his eyes and thought with everything left inside him.

’I...I am not fucking dying here!!!!!!’

”KHUAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!”

Atlas’s scream filled the entire ruin chamber. The scythe was getting crushed beneath the Non-Existence while its own automatic reaction kept clashing against it. The pressure continued for several seconds, then slowly, the scythe came to a stop.

Atlas slowly opened his eyes as he felt the clash ending. His head felt normal again, though his breathing came ragged and heavy.

”...Huff...Hah...”

He looked at the scythe.

His fingers slowly opened around the handle.

And the next moment, the scythe broke apart into countless pieces.

Atlas stayed there on his knees as he looked at the pieces floating in front of him.