Bloodbound Codex: I Grow Stronger in Secret

Atlas appeared behind the woman again as he altered the logic of space around himself, but the moment the alteration took effect, his expression changed slightly. A sharp wave of mental backlash struck him, considerably stronger than what he had experienced when using the same method outside the domain.

Atlas frowned as he endured the sensation for a moment before coming to a simple conclusion. ’It must be because I’m inside her domain.’ Null didn’t seem capable of interfering with the Law of Death she was controlling, but the alteration of Logic was still able to bypass the restriction.

That also explained why he couldn’t use Mu-Ho again, because the technique relied on something that Null normally allowed him to manipulate, while this domain had already restricted that possibility.

The moment Atlas appeared behind her, his entire body became coated in the Flames of Nothingnessas he swung his Katana forward with immense ferocity. The surrounding space immediately began reacting to the flames, and the domain itself seemed to scream in protest as the black flames burned through the space supporting it.

Yet despite the destruction spreading through the domain, the woman suddenly became completely silent. She didn’t even turn around to look at Atlas, remaining perfectly still as though she already knew what he was about to do.

Atlas didn’t care whether she turned around or not. He also wanted to confirm something for himself. If the Flames of Nothingness could burn the Law of Death she was controlling into Nothingness, then this would be another way to bypass the restriction created by her ability.

His Katana continued descending toward her body, covered entirely in the black flames, but just before the blade could cut through her, Atlas suddenly felt it collide with something.

The sword stopped.

Atlas’s expression changed slightly as he felt the resistance against his blade. There was nothing visible in front of him, yet something had stopped the Katana completely. He frowned as he looked at the space around the blade, trying to understand what could possibly prevent an attack coated in the Flames of Nothingness from reaching its target. The answer came to him almost immediately.

’Ah... She’s using the Law of Death to bypass the space where the Flames of Nothingness are. She’s stopping only the ”sword,” not the flames surrounding it.’

Realization dawned on Atlas as he understood what she had done. The situation was almost identical to what Orivian had previously managed to accomplish against his Flames of Nothingness.

Just like Orivian, this woman had found a way around the flames, although she wasn’t truly countering them. Instead, she was simply bypassing them entirely, avoiding the Flames of Nothingness while manipulating the Law of Death to stop the physical blade itself.

’Hmm, I understand how she did that, but still...’

Atlas’s eyes narrowed slightly before he immediately acted. He tapped into Event Absorptiononce again and absorbed the entire Event in which she had bypassed the Flames of Nothingness and stopped his Katana.

The moment the Event disappeared into him, the resistance against his blade vanished as well, and his Katana continued moving forward.

One might wonder, why the woman hadn’t done anything to him in the meantime he was thinking all these? The answer was simple, he was moving at a speed that simply made everything around both him and her extreme slow motion,

The woman’s expression finally changed when she realized her method had become meaningless. She immediately disappeared from Atlas’s range and reappeared some distance away, her eyes fixed on him with a mixture of disbelief and frustration.

’Doesn’t he get tired? He has been using these ridiculous abilities for this much time...’ She couldn’t understand how Atlas continued using one impossible ability after another without showing any obvious sign of exhaustion.

’Where in the world is he even getting that much energy to keep using them?’ She could only wonder as she watched him from a distance. Instead of giving him another opportunity to attack, she immediately activated several applications of her ability at the same time.

First, she manipulated the Law of Death over the energy Atlas was using to maintain his abilities, attempting to force that energy itself toward its natural end. At the same time, she applied the Law of Death to Atlas’s movements throughout the entire domain, attempting to bring every movement he made toward Death before he could act.

Yet...She didn’t stop there.

She also applied the Law of Death to herself, specifically targeting her own eyes. The moment the Law entered them, her eyes changed completely, becoming deathly and abyssal as her pupils turned completely black. She stared directly at Atlas’s floating figure while activating the ability she had decided to use to understand the strange existence standing before her.

’Now let’s see why you are not dying...’

The moment she attempted to pry into Atlas using theEyes of Death, something completely unexpected happened.

SPLURT... BURST!

Her eyes suddenly burst apart.

Blood poured from the ruined sockets as her entire body froze from the shock. For a brief moment, she couldn’t understand what had happened, but her regeneration immediately activated and began restoring her eyes.

Within moments, her eyes returned to their normal condition, yet the fear inside her did not disappear with the damage.

When she opened her restored eyes again, her entire figure trembled uncontrollably as she remembered what she had seen in that split microsecond. A massive silhouette had appeared behind Atlas, its entire form completely black, with two enormous abyssal eyes staring from within it.

She had only looked at that silhouette for an instant, yet those massive eyes had turned toward her and stared directly into her own existence.

The pressure from that single Gaze had been enough to make her eyes burst apart.

’I... I was lucky my entire being wasn’t destroyed...’

She lowered her eyes toward her own trembling body, finally realizing how close she had come to something far worse than simple injury. Her breathing became heavier as she struggled to understand what that silhouette actually was.

She had never encountered anything even remotely similar to it, and the fact that merely looking at its eyes had nearly destroyed her entire existence made her fear deepen.

She slowly raised her gaze toward Atlas again.

He was simply floating there, tilting his head slightly in confusion as he looked at her reaction.

’H-H-He isn’t Human! What the hell is he?!!!’ The thought screamed through her mind as she continued staring at him. She still couldn’t process what she had seen, nor could she understand how something like that could exist behind a seemingly Human body.

The more she tried to understand it, the more incomprehensible this man became.

Atlas, however, remained completely confused slightly as he thought, ’Huh? Why is she trembling like that? Is that some method to activate another ability? Hmm...’

He considered her reaction for a moment before his attention shifted toward the weapon in his hand. Atlas looked at his sword and then spoke internally to Reiden. ’Reiden, change into those daggers that guy Kael was wielding. Let’s use that versatile weapon.’

The sword in his hand immediately began changing. It transformed into a strange black matter that possessed no physical state resembling gas, liquid, or solid. It seemed to be something entirely different from ordinary matter as it reshaped itself into the same twin-blade form asVesper and Noctis, the weapons Kael had previously wielded.

However, unlike Kael’s daggers, these blades were completely black, including their hilts, and even the material itself no longer seemed to possess a conventional physical nature.

Atlas was just about to move again when the domain suddenly disappeared around him.

The enormous domain broke apart and transformed into countless motes of light that slowly scattered throughout the surrounding space. At the same time, the woman approached Atlas again, but her previous confidence was completely gone.

Her body was trembling as she suddenly dropped down onto her knees before him, lowering her head while speaking in a frightened voice, ”P-Please forgive me, I will answer anything you want to know. P-Please, just stop this.”

Atlas arched an eyebrow at her sudden change in behavior. Only moments ago, she had been attacking him without hesitation, yet now she was kneeling before him and begging for forgiveness.

However, instead of accepting her words immediately, Atlas narrowed his eyes as he looked down at her, ”Is that so? And why should I believe you?” Atlas asked calmly. ”You might deceive me and try to stab me in the back and most of all, why are you behaving like this all of a sudden?”

The woman slowly lifted her head while still trembling, but Atlas continued before she could respond. ”I saw you trying to pry into me with those black eyes just a moment ago, what did you see that made you like this?”

Atlas had obviously noticed her attempt to pry into him. His Metadata Axiom remained passively active within him at all times, allowing him to detect even the faintest attempt to interfere with or investigate his existence. He was also completely immune to such attempts, so he hadn’t cared when she used the Eyes of Death against him.

But her sudden reaction told him something important...She had seen something.

And whatever she had seen had been enough to make someone who had been confidently controlling the Law of Death suddenly kneel before him in fear.

He wanted to know exactly what she had seen.