Volume 49 - He who Carries the Heavens

== Chapter 577 - Gravity ==
Reuben immediately fires at Atlas with his pulse pistol, but the pulse bends around Atlas like everything else thus far. As Atlas formed a sword in his hand, he sensed Falqo and Erzomaur slashing at him from behind, and stopped both their slashes with his Psychic Weapons before blasting them back.
"A sneak attack, how resourceful." Atlas remarks. "You weak humans have used ambush tactics to get this far in your evolution, haven't you?"
"Shut up." Reuben retorts, as he throws a punch at Atlas, the Socqreath Prince merely letting that hit his Psychic Weapons as well, before slashing Reuben back.
Atlas noticed Bertram slashing at him from one side and Kiyomasu slashing at him from the other, and flew up to let their blades clash before lifting up a tank with what seemed like just telekinesis before tossing it at them. They both leap back, the tank firing at Atlas for a moment before he holds out his hand to dismantle it into its individual components.
As Atlas is doing that, Dione swings a kick at him from above, and he just narrowly reflects her away as well, blasting a shockwave at her that seemed to suspend her in the air for a moment.
"Argh!" She grunts, trying to break free of the attack.
Lasers from Gerald's drones bend around Atlas, rushing right back at the former butler. However, Kasper had managed to put a shield between them just in time, the lasers hitting the shield and dissipating.
"Kasper Maibaum, is it?" Atlas asks. "I've heard much about you, and your game. How has progress been since you lost your home?"
Kasper's only response is to manifest missiles to send at Atlas, but the Socqreath Prince merely disables their guidance systems to have them miss and hit buildings behind him instead. Kasper looks on in shock, as Candice barely had time to tackle him out of the way of a slash from Atlas.
Atlas is quick to stop Ares' own slash in its tracks, Ares seeming confused.
"Are you wondering how my Psychic Weapons can stop a Huscil blade?" Atlas asks rhetorically. "I've obtained something that has helped me adapt to that weakness, and it no longer appl-"
Before Atlas could finish speaking, He was blasted by Romuald, who seemed to be sporting multiple drones of his own, as well as a visor that seemed to let him control them.
The blast, of course, was stopped by the shield and sent back, Romuald dodging it while Falqo fired at Atlas from behind with his shotgun. Those bullets, too, were reflected.
"This is getting annoying real fast..." Falqo remarks while deflecting his own bullets.
== Chapter 578 - Electromagnetism ==
Shunsuke was currently running up to the top of a nearby building, as was Jack. If Atlas was paying attention to all of them, maybe they could snipe him while he was distracted. It was worth a shot, at least.
Down below, Atlas was deflecting crystalline blasts from Oketur, then forcing their punch to just barely stop in front of his face before blasting it back. Oketur didn't seem damaged at all, but did seem to realize it couldn't currently land a hit on the Socqreath Prince, staying back for now.
Atlas then turned around to see a wave of energy rushing at him from Kiyomasu, and caught it in his hand.
"Honestly, no form of energy is going to work." Atlas says. "For all of you, anyway."
Atlas then sends the blast back at Kiyomasu, who carves a portal into the air with his cane for the blast to rush safely through, then closing said portal and weaving to the side as Dione slammed the remains of the jet from before at him. Atlas had dismantled the remains as well, and blasted Dione back, before turning his gaze towards Erzomaur and Ares, blocking both of their slashes with his sword as he then held out his palm towards them, charging something. A moment later, a massive arc of lightning surged over the city.
Ares and Erzomaur had been blasted back from the attack, while Atlas noticed Bertram slashing again, and blocked that slash while wrapping a coil made of electricity around his arm, then using that coil to slam the former teacher into the side of a house. Bertram grunts in pain, while Atlas prepared to send an arc of electricty at him from his sword.
But before Atlas could, he was tackled from the side by the Supersoldier, and sent crashing into a different house. While neither of those things damaged him, he did still find it mildly surprising that he could have been budged despite his shield.
Atlas turned towards the Supersoldier to say something, but was met with a massive rifle, which fired an equally massive Huscil bullet at his face. He slashes that bullet in half, and leaps over being stabbed by the spearhead at the end of said rifle, before swinging his sword downward to send an arc of lightning at the Supersoldier.
While the Supersoldier took the hit, Kasper had created numerous creatures to send at Atlas, the Socqreath Prince turning around and stopping all their attacks in their tracks, before then forcibly dissipating the creatures, much to Kasper's utter shock and horror.
"Sending constructs made from light at me?" Atlas mocks. "You're like a lesser Socqreath, just like that Principal you idolized."
Kasper narrows his eyes, while Atlas prepared another attack. However, right then, he had been rammed into a tall skyscraper by another jet. The jet, however, he merely blew up, before deflecting bullets from Jack and Shunsuke.
"So they think they can snipe me, how cute." Atlas remarks, swinging his sword at the building Jack and Shunsuke were in to bifurcate it with the shockwave.
"Gh!" Jack grunts.
"Woah!" Shunsuke shouts, grabbing Jack to leap out of the building.
Fulke had fired at Atlas from behind, the bullet almost reaching the back of his head before it was stopped.
== Chapter 579 - Strong Nuclear ==
"Ah, Fulke Yelverton." Atlas remarks, turning towards him. "I see they've let you out of prison even after you threatened to vaporize their capital."
"What point would there be in trying to continue revenge?" Fulke retorts. "Besides, they considered me a useful asset against you."
"I can tell what you're thinking." Atlas continues. "Trust me, even if you were a Matrioshka Brain like you wanted to be, you wouldn't be able to out-think me."
And at that, Atlas slashes at Fulke to send a wave of electricity at him, that wave, however, was blocked by a forcefield that Fulke himself had developed!
"Oh?" Atlas wonders.
Rather than answer, Fulke just fired again, Atlas merely sidestepping the bullet as well as a barrage from Rakgu, reflecting all of Lev's lasers. Atlas decided to point his finger at them, and, seemingly just by willing it, begin to force them and their surroundings to all clump together.
"Huh?!" Rakgu roars, Atlas only chuckling before he pulls a fleet of jets together with the same power and slams the ball of jets into Erzomaur, who had been scaling a different building to try and be level with the Socqreath Prince.
Then, he noticed Kiyomasu preparing something, and went to attack him, right as Dione grabbed his wrist to slam him into a building.
"How careless..." Atlas remarks, getting out of the building. "...even Psychic Weapons can't breach my defenses, you know. And they, too, are dismantled by them."
"How about you shut off those defenses and fight for real?" Dione replies, making a taunting gesture.
"Hmm, no thanks." Atlas responds, forcing her to fly back and stick to another house.
He notices Falqo and Fulke firing at him from different angles, and blasts both them across the street, though Fulke was only sent sliding back thanks to his forcefield, Atlas then lifting him gravitationally and tossing him into a helicopter above.
Atlas then noticed Ares' storm of blades rushing at him, and deflects all of them while rushing forward to stab at him. Ares dodges the stab and blocks a subsequent slash, but is blasted into the air as Atlas sends a beam of lightning at him, turning around to reflect an attempted punch from Friedrich and then wave his arm to blast Jack, Falqo, Gerald and Reuben into a nearby park.
He hears something behind himself, and turns around to see Candice and Bertram standing there. Before he could think much of it, however, he heard Kiyomasu land nearby, as the Supersoldier also walked near.
== Chapter 580 - Weak Nuclear ==
"Candice Distler, the last in Copernicus' line of succession." Atlas says. "Why lower yourself down to the level of humans?"
"All I want is for us all to be happy!" Candice replies. "We can coexist, I know it! We don't have to hate each other!"
"We're parasites, Candice." Atlas replies, almost flatly. "Humans, the entire rest of the galaxy, will always hate us."
"Well, I only hate you, and I haven't even met you til now." Bertram butts in. "So, how about you cut the crap."
"If you're asking me to quit, I won't." Atlas responds. "You don't scare me, none of you do."
"We'll see about that." Bertram taunts, readying himself to fight.
Atlas points his hand at Bertram to erupt an explosion between him and Candice, the two of them barely being able to leap back and defend themselves as Atlas snapped his fingers to cause another two explosions where they were about to land.
Before he could do more on that front, however, Kiyomasu slashed at him from behind, Atlas turning around to block and then leaping upwards when he saw the Supersoldier rushing at him. The Supersoldier ends up tackling Kiyomasu by accident, Atlas chuckling and blasting them with an explosive beam before having buildings slam into the two of them.
As Atlas was about to erupt another explosion where they were, he was blasted from behind by Reuben, and sent flying forwards a few feet. He turns around to blast Reuben off the building he was on, destroying that building in the process, but is then kicked into a different building himself by Dione, who started rapidly punching at him.
Atlas blocks all the punches, and blasts her through two other buildings, before dusting himself off and leaping down to land back on the ground. He sees Jack and Shunsuke running at him from one side and Falqo running at him from the other, and erupts explosions at all three of them.
But the explosions vanish halfway through.
"Hmm?" Atlas wonders, attempting to form an electric ball in his hand, but it wouldn't form, indeed, his sword had also vanished.
Right as he realized what happened, both his horns were cut off by Ares, and he was blasted sideways by Gerald.
"Argh!" Atlas grunts. "I see...you've combined Candice and Bertram's techniques to negate my own Psychic Weapons..."
"And by cutting off your horns, they no longer need to spend energy doing it." Kiyomasu finishes for him, landing beside the Socqreath Prince. "I told them everything I know about how you fight, so we formed a plan to defeat you a while ago."
"...Of course..." Atlas responds, revealing a Huscil hilt from beneath one of his sleeves to grab in place of his Psychic Weapon. "...I suppose I have no choice but to improvise then."
A blade of energy forms from the hilt, as Atlas stands fully upright again, ready to continue fighting despite having just lost his powers.
== Chapter 581 - The Chessmaster Fights ==
Atlas was quick to block slashes from Falqo and Ares, but now he did indeed have to directly block them, rather than merely blasting them away. From behind, he noticed Kiyomasu slashing at his neck, and leaped over that slash to once again let all their blades clash.
Right then, he saw Kasper's missiles rushing at him, and did his best to dodge them while also slicing parts of their backs off to mess with their directions. Right as he landed his blade towards Kasper's arm, Candice blocked it with her Psychic Weapons, Shunsuke punching Atlas face-first into a skyscraper's wall from behind.
"Ugh!" Atlas grunted, leaping to the side to avoid another of Shunsuke's punches before slashing at his wrist.
Shunsuke tried to block with his Winchester, but the Winchester was sliced right through, and Shunsuke narrowly avoided losing his hand as well as Atlas' sword cut through the wall like a hot knife through butter.
"You are strong, possibly the strongest normal human who's ever lived..." Atlas remarks. "...unfortunately, strength is not particularly useful against me."
"Oh, yeah?!" Dione roars from beside him, swinging a kick at his head. He ducks beneath the kick to let her topple that skyscraper, and leaps to the side to avoid a slash from a blade on the Supersoldier's forearm, then blocking it.
"That's not a very good way to wield a blade, you know." Atlas mocks, before noticing Gerald readying a blast and rolling to the side right as the drones fired to let them hit the Supersoldier instead, deflecting Romuald's blasts with his sword as he rushed to slash at him.
Friedrich, however, kicked Atlas to the side, and threw multiple punches at him, Atlas dodging each and every last one before ducking beneath a slash from Falqo and sweeping them both off their feet with what seemed like rocket-booster in his own foot!
"Agh! What the Hell?!" Falqo demands.
"I only removed my Shazarak face." Atlas answers bluntly.
== Chapter 582 - Insidious ==
"My, my..." Sanjuro remarks, watching the fight from the balcony of a different skyscraper. "These people really think they stand a chance against Atlas just because they took out his Psychic Weapons. Guess they're all currently experiencing the surprise that he actually knows how to properly fight, then again, there's no way they know he trained Proto in the art of swordsmanship like he did. A.I. can't learn all by itself, they say."
Sanjuro then shrugs with a chuckle and a shake of the head.
"Well...I suppose if you want something done right, you really do just half to do it yourself, don't you?" He finishes.
Atlas was dodging Jack's punches and kicks, while deflecting the bullets he fired. Romuald swings a kick at his stomach, but he leaps back from it and slices one of his drones in half, then doing the same to one of Gerald's when he lands near him.
Gerald is almost sliced across the chest, but Kasper manages to shield him just in time, then having a dragon ram Atlas into the side of a supermarket and start breathing fire at him. Atlas leaps above the flames and slashes at the dragon's eyes to blind it, then having it stumble near an old gas station, which quickly explodes, 'killing' the dragon as much as a hard light construct could be 'killed'.
Atlas then notices Shunsuke throwing a punch at him, Dione swinging a kick from the other side, and leaps off the roof of the supermarket to let their attacks hit it and cause part of the supermarket to crumble.
Right as he landed, however, he was blasted onto the balcony of a different skyscraper by Kiyomasu, Ares and Buchardt waiting for him there as they both slashed at him. Atlas blocked their slashes and leaped back off the balcony, then turning around to block a slash from below by Serena and kick her in the chest to send her tumbling back.
"Argh!" She roars, managing to reorient herself.
Atlas then notices Rakgu rushing at him from one side and the Supersoldier from the other, rolling his eyes at this continued tactic before leaping over them both to let them collide, and slashing Rakgu in the neck, just barely missing his throat.
As Rakgu stumbles back, holding his bleeding neck in pain, Atlas goes to stab him in the heart, but is batted to the side by the Supersoldier's forearm, and sent crashing into a currently-parked family drone. Atlas began to get back up, and quickly dodged a punch from the Supersoldier, only to be punched in the face by Jack.
He manages to block Falqo's next slash as he stumbled a bit, before righting himself and slashing at Jack's stomach. Jack barely manages to leap back from the slash, but Atlas goes to slash at his knee right as he dodged.
Jack howls in pain from his knee being sliced open, but tries to fire at one of Atlas' eyes. Atlas, however, sidesteps that bullet, and hits Jack in the throat with the back of his sword, making Jack collapse as he prepared to behead him.
Shunsuke, however, swung a kick at him, forcing him to dodge as he noticed Kasper trying something, and appeared almost instantaneously in front of him to slash at his pad!
Kasper barely managed to leap back, as Atlas began to run at him in a zigzag pattern. Trapping him was not going to be that easy. Atlas slashes at Kasper's pad again, but Kasper pulls it aside and forms a hard light shield from his arm, the sword hitting that shield in a shower of sparks.
"How smart..." The Socqreath Prince remarks, before noticing Erzomaur slashing at him from the side and quickly blocking his slashes, continuing to block them until he started slicing the Shazarak's fingers off one by one, then dodging his tail and stomping on it before slicing him across the face and chest.
"AGH!!!" Erzomaur roars, as Atlas slashes again and again, dodging a kick from him and slicing that leg off before kicking Erzomaur into a street light himself.
Before he could finish Erzomaur off, however, he noticed another blast of crystalline energy, and leaped back to avoid it, Kasper having retreated back beside Candice, as Atlas turned to face Oketur, who was charging more blasts from the crystals surrounding them.
"So you've finally decided to rejoin the battle." Atlas remarks. "Were you really that scared of me?"
Oketur doesn't verbally respond, but their singular eye glows brightly.
== Chapter 583 - The Executioner ==
Oketur fires more blasts at Atlas, who, rushing closer, deflects them with his sword. He swings it diagonally at Oketur's chest, but the golem forms multiple crystals into a blade to block, then erupting energy from that blade to send Atlas back, charging another blast.
Atlas grins a bit, dodging that blast and then blocking a slash from Oketur, avoiding being batted aside by their free forearm by ducking before slashing again at their chest. Though he cuts in, it doesn't seem to phase the golem, who merely grabs Atlas by the wrist and slams him into the ground before blasting him back towards the supermarket.
Candice and Kasper were trying to help Jack heal, while Shunsuke ran over to Erzomaur.
"You'll be okay!" Shunsuke shouts, Erzomaur groaning weakly in pain as the only response he could muster. Shunsuke could tell there was something different with Erzomaur from the moment they met, he wasn't like the other Shazarak, not bloodthirsty, not cruel, not sadistic or xenophagic. Indeed, Erzomaur not having a visible mouth was the best indicator of that.
But with part of his helmet slashed off, Shunsuke could see his real face, his real eye, green like the rest of his skin, but the green was fading as he bled out further.
Atlas continued to dodge and block Oketur's attacks, even when the force behind each of said attacks was like the force of a bullet train, and slashed them across their face. This once again barely phased Oketur, who just blasted Atlas back again, this time into the supermarket, before charging up another blast, using all their crystals to form a massive ball of crystalline energy.
Everyone else stepped back if they could, looking on in dread at the golem's attack, which shook the very air and ground seemingly from its mere existence alone, much like Indra's explosive lance from a little while ago.
And then, Oketur fired, the beam dwarfing the supermarket and utterly eradicating a large portion of the city, Reuben looking on in horror and fury, right before the shockwaves started destroying and knocking over most of the other buildings, only the command center being left intact due to its forcefield. Kiyomasu had managed to portal the blast into deep space before it could hit the dome, as he knew that if it had, they would all be violently sucked out and deprived of Oxygen.
Oketur themselves looks on, and in the smoke, with a purple glint of light, was Atlas, now missing his trenchcoat.
"...Congratulations..." Atlas remarks. "...you've all managed to push me to my limits..."
Kiyomasu then notices the Infinity Machine glowing brightly, eyes wide in shock.
"...My limits as a Socqreath, that is." Atlas finishes, as his body began to mutate, the top half being slowly covered in shiny blue metal, which snaked into thin tendrils below his waist, and a large messy collar around his head.
== Chapter 584 - Evolution ==
"...No...no!" Kiyomasu roars, as Dione, Falqo and Reuben turn towards him in similar levels of shock.
"You once told me not to seek this power, right?" Atlas asks mockingly. "I suppose my disobedience was the reason you started keeping secrets in the first place."
"That thing is using you, Atlas!" Kiyomasu shouts. "It only exists to preform calculations, and once it finishes them, it will self-destruct!"
"Not now that I've reprogrammed it." Atlas replies, as Kiyomasu falls silent, his eyes even wider as he fully processes what Atlas had just said. "Now, it considers me an extension of itself."
Reuben wasted no time, firing at Atlas again. Atlas let the pulse blasts hit him, barely budging from them, before taking Reuben's punches. He eventually catches one, and slashes Reuben across the chest.
"ARGH!!!!!" Reuben roars, trying to fire at Atlas again, but Atlas simply crushed that gun's barrel in his grip, and tossed Reuben to the ground.
"Got any ideas, Kiyo?" Falqo demands nervously, keeping his eyes on Atlas, who began to walk towards them.
"...I have one." Kiyomasu replies. "Falqo, Dione, come with me."
"Right." Dione responds.
"The rest of you, keep him busy for as long as possible." Kiyomasu orders, as he, Falqo and Dione run off.
Atlas felt his horns regrow, and smiled darkly, before his horns grew further, and he formed a fully-visible Psychic Weapon sword in his free hand, rushing at Romuald and Friedrich to slash at them. Though they tried to dodge, they were not successful, and slashed across the chest!
"DAD!!!!!" Kasper screams, trying to form a cage around Atlas. Atlas slices the cage apart, though, and rushes to slash at Kasper yet again. He tries to block with a shield, but that shield, too, is sliced in half, and Candice just barely manages to pull Kasper back right before he could be vertically bisected!
Atlas, however, just pointed a finger at them, erupting an explosion beneath Kasper's feet to send them both crashing through multiple buildings, all of which soon collapsed right afterward.
Shunsuke tried to pull Jack away, and Atlas went to stab them, Gerald leaping between them to take the stab instead and try blasting Atlas with his remaining drones. Atlas just bent the lasers towards Jack and Shunsuke, however, having started to regain his powers as his own control was starting to override Candice and Bertram's, especially with Candice too distracted with protecting Kasper to focus on him.
"Hey, ugly!" Bertram shouts, as Atlas turns towards him to see him spinning his blade. "Wanna see a magic trick?"
"I know what your sword does, Bertram." Atlas replies.
"Yeah, but did you know it could do this?" Bertram retorts, as the area around them suddenly became a twisted kaleidoscope version of itself.
Briefly disoriented, Atlas was unable to stop a few of Bertram's slashes, and missed a few of his own initial slashes, causing more of the city to be destroyed by the shockwaves, before Atlas just closed his eyes, turned quickly around, and sliced Betram's sword hand clean off!
"Argh!" Bertram barely has time to roar, as Atlas grabs him by the face and tosses him across the city, reopening his eyes and shattering the illusion with a snap of his fingers.
What few wounds he had from Bertram's slashes were already starting to regenerate into more blue metal, as he noticed Lev, Rakgu and the Supersoldier firing at him and swung both his swords to send a massive disc of electricity at them. 
They tried to dodge, but the moment it hit, it exploded, blasting them all to the ground as Atlas pointed his hand at them to make numerous buildings and vehicles collapse onto them, then raising his hand up to unleash a colossal explosion from beneath them.
Atlas found himself hit by Ares' storm of blades again, and slashed at by Serena, but he dodged her slash, grabbed her by the throat, and threw her deeper into the storm, before having each individual blade explode, blasting both her and Ares to the ground, severely burned and barely conscious.
Oketur unleashes another beam at Atlas, but the Socqreath Prince catches that beam with his gravitational control, and sends it right back. Though the golem tried to block, its own defenses were failing, and it was soon overwhelmed in an even bigger explosion than the thousands immediately before.
Fulke and Buchardt fired at Atlas from behind, but Atlas just pointed his finger at the two of them...and both began to be disintegrated!
"GRAH!!!!!!!!" Buchardt screams, as Atlas send a blast of all four fundamental forces at them, overwhelming Fulke's shield as both of them were nowhere to be seen in the smoke.
As Atlas smiled darkly at all the carnage he caused, he heard something, and noticed Kiyomasu, Dione and Falqo each standing on a different building in a triangle-like formation around him.
"Oh?" Atlas wonders. "And what do you have planned, now?"
"You'll see soon enough." Kiyomasu retorts, pointing his cane at him. "We both know you're too curious, too arrogant, to not want to find out."
"...I suppose we'll see how true that is." Atlas responds, cracking his neck with a full grin.
== Chapter 585 - Netted in Bombs ==
Atlas was quick to block bullets from Falqo's shotgun, and went for him first. Falqo ducked under his two slashes the best he could, as they cut right through the command center's barrier and thus, consequently, bifurcated the building itself.
Before Atlas could change his position, he was grabbed from behind by Dione, and supplexed onto the ground below, creating a massive crater. Atlas kicked her in the face to force her back, but was soon blasted from the side by Kiyomasu, deflecting the next blast with his swords and then twirling them to send an electromagnetic beam at him.
Kiyomasu caught the beam on his cane, and fired it right back, Atlas blocking it from hitting him with his mind. Dione kicks him in the knee while he was busy with that, and dodged slashes from him to punch him in the face and stomach.
Atlas, however, barely budged from all of it, and erupted an explosion beneath his own feet to blast her back, then leaping over the beam as it slowly dissipated.
Falqo lands on Atlas' back, and starts slashing at his neck with his machete. Atlas tries to shake Falqo off for a moment, eventually just slamming into a building to send Falqo crashing into it.
Atlas turns back towards Kiyomasu and sends a blast of nuclear energy at him, but Kiyomasu blocks that blast with a shield, before turning that shield into a blade to send at the Socqreath Prince, who blocks it with both his swords.
Atlas is kicked into the side of another building by Dione, the building collapsing as Atlas just blasted out of the debris without noticing it and pointed one of his swords at her to unleash another beam of lightning.
Dione crossed her arms to block, groaning but otherwise ignoring the pain while being sent into another one the buildings, as Kiyomasu slashes at Atlas' right wrist, Atlas blocking the slash to the left wrist.
Dione punches her way out of that now-also collapsed building, and leaps at Atlas to preform an ankle kick. He blocks with both forearms, and notices Falqo firing at him while Kiyomasu slashes his other wrist.
Atlas, gritting his teeth for a moment, blasts them all back with a bubble of gravity, before tearing the last building out of the ground, splitting it evenly into three parts, spinning those three parts like corkscrews, and slamming those three parts into them to bury them into the ground.
Falqo had dodged, but was blasted back by an explosion Atlas created, while Dione had caught the part of the building he sent at her, but was similarly blasted back. As Atlas turned towards the place where Kiyomasu was, brackets of energy suddenly surrounded his wrists, and he found himself immobilized!
"Gh...wha..." Atlas trails off, as Kiyomasu stood in front of him, the sun behind him as his hat was lowered over his eyes.
"There are nanomachines coursing throughout your entire body, right now." Kiyomasu explains plainly and bluntly. "They're overriding all your bodily functions, but if you don't die from that, then we have two other methods at play here."
And at that, a portal opens both above and below Atlas, massive energy jets rushing at him from both and kept in place by Kiyomasu.
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Atlas roars.
"Those are quasar jets." Kiyomasu explains slowly and clearly, almost condescendingly. "Your body is being torn apart from the inside out, and fried from the outside in, soon none of your DNA will be intact, but if you somehow survive this, then the final step rears its head now."
And at that, devices placed at the base floor of each building reveal themselves, blasting away debris before blasting beams of antimatter at Atlas, making him scream more.
"Matter and antimatter annihilate on contact." Kiyomasu continues. "If being incinerated isn't enough, then being reduced to pure energy and erased from existence should suffice!"
As Dione and Falqo had helped everyone else evacuate into a different portal, one to Earth, that portal closed, and the antimatter beams finished, the portals to the quasar closing as well.
Once all the energy was condensed into a ball around Atlas, Kiyomasu forms shields around himself, Dione, and Falqo, and detonates the ball, as the explosion completely, utterly, eradicated the entirety of Olumpus Mons.
== Chapter 586 - Survival of the Fittest ==
Kiyomasu kept the shields around the three of them to allow them to breathe, as they landed in the center of the crater that used to be a volcano. No doubt the entire solar system would soon see the blast, and the entire Human Star Realm would soon hear knews of its new capital being reduced to dust and photons.
However, they heard footsteps behind themselves, and turned to see Atlas walking towards them, his entire body now translucent and glowing blue, his eyes being the only visible part of his face, and even then they appeared to be covered in orange lenses.
"...ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!" Falqo roars, as Atlas is immediately upon him, slicing right through the forcefield and cutting him across the torso before he could even process any of it.
Dione punches Atlas to the ground repeatedly, but not a single one of her punches was doing even the slightest bit of damage, as Atlas grabbed one of her fists, twisted and dislocated her arm, and stabs her in the stomach, tossing her aside.
Kiyomasu, thinking as quick as possible, teleports them both to Earth as well, and turns back towards Atlas, glaring at him in anger, confusion, and terror, Atlas' expression unknowable.
"How?!" Kiyomasu demands.
"The Infinity Machine, of course." Atlas answers. "It was created by beings so ancient that even the Gnayliv would consider them to be actual gods, this little supercomputer can constantly evolve to anything to protect itself, and as it considers me an extension of itself, it has evolved me to be completely immune to all forms of physical attack. I'm sure now that the evolution will be far swifter, given how much data this fight has granted it to work with."
Kiyomasu was silent, witnessing what he did, hearing what he did. Atlas had merged with a superweapon, he was a superweapon!
Atlas was instantly upon Kiyomasu, slashing downward at him. Kiyomasu flew back to avoid it, and tried surrounding Atlas in a net of explosives. The net just phased through the former Socqreath, the explosions doing the same.
Atlas then pointed his blade at Kiyomasu, and sent a massive beam of energy at him. Kiyomasu tried to block this with numerous layers of shields, but they did little to keep the blast at bay, and soon, Kiyomasu was hit, and an enormous valley was carved into the surface of Mars by the beam.
Atlas looked on at the smoke, smiling darkly as his body turned pink, the mask giving way to a similar collar to before, revealing his new eyes, which were black with white irises and pupils, the Infinity Machine now sitting in the center of his forehead as his horns had completely vanished and his hair had grown incredibly long.
== Chapter 587 - The Last Betrayal ==
"Perhaps I am taking the same form as the Ancients..." Atlas remarks, walking towards the cloud of smoke, then hearing footsteps behind himself, and turning to see Sanjuro standing there. "Hello, Akibara. My final ally."
"Hey." Akibara replies, with the same twisted expression as ever, as the two of them approach the cloud of smoke, but when it had dissipated, Kiyomasu was gone. "Oh, he escaped. Oh, well."
"Oh, I can't wait to see what training he's put Andromeda through." The former Socqreath remarks, turning around to look directly into the sun. "Perhaps our battlefield will be on this system's star."
Sanjuro watched Atlas walk past him, seeming to set his sights on Earth, where Kiyomasu had no-doubt sent everyone, including himself. Atlas seemed so sure that he had foiled Kiyomasu's plan, as if that entire battle was anything more than a distraction.
As Atlas continued to stare at the sun, contemplating flying over to it, Sanjuro put his Wakizashi in a reverse grip, pressing some sort of button on it, and grinned.
Before Atlas knew what had happened, its blade was driven through his heart, sending its acid throughout his body! "Guh! Wh..." Atlas growls, as Sanjuro chuckled, seemingly maliciously.
"Surprise!" Sanjuro shouts. "Or was it a surprise?"
"Ghhh...now I see..." Atlas groans. "...You were the only one of my followers...to actively seek me out...Kiyomasu put you up to his, and used you as a double agent."
"Maybe, maybe not." Sanjuro taunts. "But if you're wondering how that acid is hurting you, Kiyomasu's cane was reverse-engineered from the nanotechnology those Ancients had. That acid is filled with a Grey Goo that'll soon consume your entire body, and I believe the effects will become visible in three...two...one."
And then, Atlas' entire chest cavity melted away, leaving him unable to scream in pain, as Sanjuro carved a hole in his forehead to tear out the Infinity Machine, and walk away from the dying former Socqreath.
He finally had this device, but what to use it for? He didn't particularly care about galactic dominion, and however Atlas had reprogrammed the thing probably made it unusable by anyone else anyway...perhaps he could throw it directly into the nearest black hole. Surely not even a device like this would be able to survive something that extreme.
But as he was contemplating all this...he heard something from behind him.
== Chapter 588 - Machinations Crumble ==
Sanjuro turned around slowly, horrified, as he saw Atlas rising back up off the ground, screaming in rage and pain, as Atlas' body became purple, and wings made of two-dimensional shards appeared over his back.
Then, the Infinity Machine vanished from Sanjuro's grip, and reappeared in Atlas' forehead, as when Atlas finally spoke, his voice sounded ethereal, otherworldly, it was as if hearing directly from an angel like Kafziel.
"The Infinity Machine doesn't need to be inside me..." Atlas says sternly. "...not if all it needs to do is recognize me, as a part of it, as its vessel and host."
Before Sanjuro knew what was happening, his arm had been torn clean out of its socket by Atlas' sheer strength, and he was slashed across the chest, soon stabbed so quick that it all felt like the same motion.
Atlas would kick Sanjuro off his blade, but it seemed he no longer had legs, as he just lowered his sword and let Sanjuro's body slowly slide off of it, crumpling to the ground below as his own blood pooled beneath him.
"You wouldn't have survived much longer, regardless..." Atlas remarks. "...not in this planet's atmosphere anyway. What little terraforming was done is not nearly enough for a mere human to breathe in."
Sanjuro didn't respond, he couldn't respond. He couldn't do anything but glare at Atlas, who began to walk away from him...right when something landed in front of him.
Atlas watched the smoke for a moment, before it cleared, revealing Andromeda. She was still covered in bandages, but now had armor connected by straps all over her body, and her horns had already grown. She only had a cold glare to give him, while he just smiled once more.
Finally, the royal challenge could truly begin.