Tower of Heaven

Atlas and the other hooded figure approached the large castle. They were stopped by three rows of guards, but they didn't do anything. When they stopped, they were observed for almost a minute before being allowed to pass.

'They are not looking for any sort of identification. They are watching our movements.'

The steps of the two people were taken in complete and utter unison. When they stopped, they stopped together and their bodies did not even do so much as twitch for the minute they stood still.

Because of their coordination, they were able to make it past the three checkpoints without a fuss. Atlas thought it more metaphorically before, but one wrong step was truly the decider between life and death.

The interior of the castle was just as gothic as its black brick outer walls. The gardens were filled with off-colored plants that were wilted and rotten. The interior theme carried a deep tone of black and red as if it was meant to allude to the evil hidden within the walls. There weren't many decorations, only a few paintings of figures that were impossible to recognize.

Atlas quietly scanned the surroundings as he walked with his companion to their final destination, the place where the one called the "Khan" lived.

The doors opened for them without prompting, and they were greeted by a scene of filth.

'These kinds of humans…are all too common.'

Atlas sighed to himself.

As they approached the Khan, they were forced to step over the bodies of dead and mutilated young women. They were likely people who had gone missing from the capital.

They were meant to be no more than puppets. For the sake of maintaining his disguise, Atlas could only trample their bodies on his way to the Khan.

'I am sorry. This is for the sake of avenging you, so please understand.'

That man was even larger than the one who gave them the documents. He looked gigantic from Atlas' perspective, like a ten-foot-tall demon in human form. He was surrounded by women whose eyes were rolled into their heads. Their minds had already been broken, but they would continue to serve as his toys until their bodies died as well.

In front of such a scene, Atlas could only stand still, bow when his companion bowed, and wait for the Khan to take the documents.

Luckily, it happened quickly. Not sensing anything strange about them, the Khan took the documents and read over them. As he did so, he did not speak the words to dismiss them, clearly enjoying the sight of them in such insufferable positions.

For another half an hour, Atlas stood with his body bowed, gritting his teeth.

[Perfect Adaptability has activated.]

The Trait had to activate three times in order to keep Atlas from attacking. After the third, the Khan said only a single word to release them from their suffering.

"Go."

Atlas' companion's body trembled slightly before they righted themself, allowing him to follow precisely. They pivoted to turn and left the room through the same door through which they entered.

This was the time. He needed to hide in one of the many areas that branched off of the main corridor and start his search for information.

He looked for the opportunity, but as his body instinctively followed his partner, he found himself doing exactly that.

The two of them walked into a side corridor and then vanished into one of the first rooms.

When they were inside, the person Atlas had been following broke their routine.

They walked without him, took off their hood, and put a blade to his throat.

"Who are you?"

"I could say the same to you."

Atlas did not have a weapon, but he was never unarmed. His fingers were at that person's heart, and they could feel the blades of qi pressing into their skin.

The two men stood off, staring each other down.

The brown-haired sword cultivator was the one to put his blade down first.

"Haa… I didn't expect to meet someone so high profile here."

Atlas raised a brow before realizing his current circumstances.

Right, he was not Atlas Vaun, but the Second Prince of the Ataraxia Empire, Kade Von Ataraxia.

"If that doesn't make you want to kill me more, then we must be looking for the same thing."

The man nodded with a serious expression.

"Yes. That is what I assumed from the beginning, but I had to check. I apologize for the offense, Your Highness."

"There's no need for that now. Let us focus on what we must do."

The brown-haired man introduced himself as Yulian, a spy from outside of the empire. He was not within the border for malicious purposes. Rather, he was a member of a small cultivation sect who'd entered the world to investigate the movements of the Dark Cult.

"I was saved by you, in a way. I could tell that you knew less than me about their patterns, but it would have been much more difficult if I did not have a partner to walk with."

The movement of the puppets was monitored in pairs. They would occasionally separate, but they would always rejoin the same group when they started moving again.

"I would have been noticed if it was only me, but I didn't have a choice. I was caught by one of the puppets, and if I didn't kill it, I would have been ousted."

In the original story, this man, Yulian, likely died without ever being avenged. Without Atlas controlling the Second Prince's body, they wouldn't have made it to the castle. They both would have died in one of the earlier camps.

However, they had come together.

Yulian was a young cultivator who wanted to end the Dark Cult in the pursuit of justice, and Atlas was a prince who wanted to save his empire. They were a very likely pair of allies when they were brought together in such a situation.

And, as they left the room and synchronized their steps, Atlas realized that it would have been almost impossible for Atlas to find his goal without Yulian's help.

The man had an unreasonable amount of knowledge about the internal structure of the castle. The two of them moved through a painting that turned out to be an illusion and used hidden pathways and trap entrances to arrive in a dark room so far separated from the rest of the castle that Atlas almost couldn't map the way back.

"This is it."

Because of Yulian, they'd arrived here.

"This is the place my Master told me about."

This small room did not belong to the Khan. It belonged to someone that the outside world didn't know, the founder of the Dark Cult and one of the most terrifying existences to live in this realm.

Contained within was a small table with an old notebook resting on its surface. There was an oil lamp on the edge of the table that had not been filled in countless years.

The Dark Cult's ambitions, their plans with this empire and this continent…

The answers to it all were contained within that notebook.