The chains clanged as Atlas was dragged back into the torture room for the second week. His body had already regenerated from Selphira's "demonstration," but his mind was fraying under the constant cycle of pain and recovery.
Bishop Corvane stood waiting, journal open, quill ready. His eyes gleamed with the hunger of a scholar on the edge of a revelation.
"This week," he said without looking up, "we study the blood."
Atlas didn't answer. His glare was answer enough.
The first experiment was crude—Corvane simply reopened the wounds across Atlas's arms with precise wind blades, catching the blood in glass phials before it could drip away. He watched, silent, as the liquid glowed faintly, the same pulse that had carved runes into the dungeon floor yesterday.
On the first night, Corvane dripped a single bead of Atlas's blood onto his own finger, burned raw from a spell backlash. The flesh knitted instantly, smoother than before. His hand trembled, not from pain, but excitement.
"Extraordinary… it heals without scar. Without flaw."
By the second day, he began more elaborate tests. He poured Atlas's blood onto cracked stone tiles, and before Atlas's weary eyes, the stone smoothed, hardening beyond its original strength.
The Bishop slammed his staff against it repeatedly, only for the floor to ring with an unnatural resilience.
"Not just healing," he muttered, scribbling furiously. "Refinement. Reinforcement. It improves what it touches."
On the third day, he carved shallow cuts into his own arm, then mixed Atlas's blood into his morning tea. The wounds closed instantly from the inside out, leaving no trace. His eyes shimmered with a disturbing, renewed vitality.
"Yes… Yes, it works even diluted." He turned his sharp gaze on Atlas. "Your blood is the Philosopher's Stone made flesh."
Atlas spat at the ground. "Glad to know I'm useful trash."
Corvane ignored the insult.
By the fourth day, he escalated again. He had a guard's broken sword brought in—rusted, half-snapped. He dripped Atlas's blood across the blade. Before their eyes, the rust flaked away, the edge sharpened, and the metal glowed faintly as though newly forged. The guard nearly dropped it in terror.
"Better than any forge," Corvane whispered. "Do you understand what this means? Armies… kingdoms… civilizations, rebuilt from blood."
Atlas only glared, though his stomach twisted. All they see is a tool.
By the fifth day, the Bishop forced him to bleed into a basin, the amount enough to weaken him. Then he had the blood poured over ancient tomes and relics kept in the dungeon's vault. Dusty parchments repaired, ink grew darker, sigils restored themselves as though freshly written. Even the relics began humming faintly, as though newly awakened.
On the sixth day, Corvane pushed further—forcing the guards to drink diluted cups of Atlas's blood. Their wounds vanished instantly, and their fatigue evaporated. One even claimed he could "see mana flows clearer than ever before." Corvane tested this and found their spellcasting efficiency had doubled.
"They are not healed… they are enhanced." He scribbled notes furiously. "Your blood refines not just flesh and stone, but essence."
Atlas felt his heart sink deeper with every discovery. What had been horror in the first week became dread. His body wasn't just healing—his very existence was a commodity.
On the seventh day, Corvane made the ultimate experiment. He bled Atlas near to collapse, collecting every drop in a silver chalice. Then, before Atlas's hazy eyes, the Bishop coated a massive enchanted wall with it—a slab of dull black stone that had resisted every spell for centuries.
The blood crawled over it, seeping in. The slab began to shine with radiant light, runes that had been long-dead flickering awake, burning with renewed power. The entire dungeon trembled, a surge of magical energy flooding the air.
Corvane's eyes widened in triumph.
"Yes… yes! It restores magic itself! This is more than a blessing of the Goddess—it is something divine in itself!"
Atlas, weak and chained, could only mutter, "All of this… from blood?"
The Bishop snapped his journal shut. His lips curved in something between a smile and a grimace.
"No, Atlas. Not just blood. From you. You are no mortal. I can't even consider you a mere vessel… you're more like a Deity. The Goddess of Fate was right to send you here."
The Bishop snapped his journal shut. His lips curved in something between a smile and a grimace.
"No, Atlas. Not just blood. From you. You are no mortal. I can't even consider you a mere vessel… you're more like a Deity. The Goddess of Fate was right to send you here."
Atlas's head lolled back against the chains. His chest heaved, blood still clinging to his skin, but something inside him stiffened. A shiver ran through his nerves—not from pain this time, but from the weight of the words.
The Bishop's eyes glittered with a strange excitement, a feverish reverence. "This… this is beyond anything I imagined. The regeneration… the refinement… the enhancement of magic… You are no longer human. You are a font of divine power. An artifact with consciousness."
Atlas could barely breathe. Rage, fear, and a strange, cold awe battled inside him. A deity? The word felt wrong, alien… yet something in his blood, in the way it pulsed in the room, seemed to echo it.
The Bishop knelt, touching the edge of the enchanted slab coated in Atlas's blood. "If the Goddess of Fate claims you… she would be right. No, she is not enough. You could surpass her entirely. If you choose to awaken fully, the temple itself will kneel to you, not the other way around."
Atlas ground his teeth. The chains dug into his skin, but he realized he didn't even need to move—a beacon of hope lightened in his heart.
Not from being considered a Deity, but from what came with being considered a Deity. If the Bishop saw him as divine, he could be tempted into becoming a follower. The Bishop could be the key to his escape.
Atlas's mind raced. Hatred for Selphira, the temple, and the Goddess of Fate boiled hotter than ever—but now mingled with something he had never felt: an awareness of his own potential. Not just survival.
Not just escape. But for vengeance—brutal vengeance, worse than death, worse than torture. He vowed to break the Goddess and Selphira, leaving nothing but shells of themselves… then mold them into his own perfect playthings.
"You see," the Bishop whispered, almost to himself, "this is no mere subject. You are creation. You are judgment. You are… inevitable."
Atlas thought to himself: in this world, power was greatly worshipped. But the problem was that, to optimize the power within him, his torturing would need to continue until something truly divine was discovered.
The dungeon walls no longer felt like a prison. They felt like a proving ground.
And somewhere deep in the pit of his chest, Atlas understood: they hadn't just chained him. They had prepared him.