As Atlas neared the site of the explosion, he saw something truly disturbing.
A twenty-foot across crater was located in the ground, at least ten feet deep.
Whereas the ground and grass were evaporated at ground zero, the mushroom trees were in perfect condition, despite swaying slightly.
Their deathly white roots extended and spiralled into the ground, allowing them to stand without any support from the ground.
Atlas began to recall all he knew of the shining purple mushrooms. He had never seen a broken one, only relatively shorter mushrooms. It seemed they were not breakable, even by huge explosions.
This caused Atlas to wonder what their true purpose was, but he put that to the back of his mind, as he still had work to do.
He did, however, decide to give them a name.
Atlas chose to call them the Undying Purple Fungus, a title rooted in their core traits.
'Let me get back to the horns first,' Atlas admonished
'Now, I just have to hunt or find the corpse of a beast,' Atlas reminded himself, wondering how his next steps should look.
Atlas decided what he should do next. He would head in a random direction once more and hope to encounter a beast.
But before that, Atlas decided to take a quick nap to keep himself in peak condition. He lay down and fell asleep quite easily, enjoying a peaceful break.
Upon awaking, Atlas stood up and stretched again, ridding himself of any lingering tension. Then, he began jumping atop the Undying Purple Fungus on an unplanned route.
As Atlas leaped, he glanced at the green smoke cloud from before, whose residual ashes still hadn't faded from the sky. Using it as a compass, he chose a direction that would not lead him towards it.
'I might be reckless occasionally,' Atlas thought, 'but I definitely don't have a death wish!'
He absolutely did not want to be anywhere near whatever Horned Serpent caused that explosion because, if it sensed him, he would be as good as dead.
So, Atlas kept traveling aimlessly, taking breaks whenever he felt even slightly tired.
~~
Eventually, when he had begun to lose hope, he picked up a pitiful whining sound on the ground below him. It was the most pathetic sound he had ever heard, yet it filled him with ecstasy.
'Let's go!' he thought internally, crouching at the edge of the cap, eagerly looking for his prey.
As his eyes scanned the ground, he wasn't able to spot anything, until his eyes drifted to the shadow of an Undying Purple Fungus.
In the shade lay a bird, yet it was different from any bird he had seen before. It resembled an eagle, yet its feathers were pitch black.
It seemed to be an adolescent because it was only the length of Atlas's forearm and incredibly skinny.
It continued to cry out pathetically, screeching in distress from an apparent injury to its wing, which was turned at an unusual angle.
Atlas, however, was conflicted. As much as he wanted to escape this place, he didn't know if he could do it at the cost of a child's life.
If it were an adult, Atlas would have had no problem killing and eating it, yet whenever he thought of doing the same to this baby bird, he felt very uneasy.
Atlas thought about his code of living without regrets. If he killed this bird, would he feel regret? He thought back to Granny Mabel; what would she say if he did such a thing?
Upon reaching his decision, he sighed. He couldn't kill it, and leaving it was as good as killing it too. Atlas could very well risk death by going down and helping it, but ignoring it and moving on left a bad taste in his mouth.
"You really are lucky, bird, that I found you and not some monster," he murmured to himself.
Atlas had not seen any mushrooms to climb down upon, so he chose to take a more direct route.
In his time here, his physical attributes had almost doubled or tripled. Whereas, before his Awakening, Atlas would have been comfortable not dying on a twelve-foot fall as long as he transitioned into a roll on contact, he felt that he could do the same here.
"Life isn't fun without risks, right?" he said with a nervous smile, more to himself than anyone else.
Taking a deep breath, he jumped.
As Atlas dropped down, the air blew past him, and he began to speed up as he neared the ground.
His mind, which might have turned to frenetic panic at this point, remained calm. Atlas analyzed the angle of his fall, the speed, and was able to predict the perfect time to roll upon hitting the ground.
As the ground neared him, Atlas tucked himself into a ball and rolled into a somersault, landing shakily, yet settling without injury.
He ended up on his back again, his arms and legs splayed to the side, his materials scattered next to him.
"Fuck. I shouldn't have done that," he said while groaning in pain. Then, he burst out in laughter; adrenaline had never felt so invigorating.
"Hahahaha!"
Atlas didn't know when he had last laughed so freely.
"This is what life's all about!" Atlas said, grinning.
However, in the next moment, he realized what he was here for. Pushing himself to a seat, he gathered his two bone daggers, for he had left the rest back at the site of the explosion.
He set the horn and scales to the side and glanced at the bird.
It had stopped screeching and was using its working wing to cover itself, trying to hide from Atlas.
Atlas stood up, shaking his body to eliminate the soreness that had begun to build up.
He raised his hands and began to walk towards. It lowered its wing to find out if he had gone, looking towards him with its purple eyes.
Seeing Atlas walking towards it, the falcon began screeching and crying out even louder, before attempting to run. Atlas also noticed at this time that one of the thing's legs was also broken.
"Look, bird. I don't want to hurt you," said Atlas as he walked closer, keeping his hands raised to show he meant no harm.
The birds' cries reached a feverish pitch, causing Atlas to back off and reconsider his approach; he didn't want to attract any real predators.
As he walked in reverse, the bird slowly calmed down, until all was quiet once more.
Atlas began to think about how he could help the bird, but his thinking was disrupted as he heard something behind him.
Grrrrr