"What are you talking about?" Atlas shouted, trying to calm his mind before such an apocalyptic scene.
The winds were blowing madly, and the sand couldn't remain dormant anymore and started floating rapidly toward the distance, as if scared by the incoming behemoth.
"It's normal that you don't know anything about it!" Deus replied, looking agitated: "It's a Divine Judgement that shouldn't exist in this secluded world. Its apparition is a clear and dreadful sign that this world is making contact with the outside world. I can't believe this nightmare is here. I thought I could have escaped even in this time."
His voice had mixed emotions, but Atlas didn't know why.
"Is it such a terrible omen?"
"Yes! For those who want to step into the God Realm, it is an insurmountable wall—a death call." Deus grimly stated and then lamented his bad luck: "Until my last evolution, the Heavenly Tribulation couldn't form here, yet looking at the hellish sky... now I can't escape this anymore."
ROAR!!!
While the duo was talking, the sky above them was already beyond recognition.
Lightning dragons danced in the clouds like a bunch of ravenous piranhas. Their thunderous roar echoed in space, trembling heaven and earth.
As for the one who had invoked such hell, he was standing unperturbed right in the middle with a calm smile plastered on his face.
"Deus... who do you think he is?" Atlas asked again, deeply shocked by all this matter.
"An Immortal for sure... but I'm not entirely sure if he got trapped here during our first arrival in this world or if he came from outside..."
Finally, the first divine lance descended from the sky, hitting the ground with all his might.
The impact was tremendous, and the residual power expanded toward the distance as if searching for the next target.
Luckily, the distance between them was enough, giving Atlas and the other a large margin of safety.
One after another, lightning bolts fell from the sky, gradually eroding all the ground around the creature. It was a strange sight because only a one-meter radius below Jasper's feet was safe, leaving him standing atop a tall, thin pillar made of rock and sand.
Jasper's lips frequently moved as if chanting some spell. However, those words couldn't reach beyond the electrified field formed by the Heavenly Tribulation.
A long minute passed, and ultimately, the beastly dragons from above scattered, giving them a brief moment of peace.
Everything seemed finished, yet the field saturated by deadly energy started swirling and quavering.
"It's coming!" Deus shouted with a tone filled with expectation: "Look at the sky carefully, and don't miss even a single detail. It will be greatly beneficial for your future progress."
The zone before them vibrated so much that it was impossible to discern even a single thing. The clouds were slowly condensing and darkening in a small area right above the center of that hell.
Thunderous noises started echoing from the deepest part of the sky as if a shrilling bell was giving them some sort of signal.
Suddenly, everything stopped, even time itself. Atlas felt the air rooted in his lungs stagnate. His vision blurred, bringing him closer to collapse.
But then, as if the sky was near his collapse, the black mass floating descended directly onto Jasper's head.
A white world appeared briefly around them, but this time, there was no sound or explosion, only a deadly silence.
It took them an entire minute to recover, and what Atlas saw left him quite perplexed: "Where is Jasper?"
"He disappeared a few seconds before the impact..." Kurmanus murmured in a low voice: "It's almost as if he evaded the final tribulation by moving away from this space. But how on earth could that even be possible?"
Since Kurmanus was a God Realm creature, Jasper's actions were visible to him. However, witnessing such an impossible feat caused doubt to grow deeply in his heart.
"I don't know how he did it." Deus commented: "But I think he left behind Atlas's reward right there!"
The young man followed Deus's gaze, and sure enough, he noticed three small, shining stones floating a few inches from the ground.
He couldn't wait to grasp them, so after ensuring the area was safe, he rapidly moved closer, thanks to Kurmanus's help.
His hand was only an inch away from the first stone when that small thing disappeared in a puff of dust. Tiny shards landed on his hand and rapidly vanished, leaving a thin, microscopic layer of dust all over his skin.
Atlas didn't even have the time to react because the other two small stones acted like they were alive.
"Fate Soul Shards... The possibility of meeting one of them is so infinitesimal. I can't believe I have seen three of them here."
Deus' comment reached Atlas, making him curious about this peculiar object. However, a sharp pain struck his head before he could even open his mouth.
"Hmm..."
The young man held his head firmly, trying to erase a bit of that pain. Alas, it kept corroding him for a long minute, making even Deus and Kurmanus slightly worried. They wanted to help him, but before they could act, a soothing voice resounded in the young man's head, giving him calmness and, more importantly, answers.
'Fear of the unknown is the only wall blocking your path. Since your second home is waiting for you beyond that point, what are you waiting for? Even if Saints, Sages, and Gods fear death, so what?'
The voice didn't belong to Jasper or anyone he had already heard in the past. In fact, it wasn't a simple or single voice but a reverberation and amalgamation of multiple voices.
Atlas tried to understand if there was any hidden meaning behind those words. Still, soon, more sounds reverberated in his head.
'Born from the earth and grown from the love of myriad lives, a flowered treasure hides in Zarisium where secrets and opportunities find a home and a cage.'
Those were a few simple phrases, but their meaning created more doubts than anything else.
Clearly, those voices held the answers he had asked as compensation from Jasper. Since two of the three were given, Atlas waited patiently for the last one, and sure enough, words appeared from the void again.
'Winds roared madly toward the western part of Oblivion, right where giant flying creatures split elements from their deadly maws and devoured unlucky and ignorant fellows greedy for treasures.'
'The brightest and most lethal weapon of heaven stood at the peak of this world, caged and wounded like lowly beasts. Demons feast with the flesh and soul of this colossus, nurturing future generations for the incoming disaster.'
'Only shards of pure and holy ice he left behind. The deeper parts of the world wept for decades. Alas, those tears for the fallen merged with those waters protecting what it held dear until its last breath.'
Three of Falgnis' brothers were still missing, and he got three answers. Even though there were few details about their accurate location, it gave the young man some hints about them.
Unfortunately, some of the news made the young man's heart throb, especially for the last two brothers, who seemed to be in a precarious situation.