The Heroine is My Stepsister, and I'm her Final Boss-Chapter 412 - 410: Berect
Chaos.
Utter, seething, bone-deep chaos.
The kind that didn't roar or scream but pressed—a crushing, suffocating pressure that settled into the marrow of every living and unliving thing across the layers. Chaos so thick that even sound seemed to shatter when it moved through it.
Atlas felt it first as a tremor beneath his ribs. A small convulsion, barely noticeable to anyone else—yet unmistakable to him. It felt like the fourth layer itself was breathing too fast, panicking, unraveling.
A low hum vibrated through his bones, through the infinite darkness, and through the strange, watery substance that passed for "air" in this part of creation.
He blinked—and the world quaked again.
The shaking didn't stop.
It deepened.
It multiplied.
He tasted iron on his tongue. Not blood—mana. Chaotic, volatile, warped mana that burned like rust and ozone.
Something was wrong.
Very, very wrong.
He barely had time to register the shift before a figure slammed into existence before him.
A corrupted version of himself.
Again.
The same hollow-eyed, cracked-skin, future-rotted parody that he had fought once before. Its breathing rattled like a dying furnace. Its aura twisted in spirals that made the fourth layer's surface distort and ripple.
And behind the corrupted echo—standing caught, frozen, torn between presence and absence—was Lilith.
Atlas's breath hitched.
A coincidence? No. Fate didn't behave coincidentally here. Not in the fourth layer. Not in this part of existence.
"Mother," he exhaled, unable to keep the edge from his voice. "What is happening?"
His voice trembled before he could stop it. The tremble irritated him. Made him feel too exposed. Too vulnerable.
He forced the emotion down.
"What is this chaos?" he whispered harsher. "Why is the mana unstable? Why is… that attacking me?"
He jerked his chin at the corrupted self, who snarled back with a mouth lined by fissures of blackened mana.
Lilith didn't look at the corrupted version. She barely looked at Atlas. Her hands moved in quick, sharp patterns—sigils of immense complexity that twisted through the layered darkness like threads of molten gold.
The space behind her groaned open, a tear in the fourth layer's fabric widening into a swirling portal.
She spoke through gritted teeth.
"I was... busy. I was opening the pathway to the mortal world—the Dark Continent specifically. And at the same time, one of your fragments lashed out from the fifth layer."
Her voice shook at the phrase "fifth layer," though she tried to hide it.
A fragment of me, Atlas thought bitterly. Another me. Another version. Another mistake already written somewhere he hasn't reached yet.
He looked again. The corrupted self's eyes burned with hunger. Not bloodlust—something far more painful. Something far more personal.
Loss.
Atlas felt a shiver travel down his spine.
Because he understood.
In an instant of brutal insight, everything clicked together inside his mind with sickening clarity.
This version of me lost Eli. Lost the child.
The realization cut so sharply that he almost staggered. Something cold flooded his veins. His thoughts snapped apart and rejoined in a mess of fear, rage, and dread.
The fifth layer.
A place of origin, a place of endings.
A place that corrupted.
A place he would one day enter.
A place that would turn him into this—the thing snarling at him now with a face shaped like his own grief.
His chest tightened.
No.
NO.
Not again. Not him. Not Eli. Not the child he hadn't even held yet. Not the future he had been warned of.
The corrupted version stepped forward, each movement warped and jerky, as though his limbs were held by invisible strings tugged by some future agony.
Atlas swallowed, lifted his hand, and focused.
He didn't call mana.
Didn't summon a weapon.
Didn't tap into divinity.
He simply willed.
Not the corrupted version—not the threat before him.
He willed himself.
The future where he would ever walk into the fifth layer.
The potential timeline.
The path of corruption.
He willed it away.
"I won't go there," he whispered under his breath. "I won't become you."
The corrupted version roared, lunging—
—and dissolved.
Not in light, not in fire, not in a clash of power.
He dissolved like an erased sentence. Like a memory cut from reality.
Gone.
Lilith froze.
Her eyes widened, trembling with a fear Atlas had rarely seen from her.
"How…" she whispered, stepping forward. "How could you erase your future self?"
Atlas exhaled slowly. His breaths were uneven, jagged at the edges.
"I just willed myself enough," he said quietly. "Willed myself to avoid the fifth layer in the future. If I never go there… that fragment dies...simple as that...."
Lilith stared at him, the sigils around her faltering.
He didn't look at her.
Not yet.
The fourth layer trembled again—louder, harder. The darkness vibrated. The mirrored surfaces deep beneath them cracked and reformed in rapid succession like glass breathing under extreme pressure.
Atlas lifted his gaze at last.
"What's happening?" he demanded. "Why is the fourth layer shaking like this?"
Lilith didn't answer.
Not immediately.
Shapes formed beside her. First as silhouettes, then as full beings—two tall figures crystallizing out of fog and fractured light.
The remaining two Empresses.
Her sisters.
Atlas swallowed.
Their presence was suffocating. Heavy. Like being pressed beneath the sky itself.
One spoke first, her tone sharp as a blade cut from moonlight.
"Heaven and hell are to be engaged in a full-scale war soon..."
The second continued seamlessly, her voice smooth but cold.
"And their battlefield will be the mortal realm."
Atlas froze.
The words hung in the air, heavy and merciless.
The fourth layer shook again, violently enough to crack the invisible ground beneath them. Atlas had to brace himself. Even Lilith staggered slightly, and her sisters lifted their sleeves to shield their faces as mana whirled like a hurricane.
"The shaking of hell," one sister said, "is nothing but the aftereffect. The mortal realm is the one truly quaking—under the weight of mana and energy as higher beings prepare to descend."
Atlas's heart lurched.
No. No no no no—
"we even released the Dark Continent," the other sister continued, "and all its monsters. We seek to clear the mortal lands. To turn them into lamentation fields—to wage war upon heaven....make them weak. Targeting their source of faith..."
"What?" Atlas whispered, choking on the word. "War? On the mortal realm? They unleashed the Dark Continent?"
His voice cracked.
Because he remembered what that meant. What the Dark Continent contained. What lived there. What should NEVER have been unleashed.
His breath grew heavier.
"My kingdom…" he whispered. "The Berkimhum Kingdom…?"
Lilith stepped forward.
Her movements were graceful, almost gentle.
But her words were not.
"It should be already destroyed," she murmured. "Your father, that useless human, should be dead. Henry, and the rest… all gone."
Something inside Atlas broke.
A crack.
A tear.
A soundless collapse.
His breathing stopped for a moment. His chest tightened so sharply he nearly doubled over.
Destroyed.
Dead.
Gone.
Just like that.
His father—flawed, mortal, stubborn. Henry—loyal, steady, human. The kingdom he built. The people who believed in him. The world he bled for. All of it—
Gone?
Just like that? 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
Lilith wasn't finished.
"And now," she whispered, brushing her fingers against his shoulder as if offering comfort, "we ask you to join us. Help us in this war. Fulfill your duty as protector of the fifth layer—the creator's layer. Defend it against the depraved gods of the false heaven."
Atlas didn't hear the last words.
Not really.
His mind was spiraling.
His kingdom.
His father.
His people.
Humanity being squeezed between two godly powers, crushed like insects caught under boots that never cared for them.
He fell to his knees.
Hard.
The impact echoed in the silent vastness of the fourth layer.
He didn't care.
His hands trembled on the ground.
"Why…" he whispered. "Why…?"
His voice was hollow.
"Why would you do that…? Why would they…? Why—why—why—"
The questions tangled into a knot of grief and disbelief.
Lilith watched him without flinching. No guilt. No hesitation. Only a strange, wounded softness that made her look almost fragile.
"The mortal world will grow back," she said simply. "It always does. Whatever is destroyed becomes reborn. It is nothing but a cycle. The important matter is the war against heaven."
Her sisters nodded.
"The mortals are irrelevant," one added.
"They are temporary," said the other.
Atlas felt sick.
Irrelevant?
Temporary?
Then what was he?
What did his life mean to them?
His hands curled into fists, nails biting into his palms.
He checked his system out of instinct.
A heavy, cold shudder ran through him.
Faith points.
Enough of them gathered.
Enough for something irreversible.
He whispered across the mental link:
"…System."
The voice responded, calm and unfeeling.
[Yes?]
Atlas inhaled.
"Use all the faith points."
Silence.
Then—
A warning appeared.
Black.
Dangerous.
Alive.
A warning that felt less like text and more like a whisper curled around his throat.
[WARNING: Activating all faith points will cause irreversible transformation.]
[WARNING: Consequences unknown.]
[WARNING: Proceed only if the host accepts all possible destruction.]
Atlas closed his eyes.
His heartbeat slowed.
Not calm.
Not peaceful.
Resigned.
His whisper shook the fourth layer like a tremor:
"…Do it."
