Chapter 2676 – 2676. God’S Atlantis

I walked across the pure white snowfield, using electromagnetic waves.

However, I couldn’t find anything significant. There wasn’t even a single rock in this space.

The ground beneath the snow? The ground wasn’t earth. It was made of ice.

In this world, using electromagnetic waves at full power allowed me to detect up to about 3km. But other than ice and snow, there was nothing. At least within a 3km radius around me, there was only ice and snow.

Time continued to pass. No matter how much I walked, nothing changed.

‘The novelty wears off after the first few minutes. Looking at the same scenery over and over is driving me crazy.’

It was so boring that I wished a monster would pop out and attack me.

‘Kang Min-jin told me to survive and find the mirror. But there isn’t even a rock, let alone a mirror.’

If he told me to survive, it meant there was something that threatened my life. But after wandering around for hours, nothing appeared.

“Master of the Heavens! Give me an answer!”

「The Master of the Heavens strokes his beard.」

「The King of the Demon Realm is bored.」

The Divine Seats have no intention of helping. Or rather, they can’t help. If the Divine Seats intervened recklessly, Atlantis would quickly become a mess. And for a god to intervene in Atlantis, they would have to pay a huge price.

‘It’s not an urgent situation that requires a god to intervene.’

The endless passage of time itself wasn’t a problem.

‘I’ve been walking for hours, but the sun in the sky hasn’t changed its position at all. That means, even though the system’s power reaches here, it’s a different space-time than Atlantis.’

Hadn’t I already experienced something similar?

Hera’s temple.

Perhaps this space and the space of Atlantis had different time flows.

Maybe this is a mental world where my mind was dragged into. I thought that for a moment, but immediately dismissed it. There was no way my mind would be so powerless if I still had my consciousness.

‘I’m hungry.’

I took out a warm dumpling from my inventory and ate it. My stomach was filled. There was nothing strange about that sensation. I had a physical body.

Feeling full made me feel a little better.

‘I would have suffered if I didn’t have the inventory. I might have ended up eating snow or ice.’

This made me worry about Kang Min-jin, Rilsne, and Joo Seo-hyun. They didn’t have a subspace or an inventory. Even if they had packed emergency rations, they wouldn’t last more than a week.

Elena? She had a subspace and could even create something from nothing. There was no way she would starve to death.

‘It’s starting to get annoying… Should I just go on autopilot? …But then I might end up wandering this endless snowfield forever. Autopilot is influenced by my past actions. No, before that, would I starve to death? The avatar on autopilot doesn’t use the inventory.’

It would be absurd if the avatar on autopilot used items from my inventory without my permission.

I decided to just keep walking.

And so, time passed.

I got hungry again. I took out a warm fish cake udon from my inventory and ate it. The feeling of the warm udon broth seeping into my body was amazing.

‘Ah. That’s good. I should walk while looking at my phone.’

The gazes of the Divine Seats watching me had almost disappeared. It seemed even the Master of the Heavens and the King of the Demon Realm weren’t watching.

「The Mistress of Olympus advises you to warm yourself.」

My body wasn’t so weak that it would shiver from this level of cold.

If any other god had given this advice, I would have ignored it, but it was Hera’s advice.

“Yes. I will warm myself.”

I took out a thick winter coat from my inventory and put it on.

I left footprints on the snowfield again as I moved forward.

About two hours passed. I started to get hungry again. This time, I took out a gas burner and cooked ramen. I didn’t usually like instant ramen, but it tasted amazing in this situation.

‘MSG is the best after all.’

「The Endless Abundance says that moving your body makes you hungry.」

‘…Come to think of it, I got hungry in just two hours this time?’

I felt something was off with Demeter’s message. I wasn’t usually the type to get hungry so often.

‘I should stay still as Demeter advised.’

I sat down and read a comic book, and four hours passed in an instant.

Grumble.

I was hungry. My body craved food. It was clearly an abnormal phenomenon. It didn’t make sense that my body, which was more capable than an ordinary human in terms of stats, had such poor fuel efficiency.

‘Something I don’t know about is at play. Is it some kind of curse?’

Looking at the goddesses’ advice, it seemed that if I stayed still and kept myself warm, my hunger would come a little slower.

‘But I can’t just stay here doing nothing forever.’

It was when I was about to get up.

「Rainbow Bubble says that there’s a reason why the saying “the darkest place is under the lamp” exists.」

‘Under the lamp? There’s nothing here that could be called under the lamp.’

I lowered my gaze.

Pure white snow.

Underneath it was ice.

‘Is there something under the ice?’

I was already sick of walking on the empty snowfield. There was enough reason to try it.

I activated the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.

Black demonic energy flowed out of my body. I focused my mind and lifted my right foot before stomping down.

Heavenly Demon Divine Art (天魔神功) Heavenly Demon Sovereign Step (天魔君臨步).

Kukukung.

An intangible wave spread in all directions, sweeping across the snowfield. The snow that had been piled up on the ground flew into the air.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

A part of the huge ice beneath the snow shook and cracked. But the cracks were far too small to break all of the huge ice like the ground.

Heavenly Demon Divine Art (天魔神功) Black Flame Demonic Dragon (黑炎魔龍).

Whoosh.

Black flames flickered around my right fist.

Heavenly Demon Divine Art (天魔神功) Dragon Fist (竜拳).

I punched the ground. The shockwave broke some of the ice, and the black flames seeped into the cracks, melting the ice. The melted ice turned into water and then instantly into steam, which flew away.

‘The black flames are more efficient than I thought.’

I saw a way.

I let go of my mind and punched the ice.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

My punches stopped when my mana ran out. The black flames that had been melting the ice disappeared. I was in the center of the ice. I could feel the cold air from all directions.

‘It’s dark.’

It was a waste to use lightning, so I took out an electric lantern from my inventory. Click. The surroundings lit up with the press of a button.

“…This is!”

I was surprised. The surface of the ice, illuminated by the light, was shining and reflecting me.

It was like a mirror. The mirror I was looking for was this ice.

The lantern in my hand shook. The ice that had been reflecting me began to reflect something else.

It was a modern city. But the city was covered in snow. There were no people. All that remained in the city were the traces of civilization. Only the cold wind swept through the city.

I moved the lantern. Or rather, I slightly changed the angle of the light. Just that changed the scenery I saw.

Snow-covered volcanoes, frozen seas, hills piled with corpses, and so on. The common point of the scenes was that they were all winter scenes with snow falling or having fallen, and that there were no living people.

「The Winter of the After (僞) recognizes you.」

I felt a gaze. A gaze as cold as ice. It was definitely a gaze, but I could feel the coldness, and I shivered involuntarily.

Soon, the gaze disappeared.

‘The Winter of the After. It’s a Divine Seat name I’ve never heard before, but… it’s not hard to guess.’

The volcanic island area had a theme, or rather, a subject. The Horseman of the Apocalypse and the Dragon of the Apocalypse were it.

‘I felt hunger while walking on the snowfield. The Horseman of the Apocalypse related to hunger is… the Black Horseman of Famine.’

Then what are the scenes that the ice surface is reflecting now? I roughly guessed that they were probably other worlds. The ‘God’s Atlantis’ world was a world with countless Earths. There were probably a lot of destroyed Earths as well.

I tapped the lantern.

Instead of the scenes of the destroyed worlds I had been seeing, a familiar modern scene appeared. Even the signs were in familiar Korean. At the end of the scene, I could see a river.

In the center of the scene, two men were walking. One of them was Kang Min-jin.

“Hyung. How was this week’s God’s Atlantis?”

“It wasn’t bad. Except for the fact that there are unnecessarily many hidden elements.”

“Hidden elements are the fun part of God’s Atlantis!”

I could hear the two men’s conversation.

It seemed like it was a past memory of Kang Min-jin. Kang Min-jin’s expression was gloomy, and his eyes were cold. Judging by that atmosphere, it seemed like he already knew what state he was in.

‘Is he enjoying Seoul for the first time in a while?’

I moved the lantern. The angle of the light changed, and Rilsne appeared.

She was hunting beasts in the forest with other female elves.

“Rilsne. You’re doing well for your first time?”

“Leila was so surprised at first that she couldn’t even shoot an arrow.”

“This is nothing.”

Rilsne was showing off. She was smiling brightly.

I shook the lantern again.

This time, I saw Joo Seo-hyun wearing a dobok in an empty dojo. In front of her, holding a wooden sword, was a scarecrow.

Her hair was shorter than the Joo Seo-hyun I knew. Her height, chest, and hips were also smaller. There was still baby fat on her face, making her look like a high school student.

“I’ll kill you, Sung Yu-jin…!!”

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Joo Seo-hyun relentlessly beat the scarecrow.

It seemed like there was no need to worry about Joo Seo-hyun.

It was annoying to hold the lantern, so I put it down on the ground. Another scene appeared.

This time it was Elena. A young Elena, about 7 years old. She was sitting crookedly at a desk, reading a thick book.

Then, she suddenly turned her head. Was it a coincidence? The direction was exactly where I was.

My eyes met with the young Elena’s.

“You’ve come. I was bored, so this is good. Come here.”

Elena gestured. And I was sucked into her world.