After handing Atlas a crystal that he claimed would allow Atlas to fulfill his quest without being fully initiated, Big A took almost the entire remaining two minutes to explain how to become a secondary incarnation of the beyond, including how to regulate the amount of power his body bore. That was a fact he stressed very carefully to Atlas. According to Big A, the more power that Atlas took upon himself, the more power that Big A could utilize against the Tainted, the tradeoff being that Atlas’ body could only handle so much. If he pushed beyond his limit, Big A told Atlas that the Beyond would simply burn him up from the inside.
When Atlas asked how he would figure out what the limit was, Big A said, “All of my previous visitors’ thresholds were approximately equal to the quest parameters. The System appears to want you all to push yourselves but not to a lethal extent, and I would trust that trend to continue with you.”
Atlas nodded, but he said nothing as he watched the timer reach the end of its countdown and mentally prepared. He quickly took the chance to hide behind one of the few boulders on the plateau.
TIME UNTIL SCENARIO BEGINS: 0:05
Atlas took a deep breath and gripped the crystal tightly.
TIME UNTIL SCENARIO BEGINS: 0:03
He focused on the power that constantly emitted from Big A.
TIME UNTIL SCENARIO BEGINS: 0:02
He steeled his willpower, ignoring the risk he was about to face.
TIME UNTIL SCENARIO BEGINS: 0:01
With a grunt of concentration, he called the power into him, inviting it to leave Big A and flow into him.
TIME UNTIL SCENARIO BEGINS: 0:00
INTEGRATION SCENARIO INITIATED
With a ripping sound, the universe tore open, but the Titano didn’t even flinch as the power left him. Atlas, blocked out the strange plane he was on, sure Big A could handle himself. He had a far bigger problem to worry about, as he had completely underestimated the power he took from his larger namesake.
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Despite Big A’s warnings of the power that now ran rampant through his body, Atlas had seen the .01 percent mentioned in his quest and thought that he would easily be able to handle it. In most multiversal residents, that may have been true, but Atlas wasn’t even the average F-Rank. He hadn’t been fully integrated, meaning that even the weakest multiversal residents could pummel him into the ground. This especially came into play for a scenario like this, where he had to survive something as powerful as the Beyond just to succeed.
Atlas learned as much when the extra-universal equivalent of ten thousand volts ran through his body, dropping him to the ground. His muscles seized and spasmed as his teeth clenched in a grotesque pain-enforced grin. At that moment, Atlas wanted nothing more than to give in and let the source of the pain go. He almost gave in to the feeling, but in the corner of his vision, he saw Big A fighting against the horrifying humanoid creatures pouring in from the tear in space.
They stood at least two meters tall each and their disproportionate bodies were covered in harsh cyan scales broken up by toxic green veins that extended out from horrifying cores glowing the same color. Their oddly long arms ended in six three-inch claws, and their maws were filled with teeth so sharp that Atlas could see them from the ground where he lay. The worst thing, however, was their eyes. Partially hidden under ridges of rocklike skin, they glowed red and twisted chaotically, like two miniature orbs of blood in a tornado. Atlas gasped in horror even as the pain pulsed through his body.
At the sight, he forced himself to get to his knees and kept channeling the power in his body. He couldn’t help but remember what Big A had told him of the Tainted.
“They are truly horrifying creatures, driven only by a terrible instinct to destroy or corrupt anything in their way. They have no morals, and only C-ranked or above have the intelligence to speak. The Grunts make up for that flaw with sheer numbers, numbers they can easily replenish if they come across a world without any C-ranks. That is why the System sent you here. They are a scourge and must be stopped.”
As much as Atlas wanted to just roll over and give up, he couldn’t let the Tainted run free. If they got far enough into the Universe, they would reach Earth, and Atlas was pretty sure that Earth had no C-ranks to stop them. With that in mind, he put his hands on the ground and forced himself unsteadily to his feet. At first, he felt pretty woozy, but he kept himself steady.
He looked at Atlas again, and he saw that the Titano had grabbed the attention of almost all of the Tainted Grunts. The giant tore through their ranks, each punch obliterating the Grunts it came in contact with. Still, with the sheer amount of creatures streaming into the universe, some had managed to get around Big A and were slowly beginning to spread out. Though they wandered aimlessly for now, Atlas knew it would only be a matter of time until they found some way off the plateau, having heard from Big A that their unique status as residents of the Beyond made them impossible to imprison on a single plane. Once that happened, any small planet they found themselves on would be doomed. After all, it only took one cut for the Tainted’s corruption to infiltrate the body of a victim, killing them and taking control of the corpse, like a toxic-scaled zombie, though there were two major differences between the Tainted and the Undead.
According to Atlas, living people could become undead if they were willing. In the case of corpses, they would be reborn as entirely new beings without the memory of their former life. Tainted, however, completely trapped the soul of their victims inside the body, torturing them as they slowly drove them mad and broke them into willing drones. It was that very same danger that made Atlas happy to sit back and let Big A fight the horde. Big A, as strong as he was, could resist the corruption; Atlas could not.
However, when he saw one of the Tainted get close to the edge of the plateau, Atlas started to move before he could stop himself. “God dammit,” he cursed before running out from behind the small boulder he’d been sheltering behind. “HEY! Scales for brains!” He shouted.
Immediately, the Grunts that had separated from the horde attacking Big A started charging at Atlas, pulling away from the borders of the flat. Atlas raised his fists in a boxing position and shouted out a challenge.
“C’mon! Bring it!”