Chapter 252: Ten Percent

Time itself had stopped.

Everything around him had become completely devoid of colour while the entire world remained frozen in place, including the unknown man who had been fusing those two forces together and the Dragon Emperor, who had been just about to say something while looking toward the sky.

Even the air and space around him had stopped moving, leaving Atlas in a world where absolutely nothing seemed capable of changing. There was no movement from the surroundings, no change in the expressions of the people nearby, and not even the slightest disturbance in the space around them.

’What... in the world?’ Atlas asked internally as he looked around him. He slowly moved his hand and immediately realized that his own body was still functioning normally, which made the situation even more difficult to understand.

He then looked toward the people who had been fighting around him, but none of them had moved even slightly from the positions they had occupied before time stopped. It was as though everything in the world had been frozen at the exact same moment.

Atlas quickly realized that only two things seemed capable of moving within this stopped world, himself and the Book. His attention immediately shifted toward the Codex, and the moment he looked at it, he saw that its pages were already flipping one after another at an extremely fast speed.

The pages continued moving for several moments before the Codex suddenly stopped at the page containing his Bloodline. Atlas watched it closely because the Book had never behaved this way without a reason, and the fact that it had activated by itself made him even more curious about what was happening.

The moment the Codex stopped, the Golden Bead in Atlas’s hand reacted violently. It began vibrating as if it had suddenly been placed inside some kind of extremely powerful machine, and the reaction was strong enough that Atlas immediately frowned while looking down at it.

The vibration wasn’t something he had caused, and the Golden Bead had remained completely stable before the Codex stopped at his Bloodline page, which made the connection between the two even more obvious.

He slowly loosened his fingers that had been curled around the Golden Bead, and the moment he released it, the bead began floating toward the Codex on its own. Atlas didn’t interfere and simply watched as it moved closer to the page containing his Bloodline.

The bead continued moving through the air at a steady speed, and Atlas followed its movement with his eyes while trying to understand why his Bloodline seemed to be reacting to it.

The Golden Bead stopped when it was only an inch away from the Bloodline name, [Osmo ??? - Rank ???]. The name reacted in exactly the same way it had reacted to the other Bloodlines that had appeared on the page before.

Atlas had already seen his Bloodline consume the bloodline information of other creatures, but this time the situation was different because the Golden Bead wasn’t written on the page or contained within the Codex.

A pitch-black liquid suddenly emerged from the name and moved directly toward the Golden Bead, completely covering it before devouring the entire bead in an instant. Atlas’s eyes widened as he watched the scene, because this was the first time he had seen his Bloodline devour something that wasn’t already part of the Codex page.

The black liquid didn’t leave even a small portion of the Golden Bead behind, and within a moment, the entire object had disappeared as though it had never existed.

’It can devour even things outside the page? What the hell?’ Atlas thought while staring at the Bloodline name. He had previously assumed that whatever his Bloodline devoured had to be connected to the information recorded within the Codex, but the Golden Bead had clearly existed outside the Book.

Yet...the Bloodline had still reacted to it without any difficulty, almost as though the page itself had no restriction on what it could consume.

Before he could think about the matter any further, the pitch-black liquid disappeared, and the Bloodline name returned to its previous state as if nothing unusual had happened. Atlas could only continue staring at the page while trying to understand what had just happened.

However, he soon noticed another change.

The percentage of his Bloodline unlock had increased directly from 8% to 10%. Atlas immediately remembered the previous increase and how his Bloodline had reacted after he entered that Divine-rank Ruin. The bloodline of the SSS-rank Boss he had killed there had caused his Bloodline unlock to jump directly from 5% to 8%, and now the Golden Bead had produced another increase, taking it from 8% all the way to 10%.

Atlas stared at the new percentage for several moments. The increase was smaller than the previous one, but it was still a clear indication that the Golden Bead had something to do with his Bloodline. He had never received an increase like this without gaining something related to his Bloodline, and the fact that the bead had disappeared immediately before the percentage changed made the connection difficult to ignore.

’Is this why I was feeling that pull?’ Atlas thought while looking at the Codex. The intense hunger he had been feeling earlier had completely disappeared after his Bloodline devoured the Golden Bead, and even the strange feeling of incompleteness that had remained within him was no longer there. The change was so clear that Atlas immediately remembered the sensations he had experienced before the Golden Bead was consumed.

The sudden disappearance of both sensations made Atlas realize that the Golden Bead had probably been connected to the reason he had been feeling that strange hunger in the first place.

It wasn’t simply a matter of him wanting the bead because it contained some unknown power, because the feeling had existed before he even understood what was inside it. Now that the bead had been consumed, both the hunger and incompleteness had disappeared at almost the same time.

’So my Bloodline, or should I say my blood, was craving that Bead?’ Atlas thought as the different pieces of information began connecting in his mind. The Null contained within the Golden Bead had been reacting with the Null inside his own body, and that reaction had been strong enough to create the strange pull he had experienced earlier. The more he thought about it, the more the connection seemed to make sense.

Since Atlas had obtained the Null attribute itself from unlocking his own Bloodline, it made sense that his Bloodline was the thing reacting to the Golden Bead rather than his body simply wanting the bead for some unknown reason.

The Null inside the bead and the Null inside his body were similar in nature, and the Bloodline seemed to recognize that connection even before Atlas himself understood it. That also explained why the strange hunger had disappeared immediately after the Bloodline consumed the bead.

Atlas slowly nodded as he accepted that conclusion.

He looked back toward the Book, and once again, strange letters began appearing across the page. The Codex had already started displaying something new, and Atlas immediately focused his attention on it because he knew that the Book rarely showed information without a reason. He waited for the letters to finish appearing while keeping his eyes on the page.

Before Atlas could properly examine what was happening, Reiden in his right hand suddenly reacted at the same time. The weapon began glowing as though it was happy about what had just happened, which immediately made Atlas frown as he looked down at it.

Reiden had reacted before, but this particular reaction seemed different because it happened immediately after the Golden Bead had been consumed by his Bloodline.

’Why are you so delighted?’