Antihero In the Hero Academy: I Can Connect the Past Heroes
Chapter 208: Helios and Selene

Chapter 208: Helios and Selene

"I feel the same way. At first, we thought you would choose Selene, but I am thrilled that you chose me. Still, I want you to know that I don’t have very good abilities to offer you. As you know, I, Eos, am a passive goddess. I cannot be said to be very powerful," said Eos with a smile on her face.

Atlas smiled back at the goddess and replied, "I will choose both Lady Selene and Lord Helios, my lady. So I don’t think there will be any problems."

Without pausing for even a second, he continued,

"Eos. A second-generation Titan. One of the three children of the first-generation Titans, Hyperion and Theia, and Dawn herself. The only one who opens the gates of the day for her brother Helios when her sister Selene sets in the sky and accompanies him... Don’t tell me you’re not powerful. You are the one who helps spread the first light in the interval when Nyx, the Night itself, fades away. Isn’t that right?"

Upon hearing Atlas’ words, Eos looked at him carefully. Naturally, Eos did not expect the young man in front of her to know so much about her.

"Then why did you choose me? Are you expecting a war? As I said, even if you see me as strong, the abilities I will give you will not be of much use to you," Eos said with a smile on her face.

When Atlas heard these words, he smiled and replied, "Helios, Selene, and Eos. I wonder with great curiosity about what the light of the sun, the moon, and the dawn would bring me. Who knows, maybe I’ll get much more than you think."

With these words, Atlas closed his mouth, noticing what the beautiful Eos standing before him was thinking, and began to wait.

Eos kept looking from Selene to Helios. It was as if the three siblings were having a conversation among themselves. Even though there were many gods and goddesses around, no one uttered a word, and they waited for the outcome.

Almost five minutes passed. Then ten. When fifteen and twenty minutes had passed, Eos looked at Atlas again and spoke:

"Then we can give you something special. It will increase your power in battle and give you extra abilities. What do you say?"

When Eos’s voice, as beautiful as a masterpiece, faded in the hall, Atlas looked at Eos in surprise and asked, "What do you mean, [we can give you]?"

Upon hearing this question, Eos replied, "You will choose all three of us, won’t you? Then we can give you something that will make you even stronger, with the abilities you have gained from us."

"Like an item?" Atlas asked gently.

"Exactly. Perhaps a tattoo similar to a stigma, but one that contains the power of all three of us. What do you think?" Eos replied.

Atlas immediately nodded and then said, "It’s no problem for me, I accept."

With that, Eos smiled and said, "We will do as you wish."

Immediately after these words, Atlas’s consciousness suddenly faded, and he fell back to the ground, opening his eyes again on the chair where he had been lying.

At that moment, he felt an excruciating pain in his arm. The pain was so intense that, despite the ability granted by Hercules and his Diamond Body ability, it felt as though someone were cutting off his arm. Despite all his abilities, having exactly 149 Endurance and still trying to endure such pain was incredible.

It felt as though thousands of knife blows were striking his arm at the same time.

The pain was so immense that Atlas fell from the chair to the ground and felt he needed to breathe without even being able to hold his arm.

He tore off the garment covering his right arm and threw off the Adamant Armour that Hephaestus had given him long ago. When the armour covering his skin came off, Atlas’s endurance became even worse.

He could see what was happening with his own eyes.

A strip about two centimetres wide was spiralling down from his shoulder towards his hand.

As the spiral lines were drawn, it was as if thousands of knife blows were constantly entering and exiting every part of his arm, as if to draw the tattoo Eos had mentioned.

The pain was so intense that Atlas’s eyes filled with tears. Even though he clenched his jaw and tried to endure the pain, it was unbearable, truly impossible to withstand.

Still, he tried to hold himself together. He bit his lips so hard that one side began to bleed.

The pain was almost enough to knock him unconscious, but after nearly ten minutes of writhing, Atlas finally noticed that the pain was beginning to subside.

His right arm was shaking uncontrollably. Even though the pain had subsided and Atlas could feel his entire body beginning to regain strength, it took him a long time to come to his senses.

His arm had trembled for two hours, and after that time, he had fully regained his senses.

After taking a deep breath, he noticed that the spiral engraved into his skin around his arm was red but contained a deep, yellow colour within it.

It was like a floor. A floor that should contain something inside it.

Without hesitation, Atlas immediately said, ’Hero Connecting,’ to open the system panel.

As soon as he said it, the large panel opened again, and this time, Atlas found Helios directly.

The moment he accepted the warning from the system, his entire body collapsed, and he lost consciousness, only to open his eyes again in the same area where he had been a few hours earlier.

Atlas saw Eos directly. The expression on the ancient Titan Eos’s face clearly showed that she was sad.

"It really hurt," Atlas said just before turning to Helion.

"We don’t want to waste your time, I’ll give you your gift directly and... I’m sorry in advance... because it will hurt even more," said Helios, and Atlas lost consciousness again before he could even respond.

When he opened his eyes again, he thought it was really annoying, but he also understood that there was nothing he could do about it.

However, even though only five minutes had passed since the pain had subsided, his arm had started to tingle again.

With the tingling in his arm, Atlas began to think that Helios had said something wrong, but after a few seconds, he realised how foolish that thought was.

Atlas suddenly felt as if a god had struck his arm. On top of the pain, that thing that felt like the same knife blow had started again, and Atlas could see what was happening with his own eyes.

Atlas naturally understood what he was seeing right away.

"Runes?" Atlas asked himself, quite shocked. Runes were being written into the spaces on either side of the spiral on his arm. It was as if these runes were leaving space for something else to be done.

Atlas immediately understood that his third choice, Selene, would fill in the rest.

Still, this time the pain was more bearable. This was a good thing because the pain he had felt not long ago was truly worse than death.

After managing to keep his mind intact, in the space of barely an hour, Atlas’s right arm was covered with spiral-shaped golden runes.

It was as if Eos’s foot tattoo represented Dawn, and Helios’s represented the Sun. In that case, the third option, Selene, would quite understandably represent the Moon, or its other name.

When Atlas opened the panel again and selected Selene’s name this time, everything seemed to come together.

When he accepted the system warning, despite it being annoying, he lost consciousness and, upon waking up, accepted every word Selene had said as if nothing had happened.

When he came to again, despite his arm still trembling, the third process had begun, and runes that appeared to be made of pure white light were being drawn one by one into the empty spaces of the runic tattoos bestowed by Helios.

This time, the pain was almost non-existent. Atlas’s left arm must have become incredibly durable.

But that wasn’t all... It seemed as though each rune from Selene was activating the other two powers.

It felt as though... everything was falling into place.

Each tattoo made his entire body stronger and, to put it bluntly, even improved his vision.

It was as if every passive ability in his body had begun to grow stronger.

He felt stronger, faster, with better vision, and even strangely more handsome.

Either it was a strange spell, an illusion, or the trio of Eos, Helios, and Selene had truly bestowed upon Atlas something that could rival Nyx’s abilities.

Still, there was one thing he knew for sure. This thing had already empowered him to an enormous degree, and his ability, Selene’s runes, was only one-third complete.

It was an incredible development.

Atlas had not made the wrong choice... Thank the gods and goddesses for that.