Atlas smiled.
Not with warmth.
Not with charm.
But with the cold, methodical smirk of someone who had planned ahead and found his opponent already off-balance. The expression didn't belong to a teenage boy—not really. It was the smile of a tactician wearing a younger skin, borrowed and disguised.
His heartbeat was loud, erratic, and his body was betraying its age, its inexperience. The heat coursing through his blood was not just from the closeness, the tension—it was hormonal, primal. But Atlas had survived the Dark Continent. He had seen minds break before bodies did. And he had rebuilt his soul from the ashes of betrayal.
This?
This was just another test of control.
His fingers twitched slightly at his side, subtle as breath. Internally, he activated the tools gifted to him long ago—tools no one in the Emerald Palace even knew he possessed.
[World Understanding: Activated.]
[Minor Hypnosis: Active.]
