Antihero In the Hero Academy: I Can Connect the Past Heroes-Chapter 160: The Runes Inside The Keyhole

"Friends, these words..." Cain said suddenly. He shook his head from side to side meaninglessly. Suddenly, he turned to Atlas behind him and then back to the words above the door.

"Alright," he said, then added, "Be prepared."

"Love, hope, and loyalty were what brought about our end. Perhaps each of our lives has been extinguished, but I want you to know that love, hope, and loyalty will be what brings you good. What era are you from? What is your name? Your purpose? I don’t know any of that, but there is one thing I do know. Chaos doesn’t matter. Gods and goddesses don’t matter. What matters is how you live, what you do, and how far you can go in the end. Cleanse the dungeon. Keep living, and in the end, reach a level where even Chaos will admire you. Know that the Sages are with you. We may be watching you from the real heaven, or perhaps from the real hell. The dungeon you are about to enter will reveal the most terrifying memories of the most important person among you. If you lose yourself, you will perish; if you remain yourself and do not forget who you are, the stone will be yours. I have kept the key to the entrance. With love and respect, Harry."

It was incredible. Every god and goddess watching the events unfold, every Sage who heard Cain’s words, and Atlas himself could not help but be astonished. Even Atlas, who had met Chaos himself, could not speak of him in such terms. All the words he had heard, all the writings he had read, made his heart pound.

But where was the key? Harry had not said anything about it. The great Sage had said the key was hidden, but he had not said how to find it.

At that moment, something occurred to Atlas.

"Every step I take, every breath I take, and everything I do causes branches to sprout from the tree, is that right, Chaos? What a joke," Atlas said suddenly and reached into his inventory without stopping. What he took out was an item that would surprise everyone.

Atlas had taken out the only Sage’s Diary that had never been used in the world from his inventory.

After opening the diary directly in the middle, everyone knew that there was something he could learn about it. Atlas could now understand the meaning of life, how to become a god, the formula for the elixir of immortality, and many other things.

Still, Atlas was not selfish. He was fully aware that the sense of heroism in his heart had not died. The feeling he had tried to erase by killing and lying to himself was burning deep within his heart and soul.

"You know what I want to know, old man. Show me where it is," Atlas said suddenly.

It wasn’t even a question. Atlas wanted to know the location of the key and had addressed Chaos directly.

At that moment, the Sage’s Diary in his hand began to glow, and its pages slowly began to tear apart and then burn.

After a short time, the diary was completely burned, and nothing remained of it. Just a minute later, a light formation appeared in front of the group and began to point to a place within the vast area.

When Atlas began to follow the sign, it began to fly in the air, and when Atlas approached the area, the sign began to glow.

After walking for almost three minutes, he finally reached the area. The sign pointed directly to a diamond. The diamond was transparent and truly beautiful, and inside it, the strange, slightly transparent key could be seen with some difficulty.

"Hiding it inside a diamond, then covering it with magic... Very clever," Atlas said suddenly, reaching into his inventory and pulling out his sacred sword.

He cut the enormous diamond piece, which was perhaps a metre long and nearly forty or maybe fifty centimetres wide, in half.

He then carried the heavy diamond piece back to the group and asked, "Can someone remove the key without damaging it?"

Talon immediately bent down and touched the massive diamond piece.

The enormous diamond fragment that Talon had touched melted away in an instant as if it had never existed in solid form, and the key fell to the ground.

When Atlas took the key in his hand, he realised there was more to it than met the eye. At first, he couldn’t figure out what was happening, but after approaching the massive door, he inserted the key into the keyhole and only then understood what was going on.

The key and the keyhole were covered in runes. Complex runes, more intricate than anything Atlas had ever seen before. It would be accurate to say that they were runes he had never even seen in his God Language Arts book.

Atlas focused all his attention on the key and the keyhole.

Even if the Sages realised that something was wrong, they still had to wait. After all, they were intelligent beings who could at least understand that much.

When Atlas focused on the key and the keyhole, he began to notice what was happening, or rather, the runes. The keyhole activated the runes but scattered them. This meant that it was a test.

He was aware that neither the demons nor the angels had seen these runes before, and if Harry had been serious when he mentioned that someone had died here before—that is, if he had included that information in his writings—then it meant that the person who had placed these two runes was none other than him.

It was a perfect skill. It was an incredibly masterful thing to do. Even Atlas himself couldn’t have done something so masterful with the God Language Arts book in his hand and the runes inside it. After all, there were only a few runes in the book that were as high-quality as this one.