Apocalypse: Transmigrated with an Overlord System
Chapter 194 : Secrets That Should Not Be Known (02)

Chapter 194: Chapter 194 : Secrets That Should Not Be Known (02)

Liora’s heart skipped.

She already knew who he was going to say.

And he did.

"Kazren," Atlas said quietly. "The man I fought today. The man you saw standing beneath that void gate with those vines crawling around his arms. He is the one who found this planet. He is the reason this world is what it is now."

Liora stared at him.

She felt like the air around her had thickened. Like she was sinking into something deeper than the soil they stood on.

"The apocalyptic world you were born into," Atlas said slowly, "wasn’t always like this. It had forests, rivers, sky cities, and settlements. Not like the central systems of the Spire, of course, but this planet once had its own growth, its own quiet life. But Kazren... he saw potential here. He saw land untouched by Spire regulations, untracked by central galactic satellites, a place with no government, no order, no eyes watching."

"He wanted to cultivate it," Atlas said, his voice sharpening just slightly. "To twist it to his will. Turn the entire planet into a controlled zone. A personal garden made from destruction."

Liora’s lips parted, but no words came.

Kazren... the smiling man who had once saved her in the early days. The man who now tore through time with vines and weapons and voids.

Atlas’s expression darkened, his gaze distant.

"The only flaw," he said, "was the people. The civilians here... were too weak. No abilities. No aura. No connection to aether at all. They didn’t even know how to use their own potential. And that’s not their fault. This world has almost no free-floating aether. That’s why your people can’t awaken like the others. Why your bodies break so easily."

He walked slowly back to the center of the room, each step echoing faintly in the silence.

"But while most of the Spire’s galaxy has gone barren—its lands overused, its soil dry, its systems failing to produce crops without artificial augmentation—this planet remained untouched. Its ground, its water, its atmosphere... everything remained rich. Naturally fertile. Unpolluted. Untapped."

Liora felt her throat tighten.

She didn’t want to believe it, but it all made sense. The strange soil quality. The wild plants that sometimes healed wounds. The wheat. That damned wheat.

"He’s exploiting it," Atlas said, not needing to look at her to know what she was thinking. "He’s been growing rare aether crops here in secret. Ones that cannot be cultivated anywhere else. Crops that only grow because this world still has natural power in its veins."

"And then he sells them," Atlas added. "In the darkest corners of the galaxy. Through illegal markets buried deep within the Spire’s network. To buyers who would give entire planets just for a single fruit capable of restoring their body’s aura. A single seed that can grow in dead soil."

He finally looked at her.

"And the wheat you harvested..."

Liora’s eyes widened, breath catching.

"...was one of those crops."

Silence.

Liora felt like her ears were ringing.

She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even breathe properly.

Atlas’s voice was quiet now, almost gentle. "That wheat was grown by Kazren. It was ready to ship—ready to be uploaded into one of his portal gates and sent directly to his buyers. But you... you unknowingly claimed it. You took it. Transported it back to your base before he could touch it."

The room spun slightly.

Not from dizziness. But from realization.

From the crash of truth that broke apart every assumption she had made since that day she brought the wheat back.

Liora felt her luck could not be worse than this; she had actually attracted a time bomb to her base.

And then it all clicked.

The timing.

The sudden attack.

The overwhelming force that had descended on her base out of nowhere.

The void gate.

The vines.

The man in black.

No wonder, she thought. No wonder he was furious. No wonder he tried to destroy them all.

She hadn’t just stolen food.

She had taken something precious.

Something that belonged to a man who ruled the black markets of an entire galactic sector.

And worse than that, she had even consumed half of it. Now Liora really felt she was in deep shit trouble.

That wasn’t just theft.

That was war.

Her hands trembled slightly, not from fear, but from the weight of what she had done.

"Why didn’t the system warn me?" she whispered. "Why didn’t it stop me from taking it?"

Atlas looked at her carefully.

"The system you use," he said slowly, "isn’t meant to identify enemies. It’s a tool for you to survive and make you powerful. It gave you what you needed to survive. It didn’t see the wheat as dangerous. Just... useful."

He paused.

"And Kazren didn’t expect you to appear either. That’s why he lost it. That’s why he’s watching now. Because for the first time... someone disrupted his plan."

Liora sat back against the chair.

Her mind was filled with the image of that first stalk of wheat. So golden. So warm. So innocent.

And yet it had triggered a force beyond her understanding.

It had started something far larger than she had ever imagined.

She looked back up at Atlas.

"What does he want now?" she asked.

Atlas let out a slow breath and raised his hand, running it through his hair in frustration before letting it fall to his side.

"I don’t know," he admitted honestly, his voice low but laced with irritation. "That man is a complete lunatic. And I never—never expected to run into him here of all places."

His gaze drifted toward the window again, but this time his eyes didn’t see the stars—they saw something far away, something buried deep in his memories.

"I wasn’t even here for him," he thought. He had been wandering between the fringe planets for an entirely different reason. He had nothing to do with this world, nothing tying him here. He was only passing through—just scouting, really, investigating something else entirely."

He paused and looked back at her, his eyes tired.

But then he found her.

"And as if that wasn’t enough," Atlas muttered with a humorless laugh, "I find him here too. Of all people, of all places... Kazren."

His jaw tightened.

That alone was enough to ruin his entire mood. But what made it worse was that he couldn’t even figure out what exactly he was doing here at first. He’s too careful. Too secretive. He thought he’d left behind the whole galaxy after the—" He stopped himself, his voice catching before he shook his head and continued, "—after everything that happened."

Atlas began to pace slowly, like someone trying to outrun thoughts that refused to be still.

"But no. Not only is he here... he’s working. Plotting. And now I’ve learned far more than I ever intended to. And none of it is good."

He turned to Liora again.

"The man’s a genius, Liora. A dangerous one. Whatever he’s doing, it’s been in the works for years, and no one’s noticed until now. This isn’t some small operation. He’s shaping the fate of this entire planet with his bare hands—and he’s doing it under the nose of the entire galaxy."

Atlas’s voice dipped lower, almost like he was speaking more to himself than to her now.

"And I..." He paused again, then exhaled. "I don’t even know how to handle him anymore."

There was something vulnerable in his expression.

Then quietly, he added, "If the Empire hadn’t abandoned him... would things have been different?"

The words slipped from him like a whisper, like a question that had haunted him for a long time.

"After all," he said, almost bitterly, "there was a time when Kazren and I were close."

He looked away, eyes distant again.