Adrean alucard's Arc

Chapter 14 of 28

Six years stretched ahead of Adrean. He sat on his throne, the stolen divinity churning in his blood. His two great weapons slept, locked by the system for the chamber. If he could not drain gods there, he needed another way to fight without their power. He needed strength that no rule could switch off. Megalom climbed the throne steps, child-sized, blood streaked down his white face. The abyssal god had beaten Adrean for forty years, and Adrean still felt those blows in his bones. "Your favorite tricks are dead," Megalom said. "You'll walk into a room of a hundred gods with your hands tied. What then?" Adrean answered fast. "Then I earn what they can't take. I train. Not for kills. For favor." Megalom's red eyes did not blink. "Beg the gods for gifts? They want you dead." "They fear a thief," Adrean said. "They may respect a student." He rose and stepped down from the throne. "Take me across the pantheons. Every god who will teach me, I'll kneel and learn. I'll gain their skill instead of their blood." The plan was simple and terrible. For three years Adrean traveled the divine realms with Megalom as his guide. He did not touch a single god to drain them. He asked. He worked. In a temple of carved white stone, a war god taught him to move without hunger driving him. On the stark platform in the void, older powers drilled him in cold light until his body learned new tricks. Some gods refused and spat. Many turned him away. But a few, curious about the vampire who bowed instead of biting, opened their hands. Each gift changed him. He learned to walk without needing blood. He learned to fight with borrowed craft, not stolen strength. Where he once had to feed to grow, now he could stand on skill alone. His hunger loosened its grip. At the end of three years, Adrean stood again before Megalom on the void platform. He struck the abyssal god's guard aside with speed no beating had given him. Megalom staggered, then straightened. He wiped blood from his lip and looked at his student with something new. "You did it," Megalom said. "You don't need the vein anymore." Adrean flexed his hands. The old thirst was gone. "I can win in that chamber with my abilities sealed. They gave me favor. That favor is mine to keep." But Megalom's face darkened. "You made friends of a handful. You didn't ask what it cost." He pointed at Adrean's blood, calmer now, tamed. "Every god who taught you told the council. They know exactly what you can do. You showed them your new hand before the trial. Three years left, boy. And now they'll build against the very skills you learned." Adrean's smile faded. He had traded his weakness for their knowledge. And they had watched him do it.