Adrean alucard's Arc

Chapter 15 of 28

Three more years of training passed. Adrean stood on the void platform beside Megalom, stronger than he had ever been. His system flared with light. Numbers spilled across his vision faster than he could read them. Billions of reward points. A new tier of charm woven into his blood. He could feel it now, plain as breath. He had climbed high enough to kill other gods with his bare hands. Megalom watched the light play over Adrean's face. The child-sized god had beaten him for forty years and taught him to stand without the vein. His red eyes narrowed. "You feel it," Megalom said. "You could walk into that chamber and burn half of them down." "I could," Adrean said. He closed the system window. The power sat heavy and calm in his chest. "But I won't. Not like that." Megalom crossed his arms. Blood streaked down his white cheek, old and dried. "Then say what you plan. The council knows your skills. Three years is nothing." Adrean flexed his hands. The old thirst was long gone. Now something new pressed at him. "Every god I've met feared me or wanted me dead," he said. "They see a monster with a stolen throne. I need them to see a man they can't hate." He looked at the numbers still burning behind his eyes. "The system gave me charm. Enough to bend a room. I'm going to suppress my power and walk the earth as a mortal." Megalom laughed, sharp and short. "You'd hide the very strength you bled for." "Not hide. Wait." Adrean spread his fingers over his own chest. Slowly, he pushed the divine weight down. His skin cooled. The god-light behind his eyes went dim. His body shrank into something soft and human. He looked like the starving boy from the alley again. "If I arrive at the chamber as a killer, they fight. If I arrive charming and small, I gather them first. Women. Demons. Any who'll follow a king who smiles." Megalom stepped close and pressed a finger to Adrean's chest. He felt no god there. Only a mortal heartbeat. His face changed. "It's true. I can't sense you." "Good." Adrean turned toward the edge of the platform. Below stretched the mortal world, green and small. "I'll build my court from the ground up. Charm what I can't crush." He stepped off the platform and fell toward the earth. The wind tore past him. He landed soft in a field, a plain young man with nothing to fear from a passing eye. But the suppression cut both ways. His system chimed a cold warning. While his power slept, it could not shield him, and it could not warn him fast. Down here, hidden from every god's gaze, he was also blind to the ones already walking among mortals. Adrean rose, brushed the dirt from his knees, and smiled at the first strangers on the road.