Adrean alucard's Arc

Chapter 18 of 28

The gods had spared Adrean's life and locked every door above him. He returned to his temple and refused to sit still inside their cage. If the heavens would not teach him, he would find a land the heavens had abandoned. He called Shiva and Megalom to the throne room and asked one question. Where do gods hold no power? Shiva stroked the snake at his throat. "There is a land with no god," he said. "No pantheon watches it. No prayer reaches it." He met Adrean's eyes. "Lucifer left it long ago. He walked out and never returned." Megalom crouched on the steps, small and red-eyed, arms crossed. He had beaten Adrean for forty years in the void and still spoke to him like a stubborn student. "A godless land," the abyssal god muttered. "You'd walk into it blind. No system warnings there. No borrowed power." He tilted his head. "But no council either. No thousand seats staring down your neck." Adrean understood the trade. Outside the reach of the pantheons, no god could forbid him from teaching, binding, or gathering. His arc quest needed wives and followers. The heavens had judged that impossible. A land with no god made it possible again. "Then that is where I build," Adrean said. "Not a hidden temple. A city they cannot enter." Shiva warned him. "The path there is not walked. It is opened." He led Adrean beneath the temple to a weathered stone, taller than a man, its surface carved with glowing marks. "Lucifer's road. Bleed on it. The runes remember his blood, and yours is close enough." Adrean pressed his palm to the carved marks. He tore the skin and let blood run into the grooves. The runes flared blue, then swallowed the light whole. The stone split down the middle. Beyond it stretched a gray plain under an empty sky, no sun, no gods, no watching eyes. Megalom stepped to the gap and sniffed. "Cold," he said. "Dead. Perfect for a thief who wants to be a king." He looked back at Adrean. "Once you cross, I can't reach you. None of us can." Adrean turned to Shiva. "You bound yourself to my throne. Does the bond hold across that door?" Shiva shook his head. "No. On the other side you stand alone." Adrean looked at the two gods who had made him. Then he stepped through the split stone. The ground under his feet was silent. No prayers pressed on his skin. No divine gaze crawled across his back. For the first time since his death in the alley, no god watched him at all. He stood in a land that belonged to no one. Behind him, the stone sealed shut and vanished. He could not go back the way he came. Ahead, the empty plain waited for whatever he would raise on it. Adrean smiled and began to walk.