Adrean alucard's Arc

Chapter 26 of 28

The tree's power ran deep in Adrean now, but it was not enough. He felt it the moment he tested his strength against the memory of the god-king. Chronos Luminar bent time itself. Adrean, even bonded to the tree, stood at half that strength. He could not fight a god who could stop the world while he stood still. Aphrodisia found him at the city's edge, the sword of throne-blood strapped to his back. Its blade shimmered with red energy and flowing mana. She had renounced her old master, Chronos, to stand with Adrean, and she still watched him like a woman who feared what she loved. "You mean to break yourself again," she said. "I mean to catch up." Adrean walked past the last spire and into the barren land beyond the city. Nothing grew there. No people, no gods, no eyes. "Chronos folds time. So will I." He reached into the divine power the tree had bound to his blood. Time was not his gift. But godhood was, and the tree's roots ran through this land. He pressed both palms to the cracked ground and pushed. The wind stopped. A drifting seed hung frozen in the air. Aphrodisia's next breath never came. He had paused time, not across creation, but around himself, in this dead field alone. Inside the frozen bubble, Adrean drew the throne-blood sword. He swung it a thousand times. He forced his divine energy through every strike until his arms shook and his palms split. Blood dripped and hung in the still air. Outside time, no day passed for the world, but for Adrean the hours stacked. He trained until his body could hold time and swing at once. He trained until pausing the field cost him nothing. When he let time move again, the frozen seed dropped. Aphrodisia's breath finished. She stared at his ruined hands. "You were gone," she said. "For one blink you moved and I did not." "I stole a day inside that blink." Adrean sheathed the sword. His strength had climbed. He tested it against the memory of the god-king and no longer stood at half. He stood near even. "Time is not only his." Then the ground trembled. Far off, an elven rune stone flared to life, its blue carvings blazing across the barren field. Zephyr Nightvolt's voice broke from the stone, cold and near. "You bled for the field," the voice said. "You left your city walls to do it. My people are already inside them." Adrean turned toward the distant spire. Smoke rose from it now. He had bought his strength, but he had bought it with his back turned. Zephyr's elves had crossed into the city while he trained alone in the dead land. "Run," Aphrodisia said. Adrean gripped the sword and ran, faster than the god-king, back toward the burning heart of everything he had bled to keep.