Adrean alucard's Arc

Chapter 8 of 28

Adrean carried Shiva's blue fire back to the castle. He climbed to the throne room, the one place Yahweh's gaze could not reach. The ancestral throne waited there. It had rejected him for forty years. Now, as a god, he wanted it to bow. He reached out to touch the dark stone. The throne answered before his hand landed. A voice rose from the cracks of gold light, deep and patient. "You return stronger," the throne said. "But not yet mine. I do not crown gods. I crown those who stand above the god who watches. Rise over Yahweh Christ, and I will name you godking." Adrean's jaw tightened. The demand was clear. To sit here, he had to outmatch the one god hunting him. The strongest of them all. Shiva appeared behind him. The small blue god had followed his stolen fire like a scent. He crossed his arms and studied the throne. "It asks the impossible," Shiva said. "You are twelve points of divinity. Yahweh is the sky." "Then I take from the sky," Adrean said. He turned to Shiva. "Your fire made me stronger. I need more. Every god I drain, I climb." Shiva's mouth curled, not quite a smile. "You already drank from me once. You want to hunt bigger." He shook his head. "Touch Yahweh and he unmakes you before your hand closes." But Adrean was already planning. He did not need to beat Yahweh in the open. He needed one touch. His class drained any god he touched. If he could reach the old god's skin, even for a breath, he could pull the power out. He left the throne and its demand behind. He would not sit until he had done the thing it asked. First he needed to close the gap. He turned his mind to the weakest sleeping gods, the ones he could drain without dying, until his blood grew heavy enough to challenge the one above. Then the throne room went cold. The gold light in the walls guttered. Adrean felt a weight press down through the stone that should have shielded him. It found him anyway. A warm, tired voice filled the room. "You should not have shown me what you are." Yahweh Christ stood in the doorway, white robe, white beard, fire licking at his bare heels. His eyes held no mercy. "I gave you life so you would not starve. You used it to feast on gods." Shiva stepped back. Even he lowered his gaze. Adrean's plan had wanted a stolen touch, a hunt in secret. Instead the prey had walked to him. He raised his hand, blue fire waking in his palm. His whole path now stood in one room with him, close enough to touch, and strong enough to end him. "You want me above you," Adrean told the throne without looking back. "Then watch."