CHAPTER 13 — THE FALSE GOD PANICS
Adhrit dropped his smile.
It was subtle—so subtle that even his most devoted saints, kneeling at the foot of the Throne, did not notice. The curve of his lips softened. The practiced serenity cracked for less than a heartbeat.
But Rudra saw it.
And in that instant, cold terror crawled up his spine like a living thing.
Adhrit had worn that smile for centuries. A god's smile—unshaken, indulgent, eternal. It was the expression of someone who believed the world would always bend before him.
Now it faltered.
"Impossible," Adhrit whispered.
The word barely left his lips before the temple trembled.
Gold-lined pillars shuddered, flakes of divine script raining down like dying embers. The light that filled the chamber—once warm, radiant, reassuring—flickered violently, bleeding into long, crooked shadows that clung to the walls as if afraid to let go.
The worshippers felt it immediately.
Their prayers stumbled.
Words that had once risen effortlessly toward the Throne now fell flat, dissolving into static murmurs. Some clutched their chests, gasping. Others pressed their foreheads harder against the floor, whispering louder, desperate to be heard.
Nothing answered.
"No—no, listen to me!" a priest cried, voice cracking. "Great Adhrit, I—"
His prayer collapsed mid-sentence, vanishing as if swallowed.
Panic spread like fire.
Adhrit's fingers tightened around the arm of the Throne. The gold beneath his grip darkened, veins of black spreading outward, as if even the divine structure recoiled from him. His own veins stood out sharply beneath his skin, once luminous, now bruised and ugly.
"The Throne doesn't refuse," he hissed, teeth clenched. "It negotiates."
He had learned that truth early.
Godhood was not granted—it was managed. Adjusted. Balanced. The Throne always bargained, always corrected excesses with compromises.
Refusal was not part of its language.
Yet—
Something had changed.
Adhrit closed his eyes, reaching outward with senses refined by centuries of worship and blood. He searched the structure of divinity itself, the invisible lattice that connected gods to belief, belief to power.
And he felt it.
A gap.
A hollow space where something should have been.
A vacancy.
Not his.
Someone else's.
Adhrit's breath stuttered.
"No," he said softly, almost pleading. "You don't get to end it."
Far across the city, beneath a sky already beginning to fracture, Arjun gasped.
He doubled over as pain exploded inward from his palm—not outward like before, not burning the flesh, but sinking deep, sealing itself beneath bone and nerve. The mark did not glow.
It closed.
Locked.
Something irreversible settled into place.
Arjun's breath came in sharp, shallow pulls. He could feel his heart racing, each beat echoing with a new sensation—not dominance, not command.
Permission.
It spread through him slowly, like cold clarity.
Not you must.
But you may.
Footsteps scraped behind him.
Steel whispered.
Rudra appeared at his side as if reality itself had folded to allow it. His blade trembled in his hand—not from fear alone, but from recognition. His eyes were wide, reflecting the broken sky above.
"Do you feel that?" Rudra asked, voice tight.
Arjun straightened slowly. His hand throbbed, but the pain was distant now, muted beneath something heavier.
He nodded.
"I'm not chosen," he said quietly, almost to himself. "I'm allowed."
Rudra swallowed.
Allowed was worse.
The sky split open.
Not with lightning.
Not with fire.
It tore like fabric, a vast running from horizon to horizon. Beyond it lay no heaven, no void—only layered structures of judgment, immense and unfinished, rotating slowly as if aligning.
The city screamed.
Every false miracle flickered.
Golden halos around saints dimmed, then cracked, bleeding light that evaporated before touching the ground. Cult sigils carved into flesh burned black, peeling away like dead skin. Sacred relics shattered in priests' hands, reduced to worthless metal and stone.
Prayers turned to static.
Words meant for gods dissolved into noise.
Adhrit roared.
The sound shook the temple, shattering stained glass and toppling kneeling worshippers. His golden eyes blazed with fury now, all pretense gone, divinity flaring wild and unstable.
"If you tear down the system," he shouted, voice booming across the city, "YOU'LL TEAR DOWN THE WORLD!"
His power surged outward in a desperate wave, forcing saints to their feet, reigniting symbols by sheer will.
But the surge faltered.
Something caught it.
Something that no longer answered to gods.
Arjun looked up at the breaking sky.
He felt no triumph.
No joy.
Only a deep, aching certainty.
"Then it was already broken," he said.
His voice did not echo.
It carried.
The mark on his palm opened.
Not like an eye.
Not like a wound.
Like a sentence being carried out.
Lines of invisible force extended from him into the sky, into the lattice of belief and false divinity. Arjun felt them connect—not violently, but decisively, like the final click of a lock.
Adhrit staggered.
"No," he snarled, backing away from the Throne. "I built this! I upheld it when others failed! I kept order!"
"You fed on fear," Rudra shouted, stepping forward despite himself. "You called it peace."
Adhrit turned on him, rage twisting his once-perfect face. "You would rather chaos?"
Arjun answered before Rudra could.
"I would rather truth."
The pressure descended.
Not crushing.
Final.
Adhrit screamed as his golden aura fractured, splintering into shards of corrupted light. His worshippers watched in horror as the god they had knelt to began to unravel—not dying, not yet, but invalidated.
"This isn't justice!" Adhrit shouted, clawing at the air. "This is erasure!"
Arjun met his gaze.
"No," he said softly. "This is correction."
The sky brightened—not with mercy, but clarity.
And for the first time since the gods were chained—
The world watched a god realize he could fall.