Chapter 437
He used the entirety of his combat power to destroy the monster.
And he succeeded.
However, in that success, in the explosion of power he unleashed to kill the creature, he accidentally created a wave of energy that swept across the entire remaining civilization on the planet.
A civilization that was innocent.
A civilization that knew nothing about the battle between Adrien and the monster.
A civilization that vanished in an instant because of his actions.
Adrien became a butcher, just like the monster he had killed.
And it was that realization that shattered him more deeply than anything else.
Meanwhile, Alaric Syah, his disciple, had a different fate, yet one rooted in the same origin.
Xavier recalled the story Alaric had once told him, a story about how he met Myra Astrielle in a beautiful world.
About how they fell in love and lived happily for a time.
About how one day Myra was approached by religious leaders and the rulers of that world.
They came not with goodwill, but with a vile threat: the safety of the people closest to Myra would be in grave danger if she did not hand Xavier over to them for the ritual of the Inverted Crucifixion.
Myra, trapped between her love for Xavier and her fear of losing the people she cherished, made the darkest decision of her life.
She did not hand Xavier over.
Instead, she gave Alaric a sleeping drug and handed the man who loved her to the religious leaders as a substitute sacrifice.
Upon that horrifying ritual altar, when the Inverted Crucifixion ceremony nearly claimed his life, something within Alaric exploded.
Not ordinary elemental power, but a surge of pure energy born from betrayal, pain, and the death he had nearly experienced.
When the dust began to settle, Alaric stood in the middle of the shattered altar.
His body was freed from the restraints of the ritual.
And around him, nothing remained.
He had slaughtered everyone without exception.
The religious leaders who intended to sacrifice him, the rulers who had planned the atrocity, and most tragically of all—the loved ones of Myra who had been the very reason she made that decision—all of them died in an instant.
Myra survived, but only because Alaric stopped at the final threshold.
He nearly killed the woman he loved, stopping just before the final blow, yet the trauma left behind was no less horrifying than death itself.
Alaric, after realizing what he had done—that he had become a monster who slaughtered countless people, that he had nearly killed the woman he still loved—left that world with a broken heart, carrying wounds and guilt that could never be erased.
The difference in their fates lay in what happened after those unintended massacres.
After that massacre, amid the chaos of uncontrollable energy, Alaric was accidentally sucked into a portal that left him stranded in an unfamiliar world, without knowing the way home, without knowing what he should do next.
Yet there he decided to begin his journey, searching for the coordinates of his former world while exploring new realities.
That journey lasted for a long time, until eventually he succeeded in returning to his original world.
But that return did not bring happiness.
What he brought home was only haunting guilt and deep regret—the realization that he had become a monster who slaughtered many people, that he had nearly killed the woman he still loved.
And in that old world, on a lonely and silent planet, Alaric spent the remainder of his life praying every day, begging forgiveness for sins that could never truly be erased.
He created various relics of civilization, sacred objects he left behind as proof of the sincerity of his repentance.
He prayed for forgiveness, even though he knew that true forgiveness might never come.
Meanwhile, Adrien Valtheris, his master, chose a different path.
After unintentionally slaughtering the remaining civilizations on his planet, he was not consumed by regret like Alaric.
Instead, he was consumed by burning hatred.
Hatred toward the monster that had started it all.
Hatred toward the world that had allowed it to happen.
Hatred toward himself for being unable to control his own power.
And that hatred grew, becoming greater, deeper, and more uncontrollable until it eventually transformed into a terrifying intention.
Adrien Valtheris decided that if one civilization had been destroyed, then all civilizations must be destroyed.
If one world had perished, then all worlds must perish.
If one universe had died, then all universes must die.
He intended to destroy every civilization across all universes, to burn everything with the fire of his hatred, to turn all of reality into a colossal graveyard for everything that had ever lived.
That intention burned within him endlessly, unextinguished and unshaken, until the day he prepared to leave his old world and begin that mission of total annihilation.
But at that very moment, when Adrien Valtheris was ready to step beyond his home planet and begin his dark journey, something happened.
Something he had never expected.
Something that changed everything.
From outside reality, from a place beyond the reach of any creature, a power descended.
A power that was The One Supreme.
A power he had only ever heard about in legends and myths.
A power known by some ancient civilizations as Quil Hasa.
That power did not destroy him, did not kill him, did not stop him through violence.
Instead, it did something more subtle, more sophisticated, and more terrifying in its own way.
Quil Hasa sealed Adrien Valtheris's memories.
All memories of the tragedy he had experienced, all memories of the hatred he had nurtured, all memories of the malicious intention he had planned—everything was locked tightly within the deepest recesses of his soul.
And after that, Quil Hasa cast Adrien into another world, a distant world, a strange world where he could begin a new life without the burden of the past.
And in that world, in a place no one had ever known, Adrien Valtheris lived with memories that had been sealed away.
"The accident replaced his flesh with steel."
In that strange new world, with his memories tightly sealed by Quil Hasa, Adrien Valtheris began his second life.
Yet that second life did not begin easily.
A tragic accident occurred not long after he arrived in that world, an accident that nearly took his life and left most of his body shattered beyond recognition.
The rescuers who found him could only shake their heads, convinced that the unfortunate man would not survive.
Yet Adrien endured, perhaps because of the power that still lingered in his blood, or because fate had not yet finished with him.
And because he survived, because he was still breathing even though his body was destroyed, the scientists of that world made a decision they had never attempted before.
They replaced the destroyed parts of his body with metal and steel, connected his nerves with delicate cables, and implanted artificial intelligence within his brain to assist vital functions that had nearly vanished.
When Adrien finally regained consciousness, when he opened his eyes for the first time after weeks of coma, he was no longer fully human.
He was a half-robot human—a cyborg, a hybrid being that was neither completely alive nor completely dead.
Yet within that strange new body, within a consciousness emptied of past memories, Adrien found something he had never expected.
He found friends.
Not ordinary friends, not mere acquaintances, but companions who accepted him as he was, who did not care that half of his body was made of metal, who did not care that he had no past, who did not care that he was often confused by the simplest things in everyday life.
They were fellow Human Change, a group of humans who each possessed their own superpowers, living within a society that sometimes accepted and sometimes rejected their existence.
And among them was a woman who always supported him, who was always by his side, who always believed that behind the metal body and the occasionally empty eyes, there was someone precious.
That woman did not know Adrien's past, did not know who he truly was, did not know what power lay hidden within him.
Yet she loved Adrien for who he was, loved the half-robot man who sometimes spoke strangely because of the artificial intelligence within his brain, loved the man whose light-blue lightning element sometimes went out of control when his emotions surged.
To be continued…