He didn't just feel like a man holding a weapon; he felt like a sovereign reclaiming a stolen throne. In the dim corner of the room, Maria froze. Her gaze remained locked on the steel in his hand as the chilling realization set in: their "resource" had just grown teeth.
"Damn… this power," Adi gasped, his voice trembling. "It feels… holy. But wait. Have I even felt a holy weapon before?"
The heavy click of the door interrupted his thoughts. Reina stood there, her eyes scanning the room. "What are you doing, Adi?"
In a panicked blur, Adi dropped the sword. It clattered to the floor as he scrambled to grab a rag, pretending to polish the blade with frantic energy. Reina didn't linger; she simply grabbed her wallet and swept out of the hotel room without a second glance.
Watching her go, Adi's mind drifted. If the Queen wants only the most handsome men, he thought bitterly, why do we all feel so worthless here?
He pushed the thought aside and set to work, scrubbing the mess the girls had left behind and preparing a meal. As the steam rose from the pots, a jagged theory pierced his mind. This is just a guess, but… what if the Demon Lord is a woman? Or worse, what if she's just hungry for the blood of men?
He gulped, the weight of the world pressing down on his shoulders. "A world of threats, then. Challenge accepted."
He looked down at the stove, blinking. "Oh. Right. I finished the food."
The Midnight Encounter
Late that night, the door swung open with a chaotic bang. The girls stumbled in, smelling of wine and laughter. They began stripping off their travel-worn gear, oblivious to the world. At that exact moment, Adi stepped out of the washroom.
Time froze. Adi stared. The girls stared back.
"AAAAAH!" The collective scream nearly took the roof off. Adi slammed the bathroom door shut, leaning his back against the wood, his heart hammering against his ribs. "At least tell me you knew I was in there!" he yelled through the door.
"We'll deal with you in the morning!" a voice slurred from the other side. "Consider this a WARNING!"
Maria, clearly the most intoxicated of the bunch, stumbled toward the furniture.
"Just… sleep quietly," she muttered, before collapsing face-first onto Adi's bed. Within seconds, she was dead to the world.
Sighing, Adi cracked the door open. He moved like a ghost, draped blankets over the sleeping girls, and gathered their discarded clothes to start the laundry. With his bed occupied by a snoring Maria, he resigned himself to the cold floor.
The Nightmare and the Storm
Sleep brought no peace.
He saw Shoya Kapoor. She was kneeling over a body—his body—sobbing uncontrollably. When she looked up, his blood ran cold. Her eyes weren't eyes at all; they were bottomless pits of obsidian, void of light or soul. She stood up, gliding toward him with a terrifying, silent grace. Before she could touch him, the dream shattered.
Adi snapped awake, drenched in cold sweat. It was midnight. He couldn't stay in that cramped room a second longer.
He slipped out of the hotel and walked until the cobblestones turned to grass. Under the silver glow of the moon, his eyes welled with tears. He wiped them away with a fierce, sudden resolve.
"I will do it," he whispered to the empty fields. "I'll turn this dream into a reality."
He needed to know. He needed to see if the power he felt earlier was real. He raised his hands to the heavens, visualizing the raw, jagged energy of a thunderstorm.
The air changed instantly.
The temperature plummeted. Massive, bruised clouds swirled out of nowhere, swallowing the stars. A crack of thunder shook the very earth beneath his feet, and then the sky opened up, drenching the world in a violent, heavy deluge.
Adi stood in the center of the chaos, a conductor of the storm. But he wasn't alone.
Behind the silver bark of a massive birch tree, Maria stood perfectly still, her eyes wide as she watched the "resource" command the elements.
"So," she whispered into the rain, "this is where you've been hiding."
The thunderstorm died with a flickering gasp, the oppressive clouds unraveling into wisps of gray as Adi lowered his hand. The sudden silence was heavier than the thunder had been.
He turned his gaze toward a jagged spire of granite, focusing his intent until his vision blurred at the edges. *Fire,* he thought.
The air around his palm ignited with a predatory roar. A sphere of white-hot plasma, churning with unnatural intensity, manifested in a heartbeat. With a flick of his wrist, the fireball tore through the air, leaving a scorched trail in its wake. Upon impact, there was no explosion—only a total, violent disintegration. The massive rock didn't shatter; it simply ceased to be, collapsing into a fine, shimmering veil of gray dust.
He felt the stirrings of a new Gale before he even processed the thought. From the treeline, a dozen goblins emerged, their guttural snarls cut short as they realized they weren't walking into a fight, but a slaughter.
Adi didn't move a muscle. He simply exhaled.
The wind responded like a loyal hound. A localized vortex erupted from the soil, a screaming column of air that sharpened into invisible blades. The goblins were swept upward, their cries silenced instantly as the centrifugal force tore through bone and hide alike. Within seconds, the tornado dissipated, leaving nothing behind but a crimson mist that settled on the grass.
Adi looked at his hands, feeling the thrum of divinity vibrating in his marrow.
"Ah... the blessing of the Child of the Wind," he whispered, his voice sounding distant to his own ears.
A strange, cold prickle climbed up his spine. The power felt perfect—too perfect. It was a weapon he knew how to wield without being taught, a muscle memory etched into a soul he didn't quite recognize.
"It looks familiar," Adi muttered, his brow furrowing as a jagged flash of a memory—of a throne made of bone and a sky turned to ash—threatened to break through. "Why does this feel like I'm not learning a gift... but remembering a curse?"