Stranded in the Silence of Weakness

He felt it for the life Zayn had lived, for the pain he must have endured growing up in the shadow of such a cruel this people around, a joke for a family.

 His parents look like they cared about him, their smiles were genuine. And here he was, dragged into a world that didn't value him. A world that saw him as nothing more than a tool.

"What did they do to you, Zayn?" he whispered under his breath.

For a moment, Kael'thar's mind wandered into forbidden territory. The overlord, a god of his time, had never felt this way for any mortal before. He had destroyed entire armies, burned cities to ash, consumed souls, and watched kingdoms fall—all without batting an eye.

But Zayn's story…

It wasn't a story of conquest or power. It was one of weakness. Of abandonment. Of betrayal. This young boy experienced the pain of losing two people at a tender age.

He shook his head, feeling the sting in his chest. No. He would not allow himself to feel sympathy for a mortal. No matter how much this boy had suffered, it didn't matter. His purpose was to escape. He had to regain his power. This body wasn't his.

He placed the picture back on the wall, a part of him wondered—could the boy have been anything more?

A strange and foreign feeling lingered. A trace of something almost like guilt. He turned away, back to the task at hand.

But as he stepped back into the corner of the room, the picture stayed with him.

Kael'thar stared at the damp stone walls of the forsaken room, the oppressive silence swallowing him whole. The oppressive weight of this body—this weak, fragile form—settled heavily on his chest.

 He had spent millennia commanding armies, conquering nations, bending kingdoms to his will with a thought. And now, here he was, locked in a dirty room, chained by his own body, unable to even lift a hand without feeling the sting of punishment.

The overlord who had once ruled the heavens, who had taken down gods and manipulated demons and crushed the most powerful mortals,using their very desires and fears against them. 

He had crushed his enemies not through force alone but with his cunning, his ability to outthink anyone who dared oppose him.

stood at the mercy of a petty stepmother and her spoiled children.

How had it come to this?

For the first time in centuries, Kael'thar had no plan. No immediate course of action. The rush of commands, of orders that had once been second nature to him, felt distant. The sharp clarity of his strategies, his unparalleled intellect—gone. In this fragile body, he couldn't command anyone. He couldn't move with the speed and precision of a god. He couldn't even threaten anyone with the way he was now.

He was powerless.

"What do I do now?"

His hands clenched into fists, the thin skin of this boy's body stretching tight around his bones. He wanted to scream. To tear the walls down with a thought. But nothing happened.

The thought sent a tremor through him. The overlord was stranded.

No armies to command. No soldiers to rally. No realm to conquer.

No one to fear him.

He sat back against the wall, sinking to the cold floor with a heavy exhale. The muscles in his new body ached from the lashings. His back throbbed with the cruel reminder that he was not the immortal tyrant he used to be. He was a boy—weak, discarded—and bound in a cage he could neither escape nor break.

Now, he had no allies. He had no resources. The body he wore was alien, a shell that made him feel like a mere mortal. This place, this house, was a prison—both physical and mental. The oppressive atmosphere, the cruelty of his stepmother, the mocking laughter of the twins—all of it chipped away at him, piece by piece.

And he hated it.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the cold stone wall. The darkness around him was suffocating.

How did it feel to be weak?

How did it feel to be one of the broken?

He had never known what it was like to be this powerless. In his previous life, his enemies trembled at his name. He had never once questioned his abilities, never once doubted the power he wielded. But here, in this forsaken body, he was nothing.

Nothing.

He let out a bitter laugh, though it felt hollow in the empty room. How long had it been since he had to question his next step, his next move?

No plan. No backup. No power.

It was a strange feeling. Not from Kael'thar 

It wasn't his feelings.

He refused to give in. He couldn't.

This wasn't over.

He'd been cast down before, far worse than this, in another lifetime—shackled by chains of fate. But he had broken those chains, he had bent fate to his will. So why should this be any different?

"I will escape," Kael'thar whispered to the empty room, his voice barely above a whisper. The words were quiet, but they were filled with the promise of something far darker.

His mind, despite the haze of this weak, fragile form, was already beginning to work again. He might be stranded, but he wasn't without options. The overlord was never without options.

But where to begin?

He had to learn more about the people around him. The stepmother, the twins, this strange maid, and the man in the picture. They were all pieces of a puzzle—his puzzle. There was power in knowledge. He would begin there. He would observe them, wait for their weaknesses, and then... strike when they least expected it.

The first step was to survive this. To endure. To let them think he was broken, that he had been reduced to nothing. They would see his weakness. They would mistake his silence for submission.

He would show them what it meant to cross a god. He would tear their world apart, piece by piece. Especially the fat hippo

His body might be weak, but Kael'thar's mind was sharp, his will unbroken. It wouldn't be long before the walls around him began to crumble.

The door creaked open, the heavy sound of the lock scraping against the doorframe jolting Kael'thar from his thoughts. His head snapped up as a figure appeared in the doorway—one of the maids, her face twisted in disdain. She was tall, with a stern expression that made Kael'thar's blood simmer, but he said nothing.

"Get up," the maid ordered curtly, crossing her arms. "It's time for you to do your chores."

Kael'thar's eyes narrowed, but he stood up slowly, allowing his body to adjust to the weight of the humiliation that clung to him like a shadow. His back still stung from the flogging, the pain lingering in every movement, but he wasn't about to let it show.

"Chores?" he muttered under his breath, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "What a surprise."