Chapter 1: The Fall of a God

Chapter 1: The Fall of a God

The penthouse was silent, save for the low hum of the server racks in the corner and the rhythmic tapping of Vikram’s fingers on a mechanical keyboard. High above the smog line of Mumbai, the air was conditioned to a perfect twenty-two degrees, untouched by the humidity that choked the millions living below.

On his primary monitor, a raid simulation for the upcoming Divine Conquest expansion was running at 400% speed. Zephyr’s avatar, a blur of white and gold, was soloing a dungeon designed for twenty players.

Efficiency: 99.8%.

Damage Output: Optimal.

Mistakes: Zero.

Vikram leaned back, cracking his neck. Another perfect run. Another solved equation. It was becoming... mechanical. He reached for his water bottle, his eyes drifting to the window where the city lights stretched out like a galaxy of circuits.

Then, the silence broke.

It wasn’t a standard notification. It was the emergency override tone of his wrist-com, a shrill, escalating siren that he had only heard once before—when the Adonai servers had crashed three years ago.

Incoming Priority Call: Mr. Sharma (Relio-Verse PR Head)

Vikram frowned. It was 3:00 AM. Sharma was a man who scheduled his bathroom breaks. He wouldn’t call unless the company was burning down.

He swiped the holographic interface. "This better be good, Sharma. I’m in the middle of a—"

"Vikram! Listen to me very carefully." Sharma’s voice was unrecognizable. It wasn’t the smooth, polished baritone of a PR veteran. It was high, breathless, bordering on hysteria. "Disconnect your network. Now. Pull the plug on your server. Do not go online."

Vikram paused, his hand hovering over the keyboard. "What are you talking about?"

"It’s a breach. God, it’s... it’s everything. Someone cracked the Adonai encryption. Not just the game servers—the personnel files. The financial records. The *psych profiles*."

Vikram felt a cold prickle at the base of his neck. Adonai’s security was military-grade. It was supposed to be impossible to crack without a quantum key.

"My data?" Vikram asked, his voice steady.

"Your face. Your address. Your high school records. Your bank statements. It’s all out, Vikram. It’s all over the net."

Vikram didn’t panic. Panic was inefficient. Instead, he did exactly what Sharma told him not to do.

He opened a new tab.

#ZephyrExposed was already the number one trend worldwide.

#TheMonsterBehindTheMask was number two.

He clicked the first link. It wasn’t just a leak. It was a dossier. A weaponized, meticulously crafted dossier designed to destroy a human being.

Photo: A grainy, high-contrast image of him at sixteen. He looked younger, angrier, standing over a cowering student in a St. Xavier’s uniform.

Caption: "The Bully of St. Xavier’s. While you were grinding levels, he was breaking bones. Victim Hospitalized."

Vikram stared at the photo. He remembered that day. The boy on the ground had been kicking a stray puppy. Vikram had intervened. He had pushed the kid away. But the photo... the angle was perfect. It looked like he was the aggressor.

He scrolled down.

Video: A clip of him in a college debate, edited to remove context. "Poor people are lazy," the video-Vikram said. "They deserve to starve."

Real Context: He had been quoting a philosophical opponent to dismantle their argument.

The comments were scrolling so fast they were a blur of hatred.

<I knew it. No one plays that ruthlessly unless they’re a sociopath.>

<Heard he paid 50k to cover up a hit-and-run last year. Rich brat.>

<He spent 45 million on a car while people are starving? Eat the rich.>

<Boycott Adonai. Boycott Relio-Verse. Delete Theos Online until they ban this monster.>

"They’re saying you used your sponsorship money to silence victims," Sharma rambled in his ear, the sound of phones ringing in the background audible now. "Titanus and Seraphina’s fan clubs are bot-boosting the posts. We’ve tracked the IP addresses—thousands of them, all synchronized. This is a hit, Vikram. A coordinated assassination of your character."

Vikram watched the numbers climb. One million retweets. Five million. Ten. A digital tsunami.

"Vikram? Are you there? Say something!"

"It’s fake," Vikram said, his voice flat. "The photo is out of context. The video is spliced. You know that."

"It doesn’t matter what *I* know!" Sharma screamed. "The public doesn’t care about context! They care about the narrative! And right now, the narrative is that Zephyr, the God of Theos, is a cruel, elitist bully who hates the poor!"

A notification popped up heavily on the screen.

[Tatra Group Sponsorship - TERMINATED pending investigation.]

[Adonai Corporation Contract - SUSPENDED.]

"Tatra just pulled out," Vikram noted, reading the email as it arrived. "That was fast."

"Everyone is pulling out! No one wants to be associated with a ’public enemy’. Vikram, listen. We need to get ahead of this. We drafted an apology statement. It says you were young, you’ve grown, you’re donating ten million to charity—"

"No."

The line went silent. "What?"

"I said no," Vikram repeated. He leaned back in his chair, the glow of the monitors reflecting in his dark eyes. "I didn’t do those things. If I apologize, I admit guilt. I won’t apologize for a lie."

"This isn’t a game, damn it! You can’t just ’outplay’ this! There are people organizing a protest outside your building right now! They have your address!"

Vikram stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. He looked down, fifty stories, to the street below.

It was faint, but he could see them. A gathering crowd at the gates of the complex. Torches? No, phone flashlights. Banners. He couldn’t read them from this height, but he could imagine the words.

Rapist. Cheater. Monster.

"Vikram, please. Just sign the apology. We can spin this. We can fix this."

Vikram looked at his reflection in the glass. The pale skin, the tired eyes. The face that was now the most hated image on the planet.

"They don’t want an apology, Sharma. They want blood. They want to see the ’God’ fall."

He smirked. It felt wrong on his face.

"Let them bark."

"Vikram, don’t you dare hangs up on m—"

He tapped the end call button. The screeching voice cut off instantly, leaving only the hum of the servers.

He walked back to his desk. The raid simulation had finished.

[Result: Victory]

[Loot: Divine Essence (x10)]

He stared at the words *Victory*. In the game, everything was simple. You optimize, you execute, you win. The rules were absolute.

But this... this reality... it was messy. It was illogical. People believed lies because they were exciting. They hated him not because he was bad, but because he was successful.

"Predictable," he whispered to the empty room. "If you can’t beat the player, attack the person."

He reached out and turned off the monitors, one by one. The raid stats vanished. The social media feed vanished. The trending hashtags vanished.

The room plunged into darkness, save for the city lights outside.

Vikram sat there in the dark, alone in his forty-five million dollar penthouse, listening to the faint, distant sound of the world chanting for his death.

Two days later, the penthouse had transformed from a sanctuary into a prison cell with a forty-five million dollar view.

The noise from the street below was no longer a distant hum. It was a physical presence, a low-frequency drone of rage that vibrated through the floorboards. Even fifty stories up, behind triple-reinforced, soundproof glass, Vikram could hear them.

"RAPIST! CHEATER! LIAR!"

The chant was rhythmic, tribal. It rose and fell in waves, punctuated by the occasional *crack* of something hard hitting the lower levels of the building.

Vikram stood by the window, looking down. The plaza in front of the Hyperion Towers, usually a pristine expanse of marble and fountains, was a chaotic sea of banners and bodies. Thousands of them.

He zoomed in with his phone’s camera.

𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

A woman in the front row, looking no older than eighteen, held a sign that read: ZEPHYR = MONSTER. Next to her, a man was burning a limited-edition Zephyr jersey, the flames licking at the white and gold fabric.

"They brought a sound system," Vikram muttered, noting the large speakers set up on a flatbed truck. "Dedicated."

He turned away, the sight leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. He hadn’t slept in thirty hours. His eyes felt gritty, and a dull headache throbbed behind his temples.

He walked to the kitchen, his footsteps echoing in the massive, open-plan living room. The silence inside was oppressive, a stark contrast to the chaos outside.

"Maria?" he called out, his voice raspy. "Coffee. Black. And find me something to eat. I haven’t seen you since yesterday."

Silence.

He frowned, leaning over the marble island. "Maria? Don’t tell me you’re hiding in the servant’s quarters again. I told you, the glass is bulletproof. They can’t get in."

Still silence.

Something cold settled in his gut. He walked to the kitchen counter.

There, under a heavy crystal whiskey decanter, was a piece of paper. Handwritten. Shaky.

Mr. Malhotra,

I am sorry. I cannot come to work anymore. My son was at school yesterday, and the other boys beat him because his mother works for the ’Devil’. They threw stones at my house. They posted my picture on the internet.

You were always kind to me, Sir. You helped pay for my husband’s surgery. I know you are not what they say. But I cannot choose you over my family.

Please forgive me.

- Maria

Vikram stared at the note. He read it once. Twice. Then he crumpled it into a tight ball and tossed it into the trash compactor.

"Cowards," he whispered. The word lacked heat. It sounded hollow.

He looked around the kitchen. It was a chef’s kitchen, equipped with appliances that cost more than most cars. But the fridge was empty. He had always relied on Maria to stock it. He didn’t even know how to order groceries online—his assistant did that.

His assistant, who had resigned via text message six hours ago.

<Resignation Effective Immediately. Legal advised me to cut ties.>

Vikram opened the cupboard. A box of artisan crackers. A jar of caviar. A bottle of truffle oil.

He laughed, a dry, barking sound. "Caviar and crackers. The last supper of the condemned."

He checked the liquor cabinet. One bottle of Hibiki 30-year-old whiskey. Empty. He vividly remembered drinking it last night while watching his subscriber count freefall from fifty million to zero.

His throat was parched. His mouth tasted like ash.

He went to the sink and turned the tap. Nothing.

He frowned and tried again. Still nothing.

He pulled up the building management app on his phone. A notification flashed in red.

[Unit 5001: Water Service Suspended.]

[Reason: Maintenance Issue (Please contact Front Desk).]

"Maintenance," Vikram scoffed. "Right."

He called the front desk. It rang for a full minute before someone picked up.

"Hyperion Concierge, how may I—oh. It’s you." The voice was cold. Professional, but laced with disgust.

"My water is off," Vikram said. "Turn it back on."

"I’m afraid there’s a... blockage in the upper pipes, Mr. Malhotra. It might take a few days to fix. The plumbers are refusing to cross the picket line outside. Union rules."

"I own the penthouse," Vikram said, his voice dropping an octave. "I own the top three floors. Fix it, or I’ll buy your management company and fire you."

"With what money, Sir?" the concierge asked, his tone dripping with mock politeness. "Your accounts are frozen. Adonai put a hold on all your assets pending the investigation. Didn’t you get the email?"

The line went dead.

Vikram stared at the phone. Frozen. His forty-five million dollars. His stocks. His liquid cash. All locked away by a Terms of Service agreement he had signed without reading.

He was the richest man in the server, and he couldn’t buy a glass of water.

He almost laughed.

He threw the phone onto the couch. It bounced harmlessly on the Italian leather.

Thirst. It was a primal thing. He could ignore the hate. He could ignore the bankruptcy. But his throat felt like sandpaper.

"Fine," he said to the empty room. "I’ll do it myself."

He walked to the closet and grabbed a long black coat. He pulled a black cap low over his eyes and found a standard white medical mask in a drawer—leftover from the last flu season.

He looked in the mirror. He didn’t look like Zephyr. He didn’t look like a God. He looked like a ghost. A pale, gaunt figure haunting his own life.

"Let them scream," he whispered, checking his pockets. Wallet (useless credit cards, but he had some cash tucked in a hidden fold—about two thousand rupees). Keys.

He walked to the private elevator. He wouldn’t use the main lobby. He knew the service exit in the basement. It led to a back alley that the mob probably hadn’t covered yet.

"I’m still the King," he said, pressing the button for the garage.

The doors slid open with a soft hiss, revealing the darkness of the shaft. He stepped in, leaving the silent, suffocating luxury of the penthouse behind.

He was going to get a drink. And God help anyone who stood in his way.

The back alley smelled like rot and motor oil.

Vikram emerged from the service exit, the heavy metal door clanging shut behind him. The sound echoed off the narrow walls, amplified in the stillness. Here, in the belly of Mumbai’s upper sector, the noise of the mob was muffled—a distant, angry hum rather than the deafening roar.

He pulled his cap lower and adjusted the medical mask. His breath felt hot against the fabric. His throat ached.

Just water. Get water and get back.

He walked quickly, his shoes splashing through puddles of rainwater mixed with something darker. The alley was a service corridor for the high-rise complexes—meant for garbage trucks and delivery vans, not for pedestrians. But it was empty, and right now, empty was a luxury worth more than gold.

He emerged onto a quieter street. Not a main road—the mobs had those locked down—but a secondary artery lined with small shops, cheap eateries, and flickering neon signs advertising everything from phone repairs to fortune telling.

It was night. The streetlights were orange and dim, casting long shadows. A few people walked by, heads down, focused on their own problems. No one looked at him.

Good. Just another ghost in the city.

He spotted it halfway down the block: a 24-hour convenience store, its fluorescent lights cutting through the gloom. "QuickMart," the sign read, one of the letters flickering erratically.

Vikram pushed through the glass door. A little electronic chime announced his arrival.

The store was small, cramped, and smelled like instant noodles and disinfectant. A bored-looking clerk sat behind the counter, scrolling through his phone. He was young, maybe nineteen, with earbuds in and a stained apron draped over his shoulders.

Vikram walked to the refrigerator section. Rows of bottles—water, soda, energy drinks—stared back at him. He grabbed a large bottle of mineral water and a packet of plain crackers. Basic. Functional.

He walked to the counter and set the items down.

The clerk didn’t look up. He just kept scrolling.

Vikram waited. One second. Two.

"Hey," he said, his voice slightly muffled by the mask.

The clerk finally glanced up. His eyes were bloodshot, tired. He looked at Vikram, then at the items, then back at his phone.

"Sixty rupees," he said, not moving.

Vikram pulled out his cash—a crumpled two-thousand-rupee note. The only currency that hadn’t been frozen.

The clerk stared at the note like it was a dead rat.

"You got anything smaller? I don’t have change for that."

"It’s all I have," Vikram said.

The clerk sighed and opened the register, counting out change with agonizing slowness.

As the clerk counted, the television mounted in the corner of the store flickered. The news was on. Volume low, but the visuals were unmistakable.

#ZephyrExposed: Day 3.

A reporter stood outside Hyperion Towers. Behind her, the mob was a sea of banners and rage. The headlines scrolled at the bottom of the screen:

"PRO GAMER REVEALED AS ALLEGED BULLY AND CHEATER."

"MILLIONS CALL FOR BAN FROM THEOS ONLINE."

"ADONAI CORP: ’INVESTIGATION ONGOING.’"

Vikram forced himself not to look. He stared at the counter, at the cheap laminate surface scratched by years of use.

The clerk finished counting. He looked up, holding the change, and his eyes drifted to the television. Then back to Vikram.

Then to the mask.

Then to the eyes above the mask.

Vikram saw the moment it clicked. The clerk’s bored expression froze, replaced by something sharper. Recognition.

"Hey," the clerk said slowly. "Hey, wait. You look like..."

"I don’t," Vikram said. He grabbed the water and crackers. "Keep the change."

He turned and walked toward the door.

"No, wait—" The clerk scrambled out from behind the counter. "You’re him! You’re the guy from the news! The Zephyr guy!"

Vikram pushed through the glass door, the chime sounding again—cheerful and oblivious.

"HEY! SOMEONE! IT’S HIM! IT’S THE MONSTER!"

The cry cut through the quiet street like a siren.

Vikram didn’t run. Running would draw more attention. He walked—fast, purposeful, his heart rate climbing despite his best efforts to stay calm.

Stupid. Should have used the delivery app. Should have found a way—

But the apps didn’t work. Nothing worked. His digital life had been shredded.

Behind him, he heard footsteps. Multiple. The clerk was shouting, and other voices were joining in.

"It’s him! The guy who bullied those kids!"

"The rich one! The cheater!"

"Get him!"

Vikram ducked into a side alley, his shoes slipping on the wet concrete. He clutched the water bottle like a lifeline, his breath ragged behind the mask.

This is insane. This is completely insane.

He emerged onto another street—wider, brighter. A few cars passed by. A food stall was still open, the vendor grilling kebabs over charcoal.

Vikram slowed his pace, forcing himself to blend in. Just another pedestrian. Just another nobody.

He didn’t look back. He couldn’t afford to. If he looked back, he’d see the faces—the hate—and the last shreds of his composure would shatter.

He walked.

One block. Two. The sounds of pursuit faded, swallowed by the noise of the city.

His lungs burned. His throat screamed for water. He ducked into the shadow of a shuttered shop, tore open the bottle, and drank—long, desperate gulps that tasted like victory and ash.

I almost got lynched over a bottle of water.

He laughed. It was a broken, bitter sound that echoed in the empty doorway.

"God of Theos," he muttered, wiping his mouth. "Can’t even buy groceries without causing a riot."

He looked at the street ahead. The alley back to Hyperion Towers was three blocks north. He could make it. He just had to stay invisible for a little longer.

He capped the bottle, shoved it into his coat pocket, and stepped back onto the street.

The city hummed around him—indifferent, chaotic, alive.

He was just another shadow now. Just another ghost.

But as he walked, something crept up his spine. Not fear.

Exhaustion. The kind that went deeper than sleep could fix.

He’d been fighting all his life. Fighting to be the best in the game. Fighting to stay on top. Fighting every challenger, every critic, every enemy.

And now he was fighting just to exist.

Is this what they wanted? he thought, watching a couple walk past, laughing, oblivious. To break me down until I’m nothing?

He didn’t have an answer. He wasn’t sure he wanted one.

He just kept walking, one foot in front of the other, toward the faint glow of Hyperion Towers in the distance.

The intersection was three blocks from Hyperion Towers.

Vikram stepped off the curb, his mind still churning through the events of the past seventy-two hours. The data breach. The smear campaign. The siege. The chase through the alley. It all felt like a fever dream, a glitch in the simulation of his life.

Almost home.

The traffic light was red. He glanced at the signal, then at the empty street. No cars. No bikes. Just the hum of the city and the distant chanting of the mob, faint but ever-present.

He started to cross.

He didn’t hear the truck.

It came from the left, barreling down the street at a speed that shattered every traffic law in existence. The driver was slumped over the wheel—asleep, drunk, dead, it didn’t matter. The massive cargo truck, emblazoned with the logo of some logistics company, screamed through the red light like a steel avalanche.

Vikram turned his head.

For a fraction of a second, time stretched. He saw the headlights—twin stars of blinding white. He saw the grille, a wall of chrome and metal. He felt the wind, a sudden violent rush that ripped the cap from his head.

Oh.

That was his last coherent thought.

The impact was absolute. One moment he was standing; the next, flying. Sky, street, sky, street.

He hit the asphalt twenty feet away.

The truck didn’t stop. It clipped a parked car, sideswiped a streetlamp, and finally crashed into a storefront down the block. Glass shattered. Alarms screamed. But the sounds were distant, muffled, as if coming from the other side of a wall.

Vikram lay on his back, staring at the sky.

The stars were bright tonight. He hadn’t noticed before.

I can’t feel my legs.

He tried to move his arm. It twitched. Pain—sharp, nauseating—lanced through his chest. Something was wrong with his ribs. Something was wrong with everything.

Get up. Get up, you idiot. You’ve survived worse. Get up.

But his body didn’t listen. It was broken, a shattered vessel leaking warmth onto the cold pavement. He could feel the blood pooling beneath him, a dark, spreading stain.

Footsteps.

Voices.

People were gathering. He could see them at the edges of his vision—shadows converging, faces illuminated by the glow of their phones.

"Holy shit, did you see that?"

"Someone call an ambulance!"

"Wait—wait, is that..."

A face leaned over him. A young man, maybe twenty, holding a phone at arm’s length. The camera light was on.

"Bro. Bro, this is the guy. This is the Zephyr guy."

Murmurs rippled through the crowd. More phones appeared. More lights.

"No way."

"The one from the news? The bully?"

"Damn, karma’s a bitch."

Vikram tried to speak. His lips moved, but only a wet, gurgling sound escaped. Blood. He was choking on his own blood.

Help me. Please. Help me.

A woman laughed. It was a sharp, cruel sound. "Hey, Zephyr! How does it feel to be on the ground for once? ’If you can’t beat the player, attack the person’, right? That’s what you always said!"

More laughter. More cameras.

"Get a good angle! This is gonna go viral!"

"Someone should help h—" "Why? He bullied kids. Let him bleed."

Vikram’s vision was dimming. The faces above him were blurring, merging into a single, monstrous mass of light and shadow.

They’re not going to help me.

The realization hit harder than the truck.

I’m going to die here. Surrounded by people. And no one is going to lift a finger.

A man crouched down, holding his phone inches from Vikram’s face. "Yo, Zephyr. Any last words? You know, for the fans?"

Vikram stared at the lens. He stared at the face behind it—a stranger, a nobody, one of the millions who had cheered for him just a week ago.

He tried to smirk. He tried to summon the cold, mocking arrogance that had defined him for so long.

But all he felt was... tired.

So this is how it ends.

He closed his eyes.

The world faded.

First, the sounds went—the laughter, the chanting, the sirens in the distance. Then the lights—the phone flashes, the streetlamps, the stars. Finally, the pain—the fire in his chest, the numbness in his legs, the weight of his own broken body.

Vikram Malhotra floated in darkness.

Is this death?

It was quiet. Peaceful. Nothing hurt anymore.

Pathetic.

The thought was his own, but it echoed strangely, as if spoken by someone else.

The God of Theos. Rank One in the world. Forty-five million dollars. A billion fans. And I died... getting hit by a truck. Buying water.

If he had a mouth, he would have laughed.

No final boss. No grand betrayal. No epic last stand. Just... a truck. And a bunch of strangers filming my death for likes.

The darkness pressed in, heavy and infinite.

I solved every equation. I optimized every build. I outplayed every opponent. And in the end, none of it mattered. Reality doesn’t play by the rules.

Something washed through him. Not pain. Not peace.

Mother. Father. I never called. I never visited. I was too busy being a ’God’.

He thought of Maria, the housekeeper who had written that note. The one person who had believed in him, even at the end.

I wasn’t a monster. I was just... alone. I made myself alone.

The darkness grew thicker. Heavier.

If I could do it again... would I change anything?

He didn’t know.

He wasn’t sure it mattered.

The last thought that flickered through the dying embers of Vikram Malhotra’s consciousness was, strangely, a line from the game he had mastered.

[System Alert: Player Zephyr has been disconnected.]