Awakening: The Mortal God

Alexis loves Grace enough to empty his family's treasury for her. When his father discovers the Divine icon was given to an outsider, the family strips his name and sends him to the Isle of Death. For three years he fights monsters and bleeds in hell, holding on to the promise that Grace is waiting.

He crawls out and returns to find Grace already engaged to Leon Poseidon, the Temple's chosen disciple. She tells him they are no longer in the same world and hands him a dragon fang as a final payment. His father and half-brother Evan then strip both Alexis and his mother Monica of the family name and throw them out. Monica collapses, and Alexis swears they will bleed for it.

When his mother's condition worsens, Alexis remembers the Temple Selection and the Gorgon blood that could save her. He sneaks to the Silver Tree to steal a fruit. The High Priest stops him with a divine barrier, but Alexis shatters it with his bare hands. When the Hydra wakes, Alexis channels fire no ordinary mortal should be able to command. The High Priest is left asking what he is.

At the Temple Selection, Alexis is tested and recorded as a mortal bloodline with one sigil. The crowd mocks him. Yet whispers circulate about a prophecy: when Olympus falls and the world burns, a demigod named Alexis will rise. His first match is against Evan, the family's true heir and a five-sigil bloodline of Ares.

The fight is only the beginning. The arena will not contain him, and the prophecy points toward a far deadlier trial.