Ikenga caught himself before he spoke further, realizing he was straying toward a dangerous path. To suggest a fundamental shift in Maul's doctrine now would be to tamper with the very foundation of his divinity, a reckless move for any ascended god. A god's nature was not a coat to be tailored for comfort; it was the bone and marrow of their power.

Besides, as Ikenga looked at his son, he realized Maul's "unpopularity" was actually a strategic blessing.

The current powerhouses of this world were rarely oriented toward pure, direct combat. Ikenga looked inward with a grim honesty; despite his victories, his own divinity was not built for a brawl.

It wasn't that he was weak; his victories over the sixth-tier mages had been absolute. But those battles had taught him a lesson about the nature of divinity, It was a Clash of Concepts. At their level, combat was no longer about who can punch a mountain into dust; it's about whose "Definition of Reality" is more absolute.

He had won through sheer ingenuity, weaving his divinity into a trap, layering suppressions and debuffs until his opponents' very existence was too heavy for them to lift. He was a master of the "long game," a strategist who bled the enemy's conceptual authority dry before delivering the final blow.

But the names Ikenga tallied in his mind, Björn, Crepuscular, Jaus, and the Arch-Curse Juggernaut occupied a different echelon of violence altogether. They didn't rely on tactical ingenuity or the subtle weaving of intent; they were the win.

Their divinity and the concepts they commanded were so dense, so inherently aggressive, that they functioned as a sensory overload. In a conceptual battle, where a being's mind must remain a clear, focused engine of imagination to manifest their will, these entities were a screaming static.

The sheer, overwhelming force of their presence stripped an opponent of their agency. To face them was to be pinned under the weight of an absolute reality, forcing one to abandon all offense just to maintain a shred of self-preservation. And at their stage of existence, the moment a being is forced into a purely defensive stance, the battle is already over. You cannot rewrite the world if you are too busy trying not to be erased by it.

In such a world Maul was something different. He was a specialist. He didn't need the shallow worship of a million peasants; he needed the cold, sharpened intent of the few.

"I spoke in error," Ikenga corrected himself, his voice deepening with newfound clarity. "Do not change the foundation of your house to please the neighbors, Maul. Your divinity is not meant to be a comfort to the masses. It is meant to be a terror to our enemies."

Ikenga understood that Maul was currently weak not because of a flaw in his nature, but because the world was stagnant. A god of vengeance without a conflict is a sword in a sheath. But the winds were shifting; the peace was brittle. Ikenga saw this and finally let the matter of faith energy rest.

"You don't have to concern yourself with the masses for now," Ikenga conceded, waving a dismissive hand. "Your time will come. Instead, I advise you as I did your brother to use this quiet before the storm to research the Altars. Prepare yourself. My realm and your mother's are open to you both; perhaps with the two of you, a solution will reveal itself."

Listening to his father ramble about his future path and strategic growth, a rare, genuine smile tugged at the corner of Maul's mouth. This specific brand of paternal fussing was something he hadn't realized he'd missed.

Yet, as the warmth of the moment settled, his curiosity piqued. He remembered the echoing roar of frustration that had rattled the heavens earlier.

"Father?" Maul asked.

Ikenga pulled himself out of his tactical reverie and turned. "What is it?"

"What exactly did you say to my brother before you appeared in my realm?"

As soon as the question left his lips, a strange, prickling sensation washed over him, the instinct of a protector sensing a different kind of "danger." He looked into Ikenga's eyes and saw a familiar, mischievous glint dancing there. The grimace on Maul's face formed instantly; he didn't need the answer to know that his father had been meddling again.

Ikenga let out a long, lazy yawn, his eyes dancing with a playful light. "I merely informed him," he said with practiced nonchalance, "that I would like both his help and yours in raising the child to come from your mother."

Maul's reaction was an exact, involuntary echo of his brother's. "…Huh?"

A low, knowing chuckle was the only answer he received.

Before he could demand an explanation or perhaps a sanity check, the world blurred. The warmth of Ikenga's presence evaporated, replaced instantly by the biting, familiar gale of the frozen plains. Maul stood alone, the frost already beginning to crystalline on his cloak. His father had unceremoniously tossed him back into his own realm the moment the "bomb" had been dropped.

Maul remained motionless, replaying those final words against the howling wind. He hadn't misheard. Despite the bitter silence, the ongoing "situation," and the divine friction between them, his father and mother were bringing another life into the fold.

A short, dry chuckle escaped his throat, quickly escalating into a genuine laugh that rang out across the ice. He wasn't sure if being born into this chaotic, convoluted family was a supreme blessing or a well-crafted curse.

But as the laughter died down, his eyes hardened with a familiar, icy resolve. It didn't truly matter. To the God of Selective Protection, it simply meant there was one more head to shield from the coming storm.

Ikenga shifted back into his human form, as his feet touched the ground, his connection to his realm flared to life, whispering a cold stream of updates directly into his mind, a status report of everything that had transpired during his short absence.

Red and the two world spirits had vanished, leaving only Tweet behind, who was currently locked in a sharp, petty bickering match with Boros.

Ikenga ignored the chatter. He opened his palm, and a crystalline shard manifested from thin air. It hummed with a faint, rhythmic pulse. This was more than a gem; it was their bridge to the cosmos, the key that would allow them to transcend their current limits and finally grasp the true nature of the world that had birthed them.

"Hegemons," he muttered, the word feeling heavy on his tongue.

For a fleeting moment, he felt the urge to reach out across the void to Lady Tiamat. He had a thousand questions about those ancient entities, but he suppressed the impulse. Curiosity was a luxury he couldn't afford to indulge recklessly.

His fingers curled shut, and the crystal vanished back into his palm. It wasn't time. Not yet.

Real change was coming to this world, a transformation he had been sculpting in his mind for a while. But it wasn't a burden he intended to carry alone. This was a masterwork that required the hands of his siblings.

Drawing from the deep wells of his past life knowledge, Ikenga finally grasped the catalyst required to stir his world from its stagnant peace. To cast a perfect utopia into the fires of progress, one only needed to introduce a single, terrifying concept: Resource Scarcity.

During his absence, his nature divinity had operated without the guiding hand of his subconscious. For ages, his innate desire for a "bountiful world" had acted as an invisible thumb on the scales. His divinity had been a silent gardener, ensuring that hunger was a myth and the harvest was an eternal guarantee.

But nature, in its truest form, is not a charity. It is a cycle of brutal efficiency, of rot and regrowth, of lean winters and fleeting springs. Without his subconscious bias "blessing" every seed, the world began to revert to its natural, indifferent state.

Crops no longer surged from the earth with mindless enthusiasm, for the first time, the people looked at a fading sunset and felt the cold prickle of uncertainty. They were forced to stop consuming and start calculating.

He watched as the inhabitants began to monitor the growth of their stalks with newfound intensity. They were learning the hard lessons of soil health and nutrient requirements. Most importantly, they were doing something they had never been forced to do before: saving.

The act of putting aside a portion of the harvest for the next season, the concept of a "seed bank" marked the true birth of their evolution.

Ikenga had long suspected it, but now the truth was undeniable: the perfection of their world was an artificial grace. It wasn't that the people were inherently superior or the land naturally kinder; it was simply himself and his siblings that were inadvertently smoothing over every rough edge of their world.