Chapter 787: 787

"I believe," the King spat, his voice trembling with a cold, jagged edge, "that we have absolutely nothing to discuss."

Osita didn’t flinch. "Previously, perhaps. But now? We both know that has changed." He spoke with a quiet finality that left no room for protest.

In truth, Osita was calculating. After their last encounter, his first instinct had been to simply take the Queen and vanish. The secret was out; he could have reclaimed his Amina, brought her home, and found a way to mend her fractured soul in private.

But he knew such an act would be the spark that ignited a catastrophic war, one he wasn’t entirely sure he could now finish. While his own strength could likely level the kingdom, Nwadiebube had the backing of Murmur, and Osita had children to protect, lives that couldn’t be bartered in a blood feud.

Moreover, his eyes drifted to the glowing golden key hovering in the King’s sight. That was a trump card he hadn’t fully accounted for. Diplomacy was a bitter pill, but it was the only way to ensure everyone including the woman they both claimed survived the fallout.

"Our wives’ situation, sharing the same soul was the handiwork of Murmur and the dark gods," Osita said, his voice level and steady. Nwadiebube remained silent, his eyes fixed on the man who had invaded his sanctuary. "We are both pawns in their game, and our hands are being forced to play along."

Osita leaned forward slightly, his gaze piercing. "I have been observing, and I know the truth of your relationship with Queen Taiwo. It was never a bond of the heart. You have both played the roles expected of you by the crown, but the foundation has always been hollow."

Nwadiebube’s brow furrowed, a low growl vibrating in his chest. "What, exactly, are you implying?" he asked, his tone heavy with suppressed rage.

Osita allowed a long silence to stretch between them, letting the weight of the situation settle. "It means," he said finally, "that you can function without her. Unlike me, who cannot."

He stood up slowly, gesturing to the air as if tracing the invisible strings of fate. "We don’t have to play the game Murmur laid out for us. The fact that two queens share one essence is the greatest threat to us both, a tether they can pull at any time. But that can be resolved with a simple agreement."

Osita’s eyes locked onto the King’s. "Hand the Queen over to me. I can guarantee her safety and her soul’s stability. In doing so, we strip the dark gods of their leverage. We ruin their plan before it even begins."

Nwadiebube let out a sharp, bitter scoff that echoed off the stone walls. "Hand over my Queen? To a man who haunts my palace like a ghost?"

"If you had done such a fine job protecting your own Queen, this situation would never have occurred," Nwadiebube spat.

The words had barely left his lips before the world went dead. A silence so absolute it felt physical as if every vibration of sound had been rubbed out of existence fell over the room.

Nwadiebube suddenly found himself hyperventilating, his lungs burning as if the air itself had turned to lead. Osita’s eyes, cold and abyssal, bore into his soul with the weight of a collapsing mountain. Yet, fueled by a week of pure, unfiltered paranoia, the King refused to break.

"It is true," the King wheezed, blood beginning to trickle from the corner of his mouth as the sheer pressure of Osita’s presence crushed his ribs. "My Queen and I... we never shared the bond you claim. But the situation has changed." He forced a jagged, bloody grin. "Your wife’s soul has been a good influence on her. It has given us the hope of something greater. Something... shared."

The explosion was instantaneous.

Nwadiebube was slammed into the stone wall with a bone-jarring crack that spiderwebbed the masonry. Osita’s hand was a vice around his throat, lifting him off his feet. The man’s human mask had slipped, and a fragment of his demonic essence leaked out, a freezing, oily darkness that began to unravel the King’s very sanity.

"Mind your words, boy," Osita hissed, his voice no longer human, but a chorus of grinding stone. "I am not nearly as helpless as your delusions suggest."

He leaned in, his breath cold as the grave. "I play along with these human games, these roles of husband and subject only because it is what my wife would have wanted. Do not strip me of that reason, Nwadiebube. The consequences of that would be... dire."

For the first time in his life, the King felt the literal shadow of Death standing over him, scythe already mid-swing. The arrogance of the crown vanished, replaced by the primal terror of a prey.

"I... am sorry," he managed to choke out through a throat that felt like it was being crushed into powder.

Osita’s grip vanished. Nwadiebube crumpled to the floor, gasping for air as the pressure in the room finally began to dissipate.

Looking at the pitiful state of the King, Osita’s expression shifted into one of genuine bewilderment. Why was the man so stubborn? He had laid the truth bare: they were both being played as pawns by Murmur and the dark gods, yet Nwadiebube seemed strangely indifferent to that reality.

From Osita’s perspective, there was nothing for the King to gain by resisting him. It made him wonder, was the King in a deeper alliance with Murmur than he let on? What could have been promised to him that was worth this level of humiliation and risk?

A darker thought flickered through Osita’s mind as he watched the King gasp for air: Maybe he didn’t lose his wife to this soul-tether by accident. Maybe he willingly offered her up to further Murmur’s designs.

The mere thought brought an oncoming headache. Osita rubbed his temples, a sudden wave of fatigue hitting him. Why had he even appeared before the King today? What result had he actually expected to achieve?

He realized then that he hadn’t been thinking clearly since the incident with Amina began. In fact, it had been a very long time since he had been forced to think deeply at all.

Ever since he reached the Sixth-Tier, and especially with his wife by his side, the world had been simple. Most obstacles were resolved with a wave of his hand or the weight of his fist. His wife had handled the complexities of the mind, leaving him to be the hammer. Now, without her guidance and faced with a situation he couldn’t simply crush, he felt the heavy, rusted gears of his own diplomacy grinding painfully into motion.

If he could only find Murmur, this entire twisted game would be over in an instant. But the old demon was a master of the shadows; Murmur had been incredible at laying low, his very existence seemingly erased from the fabric of the world.

Osita took a long, stabilizing breath, forcing his demonic essence back into the depths of his soul. He could afford to wait for a few months, at least. His oldest son was nearing his ascension to the throne, and with it, a likely breakthrough to the Sixth-Tier. Once that happened, Osita would be unburdened, his hands free to act without fearing for his lineage. The playing field would finally be his to tilt.

He looked down at the crumpled King one last time, his voice dropping to a glacial, detached tone. "Count your days, boy. In a few months, my wife will be back in my hands whether you permit it or not."

With those final words, Osita’s figure simply unraveled into the air. He vanished exactly as he had arrived: with no fluctuation of mana, no ripple in the air, leaving no trace that he had ever been there at all.

The moment the pressure vanished, Nwadiebube let out a primal, ragged roar. He scrambled to his feet, blinded by a white-hot surge of humiliated fury. He began to trash his office, sweeping stacks of priceless records off the desk and shattering inkwells against the stone walls.

How dare he? How dare that creature mock him so openly in his own sanctum? Even the godlings he had encountered had never made him feel this small, this utterly pitiful. He was a King, a ruler of men, yet Osita had treated him like a nuisance to be stepped on.

"I will have that power!" he screamed at the empty room, his chest heaving as ink and blood mingled on his floor. "I will tear it from the heavens if I must!"

Half a year bled into the past as Ikenga watched these ripples turn into a tidal wave. For him, the most telling moment was that final, jagged interaction between Osita and the King.

Ikenga looked on from his vantage point, slowly shaking his head. Osita’s approach had been a masterclass in how a high-tier cambion, for all his ancient blood failed to understand the fragile architecture of the human ego. In Osita’s eyes, his own actions were flawless. Why should a Sixth-Tier being weigh the bruised feelings of a lesser creature? He had arrived, issued his proclamation, and vanished. To a predator, that was simply the natural order.