Chapter 788: 788

But to a "lesser" being who had spent a lifetime convinced of his own absolute sovereignty, it was a different story altogether. To be faced with the raw, undeniable reality of one’s own insignificance wasn’t just a defeat, it was salt rubbed into a festering wound.

Had Osita played a different hand, the outcome might have been salvageable. Instead, his arrogance had acted as a catalyst, shoving the King deeper into Murmur’s waiting embrace.

At least Murmur was a craftsman of emotions and ego. The demon had never once made Nwadiebube feel small; he had never let the King realize the leash was there. Murmur offered the illusion of control, the seductive promise of hope. Osita, in a few moments of cold efficiency, had stripped the King of his dignity and laid his utter incompetence bare for him to see.

A dark, thoughtful smile touched Ikenga’s lips. Seeing this play out had given him a brilliant spark of inspiration for the King’s ultimate punishment. He found himself genuinely intrigued by Murmur’s machinations and he was more than willing to lend a helping hand to ensure the tragedy reached its proper crescendo.

Due to the cause and effect between Ikenga and Nwadiebube, he could descend to the mortal world to aly out the punishment but he didn’t need to descend. To a god of nature, the King’s soul was like a sapling in a vast forest easily bent, easily grafted.

Ikenga reached out, his fingers trailing through the metaphysical "soil" of Nwadiebube’s fate. He didn’t add something new; he simply over-watered the King’s own greed. He took that tiny spark of "survival of the fittest" that Nwadiebube used to justify his theft and fueled it with a divine, suffocating possessiveness.

"You like to keep what you take, little thief?" Ikenga’s thought rippled through the immaterial, silent but heavy as a falling mountain. "Then you shall never know the peace of letting go."

In the mortal world, Nwadiebube was standing on his balcony, looking toward the northern horizon where the Rival King’s lands lay. The sun was warm, the breeze was light and then, in the heartbeat between one breath and the next, the world changed.

It wasn’t a sound. It was a pressure.

Nwadiebube felt a sudden, violent jolt in his chest, as if his heart had grown roots that were suddenly digging deep into the stone of his palace. His vision sharpened with a predatory clarity. The distant mountains of the Rival Kingdom no longer looked like beautiful landmarks; they looked like thieves lurking on the edge of his property.

He turned away from the horizon, his movements jerky and filled with a new, restless energy. He walked toward his wife’s chambers.

Earlier that morning, he had looked at her with confusion, fear and weakness. But now, as he entered the room, the wonder was gone, replaced by a terrifying hunger of ownership.

He saw her sitting by the window, the sunlight catching the "Two-in-One" shimmer of her mortal vessedl

He saw his wife’s grace, he saw the Rival Queen’s regal posture. He saw his greatest prize.

The thought of Osita, the man who once loved the second half of this merged soul hit Nwadiebube like a physical blow to the stomach. A cold, black jealousy, fueled by Ikenga’s curse, surged through him.

He didn’t feel cursed. He felt right. He felt like a lion who had finally realized he was surrounded by hyenas.

"Guard!" he roared, his voice echoing with a new, jagged authority that made the servants jump as they ran around in confusion, thankfully the head general who also was the king’s good friend was around.

His general entered, confused by the King’s sudden intensity. "My Lord?"

"Cancel the trade with Osita kingdom," Nwadiebube snapped, his eyes fixed on his wife with a gaze so possessive. "They are no longer neighbours. They are scouts. They come to see what I have so they can plan to steal it. The Northern King thinks he is stronger? He thinks he can claim what is mine?"

He paced the room, the curse thrumming in his veins like a fever. His conciousness meanwhile felt somethig was wrong but he could not pinpoin where the sense of instability came from.

"We strike first. We don’t just defend the border; we erase the threat. I want his kingdom in ashes before he even realizes I’ve seen through his ’peace’."

The general paled. "But Sire, there is no provocation! The people"

"The people belong to me!" Nwadiebube hissed. He stepped closer, his presence suddenly becoming heavy, almost suffocating as it crowded the room. "And what is mine, I protect."

As the final word left his lips, Nwadiebube froze. A flicker of something dark passed over his eyes before he snapped his attention toward the General.

"You heard my orders. See to it," he commanded, his voice tight with suppressed energy. "Keep your men warm and ready. I want steady eyes on the Osita Kingdom at all times."

Watching from the periphery, Ikenga saw the King in a sobering new light. The curse was taking hold with a speed and ferocity he hadn’t anticipated. It was clear now that Nwadiebube had been suppressing years of resentment, reaching a breaking point that the curse had simply provided an outlet for.

Ikenga hadn’t intended for the magic to act so swiftly. He felt a flicker of relief that the King still possessed enough lingering self-control to avoid a formal declaration of war a bell that, once rung, could never be silenced.

Ikenga turned his gaze toward the horizon, where the Osita Kingdom lay. They held a formidable advantage, particularly in the form of Osita’s son. Narrowing his eyes, Ikenga sensed a familiar ripple in the air; a subtle, jagged fluctuation in the boy’s aura.

He’s already touching the Sixth Tier, Ikenga realized. The stakes had just been raised.

It was an unfair world, but Ikenga knew how to tip the scales. He understood how to balance the board in a way that wouldn’t just favor his side, but would reshape the entire world. His attention shifted toward the arch-curse known as The All-Knowing Oracle.

Since Ikenga’s return, the Oracle had been a storm of restless energy. Ikenga knew exactly what was fueling this agitation: it was the collective trauma Osita had inflicted. By making every soul on earth feel utterly helpless, Osita had unintentionally lit a wildfire of ambition.

Across every border, a desperate flame for knowledge had been ignited. People no longer wanted to be victims; they craved the Sixth Tier. They hungered for that level of absolute power, the kind of strength required to seize control of their own fates rather than remaining like fish on a chopping block, waiting for the blade to fall.

The pressure was further intensified by the Xerosis Court, which had recently pulled back the curtain on the world’s most guarded secrets. By exposing the truth behind the magical systems and the nature of the gods, the court had shattered mortal ignorance. The demand for knowledge had reached a fever pitch.

As a curse born of and tethered to knowledge, the Oracle perceived this global shift more acutely than anyone. He had spent his time confined within Ikenga’s realm, prowling through the personal library housed inside the great Osisi. The weight of the world’s collective desire to know was vibrating through him, demanding to be released.

The library contained every scrap of knowledge this world had ever produced, from the mundane to the forbidden. As the arch-curse of this domain, the Oracle did not just guard this information; he was the information. He knew every secret ever whispered.

He understood why the world was crying out for answers. However, his response was not a public invitation; he was not a teacher waiting for students to knock on his door.

The Oracle’s answer was reserved only for the "Destined". He responded only to those whose hunger for truth was so violent and pure that it acted as a beacon. When a mortal’s desire for knowledge reached a breaking point, they could actually pull the Oracle’s domain toward them, folding space and time until the library manifested in their path.

This phenomenon created a strange, haunting sight across the realms. In one corner of the world, a Flame Mage stood at the edge of his own understanding. He had mastered the heat and the light, yet he knew, he felt that there was a deeper essence to fire that remained just out of reach.

Despite his mastery, he had hit a wall. His own talent had reached its ceiling, and the existing records of magic offered him nothing more. He was trapped in the gap between what he knew and what was possible. As his frustration turned into a desperate, singular craving for the truth of the flame, the air around him began to shimmer.

The Oracle was listening.

For seekers like the flame mage, the transition would happen overnight. They would wake to find their familiar surroundings warped, their homes literally merging with a foreign, ancient space. Standing where a wall or a window once was, a massive, monolithic door carved in the likeness of an open book waited for them.