Chapter 790: 790

"Ah, yes. That," Ikenga murmured.

The Oracle’s eyes flared, a hunger he couldn’t quite mask, and the heavy, chained book bound to his waist began to rattle, a frantic, metallic shivering, as if the artifact itself anticipated the revelation.

Ikenga opened his palm, and the space above it distorted. A single, brittle scrap of aged parchment materialized, pulsing with a faint, abyssal light.

"You’ve been tearing the realms apart in search of this," Ikenga said, watching the Oracle’s gaze lock onto the paper. "This is the method you’ve been so desperately chasing. The missing key to your ambition."

The Oracle’s gaze locked onto the parchment. The world around him, the presence of his creator, the biting taunts of Phantom, everything ceased to exist. His breath hitched as he stared at the document, his voice a mere sliver of sound.

"Is this... for me? Creator?"

Ikenga didn’t answer with words. He flicked his wrist, sending the parchment fluttering through the air like a falling leaf. The Oracle didn’t reach for it with his hands; he didn’t have to. The heavy, iron-chained tome at his hip sensed its master’s intent, snapping open of its own volition. The parchment drifted into the void of the book, settling onto a blank, yellowed page before the covers slammed shut with a final, resonant thud.

The moment the seal clicked into place, the Oracle’s body shuddered. Knowledge, raw, potent, and old surged through his mind like a wildfire. He began to laugh, a jagged, broken sound that echoed off the surrounding.

"Such ingenuity," he rasped, his eyes swirling with newfound fervor. "To craft a mechanism of this caliber... the sheer brilliance of it is intoxicating."

He seemed to forget where he was entirely, his fingers tracing the cold iron of the book’s binding. "This must have originated from a civilization of the sixth tier and that wasn’t even at the peak of their evolution."

His eyes widened as he read the secret truth hidden within the text. "World Domination." A cruel, satisfied smile spread across his face. "So, that is the official designation for the sixth tier. A title well-earned, given the absolute dominion it commands."

He continued to mutter, his mind racing through calculations and conquests, completely oblivious to the fact that Ikenga and Phantom were watching him. Phantom looked ready to intervene, his shadow-form bristling with irritation at the Oracle’s lack of decorum, but Ikenga merely raised a hand, his expression unreadable.

The pieces clicked into place, and the sheer audacity of it left the Oracle breathless. The sixth tier was never meant to be a measurement of power. It was a language, a universal tongue. Suddenly, the chaotic inconsistencies between different sixth-tier theories he had made perfect sense.

He had always operated under the assumption that the sixth tier was about imposing one’s reality onto the world. But the method now revealed the fatal flaw in that logic: if a mage forcibly grafts their law onto reality, the world identifies them as a foreign body. It treats them like a pathogen, eventually mounting an immune response to reject and erase them.

"They are islands," the Oracle whispered, his eyes wide as he processed the cosmic truth. "A fifth-tier on the path to sixth-tier screams their law at the void, but the universe simply drowns them out. They speak a dialect the cosmos refuses to recognize like a very loud ’World Suggestion.’"

He looked down at his chained book, his fingers trembling with the weight of the revelation. It wasn’t about the magnitude of the energy one could manifest. It was about the Frequency.

"You don’t force the world to change," he murmured, a terrifying clarity dawning on him. "You simply convince the universe that your law is, and has always been, the original law."

The missing piece was finally in his grasp: The Universal Translation.

The General Method was not a blueprint for a bigger engine; it was a broadcast array. By translating one’s personal "Law" into the foundational script of the cosmos, one would bypass the universe’s resistance entirely.

The moment the silver transcript touched the Oracle’s shelves, a ripple spread out. It tore through the fabric of the realms, reaching Keles in her domain. Both she and Ikenga felt the same jolt, a shared premonition that made the air grow heavy.

Their child was coming.

And because of the nature of its parents, the child’s arrival wouldn’t be silent. It would be a "Flood of Breakthroughs." The infant’s first breath would act as a massive surge of conceptual energy, pushing those who held the Universal Translation over the edge. The world was about to be populated by sixth-tier beings.

The Oracle was still lost in a feverish frenzy, his mind already calculating a thousand ways to distribute the new script, when a heavy hand clamped onto his shoulder. The grip was like iron, grounding him instantly.

Ikenga’s presence had turne -cold. The intellectual curiosity was gone, replaced by the grim focus of a father.

"You know what to do," Ikenga commanded.

Before the Oracle could even ask a question, Ikenga vanished, taking Phantom with him in a blur of shadow. The Oracle now stood alone in the silence of his infinite library, feeling a strange, lingering dread. "What caused such a sudden change in the Creator?" he whispered to the empty aisles. But only the rustle of turning pages answered him.

Ikenga materialized in the heart of the Underworld at its center sat Keles. She was looking down, her hands resting gently on the curve of her belly.

The veil she wore obscured her features, making her seem like a statue of mourning, but Ikenga didn’t wait for her to speak. He stepped forward and lifted the gossamer fabric.

He found her smiling.

She was softly massaging her stomach, her eyes filled with a beautiful light. Seeing that expression brought a wave of relief so sharp it nearly made Ikenga stumble. He had been haunted by the premonition, haunted by the fear that his hunger to "level the board" and release the Sixth Tier secrets had accidentally forced the birth before the child was ready.

Keles’s calmness was like a steadying anchor for Ikenga. The frantic worry that had gripped him began to dissolve.

"He says he is eager to see our world," Keles said.

Ikenga couldn’t help but chuckle, though the sound was tinged with a bit of bittersweet irony. He looked at the curve of her belly, thinking of the "World Domination" scripts he had just unleashed and the war that was brewing. "The world might look very different by the time you are born, my son. I fear you may not get to see its true, untouched beauty."

Suddenly, a voice resonated directly within Ikenga’s consciousness. It was youthful, yet it carried an ancient weight.

"I know, Father. But the world to come holds great stories and an end I look forward to seeing."

Ikenga’s eyes widened, and he looked up at Keles in shock. "I heard him. I actually heard him." His voice was no longer that of a cold strategist; it was filled with a raw, unfiltered joy.

Keles reached out, her cool palm cupping his chin with a tender familiarity. "His voice grows clearer as the day approaches. It is no surprise that he can finally speak to you directly."

The connection remained open, but the tone of the child’s voice shifted. The previous wisdom was replaced by a distinctly tired, almost grumpy yawn.

"I have been wanting to say this for some time now, Father," the childly voice said, sounding thoroughly unimpressed. "No more ’night activities’ until Mother has given birth to me."

A final, heavy yawn echoed through Ikenga’s mind, followed by the distinct sensation of someone tucking themselves back into a deep slumber. Silence returned to the Underworld.

Ikenga and Keles remained frozen, staring at one another in the dim light of the realm of the dead. The great architect of the world and the Queen of the Underworld were, for the first time in years, completely speechless.

"Did I... did I hear him correctly?" Ikenga finally managed to ask, his face a mask of disbelief.

In response to their son’s blunt request, Keles didn’t say a word. She simply gave Ikenga a firm push, her veil falling back into place like a shutter closing. The air rippled as a portal tore open before her, and she stepped through it with a dignified grace that ignored the awkwardness entirely.

Left alone in the echoing silence of the room, Ikenga let out a long, frustrated sigh. "Damn it," he muttered to the shadows. "I knew we should have stopped when Keles first told me he was speaking to her."

Dragging his hand over his face, Ikenga composed himself. He shook off the lingering shame and stepped through the portal, leaving the Underworld behind for the high seat of Nana’s Realm.

Ikenga was the last to arrive. His siblings were already positioned on their massive thrones, their auras filling Nana’s realm with the weight of fundamental laws.