Chapter 797: 797

His mind drifted to the Sixth Tier figures he had encountered in the past. They were powerful beings, entities who controlled their own pocket realities and lived without the stifling weight of "Rules." Unlike himself and the other gods, who were bound by certain rules, those figures were truly free.

In the current order, the only clear universal law he knew about sixth-tier beings was one of restraint, to never endanger a world or its inhabitants during conflict. To do so was to invite the swift, cold wrath of the Judgers unless, of course, one belonged to the elite factions of the Hegemons.

Beyond that single, suffocating decree, Ikenga had always observed that the figures of the Sixth Tier possessed a terrifying degree of liberty. They were not just powerful, they were sovereign, existing with a freedom that the traditional gods like himself could only envy.

Looking at the sleeping Keles, Ikenga realized the landscape of their reality had shifted. When he and Keles had first sensed the child’s presence, they hadn’t just felt a new life, they had felt the death of an era. Their world was finally ascending to the Age of Sixth-Tier Beings.

The long, suffocating stagnation that had defined their world for millenium was about to fracture. The "Rules" that held the gods in check were thinning, making way for a new, more volatile constant.

This child was the herald of that change. He was the bridge to a reality where figures with lifespans stretching ten thousand years and others truly immortal, anchored by their own Laws and Concepts would no longer be a myth. They would be the rulers of their world.

The more Ikenga meditated on the child’s nature, the more his mind drifted to the Emperor Kairos and the stagnant lords of the Goblin World. For centuries, those Sixth-Tier figures had sat atop their reality like immovable stones, growth had ceased, and no new soul had ascended to join their ranks in an age. They were a testament to what happens when power has no natural predator.

He looked at Keles, then back to the silent womb. It was becoming clear, their union became something of a necessity. Their dual divinities had collided to produce the "Pruner" a biological and spiritual mechanism designed to end the very stagnation Kairos represented.

The birth of this child would signal a new era, but it would not be a gift without a price. Ikenga sensed a shifting of the scales, these nascent Sixth-Tier figures would not rise for free. By the very act of their ascension in this new age, they would owe the world a Karmic Debt. The child was the collector of that fate, the one who would ensure that those who took from the world gave back to its balance, one way or another.

But there was more calculation at play. Ikenga knew that even a world’s mana reserve, vast as it seemed, was not truly infinite. A single Sixth-Tier being was a drain on a world, a two dozen could cause an overdraft that might leave the world a hollow shell.

The child was the world’s immune system. He was the regulator, the one who would decide how many "immortals" the world could sustain before the well ran dry. He was the blade that would trim the excess to save the root.

As these thoughts spiraled deeper, a subtle transformation took hold of Ikenga. The warmth of a father’s anticipation began to evaporate, replaced by a cold, analytical gaze. He no longer saw a son to be cradled or a legacy to be protected.

Instead, he saw a piece.

The child was a singular, high-advantage asset on the board of existence, a tool of such immense strategic value that its humanity was rapidly becoming an afterthought in Ikenga’s divine mind.

The child had inadvertently revealed a terrifying loophole to Ikenga. As origin gods, they were powerful, yet they were ultimately beings of Law. They were bound by higher rules. If these new Sixth-Tier figures emerged, they would possess the strength of gods without the divine shackles.

As long as these new sovereigns avoided the total destruction of the world, thereby avoiding the wrath of the origin gods, they could act with absolute, unruly impunity. They would be predators in a garden where the gardeners were forbidden from pulling the weeds.

But this child was the shattering of that loophole. He was a god-tier force that lived outside the traditional divine restrictions. He was the answer to a problem the gods hadn’t even realized they had yet.

The spiraling, cold logic in Ikenga’s mind was abruptly broken by a firm weight on his shoulder. The chill in his eyes didn’t vanish instantly, it ebbed away slowly, as he snapped back to the physical room.

He didn’t need to turn to know who stood there.

"Did you know of this?" he asked, his voice rasping slightly from the weight of his realizations.

Nana stood beside him, her presence as vast and ancient as the soil and the stars. She looked down at her son, her expression unreadable but heavy with the wisdom of eons. She had seen that detached, predatory look in his eyes, the look of a god viewing his own kin as a strategic asset.

She nodded slowly. "I am this world as much as this world is me, Ikenga. I knew the moment the child took root in the womb. I felt its laws of reality rewritten under his weight."

Ikenga turned his gaze toward her, his mind still racing with the implications of the "Pruner." A flicker of suspicion or perhaps desperate curiosity crossed his face.

"Did you have a hand in this?" he pressed. "In his growth? In the way he was birthed into this specific role?"

The answer didn’t come in words. Instead, Nana’s hand tightened on his shoulder, a squeeze so sudden and powerful it was less an embrace and more a silent, bone-deep warning. It was the grip of a mother reminding a son that a certain limit was being reached.

Ikenga let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The tension in his shoulders finally ebbed under Nana’s firm, grounding grip. "I am sorry for doubting you," he murmured, his voice heavy with the admission. "I thought I was prepared for this child’s nature, but he has already proven more unpredictable than I could have imagined."

Nana remained silent for a long moment, her presence a steady, immovable force in the room. When she finally spoke, her voice was calm "You seem to forget the depth of his essence, Ikenga. He is tethered to the flow of time itself. It is his future self, not his current one that is the true source of your unpredictability."

At her words, Ikenga instinctively turned his gaze back to Keles’s swollen abdomen. He watched the subtle movement of the skin, wondering what version of his son was currently drifting in the currents of the unborn.

A soft tap on his shoulder pulled his attention away again. He turned, looking up at his mother, but the expression he saw on her face stopped him cold.

"Are you even aware of the look you are giving this child?" Nana asked quietly.

She didn’t wait for him to attempt a defense. She knew him too well, and the truth of her words hung in the air like a blade. "I do not need to read your mind to know the architecture of your thoughts. I have watched you for eons, my son. I know exactly how your mind deconstructs the world."

She stepped closer, her tone shifting from stern to piercingly earnest. "Everything you have calculated, the balance of power, the karmic debts, the Pruner’s burden, it may all prove true. But that is the burden of his future. That is not the reality of his present."

Nana’s gaze softened, though her grip remained firm. "Your sole focus must be Keles and the safety of this child. Be the father you never had the chance to be."

She gestured toward the sleeping woman. "Do not raise him as a future pawn or an investment for some grand design. You already know his path will be arduous, the destiny of a Pruner is one of isolation and struggle. The very least you can do, for the time you have with him, is to offer him what he will rarely find in the ages to come, genuine love and unyielding support."

Ikenga looked down at his hands, then back to the life within Keles. The cold, pragmatic strategist within him finally yielded, silenced by the simple, profound truth of his mother’s command.

The air in the room felt heavy and sweet, the lingering scent of ozone and old earth slowly fading as Nana’s presence dissolved back into the world. The silence that followed was broken only by the rhythmic, shallow breathing of the woman on the bed.

Keles stirred. Her eyelids fluttered, silver-dark lashes casting long shadows against her pale cheeks as she pulled herself from the depths of that unnatural slumber. When her eyes finally opened, they were clouded with the remnants of the vision, vast, shifting timelines and the cold chill of the void before settling on Ikenga.