Chapter 814: 814

The figure straightened and offered a shallow, gentlemanly bow toward the empty air, the exact spot where he felt Nwadimma’s invisible gaze lingering before his form dissolved into nothingness, departing just as silently as he had arrived.

Nwadimma reappeared instantly the moment he vanished. She threw her domain law outward, her senses expanding in a violent wave that scoured the surrounding world for any ripple of energy. Yet, there was nothing. No trail, no residual heat, no trace.

She felt a cold realization settle in her chest. There were levels to this power. They were all called Paragons, yet here were figures capable of moving like ghosts right under the eyes of their own kind.

"Murmur," Nwadimma whispered, the name tasting like ash. She looked down at her brother, her heart heavy with dread. Though she had vowed to stand by his choices, she couldn’t suppress the instinctive fear that he had just signed away something he could never get back.

The night bled into morning in a tense, silent vigil. It was only as the first light of dawn touched the office that Nwadiebube finally stirred. He didn’t wake with a gasp or a cry;, instead, he began to laugh a low, resonant sound that filled the room.

Nwadimma leaned over him, her expression etched with concern. "Are you okay, brother?"

It took several minutes for Nwadiebube to calm his breathing, though his body continued to tremble with a manic sort of excitement. "What an ingenious method," he murmured to himself, his fingers digging into his palms as he clenched his fists.

He looked up at Nwadimma, a vibrant, terrifyingly bright smile on his face. "Sister, I have it. I have the method to become a god, a true guide to divinity."

Nwadimma didn’t share his joy. She watched him closely, her eyes searching his for any sign of madness or possession. "Can it be trusted?" she asked softly.

"It can," Nwadiebube insisted. Seeing the deep skepticism etched into her features, he leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Murmur went to great lengths to show his sincerity. He didn’t just give me a ritual, he broke down the very nature of divinity itself. He explained the truth of our world, sister."

He stood up, pacing the room with a newfound energy. "He explained why, after reaching the peak of the fifth tier, some seekers ascend as gods while others end up as Paragons. It isn’t random, and it isn’t just about raw power. It all comes down to a person’s fundamental nature and their soul’s orientation."

"Ascended gods and Paragons, at the end of the day, are essentially the same class of being," Nwadiebube explained, his voice growing steady and resonant. "The only true distinction is that one grasps divinity because of their fundamental nature, while the other is barred from it by theirs."

He began to pace, the shadows of the room dancing with his movements. "Ascended gods possess what Murmur calls a "permeable" soul. They crave for their Law to breathe, to be exercised upon the world, and to be reflected back at them. This openness, this desire for their essence to interact with the fabric of reality is what enables them to reach out and seize a divine throne."

He stopped, turning to face his sister with a piercing look. "Paragons, on the other hand, possess an "impermeable" soul. Unlike the gods, their unconscious desire is for their power to be a closed loop. They want their strength held and owned entirely by their own hands, contained within themselves rather than flowing out into the world."

Nwadimma found her initial worry fading into the background, replaced by a profound, scholarly awe. She listened intently, realizing she was hearing forbidden knowledge, truths about her own existence as a Paragon that she had never been able to articulate, yet now felt instinctively to be true.

Nwadiebube could hardly contain his fervor. "The method Murmur’s people shared with me... it doesn’t choose between the two. It combines both paths to give birth to something entirely new."

He leaned in, his voice dropping to a low intense whisper. "The true strength of this method, sister, is for the ’Lie to become the Truth.’"

He stopped abruptly, his eyes darting to the heavy oak doors of the office. "Make sure no one is listening."

Nwadimma’s expression sharpened. Her eyes ignited with a brilliant, golden glow as she pulsed her senses through the very atoms of the palace. After a heartbeat, the light faded slightly. "We are alone," she confirmed.

Nwadiebube nodded, his shadow flickering against the wall. "At the fifth tier, we all wield a small domain, a sanctuary where our strength is at its peak, where we can output power far beyond our natural limits."

"But," he continued, "that domain is always accompanied by a specific trait, a prototype of a Law. This Law is supposed to fully manifest at the sixth tier. I, like many have been stopped at this threshold. I have been unable to manifest my Law, and thus, I have been forced to forgo the Paragon status."

The King’s eyes flickered with a dark, secondary light. "The method handed down by Murmur has shown me the way to bypass this failure. It is not about breaking the wall, but convincing the world the wall was never there."

"Remember how I explained that ascended gods outsource their Law?" Nwadiebube’s voice was now a feverish, academic quality. "Their Law becomes a divinity shared with the world, sustained by the faith of believers. A god’s throne acts as a grand data-hub. It processes every scrap of feedback from every worshipper. If a god is the "God of Steel," and ten thousand blacksmiths pray for a better temper, that god receives ten thousand tiny data packets of insight into the very nature of steel."

He paced the room, his shadow stretching long across the floorboards. "But for Paragons, it is the exact opposite. They don’t have to filter out the wrong ideas or the weak faith of fickle followers. Every ounce of their understanding come from within because it was forged in the cold vacuum of their own minds and research. It takes vastly more time, but it means they are often stronger than most ascended gods who haven’t yet organized their doctrines or purified their faith."

He stopped, turning back to Nwadimma, "As someone trapped at the fifth-tier, the path Murmur has shown me is to mimic the ascended gods, with one crucial difference. Unlike them, I haven’t yet fully comprehended a Law or a divinity. But I do have a domain with a trait."

Nwadiebube could no longer hide the raw, hungry excitement in his tone. "I must gain a total, absolute understanding of that single trait and then rebrand it into a full concept or Law. But even that isn’t enough to force ascension. To push further, this rebrand has to be shared with the masses."

"I have to broadcast it to the world, convincing the hearts and minds of the people until their collective belief forces reality to bend. I must convince them that my rebranded Law is divinity."

Nwadimma’s confusion was etched clearly on her face, her brow furrowed as she tried to reconcile this with the traditional paths of power she knew. "You have lost me, brother. How can a lie whispered to the masses become a throne for divinity?"

Nwadiebube took a deep breath "Let me give you an example. Imagine, for a moment, that my inherent domain trait is something simple, perhaps nothing more than a minor ability to increase the potency of flame spells."

He held up a hand, a small, flicking spark dancing on his fingertip. "By itself, it is a tool, not a divinity. But using Murmur’s method, I rebrand this trait. I don’t call it a "potency boost" I proclaim it the essence of the God of Fire."

He began to pace the room again "I build grand temples. I raise towering statues. I craft an intricate, fake doctrine, ancient myths of a fire that birthed the world and I convince the masses to worship this God of Fire through the rituals I have laid out."

"As the years pass, and as the number of believers grows into the millions, their collective faith begins to exert a pressure on reality itself. Because their souls are permeable in their worship, they are sending me constant data packets, their hopes, their fears of the flame, their absolute conviction that I am that god."

He stopped and looked at his sister, his expression deadly serious. "Once that collective belief reaches a tipping point, the Lie becomes a Truth. I hitchhike on their faith. My own understanding of flames would be force-fed by their devotion until it grows, evolves, and eventually scales that final wall. I wouldn’t just be pretending anymore, Nwadimma. I would ultimately ascend to become the very God of Fire they believe me to be."

Nwadimma did not share her brother’s manic light. While she was grateful for the knowledge, the sheer absurdity of it sat like lead in her stomach. If this method was true, then the very foundations of power in their world were built on sand.