Chapter 815: 815

The thought was revolting. If every fifth-tier powerhouse could simply "lie" their way into divinity, then the struggle of the Paragons, the bone-deep fear, the desperate near-death trials, and the sheer iron will required to forge an impermeable soul was nothing more than a fool’s errand. It was a mockery of everything she had sacrificed to reach her status. To her, power was earned in the vacuum of one’s own spirit, to Nwadiebube, it was apparently a marketing campaign.

Her mind raced, connecting the political dots. If her brother was right, the Omadi Kingdom already possessed the sheer population density required to fuel such an ascension. They didn’t need more land. They didn’t need more blood.

"So why?" Nwadimma asked, her ow thoughts cutting through his excitement like a cold blade. "If anll you need is a kingdom and a congregation, why did Murmur push for the clash with Osita? Why orchestrate a war that would tear the continent apart?"

She looked at her brother, her eyes narrowing. Nothing about Murmur’s involvement made sense if the goal was simply a private ascension "There is no profit in that war for a budding god," she whispered to herself.

"Brother," Nwadimma began, her voice pressing. "If your method works as you say it does, why then does Murmur push us to clash with Osita? We have more than enough population within our own borders to fuel your path to ascension. Why must the animosity continue? Why risk the kingdom in a war we do not need?"

At the mere mention of Osita’s name, Nwadiebube’s face scrunched in a mask of visceral disgust and simmering rage. "If Murmur had never whispered a word of conflict, I would have eventually brought the fight to Osita myself," he spat, his voice trembling with a long-held bitterness. "But that is beside the point."

He took a slow, deep breath, forcing the muscles in his jaw to relax as he reclaimed his composure. The king looked at his sister, the manic in his eyes replaced by a cold, clinical sobriety.

"While this method is ingenious in its design, it is not perfect," the King admitted. "It comes with a crippling weakness, a flaw so fundamental it dictates everything we must do."

He leaned back against his desk, the shadows of the flickering candlelight playing across his features. "And ironically, Nwadimma, it is Murmur’s willingness to reveal this weakness to me that proves his sincerity. He didn’t just give me a weapon, he showed me where the blade is brittle. That is the only reason I truly trust his helping hand."

"What weakness could possibly be that severe, brother?" Nwadimma asked.

Nwadiebube didn’t answer immediately. He leveled a long, skeptical look at her, searching her face for any flicker of doubt or judgment. Nwadimma didn’t flinch, she held his gaze with the steady intensity of a Paragon.

Internally, the King’s mind raced. This was a vulnerability that could undo him entirely, a secret that, in the wrong hands, was a death sentence. But as he looked at the woman who had stood as his shield against the world, he realized that hiding this from her would be his greatest folly. If he were to succeed, he would need her to guard the very borders of his sanity.

Taking a heavy breath to steady his racing heart, he finally spoke. "The weakness in this method, sister, is the nature of the deception itself. Once a lie of this magnitude is told to the world, it can never be taken back. And no matter the cost, I must play every single role dictated by that lie."

He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a haunting whisper. "A simple lie holds no power. But a lie that the world accepts as Truth... that is where the real power dwells. However, it is a gilded cage. To hitchhike on the faith of the masses, I must allow their collective idea of me to define who I am. I become a slave to their perception."

He clenched his teeth, the gravity of the bargain sinking in. "If I ever break character, if I step out of that role for even a moment before the ascension is complete, the entire construct collapses. The faith turns to poison, the divinity shatters, and everything I have built... everything I am... will simply cease to exist."

"In the process of this, I will slowly stop being the brother you know and become the god I aim to be," Nwadiebube said, his voice hollow as the magnitude of the sacrifice hung in the air. "If even a fragment of my true self leaks through, if I show the greed, the fear, or the simple humanity of the man I actually am, the resonance snaps. The masses will feel the glitch in the divinity they are fueling. And because I have no Law of my own to catch me... the vacuum left by their departing faith will implode my Domain. I won’t just lose the power, I will be crushed by the weight of my own hollowed-out heart."

He turned to her, his gaze bordering on the frantic. "I must hold the mask until the mask becomes my skin. Only then, at the moment of Full Ascension, does the lie stop being a performance and start being a Law. But until that day? I am a ghost inhabiting a statue. If you see me falter, if you see the man Nwadiebube leak through the God... you must hide me. Because the moment they stop believing I am He, I cease to be anything at all."

He watched the horror bloom in his sister’s eyes as the true price of this power finally sank in. She was no longer just looking at a King or a brother seeking strength, she was looking at a man preparing to commit a slow, methodical suicide of his own identity. But Nwadiebube didn’t stop. He couldn’t.

"This is why the Empire is necessary," he pressed on, his voice regaining a hard, cold edge. "A single kingdom’s belief is a flickering candle. One doubt, one scandal, and the light goes out. But an Empire? An Empire is a sun. The sheer momentum of billions of souls believing in the same Lie creates a gravitational pull so strong that it can ignore the occasional glitch. I need the scale of an Empire to buffer my own failings. I need the world to be so convinced of my divinity that even if I scream in pain, they hear it as a holy song."

"Clashing with Osita was inevitable," Nwadiebube said, his voice hardening as he laid out the cold reality of their geopolitics. "And raising our kingdom’s power to the scale of an empire was equally unavoidable. None of the residents of this world are fools, sister."

He walked to the window, looking out over the flickering lights of the capital. "We always have eyes on us, from neighboring kingdoms, from the godlings, even from the kingdoms and empire across the sea. Our position in the world today keeps us under constant scrutiny. They watch our trade, our borders, and our growth."

He turned back to her, the urgency in his voice rising. "It won’t take long for them to notice something is different. They will see a new God being preached, they will hear the hymns spreading across our land like wildfire. It won’t take long for the clever ones to deduce the truth or come close enough to it to be a mortal danger to me."

Nwadimma felt and understood the weight of his words

"All it would take," Nwadiebube whispered, "is for Osita’s kingdom or any rival power to realize that my "God" persona is a fabrication. They don’t have to march on our walls with swords or meet us in a clash of Paragons. They just have to spread a more compelling story, one that paints me as a fraud, a pretender, or a charlatan. If the public stops believing, Nwadiebube dies instantly and we lose"

Seeing his sister still stunned, Nwadiebube’s expression softened for, the cold ambition in his eyes flickering with a momentary, fragile humanity.

"I tell you this, sister, because at the end of all this, I may be nothing of the man or brother you once knew," he admitted, his voice barely a whisper. "But with you by my side... there may be a glimmer of hope that I can remember who I once was. You are the only anchor I have left to the truth."

He turned away, the weight of the crown seeming to press heavier on his brow. "Your help from the shadows would be appreciated, no, it is essential. To keep up the persona I build, to silence the whispers, and to protect the Lie from anything that threatens it."

With a heavy sigh, he walked to the balcony, the velvet curtains rustling behind him. Below, the kingdom of Omadi was slowly waking, the morning mist clinging to the streets like a shroud. To the citizens below, he was their King, soon, he would be their God. But to the woman standing in the silent office behind him, he was a man standing on the edge of an abyss, asking her to hold his hand as he jumped.