Chapter 816: 816

Nwadimma stood in the heavy silence, her throat tight with a million unspoken warnings. She didn’t know what to say, she was caught in a paralyzing tug-of-war between wanting to praise her brother for his terrifying bravery and wanting to curse him for his reckless pride.

Ultimately, she realized that any word of caution would only undermine him. Having grown up alongside Nwadiebube, she knew the bone-deep stubbornness that defined him. Once he set his feet on a path, he would walk it until the world ended or he did.

Instead of arguing, she moved silently to his side. They stood together on the balcony, two sibilings royalties overlooking a kingdom that had no idea its King was planning to lie to them and rewrite reality for his own goal to godhood and power.

The silence stretched, peaceful yet haunted, until Nwadimma turned to leave. Before she could step back into the shadows of the office, Nwadiebube’s voice pulled her back.

"How is my son?"

The King didn’t turn his head, but his gaze shifted sideways toward his sister, his regal mask slipping just enough to show the flickering concern of a father. "It has been a while since he began his tutelage with you. How does he fare?"

"The Crown Prince is doing well, he has been an exceptional student. I see a bit of our father in him," Nwadimma said, a rare, genuine smile softening her features.

Nwadiebube laughed, the sound rich and relieved. "That is good... that is very good," he repeated, almost to himself. "It puts my heart at peace, considering the burden he is to shoulder in the coming future."

Nwadimma paused, her breath hitching as the implication settled. "Are you...?" She couldn’t bring herself to finish the question, but the firm, solemn nod from her brother provided the answer.

"If I am to walk this path, the status of King and the physical throne will become nothing but a distraction, a great burden riddled with risk," Nwadiebube said, his gaze fixed on the horizon. "There is no better time than now to begin the process of handing his birthright over to him. I cannot be a King and a God simultaneously, one would surely betray the other."

A slow, proud smile spread across Nwadimma’s face. The man standing before her had matured beyond recognition. The Nwadiebube of the past, clinging to every shred of status and earthly power, would never have spoken of relinquishing the crown so easily. In choosing a higher, more dangerous throne, he was finally letting go of the lower one.

In response, she did something she had not done in years. She stepped back and performed a deep, formal bow, a rare gesture of submission and respect from a Paragon of her standing.

"I will make sure he is more than prepared to inherit whatever burden you place upon him," she vowed.

With those final words, her figure blurred and vanished into the morning air, leaving the King alone with his thoughts and his waking empire.

Across the expanse of the western continent, a profound transformation had taken away the sting of neglect from the humanity kingdom. No longer did the territory sit in ruin, an eyesore of shattered stone and overgrown decay; it was beginning to resemble its former glory, though a dark shadow still lingered.

The "cursed beings" still roamed the streets, moving like restless ghosts through the restored architecture. They remained trapped in their cycles of excess, indulging in every whim and vice born of the lust that defined their curse.

Ever since the court case with Xerosis, Erik had operated with a singular, driving purpose: to set his kingdom and his people right. His first order of business was a physical one. He personally roamed the borders of his territory, weaving intricate magical wards into the very earth. these barriers served as a vital shield, fending off the cursed entities and carving out a safe haven for the surviving humans.

This tireless effort did not go unseen. Though the number of people who still possessed their full senses was small, they watched their king’s labor with growing awe. Seeing Erik pour his own strength into the land’s protection rekindled a flickering flame of faith, a hope that, under his guidance, they might truly reclaim their home again.

Erik was far from alone in this monumental task. The remaining members of the royal family, those who still shared his blood and resolve joined the effort, dividing their ranks to cover more ground and accelerate the kingdom’s healing.

The group of punished godlings also proved to be an invaluable asset in the restoration. Though their mana had been stripped and their divine powers sealed away, their innate physical attributes remained. A single godling possessed the strength and endurance of ten grown men, allowing them to clear debris and hoist massive stone blocks that would have otherwise taken weeks to move.

It took a full year of relentless labor for the physical restoration to conclude. With the walls rebuilt and the wards holding firm, Erik finally found the mental space to confront a far more daunting challenge, elevating his people from their cursed state.

The path ahead was now much steeper than before. What was once an attainable goal had become a desperate struggle, his previous actions had cost him the grace of Ikem, stripping away the divine blessing that had once come so easily with the god’s favor. Now, Erik would have to find a way to save his people without the heavenly light he had once relied upon.

Despite his resolve, Erik’s research eventually ground to a halt. He found himself staring at a metaphorical wall, with no clear path forward. Altering a species’ fundamental race and genealogy was a monumental feat, made infinitely more complex when the volatile variable of magic was added to the equation.

Through his previous studies, Erik had identified two primary obstacles. His own elven bloodline was an anomaly, it was not native to this world. The very fabric of reality seemed to reject it as a foreign element. Erik himself was an exception to this rule, and his children had escaped this rejection because they were born of this world, anchored by a native human bloodline.

The second being that the elven bloodline was inherently gentle and passive. This made it incredibly difficult to initiate a successful integration with human biology. Even when a connection was established, the human bloodline aggressive and dominant would quickly overwrite the elven traits. The result was never a true hybrid, but rather a human who had merely absorbed and erased the elven essence. His children was an example of this, if not for the influence of the now pervasive cursed energy around their kingdom.

The issue of worldly rejection was a hurdle Erik believed he could eventually maneuver around, but the second obstacle, the passive nature of elven blood required time and exhaustive research to overcome.

The grim reality was that he had neither. The world had surged into the Age of Sixth-Tier Beings, yet his kingdom possessed no paragon of its own to safeguard its borders from foreign reach. Even his own strength, which had once been considered formidable, held little value in an era dominated by such overwhelming power.

For now, the world was still adjusting to the presence of these new paragons. However, Erik knew that as soon as they consolidated their power and turned their gaze toward him and his kingdom, nothing would be able to stop them. He was working against a ticking clock, fueled by pure desperation.

Deep within his laboratory, Erik floated cross-legged in a meditative trance. Hovering before him were two vessels, one bowl containing a viscous, shimmering dark liquid, and another filled with fresh, vibrant blood. The air hummed with the tension of a man pushed to his absolute limit, searching for an answer in the space between science and forbidden path.

The bowl of blood contained a pure elven bloodline, a sample far more potent than his own half-human heritage. He had the blessing of Ikem to thank for this achievement, that divine favor had allowed him to communicate with the microcosm, granting him the precision needed to strip his own blood of its human essence. Through that painstaking process, he had distilled his life force until only the pure elven essence remained.

This bowl represented the very last of that essence. Without Ikem’s favor to guide the microscopic purification again, losing this sample would mean the permanent end of his research. There would be no second chances.

The second bowl, however, represented the destination where his desperation had finally led him. Contained within was a volatile resource harvested from the pervasive spectacles and lingering wounds left behind by the Dark Gods.

In the past, Erik wouldn’t have been able to keep this substance in the open, let alone sit before it with such eerie calm. Previously, the mere presence of such corrupted fluid would have sent him rolling across the floor, clutching his head in agony as a thousand discordant voices were forced into his mind.