Chapter 827
Since acquiring the Method of Falsehood from Murmur, Nwadiebube had been locked in deep contemplation. To ascend further, he needed to select a specific aspect of his domain to rebrand and forge into a Divinity, a conceptual beacon that followers would worship and fuel with their faith.
This choice carried a heavy burden of permanence as the aspect he chose would become his eternal mantle. He would have to embody that concept entirely, to waver or act against its core would be catastrophic.
If he ever stepped away from the chosen path, the "Hidden Falsehood" of his divinity would be exposed. The illusion would shatter, revealing the deception to every believer whose faith powered his existence.
Within the Domain of the Humbled Horizon, "Weight" was not a mere physical property, it was a spiritual gravity. To Nwadiebube, weight was the catalyst of transformation; it was the crushing pressure that forced common earth to refine into precious gold. But more importantly, in his life as royalty, weight was synonymous with Fealty.
His very presence carried a density that demanded recognition. It was a natural law that caused others to sink to their knees, an atmospheric pressure that forced the surrounding world to acknowledge his rank.
As he sat in the slope beside his souls beast, the two halves of his existence, the sovereign and the elementalist finally fused into a single, cohesive concept. The more he contemplated the "Weight of Value," the more the path toward Divinity cleared.
He realized that across all civilizations in the Nana world, two truths remained constant: Gold is the universal standard of worth, earth is the primordial source of all wealth.
By rebranding his domain under the Law of Value, Nwadiebube would become the arbiter of worth itself.
Nwadiebube’s vision shifted, the golden plains vibrating with the resonance of a newly forged purpose. He saw it clearly now, he could become the "God of the Absolute Standard". He could position himself as the force that brings Order to Value, the anchor that prevents the world from drifting into economic and moral chaos.
In a world of fluctuating worth, he would be the "Weight" that keeps life predictable. To cement his divinity, Nwadiebube realized he could convince the masses that the very "Value" and "Hardness" of reality were tied to his existence. He would weave a narrative that his domain’s crushing weight was not an act of tyranny, but the Pressure of Refinement.
He could preach a gospel of transformation to the Omadi peopel, about how the world is naturally full of soft, useless things. His weight exists to crush the weak and the dross, ensuring that only the Gold, the strong, the loyal, and the pure remains.
People would learn to see, understand and welcome the crushing pressure of his presence. To them, standing upright under his gaze would become the ultimate proof of character. They would believe that if they could endure his "Humbled Horizon," they were "True Gold."
Nwadiebube figure shifted as he stood amidst the shimmering grass, the echo of his father’s voice echoing from a memory long tucked away. "A king’s true craft," his father had once told him, "is not in hoarding gold, but in creating Value within his people. A subject who feels their labor is worth something is a subject who will build an empire."
The realization hit him in his contemplation, he could become a god for the commonfolk, a divinity that brings worth to the mundane. In a world where the small and the weak are often trampled, he would be the one who ensures that their sweat, their loyalty, and their simple lives carry the weight of "Gold."
The more Nwadiebube turned this idea over in his mind, the more enticing it became. It was a masterful foundation for his Falsehood. By convincing the masses that he was the source of their worth, he would create a hunger for his presence.
People would flock to him not out of fear, but out of a desperate need to feel they mattered. If Nwadiebube is the "Scale," then a farmer’s harvest or a common smith’s hammer-stroke only has true value because he acknowledges it.
Yet, this was the source of his long-standing hesitation. The limitations of this path were as rigid as the gold he commanded. To be the God of the Absolute Standard, Nwadiebube himself would have to be without equal.
How can a scale weigh others if its own balance is in question? To maintain the Falsehood, he would be bound by some unbreakable laws.
He must never show a moment of doubt or a flicker of commonality. To be the standard, he must exist on a plane above all others, forever the "Heaviest" soul to his believers.
If he were to ever act beneath his station, to show a "cheap" emotion like petty greed or cowardice, the illusion would shatter. The value he bestowed upon his followers would vanish, leaving them "worthless" and turning their faith into a vengeful fury.
To become the Absolute Standard, Nwadiebube realized his path toward divinity was not just a rise in power, it was a narrow, suffocating corridor of self-denial.
If he was to be the source of all Value, his every action had to reflect the scarcity and weight of gold. He would have to speak less. When he did open his mouth, his words could not be idle chatter. They had to be treated as "Gold" rare, heavy, and final. To speak too much was to suffer inflation, to lie was to mint counterfeit currency.
He could no longer indulge in the "low-value" methods of the shadows. Poisons, stealth, and trickery were the tools of the desperate and the weak. If the God of Value used a shortcut, he "devalued" his own soul, signaling to the world that his power was not absolute enough to win through sheer pressure.
The most agonizing requirement was the need for Divine Detachment. To desire something is to acknowledge that the object has a worth higher than or external to oneself.
"If I crave it, I admit it is more precious than I am. And if anything is more precious than the Standard, the Standard is broken."
Nwadiebube was to become a being who desired nothing, because he was the one who defined what was desirable.
This was where the path became a torture rack. Nwadiebube was not a blank slate; he was a man of visceral, jagged ambition. He was a Cursed King, afflicted by the spirit of Possession. The mere thought of losing his wife or something that belonged to him drove him to the brink of madness.
How could a man who obsessed over having things pretend to be a god who was above things? His greed demanded he take, his to be Divinity demanded he be the source.
He would have to bury his hunger under the crushing weight of his domain, performing the role of the Stoic Standard while his inner self screamed with the need to possess.
But this was his only path to true power. He tried telling himself it was a temporary mask, a "Falsehood" borrowed from Murmur’s teachings that would eventually harden into an objective "Truth" once he fully ascended. He knew that upon reaching godhood, the limitations would fall away.
But as he looked at the golden lion, a creature of pure, unmoving arrogance, a chilling question remained. Who would be left at the end? If he spent decades pretending to be a cold, unyielding scale, would the man with greed and ambition still exist beneath the gold? Or would the "Weight of the Humbled Horizon" eventually crush the man, leaving behind nothing but a beautiful, hollow statue of what was once a man.
A heavy, ragged sigh escaped Nwadiebube’s lips, shattering the stillness of his meditation. He turned his gaze toward his queen, whose rhythmic breathing was the only sound in the dim chamber. Even in sleep, her features were soft and serene, a stark contrast to the storm currently brewing within his own mind.
A strange thrill hummed beneath his skin. He knew that Osita’s wife was likely awake at this very hour, perhaps staring directly at him now. The mere thought sent a shiver of strange joy through him, a temptation he acted upon. Reaching out, he brushed a stray lock of hair from his queen’s face, his fingers lingering against her warm skin before he leaned down to press a lingering, penitent kiss to her forehead.
He sat up and eased himself out of the bed. The weight of his future pressed down on him, heavy and suffocating. The path he had sought for so long finally lay clear before him, yet he stood paralyzed, haunted by the steep price that power would demand. He realized with chilling clarity that his time would be forfeit the moment he stepped onto that road.
Before he committed himself to an irreversible fate, the king made a silent vow, he would savor what little time he had left with those who held his heart. Above all, he needed his sister. She was his anchor, the only one strong enough to hold him steady. He had to lay the truth bare before her, trusting that she alone could guide him and keep his soul from straying into the shadows that awaited him.