Chapter 907: 907
And Tyrion was the dog who had picked it up.
Like a terrified child desperately trying to hide a stolen toy before their parents walked through the door, a sudden, wild panic overtook him.
He couldn’t carry this in his hands. He couldn’t keep it in a spatial ring where another paragon might sniff out its unique signature. He needed it completely hidden from the world.
With a trembling hand, Tyrion violently tore off his upper cloak and shirt, exposing his chest to the damp morning air. Steeling his nerves, he focused a razor-thin edge of his domain law onto his index finger. He pressed it to his abdomen and drew a clean, brutal line straight across his stomach.
Blood welled up instantly, spilling down his waist as he forced the wound wide open, creating a dark, bleeding pocket within his own flesh.
Wincing through the searing pain, he took the heavy, light-absorbing Tome and shoved it deep into the bloody cavity, packing it tightly against his ribs. The moment the book was nested safely inside his body, Tyrion clenched his teeth and forced his raw willpower to flare.
Snap.
In the blink of an eye, the severed muscles knit themselves back together. The skin closed, the blood ceased flowing, and the flesh sealed perfectly, leaving only a faint, angry red line that rapidly faded into smooth, unmarked skin. The Tome was gone, buried deep within the only vault he could truly trust, his own body.
Tyrion did not look back.
He began his long, grueling path back to the Sun Kingdom. But the arrogant, flashy Paragon who had once ruled the skies was gone. There was no golden streak parting the clouds, no booming shockwave of prideful speed.
Instead, Tyrion stayed low, weaving through the thick, suffocating canopy of the forest like a common thief. He suppressed his mana to a microscopic flicker, hiding his presence within the natural ambient energy of the wilderness. He wanted, more than anything, to be completely invisible.
The silence of the southern continent, which had once felt like his personal playground, now felt like a predatory eye.
Every rustle of the leaves made his heart skip a beat. Every shadow stretching across the forest floor looked like a grasping hand. Even the mundane animals, the birds nesting in the branches, the rodents scurrying through the dirt, the wild beasts tracking the scent of rain, had him completely on edge. He found himself glaring at them with wild, paranoid eyes, convinced that behind their blank, animal stares lay the mocking, all-knowing gaze of the entity that had trapped him.
They knew. He was sure they knew.
With his stomach heavy with the weight of a stolen secret and his mind fractured by paranoia, the Paragon slunk through the shadows, desperately praying that the entity would let him make it home alive.
"I am quite the fruitful god, aren’t I?" Ikenga mused, his voice echoing withself-assured resonance as he addressed the shifting shadow beside him.
Phantom who was adressed shifed, his everchaning form coalescing into the sharp, unmistakable features of Tyrion. "Indeed, Creator. Few are graced with such singular favor, let alone the bounty of your direct intervention."
Ikenga offered a slow, satisfied nod, his gaze fixed on the world below "I couldn’t agree more. After all, I didn’t merely guide him, I handed the world to him on a silver platter."
Turning his attention back to the mimicry of Tyrion, Ikenga’s eyes glinted with cold curiosity. "Tell me, how does it feel to secure your first Sixth-tier client?"
Phantom raised a translucent hand, conjuring a flickering, ghostly image of the man himself, Tyrion, trapped in the web of his own desires. "It is a fascinating endeavor, my Lord. I would never have managed to burrow so deep into his psyche without the leverage your influence provided."
The shadow’s voice took on a darker, analytical tone. "Ambitions at the level of Paragons are formidable, fortified by their laws and anchored by exceptionally resilient souls. There is rarely a moment where their flame of ambition falters. Without that flicker of hesitation, there is no crack for me to exploit, and no shadow for me to take root in."
Phanthom peered down at the flickering, miniature likeness of Tyrion resting in his palm. The man’s image was tight, distorted by the subtle, crushing weight of his own burgeoning avarice. "I have learned something new from you once again," Phanthom murmured, his tone contemplative. "With only a few calculated actions, you triggered a seismic fluctuation in the soul of a Paragon. His greed has become the very architecture of his prison."
As Ikenga observed the trap closing, the figure of Phantom rippled, shedding the sharp features of Tyrion and dissolving back into its natural, perpetually shifting state.
"You were wrong about one thing, Creator," Phantom intoned, the voice vibrating with clarity.
Ikenga paused, his brow arching in amusement. "And what, pray tell, is that?"
A heavy, lingering silence stretched between them before Phantom retreated further, pulling itself into the depths of Ikenga’s shadow. "Your claim that at my current stage, I have nothing left to learn from you. In this world, there is no light bright enough to cast a shadow over me because I am not merely the absence of light."
A sharp edge of arrogance pierced through his retreating voice. "I am the spotlight Phantom. Without your blinding, overwhelming brilliance to anchor me, I would cease to be a shadow, I would consume the stage and become the light myself, rendering the very essence of my name meaningless. There will be grander stages for me to perform in the future, my Lord. But for now... I am content to dwell within your shadow."
Ikenga turned toward Mahu, a smirk playing on his lips as he gestured vaguely toward his shadow. "Why do all the children I raise grow so rebellious?" he asked, his tone radiating a possessive pride, as if their defiance were merely a testament to his own potency as a creator.
Mahu didn’t even bother to look at him. Her gaze was locked onto the northern continent, where the fires of war painted the horizon in hues of ash and iron. Her mind was weighing the utility of intervening on behalf of the Silver Kingdom. They were a fascinating collection of mortals, and their fervent, unwavering devotion was a pleasant enough tribute but in the cold calculus of her divinity, their struggle contributed nothing to the grander scheme of things.
The war was a messy, predictable byproduct of their petty hunger for land and ephemeral power. She felt a flicker of obligation, a lingering resonance from their centuries of worship but she was an Origin God. The approval of mortals meant little, and their extinction would be a negligible footnote in the annals of existence.
She turned the problem over in her mind, seeking a middle path. If they invoked her name, her personal interference would be beneath her station, it would be an unnecessary tether to a flickering flame.
Then, a thought blossomed, "An avatar"
She wouldn’t need to descend. She could weave a fragment of her essence, a construct with a will entirely its own, to manifest in her stead. It would serve as the perfect proxy, a reflection of her power, yet distinct enough to bear the burden of their survival without her having to move much.
"I have an idea," she declared, the sudden gravity in her voice pulling Ikenga’s full attention away from his own machinations.
"I am intrigued," Ikenga replied, his eyes narrowing with curiosity as he leaned in to observe her. "Enlighten me."
"It concerns my worshippers in the north," Mahu began, her gaze drifting back to the war-torn continent. "Their struggle is beneath my concern, yet I have grown fond of them. To abandon them entirely feels... wasteful, given their longevity of faith. So..."
She raised both hands, performing a display that held Ikenga captive. In her right palm, a swirling sphere of incandescent brilliance pulsed, the dense, accumulated essence of centuries of prayer. In her left, she held a shimmering, hollow construct, an avatar of her own design, a perfect, dormant vessel awaiting a spark.
Ikenga’s gaze flickered between the two, his intellect instantly parsing the implications. "Fascinating," he breathed, the word heavy with anticipation.
Mahu felt a ripple of satisfaction at his validation. She lifted the sphere of radiance, its light reflecting in her calm, ancient eyes. "In this hand, the total accumulation of faith birthed from the Silver Kingdom alone, every prayer, every sacrifice, every desperate plea."
She then raised her other hand, bringing the avatar into focus. "And here, the construct. Tell me, Ikenga," she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper of cosmic inquiry, "if I were to weave these two into a single entity, what would be the true nature of the result?"
Ikenga’s expression shifted, his previous amusement softening into genuine, thoughtful admiration. "It would be the greatest gift you could ever offer them," he said, his voice devoid of his usual arrogance.
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