Chapter 490: Ch 490: The last age of Gods – Part 4
The world Julius conjured unfolded before lissa and Bruce like a painted dream.
They stood upon a hill crowned with golden grass swaying under a gentle breeze, the sky above them a flawless canvas of blue without a single blemish.
Below stretched a city gleaming like polished marble, its streets clean and orderly, filled with people who walked with serene smiles on their faces.
Children laughed in gardens, rchants sold wares without raising their voices, and soldiers in silver armor stood guard not with suspicion, but with quiet dignity.
Julius spread his arms, his robes gleaming with a divine luster.
“Behold my kingdom. A world where everyone is equal, free to live as they please. No poverty, no cri, no despair. Only peace… as long as they acknowledge as their rightful ruler and revere my na.”
lissa narrowed her eyes. At first glance, the harmony was intoxicating.
She almost wanted to believe it. Yet as she studied the people more closely, she caught a glimpse of sothing buried beneath their smiles.
Their eyes did not shine with joy—they were flat, hollow, restrained. The laughter of the children was chanical, repeating like clockwork.
A shopkeeper bowed to a passing knight, but his shoulders shook minutely, as though hiding a tremor of fear.
Bruce clenched his fist.
“This… isn’t right.”
Julius turned, his eyes shining with zeal.
“It is right. Every soul here knows their place, and every soul is safe. No theft, no war, no betrayal. This is perfection itself, and it can beco your ho as well. You’ve fought hard for your ideals, but why waste your lives in conflict when I offer you peace beyond asure?”
lissa’s jaw tightened. She stepped forward, her blade at her side though she did not raise it.
“No. This isn’t peace. This is a cage dressed up with flowers.”
The emperor’s smile faltered.
“A cage? You mistake order for chains. The people live without suffering here. Look at them—do they not appear happy to you?”
She shook her head.
“No. Their eyes tell otherwise. They’ve given up their freedom, their voices, their right to feel sadness or anger. They’re bound to you, Julius. Every smile here bends toward your approval. That’s not happiness—it’s worship forced into every breath they take.”
For the first ti, Julius’s perfect composure cracked. His eyes narrowed, and he stepped closer, his aura pressing down on them like a mountain.
“And what do you know of happiness, girl? You, a re mortal clinging to scraps of strength? I have seen kingdoms rise and fall, seen n slaughter their neighbors for a loaf of bread. I ended all of that. I gave them peace!”
lissa’s voice shook, but she didn’t back down.
“Peace that silences sorrow isn’t peace—it’s oppression. You’ve never walked as we have. You’ve never known what it’s like to starve, to bleed, to watch everything you love be trampled. You claim to understand suffering, but you don’t. You’ve only looked down from above, giving orders. You can’t make ordinary people happy because you’ve never been one of them.”
Bruce stepped in beside her, his broken blade still in hand, his glare sharp.
“lissa’s right. You live in privilege, in power. You’ve never carried the weight of being powerless. That’s why you’ll never understand. And that’s why we’ll never kneel to you.”
The words struck Julius harder than any blade.
For a mont his face twisted with fury, divine light flaring violently around him. The world trembled—the children’s laughter cracked, buildings wavered like reflections in water.
His voice was thunder, furious yet restrained.
“You dare lecture ? I gave this world perfection! I rid it of bloodshed and grief, and you call blind? Fools! You cannot see the gift before you!”
lissa stood her ground, chest heaving from the weight of his aura.
“No. I see it clearly. And I refuse it. Because I’d rather fight for people’s freedom to smile, cry, or scream in pain, than see them chained to your false paradise.”
Her rejection rang through the world like a bell. The hollow smiles of the people flickered, their forms wavering as though shadows cast by an unsteady fla.
Julius’s fury surged, his figure blazing with divine fire—yet just as quickly, it dimd. He looked at her with cold disdain, his anger narrowing into sothing quieter and more dangerous.
“Very well!”
He said softly, his tone laced with venom.
“Remain in your delusion. But know this—you are already mine. This world is bound to , and now so are you. You will stay here forever, trapped in the perfection you so despise. Rot in it if you must.”
lissa flinched as the golden sky cracked faintly overhead, a reminder of the system’s earlier warning.
Bruce shifted closer, protective, but Julius no longer struck at them. His form shimred, already dissolving into the air.
“Your words bore now. Struggle if you wish. It will make no difference. You belong to this world, and it belongs to .”
Julius said, voice echoing as his presence faded.
And then he was gone.
The silence that followed was crushing. The city below carried on, the people still smiling their hollow smiles, yet there was no longer a god above them to enforce that order.
lissa’s hand shook on her blade, the cut on her cheek still stinging.
Bruce let out a heavy breath.
“So… now what? He’s left us in his toy world. If he’s right, we might never get out.”
lissa looked at the people below again, at their beautiful prison, and clenched her fists.
“Then we’ll just have to break it. For them… and for us.”
Though the false sun still shone brightly, a shadow seed to pass over the perfect city as her words settled into the air.
The dreamlike paradise Julius had crafted suddenly felt thinner, weaker, as if the cracks in its foundation were waiting for soone brave enough to pull them apart.
lissa lifted her blade.
“We’ll find a way. No matter what it takes.”
And for the first ti since stepping into Julius’s world, the hollow smiles of the people seed to waver, almost as though a spark of truth had slipped past their chains.
The blinding light pierced through the false paradise, forcing both lissa and Bruce to shield their eyes.
The people clawing at them shrieked and staggered back, their desperate hands trembling in fear of the radiance.
For the first ti since stepping into Emperor Julius’s world, lissa felt the suffocating darkness peel away, even if just a little.
Bruce steadied himself, narrowing his eyes as the light continued to burn away the shadows clinging to the people’s smiling faces.
“lissa… that’s not ordinary light. It’s fighting against his influence.”
He muttered, tightening his grip on his broken weapon.
lissa’s heartbeat quickened. She could see it now—tiny cracks forming in the perfection of Julius’s fabricated realm.
The brightness revealed tears running down cheeks, hollow stares behind forced smiles, and trembling bodies hiding beneath false joy.
These people weren’t worshippers by choice. They were puppets.
The mob hesitated, caught between Emperor Julius’s control and the light’s power. That hesitation gave lissa and Bruce precious seconds.
“Bruce, this world isn’t real. But these people are suffering. We can’t let them chain us down too.”
lissa whispered, her voice firm despite her fear, ”
Bruce nodded grimly.
“Then we fight—with everything.”
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