Heavenly Opposers-Chapter 344 - 343-The Choice.
’So you focused the treasures toward what I will be needing to lie to the gods that will come my way.’
Azrail mused. He liked the specifications. Each of the treasures would help him focus his lies around them, because even right now, Azrail was playing with the gods, ranging from those within the faction of Thanatos to even the ones in Hera and Hephaestus. So these things hidden away as treasures within Hera, which she didn’t know how to use or what their functions were, would make things easier for him.
The question now was how he could present it and ask for the treasure without asking for the treasure. It should not show that he knew about it, but enough to steer it there, which was not an easy task at all. Azrail would have to play more of the death power card, yet the way he described them should be unique enough to get the attention he wanted.
’Maybe this might work.’
With an idea in his mind, Azrail spoke.
"I would like to try my luck. Are there any treasures that you haven’t identified that you’ve kept away? Something on which I can try my luck?"
"Oh? That is an interesting choice..."
Amusement filled Hera’s voice, even though she did not expect these words from him. Something which, in a certain way, was a very idiotic choice. After all, Hera had promised to give him a gift. If he played it right, he would have been able to increase his power within the faction and maybe find something even more important that could guide him down a better path. Yet here, Azrail was throwing it all away for a chance that might not even work.
After all, what were the chances Azrail could even know what something was, much less use it, when even Hera didn’t know what it was?
So in all moves, it was plain stupid. But he had shown himself to be someone who was not stupid, which meant he had a card to play to detect these treasures that Hera might not even know.
’It’s a risky gamble, but the profits here outweigh the risks.’
Keeping that thought in mind, Azrail waited for the response, which came quickly.
"Sure. There is a section of my treasure room in which lie treasures I have no use for or have no intel about. You can pick one among them..."
A chilling tone was used when the words were spoken, but Azrail just kept his smile intact as soon as a notification hit him. A system notification that gave access to a private link that would take him into the virtual treasure room, which was the virtual collection of these treasures.
"You have ten minutes, after which you will be kicked out."
’Still a controlling bitch.’
With that thought, Azrail disappeared as he soon appeared in a vast, majestic room, one whose end Azrail couldn’t exactly see. The ceilings were high, vast hallways stretched out, and within this room lay several glass cases, each case holding something that wasn’t measured, but the power in them was unmistakable. Perhaps if understood, maybe even useful.
Azrail didn’t waste his time. He started to move through this vast hallway-like place, where he could see several glass cases. Some were small, holding maybe a stone-sized treasure, to some so huge that they couldn’t even measure it correctly, the glass case size maybe holding a massive rock that seemed to disappear into the never-ending ceiling of the room.
Thus, Azrail moved fast. Azrail knew Hera. Even though she acted all good and charming and even open-minded, she was very, very petty with giving her stuff away, which meant she didn’t want to give anything like this to him, any part of this treasure she didn’t want to hand over. She had even set the ten-minute timer.
It was banking on the fact that perhaps Azrail had something he wanted to find, which he did, and she was hoping the time would run out before Azrail could even find it.
’She really deserves everything that is coming to her.’
Just to maintain her sense of standing and to show a sense of where she was ’giving,’ that was the only reason she allowed Azrail in here. If she hadn’t given her word about granting a gift, no matter what, Azrail would have done, he would never had the right to enter this place. The gray line between what she could give and could not, Azrail had pulled at it.
All the while, he kept thinking. Azrail was moving through the place with his All-Seer by his side. Each treasure he looked at, the information was already given to him. Thus, Azrail kept flashing and moving through the large place with speed, his focus shifting and shifting. Among the options that were given to him, Azrail had already selected what he wanted.
Thus, treasure after treasure, Azrail kept moving through, time ticking by minute by minute. Soon, when Azrail only had three minutes left, he came upon a glass container, this one being more moderate in size, kept within a container on a stand. The sight of it, and its information, made Azrail’s eyes twinkle.
’Bingo!’
Azrail slowed his steps for the first time since entering the vault.
Before him stood a glass container unlike the others. It was not ornate. No divine engravings. No excessive sealing arrays layered over one another. Just a clear, thick casing resting on a dark pedestal, as if whoever placed it here had not known whether to lock it away... or throw it out.
Inside was nothing that resembled a weapon.
Nothing that even looked useful.
At its centre hovered a small, dense distortion in the air. Roughly the size of a clenched fist. It had no fixed shape. At times, it looked like a fragment of shadow compressed too tightly. At others, it resembled folded light that refused to reflect properly.
Azrail stared at it, and for a brief moment, his vision blurred.
Not from power.
From weight.
It felt heavy without pressing down. Present without occupying space. Like something that should have collapsed reality around it, but didn’t, simply because the rules at the time of its creation had been... incomplete.
No aura flared.
No pressure leaked.
And yet, Azrail could feel it pressing against causality itself.
’She really doesn’t know what this is.’
Hera had likely passed this thing a thousand times, dismissing it as a defective remnant of divine rhetoric. Something born from early Olympus debates. A failed authority shard. A useless philosophical artefact.
Azrail knew better.
He stepped closer.
The glass did not resist him.
The moment his hand hovered inches from the casing, the All-Seer reacted.
The world froze for a fraction of a second.
Then—
[Unregistered Concept Detected]
[Origin Timestamp: Pre-Law Era]
[Warning: Appraisal data incomplete] 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞
[Forcing deep-layer interpretation...]
A translucent screen unfolded before Azrail’s eyes, lines of text forming slowly, as if even the All-Seer was cautious about naming what lay before him.
================
[Appraisal]
Name: The Weight of the First Lie
Classification: Foundational Falsehood Anchor
State: Dormant | Unbound
Visibility: Ignored by Divine Authority Systems
Description:
This is not an object.
This is not a memory.
This is the accumulated mass of the first lie ever spoken by a god and not punished for it.
When truth had no enforcement, falsehood gained structure.
This Weight is the residue of that moment.
It exists because reality hesitated.
Primary Effect:
When the bearer knowingly lies to a divine entity, the lie is temporarily accepted by divine systems as structurally valid.
The world does not believe the lie.
It processes it.
Secondary Effect (Hidden):
The duration and stability of the lie scale with the authority of the deceived entity.
Gods reinforce the falsehood by interacting with it.
Tertiary Effect (Sealed):
If the lie aligns with the target’s desire or bias, collapse resistance increases exponentially.
Some lies may never fully unravel.
Binding Requirement:
The bearer must accept the inevitability of distortion.
Truth will no longer be neutral.
Hidden Cost:
Each stabilised falsehood adds mass to the Weight.
As mass increases, even truths spoken by the bearer may bend.
Evaluation:
Unfit for gods.
Unstable for heroes.
Optimal for entities that exist between consequence and intent, perfect maybe for Irregulars.
================
The appraisal faded.
