Marvel's master of cosmic magic-Chapter 776

It finally made sense why the churches had been kept in the dark.

Rowan Mercer leaned back, the last pieces clicking into place with an almost unpleasant clarity. The churches of this world had long enforced a single, unbreakable rule across every nation. A king could wield supernatural power, but only up to a carefully defined threshold. Cross it, and abdication was mandatory. No exceptions. No negotiations.

Officially, the justification was simple. Anyone who surpassed that limit ceased to be fully human. Their lifespan stretched centuries beyond the natural order. A ruler who never aged would eventually unsettle the public, especially when most ordinary people had no idea such powers even existed. Faith in gods was common. Knowledge of what lurked behind the veil was not.

Rowan had never believed that explanation was the real reason.

Longevity was just a convenient excuse. The truth was control. A king who ruled too long grew independent. Ambitious. Difficult to leash. The churches wanted crowns that could be replaced, not monarchs who could outlive entire bloodlines.

And King George had decided he was done kneeling.

To pursue his transformation into a god-emperor, the king would have to shatter the churches’ rule and climb far beyond the permitted limit. That kind of transgression could only happen in secrecy. If the truth surfaced too early, the churches would tear the plan apart before it ever reached completion.

Rowan exhaled slowly. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Once, he had felt a flicker of respect for the king. A reformer, he’d thought. A ruler trying to drag his country forward for the sake of its people. Now that illusion lay in pieces. The reforms, the purges, even the human trafficking rumors. They were all fuel for a single goal.

Power. Absolute and eternal.

The lives spent along the way were merely the cost of admission.

Rowan felt no personal hatred. The king’s crimes hadn’t touched him directly, and under normal circumstances he would have watched events unfold from a distance. If ambition consumed the throne, that was history’s problem.

But fate had other plans.

Bernadette’s offer had been impossible to ignore. A divine relic in exchange for rescuing Roselle. And Roselle was already what George aspired to become. There could never be two of the same kind. One throne. One apex.

If Roselle returned, the king’s decades of preparation would collapse into nothing.

Rowan almost laughed at the thought.

Worse for the king, the moment he attempted the final step, the ritual would simply kill him outright. No ascension. No warning. Just a corpse on a ceremonial floor, crushed by a truth he had never suspected.

Rowan’s lips curved faintly.

He made a mental note to be present when it happened. There were things worth collecting from the aftermath.

Timing was not a concern. Whether Bernadette found the island soon or not, Rowan had other means of accelerating the search. And even if the king rushed the ritual prematurely, disruption would be trivial. One damaged site. One broken keystone. The entire process would unravel.

While Rowan mapped inevitabilities, King George dreamed.

In the silent realm of sleep, he met with Adam.

The warning came without pleasantries. The churches were growing suspicious. Explanations had been offered, relics invoked, distractions deployed, but concealment had an expiration date.

George bristled. This was too soon. The plan was supposed to mature quietly.

Adam urged haste. There was something wrong, something approaching. A pressure in the unseen currents that refused to be ignored.

George understood what that meant. Instinct sharpened his resolve.

He had allies the churches did not know about. Deals struck in shadow. If suspicion could not be erased, it could be buried under chaos.

A catastrophe, carefully engineered, would do several things at once. It would accelerate stalled reforms. It would consume the churches’ attention. And it would neatly mask both the missing populace and the forbidden construction projects scattered across the capital.

The cost would be staggering. Tens of thousands dead.

George did not hesitate.

If their deaths paved the road to divinity, they should be honored by the privilege.

Adam considered, then nodded. Other powers were occupied. Intervention was unlikely. The moment was dangerous, but opportunity favored the bold.

As the dream dissolved, one truth remained unspoken between them.

The disaster was no longer a possibility.

It was scheduled.