Julius begins the game with two rules: first, he will take the opening move; second, no changes or deviations outside the established rules are allowed. The god groans—each octave of frustration layered upon the last—sounding, to Julius, like the rage of every living soul made manifest. Calmly, he retrieves a box of sticks and arranges them into rows: one, three, five. With each placed stick, the god grows more agitated, its face twisting, seething with barely contained fury. But it does nothing. It can only watch. As the eerie scrape of wooden sticks echoes through the chamber and falls into silence, the game begins. The rules of Nim are simple: the player who takes the final stick wins. On each turn, one may remove one or two sticks—a simple game, yet fundamentally flawed.

  Julius moves first, plucking a single stick from the row. The god's hands tremble with apprehension, reassuring itself that no mortal could ever defeat a god. It takes two sticks. Julius responds instantly, removing one.

  A trivial move, yet the god knows: victory is already out of reach.

  The god studies the board and comes to the inescapable conclusion: three sticks remain. If it takes two, Julius will take the last. If it takes one, Julius will take the final two. Either way, the game is lost. Defeated, the god takes a single stick, leaving only two.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  It is now Julius's turn.

  The god's voice shifts—softens—taking on the tone of a young woman. At first, Julius scoffs at the desperate mimicry, seeing it as a final, pitiful trick. But then the voice pleads, and something in it strikes him: a familiarity he hasn't felt in years.

  The god speaks with her voice—the strange woman from long ago.

  It continues to beg, its words sweet and gentle, haunting in their precision. Its eyes begin to multiply, fractaling like a fly's compound vision, spiraling outward until they suddenly snap back, all of them transfixed onto Julius's hand, now hovering over the final two sticks.

  Silence.

  The god lies helpless.

  Julius stands victorious.

  Julius clasps the final two sticks between his fingers, his thumb resting beneath their base. The position is precise—one slight twitch, even an involuntary one, and the game would be over. A god, undone.

  But he doesn't move. Not yet.

  Instead, he looks up and meets the deity's many shifting eyes.

  His voice is quiet, firm.

  "No masks. No lies. No trickery."

  "You're about to lose your divinity—and maybe your life. But before I end this... who are you?"

  A veil of shadow swept over the deity. Cracks began to form across the once-soft skin of the woman's borrowed face, fractures spreading like fault lines. From each rupture, an entrancing array of light spilled forth—color beyond color, like starlight bleeding through broken flesh.

  Julius had never witnessed anything so vast, so terrible, so beautiful. He could not look away.

  The mortal shell collapsed, shattering like old porcelain.

  And in its place stood—undeniably, unrestrained—a god. A true god. One no longer bound by the laws of this world.