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And so the Architect gazed upon the infinite cosmic essence, the potential created by the Cupbearer's first, magnificent outpouring. With hands that shaped the Unseen, the Shaper took this dust. He wove it. He molded it. From his will sprang a trillion worlds, a tapestry of stars and spheres, the infinite domains of the Seen Reality.
Then, the Witness acted. From the boundless illumination that crowned the Shaper's throne within the Atrium, the Witness took a measure of that light. This light he did not keep, but scattered it through his prism. From it he cast forth the Shapers glory in infinite rays, each a spark, each a new soul, sent to find its place within the Shaper's vast creation.
And the Cupbearer from his ever-flowing Cup poured forth a great river. A great waterfall of blood-red essence, a river of pure vitality, poured endlessly from the lip of his Cup at the right hand of the Shaper, it flows now still, its streams granting all inhabitants of the Atrium life unending. This river divided, becoming infinite streams that flowed to every world, every creation, supplying them with the breath of life, allowing them to birth creatures of all forms.
Finally, the Keeper performed his sacred duty. He saw the connection of each soul to its source, the luminous thread leading back to the Atrium. And he obscured it. He veiled the path, so that only the most enlightened, those who sought truth with a obsession, could find their way back to bask in the Shaper's glory. To all others, the path was hidden. Yet, in the realm of sleep, when the mortal mind is quiet, every soul receives a fleeting glimpse, a whisper of memory, of the Atrium shifting landscapes.
- Excerpt from the Atrium Primarium Novum
The next election was a mere formality. The profound changes Nicholas had engineered were deeply popular. A strong economy, expanded rights, and a sense of national purpose guaranteed his victory. For the first time, he did not need the Order's subtle machinations or the gods' distant influence. The people's will was his instrument.
He spent the next three years expanding his faith with relentless focus. His dedicated priests, empowered by growing belief, moved quietly into a troubled Europe.
They placed loyal Order members in bureaucratic posts, in press offices, in the halls of fading power. His influence became a deep root system spreading under the continent.
Simultaneously, his faith blossomed further in South America and solidified its hold in the Philippines. The faith flowing into the Atrium was now a deep, powerful ocean, a reservoir of energy so vast it hummed in his bones. It was more than enough. Creating five major gods would be a simple matter of will and ritual.
But the year was 1937, and a stark crossroads loomed. His prescience and intelligence reports were clear. Hitler would move soon. The Anschluss, the annexation of Austria, was imminent.
That act would provide Britain and America a perfect, legal pretext for war, a violation of the Treaty of Versailles. He could activate the mutual defense treaty, intervene, and likely prevent a larger conflict.
This was his dilemma. If he acted, the great war, the Second World War, might be stillborn.
The conflict would be localized, brief. But with it would vanish the unprecedented global surge of faith such a cataclysm generated, the terror, the hope, the desperate prayers of entire nations. He would be a successful president, but not be so deeply remebered. The faith needed to cement his legend for the ages might never materialize.
If he stood aside, he would be complicit. He would be allowing a madman to grow stronger, watching the first domino fall, knowing it would lead to a chain reaction of death and suffering on an unimaginable scale.
Tens of millions would die in battles and camps. To allow that for personal power, for faith, would make him a monster. He would be exactly like the Olympians, sacrificing mortal lives on the altar of his own ambition. His conscience, a relic from a life he thought he had shed, would not allow it.
His decision was swift and firm. He would intervene. He would not let millions die for his own gain. But as he resolved to act, a more elegant, more audacious plan crystallized in his strategic mind. Why merely react? Why not preempt?
He would not wait for the invasion. He began positioning his forces immediately. The powerful Atlantic Fleet shifted, its new battleships and carriers taking up stations in the North Sea, a visible, looming presence just outside German waters.
Troop transports gathered in British ports, a clear signal of intent. Detailed plans for a full-scale invasion and occupation of Germany were drawn up by a military command now utterly loyal to him.
His plan was breathtaking in its scope. The moment German troops crossed the Austrian border, American forces would cross into Germany. It would not be a war to liberate Austria; it would be a war to annex the German state itself, to dismantle the Nazi regime before it could fully arm.
He would present it to the world as a necessary, surgical strike to prevent a second, greater war. It was a move of pure, imperial power, draped in the language of peace.
This path gave him everything. It would bring him immense, immediate fame as the president who single-handedly stopped a rising tyrant. It would spare Europe the horrific carnage he knew was coming.
And it would generate a different, but still potent, form of faith. He could have his power and keep his conscience clean.
And he had the ultimate argument. The nuclear project, "Manhattan," was complete. Under his direct guidance, using knowledge from a future life and the prescient insights of the Book of Probability, his scientists had achieved in years what would have taken decades.
Marcus, as Speaker, had funneled immense, unaccountable resources into the program. America possessed atomic bombs while the rest of the world still struggled with the basic physics. He was fully prepared to use one in a stunning demonstration of force.
A single, terrifying detonation over an unpopulated part of Germany could end all resistance before it began, shocking the world into submission and saving countless lives in a conventional invasion.
The pieces were set. The world, unaware of the true stakes, held its breath as the tension in Europe mounted. In the Oval Office and in his sanctuary, Nicholas waited, ready to not just enter history, but to seize it by the throat and rewrite its next chapter according to his own design.
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