Grace was telling the truth.

No matter how strong someone's willpower was, tiny tells always gave them away when they lied. To an ultimate grandmaster, those tells weren't just noticeable, but they were amplified a hundredfold.

Most of what she said was true. She'd simply laced it with a few well-placed lies. Truth and falsehood blurred together until no one could tell them apart.

The breakthrough technique she claimed to have found in the ancient manuscripts was real. However, she never promised it would work or how far someone could get with it. Just in case, she'd made sure to cover her tracks.

Grace had copied the technique exactly as written, so she could swear a binding oath that it was authentic. But she had also scrambled key parts of the instructions and built two conflicting cultivation paths into it. That way, neither Zeus nor Hera could detect the sabotage or break through.

Grace had poured time and effort into the deception. To her, his sudden threat was nothing mor