Page 154 - TruthAboutLyingFinalAmazon18

The Truth About Lying
The world watched in horrified silence as the leader of the Iron Union was doubled over by a violent, involuntary contraction of the diaphragm, his face turning a sickly purple as he retched into the dead air. This was the same physical agony Henry had seen in the Quiet Zone, the same neurological tether that had paralyzed the Martinez family, now serving as the final, desperate barrier between humanity and a global holocaust. The truth hadn't set Volkov free; it had physically broken him before he could break the world.
The screen went black.
Henry stared at the blank screen. The entire world had been destroyed, not by a lie, but by the cold, flawless logic of the Truth. There was no deceit to punish, no malice to blame, only two parties, legally and morally bound to adhere to their absolute, self-destructive realities.
He looked up at the ceiling of the ancient archive, hearing the first, distant, muffled thump of the kinetic launch platforms initiating their global ascent. The sound was immediately followed by the rising, apocalyptic wail of every air-raid siren that still functioned in the city.
He had won the war against illusion, and in doing so, he had proven that only the illusion could guarantee survival. The collapse was total. It was worse than he could have ever imagined.
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