The Guardian gods Chapter 855 855: 855

What was initially perceived as a mere summons unexpectedly revealed itself as a pivotal trigger. Before the Paragons could close the gap, or the King could fully grasp his coveted prize, a blinding, incandescent radiance burst forth from the Queen's tightly clenched fist. The red key, imbued with every last drop of mana Amina could channel into it, transitioned from a mere implement into a veritable gateway.

A shimmering, otherworldly door materialized at the epicenter of the brilliant light. It pulsed with a localized, ferocious gravitational pull, a Singular Pull that paid no heed to the surrounding furniture, the palace's stonework, or even the other Paragons. Its sole desire was the Queen herself.

The Queen's form was violently drawn toward the threshold with alarming speed. Nwadiebube, reacting on sheer, instinctual desperation, lunged forward. He managed to grasp her ankle just as she began to lift off the bed, his muscles straining as he drove his sword deep into the reinforced stone floor, anchoring them both against the portal's formidable suction.

The metal shrieked against the stone, spitting sparks as his struggle against the unseen current intensified.

"Wake up, Taiwo!!" the King bellowed, his voice a potent mix of abject terror and commanding authority. He recognized that the woman gazing back at him was not the mother of his child, but rather the usurper who threatened to shatter his prophesied future. "Resist her! Awaken!"

Osita moved, his initial step unleashing a shockwave that obliterated nearby furnishings and blew out the remaining window panes in a shower of shattered glass. He became a blur, his hand descending towards Nwadiebube's exposed neck, but his strike was met with a solid thud. Nwadimma had reacted with a speed that rivaled his own, her hands intercepting his blow mid-arc. The collision sent a tremor through the floor, threatening to dislodge the King's anchored sword.

Behind them, the three Paragon guardians surged forward with equal ferocity. Osita didn't even spare them a glance. With a subtle flick of his free hand, he ripped open a rift in the very fabric of the air.

Three distinct portals of obsidian light materialized directly in the path of the charging Paragons. Before they could recalibrate their velocity, the portals flared open, engulfing their advancing figures and snapping shut with finality.

"You have but a minute, perhaps less," Osita's thoughts blared urgently.

He understood that these three would not be detained indefinitely. As Paragons, they possessed the capability to break free from his conjured dimension within moments.

"Release her!" Osita growled, exerting his full strength against Nwadimma, attempting to push past her to reach the King, who remained desperately clinging to the Queen as the iridescent doorway continued its howling pull.

Osita's heart hammered against his ribs. He was acutely aware that his temporal advantage was rapidly diminishing; he had mere seconds before those Paragons would claw their way out of the confined space he had created. He needed an opening.

However, Nwadimma was no mere gambler; she was an individual who long ago recognized that underestimating Osita courted disaster. The instant he presented an opportunity, she acted without hesitation. She didn't probe; she unleashed her full power.

Just as the three Paragons were violently expelled through the domain's threshold, Nwadimma's presence intensified, her power flooding the compromised space.

"Law of the Supporting Shadow," she commanded, her voice a chilling point of stability amidst the developing chaos.

Osita's eyes widened in alarm, the realization dawning too late. He had not anticipated such an immediate and decisive counter-attack. In a swift play of shifting light and profound darkness, both his silhouette and Nwadimma's vanished, leaving Nwadiebube facing an empty, unnervingly silent void.

The abrupt absence of the expansive domain left only Nwadiebube and the Queen, both still ensnared by the door's unyielding gravitational grip. He was beginning to lose the grueling contest; the earlier shockwave had profoundly destabilized him, rendering his grip on his sword dangerously slick and precarious. The hilt groaned audibly in his grasp as it started to slide, an agonizingly slow retreat.

Amina, meanwhile, descended into sheer panic. She could feel her mana reserves dwindling at an alarming rate, her wellspring of power being siphoned away by the relentless pull. She looked up at the King, Taiwo's King, who was exerting every ounce of his strength to keep hold of her. Tears streamed down her face, unbidden, as she whispered, "I am sorry."

With a final, desperate surge of resolve, she concentrated her remaining mana into a slender, searing beam of pure light. She aimed this strike directly at Nwadiebube. Instantly, his body became impossibly heavy, his limbs encased in a sudden, gleaming golden armor. The beam impacted him with substantial force, erupting into a blinding white radiance that forced his eyes shut. In that moment of complete sensory deprivation, the intense strain abruptly released. The Queen's constricting pull vanished, and the pressure on his arms significantly lessened.

A profound sense of relief flooded him, yet as his eyes fluttered open, the fleeting bliss was immediately shattered by sheer horror. His queen, Taiwo, was nowhere to be found. The doorway had completely vanished, leaving behind a terrifying, desolate silence. All that remained in his grasp was the severed weight, the foot of his queen, clutched in a grip that now signified nothing.

"No... NOOO!"

His anguished cry ripped through the opulent palace corridors, its echo reverberating off the grand walls.

Meanwhile, within the interwoven reality meticulously crafted by Nwadimma's formidable power, Osita experienced a sharp surge of profound satisfaction. A slow, triumphant smile crept across his features as he registered the resonance emanating from his own dominion; the door had been restored to its original position. It was accomplished. He had achieved his objective.

Nwadimma observed the subtle shift in his demeanor, her own expression hardening into a mask of icy fury. The stark realization struck her with the force of a physical blow; she finally understood the entirety of what had transpired.

Osita drew a slow, measured breath, his gaze deliberately surveying the newly formed space. "So," he uttered softly, his voice resonating within the immense void, "this is your reality."

The domain presented itself as a suffocating expanse of absolute darkness. Suspended in this abyssal void, Osita possessed an unobstructed vantage point of the vast landscape below, the Omadi Kingdom, spread out and eerily silent like a miniature playset shrouded in darkness.

At the very heart of this shadowy dominion rested a colossal, elaborately designed throne. Nwadiebube occupied it, yet he appeared minuscule in comparison to the colossal entity looming majestically behind him. The astral manifestation of Nwadimma ascended like a monolithic mountain of pure ink, a shadowy colossus adorned with countless arms that appeared to intricately weave the very fabric of the celestial expanse. From its waist downward, it transformed into an amorphous mass of shadow, physically intertwining with the kingdom sprawled out beneath, thereby anchoring its very essence deep within the foundational soil of Omadi.

"So that's the crux of it," Osita remarked, shifting his focus back to Nwadimma. She remained uncharacteristically silent, her piercing gaze locked onto the shimmering, ethereal cloak that swirled dynamically around him, the conspicuous boundary delineating his own competing domain. "This is precisely why you never claimed the throne yourself. You harbored no need to occupy it; instead, you became its very foundation."

Osita consciously refrained from expanding his own domain, acutely aware of the catastrophic repercussions such an action would inflict upon the external world, even within the confined boundaries of this overlapped reality. To unleash the full extent of his power would undoubtedly trigger a violent clash of wills, a literal war between two divergent versions of existence.

Within the confines of the Fifth Stage of cultivation, the tactic of overlapping domains was a relatively common strategic maneuver. Two opposing domains could intersect, thereby establishing a neutral proving ground, a shared space where both combatants could unleash their full might. It represented a delicate balance of power, a mutual understanding reached through concession.

However, such a luxury was entirely absent in the Sixth Stage. At this elevated level of mastery, the act of permitting an overlap was tantamount to subconsciously acknowledging the inherent validity of another Paragon's fundamental worldview. It signaled a subtle, yet undeniable, flicker of doubt in one's own chosen path, an intrinsic weakness that consequently led to an automatic forfeiture for both parties, as their individual truths inevitably crumbled under the immense weight of the other's conviction.

Therefore, for Osita to voluntarily open his domain would inevitably result in an absolute, catastrophic collision. Two distinct realities would be forced to grind against one another, and the resultant friction would inexorably bleed into the physical world, resulting in the utter decimation of the landscape. This was a price neither combatant was currently willing to pay.

This profound principle was the underlying reason why conflicts between individuals of their extraordinary caliber were typically waged utilizing their respective "Astral forms." To circumvent the potential for total structural collapse of the physical world, combatants operating at the Sixth Stage rarely elected to manifest their complete environmental domains. Even so, the physical world remained precariously endangered even when engaging in Astral form combat, a peril that could be effectively mitigated by transporting the conflict to the celestial expanse.

He was fully cognizant of this critical detail, whereas Nwadimma, being a newly ascended Paragon, remained largely unaware, having yet to fully grasp the intricate nuances that accompanied reaching such a formidable stage.

Osita inhaled slowly, his gaze meticulously tracing the indistinct borders of the somber kingdom. He understood that, in this moment, he was essentially a spectral apparition within her dominion, just as she was a phantom within his.

From the perspective of an external observer such as Nwadiebube, it would appear that Nwadimma held all the advantageous positions, with Osita seemingly trapped, a solitary spark adrift in her pervasive darkness. However, Nwadimma's own expression remained rigidly narrowed and deeply wary, as the situation she perceived was undeniably different.