The Guardian gods Chapter 861

"I now officially abdicate the throne to my son, the Crown Prince," Nwadiebeube declared, his golden gaze sweeping toward the shadows where his children stood. "He will step into the light as the new leader of this kingdom, guiding our people toward an era of unprecedented prosperity, even as I set out on the sacred path to ensure the swift arrival of our salvation."

A blinding, golden halo materialized behind his head, casting an ethereal, almost suffocating radiance across the ruined hall. He was leaving them with one final testament. His words were a roaring decree to his people, but they were also a defiant challenge aimed directly at another great being, the hidden entity whose unseen eyes were locked entirely upon him.

"The great gods look down upon us from their distant heights and wish to scatter us to the winds," Nwadiebeube’s voice boomed, carrying a weight that felt heavy enough to crush the earth. "They want to tear what is rightfully ours from our very hands. But the God of the Absolute Standard has answered my deepest plea. He has placed a sacred, unyielding hunger within my soul, a physical weight that refuses to let go.

"I look upon this city, upon these vast fields, upon every single one of your mortal lives, and I say this to you now. You belong to the Standard. You belong to me. And what belongs to the Lion can never be stolen. The false gods claim this path is a curse. They call it a dark, suffocating weight. But I tell you, it is the absolute lock upon our gates! I will hold onto this kingdom with a grip so dense, so terrifyingly tight, that the world itself cannot pry you away from my shadow!"

As the final, thunderous word left his lips, the massive glowing projections abruptly vanished, cutting out all at once. The skies cleared, leaving the entire kingdom plunged into a profound, stunned silence at the gravity of what they had just witnessed.

Deep within the expanses of his realm, Ikenga fell into a sudden, roaring fit of laughter. The sheer, unadulterated joy vibrating from his form was so potent that every resident across his divine domain felt it ripple through their very essence. Yet within that echoing laughter was a mocking undercurrent.

The moment Nwadiebeube had uttered his final, defiant words to the mortal realm, Ikenga had felt a sudden shift.

Deep within the king’s soul, the specific curse Ikenga had woven there began to stir. It was a curse designed to punish the king for his stealing, a blight meant to relentlessly fan the flames of the king’s deepest insecurities, amplifying his terror of loss and forcing Nwadiebeube into a state of extreme, paranoid possessiveness over everything he claimed to own. It was supposed to lead to his downfall, to a localized madness that would rot his rule from the inside out.

Yet, the moment the golden king began to speak, Ikenga’s amusement turned into deep fascination. Through the tether of his divinity, Ikenga witnessed Nwadiebeube’s brave act; the mortal was actively attempting to overwrite the structure of the curse, twisting its very nature to serve his own path toward ascension.

The curse of absolute greed was to be the king’s insurmountable obstacle, a heavy chain dragging him away from divine status. But in that final, critical moment, Nwadiebeube had brilliantly spun the narrative. By declaring himself a devoted guardian willing to hold his people with a "grip so dense," he was recontextualizing his forced, cursed obsession.

He was rewriting his own madness. In the eyes of his people and the laws of his coming divinity, his grotesque greed would no longer look like a curse. It would look like the ultimate, self-sacrificing protection of a god.

The sheer audacity of the king’s countermove filled Ikenga with great amusement. Aside from the entities like the Arch Curses, few truly understood the dual nature of curses. From a superficial perspective, a curse seemed purely destructive, a ruining affliction. But if a soul possessed the sheer willpower to steer it correctly, as the golden king had just done, a curse could become one’s own power.

Yet, slowly, the wide smile faded from Ikenga’s divine face.

Amused as he was, he knew the reality of the situation. He knew the unimaginable agony and psychological torture Nwadiebeube was currently enduring. A curse born from Ikenga’s own essence was a volatile thing; it was never meant to be overwritten, and it did not yield without a fight.

Losing his Queen had been the absolute breaking point for the mortal king. During that sudden moment of crushing vulnerability, the curse of paranoid obsession had surged, nearly consuming him entirely. Nwadiebeube had stood on the very precipice of losing his humanity, inches away from degenerating into a mindless, cursed abomination driven only by loss.

Yet, a formidable, unyielding core remained within the king, his soaring ambition refusing to be extinguished. This was the very essence that harbored dreams of transforming his kingdom into a continent-spanning empire, the part that dared to aspire to absolute godhood.

That boundless ambition acted as an impregnable fortress against the encroaching madness, anchoring his mind even as the sheer terror of losing what was his own threatened to shatter his psyche. It was because of that grand vision that he had managed to cling to his sanity.

However, survival came at a truly devastating cost. With each passing moment, Nwadiebeube's soul endured an eternal torment, a burning, agonizing pressure urging him to hunt, to tear, and to reclaim the very fragment of himself that had been pilfered.

While the struggles of the mortal king were somewhat amusing, Ikenga had far more critical matters demanding his attention. He intended to introduce a new piece onto the grand chessboard, an action that, once set in motion, would irrevocably plunge the mortal world into an even deeper, more catastrophic conflict.

From the colossal branch where he had been resting, the surrounding scenery dissolved and reformed. It was as if an entire chapter of the world had been swiftly turned. One moment, he was reclining peacefully amidst the boughs of the great tree, with Boros slumbering soundly nearby; the next, he found himself standing upon the desolate surface of the new moon, deep within his own domain.

A colossal structure loomed over the lunar landscape: the mage tower, a prize he had claimed after his fierce battle with the goblin mage Vellok.

During their shared journey, Ikenga and Keles had successfully salvaged four distinct treasures from that fallen civilization. They had acquired the key to the cosmos, the emperor's mage tower, the profound knowledge of how Paragons are genuinely birthed, and finally, the intricate blueprints for the advanced technological systems of the goblin world.

Among these significant acquisitions, only two had been actively introduced to reshape the trajectory of this world. Now, the opportune moment had finally arrived for the tower to fulfill its intended purpose.

Ikenga gazed upwards at the monolithic structure, a subtle smile gracing his lips. Initially, he had contemplated sharing the secrets of this tower with the Oracle. Yet, that was before he had truly fathomed the fundamental nature of his newborn son.

Bestowing such a potent weapon upon the Oracle would have amounted to a squandering of a valuable catalyst. Now, this tower would be positioned where it could foster a magnificently unmitigated chaos.

Once he fully grasped his son's authentic disposition, Ikenga deliberately refrained from relinquishing the prize, keeping it securely locked away within his personal vault. He understood that the world was not yet ready for its awakening.

But the dynamics of the board had irrevocably shifted. The impending, inexorable clash between Osita and Princess Nwadimma presented the ideal stage for the concept of the Mage Tower to make its grand debut.

Throughout his endeavors in disrupting the goblin realm, what had truly captivated Ikenga regarding their spellcasters was their absolute dependence on these formidable structures. A Mage Tower transcended the status of a mere edifice of stone and mortar; it was an artifact of cosmic significance. It served concurrently as a sanctuary, a sophisticated research facility, and a massive, localized reservoir for a mage's spiritual essence. Most crucially, it functioned as the definitive catalyst that empowered goblin mages to project the absolute, unadulterated force of their Conceptual Laws into tangible reality.

It was a system of terrifying efficiency, and one that Ikenga himself had found profoundly challenging to contend with.

Engaging in protracted warfare within an alien universe, completely severed from the direct lifeline of his own divine realm, was ultimately a losing proposition. Without a localized nexus of power, even a deity could find their strength depleted. The goblins had addressed this critical vulnerability with their towers, and now, Ikenga was eager to witness how this world would subsequently unravel once it possessed the same strategic advantage.

It came as no surprise to Ikenga that Osita was already privy to the operational mechanics of a Mage Tower. The former king was aware of them and had even managed to secretly construct one for himself. That concealed anchor was precisely the reason he had been able to effortlessly overpower Princess Nwadimma during their recent confrontation. Even as the battle concluded, Osita's reserves remained robust and were rapidly regenerating, while the princess was left entirely incapacitated, her mana reserves completely depleted.