The Guardian gods Chapter 906

He was holding the key to every single Paragon’s path in this world.

For some time now, Tyrion and his peers had lived under a silent rule. The world looked at the Paragons as apex predators, rulers who commanded the very laws of reality. But the truth was far more pathetic. They were prisoners in gilded cages. Every time a Paragon acted, every time they exerted their will to rewrite a law or expand a vast amount of mana, they incurred a subtle, inescapable penalty, a mana debt.

And that debt had a master, who will after some time would come to collect.

Every surge of power, every high-tier spell cast, only served to strengthen a soul-binding connection to the new God of stagnation. To avoid falling completely under the Time Child’s sway, the Paragons of Nana were forced to cower in their secluded estates, rationing their power like starving men, terrified to act or make any grand moves that would pull the child’s gaze to them.

But the Mage Tower changed everything.

According to the Tome, the secrets of the Mage Tower acted as a conceptual anchor. It would grant a Paragon like himself access to a near-inexhaustible pool of mana to draw power from. He would no longer have to carefully ration his domain laws or fear the creeping exhaustion of a drained reserve, the sheer scale of his output would finally match the absolute authority of his conceptual law.

And the source of this unimaginable energy? It lay entirely outside of Nana as a whole. Because it was drawn from an external plane, the transaction bypassed the local world-soul entirely. No debt would be accumulated. No conceptual tax would be paid. Their actions would no longer be limited, and the looming shadow of the Time Child would finally be rendered powerless.

But what threw Tyrion off even more, what sent a physical shiver down his spine was seeing the blueprint’s actual manifest of materials.

As he scanned the list of exotic ores, refined alloys, and specific geometric blocks, the pieces of his five-month-long headache slammed together with terrifying precision. He realized with absolute certainty how identical these requirements were to the materials he had been observing across Tide’s sprawling, decentralized operation.

Tide was building a Mage Tower.

And he wasn’t just building one. The sheer volume of the decentralized refineries, the relentless excavation of the mines, and the mass production of specialized components like the self-healing bricks on Tyrion’s own land made the scale clear. Tide was mass-producing them. He was building multiple Mage Towers, and he planned on auctioning them off to the highest bidders in the world of Nana.

Just like that, the grand mystery that had consumed Tyrion since this journey began was answered. The puzzle was solved, yet the solution brought no relief. It only made him far more terrified and deeply unsure of the grander game being played.

How could a secret of this magnitude, a blueprint that could dismantle the balance of power on Nana just happen to fall from a passing carriage right into his path?

It was now blatantly clear. He had been led by the nose to this very clearing, to this very book, to this very realization.

A trap of such proportions was being meticulously set up for him. Whoever had orchestrated this hand, whether it was the silent, watching Murmur, an agent of the spirit realm, or some other hidden player knew him too well. No, they understood the paragons and their desperation well. They knew that once a paragon saw this truth, they could never unsee it. They knew his ambition would never allow him to walk away from the key to absolute, unchained Paragon power.

It was a trap, beautiful and absolute. And Tyrion, staring at the closed tome in the morning light, knew he had no choice but to jump straight into it.

The weight of the book in his hands suddenly felt heavier than it actually was. He was now holding a secret for which his entire bloodline would be ruthlessly hunted down and exterminated. It was a secret that would cost him his life the moment a single whisper of it escaped. He knew, with absolute certainty, the horrific lengths any Paragon in Nana would go to, the unspeakable atrocities they would commit just to lay a single finger on the blueprint he was currently holding.

He should let it go. He should throw the tome into the deepest part, fly back to the Sun Kingdom, and pretend he had never seen the glint in the forest canopy.

But he couldn’t. The poison of absolute potential had already entered his veins. He had a clear path forward now, and if he was willing to pay a small, agonizing price, he was certain he could acquire every single rare material required to build his sanctuary.

The thought spun in his mind, wild and intoxicating, refusing to be silenced.

To get the materials, he didn’t need to outmaneuver Tide’s flawless defensive networks. He didn’t need to steal. He just needed to play by Tide’s own rules of transaction, something he was beginning to learn how it functions.

If he trade half of his insight into his domain law, "Luminous Logic," in exchange for the exact materials needed to craft a Mage Tower...

Tyrion’s breath hitched. It was a staggering, terrifying sacrifice. To give up half of the very concept that defined his power, to expose his own understanding of the world’s laws, was a price that would make any other Paragon recoil in horror. But Tide was a god of commerce, benefit, and loss. A trade of this magnitude, the raw, pristine conceptual insight of a Paragon’s domain was a currency of unimaginable value. It was a trade Tide would absolutely accept.

And in Tyrion’s eyes, it was a logical equation. He would temporarily weaken his current self, exposing half of his law, to secure the physical components of an absolute future.

Once he had the materials, he would follow the flawless, step-by-step path laid out within the pages of the Tome to craft his own power. He was no craftsman. He had never swung a hammer, refined an alloy, or carved a stabilizing rune with his own hands. But he possessed a brilliant, calculating mind, and with the immaculate blueprint of the Tome guiding his every hand-movement, he was more than willing to learn. He would build it block by block, stone by stone.

Because the end of this path was glorious.

Once he had his own Mage Tower, his connection to the Time Child would be severed forever. He would possess an unchained, inexhaustible fountain of mana. He would not just be a king of a nation or a crown, sitting on a fragile throne of mortal politics.

He would become a king over the Paragons themselves.

Those terrified giants who currently cowered in their hidden estates, desperately hoarding their mana to avoid their debts, would have no choice but to crawl to his doorstep. They would bow their proud heads to him, begging for just a brief glimpse of the sanctuary he held, pleading for a moment of shelter within his walls.

Tears began to spill silently from Tyrion’s eyes, tracing paths down his face. He couldn’t control it, they were the bitter, helpless tears of defeat and mockery.

He was a Paragon, one of the supreme pillars of the mortal world, yet he felt as small and exposed as a fish on a cutting board.

How desperately he wished he could turn back the clock. How he craved to return to the ignorant, arrogant version of himself from just a few minutes ago, the man who had merely been charting a map, complaining about a god of trade, and planning a boastful return to King Edward. If only he had left the book in the dirt. If only he had turned his back and flown away.

But the trap was perfect because it targeted his deepest hunger. He held the key to unchained power in his hands, and his own ambition made it physically impossible for him to let it go. He was a prisoner of his own greed, and the bars of his cage were made of his own desires.

Who have I offended? the thought screamed in his mind, threatening to tear his logic to shreds. Who is the one pulling these strings?

The sheer scale of the entity targeting him was paralyzing.

It was a force that effortlessly was in cahoots with the gods. It had direct, casual access to the spirit realm. Worst of all, it was an entity so unfathomably wealthy and powerful that it could throw away a Tome of immeasurable, world-altering worth, a blueprint that could trigger a global war among Paragons, by tossing it carelessly onto the back of a primitive, wooden carriage pulled by mana-less primates. It seemed to this entity, the ultimate key to a Paragon’s freedom was nothing more than a piece of scrap paper left on a trail for a stray dog to find.