The Guardian gods Chapter 914

Tide looked down at the fallen book, a deep frown instantly carving itself across his expression. He raised a single hand, and the tome lifted from the ground, flying straight into his grasp. Opening the cover, he began to turn the pages, his eyes began scanning the contents.

With each page turned, the deep frown on Tide’s face deepened, his relaxed posture entirely vanishing as he began to frantically flip through the leaves of the book. His sudden change in expression and desperate actions did not escape Tyrion, whose full focus remained locked onto him.

The sight caught the paragon completely by surprise, this was not the reaction he had anticipated. He had originally suspected that Tide might be in cahoots with whoever was manipulating him from the shadows.

Hence, his entire strategy had been built around throwing the tome out into the open, effectively flipping the game board to signal that he knew he was being played and refused to participate any further.

Yet, the raw panic and urgency unfolding before him proved his assumption wrong. Maybe tide was not in league with the shadowy mastermind, instead, he seemed just as ensnared, dragged unwittingly into the same sinister game of hide and seek.

The realization struck Tyrion like a physical blow, sending a sharp spike of panic through his core as he immediately recognized the sheer rashness of his move. If Tide was innocent of the conspiracy, then in a fit of impulsive defiance, he had just thrown away his only leverage, his sole ticket to true power and the key to changing his stagnant status quo.

Tyrion’s hand twitched with an instinctive urge to snap his fingers and recall the tome back to his grasp, but sheer willpower forced him to stay his hand. He caught himself just in time, brutally reminded of the fact that he was standing deep within enemy territory, completely on Tide’s home turf.

Finally, Tide broke the silence, his tone stripped of all previous mockery and replaced with a sharp, heavy seriousness. "Where did you get your hands on this?"

"Oh, no" Hearing that single question made Tyrion’s heart plummet even further into his chest. If he had harbored even a shred of doubt before, he was now entirely certain, Tide genuinely had no clue what was truly going on.

He could feel the palpable, restrained wave of fury radiating off the deity. It made grim sense, what Tyrion had just unwittingly done was march straight up to a god of trade and lay bare the exact blueprint of his next grand maneuver, effectively proving he knew the deity’s secret hand.

When Tyrion hesitated, struggling to find his footing, Tide pressed forward, his voice narrowing dangerously. "Was this why you have been intruding in my affairs in the mortal world, stealing from my owned factories?"

Caught in a rapidly tightening vice, Tyrion weighed his options, should he speak the truth, or shield himself with deceit? If his growing suspicions were correct, the man sitting across from him was no longer a sworn enemy, but a potential ally, bound together by the invisible threads of a greater hand manipulating them both from the shadows.

Clearing his throat to steady his voice, Tyrion met the deity’s gaze. "There might be a severe misunderstanding between the two of us."

"Oh?" Tide replied, lifting the tome slightly in his hand with a dark glint in his eye. "What kind of misunderstanding involves you throwing this in my face? Is it meant as a threat, or just a pathetically poor attempt at a bribe?"

"No, no, no," Tyrion interjected sharply, cutting Tide off before the god could press any further. "It is neither of those things" Tyrion took a moment to think "I believe the first thing I should do is explain how this came into my possession, and once you hear it, you will understand that a third party is pulling the strings behind us both."

Tide fixed him with a grave, unrelenting stare, but fell silent, clearly yielding the floor to let the paragon plead his case. Taking a steadying breath, Tyrion began to recount their initial interaction, the very catalyst that had sent him spiraling down a relentless hunt, culminating in the moment this tome of immeasurable, game-changing value had inexplicably fallen into his lap just as he was about to abandon the search entirely.

Hearing Tyrion’s explanation, Tide wore a look of deep contemplation. He murmured quietly to himself, though Tyrion managed to catch the words: "I knew these mortal worshippers couldn’t keep their mouths shut, and it seems Ember is surrounded by fools who would lose something of such great value."

"Who is this Ember?" Tyrion couldn’t help himself from asking.

"That is of no concern to you," Tide replied smoothly, "but as you said, there has indeed been a great misunderstanding between us both, all brought about by the sheer incompetence of my allies and worshippers." Tide gestured as he began to slide the tome away.

"No," Tyrion raised his voice sharply, freezing Tide’s movement. The god paused, glancing back at Tyrion with a raised brow before shifting his eyes down to the book.

The atmospheric pressure in the grand chamber doubled, the air growing suffocatingly heavy as Tide spoke again, his voice dropping an octave. "Do you by chance think this tome belongs to you simply because you happened to chance upon it?"

Tyrion felt like everything was moving too fast, leaving him completely unable to keep up. The entire situation was throwing him for a loop, for the past few months, he had been cooped up in his sanctuary, driving himself to the brink of insanity because he believed he was being toyed with by a hidden, malicious hand.

Now, from this single brief interaction and a few exchanged words, it all amounted to nothing, a total sham. All of this chaos, all of his lingering past fears, turned out to be nothing more than a compounding series of mistakes, sheer coincidences, and his own intense overthinking.

It was so absurd that he found it difficult to wrap his head around. Part of him still suspected he was being manipulated right then and there by Tide, but he could not afford to entertain that paranoid thought a second longer, not when Tide was on the verge of taking his hard-earned treasure away from him.

"No, how could I?" he said in response to Tide’s heavy question, forcing down his mounting desperation. "But I have to ask... is everything in this tome true?"

"Is the mage tower something real and does it live to the standard stated in the tome?" He asked, needing to hear it from another mouth, needing to know it wasn’t just his own mind tricking him.

Before, he had no one to share this secret with or have a deep analysis of what the book entails because he was terrified of leaking the secret. But before him was a figure who knows as much as he does, so he needed to hear it from another mouth.

Tide’s eyes flickered a bit, but he spoke, "Everything in the tome is true and its importance to paragons such as yourself is also true."

With quickness, Tyrion spoke, "I came here today for a trade. You spoke earlier about me blackmailing you with the tome, but we both know that won’t change anything."

"Even if I threaten to leak what was in the tome, it is of no use if one can’t get their hands on the materials needed to craft the tower, or the time it would take to craft such a tower."

"And since you are the god of trade," Tyrion continued, his voice steadying as he leaned into the logic of his proposal, "you are uniquely positioned to acquire those very materials. You want this tome back, and I want what is inside it built. We trade."

Tide studied him for a long, quiet moment. The god’s golden-plated teeth flashed briefly as a slow, calculating smile formed on his lips.

"You drive a hard bargain for a thief who just handed over his only leverage," Tide noted, though the underlying anger had vanished, replaced by an assessing gleam of a merchant sniffing a profitable venture. "And why should I finance a paragon’s ascent rather than simply taking the book by force and leaving you a smear on my floor?"

Tyrion didn’t flinch, holding the deity’s gaze with the full weight of his Astral presence. "Because force leaves variables, and you already have enough unknown factors with so called Ember and your incompetent worshippers. With me, you get a partner and I won’t fall so easily without leaving you a permanent scar"

The silence stretched for a heartbeat longer before Tide let out a low, rumbling chuckle that echoed off the walls.

It seems the mention of a trade caught Tide’s attention as he sat upright "It indeed is as you said. I took no chances when this secret landed in my hand, and I spared no effort in securing all the important vein nodes needed to craft the towers. So, as you said, it would have made no difference if your goal was to threaten me. So, how do you plan on trading?" Tide asked.