The Guardian gods Chapter 915

From Tyrion’s Astral form, a law shard slowly grew out from his chest, hovering in the air between him and Tide. Tide’s eyes grew as he stared at the shard. "Yes, yes. Indeed we can trade. You have offered something of great value, something that deserves its place in my treasury."

Tyrion glanced at the shard with a reluctant look on his face, but thinking of what he was to gain, he believed it was worth it. He closed his eyes as he said to Tide, "In exchange for this law shard of mine, I request the materials stated in the tome, enough of these materials to craft a tower."

"A reasonable price. But are you sure you have the capabilities to craft this tower on your own?" Tide continued, a calculating glint in his eye. "You should be aware that all I have circulating in the mortal world are raw materials which are molded into components. Components that need to be crafted by the most capable hands and a trustworthy forger."

"I have access to that, and I can offer you such a forger at the right price," Tide said, flashing a sharp, businessman-like smile.

Tyrion was sorely tempted, knowing all too well how true Tide’s words were. Even after all the agonizing months he had spent staring at the tome, the sheer complexity of the craft meant it would take him a full year just to fully comprehend the foundational mechanics before he could even think about beginning construction and that was purely due to the unique nature of his Luminous Logic.

It was time he simply didn’t have. A year was more than enough time for Tide to finish building his own towers and auction them off to the highest bidder. Initially, Tyrion had wanted to secure one of those finished towers through the trade, but he knew deep down that was a luxury he simply couldn’t afford.

A completely crafted tower was in an entirely different league from a pile of raw materials that still needed to be molded. He was deeply skeptical of how Tide even planned on selling off those towers he was building, as their worth was astronomical, something no entity in this world should realistically be able to afford.

It was an artifact of value that no amount of mere currency could ever buy. Just for the raw materials alone, he was trading away half of his own intrinsic understanding of his conceptual law, by his honest estimation, the price for a fully crafted tower should be an entire planet.

That was the true scale of its worth, and Tyrion felt a bitter sting knowing it was dangling just an arm’s reach away from him. "I sadly am unable to afford such a great service," he admitted, though a stubborn resolve hardened in his chest. "Still, I have enough trust in my own capability to make it possible."

"Is that so?" Tide replied, a strange light manifesting in his hand before he tossed it across the chamber. Tyrion caught it automatically. "I hope you don’t regret it."

As Tyrion caught the ring, he released his mental grip on the law shard, letting it drift forward until Tide caught it with a wide, triumphant smile.

A shimmering portal ripped open before Tyrion as Tide spoke his parting words, while tossing the tome back to him. "I look forward to hearing great things about you, Tyrion Blackwood."

Before Tyrion could even reply, a sudden force thrust him backward through the threshold, sweeping him out of Tide’s domain and leaving him standing once again before the outer boundary.

Clenching the ring tight in his fist, Tyrion walked with a newly hardened, confident stride, making his way back toward the quiet isolation of his sanctuary. He was finally ready to face the grueling study ahead, armed with the materials to begin his ascent.

Back in the gleaming palace of the divine realm, the moment Tyrion vanished through the portal, Tide broke into a fit of hysterical laughter, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye as amusement overwhelmed him.

Ikenga materialized nearby, a knowing smile playing on his face as he looked at his laughing nephew. "Such a great performance, nephew. You almost had me fooled."

Tide slowly gathered his composure, a sharp glint returning to his eyes. "A good merchant always knows how to act to sell his product."

He leaned back against his diamond throne, a breath of genuine awe escaping him. "I feel so foolish looking back at my past obsession with Siren. There is so much more to being a god, this intoxicating feeling of absolute power and dominance. Something even Siren, with all her allure and grace, could never replicate."

A warm, approving smile touched Ikenga’s face. "Yes, that is the true feeling of dominion. That was the fierce confidence you began to lack after your falling out with Siren. It is good to see the Tide I used to know finally return."

"And he actually thinks I am his ally," Tide muttered, another wave of laughter shaking him as he clutched his stomach. Looking up at his uncle, a dangerous, ambitious light burned in his gaze. "Uncle... I really do like this feeling of total control."

Tyrion didn’t linger at the boundary and the weight of the ring in his palm felt solid and real. It wasn’t the finished tower he had dreamed of, but it was the key to the door, and for the first time in months, the fog in his mind had cleared.

He stepped through the final threshold, returning to the familiar, quiet hum of his sanctuary. The walls of his study, once closing in on him like a prison of paranoia, now felt like a workshop waiting to be put to use.

Unclenched, his hand revealed the small, unadorned ring Tide had tossed him. A quick brush of his Luminous Logic revealed its true purpose, a spatial anchor, keyed directly to the coordinates where the raw components would soon materialize once the trade settled completely in the mortal veins.

Tyrion walked over to his heavy oak desk, brushed aside the chaotic piles of fragmented notes and dead-end theories, and laid the open tome flat in the center. The tome seemed less daunting now, stripped of the terrifying mystery that had paralyzed him for so long. It was no longer a riddle orchestrated by an invisible puppet master, it was simply math, architecture, and conceptual physics. Hard work, but honest work.

"A year," Tyrion murmured to himself, pulling a blank parchment toward him and picking up an inscription stylus. A fierce, competitive spark ignited in his chest. Tide thought he had outsmarted him, thought he had bought off a desperate thief with unshaped rocks. But Tide didn’t understand the stubborn resilience of a true paragon.

Channeling the conceptual light of his core, the tip of the stylus flared with brilliant white energy, and Tyrion began to write, his mind finally clear, focused, and ready to build.

Hours melted into the quiet solitude of the sanctuary as Tyrion bent over his desk, the stylus scratching furiously against the parchment. Yet, despite the steady flow of formulas and geometric lattice designs, his hands suddenly slowed to a stop.

The frantic momentum of the meeting in the diamond palace finally began to decelerate in his mind, allowing the echoes of the encounter to settle and replay.

Leaning back in his chair, Tyrion stared up at the vaulted ceiling of his study, running a hand down his face as the sheer vertigo of the past hour caught up with him. It had all unfolded with terrifying, breathless speed. Thrown off balance from the very first second by Tide’s mocking laughter and the terrifying reality of his own exposed hand, his mind had been running a frantic marathon just to survive the exchange.

Now, in the safety of silence, the sharp edges of the memory began to sharpen and with them, the glaring omissions that had slipped right past his panicked defenses.

Tyrion narrowed his eyes, a deep frown carving itself into his brow. "Wait"

A cold realization began to crawl up his spine. The entire confrontation had been consumed by the panic of the trade, the revelation of the unknown "Ember", and the crushing weight of the law shard he had bartered away. But beneath the surface chaos, a fundamental, deeply unsettling question had been completely buried.

He hadn’t asked about the pull.

The very catalyst of this entire ordeal, the unnatural, irresistible magnetic draw that had tugged at his soul and steered him inexorably toward the tome in the first place had gone unmentioned. Without that bizarre, supernatural pull, Tyrion would never have even known the artifact existed, let alone risked his life to acquire it. It was an anomaly that defied the laws of his own Luminous Logic, a force that had hijacked his intuition and dragged him into the web of a god’s affairs.

If Tide truly had no idea what was going on, if the tome had simply been lost by an incompetent accomplice Ember... then what was that pull?