The Guardian gods Chapter 933

And so, the five godling leaders stepped forward, pressing their divine seals into the glowing parchment without an ounce of hesitation. Across the hall, every pair of eyes, from the trembling lords of the high kingdoms to the clueless masses in the lower stands who still couldn’t grasp the true nature of the grand bargain watched in stunned awe.

With a deep, resonant hum, ten of the twenty-four magnificent Mage Towers shuddered. They rose majestically from the earth, rapidly shrinking into miniature, condensed spires of concentrated might before shooting through the air to settle precisely into the waiting hands of the godling leaders. Two towers for each godling race.

Seeing the godlings claim their prize, the Menagerie did not wait. Reacting with the same swift, predatory decisiveness, their delegates surged forward and slashed their signatures across the glowing text. Two more towers dissolved into beams of light, shrinking into the palms of their new owners.

Panic rippled through the remaining assembly. Almost as if terrified of being left behind in the dust of history, the delegations of the high kingdoms abandoned all decorum. They bolted from their seats, rushing headlong to the floating contracts to bind themselves to the debt before the inventory ran dry.

Down in the lower stands, the frantic scavengers watched the shrinking number of available towers with mounting hysteria. Driven by pure desperation, they leaped from their seats, attempting to fly upward and force their way toward the contracts they could see floating in the open air, despite having no inkling of what terrible terms they entailed.

But their efforts were utterly futile.

An unyielding conceptual law locked the domain in place, rendering their flight and physical advancement entirely useless. No matter how hard they beat their wings, poured out their mana, or screamed into the open space, they could not bridge the invisible chasm separating the desperate from the chosen. They were barred by the very order they had forsaken.

Powerless and gripped by dread, they could only watch in agonizing silence as Emperor Chen stepped forward with cold resolve, scrawling his signature onto the final parchment.

With a deafening flash, the last two Mage Towers detached from the earth, shrank, and descended into Emperor Chen’s waiting hands.

Krogan closed his fist, a dark, radiant smile stretching across his face as a sudden, intoxicating wave of surging divinity and raw power washed through his veins. The weight of the newly bound souls and debts fed directly into his divine authority, making his very presence hum with terrifying resonance. With a sharp snap of his fingers, the web of shimmering contracts folded inward, vanishing safely back into his grasp.

"And so the pie has been shared," Tide said, his tone dripping with amusement as his gaze drifted downward to the frozen, defeated figures of the paragons in the lower stands who had been locked out of the grand distribution.

Turning his attention back toward his companion, Tide gave a polite nod. "If you will please, Krogan."

At his cue, a brand-new contract materialized in the air, unfurling above the assembly. This time, there was no invisible ink or muted sound; the script blazed in clear, unmistakable characters that everyone in the hall could immediately recognize. It was identical in structure to the trade agreements and mining charters they had all signed with Tide in the past.

"I am a very benevolent god, hence I seek to leave a way out for everyone here and grant you all an opportunity," Tide declared, spreading his arms wide. "Most importantly, as a merchant, one has to know when to stop after making enough profit and today, I have made more than enough profit."

His joyous, ringing laughter echoed off the vaulted walls, grating harshly against the ears and sparking deep resentment among the high lords and frantic paragons alike.

"In the past, my worshippers have signed many contracts under my name to work and mine in your respective territories for materials you all deemed disposable and had no real need for," Tide continued, pacing slowly across the dais.

As those carefully chosen words settled over the hall, the sharpest minds among the paragons and high kingdom delegates instantly snapped to attention, their eyes widening as they furiously calculated where he was going with this.

"The materials you all deemed disposable and freely allowed my followers to extract are, in fact, the exact foundational components needed for the crafting of a Mage Tower," Tide announced, "On their own, scattered across your lands, they served no purpose and held virtually no value. But when gathered, refined, and placed into the hands of a master forger like Ember, those "worthless" scraps form the backbone of a standing tower."

Sensing the sudden spike of outrage and the wave of protests threatening to erupt from the delegates who realized they had literally been sitting on the keys to absolute power, Tide raised a calming hand.

"Peace, peace," Tide chuckled. "You all benefited greatly from those initial trade agreements. Many of you tried probing into the machinations of my operations, testing these materials yourselves, and found no immediate utility or benefit to them. So let us be clear, you have not been cheated. You traded trash for treasures you actually needed at the time."

With a subtle nod, Tide gestured to Krogan.

The God of Contracts eyes flashed a brilliant, blinding gold. Instantly, every single paragon and ruler who had ever signed one of those past mining contracts felt a sudden, sharp resonance at the back of their minds, a heavy tether loosening. The terms were laid bare, If both willing parties agreed, the contract could be terminated here and now.

Realizing the staggering, unimaginable value of the materials now resting unmined beneath their own soil, the paragons didn’t hesitate for a single second. Desperate to reclaim their lands and harvest the tower-crafting components for themselves, they eagerly severed the old agreements en masse.

Yet, as the dust settled and the bulk of the contracts dissolved, a stubborn handful of names remained highlighted on Krogan’s floating ledger.

The delegates representing the Apeling, Harpy, Wolfing, and Merfolk godling races chose to keep their agreements intact, prioritizing long-term stability or perhaps missing the deeper play. But surprisingly, Ethan representing the vampire godlings also chose to terminate his faction’s contracts, severing the ties for reasons entirely unknown to the rest of the godlings.

A wave of palpable confusion rippled through the delegations of the high kingdoms as they watched godlings not terminate their respective mining contracts. For a tense, fleeting moment, an undercurrent of doubt tugged at their minds, were they walking into a trap? Had they acted far too rashly out of greed?

But as they recalled Tide’s revelations about the true nature of the materials sitting right beneath their feet, they firmly shook their heads, banishing the hesitation. The immense wealth and strategic necessity of those mines belonged rightfully in their own hands, not siphoned away by a foreign power.

Seeing the assembly settle, Tide spoke once more, and instantly every eye locked onto him. The silence that followed was heavy with a newfound gravity.

Unbeknownst to Tide himself, a profound psychological shift had occurred. In the hidden chambers of the paragons’ hearts, his status had soared. He was no longer viewed as the tragic, diminished deity who had once been humiliatingly outmaneuvered and cuckolded by the mortal king Erika, past scandal they had all privately held in bitter contempt.

Those days of ridicule were dead and buried.

In their place now stood a terrifying blend of deep-seated respect and fear, born from the stark, undeniable realization of the immense, untouchable power Tide commanded in the world of Nana today.

Tide let out a soft, melancholic sigh, his shoulders slumping slightly as he regarded the assembly with a saddened expression, as though genuinely wounded by their choices.

"Truly, my hand has been forced to accept these contract terminations," Tide murmured, his voice laced with artificial grief. "Something I stand to lose a great deal from."

He paused, letting the silence stretch just long enough to draw every breath in the room to a halt. Then, he dropped a statement so shocking, so entirely unexpected, that it froze the paragons dead in their seats, their minds reeling.

"I have been stolen from," Tide said, his tone turning bleak. "Or rather... I have lost something of immense, irreplaceable value."

Before the paralyzing wave of shock could even begin to settle over the hall, Tide pressed forward, tightening his grip on the room’s attention.

"This catastrophic loss is the exact reason this auction took place much earlier than originally scheduled," Tide revealed, casting a heavy, sweeping gaze across the high lords and godlings. "As I stated before, the raw resources and foundational materials of our world can only naturally handle the creation of forty towers."

He raised a single finger, emphasizing the number as a deep, chilling realization began to dawn on the sharpest minds present.

"Forty towers total, all of which I intended to present in today’s grand auction," Tide continued, his voice dropping. "Instead, due to this grievous theft, I could not continue down this path. It is the sole reason I was forced to hold this premature auction, and why only twenty-four completed towers could be presented before you all today."