The Guardian gods Chapter 952

The Silver Kingdom’s reverence for Mahu was woven directly into their cultural origin and bloodline. The concept of a mere mortal usurping divinity or ascending to godhood was viewed as ultimate, unforgivable blasphemy.

The average citizenry actively ignored the forbidden texts, treating the scrolls with the same superstitious dread as a plague-ridden corpse.

The only demographic infected by the temptation of godhood were the ambitious lords who sat with Ragnar in the gilded throne room to debate war strategy. Hidden away in their private estates, unknown to the crown, these elites had secretly birthed their own heretical cults, plotting their personal ascensions behind closed doors.

Just as Ragnar had initially misjudged the resilience of his people, those self-absorbed nobles fatally underestimated the peasantry they lorded over. The terrifying breaking point arrived not from an external invasion, but from the ground up: a furious peasant revolt erupted against the lords right under the throne’s nose, finally dragging the clandestine ascension cults out into the glaring light and forcing Ragnar’s immediate attention onto the treason festering within his own court.

Unknown to Ragnar and his people, their desperate, unwavering devotion to Mahu did not go unnoticed, it breathed life into a war they were otherwise destined to lose. Drawn by the sheer weight of their faith, the avatar of Mahu, born directly from the collective worship of the silver kingdom, manifested above them. Without hesitation, she anchored her celestial throne directly over their territory, a bold assertion of divine protection.

This sudden supernatural arrival instantly caught the attention of Björn, who braced himself immediately for another brutal clash with Mahu. At first glance, however, he realized the true nature of the entity, it was merely an avatar, not the goddess in the flesh. Yet his initial relief vanished in an instant as he felt the sheer, overwhelming pressure of her divinity radiating outward. It was an aura that brought back vivid memories of how Mahu had once dismantled him entirely without ever lifting a finger.

Unlike the distant, cold power he had faced before, the divinity radiating from this avatar was intensely protective, rooted entirely in the primal warmth of motherhood rather than her traditional dominion over the moon. It was an aspect of Mahu that the silver kingdom had revered in and sung for centuries, a fierce, nurturing sanctuary made manifest in flesh and starlight.

The sudden descent of the avatar meant one thing clear for Björn. Mahu was finally stepping directly onto the chessboard. For the first time since the war began, the wicked, blood-drunk grin vanished entirely from Björn’s face.

Though the copper taste of impending victory still hung heavy in the air around him, he knew it was about to turn sickeningly bittersweet. He could not fathom how his rampaging warriors would fare against an army fortified and blessed by such overwhelming divine grace.

The mere thought soured his tongue, a wretched reminder that even within the absolute depths of his battle-madness, Mahu had easily gotten a hold of him. The deep, burning shame of waking up from that forgotten conflict to find himself broken and kneeling, a humiliation he thought he had buried decades ago, ripped itself raw in his mind.

Even himself who championed the absolute chaos of slaughter felt a cold dread at the prospect of the new madness this avatar was bringing to the theater of war. He could already picture it, his own bloodthirsty horde howling with the feverish thrill of combat and slaughter, while deep down, their tormented souls wept in agony for every precious life their blades extinguished under the avatar’s watchful eye.

The sheer, agonizing weight of the motherhood divinity carried through like a curse, it clawed past the barriers of blood madness, seizing hold of primal maternal instincts that no warrior could govern or suppress. From this moment on, every life cut short on the battlefield would not feel like the dispatching of an enemy, it would feel like sinking a blade straight into the heart of one’s own mother.

It mattered not if a soldier’s earthly relationship with their matriarch was fractured, bitter, or long severed. The divine mandate bypassed mortal grievances, weaponizing sacred bonds so that every kill struck with a psychological agony that defied numbness.

The resulting plunge in morale was going to shatter his forces from the inside out. The younger Björn, the one forged purely in the furnace of unthinking savagery would have reveled in this perversion of the spirit, licking his lips at the exquisite, agonizing torment of it all. He would have cherished every drop of manufactured guilt and welcomed the fresh, bleeding chaos it injected into the slaughter.

Yet, he had evolved past that singular, hollow existence. Though a dark, ravenous corner of his mind still craved the sweet release of mindless madness, the cold reality of the world around him demanded something more sustainable if he intended to survive. The luxury of pure, unbridled destruction was a fire he could no longer afford to feed forever.

Nana tolerated no mindless beasts within the ranks of power, every positions of dominance in this world demanded a sharp mind, a capacity to play the greater game rather than serve as a disposable pawn on another’s board. History had carved a harsh lesson into his very bones, the moment he surrendered completely to unbridled madness, his vulnerability left him completely exposed, a tool waiting to be used.

That painful realization was why Björn had learned to harness a controlled brand of chaos, a curated fury that he could leash and reign in at will.

With that calculated coldness anchoring his thoughts, he stared out from his realm toward the radiant divine station hovering above the silver kingdom’s territory. The stalemate was broken, and it was time to elevate the conflict to an entirely different tier.

As matters stood, the avatar’s oppressive divinity threatened to tip the scales of the war entirely on the mortal plane, crushing his armies from within through psychological warfare. To counter an absolute spiritual mandate, he could no longer rely purely on flesh and steel. He had to drag the battlefield upward, forcing the confrontation onto the divine scale where he could meet the godhood on equal terms.

Below on their kingdom, Ragnar and his paragons had barely finished tasting the sweet, sudden ecstasy of their goddess drawing so close, their souls singing in the warm embrace of her divine nearness, when the sky itself was violently rent asunder. A roar of primal fury, heavy with old malice and an insatiable hunger for destruction, tore through the sky, freezing the celebration in their throats.

From the dark, churning depths of his own domain, Björn seized the very fabric of the borderlands and ripped it wide open. A colossal, blood-red figure materialized directly before the threshold of the avatar’s newly anchored celestial station. Without a wasted breath, he channeled his overwhelming, earth-shattering force into a brutal charge, smashing straight through the shimmering barrier and shattering the newly formed sanctuary’s defenses in a deafening shockwave of force that was felt bellow in the mortal world.

Inside the gleaming domain, Mahu’s avatar did not flinch. She simply turned her gaze toward the intrusion, a single, elegant brow lifting in quiet curiosity as the battle-lusted warlord tore into her space. A massive, terrifying battle-axe dripping with thick, dark blood instantly materialized within his grip, heavy enough to warp the air around its edge.

Staring down the divine manifestation with a wild, teeth-baring grin that lacked all warmth, Björn tightened his grip on the weapon’s handle, the blood-red aura painting the starlight around them crimson as he growled, "Round two."

The savagery arrival of Björn dragged his entire domain down with him, the swirling abyss of his realm violently bleeding into the sky and merging with the avatar’s sacred station. A blinding squall of clashing divine architectures erupted overhead, swallowing the sky in a tempest of crimson blood-fog and starlit silver that utterly blinded the mortals below.

The battle was no longer a spectacle for any eyes, even the paragons and gods were locked away unless they forcibly intrude into the clash , for now they all could only wait. Only when the smoke cleared and a victor emerged from the celestial wreckage would the world know who still drew breath.

Down on the earth, Ragnar and his people stood paralyzed, the suddenness of the roar giving way to the sheer, earth-shaking manifestation of the warlord himself.

The terrifying silhouette of Björn snapped Ragnar instantly out of his awe, a surge of adrenaline firing his limbs as his father’s sword materialized within his grasp. The blade began to vibrate violently in his hand, humming with a restless, magnetic resonance as it recognized its counterpart, the legendary gauntlet securely locked around Björn’s fist.

With the slamming shut of the celestial boundary overhead, Ragnar wasted not a single breath. His form blurred into a streak of silver light, rocketing toward the upper dimensions with a singular, unyielding target in his sights, the threshold where Björn and the avatar clashed.