The Guardian gods

Chapter 899: 899

The mistress kept her eyes tightly closed, her entire body trembling uncontrollably. She didn’t want to. She desperately didn’t want to go see him. She knew exactly where her husband, Tyrion, was but she didn’t want to see him. To look upon the man who had slaughtered his own bloodline, a man who felt less like a human and more like an unpredictable disaster clothed in flesh, filled her with absolute dread. But looking at the parchment of notes left by the spymasters, she knew she had no choice.

Being close to him made her feel entirely useless, weak, like nothing more than an ant waiting to be crushed.

It was his gaze that she dreaded most. She could no longer hold it, because each time she looked into his eyes, she felt as though everything about her, her thoughts, her fears, her very soul was laid bare and stripped of any privacy.

"Paragon," the mistress uttered the word under her breath, the title harsh on her tongue.

Most people in the kingdom knew what a Paragon was by definition, but they had never been close enough to one to understand the terrifying shift in their sheer level of being. They were no longer entirely mortal. Many in the Blackwood family saw Tyrion’s absolute distance from the household as pure arrogance. It was arrogance, knowing the type of ruthless man she was married to, but she herself never saw his isolation as a mere snub.

To her, his distance was very much the right action. If he were to reside within the family estate, his passive pressure and the oppressive glow of his power would leave everyone in a constant, undesirable state of terror. It was for that very reason she had moved her own compound so far away from him, to maintain her distance, her breathing room, and her sanity.

But now, this crisis had shattered her peace. She was being forced to approach him.

She had no choice after hearing what the spymasters had uncovered. When a situation escalated to matters concerning other Paragons and the actions of a God, it could no longer be handled by mortal schemes or clever nobles. It had to be met with matching power and status. Only a Paragon could deal with a Paragon, and she was the only one who could go to the monster and tell him the world was moving without him.

The journey to Tyrion’s sanctuary was a silent, suffocating descent into dread. Accompanied only by her most trusted driver, the mistress rode in a sealed carriage toward the isolated mountain range that loomed at the very edge of the Blackwood territory.

As the carriage climbed the winding, rocky paths, the temperature began to shift. The biting seasonal chill of the western continent gradually gave way to an unnatural, heavy heat. By the time the carriage came to a halt at the base of the peak, the entire mountain was visible, completely shrouded in a low, pulsating warm glow. To the rest of the world, it looked like a beautiful, majestic aura, to her, it was the physical manifestation of Tyrion’s overwhelming power bleeding into the surrounding.

Her breath hitched as she stepped out onto the scorched earth. Every instinct in her body screamed at her to turn back, but the parchment containing the spymasters deductions was heavy in her hand.

Leaving her guards and servants behind at the base, knowing their fragile minds would likely snap if they went any further, she began the solitary ascent up the stone steps.

By the time she reached the heavy stone gates at the summit, she was completely drenched, sweat stinging her eyes as her breath raggedly escaped her. The oppressive heat of the mountain had taken its toll, but the sheer terror gripping her heart was far worse.

Trembling, she raised a weak hand to knock against the ancient wood.

Before her knuckles could even brush the surface, a sudden, piercing light fell straight from the sky, instantly shrouding her in its golden hue. Her entire body froze mid-motion, pinned in place by an invisible, crushing weight. The chilling sensation of being watched washed over her, so intense it made her skin crawl. She knew immediately, with absolute certainty, that his terrifying attention was locked entirely onto her.

Before she could even force a single word out of her dry throat, the parchment was violently torn from her grip. It levitated into the air between her frozen face and the gate, unrolling itself with a sharp, echoing snap.

She watched, wide-eyed and paralyzed, as the written words literally peeled themselves off the paper. The ink transformed into glowing fragments of pure data, flying upward only to be seamlessly absorbed by the light of the aura.

The entire process took only a terrifying, silent moment. As soon as the last word vanished, the golden glow abruptly dissipated, and the heavy physical pressure snapped away, returning her freedom of movement.

The gate remained tightly shut. No words were spoken from within. No sentiment or reassurance was offered to the woman who shared his name.

The mistress didn’t wait for any. Without wasting a single heartbeat, she spun on her heels and began to flee down the mountain steps. Her pace was frantic, her legs shaking so violently that she almost stumbled over her heavy skirts multiple times. She didn’t care about dignity anymore, her only instinct was to get as far away from that glowing peak, and the monster residing within it, as fast as her legs could carry her.

A moment after she fled, Tyrion’s figure materialized silently at the gate. He stood in the warm, heavy aura of the peak, watching his wife’s stumbling, frantic figure hurry down the mountain path. She had indeed brought him news of exceptional value.

The mere mention of other Paragons was enough to command his attention, but the addition of a tower and an auction truly piqued his interest. Tyrion knew of Tide. He knew of the merchant god’s specific divinity, and more importantly, his powerful Demigod origin.

For a being of Tide’s status to be anchoring an auction meant that whatever was hitting the block would be of staggering, unimaginable value. And from the minuscule details his spymasters had managed to piece together, this grand enterprise was heavily tied to mages and raw mana.

A sharp, thoughtful look crossed Tyrion’s face. His figure slipped into the open space and his figure instantly vanished from the mountain peak.

In the next heartbeat, he materialized silently in the sky above the massive refining facility built within his own territory. Down below, the facility was heavily fortified. Marching along the high walls and guarding the heavy iron gates were sentries clad in specialized armor guards bearing the distinct, golden blessing of Tide, stationed there to protect the God of Treasury’s property from any mortal interference.

His figure glided silently past the sentries. None of them registered his presence, their eyes staring blankly ahead as he drifted through the locked, reinforced doors of the facility like a passing ghost. He didn’t spare a single glance at the architecture of the refinery or the loud, churning machinery processing raw materials in the lower levels.

His interest was locked entirely on what was actually being produced here.

When he reached the central storage vault, his brow furrowed deeply, his sharp eyes taking in the sight before him. If he remembered the trade agreements correctly, Tide’s merchants had explicitly demanded access to the high-grade mana conduit ore veins in Blackwood territory, alongside a few lesser metal veins whose exact purpose Tyrion hadn’t bothered to care about.

But what was stacked before him in massive, towering crates was no ordinary iron or processed ore.

In front of him stood rows upon rows of heavy, ashy stone bricks. The dull, dark hue of the material instantly triggered a memory of the spymasters’ leaked keywords "Tower"

The dense, magically compressed bricks in front of him certainly looked like they were specifically manufactured to serve as the structural foundation for a monumental tower. Intrigued, Tyrion raised a single hand as one of the heavy, ashy bricks tore free from its stack and flew directly into his open palm.

He clenched his fist around the brick. To his absolute surprise, it didn’t shatter.

Tyrion raised a brow, genuinely stunned. He was no warrior by trade, and brute physical strength was by no means the primary card in his arsenal. However, his very biology as a Paragon granted him a passive, overwhelming physical might more than enough to squeeze solid iron into liquid or bend steel like clay. Yet, this simple brick refused to break under his grip.

"Interesting," he murmured to himself.

Seeking to test its limits, his hand took on a slight, radiant glow as he channeled a fraction of his power. To his amazement, the ashy brick didn’t fracture. Instead, it began to change color, shifting from its dull grey to a deep, incandescent red as it greedily absorbed the raw energy he outputted.

His calm expression slowly began to crack, giving way to profound shock. The brick wasn’t melting in his palm. It didn’t turn to ash, it was holding perfectly strong.