Chapter 935
That way, the world would finally be driven to its absolute peak, forged in the fires of conflict until it was more than ready to tackle any external threat. At the same time, any lingering internal dissent would be thoroughly burned away, leaving a unified world where everyone ultimately flew a flag under a singular, unbreakable hierarchy.
This revelation completely rewrote the board for Zephyr and the other godling leaders. They had initially hoped to sit back, watch the chaos from afar, and steer clear of mortal squabbles and then make an appearance after a winner has been decided. But now, remaining neutral was a luxury they could no longer afford.
If a continental war was inevitable, it was entirely in their best interest to ensure that the ultimate victor on their side was someone deeply indebted to them, someone who would owe them a monumental favor when the dust settled.
That meant they couldn’t just be spectators anymore. They had to become active players in the grand game.
A sharp, mischievous glint flashed in Zephyr’s eyes as he glanced sideways. He caught the gaze of his fellow godling leaders, and the silent, knowing expressions reflected back at him made it clear, they were all thinking the exact same thing.
Tyrion could hardly force his limbs to stay still, the cold sweat pooling at his collar beginning to draw uneasy, suspicious glances from Edward and the other paragons seated on his side.
Desperate to mask his inner panic, Tyrion forced a rigid posture, playing it off as bitter frustration over how easily everyone was dancing to Tide’s tune. But only he knew the suffocating reality, he was drowning in horror.
In a single, masterfully delivered stroke, Tide had publicly declared him a thief, placing an invisible, lethal bounty on his head without ever having to name him out loud. Right this moment, every ambitious lord, every desperate paragon, and every bloodthirsty faction in this space was going to be hunting for the Tome.
Earlier, when he watched Edward sign the contract and secure two towering spires, Tyrion had briefly entertained a dangerous gamble. He had considered letting the king in on his secret, hoping that confessing to the stolen blueprint might buy him protection and grant him a full tower of his own.
But as Tide detailed the truth of the ten vital components, a horrifying clarity hit Tyrion like a physical blow.
He thought back to the tower he had already managed to craft in secret, a silent, towering monument of cold rocks and dead runic paths that stubbornly refused to awaken. Now, he finally understood why. It was dead because it lacked those ten keystones that only the Origin Gods could forge. His grand achievement was nothing more than a hollow, lifeless shell.
Then came the devastating termination of the mining contracts, and the final pieces of the nightmare clicked into place. With just a few calculated moves, Tide had completely isolated him, cutting off every potential avenue of escape or support.
Tyrion’s mind raced, picking apart Tide’s public declarations. The merchant god had claimed the world’s resources could only ever support a total of forty towers, and with twenty-four already distributed at the auction, it logically implied sixteen remained.
But that calculation was fundamentally, terrifyingly wrong.
Tyrion knew the truth about Ember, the newly ascended god who had already successfully crafted a fully functioning tower, an act that lead to his ascension. That meant the actual global inventory was already down to fifteen.
Worse still, when Tyrion factored in his own hidden stash, the complete set of raw materials he had traded to craft his tower, currently missing only the ten keystones, the math grew even grimmer. Those materials were already pulled from the world’s veins. That dropped the remaining global resources down to just fourteen potential towers.
His eyes flicked frantically across the lower stands, counting the paragons figures still clutching their law shards, the very paragons Tide had promised to trade with, full materials and one of the ten vital components.
Ten. There were ten of them. A cold wave of dread washed over him. If Tide followed through on those trades and handed out these tower materials, it meant ten more parties like himself would be dangerously close to completing their own spires.
Subtract those ten from the remaining fourteen, and Tyrion’s breath caught in his throat.
When the dust settled and the trades were complete, there would only be enough raw resources left in the entire world to build four more towers.
This calculation was something he could afford to do because of his own grim situation. Soon everyone here after they settle down would make calculations of their own and realise the staggering scarcity. With only four towers left to ever be contested after this day, the continental war wouldn’t just be bloody, it would be a total, merciless extermination.
The grand hall seemed to physically contract around him, the sky pressing down like lead as the calculation settled in his mind. It was a crushing, suffocating burden to be the only paragon in the room who saw the entire picture.
He wanted to run. He wanted to tear open a rift, vanish into the farthest, most desolate corners of the world, and put as much distance as humanly possible between himself, Tide, the gods, and their suffocating divinity. What had looked like a breathtaking temple of golden opportunity just hours ago had morphed into a gilded slaughterhouse, a living nightmare dressed up in the noble lies of equal rights and fair trade.
A bitter wave of self-loathing washed over him. How wrong he had been about the gods. He had once dismissed them as pampered, arrogant parasites who simply had everything handed down to them on a silver platter by birthright. But as he sat there, expertly reeled in, manipulated, and systematically stripped of his safety by a single afternoon of psychological warfare, he realized that no pampered, lazy creature could ever possess the cold, meticulous, multi-layered genius of these divine beings.
Sanity felt like it was slowly slipping through Tyrion’s fingers, fraying at the edges. A manic, hollow chuckle slipped past his lips before he could stop it. The sudden sound immediately drew sharp, suspicious glances from Edward and the neighboring paragons, but Tyrion could hardly bring himself to care.
Panic clawed at his throat. He was terrified. He wanted to live.
He knew the harsh reality of power politics, the moment his identity as the "thief" leaked, or the moment his allies realized what he possessed. They would end him, sell him out or worse would put a golden collar around his neck, lock him in a subterranean vault, and force him to build their towers seeing as he amanged to build one in a limited time.
This realization cuts straight to the core of Tyrion slowly losing his mind.
The current Tome wasn’t just a building guide, it was the ultimate currency of the new world. Even if a faction lacked every single raw material and the ten divine components, simply possessing the Tome gave them absolute leverage. In a world starved of structural knowledge, having the architectural secrets to a Mage Tower meant you could walk up to any faction hoarding raw materials, open the book, and offer them a glimpse, a copied page, or a partnership in exchange for everything they had.
People would trade rivers of blood, entire land tracts, and mountains of scavenged resources just for a single hour alone with that tome. It was the key that determines one’s standing and position in the coming world.
And that made Tyrion the most dangerous and most hunted creature alive.
The manic chuckle slipped out of him again, sharper this time. The other paragons shot him a glance completely unaware that the trembling, sweating paragon beside them was sitting on the biggest secret in the world if Nana.
Tyrion squeezed his eyes shut, he didn’t want it open. He was scared at what he would see the moment the doors opened and this auction ended, the real nightmare would begin.
A heavy silence settled in this ethereal space. No one moved as they turned to look at one another. The fragile, opportunistic camaraderie that had held their alliances together for a brief moment shattered completely. In its place grew a deep, gnawing distrust. Every side-glance was laced with suspicion, every breath filled with the agonizing uncertainty of whether the person sitting right beside them, an ally, a friend, a brother-in-arms was secretly harboring the stolen Tome Tide had spoken of.
Before the paranoia could boil over into bloodshed, a sharp sound cut through the tension.
Snap.
Tide flicked his fingers. In a blinding flash of golden light, ten intricate rings materialized in the air. Without a sound, the rings shot forward, streaking across the vast hall before coming to a dead stop, hovering precisely before the ten desperate paragons he had promised to trade with for their law shards.