Chapter 937
From their elevated vantage point, Zephyr and the other godling leaders watched the spectacle unfold. Below them, the ten paragons bolted into the distance, desperate blurs cutting across the terrain, with a massive, swarming wave of hundreds of opportunists hot on their heels.
In the heat of pure terror, an unspoken realization forged a sudden, desperate bond among the hunted. None of them had planned to cooperate; they were rivals who would gladly slit each other’s throats for a shot at ascension. But as the net closed around them, they understood a fundamental, grim truth: they only had each other’s backs now. If one of them fell to the pack, the remaining nine would be systematically isolated and torn apart next.
They could settle their scores and fight over the components later, if they survived. For now, their survival depended entirely on mutual defense. Shoulder to shoulder, throwing barrier spells and explosive runes into the path of their pursuers, the ten fractured rivals became an accidental vanguard bound together by a shared, desperate fight just to see the next sunrise.
That single afternoon in Tide’s domain became the definitive fracture line in the history of Nana, the exact moment the old world bled out and the new age was violently born.
Before the auction, Nana had been a realm defined by peaceful epochs, where borders were settled by treaties and the grandest ambitions were debated in sunlit halls. But the shockwaves of Ikenga’s grand design instantly shattered that fragile illusion. The peace that had endured for millennia was replaced by a brutal, unyielding law of survival, life was currency, power was finite, and standing still was a death sentence.
Across the continents, the geopolitical landscape reshaped itself almost overnight. The high kingdoms and godlings, locked down their borders, transformed their territories into militarized citadels. They began aggressively consolidating their borders, knowing that the forty-tower limit meant every inch of ground secured was a fortress denied to a rival.
Before indulging in the ongoing chaos, they have to first settle with themselves, on who was going to gain a Tower and those that would have to wait for another opportunity to arise.
That itself was also another form of conflict from this grand design as not everyone would be happy with the result of these conversations, especially those who believe their services deserve a tower of their own.
Below them, the middle and lower tiers of society descended into a state of perpetual, low-intensity warfare. The termination of the mining contracts unleashed a mad, desperate scramble for resources. Every hidden vein of ore became a flashpoint for bloody skirmishes. Independent paragons and minor factions formed volatile, cutthroat coalitions, tearing at each other’s throats out of the suffocating terror of being left behind.
And at the epicenter of this global maelstrom were the ten ring-holders, these accidental vanguard. Hunted relentlessly across mountains, rivers, and shattered plains, their desperate flight morphed into a legendary running war that dragged many kingdoms into the fray. Wherever they went, destruction followed, lives were lost.
To call them mortals was a cruel joke. These were planet-tier beings, entities whose very existence warped reality, carrying internalized domain spaces that could cover a world. When ten such beings fled in absolute terror, they dragged their vast internal geographies across the world.
As the ten bolted across the southern hemisphere, the ambient pressure of their panicked flight fractured the sky. Rifts tore open in the upper atmosphere, revealing the cold, star-speckled void beyond. One of the fleeing paragons, whose domain manifested as a dense, crushing gravity well, fell through the rift in their Astral form. Instantly, a mountain range the size of an Island warped, bending inward and collapsing under the sudden, hyper-dense localized gravity before violently snapping back, sending shockwaves that leveled three surrounding nations.
The pursuers did not care. They pressed through the devastation, their own domain law grinding against the landscape like tectonic plates sliding off course.
Such was the sight taking place across Nana, it reminded people of Osita’s legendary battle, a cataclysmic clash that had long left the populace bewildered by its random appearance and total devastation.
Only, this time, it was more brutal.
The ten figures fleeing across the horizon were not even the original ten who had first grabbed the rings outside Tide’s domain. Six of those original holders had already fallen, butchered by the relentless tide of hunters. Yet, the numbers were never depleted, the moment a ring-holder died, a frantic, blood-soaked scramble for the prize ensued, and whoever managed to claw their way to the treasure instantly became the new target of everyone.
It created a bizarre state of affairs. Yesterday’s bitter enemies found themselves forced into a blood-pact alliance to survive the next five minutes, while former comrades turned on each other the second a stray blast opened an opportunity to steal a ring. Friend and foe bled into one another in an endless, shifting cycle of betrayal and survival.
The consequences rippled across the entire face of Nana. Oceans flooded into the newly carved craters, super-storms whipped by the collision of warring domain-spaces ravaged the climate, and the sky itself began to bleed an iridescent, auroral light where reality was wearing thin.
They were running for their lives, but in their wake, they were inadvertently reshaping the geography of the world. Every step they took, every clash of their immense powers, proved that the old, gentle and peaceful Nana was dead.
The auction unfolded before them with an almost rehearsed inevitability. High above the realm, Ikenga and his siblings watched in absolute silence. They had mapped out every variable, anticipated and accounted for every desperate maneuver of the participants. When the final gavel fell and they were all sent out on their way precisely as they predicted, none of them so much as blinked.
For Ikenga, the true turning point had arrived, the moment he became aware of the Hegemons.
Prior to this revelation, his plans regarding the paragons had been constrained by the familiar boundaries of their localized universe. But the knowledge of the Hegemons shattered those horizons. This was even more the case when he saw how it became a bail out card being pulled by everyone to avoid consequences.
At the same time, the knowledge about Hegemonies brought him something he had long craved, an answer to what lay beyond the rigid confines of "Order."
As Ikenga turned the concept of the Hegemonies over in his mind, he found himself drawn to what they fundamentally represented. To him, they were mirrors for beings like himself, entities that had outgrown the petty constraints of mortal morality and universal laws.
They embodied true freedom, the unyielding freedom to act entirely on one’s own terms, unbound by cosmic mandates. The freedom to move effortlessly across realms, unhindered by the barriers that kept higher beings confined to a single plane.
This realization stirred distant memories. It brought back the images of his younger years, long before Red had completed his arduous transition into a full dragon.
He remembered the day Lady Tiamat had paid him a visit. Back then, her presence had been a tantalizing glimpse into a larger, wilder reality. Now, armed with the knowledge of the Hegemons, the memory of Tiamat clicked into place.
Lady Tiamat had never spoken the word "Hegemonies" aloud, yet there was a notion to plant seeds of such thought. She had quietly, effortlessly championed the philosophy of faction-wide freedom, a concept that had taken root in Ikenga’s mind and blossomed into a profound temptation. The sheer prospect of absolute, unburdened freedom called to a core part of his nature.
Yet, temptation was as far as it could safely go. Freedom of that caliber demanded solitude, a clean slate where every action carried no tether and no anchor.
Ikenga did not have that luxury. He was bound by blood and bond to his siblings. Behind him stood a world and a people that looked to him for preservation, rendering the pursuit of pure, selfish autonomy an impossible indulgence.
True freedom was a solitary path, and he was surrounded by lives he was born to guard and protect.
The memory of Tiamat served as a sobering reminder of why such an idea had to be reigned in. While Ikenga was unsure of the exact limits of her strength, her capabilities clearly transcended anything he had to imagine.
Red’s transformation stood as living proof. To alter the race and biology of a creature to that of a true dragon was no minor feat. Dragons were no simple creatures, their ancient heritage and innate status matched the terrifying might of Abyssal demons and brushed close to Origins like Ikenga himself.
Yet Tiamat had casually enacted such a monumental, reality-bending feat simply because it amused her, or because she took a passing interest in the outcome. That effortless dominance over existence itself was a stark realization of what true, unchecked power looked like and a boundary Ikenga had to navigate with absolute care.