The Guardian gods-Chapter 442

But even as she fought it, she knew the truth.

She had already changed.

Xerosis clutched her chest, her breath uneven as she staggered back. The golden palace, the starving villagers, the hollow-eyed boy—they all dissolved into the abyss, leaving only darkness and the unbearable weight of her own thoughts.

She had never known need, yet in mere moments, she had felt its crushing grasp. The hunger, the desperation, the gnawing fear of having nothing and the paranoia of losing everything. Even now, though the vision had faded, a part of her still craved.

Her hands trembled.

"How quickly divinity crumbles under the weight of mortal suffering," the voice of the Covetous Leviathan rumbled.

Xerosis snapped her head up, her eyes burning with defiance. The giant loomed over her once more, its sickly golden glow pulsating with an unnatural light.

"You felt it, didn’t you?" it continued, its many teeth gleaming. "That terrible need. That overwhelming desire to hoard, to take, to hold onto what was yours. And when you had everything? The fear of losing it was worse than the hunger itself."

Xerosis steadied herself, forcing her mind to clear, to suppress the lingering hunger and greed that clawed at the edges of her soul. "You are mistaken," she said, her voice firm but laced with something she did not want to admit—uncertainty. "I am not ruled by desire."

The Leviathan let out a deep, guttural chuckle, its cursed eyes narrowing. "Not yet."

Then, the world shifted once more.

Xerosis gasped as the dark void around her warped into a battlefield.

Smoke choked the air. The ground was cracked and broken, littered with bodies, some still breathing, others motionless. Warriors clad in ruined armor groaned in agony, their weapons shattered beside them.

And at the center of it all—Xerosis stood victorious.

She felt it before she even realized—the power surging through her veins, the way her body pulsed with unnatural strength, her wounds nonexistent.

At her feet lay the defeated. Not just enemies. Not just warriors. Rulers, scholars, gods.

Her hands tightened around the golden spear in her grasp. The weapon felt right, like it had always belonged to her.

And then, she heard the whispers.

"Take it."

Her gaze shifted to the grand throne before her—a monument of divine power, authority, and eternal control. It was hers for the taking. All of it.

She had fought for this. She had earned this.

She stepped forward.

Then—

Hands grabbed her ankles.

She looked down.

The defeated warriors were reaching for her, their bloodied, desperate hands pulling at her legs, their voices hoarse.

"Don’t take it."

"You’ll become like him."

"Please, Xerosis—don’t—"

Her breath hitched.

She didn’t know why, but something about their words sent a sharp fear through her chest.

Like who?

Then, a voice—not the Leviathan’s, but something worse, something deep inside her whispered—

"Like the Leviathan. Like the gluttonous kings. Like the tyrants who take until there is nothing left."

Xerosis froze.

For the first time since this ordeal began, the weight in her chest was not just the burden of hunger or greed.

It was the fear of what she could become.

She looked at the throne again, and for the first time, she hesitated.

The vision shattered, and Xerosis was thrown back into the golden cavern of the Leviathan’s domain. She fell to one knee, gasping, her body drenched in sweat.

The Leviathan watched her with a knowing grin, its golden drool sizzling against the treasure-covered floor.

"So, now you understand." Xerosis looked up, her hands still shaking.

The hunger, the greed—it wasn’t gone.

It would never be gone, but she could still choose and that, more than anything, was what terrified her.

Xerosis remained on one knee, her breath still uneven, but her mind—her mind was no longer clouded. The echoes of hunger and greed still clung to her, whispering, clawing, trying to make a home within her soul. But she did not recoil from them. Not anymore.

She lifted her gaze, meeting the Covetous Leviathan’s cursed, golden eyes.

"You ask if I understand." Her voice was steady now, firm. "I do."

The Leviathan let out a deep, guttural chuckle, its hulking form shifting as it loomed over her. "Then tell me, Demigod—do you finally see greed for what it is? A hunger that consumes all? A sickness that festers within the soul? Or do you still fight against what you felt—what you are meant to become?"

Xerosis exhaled slowly, pushing herself to her feet. The weight of what she had experienced still lingered, but she was no longer suffocating beneath it.

"No," she said. "Greed is not a sickness."

The Leviathan’s grin faltered, its glowing eyes narrowing.

"Greed is a desire," Xerosis continued. "It is need, it is want, it is the hunger for more. It is what drives the starving child to steal, what pushes the warrior to take up the sword, what fuels the king to conquer and the merchant to trade."

The Leviathan tilted its head slightly, as if waiting for the inevitable concession, the moment she would call it a curse.

But Xerosis did not.

"These emotions, this hunger—they are not evil in themselves. They are not sins to be punished," she said. "They are merely forces, like the wind that can nourish the land or tear it apart in a storm."

The Leviathan’s molten saliva hissed against the gold-covered floor. "So, you would let the glutton hoard until his people starve? The tyrant take until his people kneel? Would you allow greed to rule unchecked?"

"No." Xerosis took a step forward.

"Because greed without restraint turns to ruin. Because hunger without control leads to desperation, madness, destruction."

She gestured to the cavern of riches surrounding them.

"Greed is not the sin. Letting it rule you is."

She clenched her fist, feeling the lingering hunger gnawing at her soul, the want that still whispered. And yet—she remained standing.

"That is the difference between the starving child and the gluttonous king. Between ambition and obsession. Between a ruler who leads and a tyrant who takes."

The Leviathan stared. Xerosis met its gaze, her voice unwavering.

"Desire is natural. But surrendering to it? Becoming a slave to it? That is the true curse."

A silence stretched between them.

Then—the Leviathan grinned.

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The sound rumbled through the cavern like an avalanche, deep and knowing.

"So, you finally understand." Xerosis said nothing.

The hunger still lingered. The temptation still called.

But she would not be ruled by it.

Xerosis, a nascent deity, had approached her potential ascension with a certain clarity. She envisioned herself as a beacon of justice, a protector of women, a force that would rectify the imbalances of the world. Her understanding, however, was born of idealized concepts, drawn from stories and her own experiences, rather than the brutal, multifaceted reality of divine responsibility.

She had, perhaps, been too focused on the specific, the targeted redress of grievances against women, neglecting the intricate web of cause and effect that permeated existence. Her encounter with the "arch cursed being," a creature steeped in a miasma of ancient suffering, shattered her comfortable assumptions. It was a visceral lesson, a jarring confrontation with the true weight of godhood.

This being, and the others like it, were not merely embodiments of sin; they were living, writhing testaments to the consequences of her narrow vision. Each sin they represented was a facet of justice she had overlooked, a shadow cast by her selective focus.

Xerosis stood amidst the glimmering treasures, her reflection distorted in the warped gold at her feet. The gnawing hunger that had seized her, the overwhelming greed that had whispered to her—it was gone now. Wiped away by recognition.

For so long, she had called herself a force of justice. She had sought balance, retribution. She had granted power to the women who had suffered, allowing them to retaliate, to take back what was stolen from them—even in death.

But as she stared into the cursed, ravenous eyes of the Covetous Leviathan, a deep unease settled within her.

She had been a fool.

She had always thought she understood justice. But had she ever truly questioned its weight?

It was easy to stand for the oppressed when the oppressor was clear. It was easy to wield retribution when the victims all bore the same wounds. But what of those who did not fit into the world she had constructed?

What of justice for those she had overlooked?

Her fingers twitched at her sides. She had seen men wield power and crush others beneath them. She had seen women stripped of agency, betrayed, violated, forgotten. She had fought for them, lifted them, given them the power to strike back. But had she ever considered the other side?

The men wronged by their own kin, by their own rulers. The children cast aside, unseen, because their suffering did not fit within the lines she had drawn. The justice denied simply because it did not belong to those she had chosen to fight for.

Xerosis closed her eyes, feeling the weight of that revelation settle in her chest.

Justice could not be partial.