The Guardian gods-Chapter 710

And more importantly:

A frightened populace is easier to sway.

The humans of the outskirts began seeking meaning in their survival. They studied the statues. They whispered prayers. They pieced together scraps of lore, half-truths, and desperate conclusions.

Their understanding coalesced into something new.

A relationship, a story and a theology born from terror and gratitude.

Keles, the vampire godlings, and the night linked together in a fragile triangle of reverence and fear.

From these whispers, the people drew a single, powerful conclusion:

The Empire must have angered the night itself. Why else would these creatures suddenly appear and began to roam the land at night? Why else would divine protectors appear only after the Empire began enforcing its harsh decrees?

The logic was flawed, tangled, but emotionally perfect. And belief is a weapon that does not need accuracy only force and action.

The rumor spread.

From one village to another, then to traveling traders, then to supply caravans bound for the inner territories and then, inevitably, into the deeper veins of the Empire.

It reached taverns, noble houeses, and border garrisons:

"The Empire has angered the divine?."

"The gods send monsters to punish imperial pride."

"Only the outskirts have been forgiven."

The Vampire Court, sensing opportunity, quietly reinforced this narrative.

To give the rumors more credibility, they issued a silent command:

The thralls would no longer hunt the outskirts at night.

Let the protected villages stand untouched, let the story deepen and let the Empire grow paranoid.

It was time for the real strike.

With their numbers swollen to over a million, the thralls surged deeper into the Empire, moving with the same eerie coordination as a spreading wildfire. No longer starved. No longer hesitant. No longer cautious.

Their strategy changed as they divided themselves into groups, instead of attacking as one whole body.

The Empire’s outer defenses faltered, confused while the rumors sharpened and the divine anger narrative rooted itself deeply in the minds of its people.

This became a snowball effect on the godlings teaching.

The moment the godlings left the outskirts, they saw that the humans in the other regions needed help, real help, guidance, protection, anything. And as they moved on, they unknowingly set off a chain reaction. More and more of their kind, once distant and aloof, began to quietly mingle back into the mortal world, taking on human guises and slipping into villages and towns as teachers, healers, storytellers, or wandering mystics.

Everywhere, the pattern repeated. A quiet wave of divine intervention rolled over the land, subtle but unmistakable.

And Chen was furious.

The moment reports reached his court, a suffocating silence fell over the imperial hall. His ministers watched him closely, their eyes avoiding his. Chen sat rigid on his throne, jaw clenched so tightly the veins on his neck trembled.

His plans were spiraling out of control.

And worse, they were spiraling in the exact direction he had not intended.

This was never supposed to happen.

The gods were not supposed to turn their attention toward the empire.

The godlings were not supposed to start guiding the mortals under him.

His plan years in the making had been crafted for one purpose, "To draw his father out".

To force the old man, the ever-watchful, ever-absent Emperor Above, into revealing even a flicker of his presence. But even now, even with undead thralls, collapsing villages, divine involvement, there was nothing. No whisper. No omen. No movement.

As if his father was watching in silence, letting the world burn or heal as it pleased.

Chen’s fingers curled into fists.

No.

This continent did not need gods. This empire did not need gods. His people were supposed to rely on him their emperor, their protector, their guiding star.

Not outsiders, not divine meddlers. Not these arrogant godlings playing heroes.

The moment he stood, the court immediately bowed.

"Prepare the legions," he commanded, voice sharp as a blade. "Deploy them at once. Every division able to march."

The hall shook with the force of his declaration.

"We will cleanse the land of these creatures of the night."

"We will restore order to the towns."

"And we will show the world" he lifted his chin, eyes glowing with cold imperial fire "that the empire is still strong. That even the so-called anger of the gods is nothing before us."

He paused.

"And that a god is not needed," he said quietly, dangerously, "when they have me." 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The courtiers bowed deeper, none daring to meet his gaze.

Chen’s deployment should have been a triumph, an act that reassured the people that their emperor stood between them and the horrors of the Night. In another time, it would have been celebrated. But reality was cruel, his intervention came too late, long after the hearts of his subjects had tilted toward a different belief, one that had already begun to show its power before their very eyes.

And mingled with that belief was fear.

So while the imperial forces began, at last, to push back the Thralls, creatures whose numbers grew with every passing day, the people watched Chen’s actions not with gratitude, but with dread. If the rumors were true, if the Night was the work of the divine, then Chen’s defiance was not bravery. It was blasphemy. To fight the Night was to challenge the gods themselves.

That thought spread like wildfire.

People began to connect the threads back to the godlings who had wandered their towns months before. Everyone remembered it clearly: the uneasy sight of godlings, stripped of dignity, forced to walk the streets because the emperor had denied them passage. The empire’s laws were absolute, no soul, mortal or "divine", could cross imperial skies or land without approval. And these godlings had lacked the proper documents.

So the emperor detained them.

Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months. And still, he did not let them go.

Now, with the sudden transformation of the Night into something far more violent, far more sentient, it was only natural for the people to wonder "were the two events connected?"

Had the emperor offended the heavens? Had detaining the godlings provoked divine wrath?

Thus, instead of the loyal unity Chen expected, he received terrified reports. Streets filled with protestors. Voices rising in desperation, not praise.

Crowds gathered outside imperial halls and barracks, shouting the same demand again and again:

"Release the godlings! Let them go!"

To them, the Night would not end until the empire corrected its sin. And suddenly, Chen found himself at the center of a storm he never intended to create, caught between the Thralls at his gates and a terrified populace who believed their emperor was about to doom them all.

The empire was splitting down invisible lines. Not everyone had suddenly converted to the new belief; in fact, the unbelievers still outnumbered the faithful by a wide margin. But Chen knew numbers meant nothing if fear kept tipping the scales.

Every day brought another grim report, another town lost, another fortress swallowed by the Night. And with each collapse, more people hesitated, more wavered, more began to think that perhaps the believers were right.

Perhaps the heavens truly were angry. Perhaps their emperor had offended something sacred.

Yet through all of this, the Four Great Clans remained still. Unmoving. Unshaken. They attended court as if nothing had changed, their expressions calm, their robes immaculate, their voices polite. Not a hint of worry. Not a hint of support. They gave Chen nothing.

And their silence infuriated him.

Every time he saw them sitting there serene, composed, unreadable, he felt mocked. As if they were watching him struggle, writhing like a fish trapped in a net, while they stood safely on the shore. He could not shake the suspicion that his father, the former emperor, had already whispered to them from whatever shadows he now occupied. If not, why would the clans remain so still while the empire rotted under their feet?

But Chen could do nothing about it.

He did not have the strength to pry open their mouths and force the truth from them. Even here, in his own imperial court, none of the officials stood beside him. Their bows were shallow, their eyes cold, their loyalty thin as rice paper.

He was alone.

His only true ally was the throne beneath him, cold, heavy, and absolute. The one symbol no one dared defy. Regardless of their feelings, regardless of the terror spreading among the people, the court still obeyed his orders. They had to. To disobey would be to admit that the crown no longer held authority.

And that would mean the empire had already fallen.

But as Chen sat upon that lonely throne, he could not shake the chilling thought:

What good was a crown, if every heart beneath it was already slipping away?

Chen understood his situation far too well. He knew the court would not support him, the clans would not move, and the people were slipping from his grasp like sand between fingers. Therefore, for his next action, he did not need anyone. He could not rely on anyone.