The Guardian gods-Chapter 711

It was time for him to throw himself into the game, a gamble with his own life at stake.

If he succeeded, he would reclaim everything, his authority, his people's trust, the stability of the empire. If he failed… then his life, his prestige, even the legitimacy of his reign could be shattered beyond repair.

Chen's plan was bold. Reckless. Perhaps even foolish. But he saw no other path.

He would prove to his people that there was no divine punishment, no wrath of the heavens, no cosmic retribution for detaining the godlings.

Instead, he would show them the truth as he had pieced it together.

The plague of Night, the Thralls, the spreading corruption, it was the work of their so-called neighbors, the Vampire Godlings.

Those pale monsters, half-divine and half-beast, who had long hovered at the edges of the empire. Those who smiled like saints but feasted like devils. Those who were powerful, yes, but still people, beings the empire could quantify, resist, even conquer.

If the people understood that their suffering was caused by godlings,

not gods, their fear could turn to anger. And anger could once again be shaped into loyalty.

But the Vampire Godlings had been careful. Their plans woven in silence. They left no trace, no evidence, no open wound to point to. They made themselves invisible while letting the empire drown.

So Chen decided he would be the proof.

He would go himself. He would enter their lands, an action no emperor had ever taken and drag the truth out of them even if he had to walk through their blood-soaked halls.

He would force them to confess before the empire. Expose their schemes. Tear apart the lie that kept his people in fear.

It was madness and It was desperation. But that was the last card he had to pull rightnow to force his father out. Also hopefully ff the people saw the truth with their own eyes, they would return to him. And he would no longer be alone.

Once Chen made his decision, he acted without hesitation. There was no point waiting, time itself was already his enemy.

When night descended across the empire, he cloaked himself in black, shrouding every trace of imperial regalia. The emperor vanished, and in his place walked a lone shadow slipping out of the capital's gates. He moved without escort, without ceremony, without witnesses.

Only the moon saw him leave.

Chen headed toward the frontier, the regions closest to the Thralls relentless advance.

As someone nearing the sixth-tier stage, traversing the empire posed no challenge. His body cut through the night like wind, his presence dimmed until even trained hunters would overlook him. Every step was measured, every breath controlled.

His consciousness expanded outward like a silent radar, probing, sweeping, seeking. It reached through forests, ravines, ruined villages, and blood-soaked plains, dragging back impressions of anything that felt wrong, foreign, hidden.

When he arrived at the first town under attack, the battle was already underway. Imperial soldiers clashed with the Thralls, steel ringing against bone, screams swallowed by the darkness.

Yet Chen did not rush to help. He had not come here to fight.

His gaze swept past the chaos and carnage, searching not for the monsters tearing into his soldiers, but for the ones guiding them.

He had spent countless nights contemplating the truth, mindless beasts did not act with such precision. Mindless beasts did not coordinate their assaults with perfect timing. Mindless beasts did not leave so few mistakes for the empire to exploit.

No beast, mindless moved in patterns this clean.

So Chen followed a different trail, the trail of intention behind the Thralls, the hidden strings.

The Thralls were never acting alone, there was something above them. Someone keeping them in line and refining their savagery into strategy.

And if Chen was right, then the vampire godlings the ones orchestrating it.

These shadowy puppeteers, those were the ones Chen had been hunting. The Thralls themselves did not interest him. Their violence was loud, obvious, predictable. But the minds behind them… the ones hiding in silence? Those were the threat.

To his surprise, that first night yielded nothing. No foreign aura, no guiding presence and no divine taint.

But Chen was not disappointed. He had expected this. One town meant little; the empire was vast, and the attacks spread across countless regions.

So he continued.

Night after night, he traveled like a ghost across his own land. When darkness blanketed the empire, he hunted. When dawn approached, he returned quietly to the capital, unseen.

He repeated this for days.

Each night, tens of thousands of Thralls spilled across the borders like a tide of shadows, twisting, shrieking, expanding. Yet Chen sensed no mind controlling them. Nothing hidden. Nothing intelligent.

Only their growing numbers.

And that, in itself, was terrifying.

Eventually, his failure began to make a certain sense.

The vampire godlings could not be micromanaging every Thrall.

They were too many. If they were involved and Chen was increasingly certain they were, they would only directly oversee the most important maneuvers. The subtle threads. The key triggers. Not every meaningless slaughter.

Which meant finding them would rely on: luck, experience and deduction.

But deduction failed him.

The vampire godlings motives were too broad, too shapeless. Their goal seemed to stretch across the empire like a net with no center.

Were they aiming to destabilize the land? To provoke panic? To break the emperor's authority? or something deeper?

Every conclusion only spawned more questions.

So Chen continued, driven by stubborn will alone.

A week passed. Seven nights of bloody patrols, seven nights of disappointment.

Then, Luck revealed itself.

On a cold, moonlit night, as Chen swept across a ravine scarred by Thrall footprints, his consciousness brushed against something unusual. A ripple. A mark on reality.

A familiar energy.

Chen froze mid-step.

It was faint, distant, and carefully hidden, but he knew it immediately.

The distinct flavor of divine taint. The same kind he carried within himself. Unmistakably someone touched by divinity was nearby.

Chen's pulse thundered once in his chest.

At last, he had found a thread.

Not far from where Chen stood, a large fortified town was bracing for impact. An entire wave of Thralls surged toward its walls, an unstoppable black tide ready to crash. The night air shook with their shrieks.

And above that chaos, perched casually on the branch of an old tree, sat two young figures.

From Chen's elevated perception, they were unmistakable: tall, slender, unnervingly beautiful, with piercing crimson eyes that glowed faintly even in the dark. Their expressions were uncertain, almost troubled, as if caught between fear and curiosity.

They had felt something, his awareness brushing against them but it was so brief, so precise, that for a moment they assumed it was simply their imagination.

But Chen's own eyes gleamed with a cold, icy blue.

Target acquired.

His body shifted, and in the blink of an eye he vanished, reappearing atop the very tree they sat on. Branches creaked under the sudden weight.

"I found you," he said.

His voice carried no anger, no triumph just the chilling certainty of a man who had been searching too long.

The effect was instantaneous.

Chen raised a brow as the two vampire godlings reacted with startling speed. The world around him exploded into thick black smoke, swallowing the tree, the sky, and even the moonlight.

The darkness was absolute, but not to him.

His senses easily sliced through it. Two signatures. Both closing in rapidly.

One lunged from above, killing intent aimed straight at his skull.

The other shot from below, aiming for his heart with inhuman precision.

Fast. Coordinated. Almost identical to the Thrall attacks and exactly what Chen had been expecting.

A thin smile curved onto his face.

They were fast but not fast enough. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Chen reacted instantly. His icy-blue aura flared, a cold wind slicing through the smoky darkness. He didn't dodge in the conventional sense, he moved through it. His body blurred into a streak of frost, and when he reappeared, the first godling's strike met only air, the blade cutting through frost-laced mist.

"You'll have to do better than that," Chen murmured, his voice calm.

The godlings hissed, a sound like blood over coals, and lunged again. This time, the pair split their attack: the one with dark affinity melded into the shadows, merging with the smoke around. Their bodies blur as if disappearing from reality itself. The blood-affinity godling surged forward, leaving a trail of glistening red energy behind their claws, sharp as poisoned daggers aimed directly at Chen's heart.

Chen's icy-blue eyes narrowed. Raising his hands, he summoned a ring of frost beneath him, crystals shooting outward in spikes that pinned the ground, freezing the smoke midair and scattering shards of frozen mist toward the blood godling. The red energy collided with the ice, sizzled, and hissed, but it slowed their charge enough for Chen to shift his weight.