The Guardian gods Chapter 467

Deep within the forest, he scoured the ranks of demon beasts, sifting through generations of mutations and latent abilities. Eventually, he found them—creatures with a natural affinity for space. At first, they were weak, their talents underdeveloped, their grasp of spatial manipulation crude at best. But that would change.

He initiated a project, an experint of selective breeding and forced evolution. Through careful cultivation, he guided their developnt, ensuring that with each successive generation, their affinity for space grew stronger, their abilities refined. What was once a re flicker of talent soon beca an innate force, woven into their very being.

And then, when his work bore fruit—when one side of his cursed forest had beco a breeding ground for creatures steeped in spatial energy—he claid his reward.

There was no celebration for their newfound strength. No era of prosperity for the race that had unknowingly served his purpose.

Instead, they were torn apart.

Their bodies were shattered, every piece of their flesh and bone repurposed. Their very essence was scattered and buried at the forest’s boundaries, fusing their spatial energy into the fabric of his claid land.

It was during this ti, as he moved thodically through his cursed domain, laying down the intricate spellwork necessary to birth a space boundary, that his ambition evolved.

A realization struck him—why stop at rely creating a barrier? What if he could take it a step further? What if he could rge his personal domain with the very fabric of the space boundary he was about to construct?

The thought ignited sothing within him, a hunger for creation that surpassed re survival or territorial dominance. This was not just about establishing control over the cursed forest—it was about transcending it. If he succeeded, he would possess a domain untethered from the physical world, a realm truly his own.

And so, he acted.

With the groundwork ticulously laid, he reached the final stage of his grand design. At the heart of the lake, buried deep beneath the violet-hued waters, a pulsating core began to stir—the Heart, an ancient and powerful organ ford from the main consciousness body and it’s condensed lifeforce. It had lain dormant for years, but now, under the influence of his spell, it began to beat.

A slow, steady rhythm at first.

Then, faster.

The mont the spell fully activated, the Heart roared to life, sending shockwaves rippling through the entire lake. The space-boundary magic surged through the land, igniting every runic inscription, every sacrificial marking. The bodies of the space-affinity creatures, painstakingly cultivated over generations, now served their final purpose. Their essence, the very reason they had been bred and nurtured, was consud by the forming boundary, their energy woven into the nascent dinsion.

Then, as the magic reached its crescendo, he made his move.

With a re thought, he opened his personal domain.

It unraveled like a vast shadow, stretching outward from within him, seeping into the forming space. The boundary hungrily devoured it, lding the two into one. His domain, which had once existed in a secluded fold of reality, was now inseparably fused with the new spatial construct.

And just like that, a pocket dinsion was born.

At first, it was small. A re fragnt of what it could beco.

But he knew this was only the beginning.

With ti, with his growth, and with the continuous evolution of the creatures within this new dinsion, the space itself would expand. As the beings that inhabited it beca stronger, as their lifeforce enriched the foundation of his realm, the pocket dinsion would stretch and swell, feeding off their power.

This was his world now, an extension of his will, a domain where no god, no mortal, no force of the outside world could challenge him.

And yet, despite this monuntal success, he did not stop. This was just the first step.

Before the birth of his pocket dinsion, he was never blind to the world beyond the cursed forest. While his body remained hidden, forgotten by ti, his eyes road freely.

Through his followers—beasts and lesser demons he had carefully nurtured and trained—he extended his vision past the boundaries of his land. So of them had left the cursed territory long ago, slipping into the vast reaches of the western continent and beyond, their presence unnoticed as they blended into the mortal world. They were his eyes and ears, feeding him glimpses of distant lands, the rise and fall of civilizations, the maneuverings of gods and demons alike.

He watched as his fellow demon consciousnesses fought their battles—so ascended, others fell. He observed their victories, their failures, their blind arrogance. The gods, both ancient and newly ascended, moved like pieces on a grand chessboard, so striking in the open, others lurking in the shadows.

Nothing ever escaped his sight.

And of all the beings he observed, none intrigued him more than Murmur, the main consciousness that now stirred with a grand design. He had followed Murmur’s machinations with interest, tracking the silent war Murmur waged upon the world, the delicate way he played with faith, trying to bend mortals and gods alike to his will.

And now, Murmur was moving.

The Jaguar let out a quiet chuckle when he realized what Murmur was planning. With a flick of his tail, he whispered into the void:

"You finally are learning."

For centuries, he had studied this world. He had examined the way mortals and gods wove their fates together, the invisible chains that bound them in a cycle of faith, power, and control. And he ca to one undeniable truth—this world could never be conquered.

Not truly.

The only real chance would have been in an era of great war, when the world was at its weakest, when its foundations trembled and its protectors were scattered or slain. But history had denied them that opportunity.

The war that should have shattered the world never ca.

And as long as the Origin Gods and their children stood, no amount of ticulous planning could ever succeed.

Family.

The word held no aning for him.

Not in the way the gods understood it.

He had been born like countless others, one among thousands hatched from the cursed waters of the River Styx—a demon spawn among demon spawn, cast into the world with nothing but hunger and instinct. There were no bonds and no love. Only kill or be killed. The weak were devoured, their essence fueling the growth of the strong. It was the way of demons, the cycle of evolution through slaughter.

Yet, as he observed the divine families of this world, he saw sothing different.

He saw kinship, unity, unwavering loyalty—the very things that made gods unshakable in their rule. It was not power alone that secured their dominion. It was their unwillingness to betray one another, their instinct to stand together against all threats.

And therein lay the real problem. The demons had always relied on division—turning allies against each other, whispering doubt into the hearts of mortals, exploiting the gaps in relationships. It was through chaos that demons thrived, for in the ashes of disorder, power could be seized.

But the gods of this world... they left no gaps.

Their unity was their fortress.

Without that weakness to exploit, without war to weaken their foundations, every plan, no matter how delicate, would crumble before it even began.

The strategy of turning allies against each other had been a tried and tested thod, especially against beings as powerful as the Origin gods—creatures whose power was unquestionable in this world. Their might was too vast to challenge directly, their faith-woven existence making them nearly untouchable.

A more subtle approach was always needed.

Corruption from within. The slow unraveling of trust. Planting the seeds of doubt where once stood unwavering loyalty. These thods had long been the tools of demons, ways to guarantee a victory without direct confrontation.

But in this world, it would not work.

The gods of this realm had sothing rare—a strong bond, a unity that had not yet fractured. They did not sche against one another. They did not war for dominance or rip apart their own kin for power.

To the Jaguar, this unnatural harmony was simply a result of their youth.

The oldest of these gods had lived for only a thousand years.

A re infant in the eyes of demons.

Compared to his main consciousness, compared to those who had walked the chaos of existence for tens of thousands of years, these gods had barely begun their journey.

And that was the mistake the main consciousness and the others kept making.

They believed these young gods would be easily swayed, that their bonds would shatter under the weight of ambition and pride. They assud that the sa chaos that ruled demonkind would apply to the divine.

But they had been proven wrong ti and ti again.

These gods did not turn against one another. Instead, they grew stronger together.

The Jaguar watched as the other demon consciousnesses threw their plans into the world, only to be thwarted at every turn. Their underestimations had cost them.