The Guardian gods Chapter 550

A pause.

"The other," Kaelen said, tapping a heavy finger against the throne’s arm, "was the Brute Strain. That is the strain we ogres inherited. Strength. Rage. Instinct. We were ant to be the guardians... or the weapons. Depending on who held the leash."

Rattan’s mouth went dry.

Kaelen’s voice dropped low, tinged with bitterness. "Ogres are not born as ogres, Rattan. We’re born... as goblins. Just like you."

Rattan’s eyes widened, but Kaelen pressed on before he could speak.

"But our fate is sealed from the very beginning. Since the day we enter this world, it’s already been decided who we’ll beco."

He took a deep breath, the weight of mory heavy in his chest.

"It all starts with the talent test, doesn’t it? Every goblin child is subjected to it at the age of five. They call it a tradition—a sacred ceremony to ’discover potential.’ But that’s a lie. A clever mask."

"The empire uses that ceremony to hide the truth of what’s really happening to us."

Kaelen turned to Rattan, who looked stricken with confusion.

"Do you know why that is?" he asked quietly.

Rattan slowly shook his head.

Kaelen’s eyes grew distant, as if staring into a mory he wished he could forget. "Because that’s when the change begins," he said. "Right after the test. Under the pretext of assigning ’professions’—Mage or Knight—the empire justifies what they do to us."

Rattan’s brow furrowed. "Professions...?"

"Lies," Kaelen snapped. "They claim those who show magical aptitude beco mages, and those who don’t beco knights. But in truth, it’s not just a title—it’s for a transformation that is to co"

He stood taller now, shoulders squared in grim defiance.

"Those called Knights... they’re the ones destined to beco ogres. The ones chosen for strength over intellect. Brute over craft. And the Mages? They remain goblins, unchanged, pure, the so-called ’gifted.’"

Kaelen’s lips curled into a bitter smile. "You see? The mages, the very ones who dood us to this fate—still rule us, even now. Even long after they are gone."

He looked straight at Rattan, voice trembling with restrained anger.

"They taught us, over generations, that Knights were nothing but tools. That our purpose was to serve the Mages—to protect them while they ’grow.’ And once they no longer needed us, we were discarded. Turned into laborers, guards, or worse... forgotten."

Kaelen continued, his voice low but intense. "This is why goblins look down on us. Why they call us ogres. Because we were made to be beneath them. Conditioned to be obedient, stupid, violent. Even our nas—our language—was stolen."

He glanced down at his large, calloused hands.

"We didn’t beco monsters, Rattan. We were turned into them. By design."

Silence fell between them, thick and heavy.

Then Kaelen looked up. "You were never ant to learn this. Vellok didn’t want you to ask. Because the mont you begin to question the foundation of your beliefs... everything begins to fall apart."

Rattan took a long mont to gather himself. His breath trembled in his throat, and his heart beat loudly in his chest as the weight of Kaelen’s words settled over him like a suffocating fog.

Finally, with a voice barely above a whisper, he spoke.

"If... if you confirm Vellok’s words to be true... then you’re leading us to extinction, my lord."

Kaelen’s eyes narrowed slightly. Then, without warning, he threw his head back and laughed—a loud, deep laugh that echoed across the cold stone walls around them. The sound was not mocking, but rather... mournful. Pained.

"You’re still so pure, Rattan," Kaelen said as the laughter faded, replaced by a bittersweet smile. "You genuinely care about our people. I envy that. But no... I’m not leading us into extinction. I’ve simply chosen a different path for our survival."

He stepped forward, hands loosely at his sides, no hostility in his stance—only conviction.

"The empire chose tyranny," he said. "They chained us to a system of control, of division and manipulation, of rewriting what we are and making us believe that was all we could ever be."

He paused, voice tightening with resolve.

"I chose the opposite path. One of rebirth."

Rattan stared at him, uncertain.

"The key to this ga," Kaelen continued, "is the Ratfolk."

Rattan blinked, confused. "The ratfolk...?"

"To the empire, the suppression of the ratfolk is critical. Their extinction would bring the empire closer to its goal. But to ?" He smiled again, this ti with a flicker of sothing dangerous in his eyes. "Their survival is the beginning of mine."

Kaelen leaned in, his tone quieter now, but charged with intensity. "You wonder why I pushed so hard to see you help them, why I spared no effort, no cost. It wasn’t just sympathy, Rattan."

He stepped closer. Rattan didn’t move, didn’t breathe.

Kaelen bent slightly, his lips just beside Rattan’s ear, his voice now a whisper of thunder.

"If I present myself to the now broken, hunted ratfolk as their salvation... what do you think the first children of this world will do?"

Rattan froze.

"They were once the earliest children of this land—before the goblins, before even the ogres. Now scattered, hunted, scorned. But if I beco their light, their hope..."

Kaelen slowly drew back, eyes burning with a strange fire.

"...then I beco the center of a new truth. One not built by magesbut by the will of those abandoned by both. I will accomplish that the mages with eye above their head couldn’t"

He let the silence stretch, letting the weight of his vision sink in.

"I’m not destroying our people, Rattan. I’m freeing them. Even if they don’t know it yet."

Rattan’s eyes widened as the pieces fell into place. He turned his gaze toward the Ogre King—Kaelen—and for the first ti, he saw him not as the half-mad revolutionary the empire had painted him to be, but as sothing far more dangerous: a visionary.

This was why the empire feared him.

Not for his strength, but because Kaelen understood the system better than anyone... and had found a way to turn it against itself.

Rattan’s mind raced, Kaelen’s words echoing within him like a mantra. "If I present myself to the ratfolk as their salvation..."

He thought back to Kaelen recent actions, at first it seed rabid and made no sense. Ogre knights, once thought to be nothing more than berserkers, now fighting with calculated discipline at the side of ratfolk militia against demons. He also heard of one shielding a wounded ratfolk child, another repairing crude ratfolk gear with a smith’s precision.

It hadn’t seed important at the ti. Just strange acts of rcy.

But now he understood.

It was intentional.

Kaelen hadn’t just allied with the ratfolk—he had invested in them. He had embedded himself into their struggle, made his people essential to their survival.

And Rattan now realized the subtler moves Kaelen had been making.

ntions of his na. Whispers. Praise. Always spoken by others—never Kaelen himself. But carefully planted. Repeated enough to grow.

It wouldn’t be long before the ratfolk began to see Kaelen not just as a powerful ally... but as a savior. And if that image took root in their collective hearts?

He’d be unstoppable.

Rattan’s breath caught in his throat.

This was sothing of a myth, a new legend being born, not by accident but by design. And Kaelen, for all his talk of liberation, was guiding it with a careful hand.

And yet... Rattan couldn’t bring himself to fully accept it.

Because Kaelen hadn’t lied. His vision wasn’t built on fear or domination like the empire’s had been. He had chosen the path of rcy, of unity with the broken and discarded.

But that didn’t make it safe.

Rattan clenched his fists, heart pounding. If left alone... Kaelen could actually succeed.

Rattan didn’t even realize he was gritting his teeth until the tension in his jaw began to ache. His arms were clenched tight at his sides, nails digging into his palms.

A storm was brewing inside him—one he couldn’t na at first.

But it was there.

His fla of ambition, once flickering with uncertainty, now blazed with renewed vigor. Yet with it ca sothing darker... heavier.

Envy.

It burned cold, not hot—a hollow ache in his chest that made it hard to breathe.

He didn’t understand it. Not fully. Not yet.

But it whispered to him, in the silence between Kaelen’s words. In the awe-struck eyes of those who spoke the Ogre King’s na with reverence. In the image of ratfolk survivors soday singing praises... not of him, not of Rattan—but of Kaelen.

Why?

Why should Kaelen be the one to rise from the ashes of this cursed world?

Why should he be the one rembered?

Why not ?

Rattan’s thoughts grew louder, more bitter with every passing mont. It wasn’t just about power. It wasn’t just about the empire, or freedom, or truth anymore.

It was about legacy.

About who would shape the new world when the old one burned away.

And suddenly, the image of Kaelen hailed as the savior of the ratfolk of ogres, even of goblins felt like a dagger twisting in Rattan’s heart.