The Guardian gods-Chapter 482

This used to be a link, a direct tether between her and her father—a device through which his voice, sharp and calculating, once echoed in her mind. It had carried his orders, his lessons, his silent expectations. A connection that had once been unbreakable. Until she shattered it herself.

The moment she submitted her body to Björn, forsaking the past for the future growing inside her, she severed the link. She could not risk it. Not for herself. Not for her unborn child. Her father was a man who operated in shadows, a being who viewed sentiment as weakness and ties as nothing more than tools to be exploited. If he knew of her pregnancy, if he deemed it relevant to his grand design, she had no doubt he would try to reclaim control—over her, over the child, over everything. And so, for the past decade or more, Yuki had waited.

Waited to see if he would reach out. If he would find a way to break through the silence. If her defiance had left even the faintest ripple in his vast, omniscient mind.

But he never did.

Not once.

It was as though her betrayal had never mattered. As though she had never mattered.

Perhaps he had written her off the moment she ceased to be useful. Or perhaps, in his cold, indifferent way, he had always known this day would come. The day she would find herself here, staring at the remnants of their connection, needing him for the first time in her life.

Yuki exhaled sharply, an almost bitter chuckle escaping her lips. How ironic.

Her father saw everything. That was one unshakable truth of the world she had been raised in. He did not need to ask questions because he already knew the answers. He did not need to look for things because, inevitably, things found their way to him. It was under his relentless gaze that Yuki had grown, a daughter molded in the image of one who knew all. She had once been his eyes and ears in places he could not reach. She had built her authority in Björn’s kingdom on the strength of that knowledge, on the understanding that she could see further, hear more, know before anyone else did.

But now?

Her today was not the Yuki of the past. The certainty she once carried, the unwavering confidence that she was always a step ahead—gone.

The world was moving, shifting in ways she could no longer predict. She no longer knew what her father was thinking. She no longer knew if he was even watching.

And for the first time in her life, Yuki realized what it was like to be in the dark.

What she knew—what she had always known—was no longer enough.

Yuki had built her strength on knowledge, on the certainty that nothing moved beyond her awareness. But that certainty was gone. And she knew exactly why.

It all stemmed from the silence. The absence of her father.

Krogan, Zirikon, the cursed forest—events unfolding beyond her lands, slipping through the cracks of her understanding. A decade ago, such an oversight would have been unthinkable. She would have known. She would have anticipated. But now?

Now, she was left grasping in the dark.

This was her father’s greatest gift, the advantage that had once made her untouchable. And today, for the first time, she had been forced to acknowledge that it was no longer hers.

That was why she sat here now, alone in her chamber, staring at the small skull she had kept hidden all these years.

The mist still leaked from its hollow sockets, curling like whispered secrets in the dim candlelight. The weight of it in her hands was heavier than it had ever been, laden with a question she had tried to avoid asking.

Should she reestablish contact?

And if she did, how much did he already know?

Had he been watching, as he always had, waiting for her to come crawling back? Had he anticipated this moment, this exact hesitation, long before she even realized she would break?

What would he demand of her? What price would she have to pay?

And more than anything—what plans did he already have for her son?

Yuki exhaled slowly, fingers tightening around the skull. She could already feel it happening. The shift. The slow, inevitable pull back into the state she had spent so long trying to escape.

To be in her father’s presence—whether through words or silence—was to surrender to an endless, invisible game. There was never a moment of rest with him. Every action, every word, every flicker of expression had to be scrutinized, unraveled, understood from every possible angle. Because before you knew it, you were moving to his tune.

And he never had to say a word. That was his power. His control.

Her father was old. Older than most could comprehend. His knowledge, his wisdom—it was a force of its own, honed through lifetimes of patience and precision. If not for the Origin Gods, Yuki had no doubt that this world would have already been his.

Five beings of overwhelming power.

No matter how intricate his arrangements, no matter how meticulous his plans, in the face of their might, all of it amounted to nothing.

And yet, for all his failures, her father had never stopped moving. Never stopped watching.

Had he been watching her?

Yuki pressed her lips together, a sharp pang of unease settling in her chest. She had spent so long believing she was free. But now, as she sat here, staring into the empty sockets of the skull, she realized the truth.

She had never been free. Only forgotten, and now, she was about to remind him.

The Origin Gods were beyond even his reach. For all his wisdom, for all his boundless knowledge, they remained the one force in the world immune to his influence.

But others? Others were not so fortunate.

Yuki was not so fortunate.

To take him as an opponent? That was unthinkable. A battle she would never dare to dream of, let alone fight. That was why, the moment she heard even the faintest whisper that he had allowed her out of his sight, she had seized the opportunity. She had fled across the sea, crossing to a continent so distant, so removed from his immediate reach, that she could almost pretend she was free.

Almost.

She had left behind her brother—the only one who could ever truly understand the weight of growing under their father’s gaze. And yet, she had abandoned him without hesitation.

Because she pitied him.

Yuki loved her brother. Or rather, she would have loved him if they had been given a normal father, a normal childhood, a normal life. But love had no place in the house they were raised in. Affection had been replaced with rivalry, trust with manipulation. Now, whatever bond they could have had was long shattered. All that remained was hatred—a mutual, seething hatred that had festered for years, until it twisted into something irreversible.

They had both been broken.

She had developed her own complexities under their father’s rule, chains she had mistaken for her own thoughts, her own will. And when she left—when she thought she had finally escaped—those chains snapped and sent her spiraling. She believed herself free, but instead, she unraveled.

And her brother? He was left behind, left to suffer, trapped beneath the crushing weight of an inferiority complex he would never be allowed to grow beyond.

Yuki’s breath hitched, her vision blurring.

The skull slipped from her hands, landing with a dull, lifeless sound against the floor.

And then—so did she.

Her body crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut, trembling hands clutching at her chest as sobs tore from her throat. Her shoulders shook violently, her breath coming in ragged, uneven gasps. She pushed herself away from the skull, dragging herself across the cold floor like it burned her.

"What... what am I to do?"

The words barely formed, spilling from her lips in a broken whisper.

For the first time in her life, she felt powerless.

Truly, utterly powerless.

She crawled, her fingers scraping against the ground as she retreated to the farthest corner of the room. There, she curled into herself, drawing her knees to her chest, pressing her forehead against them as she tried to make herself small—so small that she could disappear.

And then, through her sobs, she called out.

A plea, desperate and raw.

"Husband... what am I to do?"

Björn.

The man she had given herself to. The man who, for better or worse, was hers.

Would he answer? Would he save her? Or was she, once again, left to drown alone?

Since regaining his senses, Björn had never once wavered in his focus. His kingdom—the land he had claimed, the people who worshiped him—was now the foundation of his power, the very source of his growing divinity.

He had not ignored Yuki.

How could he?

She was his. His wife. The mother of his child. The one who had once bound herself to him, body and soul.