The Guardian gods-Chapter 509

The mage’s face curled in distaste. "Take him away," he ordered coldly.

Then, turning to the knights, he lifted the tether of presence still wrapped around his finger. "The rest of you—come with me. We’re following this."

And with that, the hunt for Chief began.

As for Rattan, he remained in a daze—until the darkness gave way to a vast underground chamber. The moment his eyes adjusted, his breath caught in his throat.

Ratmen.

Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. All huddled in silence beneath the heavy gloom of flickering mana-lamps. Before he could process the sight, the ogre holding him gave a grunt and, with no care, hurled Rattan forward into the space like a sack of grain.

He hit the ground hard but scrambled to his feet almost immediately, the fear in his chest replaced by something close to elation. Ratmen—his own kind! After what Chief had told him of the Empire, he had expected cages, fire, experiments. But instead, he was surrounded by familiar faces. His tail twitched with excitement as he stepped forward, eager to speak, to connect.

Then he paused.

Something was wrong.

As he took a closer look, the flicker of joy drained from his face. The other ratmen... they weren’t talking. They weren’t doing anything at all. Their eyes were hollow, unfocused—like they’d seen something terrible and never come back from it. Each face was gaunt, each breath shallow. They sat still, backs slumped, as though waiting for something inevitable and dreadful.

Rattan’s steps slowed. A chill crept down his spine.

From the shadows of his soul, Phantom watched in silence. The despair here... it’s suffocating.

These weren’t just frightened prisoners. No, in the world of Phantom’s creator, such a concentration of broken spirits was like blood in water—bait for cursed entities. Each ratman here would have been morphed into monstrous cursed beings.

Phantom’s gaze sharpened. Whatever this place is, it’s poison. If Rattan stays too long...

A gentle nudge of thought, subtle and soft, brushed against Rattan’s mind.

And like a leaf drifting on the current, Rattan turned—his eyes landing on a single ratman seated in a corner, half-shrouded in shadow. Her posture was different. Upright. Not broken, not yet.

Something told Rattan to go to her.

A young ratgirl.

Rattan had barely taken a step before he was abruptly swept off his feet—quite literally—by a swift strike of her tail. He hit the ground with a soft grunt, and before he could react, the girl was already on top of him, eyes burning with hostility.

"What do you want?" she snapped, her snout close enough for him to feel her breath.

Rattan let out a nervous chuckle, raising his hands in surrender. "I just wanted to ask... if you knew what was going on."

The sharp edge in her gaze faltered slightly, and she blinked in disbelief. "Have you been living under a rock?"

Rattan, still pinned, blinked innocently. "No. I’ve been living in the servant’s den. Who’s your goblin master? Maybe he knows mine. They could be friends."

The look of disgust that twisted her face was immediate and deep.

She stood, brushing herself off, and muttered, "I guess I’m not as unlucky as I thought—at least I get to meet the legendary ratman who serves his goblin master."

Rattan slowly picked himself up, patting dust from his clothes. "Wait... can you at least tell me what’s happening?"

The girl glanced back at him, eyes now unreadable.

"We’re being conscripted for war," she said flatly.

Then she turned and walked away, disappearing into the hunched crowd of broken-eyed ratmen.

Rattan stood there, frozen. Her words echoed in his head, distorting, looping, sinking into the pit of his stomach.

Conscripted... to war.

His legs trembled, and his heartbeat became a drum inside his chest. The stories Chief had told him—about the Empire’s warfront, about cursed beasts and burning skies, about ratmen torn apart by things with too many limbs and no eyes—came rushing back.

"I’m going to die," he whispered, voice cracking.

Somewhere deep inside him, Phantom stirred, watching in silence. Something had to be done, Rattan hasn’t fully grown yet, Ikenga has more plan for the boy and Rattan was not going sit by and watch him meet his end before he ripens.

And so, only a day after his arrival, Rattan began to change.

The hope and nervous energy that had once defined him faded quickly, replaced by the same dull, sunken stare that haunted the eyes of the other ratmen. Despair had seeped into his bones. Each passing hour brought more captured ratmen thrown into the pit, and with each new arrival, an ogre knight would appear—dragging massive, rune-inscribed equipment into the space. The purpose was unclear at first, but the smell of metal, oil, and blood that clung to the machines was unmistakable.

By the end of the first week, Rattan was unrecognizable.

His fur matted, his back hunched, and his eyes dimmed. The fear had given way to numb acceptance. Even Phantom, buried deep within his thoughts, remained still—watching. Rattan had stopped training his magic entirely. Something primal warned him not to touch the mana around him. It clung thick in the air, strange and sharp. It felt like breathing would reveal him.

During the second week, the ogres vanished—replaced by something worse.

Goblin mages and their students arrived, inspecting the strange machines that had been brought in. Rattan observed them carefully from the shadows. The students were young and cruel, their laughter always louder when a ratman flinched. The mages paid them no mind, seemingly content to let their apprentices "play."

A scream broke the stale air, snapping Rattan from his thoughts.

He turned just in time to see a massive snake—scales black and glistening—wrapped around a ratman. Bones cracked. The scream turned to a wet gasp before the snake began swallowing its prey whole, jaw distending unnaturally.

Then it slithered forward, unfazed, toward the next.

Rattan shuddered.

The goblin students laughed, watching with sadistic glee. One of them, eyes glowing faintly with magic, stepped into view and began to shift. Flesh twisted. Limbs collapsed. In a blink, he became another serpent—smaller, this one. It slithered silently into the crowd. A ratman shrieked and stumbled as the snake bit him, venom coursing into his veins. And then, as if feeding off the suffering, the snake grew—twice its size, then more. The poisoned ratman struggled, twitching, as the serpent slowly consumed him alive.

This was not an isolated incident. It happened daily.

The message was clear: fear was the tool, death the lesson.

Rattan, now pressed against a cold stone wall, clutched his knees and tried not to breathe. Around him, the ratmen had become more like prey than people. The pit was silent save for the sound of laughter and the occasional scream.

Following the pattern that had kept him alive so far, Rattan slipped away from the group when the laughter began again, retreating into one of the many cracks in the ruined walls. It wasn’t much—just a gap between rusted debris and broken stone—but it gave him a moment’s illusion of safety.

Unfortunately, he had already been marked.

A small snake slithered toward him, its movement unnaturally smooth, eyes gleaming with amusement. Rattan didn’t have time to react. With a sudden strike, the snake sank its fangs into his leg.

The paralysis came quickly. He could only lie there, his muscles frozen, as his heart pounded in his chest. The snake didn’t eat him. Not yet. It coiled in front of him, savoring the way his eyes widened in fear, basking in the rising horror that radiated from him like heat. freewebnøvel.com

But then—something changed.

The fear in Rattan’s eyes flickered... and vanished.

The snake, confused, leaned in. Its tongue flicked the air, tasting for the panic it could no longer find. Rattan’s gaze was calm now—cold, detached, and oddly knowing.

In an instant, the snake’s world turned upside down.

A ratman’s hand—his hand—snatched the small serpent from the ground. With unnatural precision, he brought it to his mouth and swallowed it whole, the creature still writhing inside him.

The paralysis faded.

Rattan didn’t move at first. He sat silently, staring at the dirt and the rusted metal, thoughts unraveling. He could feel it now—an unsettling truth, crawling beneath the surface.

Too many times... too many close calls.

He had survived things no one else did.

The ogres. The den. The mages. The snake.

Each time, death should have taken him. And each time, it didn’t.

He remembered Chief’s spider—the dark, looming thing always just behind him, whispering madness and feeding on guilt. But Rattan had no nightmares. No whispers. No crawling presence. And yet... he had survived all the same.

Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t alone.

Maybe something was watching over him, too.

But then—why did it protect him in silence?

Rattan stood up—but something was off.

He felt... taller.

His limbs, once thin and rat-like, had stretched, filled with strength and poise he didn’t recognize as his own. His ragged clothing had vanished, replaced by fine robes embroidered with arcane threads, humming with restrained magic—far grander than anything his old goblin master ever wore.

In his right hand, he held a staff—gilded and smooth, pulsing faintly with stored spells.