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Sitting on a chair not far from them, Sol crossed his legs and leaned back as he quietly observed them while wondering how he should use the new information he was receiving from the pair of women.

He was slowly starting to understand why all those who had their own realms suffered from a voyeurism fetish. There was just something oh-so empowering about being able to observe and listen to all the secrets of someone without that person being able to do anything about it. The exhilaration was otherworldly.

‘When I become a demigod I should try covering Lustburg entirely with my realm.’

It would be impossible to do so in theory, so to speak. Even though Tiamat had covered the entirety of the Dragon Territory with her own Dimension, this was because the territory belonged to her in the first place.

The mortal dimension belonged to no one in particular and even a demigod like Nihil could only cover a small part of it for a very short time.

But after his face-off with Lucifer… Sol had discovered that his power was quite useful and unique in many ways, differing from the other dimension holders.

If all the conditions were to be met, it wouldn’t be impossible for him to repeat the feat of Anubis— stealing a part of an entire realm or perhaps, even more.

Of course, all of this was for the future.

Right now he had to deal with more mundane issues of the Mortal Realm. Such as saving the life of his aunt who wanted to die more than anything else, getting into an alliance with a group of witches who hated his kingdom with a passion, and ascertaining how useful the woman named Pandora was.

<<Divine Weapon: Eye of Akasha>>

When he finally opened the Eye of Akasha, from his perspective, everything stopped in its tracks.

The world itself became completely still as if time itself became a meaningless notion before the almighty eyes. All that remained was a world filled with threads connected to each and everything in existence. It felt as if a great puppeteer was moving the inanimate strings to control reality. A simple concept controlled the myriad worlds and realms— it never ceased to amaze him.

The world…was weaved by threads of different colors. This was at least how he perceived and identified the strings of fate that he had been granted the opportunity of witnessing thanks to the amalgam of all his powers.

‘How blurry.’

Sol once again regretted his own weakness. Back then when he had the power of a demigod, everything felt so vivid and in his grasp. He had felt all-powerful. One whim of his could change the destiny of an entire world if he so wished.

But now… he felt like those strings were more like shackles restraining him to this world and its puppeteer’s rules.

‘Forget it.’

Discarding those depressing thoughts, he started by observing Milaris. The strings linking the two of them were fused with a pink thread so large and sturdy that it seemed to be equal to Skuld or Nefertiti. The thread representing subordination was rather small.

Sol immediately understood that in Arachne's mind, even the relationship between a ruler and subordinate was worthless. Only her love for Mars made her interested in Sol. Creating a feeling of contradiction. Seeing him as a nephew but also a reminder that she would never see her love ever again.

Arachne did not like him. In fact, from what he was seeing, he wondered how it was even possible for her to like anyone at all. Her love for his father was basically blinding her every other sense and feeling for other individuals.

Shaking his head, he decided to focus on the important target.

Pandora.

Like Arachne, Pandora had a pink thread linking her to Mars. Though this was much much smaller when compared to Arachne. Her love for Mars seemed to be more in the realm of admiration and a crush than the full forced devotion and obsession that Milaris showed toward his father.

He also observed the thread linking her to Invidia, the goddess of envy. He briefly wondered if he could cut it. But unlike the last time when he had absolute certainty that he could do so, now he was drowned in doubt.

‘So, only by becoming a demigod can I cut those threads, huh…’

It was a good thing to learn. He wasn’t worried about becoming a demigod. For him, it was a certainty as long as he didn’t get killed down the road.

‘Now what should I do?’

He didn’t want to start affecting the Fate of those two women right now. He wasn’t so far gone that he would start manipulating people who had done nothing wrong to him and could become potential allies.

Pandora was a King, so the influence he could have would be limited and even without that, she was a staunch ally of her father in the past and from what she said, the Invidia royal family was in an even worse situation than they initially thought of them to be in.

Currently, though, he needed two things from her.

The first one was of course to have an open or even a secret alliance with Envilya. One that would make sure they would have their full support when facing Wratharis.

Currently, Nefertiti should have already landed in Southern Pride. He didn’t know how much she could help him out. But he would have to visit the elves anyways.

On the map, Wratharis was enclosed on nearly all sides by the three countries. The only escape being the sea.

Wratharis might have Sun Wukong. But if Lilith was healed, he was sure that she would be no weaker than that madman and Southern Pride also had Siegfried. The man was strong enough to kill a rampaging crazy dragon at the King rank, one thousand years ago.

‘Does Envilya have a powerhouse outside of Pandora and their Supreme Daughter?’

He had never heard of one. But this was an avenue worth exploring.

The second thing he needed from Pandora was…allowing Hathor to explore her body.

Lilith was created by Neptune who used the genes of the Nightmare Queen. Pandora was the closest thing to the base form that was used in his aunt’s creation and having her data should be more useful than the ones obtained from normal succubi.

But would Pandora accept? After all, in the eyes of many, the existence of Lilith was an abomination and even if Pandora had once been friends with his aunt during their adventures, they had not seen each other in nearly twenty years.

Nothing was eternal in this world. Parents could backstab their children and the same went for bosom friends.

Furthermore, if Pandora learned that Neptune had used such a forbidden art to create Lilith, this would be a powerful tool in her hand to threaten them. If the world were to learn about this, it would allow Wratharis to have a righteous cause to invade Lustburg. Perhaps accusing them of walking in the footsteps of Echidna or insulting the goddesses— the most straightforward actions against a family of blasphemers.

If the entire Lustburg royal family was deemed as a heretic, they would lose much of their influence over the populace and the political world at large.

‘As I thought, should I try to manipulate her?’

Sol’s mind warred between the two thoughts.

Trusting Pandora meant giving her a loaded gun and hoping she would not shoot him in the face.

Manipulating her now meant that he was taking one step closer to losing all restraints and justifying all of his means by the results and not the path.

So, Sol decided to take the middle path.

Give her his trust once and if she betrayed him then… He would simply erase her memories and manipulate her as he wished. Even if that meant him using a part of his remaining divine power for this.

In short, he was giving her an empty gun, while making her think it was loaded. If she tried to shoot, then all she would hear would be an empty click.

‘How time has changed.’

Sol already missed the festival and the time spent with Isis and Sheherazade. He did not really like how he was becoming colder and warier with each passing day. But if there was something he had learned from his father's history and even his own.

It was that the word <<Betrayal>> was not created for enemies.

Only those close to you could betray you.

Blind trust was not the right choice in the greater scheme of things. It was a very rare and precious commodity that was only given to those truly worthy.

‘Well then, this is enough. Time to act.’

He was about to close his Eye when something caught his attention.

Hmmm?

Looking down on himself, he could see a great number of pink-colored threads covering him, connected to his soul like last time. The number was ever-expanding, showing that he was quite the scumbag if all things considered.

But this was not what really caught his attention. Last time, he could also see one bright golden thread, clearly representing Luxuria, and two dimmer ones, representing Castitas and Superbia, standing out among them.

It was normal. As a human, he was under both Luxuria and castitas and his ancestry from his mother's side linked him to Superbia.

He could also perceive different feelings from those threads.

Greed from Luxuria. Worry from Castitas. Indifference from Superbia.

This was how it should have been even now. But this time, what he was seeing was different.

‘One, two, three…four? How?’

A fourth golden thread had appeared and the feeling coming from this one was very different from the others.

All he could feel was… Hostility.

Sol’s eyes twitched in frustration at this sudden discovery. He wondered just what the hell had happened and which of the goddesses did he suddenly offend for such a feeling of hostility to be born.

‘Perhaps I should have stayed in the Dragon Realm.’

One day.

No…

It hasn’t even been one day since he came back.

But already there was so much bullshit happening.

‘I want to sleep without a worry in the world.’

Life could really be a pain in the ass some times, nay, in his case, it might as well as be all the time.

Truly, he was living in a fucked up world.

(AN: Haha, honestly I am starting to feel bad for my boy. For the Hostility. I wonder who can guess which goddess it comes from. I have already left some foreshadowing about this. Let’s see who will find the answer. If someone does, write me on Discord and there will be a bonus chapter tomorrow.)