Chapter 809: Resolving Past Issues.
Persephone, Hades' ex-wife, daughter of the goddess Demeter and Zeus. The current queen of the underworld, and Ruler.
Victor looked at Persephone, comparing the image he had of her in Adonis' memories and in his own memories.
And comparisons couldn't be drawn, she appeared completely different, she truly flourished with difficulties and reached her true potential.
Now, she resembles a queen more than ever before.
Victor's feelings for Persephone were complicated, the reason for that being due to recent developments, he became more attuned to creation.
If Persephone hadn't cursed Adonis, he wouldn't have chosen to sacrifice himself to Victor, thus enabling a significant change in his mindset progress.
Something that should have taken years or even hundreds of years to occur, happened all in one night with the fusion of Adonis and Victor.
Before, Victor had no shame in saying he was more of a warrior, attacking everything head-on without a plan, he knew how to 'fight', he was a 'warrior', but he didn't possess the 'cunning' of a man of power.
Manipulation, cunning, wisdom, understanding of business, comprehension of ruling, even the current way of 'reading' people's body language, these were all things he gained from Adonis.
Victor Walker was a born warrior.
Adonis Snow was a leader, a politician, and to some extent, a merchant.
By combining Adonis' shrewdness and Victor's courage, the new Victor was reborn from the ashes with the perfect fusion of the two.
And all of this happened because of the woman in front of him.
But would these thoughts change anything?
No, they wouldn't. The reason for this is simple.
No matter how much Victor changes, no matter how much he evolves, his core will always remain the same.
He is a Yandere, he is a family man, he will do anything for that family.
Personally? Victor doesn't care about Persephone, even Adonis' own feelings don't care about her, because both of them know that without her, Victor wouldn't have evolved so quickly.
It's a distorted way of looking at things, but it doesn't cease to be true.
Creation is more complex than it seems, there might not be a 'destiny' or a sentient concept of fate in this world, but that doesn't mean causality doesn't exist.
Victor's power to see the future was born from this causality.
The flap of a butterfly's wings can cause a hurricane on the other side of the planet. This statement isn't unreal for beings like gods.
Take an example, if Zeus didn't exist, what would happen to the entire Greek pantheon? Whether one likes it or not, it was Zeus' rebellion that made the current pantheon possible, it was because of his horrendous deeds that beings like Apollo and Artemis were born, beings so strong they are part of the 12 great gods.
See? Destiny can't exist, it's made by the beings themselves, but causality exists. The past is real, just like the present.
Therefore, Victor will leave everything in the hands of their wives, Agnes and Violet were the most affected, especially Agnes who had to live with a sick Adonis from the beginning.
And Victor will never reject the tears of his wives. He would never say this, so his opinion on this matter is completely neutral with tendencies against Persephone, after all, he will always stand by his wives' side.
"Just end this and kill me, Demon King," Persephone spoke with a cold, neutral tone, behaving like a true queen, even in front of a dragon, her expression didn't waver.
"Oh? Why do you think I'll do that?"
"Isn't it obvious? Revenge for what I did to Adonis."
The eyes of Violet and Agnes dangerously narrowed when they heard the name coming from Persephone's mouth.
"You seem to be understanding something incorrectly," Victor spoke with a neutral face.
"... What?"
"Adonis and I don't care about what you did."
Victor's words caused the eyes of Violet, Agnes, Aphrodite, and Persephone to widen significantly.
Victor touched his chin. "Hmm, I think I expressed my words wrong... Adonis and I don't care anymore about what you did... I cared until recently, but now? It's hard to feel anything."
"... H-Huh?" Persephone was not understanding anything.
"Darling... You... Something changed in you?" Violet asked.
"Are you talking about my evolution as a dragon?" Victor inquired.
Violet nodded.
"Yes, something changed. How can I put it... My vision got broader?" Victor made a hand gesture, and the next moment, the entire area started to heat up, and suddenly, a mini-sun was created in his hand.
"That's..." Persephone and Aphrodite widened their eyes.
'He's not even the god of the sun, how is this possible!?' Aphrodite thought.
She could clearly sense that what was in his hand was indeed a small star of the same kind that is on Earth.
An achievement that can only be reached by sun gods.
"I can instinctively control over 50% of all creation, so feats like this are possible." The mini-sun began to spin rapidly until it slowly began to fade, the heat lessened, and a small planet started to form.
It began with rocks, then came the atmosphere, then came the water, the entire process of creating a planet started to happen very quickly in front of everyone.
"Impossible! This is... This is only possible with gods of creation!" Aphrodite completely lost her composure, she couldn't be more astounded.
"Yes, that's true. Even for me, I can't create something as perfect and functional as a god of creation, but... I can imitate it."
"By using negative energy and a little help from Gaia, even creating a functional mini-planet like this is possible... Of course, this is just a demonstration." Suddenly, the planet began to disintegrate, the nature disappeared, the water disappeared, and all that was left was just a rock, which fell to the ground.
"Balance has strange ways of happening. I can create a very functional sun, but I can't create a functional planet. The reason for this is that it's not 'my job'."
"Of course not... Such things can only be done by the universal tree and the gods of creation." Aphrodite said.
"Correct." Victor leaned back in his chair.
"... I see... You have that, right?" Persephone began to speak after the initial shock.
"The divine consciousness."
"Calling it divine consciousness is a bit wrong, after all, I'm not a god. But that's true, I have something similar, I think calling it the consciousness of a dragon is better?" Victor touched his chin thoughtfully.
"And this ability is especially stronger than normal due to my status as a Progenitor, and thanks to Adonis' abilities, and my abilities that merged."
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Victor sees the world as it is, he can see hundreds of threads connected to everything and everyone, he can see the entire 'grand system' created by the primordial beings.
Because of this, he managed to use all the right tools and 'block' the authority of the Ruler of the underworld.
And even with this incredible vision, he still couldn't see the primordial beings, they were beings that were outside the system.
Simply put, they were the administrators of everything, and Victor was just an anomaly who could see everything... Calling him an anomaly might be an exaggeration, after all, many beings can do what he does.
The act of seeing the truth of the world, all the gods and dragons had it. The only difference was that Victor's was extremely strong even by dragon and god standards.
"It's not wrong to say that because of the conflict you two goddesses had with Adonis, I was able to achieve this state of consciousness now."
Aphrodite and Persephone flinched a little when they saw Victor's gaze that seemed to see right through all their secrets, which wasn't an incorrect assumption.
"But it also wouldn't be wrong to say that this attitude caused great harm to my wife."
"And it's only because of that that I want to make you disappear..."
Persephone shivered under Victor's empty gaze.
"But if I do that, nothing will be resolved." Victor spoke.
"So, my stance on the matter is neutral, it's all in the hands of Violet and Agnes now."
"... I don't understand." Agnes began to speak.
Victor looked naturally at the woman.
"This shouldn't be the time for us to get revenge, right? To do everything in our power to return the suffering this woman caused?"
"Why are you speaking like this now!?"
"I never lie... Not to you all, acting dishonestly would be disrespectful." Victor spoke with a very serious look that caught Agnes off guard for a moment.
"I will always be on the side of my family. That's an absolute fact. And I've never gone back on those words, even now, I'm on your side, right?"
"... Vic..." Agnes bit her lip, she felt extremely conflicted now, she felt a bit angry at him for not following the script, and she felt unjustified.
"You... You're not doing this because you want her in your harem, are you?" Violet narrowed her eyes at Victor.
"Haah..." Victor sighed. "Violet, I have such beautiful wives, why do I need Persephone?"
Persephone bit her lip, hearing these words hurt more than she expected. 'Why do I care about this? Didn't he already make it clear he hated me?' She inwardly growled at herself for letting her naive thoughts slip again.
"I'm not doing this because I want her, it's as simple as how I feel."
"When I look at Persephone, all I feel is... Nothing. Just pure indifference."
Violet fell silent, as did Aphrodite and Agnes.
In a way, these words were more cruel than anyone could hear, after all, complete indifference means that her existence hasn't even registered with him.
Even hating someone is better than indifference, after all, with 'hate', the person still pays attention to the target of their hatred.
Violet and Aphrodite looked at Victor attentively, searching for any hint of falsehood, and they saw nothing, he was being completely honest.
Through their connection, Violet could tell that Victor wasn't thinking about anything.
The same was sensed by Aphrodite, as Aphrodite's connection was stronger than Violet's, she could tell that the man was more concerned about Violet and Agnes' reaction to his words than about Persephone...
Aphrodite delved deeper into his instincts, and all she saw deep in his heart was... he was looking forward to having 'normal food'.
He wanted to embrace his wives and do all sorts of things with them, he wanted to go to sleep, and play with Zaladrac. He wanted to experience his new powers.
Aphrodite was at a loss for words at such mundane desires.
Violet's eyes glowed in shades of violet for a few seconds until she closed her eyes and sighed, she simply forced herself to see the future, a future where Victor was with Persephone, and nothing appeared, all she could see was Victor sleeping under a gigantic tree with all his wives beside him, playing around and talking.
Victor narrowed his eyes. "Don't use that ability, Violet."
"...I needed to see."
"I know. Still, don't use that ability. The future can be changed, you know that, the ability is not reliable."
"Yes, I know, but we can use these 'futures' as references."
"The moment you use a future as a reference, you're walking towards that future, Violet. And the moment you start walking toward the future you saw... Probably, as soon as you reach that future, it will be different from what you initially expected."
"After all, nothing is certain when time is involved." Victor wouldn't say anything if she tried to use this power to see only seconds into the future, that would be very helpful in a fight, but looking too far into the future? That's a big no.
"....." Violet fell silent.
"As I said before, balance has strange ways of working, and this can be extremely dangerous."
"Don't play with time, Violet Snow." Victor gave a very serious warning, he even used her full name, something he had never done before.
Violet shuddered when she saw Victor's extremely serious gaze.
"The concept of time is extremely complex and dangerous. Even the gods of time themselves don't dare to abuse this power, after all, any major mistake and your reality can be erased."
"... Erased...?"
"Yes, erased, deleted, ceasing to exist, whatever term you see fit."