Chapter 943: Can we kidnap her?
"... They are much more prepared than I thought," Scathach commented as she looked at the hologram showing Nyx's POV, who was currently in Asgard.
"Odin has been preparing for this conflict for years. If there's one thing he and Zeus have in common, it's paranoia. But unlike Zeus, who is terrible at preparation unless it's for Metis, Odin doesn't have such difficulties. He's genuinely a God-King, not a flimsy excuse like Zeus," Aphrodite remarked.
There were so many burns in that sentence that even Eleonor decided not to comment on it, and she simply pointed out, "Do you think this army will be enough to face Hela?"
The hologram displayed hundreds of lifeless black-armored warriors containing Souls; these were the warriors who hadn't been sent to Valhalla but were useful enough to become puppets of the Gods.
With just a glance, she could count over 100,000 warriors, and if you counted those who had made it to Valhalla, the number was even greater. Not to mention the Gods, of course.
"I don't know," Scathach replied. "We haven't seen all of Hela's armies either. She may have some hidden cards. I refuse to believe that someone attacking one of the strongest Pantheons doesn't have backup plans."
"What a waste of resources... This war is senseless," Amaterasu shook her head. With the imminent evolution of the Sector, having any kind of war now would be devastating when it reached a higher level.
"For us, this war is senseless, but not for them," Violet spoke.
"Anyway, why are you still here, Amaterasu?" Sasha asked. "Don't you have work to do?"
"Oh! That's right!" Amaterasu had completely forgotten. "Aphrodite, give me permission to allocate my subordinates."
"Okay, you can allocate near this area here, where there's more space..." Aphrodite began explaining the procedures to Amaterasu while showing some graphical details of where she should build her territory.
"Geh, isn't this place close to the Demons?" Amaterasu realized something.
"Yes? Does that pose a problem?" Aphrodite said.
"Not for me, but my subordinates won't stop bothering me about it," Amaterasu replied.
Aphrodite smiled gently. "That's your problem, not mine."
Amaterasu narrowed her eyes at the Goddess of Beauty; she had just realized that this seemed like some sort of test by Aphrodite to see if she could command her subordinates.
'Humpf, don't underestimate me. Despite my subordinates being able to voice their opinions, my Pantheon still has a monarchy structure. I hold all the Power to make any decision,' Amaterasu thought.
"Very well, I will handle this issue."
"Mm," Aphrodite nodded while maintaining the same smile on her face.
As Amaterasu left the room grumbling about a certain annoying Goddess of Beauty, the hologram shifted to show Odin's palace.
"Oh? Freya and Loki are here, unexpected," Aphrodite remarked.
"Why is that unexpected?" Sasha asked.
"Well, Freya, despite being a Goddess of War, had told me that she wouldn't participate in Ragnarok because she thought it was foolish to believe in a prophecy... Something I completely agree with her on. At the time when she said that, Loki had agreed with her and said the same thing, that he wouldn't join Ragnarok because he didn't want to fight his children," Aphrodite explained.
"Hmm... Sentimentality from the God of Trickery... Unexpected," Violet couldn't help but comment.
"Loki isn't bad; he's just a bastard who likes to play deadly pranks with everyone... Usually, those pranks backfire, and he ends up getting hurt in the end," Aphrodite sighed.
"Yeah, I distinctly remember the tale of him getting impregnated by a horse," Violet said.
"... Horse tale?"
"In summary, the myth goes like this: Loki wanted to play a prank on Odin, and in the end, he got impregnated by a horse, giving birth to a son who would become Odin's fastest steed." Violet explained. "If you want more details, look it up on Google. I'm not in the mood to recount that horror story in detail." She shuddered at the end.
Sasha shook her head. "... I don't even know how to react to that... And isn't Loki a man? How can he... get pregnant?" She felt a headache coming on when she tried to imagine this atrocity.
"Well, male and female are relative for the Gods; we can change genders whenever we want. Although most Gods prefer a specific gender, when it comes to having fun, they can change genders if they're interested. That's why most Gods are bisexual."
"... And here I thought the images of the Gods couldn't get any worse in my mind," Sasha spoke with a bit of disgust on her face.
"Wait, does that mean you've changed to a male gender at some point in the past?" Eleonor asked curiously.
"I did it once, but it felt strange to me..." Aphrodite grimaced, as if it were a memory she wanted to forget. "So I decided to go back to normal. I prefer the female form in which I came into existence over being a man."
"Most Gods are like me; they prefer to stay in the form that they came into existence as, but there are always those like Zeus who don't care about anything. When Zeus wasn't abusing a woman, he was abusing some handsome man and changing genders to become female so he could have fun with them."
A silence fell around as Aphrodite spoke those words.
"... Just out of curiosity, if Zeus had a friendly relationship with Victor..." Sasha stopped speaking and almost threw up her lunch. "Forget it, why on earth did I even think about that?"
"Fufufufu~, thank goodness Zeus is dead, right? Otherwise, he'd have a nice spot in the torture field where Poseidon and Athena are now." Violet smiled, but her lifeless eyes were not kind at all.
Eyes that were shared by Scathach; apparently, the two were thinking the same thing.
"One question, can you change genders now as a Dragon God?" Velnorah asked.
"... I can," Aphrodite nodded.
"Interesting," Velnorah smiled. "Can you try?"
"Why?"
"Just curiosity," she replied while continuing to watch Aphrodite.
"... Okay," Aphrodite saw no harm in it; she knew Velnorah's curiosity was purely academic and not an interest in her.
Aphrodite attempted to change her gender, but... She couldn't. She squinted her eyes slightly and tried again. A pink Power covered her body, but again, nothing happened.
"... Huh... I can't change."
"As expected," Velnorah nodded while internally jotting down some notes in her A.I.
"What's happening, Velnorah?"
"It's not anything too complicated. Despite being called Gods, we are not all the same," Velnorah replied, distracted by something that didn't make sense to Aphrodite.
Aphrodite thought for a moment and said, "Are you talking about the difference between Dragon Gods and regular Gods?"
"Exactly," Velnorah nodded. "Regular Gods, at their core, are just Higher-Level Spirits. They don't have physical bodies, and because of this spiritual nature, they can easily change their gender or make any significant changes to their Soul without consequence."
"But the same doesn't apply to Dragons. Our Souls are much stronger, and we have physical bodies, so we can't change as easily as regular Gods, unless, of course, we use metamorphosis abilities. However, that ability wouldn't change the shape of our Souls like regular Gods do."
Aphrodite raised an eyebrow. "Is that an advantage or a disadvantage?"
"Hmm, I consider it an advantage. After all, our Souls are more robust than those of regular Gods. Due to this robustness, they are less malleable, which means they are also more resistant to Soul attacks," Velnorah spoke as a console appeared in front of her, and she began typing rapidly.
"...True Dragons are indeed a Creation's beloved aberration."
The women around narrowed their eyes when they saw this usually cold woman so happy about something, but soon, they ignored her. Everyone here had their peculiarities, and they wouldn't judge each other for those peculiarities.
"I have a question. Will our Husband transform other Beings into True Dragons?" Velnorah asked.
"... Probably. He will likely only transform Ophis and Nero. After that, he won't transform anyone else," Sasha said.
"Hmm, Sasha is correct. It's very likely that our future population of True Dragons will be just our children," Violet nodded, understanding the reasoning behind Sasha's words.
It was clear that she was thinking about the limitations imposed by the Primordials. Victor was only supposed to transform his current Wives into True Dragons; he was already pushing those boundaries by transforming Velnorah and Amaterasu, something that probably wouldn't happen again.
Despite Nero and Ophis not being his Wives, Victor wouldn't leave his daughters lacking in strength, so it was obvious that he would transform them into True Dragons as well.
"Hmm, that's good. If he had any interest in giving this gift to other Beings, I would have immediately spoken against it. The more I discover about the peculiarities of True Dragons, the more I vote for this Race to be extremely exclusive to our Family and our Family alone, while we take various countermeasures to prevent our enemies from exploiting our Race for themselves," Velnorah said.
"Countermeasures? Against what?" Eleonor asked.
"Experiments on our bodies, Eleonor," Violet spoke.
"... Oh." Eleonor understood now.
"As True Dragons are compatible with anything in Creation, our genes are quite exploitable. I can think of a wide range of things, from weapons, energy batteries, or even lifeless Dragon soldiers that can be controlled with just our left hand."
"Of course, scientists won't be as clever as me, or a genius like me, but even a stupid scientist would realize this if they came across our genes."
The girls rolled their eyes at Velnorah's arrogant words, but she wasn't wrong; the woman was an absolute monster in technomancy and genetics.
"Therefore, countermeasures are necessary to prevent these scientists from using our genes."
"I assume you're already working on these plans?" Violet asked.
"I'm working on them now. I will create an entire cleanup department in case we fight and injure ourselves. Creating symbiotic technological armor similar to mine will be extremely important as well because these armors will prevent our genes from spreading even if they are damaged," Velnorah continued talking while typing at high speed.
Scathach smiled faintly. "It's always good to have someone competent around. Just don't forget to send these plans to Victor and Ruby."
"Mm," Velnorah nodded without taking her eyes off the console.
In the meantime that Velnorah was explaining what she would do, the hologram changed again, and this time Nyx was in a war room; it seemed that a meeting had started in the meantime.
"Are we ready for this war, Father?" Thor asked.
"Yes, we are," Odin nodded.
"... Haah, so this is really happening..." Loki sighed, a heavy and disbelieving sigh. "I still suggest that we should seek help."
"Unacceptable," Odin denied.
"This is a civil war, an Asgardian issue. We shouldn't invite outsiders who could take advantage of this time of crisis, so it's essential that we seal off our Dimension until this problem is resolved." Odin looked at Freya, who was wearing a full suit of armor and a feathered helmet; this was her armor as the Queen of the Valkyries.
Understanding Odin's look, Freya said, "The Bifrost's entrance is completely secured by my Valkyries, All Father."
"Good, now we have to take this war away from Asgard."
Loki sighed again when he saw Odin's attitude. He didn't want to jinx anyone, but he knew very well how dangerous his children were, and now that they had that Ancient Dragon with them... This problem just became even bigger.
He couldn't see how Odin's army would be able to handle this, but he knew Odin didn't leave anything up to chance; he must have a plan. The problem was that Odin didn't want to share his plan with him. The reason for this was simple: Loki's children were the ones attacking Asgard. All the Gods of Asgard were suspicious of Loki, even Odin himself.
"Well, fortunately, this incident occurred right after the truce proposed by that Abnormal Dragon," Loki spoke his thoughts aloud without realizing it.
And although they didn't say anything, Odin and Freya were thinking the same thing as Loki. They were grateful that this incident occurred after the peace treaty that Victor 'forced' everyone to accept.
His argument was that fighting each other now was foolish when their Sector was on the verge of evolving and encountering more powerful enemies, something everyone agreed with completely.
Although not an alliance, it was a peace agreement in which none of the Factions would interfere with each other. Odin, as an Elder God, knew that this agreement was only superficially made. He understood that if the other Pantheons knew what was happening now in Asgard, they would try to somehow benefit from the situation.
Because of this, he closed the entire Dimension.
In this war room were Odin, Freya, Loki, Thor, and Heimdall... Of course, Nyx was also here; she was sitting in the corner of the room, sipping tea and observing the whole place as if she were taking a stroll.
"Fufufufu, I wonder what kind of expression Odin would make if he knew we were watching," Nyx laughed.
"Honestly, your Divinity is entirely unfair," Scathach smiled. If she were an enemy General, she would fear facing Victor very much. After all, he had so many abnormal Beings around him. But as an ally, she didn't have anything to fear; it was quite fun to know that she had powerful cards to use that others had no idea about.
'In fact, they know about Nyx's abilities, but they completely underestimated her. They think their simple defenses can detect Nyx.' Scathach thought. Unless they were up against an abnormal Being with powerful senses like Victor's, it was entirely impossible to sense Nyx. She was the literal definition of Concealment, after all.
"Let's start the meeting...-" When Odin was about to declare the meeting begin, the door abruptly opened, and a woman with long blonde hair entered the room.
"Odin, my stock of marks is declining too quickly due to your order to boost our main forces; we need to do something."
"Idun..." Odin was about to reprimand whichever subordinate had barged in to interrupt the meeting, but he wouldn't do that to Idun; after all, she was a very important woman to all of Asgard.
"We will discuss this now; join the war council."
"... Very well." Idun nodded.
"Do you know her, Aphrodite?" Sasha asked.
"Yes. She is Idun, The Goddess of Spring and Eternal Youth. She protects the Apples of Youth, an Artifact that grants the Norse Gods a better understanding of their Divinity and a healthy body that prevents various adverse conditions like Hydra Poison, Dragon Poison, Demonic Miasma, etc. She is a very important Goddess."
"Hmm... Can we kidnap her?" Violet spoke as if she were choosing a cat to buy.
The women looked at Violet with a look of disbelief.
"What? She would be a good pet along with our Goddess of Luck."
The Dragonesses promptly decided not to comment on that and remained silent. Violet pouted when she saw the women ignoring her.
...