Golden Traces & Goddess' Trance.

A mysterious restaurant in El Cairo, Egypt.

"It has been one month, do we have even the slightest hint of his whereabouts, Aphrodite?"

Inside this exclusive restaurant, there were several entities having dinner, and the moon shone high above the three pyramids, indicating the adjourning night.

At the furthest end of this table, a female sat, attracting the gazes of all other males on the table and also, two females. One of them had a radically poisonous gaze when she looked at Aphrodite.

"Answer the question, Aphrodite," she said with coldness towards the goddess that seemed to be in her own world, both of the exchanged a poisonous glance before Aphrodite crossed her leg the other way and spoke with disdain.

"You're new here as to be giving orders, Parvati".

"Calm down you two, keep whatever personal nonsense you have out of this table, it is not our concern" An angry Nyx did her job and both goddesses had no choice but to remain silent; nevertheless they still threw some spite at one another regardless.

Parvati, the Hindu Goddess was the closest homologue to Aphrodite... both had lesser authority of love and beauty, except... there was another lesser divinity that Aphrodite had which deeply interested the Hindu's God of Destruction.

Her lesser divinity of sex guaranteed pleasure that his wife, Parvati, couldn't deliver. Out of the Hindu faction, the only one to belong to the Fallen God Faction had been Shiva, as for his reasons, there were many but one of them was mainly due to Aphrodite's presence where both gods met at first.

In this world, there were three individuals who surely desired the goddess' head the most, she was truly the vane of wives.

One was Layla Lucifuge, the wife of the Devil King Lucifer. Another was Parvati, wife of Shiva and the last was Sif... the Norse Goddess wife of Thor, her last lover.

The purple-haired beauty had decided to join the faction after her husband perished at the hands of the Golden Dragon, she never stated her purpose, merely saying that she wanted to 'find' him, and naturally, as a powerful Goddess, she was accepted. And she wasn't the only one that joined after this incident.

Sitting at the farthest corner, now healthier than ever after several weeks of recovery was the strongest God of Norse Mythology, the one that fought against the Dragon God together with the White Dragon Emperor and lived to tell the tale, Thor.

Parvati looked at him with disgust, his reasons for joining were more than obvious; Aphrodite. Now that Shiva was gone, he needn't hold back.

"I haven't heard anything of Richter Golden-Haze in the last month, he took his mate, Grayfia Lucifuge and disappeared after plundering every single one of Asgard's treasures. The information we have is what there is... he hasn't been in the underworld, and the rating game that was to be held was cancelled. How amusing, who would have thought the council would fear for their satans' lives" deciding to ignore Parvati's scornful look, Aphrodite stated the information she had. Aside from her, in this faction, only Surtr served as a spy... however, they couldn't both leave at the same time or they would be suspicious.

Thankfully for her, her cuck of a master allowed her out to have her rendezvous several times a month, times that she took to keep up to date with the Fallen God Faction and why not, engage in the pleasures of her divinity with either Shiva or Thor before going back to sleep in her master's bed.

Alas, lately neither Thor nor the late Shiva had been in the goddess' mind, instead, there was another silhouette... a golden dragon.

"Do we have a whole registry of the deaths during the incident?" the one to ask the question was Loki, the God of Trickery who certainly never expected to share this table with his brother, Thor.

"For now the most prominent characters were Baldur and Signus Tepes…" Hades recounted, he as the ruler of the Netherworld felt the most scorn regarding this incident, those souls sucked by the nothingness of the dimensional gap were souls he'd never cage in his river, a heavy loss.

"I heard a whole bunch of your undercover death seekers perished as well, Hades." The God of Thunder lifted his eyebrow mockingly.

"And what is your objective here, Thor?"

"I don't give a fart about your group but if your objective is to put that dragon down, I am in. Hey, give me some mead!" He lay back lazily, his eyes fixed on Aphrodite as he gripped his hammer, Thor was totally sure of what he was going to do tonight now that Shiva wasn't around. He didn't seem to notice the goddess' mind was somewhere else.

"Hmph! that is something we have yet to consider, such a powerful foe is far from being someone we can control" Nyx added.

"I heard Kokabiel perished as well, Ares must be pissed, that was his pawn," Aphrodite commented, despite her divinity's compelling, Aphrodite did hold a certain degree of love for her master, Sirzechs and as such she did follow one of his instructions, to never again engage in a tryst with Ares. After the latter was defeated by Sirzechs in front of her eyes, she lost any sort of desire for the God of War; instead, her eyes focused on Sirzechs... that was until she met the God of Thunder and the God of Destruction.

Aphrodite never thought that leaving Olympus would broaden her horizons to such a degree, there were way better options than Ares out there and she happened to find what she considered to be the best of the best -if the lust exuded by Layla was anything to go by.

"We must start paying attention to those three biblical factions. Angels, fallen angels and devils; they're the closest involved with the golden dragon and Calliope, Ares may have been smarter than us in this regard" Hades stated, so far they had focused on the devil supremacy faction that reins in the regions of America and Europe while Ares had focused his efforts in Asia against the Shinto Faction and even establishing relationships with the Fallen Angel Cadres.

The reason for this was simple, they were all afraid of Calliope back then, but now... the knowledge that Calliope had departed wasn't a secret to them. However, this status quo produced by her actions wasn't something that the gods were not benefiting from, for one the fear of humans against the increasingly prominent supernatural word fuelled their divinities like never before, a constant rush of faith.

'It is also the reason why Ares is so active, I know that bastard is planning something~' Hades thought

"Where is Tsukiyomi? The biggest hub of the conservative devils is based in Japan. An insider in the Shinto faction should be ideal" Nyx always worked as the logical side of the group, it was also she who convinced Aphrodite to become an insider as for Surtr, although he belonged to the faction it was clear his efforts were half-assed just like Tsukiyomi.

"Tsukiyomi is already under suspicion just like me. You should know about the Nephilim Faction." Aphrodite mentioned that group with solemness, attracting everyone's gaze towards her, only Parvati was confused since she rarely ever left Mount Kailash.

"Do you mean those two silver-haired lasses? They're strong but their numbers are scarce, they're nothing to fear." Loki answered, he had already encountered those two several times, they were strong indeed, perhaps at the level of lower gods, but for a faction like them, those two measly girls were nothing to be afraid of.

"That's where you're wrong, Loki. There is a mysterious last member leading them… they're undercover and well organised, last time they followed me out of the underworld and I suspect they know I am a spy though I had made sure to not be followed... I suspect their last member is the girl from the Astaroth Clan, the Daughter of Devil King Ajuka and Archangel Sandalphon".

"I heard that she a weakling that can barely use her father's diagrams…" Nyx mocked.

"She's the only one with the political background to pull it off. This could be just a secret group of survivors from Calliope's conquest, in any case, they're a force to be reckoned with and can't be underestimated, I may have to lay down for a while or Sirzechs-sama might start suspecting me".

"Very well, losing our agents in the underworld wouldn't be the best right now. We will lay down until Richter Golden-Haze makes an appearance… for now, place your eyes on Japan and Ares' movements, there is also Rizevim that has acquired Sephirot Graal from the Tepes Faction".

"I heard it, the girl was kidnapped, was it because of Signus' death?"

"Yes, that rascal has stolen the sacred gear but I doubt he has any relics to summon anyone relevant; in any case, I will keep a tight watch in the netherworld."

"Now that Shiva is gone, we have yet to decide on a new leader".

"Then we shall vote right away".

All votes were said and the one that won was Nyx, even though the latter had voted for Hades.

"Tch! how bothersome, I'd rather you do the job, skull..."

"The votation of gods is absolute, hope you take us to a future of supremacy, leader..."

Leaving those words Hades disappeared in a gust of blue flames, followed by Loki who took the Bifrost back to Asgard. Parvati shot Aphrodite a last deadly sight before disappearing in a golden hue.

Nyx disappeared as if she had never been there as it was the night, to begin with; her domain. Only Aphrodite and Thor remained.

"Aphrodite, come with me" He walked up to her to grasp his wrist, but to his surprise an irritated goddess evaded him, slapping his wrist away.

"I'm going back to Sirzechs, Thor… if I'm not there soon he might suspect."

"Hmph! what is that pussy even going to suspect? didn't you see me fighting that dragon!? Even Shiva didn't survive but I did!" The god was insistent, he hadn't gotten his dose of Aphrodite for a while now.

"All I saw was how you and the White Dragon Emperor got trashed like flies, instead of helping Great Red, you hindered her. I don't want to see your face for now" ignoring him, Aphrodite disappeared in a pink hue, leaving a fuming God of Thunder.

"This woman!"

*CHAAA!!*

Several lightning strikes fell during the night, one of them fell on top of the building, bypassing the floors and touching Thor, taking him away.

Not shortly after the attendants of the restaurant returned, frightened... to find that all the dishes were still on the table, not a single of them touched, what a troublesome set of customers.