Chapter 165 - Aftermath

Ares, the God of War, sits on a rock in the middle of a shallow pond at the base of Mount Olympus. He lives in the modest hut near the pond whenever he is not on the battlefields. A small waterfall pours in front of him onto a stone wheel. He presses down on the pedal with his foot to spin the stone wheel and carefully lowers his sword against it. Ares' artifact sword is of impeccable make. Blood, in the shape of fire, endlessly streams upward into the air, flickering and crackling as if emulating the flames of War.

A cacophonous screech heralds the slicing of water off from atop the perfectly smooth wheel. The stone is entirely ordinary so there is no sharpening taking place. Ares just likes how grating the sound is upon his ears and the practice of slicing at the exact angle to separate water from stone without damaging the stone. A mere millimeter off and the stone will be skinned like an apple. This is what he does in his boredom.

"Hm?!" he jolts backwards with surprise, losing his composure entirely. Thankfully, his automatic backwards motion prevents any damage to his beautifully rounded wheel. He freezes in the shallow water, digesting the memory of his divine projection. "My distant cousins.. I lost." He smiles strangely and his cock twitches.

He lets go of his sword and it floats in place. Then he adopts a stance with open palms. His hands flow forward and back, emulating the motions of Nuwa's form. 'Eastern kung fu. No specific region. Personalized to her body. Impossible, she's too young. Her movements were too perfect, also impossible. Slight precognition like Athena? No.. precognition doesn't work on stronger beings. Some talent of hers?'

The wargod curiously speaks aloud, "How?" His arms change flow to adapt his own martial arts into her movements, but he still sees no way to break the defense without brute force. Normally, he would be fine with this, but against a beautiful woman like his cousin, he can no longer bear to. He has to beat her with technique, but he has no idea how she had done what she did. Shuffling through a variety of martial arts fused with Nuwa's movements, he repeatedly asks, "How?"

Only when he feels a familiar set of silky smooth arms possessively wrap around his bare torso does Ares recall that Nuwa's method of attack had been similar to Aphrodite, but the Di he knows would never share her Authority nor mar her beauty for a second by conceiving a child. Nuwa's other abilities like the eyesight petrification and the strange precognition had distracted him from the fact that she couldn't even block his hand from pulling off a handful of snakes from her head before she sat upon his dick. An Authority or Dao related to Sex could explain it!

"How what? What are you thinking about so seriously that you cannot pay me any mind, hmm?" a flowery voice says from behind him into his ears while bare breasts press against his back.

Ares vanishes with superspeed to swap places with his lover, hugging her from behind, cupping her breast and hip, and trailing kisses up her neck. Aphrodite's arms are now instead wrapped around an empty space containing his sword, which he had swapped places with.

Aphrodite curls her back against her lover. She inhales deeply, but stiffens up halfway through. Her Authority of Love picks up that foul scent she desperately fears. She grasps his sword and raises it behind her, allowing it to hang above both their necks, and says in a low voice, "Who is she?"

Inwardly sighing, Ares tries to explain by starting with her affectionate pet name, "Di.."

Aphrodite screams angrily, "DON'T! YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!!"

A vast pink pillar of energy drops from the sky and condenses to become a domain around the pond area, isolating them from any Gods outside. There is silence for a moment as the sword's bloody flames lose their radiance and become mere embers within the sickly pink environment. In contrast, the gold artifact jewelry on her neck and arms glow brighter and miniscule pink runes etched upon them make themselves visible. She continues with her voice breaking up, "I thought you were different.."

Ares unashamedly explains, "I was r*ped." and resumes groping her breast and butt. When it comes to Aphrodite's mood swings, he's an expert navigator.

Aphrodite bursts into a hysterical laughter, laced with a hint of insanity, and shouts, "How can a God of War possibly be r*ped?!"

He replies seriously, "It's the truth. I swear it on my honor. Di, nothing's changed."

Aphrodite regains some of her composure with that admission. She had never known Ares to go against his honor. She lets go of the sword and it realigns itself to float safely back into its scabbard on Ares' waist, at his bidding. She sniffles, wipes her tears and snot off onto the back of the hand molesting her chest, and says, "Okay. Who is she?"

"I can't tell you that, Di." replies Ares sympathetically.

Another silence occurs while Aphrodite resumes crying. She pushes away from him and turns to face him to shout, "You backstabbing bastard!"

Ares can hardly bear to look at his lover's twisted face. The situation is hard to explain without giving away clues to Nuwa's identity. He tightens his fists and says, "She doesn't deserve to die."

The pieces begin to fall into place in Aphrodite's mind. If the godly form of Ares had been jumped, like he said, it had to have been a Goddess, but they are immortal. Any slain God would simply be reborn via their Authority. The fact that Ares implied that she COULD die means that the perpetrator is a mortal. There is no mortal who can get the jump on Ares, but.. if it were a divine projection instead, then it would be possible.

Her mind creates a story, one that is surprisingly close to the truth, of Zagreus and Nuwa establishing the two-way communication with the divine projection of Ares just like they did with her, subsequently beating him with their teamwork and array of blessings, and finally ravishing his body. Why would they do this? Clearly to train Nuwa's Dao of Sex!

Aphrodite looks up into the air with still eyes akin to a dead fish. 'So this is the path you have chosen, my wayward apprentice. Women like us who are shunned by modest society.. we should be the ones to stick together. I hope.. that you're prepared to die for your ambitions.'

"Di, this doesn't change anything." repeats Ares.

Aphrodite turns to him with a blank face and asks the crucial question, "Did you like it?"

Ares pauses. The nude Goddess snorts cynically with tears pooling in her eyes. Before he can respond, they hear a few knocks on the barriers of the domain. Aphrodite flicks her disheveled hair. It rearranges itself back to covering the private parts of her body and dispels the domain. Zeus and Hera are standing just outside the formerly present walls of the domain, but appear in a flash of lightning at the banks of the pond shortly after it is dispelled.

The arrival of the ruling couple only worsens Aphrodite's mood. Unfortunately, she has to explain why she laid a domain at the base of Mount Olympus or Zeus will make her do so. The jolly old man has a way of getting what he wants by fair means or foul.

Ares greets, "Dad, Mom, how do you do?"

Zeus laughs cheerfully and zips over in a bolt of lightning to land an unnecessarily hard smack on his son's back, "Hahaha! The usual, old boy!" Zeus takes a glance at Aphrodite before turning back to Ares and asking, with clear intention, "How are you and..*cough*.. your sister-in-law getting along?"

The longstanding and scandalous affair between Aphrodite and Ares is not a mystery to anyone at all, but Zeus has to maintain some semblance of propriety.

Aphrodite responds on Ares' behalf. She states in a snappy tone, "We're fine now and I was just leaving. Goodbye, Father and Mother." She takes flight and speeds away leaving a pink glowing trail. Ares raises his hand slightly in an attempt to stop her, but again, he cannot think of any way to explain without disclosing Nuwa's identity, so he lets her go. He has no idea she already has it figured out.

Hera floats over to Ares and checks him for any injuries just like a worried mother. Domains are meant for war and summoning one near Mount Olympus, even if accidentally, is too provocative. It sends a bad message. Also of importance is the fact that even though Aphrodite and Ares are both low-t4, Aphrodite is over a millenia older than Ares, and therefore, stronger than him!

Moreover, her only adornments, the gold jewelry that she never takes off, are supposedly the strongest artifact weapons that Hephestaus has ever created, but no one has ever seen them in action and lived to tell the tale. These are the two major concerns of the King and Queen of Olympus.

Hera complains in her normal snobby manner, "I've been saying this for thousands of years and I'll say it again. That brazen floozy is absolutely no good! A married woman, cavorting around!" In a noticeably softer tone, she entreats her son, "Dear, why not find a nice chaste lady to settle down with? You know.. your younger half-sister, Artemis, she may be of improper birth, but I'll settle for her. You two have so much in common.."

Zeus retorts, "Nonsense! My son can only have the most beautiful woman! It's a good match. Go win her back, kid."

With a ferocious glare, Hera turns to her husband and says with gritted teeth, "This PARTICULAR floozy is our OTHER son's wife..!"

"Oh yeah." mutters Zeus with furrowed brows. "That guy. Name starts with an H?"

Sequentially, Ares sighs with exasperation, Hera throws a fit, and Zeus promptly runs away. The perfect portrait of a dysfunctional family.

~ ~ ~

+150k LEE, Total: 1875k LEE

Nuwa regains consciousness inside her soul. She automatically glances over to where the [System] is. She is not sure why, but its presence within her soul bothers her more than before. It had always been in her life, so she doesn't know the reason for the sudden change, but she trusts her gut. The vast purple seal, like an infinite wall extending in every direction, remains intact, except it appears pieces of the Chaos are flaking off and floating outward at a small spot in the center.

Approaching it, she spots a microscopic hole. Gathering her courage, she looks through it to see that foreboding locked box. "[System]?"

A familiar mechanical voice reverberates through her mind, 'Yes?'

She jolts at its return after 18 years of memories without it. Its response is distant and exudes tiredness, almost eliciting some sympathy from her before she remembers all it had put her through. She doesn't feel love or hate for it though. At this point, it's more of an apathetic acceptance. Hesitantly, she asks, "How are you? How did you break through?"

The only response she gets is, 'Fine. Tired. Cannot. Help.' as if it is speaking through a one-word-only telegram.

She turns away, assuming that to mean she cannot access her [Shop] and [Inventory] still. She checks on the rest of her soul. There is the clear presence of foreign energy, likely divine energy of War that she had taken from Ares. Her Dao Strings are passively preventing it from coming close to her Dao Core, which is no doubt a good thing. If it were not for them, her Dao might be tainted by that energy and overwhelmed. She shudders imagining herself becoming as much of a warlike bitch as Meg. "No thanks."

Having finished a quality check on her soul, she opens her eyes to see Zagreus resting against the wall of the 11th chamber. He is giving her a lap pillow. Realistically, his thighs are too muscular to be of any comfort, but her snake hairs are squishy enough to let her lie down nicely on most surfaces. Watching her brother sleeping peacefully, when he is typically always dashing around here and there, fills her heart with comfort and joy.

Nuwa doesn't want to wake him right away, so she only makes small movements. Looking around with her many eyes, she notes that her body is clean, all the cum that drained out of her holes from earlier is gone, her body is fully healed, and her muscles are bulging unnaturally. She wonders, 'Was I too reckless earlier? Humph.. that musclehead God of War got me so worked up.'

Her womb is still burning slightly from the lingering remains of Ares' soldierly sperm, but it is more of an annoyance than anything serious. 'This stuff is difficult to digest. I wonder if I could help it along with something smooth and spicy?'

She finally moves to raise her head and reach into her brother's robes to fish out his funstick. While Zagreus starts to rouse, Nuwa gobbles it up. She recalls him being in pain earlier, and even though she doesn't understand it, she has a feeling it had been her fault, so she puts her sincerest effort into servicing his rapidly hardening rod to properly apologize. She closes her numerous eyes and focuses on licking all his sensitive spots with her tongues. No one would complain about waking up to this! As soon as she feels Zagreus' hand on her head, she dives down to engulf him in an enthusiastic deepthroat.

(A/N: Fairly predictable chapter. Haters going to hate, bitches going to be bitches, systems going to system, and lovers going to love. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.)

(A/N: https://discord.gg/VD3C2BFPAu)