She was destined to be His Majesty the God-King's goddess and destined, too, to bear His child.
As a mother, how could she not think deeply for her child?
She must, and certainly would, win for that child an authority great and glorious enough.
She must not let her child, because of the family's dead weight and a later birth, end up as a middling, nameless god on Olympus.
Surveying the three realms and three domains, the position of Lord of the Seas seemed perfectly suited.
All these designs and deep calculations in Iris's heart she had never spoken aloud—not even half a word—to her dearest younger sister, Arke.
Arke might seem impish, willful, and daring, yet in truth she lacked much in the way of guile or calculation. Sheltered under Iris's wings, she was a simple, innocent, and adorable goddess.
Such a heavy matter could not be told to her, nor should it weigh upon her.
Iris alone quietly pushed all this forward, and her resolve was firm.
Of course, among the close-attendant goddesses on Olympus at His Majesty's side, Iris was hardly the only one with ambition.
To say each had her own designs was no exaggeration.
Simply put: any god who can long serve at the God-King's side and enjoy His trust is never truly simple.
At the absolute center of cosmic power, no one's heart can forever retain its first, simplest, purest state.
Well—there was one exception.
Amaltheia.
The much-beloved goddess of Purification simply did not possess the kind of thinking that could support overly complex schemes.
But that hardly mattered.
His Majesty the God-King doted on her utterly.
She was one of the very few transcendent goddesses at His side.
Before His Majesty's absolute will, what were all these plans and plots worth?
Compared with His pure, interest-free love, what were they?
At that very moment, the silly, sweet goddess of Purification was caught in His broad arms, being teased and toyed with as He pleased.
When His Majesty took certain liberties, she grew flustered and angry, and would genuinely puff out her cheeks and glare at Him. She would even, outrageously, press those long, holy horns of hers hard against the strongest chest in the cosmos.
It was a kind of pouting—and a fearless intimacy.
His Majesty only laughed aloud and let her have her way.
It was the sort of pampering that made any watching god's heart ache with envy.
Amaltheia herself had never realized it.
Every little gesture that, in other gods' eyes, bordered on profaning the God-King, drew countless envious, jealous stares behind her back.
The countless, casual acts she thought nothing of were the clearest signs of His utmost indulgence.
Though she herself knew nothing of it.
After all, these things had long since become part of the fabric of her life.
And who ever notices what they've grown used to seeing every day?
Meanwhile,
at the foot of Mount Olympus,
Absu Naya had, by now, run through Iris's coaching in her mind hundreds of times.
She had prepared her phrasing with care, drafted responses to every possible turn, every question His Majesty might ask. Only now did she finally begin to move.
Raising her head, she once more looked up at that cloud-piercing peak whose summit she could not see.
The holy pressure still made her divinity shake.
She drew several deep, steadying breaths, forcing down the fear and silently egging herself on.
"Absu Naya! Calm down! You are here to plead guilty, not to lodge a complaint!"
"You are loyal! You are humble!"
"For the family! For yourself! You can do this!"
Then divine power flowed; with a turn, she transformed.
She shed her deep-sea-tainted original body and took on the purest, most standard divine form.
With a shimmer of godlight, the hideous half-beast face she wore melted like frost under spring sun.
In its place there appeared a perfect, delicate visage identical to her other half—equally lovely, even carrying a fragile, pitiful charm.
Now her features were fine, her expression gentle and vulnerable, with that unique trench-stillness lending a quiet grace. She was truly striking.
Her upper body changed little, save that she fully drew those vicious bone-wings into herself, smoothing them into a clean, pale back that left her frame looking even more slender and frail.
As for the lower half—where black tentacles and grim whale-tail had once shifted in and out of view—those horrors faded completely.
In their place appeared a pair of long, slender, flawless legs.
They were as straight as young bamboo, skin like cool, white suet jade, lines flowing and perfect—one ounce more and they'd be plump, one less and they'd be thin. There was no flaw to be found; they were impossibly enticing.
She carefully combed her thick dark-violet hair smooth, then donned the simple, elegant pale-violet gown Iris had specially chosen for her.
In an instant, even her whole aura shifted.
At a single glance, all the prior distortion and chaos were gone; she now truly looked like a peerlessly beautiful, quietly serene goddess of the sea.
The only pity lay in her utterly flat front and back.
The pale-violet dress lay smooth on her body, without the least extra curve or rise.
At first glance, it was a figure His Majesty would not bother to look at twice—pitiful indeed.
Still, though the dress did leave her chest looking truly unimpressive,
it lent her whole presence a greater purity—a plain, clean innocence that made her all the more pitiable.
Compared with the strange, chaotic, prison-like majesty she had shown before, she was now like a different god.
The one lingering oddity was her eyes.
Even in her most "standard" divine form, her eyes remained pure black, without pupils.
Those eyes held not a spark of light—like twin black pools swallowing everything, or two pure blocks of obsidian. They reflected nothing, only a pure "void" that seemed ready to devour all.
It gave her innocent look a faint, uncanny, inhuman beauty, making it plain she was no ordinary sea-goddess.
Absu Naya scrutinized her new form from head to toe, making sure every detail matched her sister's instructions.
What she wanted was precisely this impression of "harmless," "pitiful," "pure," "law-abiding"!
At last, after biting her lip for courage, she strode forward with grim resolve, climbing step by step along the road to Paradise.
At length, she reached Heaven's Gate.
She stopped reverently before the endless cloud wall that divided gods from mortals.
There she revealed the unique, unmistakable authority of her deep-sea divinity.
Once Heaven's Gate, by the holy Order, had verified her identity, it opened to her.
The heavy clouds, rolling with holy and orderly radiance, silently parted to form a solemn path for this small goddess of the inner sea.
Endless, warm holy light, like a waterfall of liquid gold, poured over her at once.
Ordinarily, as a goddess of trench-peace, her very nature shunned sunlight and disliked any form of warmth.
Yet, strangely, this blazing, gentle light did not bring her the least discomfort or burning.
It even made her feel as if she had returned to her Mother's womb, to the earliest cradle of life—easy, comfortable, her heart filled with a security she had never known.
Absu Naya, of course, knew why.
She could not help but sigh inwardly again: His Majesty the God-King truly was the supreme Lord who holds and embraces all seas!
So long as a god was acknowledged by His Holy Just Order, no matter who they were, no matter how dark, cold, chaotic, or twisted their law-divinity,
once they came to Paradise they would feel nothing but the utmost closeness and peace.
She had felt the same sensation when she last came for the All-Gods Assembly.
This time was no different.
If there was any difference at all…
it was that the feeling now was deeper, richer.
The omnipresent warmth and acceptance calmed her anxious heart yet more.
She clung to that confidence.
His Majesty the God-King was just such a great, warm, merciful, and all-embracing Lord!
He was most certainly just and reasonable!
Even if the one at fault this time was His beloved daughter, there was no need to fear that He would do anything cruel to a "victim" like her!
His Majesty truly was the greatest!
Still, by the rules of Paradise, a little inner-sea goddess of her rank was far from qualified to appear directly before the supreme God-King.
Fortunately—she had gods above her!
After entering Paradise, she stopped again, reverently, at the foot of the towering divine mountain that housed His Majesty's temple.
Though she had already bathed in that all-embracing holy light, the majesty that seeped from the temple above, belonging to the supreme Sovereign, still made her divinity shiver as if to collapse.
She had no thought of barging in, only waited humbly where she stood.
Then, with practiced ease, she sent another message to her dear Sister Iris on the God-Net.
Within the temple, laughter and playful cries had yet to die down.
The many-hued goddess of the rainbow, seeing the message, soon replied, telling Absu Naya to wait at ease.
She would choose the best moment to lay the matter before His Majesty.
After all, He was in a good mood; one could hardly bring such a small matter to dampen His enjoyment.
Fortunately, this round of games was nearly over; it did not seem she would have to wait very long.
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