The ultimate wisdom was no longer calm analysis; it had transformed into something deeper and more intense.
A resolve transcending reincarnation, and even transcending her own existence, quietly sprouted in her heart.
Her expression remained calm, but the wise light in her eyes seemed infused with some indestructible metal.
"I understand, Hades." Her voice was unusually smooth, even with a hint of unsettling tenderness.
"Bearing the entire world... This is truly the only path that can be seen."
She did not question the feasibility of the plan, did not weep, did not stop him.
Because she knew that under the current cognitive structure and hierarchy of power, this might be the only logical way to break the deadlock of reincarnation.
Hades's conclusion was not wrong.
However, the meaning of wisdom sometimes lies precisely in seeking 'exceptions' outside of logic.
She stepped forward, approached Hades, and raised her hand. This time, her fingertips gently touched his brow, but the cold temperature carried a strangely calming power.
"If this is the path you have chosen,"
she said, word by word, looking into his eyes, her voice as light as a whisper, but as heavy as an oath of Hades, "then my wisdom will no longer be used only for observation and assistance."
Her fingertips tightened slightly.
"It will be used so that at the end of this road, you are not alone."
She did not say what she was going to do.
It was beyond what she could say now, and perhaps beyond Hades's understanding at this stage of reincarnation.
But Hades saw in her eyes something familiar—the light of his own origin and the refusal to yield to fate, burning in Metis's eyes at this moment, even with an almost paranoid firmness.
She was not comforting him, nor giving blind promises.
She was stating a fact.
Hades looked at her, and the weight in his heart seemed to be torn apart by this cold touch and an even colder resolve.
He saw the familiar persistence in her eyes, but something deeper that he could not fully decipher now.
He just felt that he was not alone in all this after revealing this desperate truth.
His queen, his goddess of wisdom, seemed to have entered a deeper game, and he could not even fully see the direction of her next move.
"Metis..." he called softly, a faint, barely perceptible complexity in his voice.
Metis slowly withdrew her hand, and the corner of her mouth lifted into a very faint, yet meaningful, arc.
"Remember, Hades, no matter how many times you reincarnate, no matter how 'destiny' writes you..."
Her figure grew clearer in the darkness of Hades, as if she had become part of this eternal night.
"I will always be your variable."
This time, her tone held neither the softness nor the camaraderie of the past, only a coldness tempered by wisdom.
She was no longer merely a participant in samsara; she would become the 'error' of reincarnation itself.
The result was that ultimate wisdom transformed into the deepest plan.
Without Mnemosyne's knowledge, she developed a protocol for memory backup and replacement that even 'Moebius' might overlook.
The essence of this agreement was that she would excise and copy her own divinity and memory.
Most of her would follow each reset of reincarnation as a program, accompany each 'new' Hades, experience similar or slightly distorted stories, maintain the appearance of a 'wise ally' or a 'paranoid queen', gather data, and maintain basic connections.
The core, the 'Origin Metis', carrying all the memories of reincarnation and true intentions, lurked at the bottom of consciousness, a place difficult even for Hades and Moebius to reach, like a silent observer, waiting for a specific trigger state—that is, the moment when the 'Negation Ritual' was truly activated.
The 'Negation Realm' was the ultimate ritual to transform the constant (Moebius) into the variable (the opportunity accumulated by Hades).
The ritual required a pure consciousness as a sacrifice, merging with the 'constant' root of the world to become a new point of equilibrium.
This sacrifice could only be Hades, who carried the collection of 'opportunities'.
But Metis, using her supreme understanding of the nature of divinity and the laws of Hades, found a loophole in the rule:
the one who undergoes the ritual could only be Hades, but the sacrifice did not have to be him.
At the final moment, when Hades demanded all the reincarnation data from Moebius in the void, preparing to forcibly analyze it and begin the 'Negation Realm'—that is, now—she acted.
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In the very center of the information storm, Hades seemed to hear a distant and familiar voice, with a hint of cunning and infinite tenderness, piercing through the barrier of 33,550,336 reincarnations:
"The wise do not fall in love..."
A thought, emanating from the deepest part of his soul, softly and decisively penetrated Hades's consciousness.
He felt an extremely familiar, yet also immense, power, like a sea of stars, forcibly intervening in the violent current between him and Moebius!
"It seems I cannot be called wise..."
"Hades, have you ever loved me?"
"What a pity, you have never loved... as a wise person would."
Before the words faded, Metis's figure appeared before Hades.
"The history that follows, 'I'... I can no longer go with you." Metis caressed Hades's face with infinite attachment and a slight relief.
"Don't worry, 'Metis' will still exist. It's just that she... will no longer have memories of the past; she will become a new and pure one... You will create many good memories with Metis..."
"It will surely be an unprecedented romance..."
Her voice gradually became ethereal, as if she was departing from the concept of 'individuality'.
"But... I will not let this happen."
Metis's figure gradually shattered, and an extreme cold, containing the deepest obsession of the goddess of wisdom, like a final imprint, deeply etched itself into Hades's heart:
"The wise do not fall in love... As the price for obtaining me (wisdom), I curse you—"
"Forever! Forever!! Forever!! Never fall in love with anyone!"
"We will be like this... Always together. And you, Hades, can never truly 'become one' with anyone."
The moment the curse was completed, the 'self-awareness' of Metis, accumulated over countless reincarnations, emitted a final dazzling, yet cold and piercing flash within the radiance of Hades's 'Negation Realm', which was about to be completed, and then... completely dissipated.
"Go and enjoy it, the world that exists because of you."
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