Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, was every bit as sharp-tongued as Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Beauty. She had even dragged Hera and Gaea into their argument.
Unlike her hostile attitude yesterday, Persephone now addressed the ancient Earth Mother much more affectionately.
Hearing her words, Hera and Gaea couldn't help rolling their eyes.
How could two goddesses who had lived for countless years fail to understand Persephone's intention?
She was obviously trying to drag them into her argument with Aphrodite.
Unfortunately for her, neither Hera nor Gaea was foolish enough to be manipulated by a few words.
"I think the two of you should stop wasting your time."
Hera glanced at them before speaking calmly.
"The God-King undoubtedly has his true wives outside."
"We are currently nothing more than his..."
She paused briefly.
"Instead of arguing here, you should think about how to make him truly accept us. How do we leave this place and gain proper status beside him?"
"Otherwise, we're nothing more than birds kept in a beautiful cage."
Her words immediately silenced them.
Gaea nodded.
"The women I saw beside the God-King in Asgard were all extraordinarily beautiful."
"They're most likely his wives."
"If you're satisfied spending eternity inside this castle, then continue fighting among yourselves."
Her voice remained calm.
"To put it plainly, despite everything that's happened between us and the God-King, we don't even have the right to bear his children yet."
Aphrodite and Persephone fell silent.
Hera's expression gradually became serious.
"I'm not satisfied."
"I want to leave this place."
"Even if I cannot become his queen, I will still earn a legitimate place beside him."
She looked directly at the three goddesses.
"I want the God-King's love."
"I'll admit it without shame."
"He has conquered me completely."
"My heart belongs to him now."
"I cannot imagine returning to my previous life."
Hera's eyes remained cold and firm.
"You can call me shameless. You can call me disloyal."
"I no longer care."
"Zeus is dead. Olympus is gone."
"And neither matters to me as much as that man does now."
After saying that, Hera turned and walked toward the door.
Gaea, Aphrodite, and Persephone remained silent for several seconds.
Even they hadn't expected Hera to state her feelings so openly.
But after thinking carefully, they realized their own situations weren't much different.
The deaths of their former husbands and the collapse of Olympus no longer occupied their thoughts the way they once had.
That man's presence had gradually pushed everything else aside.
Gaea glanced at Aphrodite and Persephone before following Hera out.
...
After returning to the Skyblade VII, Karl entered one of the living rooms.
Almost immediately, he sensed something unusual.
There were disturbances in the surrounding flow of time.
Karl's expression became serious.
He activated the Mind Stone and Self Stone, extending his perception throughout the warship and the surrounding space.
The temporal residue was unmistakable.
Ganata, Yan, Black Phoenix, and Hela quickly sensed Karl's unusual behavior and appeared beside him.
They looked at his solemn expression in confusion.
Whoosh!
A rectangular Time Door suddenly opened inside the living room.
Several armored figures stepped through.
TVA Hunters.
One of them looked directly at Karl.
"Temporal Variant."
"You've caused extensive unauthorized deviations in this timeline."
The Hunter raised his weapon.
"By authority of the Time Variance Authority, you're coming with us."
"Will you cooperate, or do we have to prune you?"
Karl's eyes narrowed.
The Time Variance Authority.
Of course he recognized them.
An organization that monitored timelines and interfered with temporal anomalies throughout the multiverse.
He hadn't expected them to finally come after him.
But after thinking about the System, Karl quickly understood why.
His existence had changed far too much.
Events that should have happened had disappeared.
People who should have died remained alive.
Characters had reached power levels they should never have possessed.
Even entire cosmic events had been rewritten by his presence.
At first, the System may have concealed the source of those changes.
But the longer Karl remained in this universe, the larger the deviations became.
Eventually, the TVA could simply follow the growing temporal disturbances back to him.
Karl remembered Loki's encounter with the TVA.
A Loki who escaped with the Tesseract after the Battle of New York had been labeled a temporal Variant and arrested by Hunter B-15 and her Minutemen.
Karl also knew something even more troublesome.
Inside TVA headquarters, Infinity Stones were useless.
However, they weren't currently inside the TVA.
They were aboard his warship.
That meant Karl couldn't assume the Infinity Stones had suddenly become worthless.
Even so, the TVA's control over time couldn't be underestimated.
Especially their pruning technology, TemPads, Time Doors, and temporal restraint equipment.
Karl's expression became more serious.
The Self Stone might also resist their technology due to its connection with Nemesis.
And even without the Stones, Karl possessed another trump card.
His Stand—
World Beyond.
A power capable of stopping time itself.
Boom!
Before Karl could act, Black Phoenix attacked first.
Her personality had never been particularly patient.
Take Karl away?
Impossible.
A gigantic Phoenix-shaped mass of crimson energy erupted from her body and rushed toward the TVA Hunters.
One Hunter calmly activated a device attached to his equipment.
Buzz!
The space in front of them distorted.
The incoming Phoenix energy suddenly vanished, displaced by the TVA's temporal technology before it could strike.
Black Phoenix's expression changed.
Ganata, Yan, and Hela immediately became serious as well.
These people had neutralized a Phoenix Force attack almost effortlessly.
They clearly weren't ordinary opponents.
None of the women cared what organization the intruders represented.
If they intended to take Karl away, then they were enemies.
Ganata, Yan, and Hela prepared to attack together.
The TVA Hunters moved first.
Several devices activated simultaneously.
Green temporal energy spread throughout the room.
Buzz!
The instant the energy passed over them, Karl, Ganata, Yan, Black Phoenix, and Hela felt the local flow of time slow drastically.
The Hunters relaxed slightly.
They clearly believed the situation had been brought under control.
Then Karl moved.
Right in front of them.
The TVA Hunters froze.
Ganata moved next.
Then Yan.
Black Phoenix.
Hela.
All five of them broke free from the temporal suppression.
The Hunters stared in disbelief.
Their technology was indeed manipulating time.
But Karl and the others had already reached the Single-Universe level.
Such limited temporal restraints weren't enough to hold them indefinitely.
Karl's eyes became cold.
Then—
Time stopped.
Not merely inside the warship.
Not merely around the TVA Hunters.
Karl directly froze the flow of time throughout the entire universe.
Every sufficiently powerful cosmic existence immediately sensed the abnormality.
Yet none chose to interfere.
...
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