— — — — — —
To the soft, lilting music played by the fairies, the participants gradually gathered according to their respective factions.
"Allow me to introduce Her Excellency Ammut of the Egyptian pantheon…"
"A pleasure, a pleasure…"
"And this is Lady Ixchel of the Mayan pantheon…"
"Praise be to you, beautiful goddess!"
At last, the atmosphere resembled a proper banquet. But Ryo knew better. The glances cast his way still carried lingering heat from what had happened earlier.
He sighed quietly, glanced at Athena on his left, then looked past her to Shiroyasha.
"Had enough fun yet?"
"Wow, that's cold. Kicking the mule once it's done pulling the mill already? I don't get to have fun very often, y'know."
Shiroyasha grinned as she squeezed Athena's hand and even lifted it, giving it a playful shake.
The goddess beside her looked helpless.
"Why do you always act like a starving pervert?"
Shiroyasha replied without the slightest shame.
"Isn't taking advantage of pretty girls hardwired into DNA?"
"Don't go engraving everything into DNA!" Ryo thought she had a point, but he still chose to side with Athena this time.
No other reason.
He was jealous.
"Tch. Damn brat." Shiroyasha smacked her lips, shot Ryo a glare, then turned to Athena with a teasing smile.
"Still, you really went all out today. You even kissed him. What, thinking about becoming my subordinate's wife?"
Ryo's eyebrow twitched.
Athena, being questioned so bluntly, remained calm. Her intelligent smile never wavered. "I don't believe you can't guess what I'm trying to do."
"Tch."
Shiroyasha curled her lips and swept her gaze across the crowd.
Anyone who met her eyes quickly looked away, afraid of being noticed.
"Same old useless trash," she scoffed, then added silently, 'No wonder Boss wants to weed these people out.'
She sighed, narrowed her eyes, and shot Athena a sidelong glance. "Was the Hermes incident something you put Ryo up to?"
"That's a very good question."
Athena's smile brightened. She tilted her head slightly and looked at Ryo on her right. "Wouldn't the person involved like to answer?"
Shiroyasha's brow jumped. "Forget it. Let's skip something so trivial for now."
Hearing that very obvious favoritism, Athena was a little stunned.
Noticing this, Shiroyasha pretended to be clueless and continued. "Anyway, once a clever little goddess like you steps forward, most of these wind-vanes down below will probably start treating Arcadia as your outer circle of subordinates. Wait…"
She suddenly looked at Ryo. "You two didn't have a falling-out, did you?"
Athena's eagerness to prove her closeness with Ryo had been a bit unnatural, even deliberately theatrical.
That alone was enough to send Shiroyasha's imagination running wild.
"How could I?" Ryo replied with a smile.
"Oh?" Shiroyasha sounded unconvinced.
"It's just that what I did was something Her Excellency Athena couldn't quite shoulder."
Shiroyasha's face froze. Her grin collapsed instantly.
"You didn't pull something outrageous again, did you? It's only been a few days!"
Remembering how Ryo tended to rewrite human history every time he made a move, Shiroyasha's expression twisted.
Thinking of the Strike the Blood world where the gods had fallen into demonhood, Ryo shook his head. "Not yet."
"Not yet, huh… I don't know whether to feel relieved or start cursing." Shiroyasha grimaced, then glanced at Athena and sighed. "I really can't tell whether you're conscientious or heartless."
If Ryo had a conscience, he at least tried to cover things up and distance his allies before doing something big. If he didn't, well, every move he made, except in the Bleach world, was terrifyingly massive.
The upper-tier powerhouses who descended as humans, those lawless gods preparing for war, had only just begun gearing up, and Ryo was already planning to stir trouble again.
Wave after wave of climaxes. It was too much.
"I'll take that as a compliment," Ryo said with a smile.
He knew it himself. Once he hit the gas, there was no turning back. No matter what the gods thought, he had to climb fast. At the very least, before all the things he'd done were exposed, he needed to reach the top of Little Garden.
At least become a monster like Azi Dahaka, someone even the gods wouldn't dare provoke lightly.
Seeing this, Shiroyasha muttered, "Forget it. I won't ask what kind of big thing you're planning. That's Boss's headache now."
The speaker was casual, but the listener was not. Athena clearly caught the word "Boss," and her expression stiffened for a split second.
The Twin Goddesses…
Athena's mood soured visibly. Her face looked like a prized slab of meat had just been snatched by the neighbor's tyrannosaurus.
Shiroyasha stopped there. Having let just enough slip, she broke into a cheerful grin.
"By the way, Athena-chan, isn't it a bit immoral for you to stare at my subordinate god like that?"
"All these small fry around us already think he belongs to your faction!"
Athena fell silent for a moment, then sighed. "That was originally part of the plan."
Under the "normal" process, Ryo should have accepted the Loki Spirit Rank she offered, accepted her terms, and become a semi-official subordinate of the Temple of Wisdom.
This debut banquet was meant to be the moment where their alliance was deliberately leaked.
But everything was ruined by Ryo's sudden breakup. Even the price she had prepared for her offer was swallowed back before she could speak. And Ryo's reason was simply that Athena couldn't bear the responsibility.
That did anger her, but only to that extent. The reason she'd deliberately caused trouble earlier was really just an inexplicable irritation.
Just then, Shiroyasha exclaimed in surprise, "Oh? So you noticed after all!"
She looked at Athena with understanding. "Was it foresight, or divine inspiration? I thought I sealed things well enough. You shouldn't have gotten many hints from the Little Garden core."
Athena's expression shifted slightly. She only sighed. "So it really was hidden…"
Hearing that, Shiroyasha raised an eyebrow, catching the bait in Athena's words. Her expression turned playful.
"I see. Just a warning from your Divinity, huh?"
Athena couldn't possibly point directly at it. Even if all of Greece worked together, they couldn't. The Another Cosmology on Ryo had its information sealed jointly by her and the Twin Goddesses.
Even beings in the two-digit tier couldn't detect much, let alone Athena herself.
So right now, Athena was just fishing.
"Looks like I've been seen through," Athena said with a smile. "Then can you explain it? Whatever it is on Ryo that made me receive a revelation and refuse to let go."
Shiroyasha glanced at Ryo and grinned. "Want me to explain it?"
"Go ahead," Ryo said, already rubbing his temples with a headache.
He had guessed a lot of things, but he never expected the real reason Athena wouldn't let go to be his cosmos.
That made things awkward.
With his answer, Shiroyasha turned to Athena. The corners of her mouth slowly curled upward, her tone teasing and unrestrained.
"This kid's Divinity is complicated, but there's one description that fits perfectly. Want to guess what it is? By the way, this is something my Boss calculated. Something really interesting."
"What is it?" Athena prompted at the right moment.
Shiroyasha bared her teeth in a brazen grin.
"Athena's Saint."
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