Long ago, in a very distant past.
Do you remember the time when darkness and light coexisted?
There lived the most bored and dry god of all.
One day, when even her sisters’ songs and their chattering stories had grown tiresome.
Among her many sisters, Vivian—the only female aside from Amina and the wisest of them all—made the most foolish choice of her life, uncharacteristically so.
“I’m going to fall in love.”
At the foolish choice of the wise Goddess of Wisdom, her sisters, including Amina, couldn’t hide their bewilderment. At the same time, when they learned who the object of her affection was, they were appalled.
“Henelion is a greedy fool.”
“He’s trying to use you. He must have some ulterior motive.”
“If it weren’t for his position as the God of Light, he never would have become king.”
“Why would you trust someone who’s only promiscuous below the belt?”
Her sisters stepped forward to dissuade Vivian, but she didn’t budge. Amina, who had been watching with interest, pursed their lips.
Just what kind of love was Vivian experiencing that she remained unshaken? Even when the God of Love, who should be supporting love, was standing right there trying to stop her.
“Snap out of it.”
Amina quietly observed Hilliena, who was more fervently trying to dissuade Vivian’s love than anyone else. The sight of love—which should lean toward desire over reason—clinging to wisdom that had lost its reason was truly interesting and unfamiliar.
“And above all, he…!”
“Shh.”
At Amina’s intervention, the voices of the chattering sisters fell silent. In the quieted space, only the sound of breathing could be heard faintly.
Amina carefully lowered their massive body to meet the eyes of their little sister, who fit in the palm of their hand.
“Vivian, do you trust him?”
“Yeah, I love him.”
“Alright, if that’s how you feel, I’ll respect your opinion. However…”
The colorless eyes that had paused rolled around. Then, looking at the Goddess of Wisdom who had lost her reason to desire, Amina murmured softly.
“If that love hurts you, we will fight you by any means necessary. Even if you don’t want us to.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but Henelion would never do that. He loves me.”
Vivian, speaking confidently, went off with Henelion. Soon, a lovely child was born between them.
The day the child was born, Vivian chattered to her siblings about how well Henelion treated her, how futile their worries had been.
“I told you. He’s going to love me forever.”
Until that point, Vivian believed this love would be eternal. Her worried sisters and Amina also felt relieved and sincerely wished for Vivian’s happiness.
Until Henelion stole her heart.
The anger toward Henelion for stealing their beloved youngest’s heart, the pity for Vivian who had not only had her heart stolen but also had her power and soul subordinated to Henelion. And the humiliation of having wisdom—which was part of their authority—taken so carelessly. Their resentment toward Henelion reached its peak.
“I’ll help you so that you can take away what Henelion wants and loves most.”
Thus, they made a contract with Ircadeon and divided two powers to give him.
One was the power to guide things toward a direction where the master’s desires could be realized among countless future possibilities.
The other was the power to see the deep desires that others possessed.
Of course, these two powers didn’t come without a price.
“When you desperately desire something, that desire will take on color, and not only will it grant what you wish for, but you’ll also be able to see the truth of desires others hide. However, as the price, you will forget both reason and your original nature, constantly craving desire.”
They made it so that nothing else could be thought of except the anger and desire they possessed, so they could focus only on being consumed by desire. But as the price, Ircadeon and the people of the underworld would also lose their reason the moment they desperately desired something.
“Good. I’ll make a deal with you.”
But Ircadeon accepted that poisoned chalice without hesitation. He was already consumed by desire and had gone mad, so nothing else mattered.
The deal was thus sealed.
The desire to realize desperate desires turned the people of the underworld into beasts. They lost even their original forms. With red eyes devoted solely to desire, they moved according to desire’s whispers.
Even after so much time had passed, that power was still in effect, and like a powerful binding, it was passed down to their descendants, becoming the symbol of the underground divine race.
The newly born gods moved to follow whatever they desired most, and this was no exception for Ircadeon’s son.
Even though he had contracted with Amina to obtain his own power of desire, that terrible power clung to Abrisius like shackles, and the moment that power was finally released—
Combined with the desire Abrisius possessed, it devoured his reason and original form.
* * *
“You said you wanted to know me. Don’t you want to use me to get revenge on the gods?”
A sweet voice whispered in his ear, delivering its message right to Cairens’s ear.
“Why… how do you know that?”
A secret he had told no one. The desire he had kept only in his heart was exposed, and Cairens couldn’t hide his bewilderment. Enjoying his flustered appearance, Abrisius burst into laughter.
The giggling laughter rang out through the surrounding air, and wiping the tears that had formed at the corners of his eyes, Abrisius patted the shoulder of Cairens, who was staring at him blankly.
“Don’t look so shocked. There’s a way to find out everything. Do you want to know what it is?”
Before Cairens could answer yes, a scent wafted over. The intense smell of the underworld. However, unlike before when he had found it nauseating, the fragrance Abrisius exuded interfered with his rational thinking.
“This is the reason.”
Resistance was futile. Abrisius’s voice stimulated his eardrums to the point of dizziness, captivating Cairens’s soul.
Even in the midst of this, Cairens kept taking in Abrisius’s appearance with his eyes.
This wasn’t the Abrisius he knew. Whatever had happened overnight—he was exuding an unfamiliar aura incomparable to the weak appearance he’d had when he was captured and dragged away by Seianes.
An enchanting appearance that looked like a spider spinning its web to lure prey… Words he couldn’t express passed through Cairens’s mind.
“Why are you acting like this? So suddenly overnight…”
Cairens asked, gathering his reason. The changed appearance of Abrisius was too unfamiliar.
Cairens couldn’t understand Abrisius’s behavior, which had changed overnight.
“Well, I’m not sure about that either.”
And Abrisius himself felt the same way. Even while seducing Seianes and breathing into Cairens’s ear, stimulating his reason—he couldn’t understand himself acting this way.
“What was I originally like?”
But Abrisius, consumed by the power of desire, was no longer his former self. His pure, somewhat immature childlike appearance had crumbled along with his shattered first love.
The power of desire suddenly created an appearance he never had and even transformed his heart.
“I don’t think I was originally like this either. But.”
Yes, he won’t hold back anymore.
Even if this appearance had been changed by some curse, even if this wasn’t his true form, he decided to endure even that.
I want to be loved, I want to love. I want to make my beloved Seianes mine forever.
He could no longer suppress the desire raging inside him. Perhaps even this was another hidden aspect of himself. Everyone has one hidden true nature, after all.
The innocent child’s appearance that Seianes had adored was no longer needed, so it had died.
‘Then who am I? I don’t need to know that.’
The power of the underworld infused with the power of desire that Amina had given.
More precisely, the desire that Ircadeon had rooted in him gnawed away at part of Abrisius’s reason, and thanks to that, unable to come to his senses, Abrisius was moving according to desire’s whispers.
