Chapter 241: Chapter 241: The Empire’s Territories
Inside one of the chambers of the hall of Hela, known as Éljúðnir, Hela, the mistress of the hall, her brother Fenrir, the goddesses Frigga and Freya, and the new and forever king of the Norse Pantheon, Damian Ignatius, were sitting at a round table, sharing a drink.
Hela sat intimately close to her master, looking at him with a gentle, loving expression, like a teenager in love.
“So you guys knew each other already?” Frigga asked, trying her best to ignore the scene in front of her.
After all, in her mind, Hela was a goddess considered by the Norse pantheon to be as dangerous as her two brothers, Fenrir and Jörmungandr.
But to see her acting like this… it was kind of disturbing.
“Yes… Master took pity on me and decided to help me become strong,” Hela said.
“Well, I didn’t pity her… Hela is probably the most talented goddess I have ever seen, but because she had a problem that made it hard for her to grow her divinity, I gave her a helping hand,” Damian said, smiling.
Damian had met her in his past, around the time he met Lilith.
Lilith became his first disciple, and Hela became his second, even if Damian didn’t want to admit it.
He really did take pity on their situations and decided to help them, seeing great potential in both.
While Lilith only needed guidance to grow stronger, Hela’s condition was more complicated and required extensive help, something no one else in her pantheon could provide.
Like her two brothers, Hela was supposed to be born as a beast of End, but she wasn’t. She was born as a normal goddess, with the divinity of the Divine Concept of End, just like her two brothers, along with the Divine Concepts of Time and Death.
The problem was that she had absolutely zero affinity with the Divine Concept of End.
This made it impossible for her to cultivate her divinity, and even the divinities of Death and Time became incomparably harder to develop, as the Concept of End kept interfering with her growth, almost acting like a poison.
That was when she met her master, Damian, who managed to create a solution to her situation.
“You managed to find a cure to fight against the effects of the Divine Concept of End, which is one of the most dangerous concepts on the negative side?” Freya asked, her annoyed expression growing as she watched Hela act touchy with Damian.
“Well, it’s not that complicated… to battle the Divinity of End, you just have to counter it with the Concept of Begin,” Damian said, looking at the bracelet on Hela’s hand, which glowed with a faint, warm white light.
“My master made this bracelet for me,” Hela explained, placing her palm over it.
“It’s imbued with the pure essence of the Divinity of Begin, on the same level of divinity as the End that I currently possess. It maintains balance with the Divinity of End, preventing it from progressing.”
Even though the Concepts of End and Begin are complete opposites, when they make contact, they do not cancel each other or dominate the other.
Instead, they strive to maintain balance and coexistence, as long as they are equal in force and quantity within a system.
Damian used the same principle to solve Hela’s problem.
Using his Divinity of Begin and Creation, he created a powerful relic in the form of a bracelet.
It contains the rich essence of the Divinity of Begin, at the same level as the Divinity of End within Hela.
This Divinity of Begin in the bracelet established balance with the Divinity of End inside her, preventing its progression and neutralizing its negative influence.
“After my beloved master cured me of my condition, I began to focus on my other divinities, especially my Divinity of Time, but even after hundreds of years, I couldn’t make any progress on the Concept of Time,” Hela said.
The reason she hadn’t progressed was that the Concept of Time is a cosmic-level concept.
As a mere goddess, no matter how powerful, it was impossible for Hela to cultivate it like other high-ranking divine concepts.
“I’m glad you decided to focus on your other divine concepts and not just Time,” Damian muttered, patting her shoulder.
“Yes… once I began to concentrate on my Divinity of Death, my strength grew significantly. A few years later, I also managed to comprehend the Divine Concepts of Souls, Beauty, Ice, and Decay,” Hela said.
“Once I focused on them alongside the Concept of Death, I managed to gain comprehension of the Divine Concepts of Purity and Darkness, and after a few hundred years, I also gained comprehension of the Divine Concept of Annihilation,” she added, smiling.
“So many divine concepts… no wonder your presence is the way it is,” Frigga said, stunned.
“The Concept of Annihilation… that’s even stronger than the Divine Concept of Destruction,” Freya said, sighing slightly in jealousy.
“Usually, gods find it extremely hard to cultivate more than one divinity. There’s an unspoken rule: once a god or goddess achieves comprehension of three divinities, they usually cannot gain more. If they do, they won’t be able to cultivate them as effectively, and it can even affect the growth of other divinities,” Frigga explained.
“That’s right. I possess dominion over the Concepts of Love, Beauty, Wealth, Magic, and Battle, but I could never really cultivate them properly. It’s extremely hard, and if I try too hard, it could break all progress. That’s why I only focused on the first three concepts I acquired: Love, Beauty, and Magic,” Freya admitted.
“As I said, Hela is extremely talented… and I think you are too,” Damian said, looking at Freya.
“Just having three concepts allows a god to be considered very talented, and you were able to acquire more than three and even make progress in them. Even if it’s not perfect, it’s still impressive,” Damian continued.
“The reason you weren’t able to realize your potential until now might be because of… our little situation.”
The situation he was referring to was the fact that he was Hela’s true love and how that had affected her over different points in time.
At one point in time, her future self had found her true love in Damian.
As the Divine Concept of Love transcends time and space, it’s possible that its power caused Freya to lag behind in her progress as a goddess.
“Y-You really think so?” Freya asked, looking self-pitying.
“Yeah… I mean, until now you didn’t have me. Now you do… your true love,” Damian replied, gently tapping her cheek with his right index finger.
Hela’s eyes widened, as if wronged. “My master is your true love?”
A grin formed on Freya’s face. “Yes. Too bad you don’t have him.”
“….” Hela was silent for a few seconds before a sly grin appeared. “Heh… he became your true love just now, but he became my master a long time ago…”
Freya felt a vein pop on her forehead, but controlled herself.
As irritating as it was, it was still the truth.
Suddenly, a surprised expression came over her. “My Concept of Love is stabilizing…”
“That’s good…” Damian said, nodding.
Then he thought for a few seconds.
“I guess it would be better if you stayed with me from now on… do you want to?”
“Yes,” Freya replied frantically, nodding her head.
“I want to stay with Master too,” Hela hastily added.
“Well then, you guys will need this,” Damian said, snapping his fingers.
In the next second, a system prompt appeared before their eyes.
[You have been granted special authority by the Emperor of the Empire of Ouroboros]
[You have been recognized as the Queen of the Empire of Ouroboros]
[You have gained the authority to freely and instantly travel to any place, including restricted areas accessible only to the highest-ranking officials, within the territory of the Empire of Ouroboros]
[Territories of the Empire of Ouroboros include:]
-New Earth
-Kenkai
-Morris
-Worlds of Thaerris (Mali, Purose, Genso, Yelvera)
-Worlds of Night (Nightingale, Vargheim, Dawnrest)
-Biblical Pantheon (Hell, Heaven)
-Norse Pantheon (Asgard, Vanaheim, Midgard, Jotunheim, Alfheim, Svartalfheim, Nidavellir, Niflheim, Mzspelheim, Valhalla, Fólkvangr, Helheim)
{{The planetary bodies and stars surrounding these worlds also come under the territories of the Empire}}
“Master, did you really conquer all these worlds?” Hela asked.
As someone who rarely left her hall, she didn’t know what her master had been doing since he returned.
Freya had told her everything that had happened so far, but seeing it in front of her eyes, she still couldn’t comprehend it.
She knew just how astonishing her master was, but even after everything, she couldn’t help but feel she had extremely underestimated him.
“Yes… Also, I had help. My wives took care of some worlds, like Morris and Kenkai. Frigga and Freya helped me conquer the elves, dwarves, and humans of the Norse Pantheon,” Damian said.
He looked at Hela as he continued, “Also, I killed all the Norse gods…”
“A-All of the gods?” Hela asked, suddenly feeling like she was about to hear something she didn’t want to.
“Relax, my dear… your father is alright,” Damian said.
“You didn’t…”
“Of course not. How could I kill my beloved disciple’s father?” Damian smiled. “Also, as irritating as he was, he was one of the good ones.”
“I’m surprised. I thought your relationship with your father wasn’t that good?” Frigga asked, curious.
“He is still my father, and he cares for me in his own comical, annoying way,” Hela said, snorting. “I don’t want him dead…”