The silence that fell in the meeting room was deafening. Shiva, the god of destruction, stared at Hela, the Norse goddess of the underworld, with a very serious look, a look that few people rarely saw.
Even Indra himself was surprised by this facet of Shiva that he didn't know existed.
The only ones seemingly unconcerned with all this were Victor, Violet, Amaterasu, and Haruna. The four formed a small group in the corner, watching everything while eating popcorn and drinking soda.
Not a very dignified appearance for an 'Emperor', but Victor didn't care. He never followed the stigmas that other beings imposed on him; he followed his own path. The same applied to Haruna, Violet, and recently Amaterasu had joined this club.
As a dragon, she had come to love her freedom very much. Thinking back to her past when she was locked in her temple and only went out occasionally, she snorted disdainfully. She wanted to beat her past self for unnecessarily limiting herself like that.
Although she couldn't blame her young self too much; after all, it was a cultural thing, not to mention that she really didn't feel like going out and enjoying her freedom.
So even though she had the power to dictate her own freedom, she did nothing. After all, the decision to do nothing and remain in her cell was her own. A self-imposed prison.
The Limbo Guy, the heavenly father, and the God King of the Celtic pantheon felt his lips tighten when he saw Victor's relaxed posture. They wanted to tell them to be serious and behave appropriately for their positions, but who could tell them that?
They weren't crazy.
The silence lasted for a long 7 minutes, and throughout that time, Shiva and Hela never stopped staring at each other. Shiva looked at the woman with a clear threat, and Hela looked at him with the same look.
Despite doing all this for Victor's scheme, which would benefit her too, she was also a proud woman! She was the woman who dared to challenge Odin and defeat him!
Her pride didn't allow her to look away now, not when someone who thought themselves superior looked at her with such eyes. Fueled by her sister's desire, the END's Cobra wrapped around Hela's neck also looked at Shiva, challenging the god of destruction to attack her sister.
Damn the consequences, and so what if he was in the territory of a primordial!? If that god attacked her sister, he would feel her venom!
Even though he seemed the most carefree of the siblings, he felt a great attachment to Hela. After all, of their dysfunctional family, she was the only one who was there for them.
Everyone conveniently ignored Thor, who was still in his dog position. It was as if he were invisible, and no one missed his presence, he thought. A thought that was far from the truth.
At this moment, Shiva was weighing the pros and cons. With the essence of dreams and madness, he theoretically could help a god of his pantheon gain more power; the value of these essences was immeasurable. Even in the future, he may or may not acquire these concepts for himself... something he highly doubts will happen considering he has possessed this item for thousands of years and has never been able to acquire another concept for himself.
Shiva wasn't thinking about pros and cons; he was fighting against his desire for possession. After all, he had earned these items with great effort and felt very uncomfortable giving them easily to someone else... even if it was to use to gain an entire pantheon.
In other words, it was his ego that he was fighting now, not something as basic as the pros and cons of his pantheon.
If it were for cold and cruel logic, he had no real short-term or long-term use for these essences. Logically, the pantheon was more valuable than these essences; that was the cold logic. But sometimes, logic wasn't heard by the emotional, especially for a god.
It might seem like Shiva is an indifferent god who doesn't care about anything, but that's far from the truth. He doesn't care about anything that doesn't involve him. Despite being previously considered the strongest god, he wasn't a holy or gentle entity.
Just like Victor, he has desires, ambitions, and thoughts. The only difference is that he knows how to hide his intentions very well, and his title as the strongest god shields him from weaker beings trying to 'oppose' him. After all, nobody would want to be destroyed by his godhood of destruction, which could only be countered by the divine Creation of the heavenly father.
But at this moment, someone was doing just that, someone was opposing him, someone who could be as dangerous as him, a woman who had various END beasts that even Shiva himself wouldn't casually fight.
"This is boring... Can you two stop this staring contest? It's been 8 minutes, and unlike some gods here, I'm a very busy man. If you want to continue this staring match, I suggest you do it elsewhere," Victor spoke while munching on popcorn.
Hela and Shiva looked at Victor, visibly their faces tensed at how Victor was dressed. He was wearing a futuristic-looking 3D glasses, holding a popcorn packet in his hand. He wasn't the only one like this; Haruna, Amaterasu, and Violet were the same.
Hela felt very unjustly treated now. She was doing all this for this man! And he's taking it all in amusement... Sure, she would benefit from this too, but that didn't help diminish her bad mood!
Shiva, on the other hand, just looked at Victor with the same eyes he looked at Hela. Shiva was highly suspicious of the whole situation; the whole situation smelled of setup, and obviously, his suspicions went to Victor. Not so kind thoughts were passing through Shiva's mind now, but unlike the goddess Hela who returned that gaze to Shiva, there was no staring match or anything similar. Victor was different from Hela; what followed was merely an interested observation from Victor.
"Heh~? Are you sure you want to continue this, Shiva?"
"... What are you talking about?"
"Fufufufu, don't pretend to be a fool. You know very well that I can sense emotions, and even your divinity can't shield itself from mine," Victor chuckled in amusement. Then, he took off the glasses, and his draconic eyes looked at Shiva.
"I don't care about what's going on in your head or what misunderstandings you're forming now; I don't care about any of that... Just know this, I don't shy away from a fight. If you have hostile intentions towards me..." Victor grinned widely. "I couldn't care less about the non-intervention pact; I will destroy you and your pantheon until there's nothing left to tell its story."
Victor's eyes were eager, and his smile was of pure madness. The whole atmosphere around him said, "Come on, Shiva! Bite me! Give me a reason to force my hand! It's been too long since I've had a good fight!"
Victor wasn't the embodiment of evil; he wouldn't directly harm the innocent, but his morals were very low, especially when he was excited. And his moral compass was even lower now, considering that he could literally create life from the souls he possesses if he so desires.
The word "create" was a bit exaggerated; after all, he wouldn't create something out of nothing like 'life' as The Universal Tree does, but rather use existing souls to give a new life to a being.
Even if he were to kill a normal human now, he would only take that human's soul and put it back into their body, thus giving them a new life. He could even put the soul into another body he created himself. After all, the basis of a being's existence was the soul, and the flesh was just the vessel for that soul.
Except, of course, for true dragons, who had both soul and body intertwined in one being.
Shiva shuddered slightly when he saw Victor's eyes and the smile on his face. His expression faltered even more when he saw the curious and slightly hostile looks from Haruna, Amaterasu, and Violet.
This ability to interfere between life and death... It gave Victor a great indifference to the lives of innocents, even if unconsciously, because he now knows that if he does something he doesn't like, he can undo it.
Shiva shuddered slightly when he saw Victor's eyes and the smile on his face. His expression faltered even more when he saw the curious and slightly hostile looks from Haruna, Amaterasu, and Violet.
It was clear to him that they were watching everything with the curiosity of a cat, and depending on his response, that curiosity would turn into the hostility of a predator. They were very attuned to Victor, and any decision he made would be their decision too.
Attack Victor, and a whole faction composed of true dragons, who apparently were quite scientifically advanced, would come after him. So, Victor's words were not unfounded; he had the ability to destroy his entire pantheon if he so wished.
Regaining his composure, Shiva's face changed to a neutral expression that made Victor's smile falter.
"Tsk, and I thought I was going to have a good fight," Victor grumbled.
"Mah, Mah, no need to be sad, Darling, you can fight Kali, right? She's at our house now," Violet said.
"Well, that's true, but it's boring when she can barely handle me, and I have to hold back... Well, it's been good training, so I won't complain," he chuckled lightly as if he remembered something amusing.
"I envy that a little, I want to fight like that too," Haruna grumbled.
Victor smiled in amusement. "First, master your divinity, and then we can include you in the training."
"Fair enough," Haruna nodded.
The casual exchange sent shivers down everyone's spine, all because of the understood consequences of this simple discussion.
Victor was training with Kali. They never thought they would find such a sentence so terrifying.
'She didn't tell me about this 'little' detail,' Shiva grumbled internally. To be fair, Kali had no obligation to tell him anything; she only told him some things because they were friends.
The other thing they understood was that... Haruna had achieved divinity, and they couldn't sense what it was, proving that either she or their faction had means of hiding from the observation of beings with divinity.
And just the fact that Haruna, who until recently had no divinity, had developed one sent an alert to everyone present.
'This must be the beginning where several 'mortals' begin to ascend to divinity and become part of Victor's pantheon,' they thought simultaneously. And the worst thing about all this is that they won't know when this will happen, leaving them even more uninformed about Victor's faction.
Something they had been struggling to obtain recently, but no matter how hard they try, they can't get anything.
What can Victor say about this? Tough luck for them? Victor is possessive by nature, and he is very overprotective; he will do everything in his power to prevent beings from gaining information about his faction, and especially about his family.
It can be said that this is a characteristic that developed naturally, and was also influenced by Scathach, who is also a woman who thinks the same way as Victor.
Therefore, unless he wants to, or they have a strange observation method, it is impossible to obtain concrete information about Victor's faction.
Shiva narrowed his eyes again and tried to sense Victor's destruction divinity within the concept itself. As a higher-level god, he could influence other gods who have the same concept as him, thus making them unable to progress unless an agreement or countermeasure is made.
A situation very similar to when past Aphrodite prevented all beauty gods from progressing in that concept.
Shiva tried; he searched everywhere, but except for Kali, who had higher destruction divinity than him, he found no one else... Until recently, Victor could be seen in the destruction concept, but now... He was no longer there; it was as if he lost the power of destruction or something.
Something he highly doubted happened. So there's only one explanation, the same explanation that everyone deduced a few minutes ago, Victor's faction found a method to prevent other gods from knowing the progress of their 'competitors.'
The consequences of this will go far beyond just knowing if new gods have been born or not. Gods with the same concept are rivals by nature, and usually gods who have a greater understanding of the concept will prevent gods with less understanding of the same concept from further progressing their divinity.
But... What if they couldn't sense this progress? What if they suddenly wake up one day, and there's a new god who has the same concept as them, and who can make them lose their authority within the concept itself? That was a very scary thought.
After all, if there was one thing that gods most disliked, it was lack of control. Because of this, many felt uncomfortable with Victor's existence because they couldn't control his actions.
Victor internally laughed when he felt Shiva's shock and horror. 'Sometimes being too clever is a bad thing, Shiva.'
Feeling her husband's happiness, Haruna, Amaterasu, and Violet looked at him for a few seconds, then smiled.
'I'll have to compensate Nyx later, she's doing a great job,' Victor thought.
"Why are you watching us? Get back to the negotiation so this meeting can end as soon as possible, I have things to do. Like feeding the planet, for example."
For a moment, everyone's mind wandered, and the image of Victor feeding the personification of the planet with his... thing... appeared in their minds.
"Whoa, I must say you really have dirty minds."
They paled when they heard Victor's amused voice.
"I didn't expect this from you, heavenly father."
"This... This... This is a misunderstanding!" The heavenly father became hysterical.
"Wait, how do you know what we're thinking?" The God King of the Celtic pantheon spoke.
"I didn't know; I just felt your emotions and deduced it through your behavior," Victor laughed.
They fell silent. To be fair, they had just heard that he was married to two world trees... So, diverting thoughts in that direction wasn't unexpected.
"Because of the demon war, there are several deep places on the planet that have miasma. Although we solved most of the problems at the last meeting and our joint action, there are still contaminated places. I will help Yggdrasil with her personal request and solve this problem. Consequently, I will do a complete cleaning on the planet, making all the garbage from the sea disappear, bringing back extinct animals, etc. You know, all that community work."
"... That's truly wonderful action, Victor," the heavenly father spoke.
Victor shrugged. "If I'm going to do a job, I always do my best; it's normal for me."
'This work ethic might have elevated him to be the strongest being in this sector,' everyone thought.
"... And then? Lord Shiva, do you accept or not? Stop wasting our time," Hela spoke as if the fault were his.
And to be fair, it was really his fault for being silent for so long.
Shiva bit his lips in frustration, and the next moment he let out a big sigh: "I accept."
"Finally." A contract appeared in front of Shiva, and a key appeared in Hela's hand. "Here's the key to the Nordic pantheon; sign the contract, and give me the essences, and the pantheon is yours."
Shiva didn't say anything; he just took the contract and read it... Finishing reading, and seeing that the contract was a simple purchase and sale contract, he signed, and the next moment three essences appeared in his hand.
Hela practically threw the key to the entire Nordic pantheon to Shiva and took the three essences.
"It was good doing business with you, Shiva. I hope our future dealings will be smooth."
"Yes," he spoke neutrally while thinking internally: 'I never want to see you in my life again, woman!' Shiva snarled internally.
...
