The newborn Eros blinked, her pink-violet eyes, similar in color to his but deeper, looking curiously at her own hands and then surveying the gloomy and solemn Hades.
Her small nose twitched slightly, as if she were utterly displeased with the atmosphere of death and silence filling the hall.
Then her gaze fell upon Hades, seated on the throne.
There was no reverence, no fear, but rather the boldness of a newborn calf unafraid of tigers, mixed with a scrutinizing provocation.
"You are my 'creator'?" Her voice was clear, with the unique timbre of a young girl, but her tone was old, albeit a little... drawn out.
"This dark and cold place is my home? Tsk, it smells very unpleasant."
She levitated, flying half a circle around Hades's throne, her white skirt swaying.
"You created me to facilitate these tedious 'unions', to give you more 'beacons'? That's indeed... a utilitarian and boring idea, 'Lord' Hades."
She deliberately drew out the word 'Lord', full of mockery.
Hades's face was emotionless, his violet eyes still frozen.
He was not angered by the creation's disrespect, because it was within his calculation—a power forcibly compressed, mixed with countless restless desires from the world, to create such a twisted existence was a probable outcome.
He just needed her to perform her function.
However, Eros's next move exceeded his expectations somewhat.
She flew closer, almost right in front of Hades, tilted her head, looked at him with eyes that seemed to reflect the most secret stirrings in her heart, and a sly and mischievous smile appeared on her face:
"By the way, great world-bearing unfeeling Majesty Hades... You created me to be in charge of the world's love and desires, but what about you?"
Her fingertips lingered, carrying a faint trace of an extremely weak but extraordinarily powerful pink light flake of divine power, with a mesmerizing warm breath, gently pointing towards the position of Hades's seemingly unchanging heart.
"Do you really... have not the slightest, not even a trace, of the feeling of 'love' or 'desire'?"
"Yes... Actually, isn't that very lonely? ♡"
At the moment the divine power belonging to Eros, embodying the essence of 'stirring passion', was about to touch Hades's black robe—
A nearly imperceptible sense of strangeness rippled across the frozen lake of Hades's emotions, completely blocked and filled with insignificant ripples.
Not anger, not disgust, not even hesitation.
It was a kind of... like being 'offended', an extremely primitive 'resistance'.
It was extremely faint, fleeting, and not even enough to be called an 'emotion', more like an instinctive reaction based on a 'boundary of ownership' being touched.
If not for Hades's will constantly monitoring every inch of his existence, he would not have caught this insignificant 'noise'.
But he caught it.
The pupils in Hades's violet eyes constricted by a hundred-millionth of a degree.
For the first time, his gaze truly 'focused' on the newborn little god before him, not just as a tool, but as an existence.
At that moment, something 'something' crossed the absolute barrier of the curse and was born.
Though insignificant, it 'existed'.
Eros seemed to sense something too: the light on her fingertips trembled, the playful smile on her face froze, and she looked suspiciously at her fingers, then at Hades's still emotionless face.
"...Ah?" She uttered a syllable of confusion.
Hades ignored her bewilderment.
Deep in his consciousness, for the first time, a clear and rational question arose about the curse that Metis had cast at the cost of her own dissolution.
"Never fall in love with anyone."
The essence of this curse was absolute 'absence' and 'prohibition'.
It was like an absolute zero-degree seal, freezing all emotional generation mechanisms related to 'love'.
But the 'resistance' that had just occurred... did not stem from 'love' or even any known negative emotions.
It was a more primitive and fundamental instinctive reaction, a 'self-protection mechanism' against an 'external stimulus'.
Did the curse seem not to completely block this... low-level 'reaction'—non-'love', non-typical 'negative emotions'?
Or was there some unnoticed 'loophole' in the absoluteness of the curse...
Was the authority of Eros, as the primordial force directly provoking 'desire', 'stimulating'... to a certain extent, the frozen emotional center, through close and almost direct contact, thereby causing this extremely faint, non-loving 'ripple'?
If 'love' was absolutely forbidden, then what about the opposite of 'love' or other emotional realms adjacent to 'love'?
For example... pure 'possessiveness'? The ultimate 'desire to control'? Even... a 'special concern' for a specific object arising from absolute reason?
Did they also fall under the category of 'love' and be banned together?
Hades's mind worked with unprecedented speed, analyzing the possibility of this accidental discovery.
This faint ripple itself was useless.
But the 'possibilities' it revealed could be of immeasurable value.
Eros looked at Hades, who had suddenly fallen silent, his eyes becoming more unfathomable. She subconsciously retreated a little, and her impish arrogance involuntarily restrained itself.
She felt that the creator had become... even more dangerous.
Hades's gaze fell upon Eros again, and this look was no longer simply looking at a tool, but rather at an... 'experimental subject' or a 'catalyst' that might have a special purpose.
"Do what you must, Eros." Hades's voice was still level, but Eros felt an inexplicable shiver.
He did not mention the anomaly just now, nor did he explain his change.
But Eros felt that something had changed.
She pouted her lips, feeling a little deflated, but still refused to fully back down: "I know~ I know, I really know... Okay, okay, I'm leaving now, Lord."
Having said that, she transformed into a pink ribbon and hastily fled from the Hall of Hades, as if someone were chasing her.
In the empty hall, Hades sat alone.
He raised his hand and looked at his pale fingers, as if seeing through them the cursed runes penetrating deep into the very essence of his soul.
"Metis..." He whispered softly.
"Your curse... Is it truly... absolute?"
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