Chapter 429 Empathy
Abaddon blinked his eyes several times as he tried to understand where this surprise question had come from.
As he searched for an answer within her dull grey eyes he once again could no shake the feeling that there was something strange behind them. "Tell me... why does something like that interest you?" Abaddon asked. "When you mentioned your reasons for killing him... I could sense some deceit. Though I am not exactly sure why that is. And so I wish to understand."
"Hm... What is your name, little goddess?"
"My apologies... it is Alethia."
Abaddon immediately figured her to be a minor goddess, as he wasn't exactly familiar with that name and he guessed that her divinity must have had something to do with honesty.
He would not exactly lose anything by telling her the truth, so he gradually took the sword from her grasp as he incinerated the dead bodies in the room. "Believe it or not, I was actually not that fond of humans for a long time. And even when I grew past the point of hating them, I was still only indifferent. And likely would not have stopped to save one if they were dying on the sidewalk in front of me.
But I also have human daughter. And like me, she has also had her own issues with humans, and it would not be unnatural for her to become like me or even worse, demand humanity's extinction. But do you know what she asked me before I came to earth?"
"?" Alethia answered, intrigued by the answer to her question that seemed to be much more complicated than she initially anticipated. "To save them. To empower them. To protect them. It's funny isn't it? Two sides of the same coin yet we have drastically different outlooks. I know that monsters often must feed on humans to survive, and I have no issue with that as it is nature's will.
But destabilizing their governments, sending them plundering into poverty, capitalizing off of their misery that he is the architect of... I can not and will not allow that. Were she here, I know that my child would have asked me to act. And so I did."
Alethia could feel that Abaddon was telling the full and complete truth. The Black Dragon really did have a human daughter, and his reasons for killing Raphael were no more than 'it is what she would've wanted.'
It was amazing. His own child had helped him see that the opposite of nonviolence was not necessarily violence itself, but indifference. She thought him empathy, even for those he had hated. She couldn't believe it. Everything that the gods above felt like they knew about this man... it was all wrong. "I... see. I... have another question."
"Inquisitive, aren't you?" Abaddon chuckled. "It is my nature." she admitted. "Then go ahead."
"Were you not concerned.. that I would use that information about your daughter in a negative way?"
Abaddon snorted as if he found something funny. He began walking around the room, plucking splinters out of the one of a kind wood paintings. "There is no way that you could, seeing as how she is currently in a place where none of you could get to her. And besides, though my Thea may be human, she is far from an easy target. Among my children, she is physically the most powerful."
'Although magically is a different story...' Abaddon thought. His mind wandered towards Gabbrielle, and he knew that she had the most potential in terms of latent ability. After all of this time, he was only just getting to the point of his life where he was learning to use infinity manipulation freely. And it was the scariest power in his arsenal. It was more complex than his chaos and destruction powers, and required more focus than his power over order.
He could only barely imagine... just how strong his daughter was at the height of her powers. She should have been slowly recovering her strength after all of this time, but it would be a few hundred years before she was back at her peak. And once she was, the debate about which of his children were the strongest would have had to come to a close. Alethia was surprised that Abaddon had another daughter, and when she said she was physically more powerful than they would think, she immediately pictured some tall, buff teenage girl who seemed like she could snap boulders in half.
"Although... I must admit..."
In an instant, Abaddon drew the blade of Goujian and swung it at Alethia's neck. Just before he could liberate her head from her body, he stopped the blade a few inches from her rosy flesh, but the wind force still ended up cutting her slightly. The goddess could do nothing but tremble as she felt death breathing down her back, waiting to claim her life at the slightest misstep. She hadn't seen Abaddon move, draw the sword, turn around or... anything. At one moment he was at one place, the next he was in another. "Before you could even begin to formulate the thought of harming my daughter, I would separate your head from your neck in an instant. Make no mistake."
"I-I understand.
"Good." Abaddon said as he withdrew the blade. He was protective over all of his children, but Thea was undoubtedly the one he was most likely to go into fits of homicidal wrath over. His promise upon adopting her was that she would never know another day of pain, mistreatment or heartache in her life, and anyone who made him break his word would have to die 1,000,000,000 times over to alleviate that disrespect. 'So... some things about him were true after all.' Alethia realized as she rubbed the wound on her neck that was already closing.
Abaddon looked at the sword in his hand with a somewhat curious eye. Was it a good sword? Sure. It was lightweight and sturdy, and was surprisingly sharp for how old it was. The problem though was that it wasn't awake. Like the true death already in his possession, he figured that the sword was in need of some sort of catalyst to wake up. He had seen from Thea's weapon that the six endings when fully awake give off an ominous pressure even when not in use. Sometimes when he hugged her, he felt a chill run down his spine whenever that cold metal bracelet touched his back. He wondered what the trigger for awakening this weapon could be when he noticed the hilt of the sword. One of the blue gems was missing. 'Ah... Should be easy enough to find.'
Abaddon stuck the weapon in his dimensional storage and turned back towards a pale faced Alethia. "You have done me a great service, so you have my thanks. Though I am curious about what might have caused you to take my side instead of the gods'?"
"...I am a daughter of Zeus and-"
"Say no more, I totally get it."
"Mhm."
"Well then, your mother and sister. What are their names?"
Alethia seemed to be a bit worried about this part as she fiddled with her fingers a bit before answering. "At? and Erida.." Those names, Abaddon did know very well, and he raised a suspicious brow as a result. "The goddess of misfortune and evil... and the goddess of strife and discord?"
"...Mhm..."
"..."
"..."
This silence would last for several more minutes and was particularly awkward to listen to. Eventually, Abaddon let out a sigh as he ran his hands through his hair. "...Fine. Just... keep them on some sort of leash, yea?"
"I will do my best." she said as she bowed respectfully.
"Then our bargain is struck. When you return to the heavens find Persephone or Camazotz. We will speak more at a later date."
Alethia's eyes seemed to widen just a bit before she immediately retuned to normalcy. "Of course. Then I will-'
"Wait."
A hole opened up right in the middle of Abaddon's palm and a drop of golden blood floated out. "Open your mouth."
"...I beg your pardon?"
"Just trust me."
Alethia didn't look like she was particularly fond over having to do this, but seemed to recognize that she had no choice. She closed her eyes in concentration as she spread her lips only a few measly centimeters apart. Abaddon was briefly reminded of the face that Mira made whenever she was given medicine and tried his best not to laugh as he guided the small drop of blood onto her tongue. Contrary to what Alethia was expecting, the dragon's blood was not at all unpleasant to her. In fact it was even slightly sweet tasting, and she was not sure if she was imagining things or not but she felt slightly stronger. "See? That wasn't that difficult."
"Yes, yes..."
Alethia vanished from the space a moment later and left Abaddon alone in the foyer with two large piles of ash. But a moment later, every vampire and dhampir in the house swarmed into the room, no doubt lured by the godly smell of Abaddon's blood. Standing at the forefront of these hungry vampires was Mateo, who had been given a brand new suit from Raphael's own closet and chewing on a steak that was too rare for human comfort. "Are you all feeling a bit peckish?" he asked knowingly.
Unsurprisingly, all of the vampires nodded dangerously while wiping their chins of drool. "If you want to eat, then you need to swear fealty to Mateo as your new vampire king."
"..."
The complete and utter silence that followed in the wake of Abaddon's declaration was so loud that it was as if the whole world had suddenly been unplugged.
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