Chapter 310: Chapter 310: The Love Perspective of Gods_1
"The Blood Moon Cult offered you a body with their sacrifice and also completed the ’sacrifice’ ritual for you. After that, you created a new incarnation, Melissa, and used the Blood Moon Cult to snatch the ’Hatred’ dominion from the Sanctuary of Vengeance," Aiden sorted out the situation, "In the end, Mr. Bloody enveloped himself with the dominion, and you simply allowed the Blood Moon Cult to be destroyed, finally ending up in this prison?"
"Exactly," Melifilia moved a chess piece, "You have exposed a flaw here."
"Ah," Aiden then noticed that he was in a disadvantageous situation on the chessboard, led into Melifilia’s trap step by step, and had to sacrifice his rook.
"Being fixated on the soldiers attacking me has narrowed your field of vision." Melifilia smiled as she collected her gains, "Don’t forget, even a checkmated King can win."
Aiden felt a bit of pressure; every chess move he made required significant thought, especially while trying to pay attention to Melifilia’s conversation.
Melifilia, however, moved her pieces almost without hesitation each time it was her turn. This indicated that every move he made was within her expectations, as she already had strategies prepared in her mind and didn’t need any additional time to consider them.
It was foreseeable that continuing this way, losing was just a matter of time.
But he still focused most of his attention on the conversation with Melifilia, "You haven’t made clear the actual reason why you have been staying in this prison all along."
"Haven’t I said it already? For the pleasure of the game," Melifilia laughed, "A chess game where everything is transparent is terribly uninteresting. I wanted to add a bit of randomness to the game. As you know, even when throwing dice, I instinctively want to manipulate the outcome. To control this bad habit, I can only force myself to hand over the dice to others."
"What do you mean?"
"The power of the ’Wisdom’ dominion is actually to calculate the future based on known information, which is a sort of foresight," Melifilia explained, "But when everything is known, there’s no need to keep playing the game. That’s why I temporarily sealed my ability and created a piece that rolls the dice for me."
Aiden somewhat understood Melifilia’s meaning—the one rolling the dice for her was actually Aiden himself. Melifilia was letting the "Aiden Galahad" on the chessboard act on his own, merely offering vague interference and guidance according to her whims, and then watching to see whether he would die at the hands of Mr. Bloody or find a way to survive.
"Taking pleasure in mortals killing each other like gladiators? Your sense of fun seems quite crude from my perspective," Aiden frowned, "If Mr. Bloody finds a way to kill ’Aiden Galahad,’ he will take away the ’Hatred’ dominion. You said that letting him betray you was to set up a revenge, so why make things difficult for yourself?"
This time, Melifilia did not answer right away; it was after two more moves that she slowly spoke, "It’s also to... give him a chance. There’s something I never mentioned to you... after helping me seize the ’Hatred’ dominion, that man once professed his love to me."
Aiden, who had just taken a chess piece to make a move, froze on the spot, "What?"
"Are you having trouble understanding..." Melifilia teased with a playful expression, "or pretending you didn’t hear me clearly?"
"I’m just a bit surprised." Aiden finally made his move, nearly placing the piece on the wrong square, "To think he professed love to you, suddenly I kind of respect that guy."
"Seeking a powerful being as a partner isn’t something unusual, is it?"
"But if that being is you..." Aiden hesitated to continue.
Honestly, if it weren’t for the sacred nail pinning this goddess full of tricks, Aiden doubted he could remain composed in conversation with her.
His suspicion that Melindale was related to Melifilia was not only because Melifilia skipped over the ’Desire’ to directly pursue the ’Hatred’ dominion, but also because there was a significant reason: the Melindale in the diary of the nameless witch felt somewhat similar to the impression Melifilia usually gave him.
They were both of the sort that, in pursuit of amusement, could play with mortals in their palms until death.
"What’s wrong with me?" Melifilia smiled gently, "I am, after all, the goddess in this world who comes closest to the old rulers."
"Alright, alright, so what was your response to him?" Aiden quickly steered the conversation back on track.
"I thought it could be amusing, so I gave him this test," Melifilia replied, "If he succeeded in taking away the ’Hatred’ dominion, then I would give him that chance. But if he failed... he would simply become material for my ascension."
Aiden was stunned once again.
A few seconds later, he raised a hand, "Hold on a second! Are you saying that I am just a... tool caught up in a bet between you two?"
"Oh come now, that’s not quite it. Personally, I do favor you a bit more. After all, I saw right through that man; both his betrayal and his love declarations were completely within my expectations," Melifilia suddenly began to reassure him, "But you are different, you are an existence that I cannot fully predict. That you managed to tap into the dominion’s power on your own has already pleasantly surprised me. You should be happy, if you manage to finish him off, I would definitely favor you more than him. Although I can freely manipulate ’Desire,’ I wouldn’t mind trying out this so-called ’partner.’"
"Stop right there! I don’t want to hear about twisted romantic ideals!" Aiden felt he couldn’t listen any longer, "Why involve someone unrelated like me in these affairs? You... are too perverse, aren’t you?!"
Melifilia had no sense of morality. To her, the concept of a "partner" was likely just that, not much different from a pet used for amusement, and she would abandon the person on a whim if she found them boring.
"It sounds like you’re quite dissatisfied," Melifilia raised an eyebrow.
"You should ask first if I’m willing," Aiden frowned.
"I know for sure you wouldn’t want to," Melifilia laughed nonchalantly, "But what does that have to do with me?"
"..." Aiden fell silent.
Melifilia really didn’t need to ask for his opinion because it wouldn’t affect the matter at hand.
"Checkmate," Melifilia made her last move, a sly look on her face as she gazed at Aiden, "This game wasn’t interesting, but I quite enjoyed your reactions."
