Chapter 108
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 108
Chapter Title: The Devil Always Smiles Gently
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"How about a sip of nectar?"
"Y-you...!"
Artemis, who had come to her senses thanks to the Yin Gate's activation that I had triggered.
Even after catching her breath for a moment, her body still twitched as she staggered to her feet and glared at me once more.
But in those eyes, there was no trace of the earlier bravado—only humiliation, shame, and a glistening fear that welled up beyond them.
"Why the aggrieved stare? I suggested we settle this peacefully several times. You're the one who insisted on fighting to the death."
The whole incident had started with Artemis, after all.
Even if I'd snapped that pale neck of hers or pierced her heart with a spear.
No one else might understand, but she had no right to complain to me.
"Hera warned you, and if you'd just left quietly, I'd have let it go. But you dragged a whole mob along with you."
If I'd simply beaten them off and sent them packing, a solar beam or lightning bolt might have come crashing down on my head—who knows? More importantly, what hunter lets a ripe, begging prey walk away?
"Honestly, be grateful you're walking away without spilling blood."
"What...?"
Artemis strained to glare with all her might, as if questioning if she'd heard right, her face flushing red with anger.
But without her earlier majesty, she just looked precarious.
"H-how dare you inflict such humiliation on the Goddess of Chastity! Are you insane?! I'll tell my father right—!!"
Well, well.
As expected of Greece's top troublemaker goddess.
The moment I gave her a breather, she regained her spirit and raised her voice.
Even though she'd been whimpering and moaning at my every gesture just before.
I waited with a thick sneer for her next words, but even this stubborn goddess couldn't bring herself to continue her threat amid her predicament.
"..."
"Th-this matter...!"
Artemis's dark eyes, which had been regaining their fire, slowly dropped, tracing slowly from her fingertips over her body.
Sweat-soaked clothes, flushed red skin, a quivering belly like it had been struck by lightning, and the black Yin Gate engraved near her womb.
"Th-this is...!"
"The curse you tried to inflict on me. I adapted it into this. Looks pretty nice, doesn't it?"
Settled into the feminine life force flowing through her womb, the curse took the form of a black Yin Gate that resembled a uterus or heart shape.
Even if she pretended otherwise, a god's keen insight would recognize what curse it was.
Moreover, engraved on her unified flesh and spirit, it was obvious it had significantly affected her mind as well.
The faint excitement laced in her voice as she strained to shout earlier, or the strange emotion replacing hostility in her eyes when she looked at me now.
Clear proof that her already hypersensitive body—and her mind—were shaking.
No matter the talk of mind over matter or soul leading the flesh.
Quacks might strut around preaching it, but humans are rational beings and physical ones at the same time.
Their minds can overcome the body, sure—but they're also profoundly influenced by it.
And the supreme god overseeing all forces and energies of the flesh is none other than Mara’s foe, the Heavenly Demon Divine Religion's chief deity, the Heavenly Lord of the Desire Realm's Tathagata of Transforming Others: the Demon Emperor Pashun.
In other words, the Heavenly Demon—and the realm of the Heavenly Demon I'd ascended to.
In my past life, I'd mostly enacted that divine karma through blood and battle, but the true enlightenment of the Heavenly Demon encompasses all desires. Thus, the Heavenly Demon Divine Art is the essence of insight into all instincts and cravings.
I'd only recently reached peak demonic extremes and digested the Reverse Heaven Art, so it was too early to fully cultivate the Heavenly Demon Divine Art at its pinnacle.
But that enlightenment still lingered within me.
Overcoming desires or transcending instincts? No—dragging down a foolish goddess who recoiled in disgust and turned away from the filthy and ugly was child's play for me.
"Ugh... Th-this...!"
Artemis rubbed her abdomen with trembling hands, as if she couldn't believe it.
But the Yin Gate on her lower belly was merely a brand.
The curse I'd implanted was already rooted deep inside her, awaiting only my command.
"Eek! Eeeeek!"
"..."
She knew better, yet she thrashed like a madwoman, trying to scrub it off with her clothes—even summoning divine power. A sight well worth watching.
That lofty goddess writhing in pleasure, struggling against torment, slowly sinking into despair—it was quite the delectable spectacle.
I left her to exhaust every option, watching silently.
[Disappear! Erase! Get out of my body!!]
Her radiant moonlight divine energy surged forth, spreading through the Yin Gate and her entire body in a desperate attempt to purify the curse.
The sight was so sacred it made the nectar go down smooth.
Crushing foes with violence and revenge stained in blood had its charm, but watching an enemy writhe and despair in the calamity they'd invited themselves? Pure bliss for a demon like me.
"Kuh... This booze hits different."
Watching the goddess rage and despair somehow enhanced the flavor, stirring a twinge of self-loathing at my twisted tastes.
But recalling how she'd aimed for my head on first sight, mobbed me with her gang, and sneered while embedding a curse in my heart?
Truly, karma and self-inflicted consequences.
"Gotta be at least this twisted to call yourself an agent of Mara, right?"
Wait—come to think of it, in this era, neither the Heavenly Demon Divine Religion nor Taoism even exist yet, do they?
Inferring from how Greek heroes and gods got transmitted eastward and morphed into various divinities, maybe I'd follow the same precedent?
As a hypothesis bubbled up, and my past life's ambitions stirred, I pondered deeply.
Meanwhile, the Goddess of Chastity—who'd danced lewdly moments ago—was exerting every ounce of strength to cover her shame before me.
"Exaphanisis!! Thanatos!!"
⟨ Divine Words of Banishment ⟩
"Oh? If you pour that much divine power in..."
Artemis invoked even her innate divine incantations to erase the Yin Gate I'd engraved, but that would only stimulate the curse further.
As I moved to warn her, she crossed the line.
-Whiiiiiing!!
"Kuh?! Hah!? Hyaaah?!"
"Kyaaah...! Kuuh...!"
Drawing on memories of devouring her divine power in Pasos before and the lingering moonlight energy in her body, the Yin Gate's defense mechanism activated.
In the end, with a yowl like a cat in heat, the goddess collapsed into climax.
"Puhahaha!! What is this, a comedy? Or a seduction?"
Her pathetic, trembling form—like a nympho harlot—burst me into laughter.
"Goddess, Goddess. Even if I'm like this now, I'm the agent of the Heavenly Demon Emperor, who tempted and corrupted even you untouchables. You think I'd let a brat who strutted high under Daddy God's protection slip from my grasp so easily?"
"Hngh! Hyaaah!!"
Her sacred moonlight divine power flickered out like a candle in the wind, and gripped by the Yin Gate's stimulation, Artemis clutched her belly and curled up as if struck.
Her already exhausted, sensitive body had thrashed and poured divine power—not to recover, but into the Yin Gate—which absorbed it all, discharging the curse like a fully charged battery.
Its tendrils of affliction would drag her body and soul into pleasure and depravity.
"In short, the more you struggle, the sooner you'll go into heat and spread your legs yourself."
"Hngh!! Hauk! Kuhgh...!"
Like a cat in heat, the Goddess of Chastity writhed, and I stood before her with hands behind my back, sneering.
"Y-you... Hyah?!"
"Oh, right—hostility and rage toward me will trigger it sensitively too.
It's not exactly a curse... more like acclimating to the afflictions."
The lord of desires, propagator of the five aggregates, master of afflictions and adversity—to oppose me is to oppose one's own desires and torments.
Artemis might have vented through hunts and slaughter before, but the target awakened in her body now was me. And the Yin Gate was a curse forged from demonic arts perfectly compatible with such afflictions.
Of course it would react to torments directed at me.
"N-no way... Kyak!?"
"Oh... It's already taking effect."
Artemis tried to glare with venomous eyes, locking gazes with me, but in those moistened depths, I swear I saw hazy heart shapes.
"Of course, in time, as you get used to it... it'll quiet down a bit."
"R-really?"
She perked up slightly at my words, shedding tears of rain—but...
Yeah, right. If it were that easy to adapt, drug addictions, gambling addictions, and nymphomania wouldn't exist.
Artemis clenched her teeth, trying to stifle her groans and hide her disgrace from me, but her snow-white back, curled like a pillbug, was slick with sweat again, shuddering intermittently.
"Mm... As fun as watching more would be, it's time to settle accounts."
Up I rose, draping my god-woven cloak—where Artemis had lain moments ago—over her pale back.
"Goddess, feeling better?"
"Wh-what...?!"
I gently reached into the gap and lifted her white chin; without resistance, she followed my hand, gazing up at me.
"...Mm."
Unlike the tears of pleasure from before, this was a resentful voice from a cruel goddess, tears streaming as her eyes still flashed defiance.
A twitch of my fingers, and she'd writhe in agonizing climaxes till dawn, ultimately falling to me.
But as I said, the time wasn't ripe yet.
"Goddess, want to make a bet with me?"
"A b-bet...?"
The devil never makes simple deals.
Offers the worst disguised as the best, hands poisoned apples as if they're what you crave.
But the best part? The dealer falls into the devil's hands without even realizing their own corruption.
"Yeah, a bet. Win, and it's your victory. I swear never to touch you again. You'll go back to your old self."
"Wh-what trick is this...?"
Back to being the chaste, pure, snow-white goddess.
She stared with desperate eyes, clutching at straws from my whisper, yet not missing a thread of suspicion.
"Sad, really—I want to ravage you right here, but out of respect for your last shreds of divinity, I'll step back one pace."
With that, I snapped my fingers lightly, and the Yin Gate on her lower abdomen slowly faded.
-Whiiiiiing...
"Eh? Huh?"
The mark she'd failed to erase despite all her efforts vanished, and she stared at me in disbelief.
I just shrugged with a casual smile.
"The bet's this: On nights of a bright full moon like tonight, when I call, come to me. Twelve times... yeah, over twelve full moon cycles."
"Tw-twelve times?"
"Yep. Come each time, pass every trial I give you, and if the Yin Gate in your womb hasn't fully bloomed by then, you're free.
Hell, I'll even throw in my life as a wager. But skip for any reason, and that night you lose. Or if it blooms fully—you lose."
Well? How about it.
I extended a hand with a gentle smile to the goddess gazing at me with bated breath and pitiful eyes.
"But..."
"Simple—you're Artemis, aren't you? Moonlight huntress, guardian of eternal virgins, daughter of Zeus.
No poison or curses like tonight. Just simple trials over moonrise and moonset—you can handle that."
(P.S. Refuse, and I'll do what any man must do—claim you fully.)
Her mind proved frailer than expected; even pushing straight through would turn her into the slave fitting my goals.
My manhood was already straining at my pants' limits.
"A-alright! I accept! I said I accept!"
She had no other choice anyway.
Plunged in fear and despair, Artemis could only grasp that sliver of hope and take my hand.
Fleeting hope, like fireflies on a new moon.
I wonder what face she'll make when it fades, realizing she'd danced in my palm all along.
Concealing dark anticipation in my smile, we exchanged our vow.