Hades states with wariness, “My parents gave birth to us after their arrival to this world, so we’ve only heard stories from them about their homeworld. Legends of constant warfare, alien races, advanced technology, and cultivation. Do you know of what I speak?” 

Nuwa nods in amazement while Zagreus shakes his head.

Hades points and generates what seems to be an imperfect sine curve above his desk with fire, “Imagine this line to be our realm.” A similarly fiery and imperfect cosine curve joins the sine curve. “Imagine this to be another realm, next to our own. This is an oversimplification, but every now and then, circumstances align to allow for the barrier between realms to thin.”

He highlights the intersection points between the sine and the cosine curves, “The Titans stole a technique from one of the civilizations they destroyed to cross into this realm from theirs to conquer and multiply, but were overpowered almost immediately. By the time they could regret it, they couldn’t go back.”

Distaste thoroughly present on his face, he dispels the visual and spits, “They were foolish and barbaric beings, but the strength of their bloodline was incredible. In the face of defeat, they birthed us, tried to lie low for a few centuries, and eventually attempted to consume us in exchange for further physical power. By that time however, we siblings had already allied with the World’s Will and with our newly granted Godly powers, slaughtered their immortal bodies and shattered their souls with great difficulty! To this day, fragments of their souls still live on, dormant in our artifact weaponry. There are no other stable containers to seal them in other than those.”

Although awestriken by the tale, Nuwa is not sure where her Father is going with this, or how it relates to her.

Hades comes to the point, “The Titans practiced the Dao of Colossus, which served them well in their homeworld. It was a Dao that exclusively strengthened their bodies. But after they experienced that catastrophic loss to Chaos, Nyx told me their Dao Hearts never recovered and that they slowly went mad. None of them were able to adapt from a life of constant fighting and bullying to a life of peace. We were also raised studying this Dao, but we all gave it up, seeing what it wrought upon our parents.”

Nuwa gulps. She cannot imagine having to fight Zina or Tulen. Still, she has confidence in herself to overcome the hurdles of the Dao of Sex and not go mad. Recalling Aphrodite’s plight dampens her confidence slightly, but she also believes that it is against the [System]’s best interests to allow her to go mad. Zagreus holds Nuwa’s hand with worry. Considering that the Furies are descended from reanimated drops of Titan blood, if the Titans had been anything like Alecto, he definitely doesn’t want Nuwa to end up deranged like that.

Having allotted time for a dramatic pause, Hades continues, “If and when each of you reach peak-t3 in soul tier and are about to break through to Tier 4, the World’s Will might offer you a choice of Godhoods with which you are a good fit. Selecting a Godhood comes with a domain over which you are given Authority. It grants your physical form and soul the ability to be reborn freely as long as the World’s Will remains intact. Not just that, accepting Godhood purges all figments of Dao from your being! It is an entirely different track of gaining power - slower, safer, and more grounded than a Dao.”

Nuwa recalls hearing something similar from either the [System] or Nyx.. but there’s details she wants to know and Zagreus is surely curious as well, so she quickly asks, “How do you grow in power as a God, Daddy?”

Hades smiles proudly and states, “A number of reasons will contribute. The worship of the masses and oversight of the Underworld, my domain, are the largest. In worship, it doesn’t matter if they fear me, love me, or hate me, the more attention I get, the stronger I am. Unfortunately, my shades don’t seem to count towards this or else I’d easily beat that arrogant old brother of mine to a pulp.”

“Oversight of the Underworld is why I slog over paperwork all day. Factors like proficiency in management, effectiveness of the results of my proposals, knowledge of the depths, and personal dedication to my domain all increase my strength.”

“Now let's see. If you were to become a Goddess of Sex..” Hades clears his throat awkwardly as he tries to take a serious lecturing tone in spite of the vulgar topic, “..you would have Authority over all sex and to increase your strength, you would need mortals to pray to you when they have sex, improve your understanding of their sex itself at a worldwide scale, and probably have to spend as much time ‘working’ as I do at my job.”

That gets Zagreus excited, “Having sex all day sounds fun! Teach me about sex, Sis!”

Nuwa’s face goes terribly red. ‘Dad’s right there, stupid brother!’

“Silence, boy!” Hades shouts as he slams his fist on the desk, “As usual, you fail to grasp the point!”

Zagreus crosses his arms, grunts while looking away with disgruntlement, and mutters, “Get to the point then, old man.”

“It has been 10,000 years since the Titans came.” Hades utters with a grim voice, “Why do you think I had Achilles train you, tried to get you to do paperwork, and then let you run amok in my domain? The barriers will thin soon. War is coming. If you can’t protect your sister properly by then, I’ll kill you myself! You’d be even weaker than you are now as a God of Sex! Foolish boy.”

The God of the Underworld waves off his children and irritably returns to his paperwork. “Alright, you’re both dismissed.”

With wide eyes, Nuwa lowers her head in thought and slowly digests everything she has heard. In the back of her mind, she senses that there’s dots waiting for her to connect - that this tale has somehow filled in a great deal of missing pieces in her understanding of the multiverse.

~ ~ ~

After reviewing the text for a few hours, Zina explores the room she’s in further. She opens a nearby cupboard and sees a nice floral sari. “Ahh. Beautiful!” She pulls it out and tries to wear it over her current clothes in the same way the Elders and maids do. Despite her best efforts, the task is impossible for her. Eventually, she ends up wrapped up like a dumpling over her bum and a poncho over her shoulders with nothing over her pants, instead of a uniform and clean distribution of cloth coverage.

Another maid walks in with more food and struggles to hold back laughter at the silly display. This one is a young girl, even smaller than Zina, with a bubbly demeanor. Zina notes that the maids wear less elaborate patterns on their sari than the Elders. She points at her wardrobe disaster and says, “Hi there! Can you help me?”

The maid does a stiff, formal bow and says in a timid high-pitched voice, “Greetings. Xiao Wu at your service. I will do my best! First, we have to start over..”

She finds an ending to the cloth and twirls Zina around to unwrap her from the garment without tearing it, then carefully and methodically arranges it back on. Zina tries to remember each step, but there’s more to it than she prepares herself for and after it is on, she cannot imagine remembering all the guideline markers that Xiao Wu had explained without a lot of practice. “Did it take you a lot of time to remember the steps, Xiao Wu?”

“It was easy for me, but not for my friends!” The cute little girl has overcome the initial awkwardness and now speaks in a more relaxed tone. “Come on, let’s do it again. Don’t worry. I did this over and over for a bunch of my friends.”

Zina sighs and lets Xiao Wu twirl it off of her in order to start over. In the meantime, she asks about the book, “Hey Xiao Wu, what do you think of the epic of Hagoromo Otsutsuki? Is it true that he taught that many Daoists?” Both her mothers are Daoists and she has heard plenty about how rare Daoists are and how hard it is to progress. 

Xiao Wu immediately goes starry-eyed, “Of course! The Sage of Six Paths was so wise and enlightened that he was able to resolve the differences between the warring nations by taking apprentices from each of them and granting them his wisdom!”

She lowers her voice and exclaims, “In the footnotes of the epic, it’s said that Xia Xue ran away from the Village and when she came back, refused to marry anyone but him! All the village Elders tried to hunt him down, but they were all defeated black and blue! Although he earned the ire of the entire Phoenix Village, he never dealt a fatal blow! He benevolently healed the Elders that came to kill him at his wife’s request! When they finally gave up, Xia Xue demanded leadership of the Village and contributed so much that she became known as the Jade Empress! That’s the hidden history behind why the Xia clan is the strongest family and why Phoenix Village is the only Ancestral Village to be able to retain its bloodline legacy over 20,000 years!!”

Her fangirling ends with an ear-piercingly high-pitched squeal that another maid outside the room, but out of sight, coughs scoldingly in objection to. Xiao Wu slaps her mouth shut out of fear and looks down at her own feet with apparent disappointment in herself.

The sight is so adorable that Zina cannot resist hugging her to cheer her up. Xiao Wu freezes up and squirms out of Zina’s grasp with superior strength before whispering, “Hey.. you’re not allowed to encourage rule-breaking.” Her tone as she says this is apologetic, but harsh.

“Ah.. okay.” whispers Zina back, after which she allows Xiao Wu to continue showing her the steps to wearing a sari.

Zina returns her thoughts to the epics. ‘Honestly, that hidden history sounds even more ridiculous than what’s written in the book, but if it’s true.. What kind of monster was the Sage of Six Paths? They described him like he was invincible. Where did he come from and where did he go? The epic ends with “He watches over us from above.” and it doesn’t say anything else. It both praises and criticizes him for recklessly spreading the Dao to his apprentices, allowing them to later terrorize the land as gluttonous Tailed Beasts.’

‘The Epic of Wan is here too. It describes Avatar Wan as a greedy and naive fellow with good intentions, but blames him for putting into motion the series of events that caused almost all Lion Turtles to be hunted down. I feel bad on behalf of Uncle Aang.. the author keeps explaining how unnecessary the role of the Avatar is and that it doesn’t matter whether he or she is there or not; humans will always war among themselves anyway.’

‘It makes me wonder, do they not consider themselves human because of their thin Divine Beast blood?’

Shortly after Xiao Wu ties the sari especially well, Li Mei, the muscular old lady enters the room. She interrupts the proceedings to say, “Zina, the Village Chief will see you now. Leave the sari on over your clothes. It’s not a bad look. Your learning can resume afterwards.”

(A/N: Anybody want a mooncake?)