If there was someone truly happy and fulfilled about how things were going however, it was Semiramis.

In terms of growth in power, she could only claim to be second but in terms of developing her relationship with Jun, she was number one in her mind.

Although she had yet to seal the deal, clearly enjoying the game they were currently playing, the pair had gotten much closer to each other than before.

Semiramis was defined by history and even in her own mind as a passionate woman who went to war over a single man she wanted to claim. As such, she knew from the first moment they had met, that she wished to claim Jun for herself.

Alas, his overwhelming power and later, his cast of queens who she loathed to admit were leagues more powerful than her and just as beautiful since Semiramis would never admit another woman surpassed her in that regard, made her realized she would never be "claiming" him as she intended.

Still, her passion went nowhere and, in her heart of hearts, she knew that should she give herself to Jun, she would be his pampered and respected queen and he would never intentionally treat her wrong.

At the same time however, she loathed women who let themselves fall completely to the wiles of a man and were pulled around by them with no agency of their own.

This came of as result of her mother's actions of abandoning her to pursue a man, something which bred everlasting resentment and disgust in Semiramis.

Now, the Assyrian queen knew that Jun would never rob her of her agency in such a manner or try to force her into something she wouldn't want.

Semiramis' fears laid somewhere else. What she doubted was not Jun but herself. She didn't trust herself not to fall completely and just start basing all of her decisions on Jun and his desires. Although she didn't speak of it, she was deeply afraid of turning out like her own mother.

She despised her mother and her way of being, resolutely swearing she would never fall as low as her but at the same time, Semiramis felt that, given a good enough opportunity, she would break like her mother did.

Jun was perfect in her mind, a proud and ambitious man, greedy and possessive, qualities which she enjoyed and powerful beyond belief as well as willing to share that power with those that eared a place at his side.

Faced with such a prospective husband, Semiramis' heart wanted to fall even as her mind vehemently refused to let such a thing happen.

Her desire was to achieve a position like that of Morgan's. Semiramis saw her a powerful and beautiful queen who was a foundation for Jun a pillar of support who influenced his actions for both their benefit.

The problem was that she found herself lacking for such a role as much as she hated to admit it. She was beautiful, she was wise but power . . . Morgan was more powerful than a true goddess, how could she hope to compare.

And so, Semiramis felt unable to further her relationship with Jun but, with the binding to Domina Coronam, that soon began to change.

Despite her overall thoughts on her mother, the Syrian mermaid goddess Derketo, Semiramis was thankful to her for two things and two things only, bringing her into the world despite the fact she had abandoned her, and for the divine blood that ran in Semiramis' veins.

Derketo was not a powerful or high ranking Divine Spirit by any measure but a Divine Spirit she was and so, her daughter was born with C rank Divinity.

This Divinity, despite not being at that high of a rank, brought many benefits to Semiramis and laid at the core of her prodigious power. As the daughter of a mermaid goddess, she also bore the ability to summon the scales of the Sacred Fish for defense.

Binding herself to the Crown of Heaven: Celestia while already possessing considerable Divinity and the blood of a goddess running in her veins, gave Semiramis a colossal boost that only Penthesilea surpassed due to having the same things but of a superior quality.

Her noble phantasm, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon which became truly a part of the Crown, turned into a Divine Domain ruled over by Semiramis. Its defenses, power and even mobility were drastically increased as was the boost its owner received while standing within.

Over time, Semiramis' Divinity rose to A rank, enough to form a Divine Core and become a true Divine Spirit though she had yet to grasp that step. This boosted her abilities to an unimaginable level and, even without the Gardens, she was more powerful than her previous self with them.

At the same time, when summoning the Gardens and taking her throne inside, Semiramis' powers became that of an extremely powerful Divine Spirit, very close to a Near God. Though she was restricted to her throne if she wished to wield such power, it was still extremely impressive.

Such a colossal change did two things for Semiramis, it filled her with confidence that she could be one of Jun's pillars and not just someone who stood on the laurels of his success and it reinforced that Jun was indeed the greatest husband a proud and power hungry queen like her could wish for.

As a result of these changes, Semiramis who was a very assertive woman that knew what she wanted, became much more forward with Jun.

Flirting all the time when they were together, brushing up against him a stretching in suggestive ways when he was around.

She was enjoying this phase were they stalked around each other a bit to much though, dangling the prize right before Jun's eyes before sauntering away with a spring on her step and a hypnotizing sway on her hips. Jun lover her for it though and she knew it too.

Moving on from the queen that was moving out of her shell due to surpassing her previous difficulties, Penthesilea who was previously mentioned as showing even more explosive growth was quite happy as well.

No matter what anyone said, there was an hierarchy in the group of four Queens and it wasn't based on order of arrival or she would be right at the top.

Jun wasn't the one that made the ranking though, it was the women themselves. Despite her lack of care, for such things Scathach was solidly in second place and Morgan was first, not just due to what she had already done for Jun but also based on what she already had concrete plans to do.

No one but Morgan knew the specifics but everyone knew she was making or perhaps had already made huge moves for Jun in the background. Scathach seemed to have an inkling and Jun had his suspicions even though he was not aware of the scope of the matter but her number one spot was virtually unshakable because of it.

With Cleria being obviously dead last due to being more held up by Jun rather than also holding him up, Penthesilea found herself at a third place that she knew was not likely for her to get out of.

As a powerful queen and fearless warrior demigoddess, she was not satisfied at all but her competition was a woman who had killed some many Near Gods that she became unable to die and trained some of the mightiest heroes around.

Meanwhile, the woman at the top was a Great Fairy Mother, a Divided Spirit of the World who surpassed Divine Spirits in the pecking order, who also happened to be a peerless witch, perhaps the greatest in history, a powerful queen that ruled for millenia and the inheritor of the Mystery of the British Isles, a truly grand power.

Still, Penthesilea was not content, she knew she had little hope of surpassing her fellow queens but was confident in closing the gap significantly, after all, the binding would not affect those two that much due to them being bound in a certain way already.

Meanwhile, she had everything to gain when she bound herself to the Crown of Heaven: Celestia and, despite not believing she had surpassed her number three position, Penthesilea was quite sure that she was now much much closer to the two leaders in the board of queens.

After all, her change was truly drastic . . .

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P.a.t.r.e.o.n is officially up!

The link is: https://www.p.a.t.r.e.o.n.com/lusoba  without the extra dots of course.

You'll get to read up to FOUR week ahead, a full month, but I'll still post here.

There's also my other novel Archon of DanMachi, do check it out!

I would greatly appreciate any support since this is going to be my breadwinner.