When Sol opened his eyes the next time, he found himself not in a lush and green clearing as he expected to be in, but rather in what looked like a gigantic theater.
Sitting in one of the highest places of the enormous theater, he had a full view of the whole scenery below though there was nothing much to see outside of a play that had been going on for some time from what he could gather. It was a play that depicted the scene of a puppet-like wolf moving and fighting another wolf.
Sol could feel his emotion shift unnaturally as he watched on. He felt himself becoming unnaturally irritated for an instant as he watched on the fight between the two wolves. But thankfully, he was able to change those emotions as soon as they had come.
“You have really changed since the last time I’ve seen you.”
A rather rough but feminine voice resounded next to him as he watched and he was finally able to realize that he was not alone inside of this theater as he had once thought.
“Where am I?”
“Welcome to the place I reside over. I call it the Theater of Domination. Though my sisters like to simply call it the Theater of Observation.”
Her voice was calm and indifferent, and Sol was finally able to take a good look at the woman in question. Like Luxuria and Castitas, she had a veil covering her face, but Sol had no doubt that she was a very beautiful woman that could change the perception of beauty with only a single appearance of her features.
“I guess I am in the presence of Ira.”
“How interesting of you to speak like that… You do not even bother using honorifics, I see… How rude…”
“Does it bother you?”
“Truthfully? No, not particularly. I think only Invidia and Temperatia might be offended by that demeanor of yours. Though for different reasons altogether.”
Sol was quite bemused by her way of speaking, “You are… quite calm.”
This was not exactly what Sol had been envisioning when he heard the name ‘Goddess of Wrath’ throughout the years. She was nothing like what her title had painted her to be.
“Heh… This is a common misconception mortals have of us, I guess. I am the Goddess of Wrath. Not the personification of Wrath itself. Anger does not control me, I am the one who controls it in all shapes and forms. In the same way, do you think Luxuria acts like a harlot? Or does Castitas act like a demure woman? None of the goddesses really act like what their title of divinity paints them to be…”
Ira laughed as she leaned down, “But being the Goddess of Wrath is helpful at times. Even my sisters sometimes see me as nothing but a bull-headed idiot rushing forward without thinking of the consequences.”
“I see…”
His voice was indifferent and calm as he interacted with the Origin of Wrath itself. He truly didn’t care much about what she was thinking or why she was doing what she was doing currently.
His eyes fell back to the center of the theater where the play was going on without a care for its viewers, “So is this your hobby? Observing mortals like they are part of an interesting play?”
“What else should I do? Feel pity? Love? Compassion? Why should I do that?”
“It’s your responsibility?”
“No. My responsibility is to protect the world and the universe as a whole. Every being was given free will. What you do with your free will is your problem and yours alone and in the same way, we have the free will to look at you guys while you self-destruct due to the application of your free will.”
Her apathy for mortals was clear. And he could not really blame her for that.
“I see that you do not understand me.”
“I can’t.”
“You mean… you cannot do so yet. When you become a demigod and create your own territory, when your lifespan will be calculated in Eons and you will have tried everything in the world there is to try and everything there ever is to live… You will understand then and only then… For immortals… Boredom is the greatest poison in existence.”
She chuckled and looked down at the play once more as he conveyed her thoughts to the greatest singularity in existence, “Well. Our time here is limited and I did not call you to have some philosophical discussion about immortality.”
“Very well. So what is your goal?”
“I wanted to observe you.”
She grinned under the confines of her veil, “You are the mortal who made the most waves in this universe ever since what happened with Anubis.”
She continued on, “I honestly do not like you. You are a source of unknown and your potential is even higher than what Anubis initially showed us to have wielded. Your power and skills make utterly no sense even to us who have practically seen everything in existence and should in no way be in the hand of a mortal like you and sometimes I have the impression that you are hidden by a fog. A fog that even us, goddesses, are not able to see through…”
She laughed demurely, “There is also the stunt you pulled lately. I must say… It was really smart of you. But more than anything, it should have been impossible to pull off. We all know that she is not an undead, but we have no proof of your blasphemy. How can a mortal hide from our gaze in such an intrinsic way?
“So I became curious. I wondered why Luxuria and Castitas were so hell-bent on protecting you, I was also starting to wonder just how much potential you truly had. I stopped looking at you like I was looking at an ant and started looking at you like an equal and that’s when I realized…
“Sol Dragona Luxuria… You… You are dangerous. Very much so.
“You are an uncertainty, an element of chaos, and last but not least, you represent a great danger for us.
“This is why I do not like you and I am sure many of my sisters actually do not like you either or are simply observing the situation till they can reach a definitive consensus.”
“So… What I am supposed to do with this information.”
“Do as you wish with it. I am honestly slightly on Invidia's side because I believe that despite the slightly selfish reasons pushing her goals, she is right about you. But at the same time, I am a coward, you see. I do not want to put all my eggs in one basket.”
This was something new and fresh coming from a goddess like her. He had never seen a goddess humble herself like this. Even Luxuria, despite her goodwill for him, always acted as a superior being.
“You seem surprised. But is it really that shocking that I do not want to face something that will change my everyday life?”
Ira closed her otherworldly eyes, lost in thought. Her mind went back to a distance far away from what was the previous universe before it was nearly annihilated and reduced to nothingness.
Her sisters and a few more goddesses were the only surviving members of that hellish time. Everyone else fell under ‘HIS’ merciless hand.
Ira was scared. Scared of Death, scared of Pain. All she wished for was nothing more than to observe the world in all of its colorful wonders, far from all the useless scuffles of her position.
“I think the fact you will become a False God is already assured. At the very least, as long as you do not die along the way, that is. But I doubt this will happen. So sooner or later you will reach my level. After all, the 14 of us are not really fighters.
She raised another finger, “I also think you and Aubis are the mortals with the highest chances of becoming a god or you might fail. I cannot see your future.
“As such, I will simply stay neutral until I am unable.”
She waved her hand and the world around Sol started to darken, “Good luck in your future endeavors…”
Those were the last word he heard from the Goddess of Wrath.
