NOVEL NEXT Chapter 394
Chapter 393
Extra: Divine Union – 6
“……Hah.”
As I opened my eyes and caught sight of the familiar ceiling, I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle inwardly and sat up. This was the room where Eclipse and I had last intertwined our bodies.
Right beside me lay Eclipse, who was pretending to be asleep. Of course, being a goddess, she probably didn’t need any sleep.
After intertwining our bodies, she was just lying here, acting this way for the sake of waking up to the morning sunlight.
‘What a crazy goddess.’
Seriously, I felt a sense of exhaustion for the first time since my physical abilities had awakened. This body had been perfectly fine even after drawing in twelve people and mingling for a whole week.
From the middle point onward, even Floretta and Luna, let alone Minerva, were begging me to stop, claiming they couldn’t endure it anymore, despite the methods I used to amplify pleasure with mana and divine power.
They made twisted sounds, cried out for me to stop, and even reached peaks to the point I thought they might be dehydrated, yet Eclipse never faltered or collapsed.
In fact, the longer we mingled, the more she seemed to grow.
At first, Eclipse had lowered herself to a state beneath human and seduced me with lewd words, but over time, as if she had realized something, she changed her approach.
She would scoff as if it was nothing, claim it was bearable more than she thought, provoke me by calling it basic, and then right before she crossed the line, she’d stop and again lower herself to a state beneath human, submitting once more.
Maybe it was because she was a goddess, but it was indeed a genius-level talent. She was fully aware that she was doing it on purpose, yet several times, she still ended up under me.
‘How long has it been?’
Outside, time had lost its meaning, but it was different inside. I wanted to know how long I had been intertwined, just to roughly gauge how often that exhaustion would come.
‘……I have no idea.’
But that was also hard to figure out. Maybe I could have guessed it if it were just a few days, but having spent such a long time, the nature of Eclipse’s dimension, where day and night were always fixed, made it nearly impossible to sense.
One thing was certain: an unusually long time had passed. Even at the minimum estimate, it had been over ten days, and if I were to guess as accurately as possible, it seemed to be about two weeks.
Slaaaap!
“Hyah?!”
Seeing the goddess pretending to sleep next to me, I couldn’t help but get annoyed and smacked her behind. My head was all tangled up, and she was just lying there so casually.
With a light slaaaap, Eclipse let out a sweet yelp. She had been hit at least a thousand times, yet her perky, soft peach-colored buttocks jiggle like pudding.
“Uuuuh……”
After being slapped, Eclipse pretended to stir in her sleep and subtly changed her position. Watching her made me just snicker lightly.
‘Who sleeps in a cat pose, anyway?’
It was reminiscent of what the Popes did. Floretta and Luna would often pretend to sleep while slyly, or outright, try to seduce me.
Of course, they didn’t do it as blatantly as Eclipse, which only fueled my irritation further, leading me to give her one more smack. A bright red handprint was left on her behind. Eclipse shivered, her rear quaking.
I got out of bed. I knew that if I gave in to this temptation now, it wouldn’t just end with one or two encounters. I wasn’t about to get caught and have my essence drained again.
Noticing my lack of intent to continue, Eclipse’s alluring behind straightened up, her body shifted to face me, and her eyelids were slowly lifted.
“Uuuh…… Is that you?”
Eclipse, pretending to just wake up, yawned and rubbed her eyes while gazing up at me. Should I call it excellent acting, or just audacity?
If I had seen that for the first time or hadn’t known anything, I might have found it curious if even gods slept. Eclipse’s ‘just woke up’ performance was that perfect.
“Yes, Goddess.”
“Good morning.”
“Good morning. I have no idea which morning this is, though.”
“Are you no longer going to drop the formalities?”
Lying down, Eclipse grabbed my wrist and smiled sweetly. Despite being entirely naked, her hair cascading down her collarbone perfectly concealed the pink tips of her breasts.
“The night hasn’t ended, has it?”
“If you want, there can be as many nights as you like from now on. You could keep treating me like a lesser being.”
“If I want to speak informally to you, I’d have to call you by name, and if you truly think I can withstand it even if called by name, then I’ll gladly oblige.”
“Oops, did you catch me?”
Eclipse stuck out her tongue and smiled adorably. What a goddess I couldn’t let my guard down around.
“Are you waking up now?”
“I guess I have to. There are people outside who have been left waiting too long.”
Even though I had stopped time and turned the bed into a bed of flowers, it was practically the same as leaving them outside. I felt a bit sorry for leaving them for too long.
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
“Yes?”
Eclipse silently pointed at the window, where warm sunlight streamed in. I walked over and looked down outside.
A massive temple made of flowers and grass had grown outside. It resembled both the Sun Cathedral and the Moon Cathedral closely.
The only difference was that instead of gold, silver, jewels, and marble, this building was made of flowers and grass. Even the spires reaching high into the sky matched.
“They must all be sleeping comfortably inside. Ah, from the outside’s perspective, not even ten seconds must have passed, so saying they’re asleep might be a bit misleading.”
“……”
I was sure that when I entered my home, nothing like this existed. When in the world did she prepare this? Could it be that she made the bed on the floor to coax me in a bit faster?
As Eclipse raised her upper body, she cautiously covered her lower half with the fallen blanket. But honestly, it didn’t look like she was doing it out of modesty at all. She seemed to be emphasizing her chest with her arms instead.
“Let me know if you want breakfast, alright? We have plenty of time, and I’ll make it for you myself.”
“I’m fine, actually. I’m not particularly hungry.”
“Hmm, is that so? Then let’s get up. We need to prepare to go out. Right, darling?”
It felt a little strange sharing the same time, waking up in the same bed, being offered breakfast, and being called “darling” at the same time. I wondered if she had planned all this.
Eclipse was stretching her arms dramatically as she gave a sly smile, then casually tossed her hair behind her neck, revealing her armpits and breasts completely.
The seductive wink was just the cherry on top.
“It’s useless. I won’t do it.”
“Yieeeee.”
Eclipse made a pouting face.
How could she resemble the Popes so closely? I felt like I finally understood the reason behind Floretta’s and Luna’s behaviors.
“To think I’d fall asleep in a world created by the Sun……”
“Did we happen to offend the Moon?”
The frozen time resumed as soon as we stepped outside. The towering flowers and grass reverted back to normal, and those who had been lost in sleep woke up seemingly refreshed.
Even though I said time had stopped when I entered my home, it must have barely been less than ten seconds of actual sleep.
“……”
I stared intently at Floretta and Luna, who walked out cautiously with anxious and worried expressions. Noticing my gaze, the Popes approached me, tilting their heads.
“What’s the matter, Delta?”
“Is there something you wish to say?”
“……No. It’s nothing.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t possibly state out loud that I felt like I knew who they had inherited their constant seduction behavior from. The Popes merely tilted their heads and let it slide.
As soon as Floretta and Luna stepped back, Minerva took their place. Her eye corners were curved mischievously.
“Did you enjoy your ‘conversation’ with the goddess, kid?”
“Well…… it was fun if I had to summarize it.”
By emphasizing the word ‘conversation,’ it was clear that Minerva wasn’t referring to the typical meaning of the word. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be smiling with such a suspicious expression.
“How long were you in there? Here it’s…… one or two minutes? Hmm, maybe a bit shorter.”
It was just like Minerva. Whether I felt a disparity in physical sensations or not, she seemed to have noticed the differences between the internal and external times.
“I’m not exactly sure. It didn’t change from day to night in there, and there weren’t any clocks or calendars, either.”
“In that case, I’ll take that to mean you lasted long enough to lose sense of the passage of time.”
I didn’t deny it. That was indeed the truth. Minerva’s eye corners curved even more as she saw me attempt to evade the question.
“Make sure to tell me later what happened in there, alright?”
Minerva left with a bright smile. I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be the only one sharing what had transpired with the goddess.
I gathered the women who had woken up from their slumber.
“What are we going to do now?”
“What do you mean, what?”
“I’m saying we need to decide whether to stay here longer or descend to the surface. The goddess promised to watch over us no matter how long we stay here, so you don’t have to worry.”
Hesitant looks flickered across the women’s faces for a moment before they unanimously decided to return. I didn’t mind either way, but I had expected at least one person to want to stay.
When I asked for their reasons, I found they could be summed up into three main points.
Floretta, Luna, Stella, and Selene wished not to be a burden to the goddess, while the Knight Commanders, Nix, and Aurora felt it would be uncomfortable to remain in the goddess’s dimension.
However, Kaiquilia and Minerva had somewhat different reasons.
“It’s true this place is beautiful. I won’t deny that.”
“But it’s only beautiful, and there’s not much to see, right? I’m not one to just sit and stare at the scenery.”
I couldn’t argue against that point. The world split evenly between day and night, with flower fields and grassy meadows was indeed gorgeous at first glance, but that was pretty much the extent of it. Once familiar, it became merely a simple natural landscape.
If I asked Eclipse to recreate my room entirely, she could probably do it, but just a few minutes ago, I had been trembling with awe under her divine power. It felt awkward to ask.
Moreover, it would be pointless to recreate my room when I could just return to my actual one.
“There isn’t much to see in my dimension.”
Eclipse seemed to sympathize with Minerva and Kaiquilia’s viewpoints. She said that all I could do here was take a walk or watch the fish swim.
The women near me seemed tense, glancing nervously at Eclipse, but unlike before, no one instinctively kneeled. That was only natural since I had deliberately exerted my divine presence then.
“So I’ll be living in Delta’s place from now on, so I look forward to it.”
Eclipse winked playfully, smiling.
Twelve pairs of eyes all turned toward me simultaneously. Even Minerva seemed surprised at the idea that Eclipse would be staying with me, her usually pure white pupils wide opened.
“Delta……?”
Someone murmured that.