Selene didn’t crash through the walls; she simply stepped through the broken window onto the glass-covered floor.

Her S-Rank aura warped reality, causing glowing white flowers to bloom instantly wherever her bare feet touched the ruined concrete. The heavy scents of medicine and lotus quickly smothered the smell of smoke.

She looked entirely angelic in her simple, flowing white dress, with long silver hair falling down her back.

But even with her divine grace, heavy tears were already streaming down her beautiful, pale face.

She stopped and slowly scanned the destroyed penthouse, taking in the shattered walls, burnt carpet, and the lingering violence. Her gaze finally settled, bypassing Zen to look directly at the Spymaster.

"Nyx," Selene whispered. "We were sisters."

Nyx flinched, taking a step back.

"I trusted you," Selene cried softly, pressing a hand over her own heart. "When your networks burned, I was the one who healed your digital pathways. When you were broken, I held you. And yet... you found him. You saw that he was bleeding, and you hid him from me in the dark."

"Selene, listen to me," Nyx started, actually feeling guilty. For hundreds of years, she and Selene had actually been in touch with each other, visiting each other and talking about almost everything and anything.

Of the five goddesses, two of them were the closest. "I was going to..."

"Don’t give me that, Nyx," Selene cut her off. "I never expected this from you."

"Like you wouldn’t hide him too if he had appeared first in your domain," Valeria chipped in.

"Shut up, Valeria!" Nyx and Selene echoed at the same time.

Selene finally turned her tear-filled eyes toward Zen.

She gasped and covered her mouth as she felt his deep pain through the Heart Fragment, sensing all the trauma he had suffered.

"My poor Emperor," Selene wept. She rushed forward, falling to her knees right in front of him. "You are so broken. You are in so much pain."

She reached out with her hands glowing with bright white light, trying to hug him tightly. Her healing magic was terrifying, so powerful that it threatened to put Zen into a magical coma just so she could take his pain away and keep him safe forever.

"I am fine, Selene," Zen said, taking a firm step back to avoid her touch. "My core is stabilizing."

"No, it is not," Selene insisted, her tears falling faster. "You don’t know what is best for you. Let me fix you. Let me put you to sleep. I will take all your agony into myself. I will suffer for you."

But as she reached for him again, her glowing eyes caught sight of a faint, golden-green thread of magic in the air.

The Blood Pact.

Selene’s tearful eyes followed the magical thread until it led straight to the shivering girl wrapped in a white towel behind Zen.

Her angelic, sad look vanished instantly, her tears stopped, and the warm, sweet smell of lotus flowers was immediately replaced by the harsh, burning scent of bleach and sterile scalpels.

"What is this?" Selene asked. Her voice was dead and completely emotionless.

"She is my healer," Zen warned, stepping slightly in front of Maya.

"NO, Zen. She’s a parasite," Selene stated coldly, standing up. The white flowers around her feet withered and turned black. "She has attached her dirty, mortal life force to your divine soul. She is a tumor, and is draining your energy."

"Selene, stop," Zen ordered.

"Don’t worry, my Emperor," Selene said, her eyes locked onto Maya. "I know it hurts. But I will cut the infection out. I will make it completely painless for you."

Selene raised her hand, and a blade made of pure, concentrated white healing energy, designed to sever the bond, formed in her grip.

She stepped toward Maya. Maya couldn’t even move; the S-Rank pressure paralyzed her Mid D-Rank body completely.

"I said stop!" Zen roared.

He didn’t just step in her way. He grabbed the glowing white blade with his bare hand.

The sterile energy burned his palm, but Zen didn’t flinch. He looked down at the Goddess of Healing, using her own emotional complex completely against her.

"If you cut that thread," Zen said, in a deadly serious voice, "the magical backlash will bounce straight into my unstable core. The shock will completely shatter my soul. If you kill her right now, you kill me."

Selene froze.

Her glowing white eyes widened in horror. She stared at Zen’s bleeding hand holding her blade.

"No..." Selene gasped, her lips trembling. The sterile blade instantly dissolved into harmless light. "No, no, no... I would never hurt you. I would die before I let you shatter again."

"Then back down," Zen commanded. "Leave her alone."

Selene glared at Maya, feeling a physical ache from seeing another woman’s life force so intimately tied to Zen’s. Her hands shook with rage; she wanted to tear Maya apart, but she held back only because she couldn’t risk hurting Zen.

"I will bear this agony," Selene whispered, tears welling up in her eyes again. She looked back at Zen, playing the ultimate martyr. "I will let this parasite live for now, only to keep you breathing. I suffer this insult for you."

She took a slow step backward toward the broken window.

"But this environment is too chaotic," Selene warned, glaring at Nyx and Valeria. "You are surrounded by violence and deceit, and I can’t stand it. Why don’t you come with me?"

"Absolutely not," Valeria snapped, her panic making her completely forget Zen’s earlier order to stay quiet.

"For once, the brute is right," Nyx added immediately, stepping up beside the Goddess of War. She crossed her arms, glaring at Selene. "The Empress is already demanding his presence in the Crown Domain. We are currently fighting over how to keep Aurelia from locking him in a vault. We are not letting you drag him off to your sterile wards to smother him in a coma on top of that."

Valeria nodded firmly in agreement. "Exactly what she said. He stays."

Selene tilted her head. Her tear-filled eyes turned instantly cold as she looked between the two of them.

"Look at you both," Selene mocked softly. "The Vanguard and the Spymaster, standing shoulder to shoulder. How wonderfully hypocritical."

Wiping a single tear from her pale cheek, Selene looked directly at Valeria. "You agree with her, Vanguard? You should know what your ’ally’ really thinks of you. When Nyx was weeping in my lap last year while her digital networks burned, she told me she hated your mindless violence. That’s what she called it... mindless. She was even planning to make a virus to disrupt your domain’s connection to her grid network. She wanted to shut you and your people out completely."

Valeria’s head snapped toward Nyx. Her golden eyes flared with explosive rage. "You did what?!"

Nyx grimaced, taking a half-step away from the Vanguard. "Selene, you manipulative... that was told in strict medical confidence!"

"Enough!" Zen’s voice silenced them in an instant.

Valeria and Nyx glared at each other with pure hatred, but they lowered their heads in submission to Zen.

Selene let out a soft, heartbroken sigh. She turned her attention back to Zen, her angelic, sorrowful expression returning flawlessly.

"You see, my Emperor? This is what they offer you. Pure chaos and betrayal," Selene whispered. She took a slow step backward toward the broken window. "But I will not fight them in front of you. The violence would only stress your unstable core."

She looked past him, shooting one last, venomous glare at the shivering girl in the towel.

"Come to the Sanctuary Domain, my Emperor," Selene said softly. "I will prepare a perfect, clean room for you. And I promise you... I will find a way to sever this filthy Blood Pact without killing the mortal. I will set you free, no matter what it takes."

With a final, tearful look, Selene stepped backward out of the window.