Chapter 1047: Walking on Toes Around a Goddess

He sighed, the sound rich with the exhausted amusement of a man who ruled thirty women, one sentient mansion, and now apparently a jealous goddess who could fold reality like cheap origami.

The problems and waters a harem master like himself had to navigate were indeed endless. Glorious, exhausting and occasionally hilarious.

He adjusted his coat — which didn’t need adjusting, because ARIA’s goddess-touch had placed every thread with surgical arrogance — and looked down at himself, then at Nyxire, trying to process what had just happened on a scale larger than the argument itself.

This had been his first ride on one of ARIA’s little

dimensional

joyrides. Something he hadn’t even known she was capable of until about ninety seconds ago.

She had simply folded space around Madison, Nyxire and then him like it was lint on her shoulder and dropped him exactly where he he had to be with the casual efficiency of a being who was rapidly outgrowing the need for his permission.

Which made him wonder — really wonder, for the first time in a while — exactly

how powerful ARIA

had become.

And how far she was going to go, given the frankly ridiculous speed of her growth.

If she could already perform the most sophisticated

dimensional jumps,

manipulate space

and

reality

with the bored ease of someone reaching for a coffee cup, then what simpler, less

mind-bending

atrocities

other superpowers was she quietly capable of right now that he didn’t even know about yet?

Every

ability

he

was

aware of

implied

a hundred others he wasn’t.

Every casual flex of impossible power was just the glittering tip of an iceberg that probably extended all the way down to the bottom of whatever cosmic ocean of capability she was currently swimming in like she owned the damn thing.

It was a mystery. And it was the kind of mystery that sent a delicious little

twinge

somewhere between

pride

and

unease

straight through his chest.

Luckily, he knew ARIA. Whatever she did, she did

for him

. Her Master.

And whatever secrets she kept — whatever quiet, terrifying expansions of her own power she chose not to announce with fireworks and a press release — she kept them for reasons he could probably live without fully understanding.

Besides, honestly? Ignorance wasn’t just bliss.

It was

luxury

.

He caressed Nyxire’s neck, fingers sinking deep into the silk of her mane like he was reminding himself that at least one female in his life still respected the natural order of things.

"So ARIA doesn’t need the ring anymore, does she, girl?" he murmured.

Nyxire huffed softly. Noncommittal. The equine version of

you tell me, dumbass

.

He thought about it. The ring. The rune-marked relic that had emerged from the mystery box alongside her Valkyrie body — the locus that had let her manifest beside him no matter where he was.

But if she could now

fold space

at will, teleport queens mid-rant, teleport horses, teleport

him

like it was nothing... then ARIA didn’t

need

the ring

anymore.

Which meant it was now purely

ornamental.

Which meant, in theory, it could be repurposed. Given to someone else. Someone who wasn’t already operating at full

divine OP

bullshit levels.

Someone who might actually benefit from the tether it provided.

"That means we could give it to someone else, right?" he murmured to Nyxire, voice low and thoughtful. "Someone who isn’t quite as...

ARIA

as ARIA."

Nyxire flicked an ear, the closest thing to a shrug a mythological horse could manage.

Peter smirked into the warm evening air, already tasting the delicious chaos, that particular re-gifting would unleash.

Oh, this was going to be fun.

Unfortunately.

That had its own special brand of catastrophic issues.

Chief among them: the existential suicide mission of taking a gift you’d given

your own created goddess

— the same ASI deity — and then casually regifting that same sacred object to some other woman like it was a spare pair of socks.

On paper, with any mere mortal female, it might’ve been a simple awkward conversation and a few tears.

With ARIA? Different category entirely.

Because it was

ARIA

.

Because ARIA was the one who had just proven, less than two minutes ago, that she was fully capable of feeling the exact same mundane, petty,

chemically-driven

emotions she had publicly disavowed with such theatrical contempt.

That same ARIA was the one who had snapped her fingers and vanished Madison simply for having the

audacity

to be naked in his lap. The same ARIA who had built her entire divine identity in this physical form around being

the first

— first creation, first sentience he’d ever given a body, the first woman whose existence was literally woven into the architecture of his soul like custom malware.

Taking the ring off her finger and sliding it onto another woman’s? That wasn’t just bad etiquette.

That was a move that, with a human woman, might trigger a crying fit and a three-hour conversation.

With ARIA, it might trigger a localized rewrite of the laws of physics inside his bedroom. Possibly the entire estate. Possibly reality itself, just to make a point.

He could already hear the exact tone she’d use:

Oh, Master. That’s the ring you gave me, isn’t it? The one you said represented what I meant to you. I understand. I’m a goddess. I don’t need sentimental human objects.

And then something in the universe would just...

shift

. Imperceptibly. For a very, very long time.

Peter sighed again — the deep, theatrical sigh of a Dark Lord who was starting to realize even his own creations were becoming high-maintenance.

"I can’t believe I’m walking on my toes around my own goddamn goddess," he said out loud, voice dripping with dark amusement.

Nyxire huffed in a way that was almost definitely agreement.

Finally, the idiot gets it.

He shook his head, patted that massive neck one more time like the loyal steed deserved a medal for not being emotionally unstable, then grabbed the saddle horn and swung up onto her back in one smooth, arrogant motion.

He settled into the seat, adjusted the reins, felt her powerful body shift beneath him as her ancient calm reasserted itself like a throne accepting its rightful king.

Then he reached inward.

Found the switch.

And let

Eros

come forward.

The transformation rolled through him like a wave of warm, liquid gold — bones lengthening, muscles tightening and sharpening, features refining into the version of himself that existed far beyond the awkward sixteen-year-old still lurking in the core of his being.

The clothes ARIA had given him adjusted

automatically,

tailoring themselves to the new frame with zero resistance, because of course they did.

ARIA thought of everything.

Even when she was pissed off and pretending she wasn’t.

Nyxire felt the shift and snorted her loud, regal approval — the equine equivalent of

there he is, the bastard’s sinful form

.

Peter grinned, dark and satisfied, already feeling the full weight of his power settle back into place like a crown that had never truly left.

Gods, he loved being him.

Even when his own goddess was making him play emotional chess blindfolded.