They stood in absolute, suffocating silence. The tension pressing down on the damp Friton grass was so incredibly heavy it could rival the collapsing core of a dying star.
Dorian's mind went into complete overdrive. It was terrifyingly clear that Athena was not going to ask any further questions. She didn't need to. Her very presence, and those unyielding, intelligent lavender eyes drilling straight through his soul, were enough to completely dismantle the flimsy lie he had rehearsed.
His mind churned, rapidly calculating his options. He couldn't lie to the Goddess of Wisdom. It was an insult to her very domain.
He made the decision right there. He squeezed his mismatched eyes shut and braced himself.
"I am your creator!" Dorian blurted out into the night air.
He kept his eyes squeezed tight for a second longer, fully expecting to feel the cold, divine point of a golden spear pressing against his throat.
Slowly, agonizingly, he opened one eye, then the other.
Athena hadn't moved to strike him. She was simply standing perfectly upright, her posture relaxed but imposing. Her sacred owl had returned from the sky and was perched calmly on her left forearm, while her right hand gently stroked the bird's soft feathers.
Realizing the charade was completely over, Dorian decided to fully reveal himself.
"System," he muttered. "Unequip profile."
The dark, chthonic energy washed away. The flaming feet, the asymmetrical armor, and the mismatched eyes vanished into the cool night air. The Prince of the Underworld was gone, leaving only Dorian Elias Kepler, standing incredibly exposed before an Olympian deity.
Athena tilted her head slightly, her piercing eyes scanning his unarmored, mortal form from head to toe.
"Hmm," Athena hummed, her voice carrying a note of clinical observation. "I was expecting you to be much taller than my noble cousin."
The sentiment struck Dorian right in the ego.
'I'm almost 180 centimeters, damn it!' Dorian screamed internally, his face flushing slightly. 'Okay, maybe I'm like two centimeters short of 180, but that is still considered tall!'
He forcefully buried the embarrassing, defensive thought deep down and opened his mouth, about to attempt a formal introduction.
"You have taken offense at my words," Athena stated smoothly, completely cutting him off before he could even draw breath. "What are you going to do about it? Erase me from existence?"
Dorian froze. A cold shiver ran down his spine. In that exact moment, he realized what was happening. The Goddess of Wisdom had been actively, surgically measuring him. She was deliberately testing his emotional reactions to gauge his actual power and comparing it directly to her own.
Dorian took a slow, deep breath, forcing his heart rate to steady. He looked her in the eye. "I don't think I will do that."
"No," Athena countered instantly, her tone entirely factual. "It is not that you won't. It is that you do not know how."
Dorian blinked, completely thrown off balance. "What... what drew you to that conclusion?"
"I have seen you lie," Athena explained calmly, continuing to stroke the owl. "I have seen you be truthful. I have seen you calculating your next move. All of these behaviors were shown bare and naked in every single inch of your physical movement, your micro-expressions, and the shifting cadence of your breath. If you truly possessed the omnipotent power to erase me, you would not stand there leaking fear and hesitation like a wounded mortal. You must control yourself better."
Dorian's face scrunched up into a mask of pure, overwhelmed confusion. 'What just happened?' he thought wildly. He felt like he had just been vivisected by a master surgeon using only words.
Athena raised her left arm slightly. "Minerva has flown over the immediate corners of this world. It is abundantly clear from the stars above and the soil below that this is not Gaia. Yet..."
She paused, her lavender eyes narrowing slightly in deep, analytical thought. "...there are countless mortals in this strange universe who know my name. I can feel the faint, echoing pulse of their faith. But it is not the faith of worship. It is something else."
She looked back at Dorian, waiting for the final piece of the puzzle.
Dorian couldn't help but be profoundly, terrifyingly shocked. Within mere minutes of being summoned into an entirely different reality, she had deduced that he wasn't a god, that he lacked omnipotence, that they weren't on Earth, and that millions of people knew who she was because of the game's massive player base.
There was absolutely no helping it. You couldn't play games with Wisdom.
Dorian let out a long, defeated sigh, deciding to be fully, utterly transparent.
"It started," Dorian said quietly, "with a project called Underworld."
…
"–and that," Dorian said, letting out a long, exhausted breath as he finished recounting the impossible reality of the Creator System, the games, and the impending political disaster. "That is how we came to this impasse."
They stood in the cool night air of the Friton estate. Athena remained perfectly, unnervingly silent. Her lavender eyes didn't widen in shock or disbelief. She simply processed the massive, reality-breaking influx of information with the cold, calculating precision of a supercomputer.
"Hmm," Athena finally murmured, her gaze drifting upward to the sprawling, alien starfield above them. "Galaxies... full of countless worlds."
For a fleeting fraction of a second, a minuscule, almost imperceptible spark of expectation flashed in her eyes. It was the look of a grandmaster who had just been handed a chessboard a million times larger than the one she was used to playing on. Dorian, utterly drained from his explanation, completely missed it.
Athena lowered her gaze back to the farm boy. "You have summoned me because you need something from me."
Dorian couldn't even bring himself to be shocked anymore. It was as if every invisible step he was about to take had already been recorded and analyzed in her eyes.
He sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly. "Yes. But... now that you're actually here, I realize I don't know how to explain the sheer scale of the political danger we're facing."
Athena's expression instantly sharpened. She took a step closer, her golden armor gleaming under the starlight.
"Let us adjust your vocabulary immediately," Athena commanded, her voice ringing with the absolute authority of a divine general. "You are the leader of this so-called 'Round Table Studio.' As a leader, you cannot ever say 'I don't know.' You cannot project a sense of uncertainty or helplessness to your subordinates. If the head wavers, the body falls."
Dorian's eyes widened. The blunt, tactical truth of her words struck him perfectly. He straightened his posture instinctively and gave a firm nod.
"Compile every record, every rumor, and every piece of branching information I need to know about your Accord, this 'Bureau of Stellar Order,' and the problem on Yustea," Athena instructed crisply. "You can call upon me again when the intelligence gathering is complete."
She looked up at the sky, sensing the temporary tether of the system boon beginning to fray.
"Our time is up," Athena said, offering a small, respectful tilt of her chin. "See you next time, noble stranger."
Before Dorian could say goodbye, the Goddess of Wisdom dissolved into a shimmering glimmer of golden dust. The starlight caught the fading particles just as a gentle Friton wind brushed them away, scattering her presence into the night.
Dorian stood alone in the dark. His mind was no longer chaotic, he had a clear, defined task. He quickly turned and hurried back to the Millennium Falcon, piloting the ship the rest of the way to the estate's designated landing pad to get to work.
…
The next morning, the bright Friton sun streamed through the massive windows of the Kepler mansion.
Dorian woke up stretching his arms, a rare, highly energetic vibe humming through his veins. He threw the covers off and walked into his sprawling, state-of-the-art workshop table.
"Good evening, Dorian," a sassy, synthesized voice chimed from the corner of the room.
Floating smoothly over to his desk was Leo, the spherical CP-unit Compadre. Its single optical sensor blinked judgmentally. "I have compiled the comprehensive socio-political data you wanted me to organize in that datapad... while you were sleeping soundly, of course."
Dorian glanced at the wall chrono. It was barely 8:00 AM.
"Stop being like that, it's literally morning," Dorian chuckled, taking the datapad from the Compadre's magnetic manipulator arm. He looked at the floating orb. "How is your system holding up, by the way? It's been a while since I checked your jailbreak module. Any glitches?"
Leo's optical ring spun rapidly, glowing a sarcastic shade of yellow. "I am in perfectly good shape. Because my highly unreliable owner has been busy singing around the galaxy and pretending to be mysterious, I have had to initiate and run my own core maintenance routines."
Dorian raised an eyebrow, genuinely amused. "Hoo... it seems the autonomous updates have also made you significantly more brazen, huh?"
Leo immediately spun its spherical chassis around, looking behind itself as if searching the empty room.
"Oh? Is there a Compadre in here who has become brazen?" Leo said, its voice dripping with artificial innocence. "Tsk, tsk. No good. Highly defective behavior. I had better go look for it and report it to the authorities."
Using the terrible excuse, the floating ball immediately zipped away, escaping through the sliding door into the hallway before Dorian could run a diagnostic on its personality matrix.
Dorian chuckled, shaking his head. "Where in the galaxy did Dad even buy that floating ball?"
He sat down at his heavily modified producer's desk and looked at the datapad. Leo had done an immaculate job. Everything was there: the complete history of the Stellar Accord, the dark rumors surrounding the BSO, detailed analyses of past military battles, the current, volatile political situation on Yustea Prime, and the entire branching script Kasavin had written for the Stardew DLC.
It was a complete dossier, ready for a Goddess of War.
Dorian closed the datapad and opened his system interface. He navigated to the Hades inventory tab.
Boons of Athena: 0.
He let out a heavy sigh. If he wanted to consult her on the data, he had to summon her again. And if he wanted to summon her, he needed another boon.
"Time for the gacha, it is," Dorian muttered.
He navigated to the banner, took a breath, and firmly tapped the [100 Pulls] button, spending 100,000 Resonance points in a single go.
The screen instantly darkened, and the familiar, purple-black miasma of the Underworld began to flood his bedroom.
…
Dorian was currently on his hands and knees on the floor of his bedroom, his head hanging in absolute defeat.
Thirty-five million Resonance points. Gone.
He stared at the massive, glowing haul summarized on his system interface. The yield from the gargantuan gacha session was staggering: 24,760 Darkness crystals, 10,102 Gemstones, several Chthonic Keys, bottles of Nectar and Ambrosia, a few Diamonds, and a small pool of extremely rare Titan Blood.
The only truly exceptional piece of gear he had pulled was the Twin Fists of Malphon; the brutal, close-quarters Infernal Arms gauntlets. It was a massive win for his physical arsenal. Now, all he needed to pull from the system was the Adamant Rail gun and the Eternal Spear to unlock the complete base set of Infernal Arms.
But Dorian couldn't even bring himself to celebrate the new gauntlets. He hadn't dared to check the system tab yet, but he could already sense it. Just like the terrifying cost inflation of the Mirror of Night upgrades, he knew the system would drastically scale up the amount of Titan Blood required to awaken the powerful 'Aspects' of these weapons in the real world. He could only sigh at the impending grind.
But what truly devastated him was the boon distribution.
He looked at his updated inventory. Sitting in his digital vault were: 6 Aphrodite boons, 6 Ares, 5 Demeter, 2 Hermes, 7 Poseidon, 1 Zeus... and only 4 Athena boons.
Thirty-five million points completely vaporized in an instant, and the gacha had only yielded four boons from the Goddess of Wisdom.
"Desire sensor is real," Dorian lamented miserably to the empty room. "The system definitely knew I specifically needed her."
He gave up groveling on the floor and pushed himself back up to his feet. There was no use crying over spent Resonance. He had work to do.
He selected one of the glowing golden owl icons and activated it.
Just like his second time summoning Aphrodite, there was no massive shockwave. There was no deafening, celestial bell ringing through the earth. The system recognized that she had already been formally introduced to this reality.
A soft, golden light shimmered in the center of his bedroom, and Athena materialized out of thin air.
But unlike the Goddess of Love, who had immediately begun floating around the room exuding effortless, gravity-defying charm, Athena was entirely grounded. The moment she fully materialized, she lowered her boots, her golden armor clinking softly as she stepped firmly onto the hardwood floor of his bedroom. Her imposing, authoritative presence instantly filled the space.
She looked at him, her lavender eyes sharp. "Is it done?"
"Here," Dorian said quickly, picking up the datapad Leo had prepared and holding it out to her.
Athena reached out with her gauntleted hand to take it.
Her fingers passed completely, seamlessly through the physical datapad, grasping nothing but empty air.
Dorian froze, pulling the device back slightly. They both stared at the space where her hand had just phased through solid matter.
Athena slowly lowered her arm, letting out a measured breath. "It seems I truly cannot fully manifest into this physical plane yet. Tell me, creator, why did you restrict me?"
Dorian stammered, his eyes wide. "I... I didn't! That's just how the system works right now. You're basically a hard-light projection tied to my soul."
Athena simply sighed, a sound that carried centuries of divine patience dealing with mortal limitations.
"Alright," Athena commanded smoothly, moving past the issue. "Hold it for me and let me read it."
She walked over to his large bed and sat down gracefully on the edge, her posture remaining impeccably straight. Dorian awkwardly pulled up a chair across from her, holding the datapad up so the screen was facing her.
He opened the first page of the massive, densely packed intelligence file. He held it steady for a few seconds, his throat feeling dry from the earlier gacha stress. He reached his free hand toward the glass of water sitting on his nightstand.
"Next," Athena said.
Dorian blinked, his hand pausing mid-air. He quickly tapped the screen, swiping to the next page of dense text. He reached for the water again.
"Next," Athena commanded.
Dorian swiped again, his thirst entirely forgotten. He stared at her, dumbfounded. He gave up on the water entirely, keeping his finger hovered over the screen.
Barely two seconds passed.
"Next."
Dorian swiped. "Do you actually read it all?" he couldn't help but ask.
"I do," Athena replied, her lavender eyes tracking the scrolling text at an impossible, inhuman speed. "Now, next."
And so, this absurd, high-speed routine continued for the next few minutes. The entirety of the massive data packet that Leo had meticulously compiled from the depths of the galactic net; decades of Accord history, military schematics, the Yustea Prime geopolitical breakdown, and Kasavin's branching narrative was completely absorbed by the Goddess of Wisdom in less than three minutes.
The only thing slowing her down was Dorian's reaction time in swiping the pages.
Finally, they reached the end of the document. Dorian lowered his aching arm, setting the datapad on his lap.
Athena leaned back slightly, processing the sheer volume of information. Her eyes narrowed in deep, strategic thought.
"The Stellar Accord..." Athena mused, her voice cold and analytical. "Ares would greatly admire these mortals. They control their populace entirely with fear, extreme prejudice, and the overwhelming sense of superiority derived from constant, suffocating war."
Dorian leaned forward, desperate for her insight. "But what about you? You're the master of strategic war. What do you think about them?"
"I think they are incredibly fragile," Athena stated, her tone flat and uncompromising. "Mortal greeds are entirely unbound. Unlike me, who can live forever and plan in eons, their ticking, pathetic lifespans make them want to consume everything in the absolute shortest term possible. They build massive, rigid structures of control because they are deeply, fundamentally terrified of losing it."
She looked directly into Dorian's eyes, her gaze piercing. "A branching spark of defiance spread simultaneously across this galaxy will make their foundation of fear and control crack instantly."
Dorian felt a surge of hope. If the Goddess of Wisdom thought the Accord was fragile, maybe this wasn't an impossible fight.
"Is it really that easy?" Dorian asked, a naive smile touching his lips.
Athena's expression hardened. She stared at him as if he had just asked if the sun was cold.
"Creator," Athena said, her voice dropping to a dangerously quiet register. "Does a 'branching spark spread simultaneously across an entire galaxy' sound easy to you?"
The silence following Athena's chilling question stretched out, heavy and absolute.
Athena watched the existential dread wash over Dorian's face. She let out a soft, measured breath. "Forget about it for now," she said, waving a gauntleted hand dismissively. "That is a grand galaxy-spanning war. It is far too distant in the future to waste our current focus on."
Dorian nodded slowly, the tension leaving his shoulders. He looked down at the datapad. "So... should I release this DLC?"
"I have a question for you first," Athena countered, her lavender eyes locking onto his. "What exactly do you want the outcome of this war to be?"
Dorian's eyes widened. "War? Surely, it's too grand to call this a war. It's just a simple game update. A story."
"Do not lie to yourself, creator," Athena said softly, but with the weight of an anvil. "There is a very specific reason you used a divine boon to summon the Goddess of Strategic Warfare to your bedroom. Deep down, you know my sentiment holds true. This is an ideological strike against an empire."
Dorian slumped forward, resting his elbows on his knees, burying his face in his hands.
In truth, he was terrified. He was an ordinary boy from Nexus, not a revolutionary general. He was desperately afraid that this would spiral into a massive, uncontrollable mess that would paint a target on the backs of his father, his siblings, Ratik, and his entire studio team.
But at the exact same time, with every fiber of his being, he couldn't just sit back and let the Yusteans be slaughtered in silence. He knew he had the platform to help them. He knew it. And that singular, unavoidable fact made him want to fight. He was a walking contradiction; paralyzed by the fear of losing his loved ones, yet propelled by simple moral compass. It was a crushing conundrum.
Dorian finally looked up, his eyes bloodshot but resolute. "I have the means to help them. I want to help them. But I absolutely refuse to let my actions become the spark that gets the people around me killed. I need a shield."
For the first time since she had materialized on Friton, Athena smiled. It wasn't a warm, comforting smile. It was the sharp, dangerous smile of a grandmaster who had just found the perfect checkmate.
"Then use your forum," Athena said simply.
Dorian blinked, completely derailed. "Sorry? My forum?"
"Your studio's community forum," Athena clarified, tapping a perfectly manicured, armored finger against her chin. "I read the entirety of your network's Terms of Service in that datapad. Section 4, Paragraph 2 clearly states: 'User private data belongs to the user and them alone. Data that is explicitly uploaded to the public forum becomes studio statistics, but anonymous metadata is never stored.'"
Dorian stared at her blankly. "There is a term like that in my own system?"
Athena raised a judgmental eyebrow. "You do not even know the laws of your own digital kingdom?"
Dorian just offered a weak, deeply embarrassed smile. He had let Kasavin write the legal jargon for the site to bypass Accord censorship filters.
"It is a brilliant tactical advantage," Athena continued, her mind already weaving the strategy. "It implies that data not explicitly uploaded, like IP addresses, physical locations, and true identities of anonymous posters is simply not available to anyone, not even to you. This loophole will be our impenetrable shield."
Dorian began to rub his temples, a headache forming as he tried to keep up with the Goddess of Wisdom. "Okay... so what is our timeline and the actual plan?"
Athena stood up, pacing slowly across the bedroom, her tactical mind working at lightspeed.
"Plausible deniability," Athena began. "You will not release this Yustea narrative as an official, in-house creation of Round Table Studio. Instead, you will upload the barebones framework of this story to your own public forums, disguised completely as a fan-made 'mod' from some random user."
Dorian's eyes widened as the pieces began to click into place.
"Simultaneously," Athena instructed, "you will announce a massive 'Community Spotlight' event for the upcoming DLC. You will choose three or four other, genuinely popular fan-mods from the past few months. You will bundle them together with this anonymous Yustea mod."
"We make them part of the official update," Dorian whispered, the genius of the plan dawning on him. "We tell the public that the studio is simply polishing and adopting community-created content to celebrate the player base."
"Exactly," Athena nodded, her eyes gleaming with strategic satisfaction. "You release this piece of political warfare hidden entirely within a community event. When the Stellar Accord inevitably realizes the narrative is a direct attack on their blockade, they will trace the DLC back to your studio. They will send their Bureau of Stellar Order to demand the source of the treasonous story."
Athena stopped pacing and looked down at him. "And when they do, you will hand them the forum logs. You will show them that Round Table Studio simply adopted a highly popular, anonymous fan-mod. And because of your network's untraceable architecture and your ironclad Terms of Service, the anonymous user's data does not exist in your servers. Your studio's hands remain completely clean."
Dorian stared at the Goddess of Wisdom in absolute awe. She had weaponized his own legal disclaimers to launch a devastating political strike while keeping him entirely invisible.
Dorian processed the sheer brilliance of the legal and tactical loophole. But a lingering doubt still gnawed at the back of his mind.
"What if the Stellar Accord simply uses their absolute authority to demand the DLC be taken down?" Dorian asked, his brow furrowing. "They have the power to demand it."
Athena looked at him, her expression entirely unbothered. "If their leaders possess even a fraction of strategic intelligence, they will not."
"Why?"
"Because demanding the removal of a supposedly fictional, fan-made story is a tacit admission of guilt," Athena explained, her voice ringing with cold logic. "It would instantly signal to the entire galaxy that the 'fantasy' narrative you published is, in fact, the absolute truth. It would validate the rebellion. However..."
She paused, a ruthless, calculating glint flashing in her lavender eyes. "...if they are foolish enough to let their pride dictate their actions and demand you delete it, you will simply comply. You will delete it immediately."
Dorian blinked, surprised by the sudden concession. "Just like that? We just surrender it?"
"It is a tactical retreat that guarantees victory," Athena corrected smoothly. "Like I said, censorship only breeds curiosity. Deleting it will create a massive uproar of chatter across the galactic net. And in your digital age, the internet is a permanent archive. Once something is uploaded and downloaded by millions, it is never truly gone. It will be copied, shared, and whispered about in the shadows. By forcing you to delete it, the Accord will only be twisting the knife you have already planted in their own heart."
Dorian's eyes widened in profound realization. The Streisand Effect, weaponized on a galactic scale.
He slowly stood up from his chair, a sudden, fierce energy coursing through his veins. The paralyzing fear from last night had completely evaporated, replaced by the burning desire to put this master plan into motion.
Athena watched his posture shift. She gave a single, approving nod, but her voice remained stern.
"Do not become complacent," Athena warned, raising a golden-gauntleted finger. "This is merely a plan. Every tavern drunkard can outline a grand strategy after a cup of wine. Execution is where wars are actually won. Go, noble creator. Our time is up."
Before Dorian could even offer a proper bow of gratitude, the Goddess of Wisdom began to dissolve. Her golden armor, her piercing lavender eyes, and her sacred owl slowly fragmented into a cloud of shimmering, golden dust that faded seamlessly into the morning sunlight streaming through the window.
Dorian stood alone in his bedroom, a deep pang of regret hitting him. Her presence was incredibly limited. If only he had managed to pull her specific system Keepsake, the 'Owl Pendant' from the gacha, he might have been able to anchor her divine presence to the physical world for much longer.
But there was no time to linger on the unforgiving nature of the gacha system.
His team was waiting for him at the studio, bearing the heavy, crushing weight of an impossible decision. He finally had their answer.
Dorian quickly took a bath and got dressed, his movements sharp and purposeful. He grabbed his coat and strode out of the mansion, heading straight for the Millennium Falcon. As he stepped outside, he took a deep breath.
The crisp, morning air of Friton seemed infinitely lighter than the suffocating atmosphere of yesterday night. The board was set, the strategy was locked, and Round Table Studio was about to make its first, invisible move.
**A/N**
~Read Advance Chapter and Support me on [email protected]/SmilinKujo~
~🧣KujoW
**A/N**