Humiliation is a lethal poison to the pride of a god.
For Aphrodite, the Goddess of Beauty who was accustomed to living atop a pedestal of absolute worship, being ignored by a mortal man was an unforgivable sin.
Aphrodite’s green eyes glared fiercely at Natsu’s retreating back as he wove through the crowded Preblica market.
The air around her suddenly shifted.
Her aura, once warm and inviting, now felt suffocatingly heavy, thick with a coercive dominance.
Harmonia, who stood right behind the goddess, immediately took a step back, her body trembling as she realized what her goddess was about to do.
Raising her petite hand with elegant grace, Aphrodite unleashed the absolute allure that was the very essence of her existence.
She invoked her Charm—a divine enchantment capable of subjugating sanity, paralyzing logic, and binding anyone’s soul in an endless web of obsession.
A wave of golden-pink energy erupted from Aphrodite’s body, sweeping across the entire market square like a silent tidal wave.
An intoxicatingly sweet aroma filled the air, seeping into the breaths of every living creature within a radius of dozens of meters.
The reaction was instantaneous and terrifying.
The bustling market fell dead silent.
Merchants shouting to peddle their wares dropped their goods to the dirt.
Hulking adventurers who had been roaring with laughter were instantly muted.
Their eyes all went blank, losing the light of reason, replaced by a pulsating pink glow of pure devotion.
Men and women, young and old—all fell to their knees facing Aphrodite.
They shed tears of false euphoria, completely obsessed with laying down their lives for the goddess.
Even Rethusa, the formidable captain of the Artemis Familia, immediately dropped her short sword.
The female warrior’s body trembled violently before she collapsed to her knees, unable to withstand the crushing weight of that absolute charm.
Harmonia, too, could only bow her head in absolute submission.
There was only one other entity in that place who remained standing besides Aphrodite.
Artemis gritted her teeth fiercely.
A faint, silvery holy aura glowed around her body, clashing against Aphrodite’s wave of Charm.
As one of the Three Virgin Goddesses of heaven, Artemis possessed a natural immunity to this kind of manipulative enchantment.
However, that did not stop her from feeling just how dense and dangerous the power her fellow goddess had just unleashed truly was.
“Aphrodite!
What are you doing?!” Artemis snapped, her voice laced with fury at seeing innocent commoners manipulated to such an extent.
“Stop this madness!”
But Aphrodite paid absolutely no mind to Artemis’s shouts.
An arrogant smile returned to her rouged lips.
Her green eyes remained locked on the figure of Natsu Dragneel in the distance.
The Goddess of Love waited for the young man to turn around, crawl across the cobblestones, and beg for forgiveness at her feet with eyes blinded by love.
One second passed.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
Natsu’s footsteps finally halted.
The pink-haired youth slowly turned around.
Aphrodite widened her smile, preparing to receive his absolute devotion.
But the goddess’s smile instantly froze.
Her eyes widened, reflecting a shock that tore through all her divine expectations.
There, in the middle of a sea of mindless, kneeling humans, Natsu stood with a completely relaxed posture.
There was no vacant look in his eyes.
There was no obsession, no submission, not a single trace of divine charm clouding his mind.
The young man looked entirely normal, perfectly lucid, and even displayed a very obvious look of annoyance.
To make matters worse, Natsu raised a hand and pinched his own nose tightly, as if he had just caught a whiff of an incredibly pungent stench.
“Ugh, what is this perfume?
It’s so strong it’s making my nose itch,” Natsu grumbled, his voice nasal from pinching his nose.
He waved his free hand in the air, trying to fan away the divine, sweet aroma as if he were swatting away exhaust fumes.
The world seemed to stop spinning for Aphrodite.
Her mouth parted slightly, unable to form a single word.
The Goddess of Beauty was utterly dumbfounded.
Her Charm, the absolute authority that could bring even fellow gods to their knees if they let their guard down, had absolutely no effect?
And more than that, it was brushed off as just a ‘pungent perfume’?
Artemis, standing not too far away, was equally petrified.
The Goddess of the Hunt stared at Natsu with just as much disbelief.
She could withstand the charm due to her divine status as a virgin goddess, but how could an ordinary human male deflect it without using even a shred of magic or defense?
“You…” Aphrodite’s voice finally escaped, trembling between shock and a resurging wave of anger.
“How could you…”
Hearing her voice, Natsu lowered his hand from his nose.
His annoyance evaporated, replaced by something far darker.
The young man looked straight at Aphrodite.
At that very second, Aphrodite felt her world completely turn upside down.
When their gazes met, Aphrodite did not see the eyes of a human.
Natsu’s dark pupils suddenly narrowed, elongating vertically like the eyes of a colossal reptile.
There was an ancient, terrifying depth behind that gaze—a burning abyss of fire amidst absolute darkness.
The air around Natsu distorted, not from magical charm, but from the sheer physical pressure of his aura.
In Aphrodite’s eyes, the barbaric youth suddenly morphed into something incredibly massive, something that reduced her divinity to mere dust in the wind.
It was the absolute dominance of an apex predator at the top of the food chain.
A glare that implied that if he so wished, he could tear apart the sky and burn the gods to ashes.
Aphrodite’s breath caught in her throat.
Her entire petite frame froze, unable to move even an inch under the crushing weight of Natsu’s dominance.
Yet, amidst the instinctual terror that paralyzed her, a bizarre anomaly occurred within the goddess’s body.
Her heart, which had beaten with a calm and monotonous rhythm for millions of years, suddenly raced wildly.
Blood rushed rapidly to her face, painting a vivid blush across both her cheeks.
A strange, tickling sensation bloomed in her stomach, as if a thousand butterflies were fluttering wildly inside.
Aphrodite let out a soft gasp.
Her right hand reflexively came up, clutching the fabric of her dress over her chest.
As the Goddess of Love and Beauty who governed the very concept of romance, Aphrodite knew exactly what every physical and emotional reaction she was experiencing in this second meant.
She had seen this reaction in millions of gods and mortals, but she had never once felt it herself.
This was the look of someone falling in love.
That realization struck her like lightning.
Throughout her immortal life, Aphrodite had always been the one in control.
Even though she was no longer a virgin goddess and possessed countless followers who worshipped her both physically and mentally, not a single one of them had ever truly touched her heart.
To her, the gods, heroes, and mortals who so easily fell to their knees before her charm were incredibly boring creatures.
They were weak, fragile, and far too easy to conquer.
But the young man standing before her…
he was different.
This youth rejected her charm with ease; he looked at her not as an object of worship, but as a lesser entity, subjugating her with a mere glance.
Natsu’s absolute dominance did not shatter Aphrodite’s pride; rather, it shattered the walls of boredom she had built up over thousands of years.
The irritation and humiliation that had previously burned in Aphrodite’s chest evaporated without a trace, replaced by an attraction so intense it gave her goosebumps.
The blush on her cheeks deepened.
Her cold smirk melted into a small, pure smile—soft and overflowing with yearning.
For the first time in the history of creation, the Goddess of Love had finally found an existence she truly desired.