Zeus looked at his beloved Hestia, his heart bathed in endless warmth.
At any time, so long as Hestia was by his side, there was always that soothing warmth and peace that could calm everything.
Holding Hephaestus, he pressed his cheek to his son's little face and quietly told him, "My child, you must forever remember this warmth that comes from the 'Fire of Warmth.'"
"This warmth is eternally indispensable. Even we immortal gods cannot do without it."
"Remember, gods do not exist because of solitude."
The newborn Hephaestus did not yet understand the true meaning of these words.
But he could feel that flicker of flame in the beating of his heart.
He could feel the warmth from his mother goddess and his aunt; he could feel the exquisitely beautiful atmosphere.
He liked this moment: a family of gods sitting together, chatting and embracing, with warmth and closeness binding all the gods tightly together.
However, Zeus was not allowed to linger in the temple for long.
With him there, the many goddesses never chatted quite so freely.
In truth, Zeus himself felt a bit awkward too; after all, he never knew when someone might lob a mild, passive-aggressive barb at him.
He set the child down, shook his head, and strolled out of the Temple of Procreation, as lighthearted as wind somersaulting over the clouds.
With Hestia—the warmest flame in the cosmos—as the glue of the entire family, the atmosphere of this household was truly warm and well-ordered!
At this rate, the one-big-quilt dream wasn't out of reach!
After all, with that warm holy fire keeping the covers toasty, there was no way anyone would start a fight just because the bed was cold.
The family vibe right now was simply perfect!
Indeed, this home could not do without Hestia!
The irredeemably shameless God-King was so pleased with himself he was about to lose all restraint.
He kept marveling at how incomparably fortunate Hephaestus was.
His birth mother was Hera, the queen of procreation; his godmother was Metis, the sovereign of wisdom.
His aunt Hestia had bestowed the sacred "Fire of Creation" upon him even before he was born; another aunt, Demeter, had personally promised to treat him as her own child.
And Eurynome, Adrasteia, Ida, Leto, and Asteria—great goddesses who mostly held authority over protecting or tending to infants—would tend to him together.
This was as golden a start as ever could be.
What do you call this? The entire pantheon guarding a fledgling!
But that was only natural.
As the God-King's firstborn, even if he could never inherit the throne, he was born to enjoy such boundless favor.
If a God-King could not grant partiality and protection to his own beloved and his child, then his so‑called "protection of all beings" would be nothing but an empty and hypocritical slogan.
True universal love is always rooted in the most genuine private love.
If one does not give one's love to one's beloved and one's children, then to whom should it be given?
Love the small family first, then the great one.
A god who does not know how to love his own little family could never truly love and protect the greater "family" beyond.
Love is, by nature, "selfish"; great love is the most "greedy" love.
Hmm…
That none of the children can ever inherit the God-King's throne is also a good thing; at least they won't be driven to fight over the crown.
It also helps them stay united and affectionate; even if they squabble, it won't be to the death.
A happy occasion indeed.
And his firstborn would be a warm and generous god; with such a good big brother setting the tone, the family atmosphere would only improve.
After all, even if big brother has a good temper, a hammer to the head still hurts…
Meanwhile, in the Underworld, a certain goddess of the night who preferred not to be named—but whom the entire cosmos knew—was on the verge of going mad with jealousy.
The upheaval when the God-King's firstborn was born—"earth‑shaking" was far too mild a phrase.
It had been a grand divine miracle in which the entire universe, and even all "real existence" and "endless void," was completely churned by the God-King's wild and peerless might.
The laws quivered, the runes resounded, the star‑seas heaved like tides, and even Tartarus had wailed to welcome the God-King's firstborn.
The God-King's love for his firstborn was beyond question.
And how much of that love was because this firstborn was conceived with Hera?
The Goddess of Night did not dare think too hard about that.
Even the passing of that thought in her heart was enough to drive her mad with jealousy.
At the mere brush of that notion, jealousy surged like a formless, shapeless night tide, rolling up from the deepest Underworld to batter the shores of night.
The beast of envy, born in her heart who knew when, broke its shackles at that thought and raged, gnawing at the tip of her heart.
Trackless yet real, a black tide, fueled by the mistress of night's jealousy and love, was already roiling madly through the entire Underworld.
It was not any material thing, but pure, substantive "night" itself, churned to fury.
The Underworld, which had held some faint silver‑gray glow thanks to the Underworld Moon, was now smothered by clotted darkness with not a glimmer of light left.
Pure, absolute night—like a curtain, like a sea, like the pulse of an abyss—shrouded everything completely.
Even ghosts adept at traveling in darkness could no longer see their own outlines.
Wrathful night delivered to every being in the Underworld the ultimate fear, as if they had sunk into eternal nothingness.
Hades slumped helplessly and powerlessly upon his divine seat, yanked a strip of flowing darkness as if pulling a blanket, and threw it over his head.
Sleep, sleep!
He could not be bothered with this misery.
But what infuriated the Goddess of Night even further arrived in short order.
In the midst of her desperate waiting, the son of the goddess of wisdom—Metis—was born as well.
When "Wisdom" drew for "Power" the blueprint that leads to "Success," when "Reason" found for "Authority" the most perfect "path,"
that great god, the crystallization of the Highest God-King and Supreme Wisdom's love, descended amid gentle and solemn light under the goddesses' held breath.
Countless golden threads of logic surfaced in the cosmos like an invisible, self‑weaving grand equation.
In the void, the keyholes of countless "problems" and the keys of "answers" appeared, collided, then fit perfectly, giving off crisp, pleasant "clicks" like the strings of the universe being plucked.
The embodiment of "Fulfillment," "Method," "Opportunity," "Adaptability," "Success," and "Abundance"—Boros—after Hephaestus, truly descended.
He was a god who loved to smile; unlike his elder brother's steadiness, he was more optimistic and resilient, confident and keen.
He had slightly wavy short hair, half gold and half purple, and his eyes were naturally dual‑toned, likewise half gold and half purple.
His looks were not as stalwartly handsome as his brother's, but more delicate—much more like his mother.
At his birth, Zeus also personally created for him, within the order of Heaven, a supreme artifact as his birth gift.
This artifact was named Automatia (Ατοματα), meaning "Self‑Forming Instrument."
It took "method" for its bones, "opportunity" for its veins, was nourished by "effort," sutured by "success," and born of "completion."
It was the ultimate condensation of "fate" and "effort" joined, the concrete manifestation of "method" and "opportunity" perfectly combined.
This instrument was "self‑forming" itself.
It could cause all things to self‑organize into upward systems; it could let effort and accumulation, like water following the terrain, find their own course.
It symbolized the supreme philosophy of "things moving on their own; opportunities forming of themselves."
When "preparation" meets "opportunity," "success" naturally happens.
Under his mother Metis's special limitation, Boros was also born in the form of a child, about the same apparent size and age as Hephaestus.
This was Metis's gentle restraint, and the deepest gift of a mother's love from the goddess of wisdom.
It was the foundational constraint upon "Fulfillment" and "Growth": everything begins from what is "teachable and moldable."
Moreover, Metis solemnly asked Hera to be Boros's sole godmother.
Hera did not hesitate and gladly agreed.
This was not a mere return gift, but the stoutest trust and mutual guardianship between goddesses.
Thus, from birth, by the joint decision of Hera and Metis, Boros learned and grew alongside Hephaestus under the instruction of the goddesses.
Their growth would not be as slow as that of mortals.
A month of their growth equaled a mortal year.
Until, for the moment, these two most important joyous events on Olympus had both reached a temporary resting point.
Seizing the chance while his beloved goddesses were all highly interested and wholly absorbed in the fresh task of caring for the children,
the slippery God-King, seeing the favorable winds, immediately prepared to take this fine opportunity to slip out of Olympus and go "fool around"~~~!
He really had to go now.
Lady Night was close to losing her mind.
Her recent messages had escalated from chains of complaints, longing, cooing, and pleas into out‑of‑bounds threats.
Just a short while ago, in the divine mind‑channel, her last "gentle reminder" was that if he didn't come, she would devour the entire Underworld!
Though that was unlikely.
But not necessarily impossible.
Who could guarantee what a supreme and eternal goddess, driven half‑mad by jealousy and love, might do?
As before, the instant Zeus stepped into the Underworld, the Goddess of Night sensed him clearly.
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