Five years of peace.
Five years during which Maxime had almost forgotten what it meant to be a god at war.
Almost.
He jolted awake, heart pounding, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. The nightmare was already fading—Zeus's lightning, Odin's spear, golden blood on stone—but the sense of urgency remained.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[COSMIC DISTURBANCE DETECTED]
[SOURCE: UNKNOWN]
[THREAT LEVEL: CRITICAL]
Shit. The Codex hadn't activated in years.
Beside him, Nyx opened her eyes—spiraling galaxies glowing faintly in the darkness of their room.
"You felt it too?" Her voice was tense.
"Yeah. What is it?"
Before she could answer, a small voice called out from the next room.
"Daddy? Mommy? There's something weird…"
Maxime and Nyx exchanged a look, then rushed toward their daughter's bedroom.
Lyra—five years old, violet eyes inherited from Maxime, hair like living night from Nyx—was sitting up in her bed, surrounded by an aura of pink and black power pulsing erratically.
[LYRA — LEVEL 12]
[PRIMORDIAL/DIVINE HYBRID]
[STATUS: UNCONTROLLED POWER AWAKENING]
"Daddy, it hurts." Tears welled in her eyes. "There are voices in my head. Lots of voices. They want something."
Maxime instinctively activated Truth Sight.
[MANA: 1400/1500]
What he saw made his blood run cold.
Threads of connection—not his Soul Bonds, something different—were extending from Lyra toward… everywhere. Hundreds of threads. Thousands. Linking their daughter to gods across the world.
And through those threads flowed desire. Raw. Uncontrolled. Primordial.
"Oh no," Nyx whispered. "She inherited the fragment of Passion."
"Not just Passion," Maxime said, examining the connections more closely. "She inherited a diluted version of all the fragments. That's why she's level twelve at five years old."
Lyra sobbed as the aura intensified.
"It's too much! Stop wanting things! STOP!"
The cabin trembled. Outside, reality itself rippled.
Maxime knelt in front of his daughter, taking her small hands in his.
"Lyra, listen to me. Breathe. You can control this."
"I can't! It's too strong!"
"You can. You're my daughter. You're stronger than this."
He activated Bond Sense, forming a temporary connection between them—not a full Soul Bond, just enough for her to feel his calm, his certainty.
Gradually, the aura stabilized. The erratic connections quieted.
Lyra collapsed into his arms, exhausted.
"What's happening to me?"
Maxime looked at Nyx, who seemed just as worried as he was.
"You're growing," he said simply. "And your power is growing with you."
Which was true. But incomplete.
The real answer was more complex: their daughter had inherited an unstable version of Eros's fragments. As she grew, those powers would awaken. And without training, without control…
She could become exactly what the Council feared—an uncontrolled Eros.
Or worse.
The next morning, Maxime convened a meeting through the Soul Bonds.
Freyja arrived first, emerging from a shadowed portal. She had aged—not physically, gods didn't age—but her eyes carried the weight of five years of divine politics.
"Maxime. Nyx." She embraced them briefly. "I felt the disturbance last night. The entire Norse pantheon did. What happened?"
"Lyra," Nyx answered simply.
Freyja blinked.
"Lyra? Your five-year-old daughter caused a cosmic disturbance I felt from Asgard?"
"She inherited the fragments," Maxime explained. "A diluted version, but… unstable. Last night, they all awakened at once."
"Shit."
Xochiquetzal and Chang'e arrived together, followed by Ares. All wore the same worried expression.
"The Council felt it too," Ares reported. "Zeus is calling an assembly. He wants to know if you broke the Styx oath—if you're accumulating power again."
"I didn't do anything!"
"But your daughter did," Chang'e said calmly, taking a seat. "And in the Council's eyes, she is an extension of you. A potential threat."
Anger flared in Maxime's chest.
"She's five years old!"
"She's also level twelve with powers inherited from a Primordial," Freyja replied gently. "I'm on your side, Maxime. But you have to understand—from the Council's perspective, this is exactly the worst-case scenario they feared."
"A new Eros," Xochiquetzal added. "Younger. Potentially stronger. And completely untrained."
A heavy silence fell.
Finally, Nyx spoke.
"What do you suggest?"
"Training," Chang'e said immediately. "Lyra must learn to control her powers before they control her. Or before the Council decides she's too dangerous to live."
"I can train her," Ares offered. "Combat, discipline, physical control."
"So can I," Xochiquetzal added. "Aztec techniques for channeling divine energy."
"And I'll handle meditation and emotional regulation," Chang'e said.
Freyja nodded.
"I can negotiate with the Council. Reassure them that Lyra will be properly trained. That she won't become a threat."
Maxime wanted to protest—his daughter wasn't a threat, she was a child—but Truth Sight showed him the reality.
Without training, Lyra would become dangerous. Not out of malice, but by accident. Her power was growing faster than her maturity.
"Alright," he said at last. "But she stays with us. The training happens here, in our home. Not in some divine academy or temple."
"Acceptable," Freyja said.
"There's something else," Ares added, uneasy. "Last night's disturbance… it didn't just alert the Council."
"What else?"
"Young gods. Ones inspired by you over the past few years. They want to meet Lyra. Some think she could be… a leader. A symbol."
A headache began forming behind Maxime's eyes.
"She's FIVE YEARS OLD."
"I know. But the movement you inspired—the young gods rejecting the Council's authority—they're looking for a new figure. And your daughter…"
"Is the heir of Eros," Xochiquetzal finished. "Whether we like it or not, she's symbolic."
Maxime looked out the window, where Lyra was playing in the snow, unaware of the political storm she had unleashed.
Five years of peace.
Apparently, it was over.
A portal opened without warning—uninvited, unannounced.
Loki stepped through, smiling as always.
"Did I hear there was a crisis? I'M HERE TO HELP!"
"Absolutely not," Maxime and Nyx said in unison.
"Too late! I already told everyone I'm Lyra's honorary uncle. It's official now."
"Loki—"
"ALSO," he cut in, his smile fading, "there's something you need to know. Last night's disturbance? It woke something up."
"What?"
"Someone. In Tartarus."
Maxime's blood froze.
Tartarus. The prison of the gods. Where Zeus locked away his most dangerous enemies.
"Who?"
Loki looked at them gravely.
"Chronos. The Titan of Time. Zeus's father."
"He's been imprisoned for millennia," Freyja murmured.
"Was," Loki corrected. "Lyra's disturbance cracked his chains. He's not free—not yet—but he's awake. And furious."
Maxime activated Temporal Sight without thinking.
[MANA: 1300/1500]
Futures unfolded—and all of them, all of them, showed chaos.
Chronos unleashed meant war. Not between pantheons, but against the very order of reality itself.
And at the center of it all, his five-year-old daughter—an unwitting catalyst for a conflict that could destroy the divine world.
"Shit," he said succinctly.
"Ever eloquent," Nyx replied dryly.
Outside, Lyra laughed as she sledded through the snow, unaware that she had just accidentally triggered Arc 2.