All in all, Pandora, especially this Pandora, who had endured so much suffering, was not the kind of femme fatale who would bring ruin to nations.
She understood how harsh reality could be, how fickle human warmth was.
Even though she had clung to Alaric as if he were a life-saving straw, she would never truly try to drown him in the bliss of indulgence.
The past few days had been nothing more than an eruption of pent-up emotions.
Now, the moment Alaric spoke, she pouted and acted spoiled for a short while, but soon obediently followed his arrangements.
And so, the two of them left that cave filled with traces of their love.
Outside, the flood still raged on, and it was becoming ever more terrifying.
The humans who had once been mired in war and strife no longer fought each other. Faced with this overwhelming natural disaster, mortals were too busy trying to survive to even think about fighting.
Zeus's younger brother, Poseidon, the god of the sea, was not content to be idle.
He hurried over to join in the destruction, summoning all the river gods.
"You should stir up raging waves, swallow the houses, smash the dams!"
They obeyed his command.
Poseidon himself took the field, trident in hand, striking the earth to carve a path for the floodwaters.
The rivers surged and roared, unstoppable. The flood rolled into the fields like a feral beast, sweeping away great pillars, temples, and houses.
The waters rose higher and higher. Before long, buildings were completely submerged, even the spires of the temples swallowed by the furious whirlpools.
In the blink of an eye, there was no distinction between land and water, the whole world was an endless, boundless expanse of surging waves.
Faced with the deluge, humans desperately searched for ways to survive.
Some scrambled up mountaintops; others set sail in wooden boats, drifting over submerged rooftops.
Fish thrashed in the tangled branches, while wild boars fled in panic across the mountainsides, only to be engulfed by the waves and drowned.
Groups of people were swept away; those who escaped the flood later starved to death on barren mountaintops.
In Phocis, the twin peaks of a single mountain still jutted above the waves, Mount Parnassus.
In the original myth, humanity had survivors, just as in the Christian story where Noah and his family lived to repopulate the earth, Greek myth also had such a couple: Deucalion and Pyrrha.
Deucalion was the son of Prometheus, and Pyrrha was the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora, at least, that was how the story originally went.
Setting aside the fact that Deucalion and Pyrrha were cousins, in this altered reality shaped by Alaric, the box had been opened on Pandora's wedding night.
She had never had the chance to become close to Epimetheus, let alone give birth to Pyrrha. As for Deucalion, perhaps he had been born, but he could not have been very old.
This great flood, coming decades ahead of schedule, devoured all humankind, leaving not a single soul alive.
The Olympian gods, led by Zeus, looked upon this ending with satisfaction. Their goal had finally been achieved: a perfectly justified cleansing of humanity.
Although the gods had set their scheme in motion, it was humans who had opened the box of disasters themselves.
The gods had merely wiped out the mortals already shrouded in calamity and filth. The gods, of course, were blameless.
But what they did not know was that, even as they surveyed the world in contentment, someone was watching them with eyes full of hatred.
"Those lofty beings… Do they think humans are nothing but toys in their hands? That they can grant life or take it at will, and we cannot resist? Are gods necessarily righteous?"
Wrapped in a massive magical bubble that kept out the floodwaters, Pandora spoke bitterly.
"Unfortunately, you're right." Though he had no blood ties to these humans, the sight still left Alaric feeling heavy-hearted.
"There's no such thing as absolute justice or evil in this world. At its core, it's survival of the fittest. Only the strong, the victors, can claim to be just.
The weak and the defeated don't even have the right to speak. Do you understand?"
"I… understand." Pandora let out a deep breath. "I will work hard to learn magic. I'll keep making myself stronger! I'll make them pay!"
"Then work hard." Alaric smiled faintly, ruffling her hair. "But before that, don't let hatred take over your heart. There's still a lot of beauty in life."
"I know." His words brought a radiant smile to her face. She clung tightly to him. "I still have you. As long as you're here, I won't be consumed by hatred."
Her words made Alaric feel the weight of his responsibility even more keenly.
After a moment's hesitation, he added, "Not all gods are so arrogant and cruel. There are still good ones… like Athena, like Artemis."
But Pandora only shook her head.
"Alaric, do you really trust them so much?" she asked, recounting her past.
"I once went to Zeus's temple to ask him for an answer, but he wouldn't even let me inside.
I thought about seeking out other gods, Hephaestus, who made my body; Aphrodite, who gave me beauty; Athena, who gave me wisdom and spirit, but none of them paid me any attention… Aren't they all equally heartless?"
"No, you're wrong." Alaric shook his head.
"At least Athena isn't like that. Just because she didn't answer you doesn't mean she hasn't acted. Since you closed the box, you haven't opened it again, have you?"
"Yes… why?" Pandora was puzzled.
Alaric reached into his dragonhide pouch and took out the box.
Though it had brought Pandora and the world such calamity, she had never abandoned it.
She wanted to look at it and remember that it was the gods who had given her such a cruel fate.
Once she had followed Alaric, naturally, the box was entrusted to him for safekeeping.
He opened the lid just a crack and had her look inside.
The interior was pitch black, yet there was no trace of the disasters and curses that had once filled it.
And as Pandora peered in through the narrow gap, she was startled to see a tiny point of light at the very bottom.
Though faint, the light shimmered with a beauty and allure beyond words, if one took the time to truly look.
It was not dazzling, nor was it intense. In fact, it wasn't powerful at all. Compared to the terrifying curses and disasters, it seemed weak and dim.
Yet despite having once been surrounded by all those horrors, this little light had never gone out. It remained exactly as it was, not radiant, but never extinguished.
Or rather, this fragile yet mighty light could never be extinguished.
For it was the first light to pierce the darkness before dawn, the Light of Hope.
Though unremarkable to the eye, it drew on the fuel of unyielding will and indomitable spirit to unleash its true power, the power to make those at the brink of despair refuse to give up, to fight on with all their strength without surrender.
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