The goddess of Night lightly linked one arm through Zeus's, and with the other made an elegant wave toward the void ahead.
In an instant, within the darkness of the Underworld, a deep and stable dark passage was torn open.
At the far end of the passage lay the radiant little world that Zeus had once opened with his own hands and gifted to her, a world that always shone with the brilliance of thunder.
This small world was tightly bound to the main world by Zeus's primal thunder, and it would grow ceaselessly with the growth of the main world.
Now its scale was already immense. The diameter of the world alone equaled twenty suns in a row.
As the Heavenly Order of the main world was perfected, the internal laws of this little world evolved at a rapid pace.
By now it could be called a perfect world, its laws complete and its vitality abundant, with limitless potential for development.
Nyx gave a long, loving call toward the far end of the passage: "My dear child, come pay homage to your supreme, great Father."
No sooner had she spoken than the entire little world burst forth with endless light! Within ten thousand rays, a bright and noble, mature figure slowly condensed and appeared.
She was a peerlessly beautiful goddess of mysterious bearing!
Her attire fully inherited her mother Nyx's style, favoring the black that symbolizes night, wholly dignified, elegant, and magnificently noble.
Yet across that black ground were countless deep and splendid mysterious patterns woven from golden thunder and silver lightning, with faint light still flowing between the lines.
Her features, somewhere between maiden and young matron, were of incomparable beauty; her bearing was moon-clear and naturally refined; her skin carried, of its own accord, a faint warm-white sheen.
Her long hair shimmered with the purest golden-white lightning, yet it was in no way harsh to the eye—rather it brimmed with nobility, warmth, and sanctity.
With a single light step she crossed the night passage, followed the thunder-chain, and, as quiet as moonlight spilling over a threshold and yet radiant of itself, drifted to stand before Zeus.
She set a hand gracefully to her breast and bowed deeply to Zeus. "Hecate pays homage to my revered, great, and holy Father. Dear Father, Hecate has finally beheld your majestic presence. Thank you for granting Hecate existence."
With that, she stepped forward without affectation and gave Zeus an affectionate, daughterly embrace.
Holding this newborn child, Zeus understood everything at once.
It was that small world he had created; within it Nyx had newly gestated a supreme deity.
This newborn supreme goddess of a world was conceived by Zeus's world-origin power together with Nyx's night-origin power. Naturally, she was their child.
Zeus returned Hecate's embrace lightly, then looked to the expectant Nyx at his side and said with a genuine smile, "My dear, this truly is a surprise—and a great surprise."
"Our child is indeed like you and me—beautiful and formidable. You've worked hard to teach and care for our child so well."
Hearing Zeus's recognition, the goddess Nyx tightened her arm around his, her lovely face filled with a warm and contented smile. Softly she said, "It hasn't been long since this child gained true divinity. Without your linking this little world to the main world, she couldn't have been born to godhood."
In that moment the goddess of Night's deep eyes brimmed with unending tender feeling. Gazing dreamily at Zeus, she spoke in a voice that seemed to melt into the depths of his divinity: "My love, you have given me the most precious gift in the universe."
"All those treasured hopes I endlessly longed for through the boundless lonely nights—it was you, you who fulfilled my every expectation."
"I have named the world you gave me 'Aitheron' (Greek: 'aithr,' meaning 'light of the sky')."
"And our child, the miracle conceived of our love and power, I have named 'Hecate.' My love, do you like it?"
Zeus laughed heartily. "Like it? Of course I do! My love, how could I not?!"
The God-King lowered his head and gazed tenderly at the goddess of Night in his arms. "My Nyx, your love for me, deep as the night—"
As he spoke he turned his eyes to Hecate, who stood obediently to the side with a filial glow in her gaze. "—and this supreme fruit of our love, are both so radiant, so beautiful—I could not be more pleased."
Feeling the God-King's unreserved, ardent love, Nyx grew so happy she nearly melted.
She couldn't help flinging herself into Zeus's arms once more, heedless that her daughter stood beside them, casting aside all the reserve of a primordial goddess.
With a girlish lilt, she said softly, "Zeus, though our child has been successfully conceived, for now she has only the authority and honor of the world 'Aitheron.'"
"But in our vast main world, she… she is still a 'nameless' goddess—one without any office or honor. Whatever shall we do?"
The peerless goddess Hecate, standing demurely to the side, could not help clicking her tongue inwardly at these words.
Before herself—no, before all gods—the supreme, proud Mother now wore the winsome air of a little maiden. It was her first time seeing it.
But then she thought: since it was before the Father who had opened a new epoch for the universe—the greatest of all—such a demeanor from Mother could not be more natural.
Though not born directly in the main world, under Mother Nyx's nurturing and instruction, she knew all things of the main world.
As for how exalted and great her Father and Mother truly were—of that she was perfectly aware.
Thus, in her eyes turned toward her Father, there was nothing but the deepest adoration.
As a supreme goddess of a small world dependent on the main world, she could feel more directly than any deity the vastness and might of the main world.
Regarding the main world—no, regarding the supreme sovereign of all things, her creator, the God-King Zeus—she sensed even more clearly his absolute invincibility and inexhaustible power.
Aitheron might be called a small world only in comparison to the main world.
Taken on its own and set in the endless void, it would undoubtedly be an ultra-large world—of very high order of laws and extremely high material density!
In that world, to toss out a single rough stone would be enough to crush those lower-density gas giants.
Even so, compared to the supreme main world overseen by Zeus, such a world was but a grain of sand in an ocean.
To Zeus, it was no more than motes he could create by a mere motion of the hand.
By now, Zeus had been all but undone by the soft, singsong coaxing of the goddess Nyx in his arms.
He knew well that Nyx was asking honors for her child.
But she was his child too. That mother and daughter should wish for what was due them was only natural.
Zeus lowered his head and placed a pampering kiss upon that smooth, moon-bright brow, then chuckled softly: "That is easily done. I myself shall grant our dear child her honors."
"My love, rest easy. How could our sweet child lack honors of her own?"
No sooner had he spoken than Zeus tightened one arm around Nyx, and with the other lifted his hand.
With a flash of dazzling lightning, the Underworld's void shattered as if in a casual gesture, revealing within the nothingness the little world protected by thunder.
Calm as a cloud, Zeus extended a finger and pointed afar toward that world.
A chain of pure thunder leapt across the boundaries of dimension and space in an instant, and, obeying the God-King's will, bound the entire world of Aitheron without miss.
Then, beneath Hecate's gaze—full of shock and worship—he drew that vast little world of Aitheron straight out of the chaotic streams of nothingness and directly into the domain of the Underworld!
A mere touch of the God-King's power, and he accomplished a feat no god would dare imagine.
Far away upon the peak of Olympus in the Temple of Order, the goddess of Justice—diligently, meticulously supervising the operation of the universe's laws—perceived the great shift in law at the very instant of Zeus's act, springing from the God-King's own being.
Her all-seeing eyes pierced time and space to behold what transpired in the Underworld; she shook her head lightly, helpless yet indulgent.
She felt a twinge of pique. She too had sent a message to her beloved God-King—yet he had not come!
Even so, the Sacred Justice who doted on Zeus at once began to marshal the power of order, readying the law to receive a brand-new world into the main world's system.
Beside her, the three Fates who served as her aides traded glances heavy with meaning.
Then Atropos—the naughtiest, who had taken the guise of an old crone and was the Cutter of Fate—put on a creaky, severe air and said in extravagantly sardonic tones: "Ah—son of Kronos—once again he wields his supreme God-King prerogatives with abandon. Such a God-King, running roughshod, is truly a calamity to our universe."
She tilted her head slightly toward her Mother. "My most sacred Mother, who rules the Order of Justice—ought you not to act at once to uphold the sacred Heavenly Order and stop this 'outsider' who has not received your sacred authorization?"
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