The young man treated the pain as thin air. Even as his nose crumbled and fell off his face, the only thing he could think about was comforting his everything.
With his other hand, he stuck it through the light barrier and once more approached his wife with it. However, contrary to the last time, this hand softly landed on the top of her bed of gorgeous pink hair. He then began to gently rub back and forth.
This affectionate gesture snapped Aphrodite out of her stupor. "W-We can figure something else out! Pl-Please, j-just don't leave me...!" She screamed and mumbled with what little sanity she had left.
"Pl-Please..."
The moment she went to grab her husband's other arm, Aphrodite realized that there was no longer a hand left to grab.
All life left her face.
Slowly, she crept her eyes upward, and every inch of the way, her heart was filled with hope. When left with nothing else, only hope could provide light unto thee.
However, this time was not one of those times.
"H-Husband," Aphrodite despondently mumbled, looking right at the smiling young man. "You're still here," she said with relief. "That must mean you finally came to reason. From now on, you shouldn't scare me like that."
No response.
Aphrodite furrowed her brows and puffed her cheeks. "You shouldn't ignore me like that, you big dummy!" She grumbled while turning her head off to the side. "Do you have any idea what you almost just did!? And now you ignore me... You're just a big baka!"
She refused to look at that snide smirk she just knew was plastered on her husband's face. Yet, after a few seconds of still no response, she turned her face back toward her husband, expecting to see his cheeky expression.
"That's enough joking around, my love—"
Silence.
For an instant that felt like an eternity, a deafening hush overwhelmed all of existence.
The dead Great Chaos Gods outside spoke not a word, the eloquent immortal birds sang no tunes, and the morning dew droplets no longer dripped off their perches.
They say that silence is far more terrifying than loud noise.
And they would be correct.
"He's gone..."
"I'm alone..."
They say that love conquered all.
They would be lying.
As the God of Love, Aphrodite was forced to never fall in love, for if she did, dire consequences would await her.
To bypass this curse, she decided to give full control over her emotions to a single mortal man, effectively making the Chaos Law of Love believe that he was in love with himself.
She trusted the mortal. She trusted him with everything she had. In no alternate reality did she believe he would take advantage of her and alter her emotions by force.
Fortunately, Aphrodite was correct in this blind faith. The young man would never do anything to harm her or make her feel something that she didn't want to feel.
However, that didn't mean the young man wouldn't do what was necessary if it really came down to it. And although his wife never spoke of this unique usage, he was able to make his guesses.
If ever the Goddess of Love were to fall in love, then the consequences would be dire. Yet they would also allow the Goddess of Love to briefly break past all limitations and exceed the Grotto Realm's power limiters.
As the young man had taken over the Goddess of Love's emotions, he had full control over this unique usage. All it took was an infusion of his love for her and then a follow-up of isolation.
After isolating the emotion of love that he held for her within the bounds of the Chaos Law of Love, the young man was then able to convince the Law that this, too, was his emotion. (Which it was.)
But rather than have the Chaos Law believe that the Goddess of Love fell in love with her emotion, the young man was able to convince it that he fell in love with himself.
This caused the Law to become confused, and while taking advantage of its inability to reverse the problem, the young man unleashed the full immensity of his love for Aphrodite. This resulted in an all-out breakdown of the Law, and with nothing left to restrict it, the 'dire consequences' were delivered.
If ever the Goddess of Love were to fall in love, she would die, forget her love, be reborn, and then a curse would be placed on her core existence, unable to be removed.
This curse would make it impossible for her to ever again fall in love.
Call it a play on destiny or a sick joke by an evil god, but it was the truth. It was Azmodeus's truth.
....