Midnight Prince: Empire of Sin

The room's interior where the Divine Weapon of the mermaids was kept looked more similar to a shrine than anything else.

Then again, thinking about what was held in this place, there was nothing wrong with this style of interior design.

The room was small, with the picture of a woman wearing a blueish skirt while floating above the sea held in the very middle of the shrine-like structure that was the centerpiece of this room.

"This is a picture of Chalchiuhtlicue, our benevolent goddess. While we are children of the Lycaon, our origin lies in the sea and with the goddess."

There were different groups of mermaids and sirens and in fact, many of them had been created using divine essence such as Thalassa, the primordial sea in Greek mythology. [1] n.-01n

"Though, we became weaker because our goddess was slowly being forgotten by the people of this world."

Gods in general needed faith to sustain their existence and influence on the material realm. But what gods needed more than even faith was the memory and remembrance of the people. A forgotten god would find itself slowly weakening and using this occasion, its enemies would without a doubt attack to devour them in one go; thus, severing their existence.

While some gods who had managed to ascend through their own means did not need much faith, being forgotten was truly dangerous for any and all beings that had reached a certain level of power after their ascension.

"Nowadays, many of the gods use different subcultures to not be forgotten and they succeeded, sadly many others did not."

"Interesting."

Adam nodded, he had already heard about it from Eve, but having someone here tell him the same allowed him to understand once again how important the faith, remembrance, and other thingamajigs were for an ascender.

"So the divine weapons lost their glow because your gods are dead?"

"Gods do not really die. As long as their concepts exist, it's impossible to truly and definitely kill a god."

"Ah…"

Adam nodded though he wished to tell her that there existed an exception to the rule she mentioned. He had no interest in discussing this point any further.

"It's simply that during the expansion of the Christian Church, many religions were burned, changed, or entirely erased from the face of the earth. Their inquisitions were brutal and it negatively affected many of the gods and the religions we had going here. Meanwhile, the church would also steal the divinity and authority of those religions to increase its power and the power of God." [2]

Lucia was not too disheartened even as she said these words. After all, this was nothing new. Nearly all religions that existed had taken or used concepts that existed in previous religions after all. This was even more prevalent in old religions that worshipped many gods at the same time. Like the Hindu religion or Jainism…

"Stop wasting time. Just show it to me already."

Lucia reluctantly nodded to his words. In a way, she had been stalling for time, though she knew that it was useless in the end. This was simply a coping mechanism because she was about to become the greatest sinner of her clan. The sinner who had sold out one of the reasons for their existence.

'Everything is for survival.'

Sighing and rationalizing the choice in her mind over and over again, she swiftly typed a code before slowly opening a special box. In there, lay a transparent jewel of heterochromatic colors.

So beautiful… Adam was momentarily entranced and he immediately used his [Eyes of Truth] on the item to ascertain it's specifications.

[Divine Weapon—

Name: Pearl of the Sea King

Description: At the beseech of Chalchiuhtlicue, his brother Chalchiuhtlatonal, would bestow, every ten thousand years, a divine weapon to humans who worshipped the siblings so that they could brave the danger of the sea and protect their home. The dwindling of their powers affected the jewel and now it's nothing more than an artifact with no power merely a trace of the power of the olden times of glory.]

The [Eyes of Truth] was perhaps one of Adam's most useful skills though he knew he had yet to unravel the full powers of this skill. After all, it could connect to the Library of Akasha itself and easily obtain nearly all the information in the world and the entire universe. The full extent of the knowledge would only reveal itself to him when he fully mastered the skill. But until then he had to make do with what he had.

But he hadn't come here just to admire an old divine weapon.

'I need to see if it's possible.'

Why did Adam wish to go to France? Outside of having a bit more experience of the outer world and building up the name recognition of his identity The Magician, his goal had always been clear.

— The Divine Weapon.

A divine weapon was not necessarily a must-have in his future endeavors. Adam had confidence in his growth potential and in a way, Genesis could already be considered as a Divine Weapon. One of the highest order. Or even further than what a Divine Weapon could encapsulate. It was just way too versatile.

But there was no way he was going to miss this occasion.

'Take the divine weapon and see what happens and if I can use my powers of Origin on it or not.'

Out of his three main authorities, only [Death] had been truly innate, and even then he had been able to fuse it and make this power truly belong to him.

All of this was thanks to one power. A power he still was unable to truly control but was his power nonetheless.

— Origin…

… The beginning of anything and everything. The authority he was born with.

Adam wetted his lips slightly due to the anticipation he was feeling.

He had once obtained the power of Dreams by taking it from Asmodeus. But what did this mean?

Did he steal or did he copy the authority from him?

This was one of the reasons he hadn't suggested using Cecilia's or Makoto's divine weapons. It wouldn't be pretty if he had been stealing it all along.

But here?

It wouldn't matter much no matter what he did.

'Now then… What do I do with this?'

He frowned a little as his hand approached the pearl before he touched it quietly.

"Oh my…"

He jolted a little while Lucia, who had been observing on the sides opened her mouth wide in surprise. After all, even though it was for an instant, she had seen the pearl shine in radiant colors.

This was something that had never happened in all the years she had been keeping this pearl with her.

Grinning widely, Adam nodded to himself. He knew that he had made the right bet. Though it was slight, he had without a doubt, made a connection with the Divine Weapon before him.

'Should I use my blood then?'

His blood had many unexpected usages and the power in it didn't need any more introduction. In fact, it was even a bit too potent for his liking.

'Furthermore, this might actually be useful for what I am about to do.'

Adam started to plan the flow of events in his mind. Put his blood, obtain the power, give the jewel to Makarov for studying then bring it with him on the 9th.

"The fated day is approaching…"

"Pardon?"

"Nothing of concern to you…"

He pocketed the pearl and stretched a little before saying, "You have such a forlorn look on your face right now. Are you regretting the deal?"

"I would be lying if I said I was not. But such is the destiny of the weak. I guess we simply weren't destined to have it."

Lucia gave a bitter smile. Rather than regretting one could say that she was sad. Truly and utterly sad. It was as if the daughter she had been raising for years ignored her and only smiled at a complete stranger.

Her clan had worshiped this pearl for centuries and yet, one random man appeared and it reacted so beautifully.

It was a truly pitiful thought.

"The weak, huh? Then… What would you do if I said I had a way for you to become stronger?"

"What do you mean?"

Adam grinned, "What would you do to obtain the same power as your ancestors?"

"Outside of selling my soul? Everything."

"You won't have to sell to your soul. That… I promise…"

He approached her, forcing her to take a few steps back until they reached the very walls of the compound. Then, placing a hand against the wall, he lowered his head and looked down at the woman with a deep and ominous shine in his eyes.

Lucia, despite being slightly shorter than him, was undoubtedly a very buxom woman who held a mature charm to her.

But his interest went beyond simple lust and a sense of hedonism. He needed to see what would happen should he share his power with someone who was from the supernatural world.

"You won't have to sell your soul. But…"

He muttered to her ears, causing her to shiver every so slightly…

"... You will have to sell your body. Nothing much now, is it…?"

(AN: Thinking about. The last smut was like 120 chapters ago. Damn. Sometimes I forget this was supposed to be a story about a Gigolo.)

[1]: She was the primordial goddess (protogenos) of the sea. Mingled with Pontos (Pontus), her male counterpart, she produced the fish and other sea creatures. Thalassa was the literal body of the sea and in the fables of Aesop, manifests as a woman formed of sea water rising from her native element.

Poseidon and Amphitrite, the anthropomorphic king and queen of the sea, were the elemental Pontos and Thalassa rulers.

Thalassa is depicted in Greco-Roman mosaics as a matronly woman, half-submerged in the sea, with crab-claw horns, seaweed for clothes, and a ship's oar in her hand.

[2]: So before anyone attacks me. One, I am Christian and believe in God. But, there is no denying that Christians stole or simply used many pageant celebrations. I'mma give two simple examples.

Firstly, we have Christmas. In ancient Rome, there was a feast called Saturnalia that celebrated the solstice, which was celebrated in ancient Rome on December 25. So when Christianity became the official religion in a sense, in Rome, they were able to fix this date. Another thing is we have this tradition of kissing someone under the mistletoe. Mistletoe, though, was started by the Druids, who believed it was an all-powerful healing item from the sacred oak tree.

Secondly, we have Easter eggs. It came from Anglo-Saxon festivals in the spring to celebrate the pagan goddess Eostre. She represented the dawn in spring, and eggs were buried and eaten during the festival.