"Huff... huff. Now that's a lively fight!" Bella was slightly out of breath as she surveyed the battlefield.
"Turn the cannons around. We're helping Calypso attack the sea monster!" As a third party, she was free to choose her ally. The moment she saw the sea monster about to devour the Sea Goddess completely, she switched sides.
Provoking Calypso and the sea monster into fighting each other had been a desperate measure.
She attacked whichever side was stronger.
Calypso wanted to stop fighting. Every second was not merely consuming divine power—it was consuming her life. She wanted to flee, but the sea monster that formed her body refused. Its consciousness was simple and direct: it wanted to devour her. As a result, even though the Sea Goddess knew Bella harbored malicious intentions, she still had no choice but to deal with the sea monster first.
Whenever Calypso gained the upper hand, the sea monster's good friend Bella came to help it. Whenever the sea monster gained the upper hand, Bella rushed in to drag it down.
As their energy was rapidly depleted, Calypso's height of more than a hundred meters shrank little by little. By the time she completely erased the sea monster's consciousness, she stood less than three meters tall.
The Deep Ones had been annihilated. All four sea serpents belonging to Calypso had been torn apart. The sea-monster half of her body was withered and rotting, and only finger-thick tentacles remained, weakly slapping at the water.
All frenzy and evil had been expelled. The Sea Goddess had not only regained complete control of her body but also recovered her senses. She looked toward the Flying Dutchman nearby and saw every cannon aimed at her.
"Die, loathsome Sea Goddess!"
Even against a Sea Goddess with only a sliver of life remaining, Bella went all out. Numerous ghosts and vengeful spirits probed her defenses. Smaug, the Nun, and Jason launched a powerful assault. Bella delivered the final blow.
"You covet my power as well, lowly mortal? I will wait for you below! Hehehehe—!"
Bella drove Frostmourne through Calypso's heart. The blade pierced straight through her divine body, and the runes covering the two-handed sword completely destroyed her vitality.
Even in the final moment of her life, the Sea Goddess's words remained full of venom. Bella understood. The woman was already dying at her hands; surely she could be allowed a few curses.
When an ordinary god died, divine power could preserve the body for a very long time.
Calypso was different. Bella had exhausted every trace of her divine power. Before Bella's eyes, the divine body transformed into golden sand and vanished without a trace when the seawater swept through it.
Bella recited an incantation learned from the Book of Cagliostro. The runes within her two-handed sword released a cold glow. Drawn forth by magic, four masses of misty radiance resembling cyclones appeared in the previously empty water.
The cyclones tried to escape, but Frostmourne firmly bound all four in place.
"Holy shit! Four?" Even though Bella had anticipated something like this, she still cried out in shock.
Divine portfolios. Calypso's divine portfolios. Who would have imagined that this woman had possessed four of them without anyone knowing?
Relying on her knowledge, Bella identified the portfolios one by one.
The largest and brightest cyclone glowed deep blue and belonged to the sea. It was Calypso's principal portfolio, the Ocean Portfolio.
The brilliant-red cyclone was difficult to understand. Bella examined it for a long time before roughly identifying it as the Infatuation Portfolio. This infatuation differed from Aphrodite's Love Portfolio and fell closer to the realm of unrequited love.
The dark-green cyclone was the smallest and weakest, flickering like a candle in the wind that might go out at any moment. After careful observation, Bella concluded that it was probably the Fish-Man Portfolio. It had originally belonged to the sea monster, though she had no idea from what forgotten corner the creature had unearthed it.
The final cyclone was so dim that it was nearly invisible without close inspection. It also seemed to belong to the sea monster. This was the Secrets Portfolio, representing secrets that had yet to be revealed. It had existed within the sea monster's body. Bella guessed that some god of secrets from an unknown pantheon had hidden at the bottom of the ocean and, because it was simply too well concealed, had been swallowed whole by the sea monster...
The sea monster did not know how to use divine portfolios and relied only on instinctive devouring. Bella knew how they worked. Calypso's final words still seemed to echo in her ears, mocking her.
By claiming these portfolios, Bella would walk the same path as Calypso. The woman had said she would wait ahead for her, and that had not been an empty threat.
The Ancient One had warned Bella as well. For a mage who had reached a certain level, becoming a god was not difficult. The real problem was that the current environment did not suit gods. Constantly racking one's brains to maintain a divine body and divine power offered less freedom than being a mage in certain respects.
But not claiming them? No one could resist the temptation of a divine portfolio. Godhood meant infinite lifespan and divine power... limited divine power!
"Do I want them or not?" Bella asked herself. The answer was obvious. She did.
"Ocean, Infatuation, Fish-Man, and Secrets..." She reached out and lightly touched the cyclones representing the portfolios one by one.
She rejected the Fish-Man Portfolio immediately. It was complete garbage. It was also severely damaged and looked ready to disintegrate.
The Infatuation Portfolio suited her appearance and held decent prospects. If developed, it should be no weaker than Loki's Lies Portfolio. But it truly did not fit her personality. She had elderly relatives and young children to care for, an entire family depending on her, and was already busy every day. If an enormous crowd started pursuing her as well, she would be annoyed to death.
The Ocean Portfolio was the strongest and held the greatest potential. However... Calypso had not been a legitimate sea goddess of the Greek Pantheon. She had obtained her position from the Titan Atlas rather than through appointment by Zeus, the current king of the gods. Within the pantheon, she was rather like an official left over from a previous dynasty. If Bella followed her old path and returned to the Olympian Pantheon, Poseidon would still stand above her and suppress her. The thought alone was miserable.
The Olympian Pantheon was hardly friendly toward goddesses. Its reputation was terrible.
If Bella inherited the Ocean Portfolio, she would face Zeus, a lustful chief god who coveted her body, as an external threat, while Poseidon suppressed her within the pantheon. That road absolutely led to death.
"Secrets? Secrets that have yet to be revealed?" Bella thought for more than ten minutes before finally abandoning the powerful and promising Ocean Portfolio. Her gaze turned to the last and most inconspicuous one, the Secrets Portfolio.
She discovered that Calypso had not possessed much information worthy of being called an unrevealed secret. Most of the secrets the old woman had recorded amounted to Zeus sleeping with someone's daughter today, then sleeping with someone else's wife tomorrow. Did that count as a secret? What kind of fucking secret was that?
Why the hell had she spent every day watching Zeus?
Did Bella possess any "secrets that had yet to be revealed"? She did not dare think too deeply, because she knew far too much.
The Five Cosmic Entities, the Living Tribunal above them, the One-Above-All (OAA) above the Living Tribunal, and the Beyonders outside the Marvel Universe... Existences that even the Ancient One and Odin could neither perceive nor understand should all count as "secrets that had yet to be revealed," shouldn't they?