Chapter 195: Hallowed Domain

The surrounding temperature plummeted, nearly quenching the fire on the torch with it.

A soft fragrance like the smell of ripe fertility mixed with honey and flowers, yet also tinged with a soft innocence and comfort, overwhelmed Finn’s senses.

Dangerous! This was a terrible idea!

Finn’s blood boiled hotly as his hormones went on rampage. He clenched his jaw hard and swallowed repeatedly, thinking rapidly of a way to calm his body.

He immediately activated [Corrupt Input], trying to latch onto the intangible concept of “desire” he felt for Lucine presently. But it proved more difficult than he expected.

It felt as though he was trying to deny the existence of Luna, who had descended through Lucine’s body. Her passive seduction was a part of her divine attribute as a Goddess, so invalidating or scrambling that aspect of Her was akin to denying her divinity.

Finn’s mana strained harshly, until his divine essence ignited to compensate.

Immediately, his appearance changed.

His divine mask morphed out of his face. The bone-white melding with his skin as he continued his efforts to calm his roiling hormones.

The eye sockets of his mask glowed bright green in the cave that had gone nearly dark, the flame of the torch sputtering like it was about to give out. Those eyes locked onto Lucine — or rather, the Goddess, Luna, who stared at him with a slight smile on her full lips that drew Finn’s attention in like a moth to a flame.

He found himself taking a step forward involuntarily while his mind burned with the will to do otherwise. But his body simply wouldn’t listen, even in this divine state.

He could feel his divine essence burning rapidly. He was eating through the meagre amount that remained at a pace so fast, he would burn through everything within minutes.

But at least it seemed to be working. The appeal he could feel from Luna lessened very slightly, near-imperceptible, but it allowed him more control over his overly eager body.

A slight look of surprise crossed Luna’s ethereal features, before understanding dawned on her, and she pursed her lips.

Finn immediately felt desire surge within him with renewed vigor, dispersing all progress he’d made in controlling his body.

The effect more than doubled, affecting even his mind, making him think that it wasn’t such a bad idea to copulate with such an ethereal beauty, supple and brimming with fertility.

He could barely think straight at this point, entranced by her moon-blue eyes that grew larger in his view.

But suddenly, everything calmed.

He found himself standing, face mere inches away from Luna’s, her eyes the only thing in his view, her scent overwhelming his olfactory senses, her heat felt against his skin, hot and pulsing.

But the appeal was no longer there.

He stepped back calmly and breathed out in relief, sweat trickling down his neck.

Luna was smiling at him in surprise and what looked to be acknowledgement as he stepped back, widening the gap further and taking himself in more carefully.

Around Finn, a distorted glow like a second skin pulsed softly. The sensation was strange, not quite tactile, but present nonetheless. He could feel it as a boundary between himself and everything else, a layer of distorted reality clinging to his form.

It had crystallized in the moment of greatest pressure, when his divine essence had burned brightest and his will to remain himself had been absolute. Something deep in his instincts recognized what had happened, though he had no conscious memory of learning about this. Yet the knowledge sat in his mind with the comfortable familiarity of muscle memory, as if his soul remembered even when his mind didn’t.

Looking at it with his passive Error Vision, he could see in more detail that it was reality bending in improbable ways, warping and shifting randomly like a glitch, but on the micro scale.

“Consider that a gift to you for our first meeting. A proof of my sincerity.” Luna spoke, and it sounded like the voice of the soft moonlight, peaceful and serene. That was the only way Finn could describe it.

His brows furrowed slightly as he realized another thing. He could sense that her voice carried a great seductive tilt to it beyond just peace and serenity, but that seductive tilt that would be dangerous to him was “filtered” by this divine layer of second-skin on him.

​”You have successfully manifested your Hallowed Domain,” Luna said. “It is basic for now, clinging only to your form, but it will shield your ego from the passive authority of other Gods and divine beings.”

Finn raised a brow behind his mask. It was the confirmation of the very conjecture he had just reached.

“Even with such… ’purposeful urging’ as I just provided, many newborn divines struggle to anchor their Hallowed Domain. To do so within minutes is remarkable,” she explained, her eyes trailing over the shimmering, distorted air around him. “It goes to show your talent. Though I suppose it is to be expected, considering your identity…”

Finn looked up at her directly. And immediately, a violent pulse rippled across the Hallowed Domain coating his skin. His domain had just intercepted a fatal psychic attack that came simply from meeting the Goddess’s gaze.

It made him question Luna’s strength. This wasn’t the first time he was in the presence of a God or Goddess, descended through the body of their incarnate vessel. Thalassa and Nocturne were two such examples, yet their presence never gave him this level of passive coercion or oppression.

Either they were much less powerful than Luna was, or there was more at play when the two Gods had descended back then. A conscious effort to reign in their passive auras, perhaps?

Regardless of what it was, Finn was here now. And a feeling of grim gratitude for the ease his domain provided in the face of Luna’s presence couldn’t help but surge in his heart as he asked a question in return to her last statement:

“…And what, exactly, is my identity?”

Luna smiled. A move that sent another ripple through Finn’s domain as he processed her striking visual beauty.

“That… I cannot speak. Notyet. But I can speak of other things, from which you may derive your own truth,” she said.

Finn paused, then nodded.

“Then please, speak.”

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