Guild Wars

Gabriel was furious. She had been put in charge of the entire Withering Plains Zone as the highest authority. As their leader, she had made sure that most of her best Angels had also been assigned to this place.

Together they had spent centuries slowly winning back the land through their efforts. It was due to her presence that Barrado had commented that Draco being assigned to this place could technically be considered good.

However, all of that hard work was now up in smoke. Even though her Angels had escaped, same as most of the True Gods, the entire Withering Plains was now nothing but a giant crater that would struggle to house life for centuries on end!

…

Okay no, that was not why Gabriel was furious, not even slightly. The real reason she was furious was because she did not understand what was going on with her at this moment. A few hours ago, her heart had skipped a beat, as if something important that would change her life forever was about to happen.

That ominous feeling had grown exponentially until a few seconds ago when the moon broke from the sky. At that moment, Gabriel felt as if destiny itself had grabbed a hold of her and made her act.

First, she inexplicably teleported to where Draco was and then glanced at him. The moment she saw him… Gabriel did not even know how to describe how she felt at that moment.

After that, she actually… actually grabbed him and personally brought him back!

That was what baffled her the most. As a dignified True God of the highest order, and a beauty on par with the Goddess of Beauty, she had been coveted by many males since the old era.

She had developed a deep dislike and disdain for the male species that could not control their banal and hedonistic urges around her. Initially, it had been just at the level of a mild dislike and disdain, but it had grown to its current height when she found a pig race True God masturbating to a nude caricature of her drawn by another True God.

That caricature had been drawn by a True God with an art related Law, so its realism had been very high. Even Gabriel had panicked when she had first lay her eyes on it, believing that someone had captured an image of her naked.

However, when she found out the truth she had been furious. As it turned out, that artist True God had been secretly selling her nude caricature to other male True Gods, especially the lustful Dragon race, in order to make some Divine Crystals on the side.

When she had captured him and interrogated him, he had shamelessly claimed it was his 'side hustle' and she should not be angry about it. After all, she was a lofty Goddess who did not care about the rest of they, the 'plebeians', and felt she was better than them, so she could use this chance to prove it.

The disregard and confidence in the fellow's eyes had caused Gabriel to snap and punish him severely. She then mobilized the Angels to go on a crazy witch hunt for all those caricatures and made it a crime to possess a single one.

It had caused a storm back then and many weaker True Gods had been implicated. As for the powerful, in light of their guilt, her value and their covetousness for her beauty, they had allowed Gabriel to have her tantrum unbridled.

Eventually the war had happened and the Dragon race ended up slaughtered. Despite disliking the race, she still boldly stood on their side at the time because she could not stand to see the innocent being slaughtered and refined by that dog Sigurd.

Then the Grey Rot interrupted that war near the end and forced the survivors to band together to fight back. Till date, Gabriel had been fighting at the frontlines to reclaim the land and had long forgotten about this.

But seeing Draco, and the events she did around him, dredged up this old hatred. What caused Gabriel to be even more livid was that she could not muster any of this hate towards him. Most of it was towards herself.

In that moment she had gazed upon him, her body, soul and spirit trembled greatly. It was as if they were cheering endlessly. Her very being rejoiced down to the deepest cell that she had laid eyes upon him and was in close proximity to him, as if this was the greatest jackpot ever.

Her essence told her that this was it, this was what she had been subconsciously looking for ever since she came into being. The wait was over and the search could come to an end. She could hang up her boots and reap the fruits of her patience.

Gabriel had found her other half, the being that was created to complete her, the coalescence of her very destiny.

All of that was Draco.

At that moment, she felt a mixture of joy and endless disgust. For even as her body, spirit and soul rejoiced, her mind was untouched and unfazed, causing her reaction to be what it was, and led to her current fury.

Looking at Draco who was scrutinizing her in a slight daze, she felt even more disgust. This was her damned Soulmate, just another male beast who was enamored by her physical form and could not extricate himself?

Gabriel's eyes flickered with killing intent. She raised a hand to use a skill and eradicate Draco from this world. The True Goddess could tell that he only had an Intermediate Law and despite the powerful move he just pulled, there was no way he could do it again so quickly.

Besides, it was obviously a large scale skill that would take time to strike and in that time, she could kill him a hundred times over with her Supreme Law of Holy Light. With this thought in mind, Gabriel's hands flickered with a bright light.

However, her hand stayed like that and did not move. Even the bright light began to wane and her palm dropped as her expression softened greatly.

No, what was she doing? How could she bear to harm him? He was just so perfect and so lovely, and so…

Gabriel's face changed as she woke up from her daze and felt terror course through her mind. She was truly going to kill him then, but something… no everything about her resisted it and even subtly influenced her that her actions were wrong.

Gabriel paled greatly as she realized what this meant. Seriously, she was fighting a one woman war with her mind against everything else that constituted her. How could she suppress the rest of her and win?

Thinking about this, she felt despair and sadness. Why did every living thing have to have a Soulmate? What if she didn't want her Soulmate at all? Was she supposed to forcibly like them and accept them?

Either that or she would be brainwashed by her very being into liking them?

Suddenly, her raised hand was grabbed and pulled. Gabriel was shocked to find herself suddenly in the embrace of Draco, who was smiling handsomely at her.

Looking into those green eyes that were filled with endless confidence and arrogance, feeling his strong body that contained such power that she could not fathom, had his hands around her waist that pulled her close and did not allow her to reject him…

Gabriel's entire body lit up like christmas lights. Her essence continued to cheer and feel joy, and even her mind trembled as she was lost in a momentary daze.

Oh how handsome he was. That smile could literally kill any woman, didn't he know that? How could he just get up and walk around like that, so perfect? What if he charmed other women with his lovely smile, the smile that should belong solely to her?

Gabriel suddenly snapped back into her senses and hurriedly pushed Draco away, breaking out of his embrace. Even in a deep panic like this, she did not use any force, instinctively not wanting to hurt Draco at all.

Draco allowed her to escape with a smile, but he was currently rubbing his temples with a grimace.

From the moment he had seen Gabriel's true form, he was shocked by her resemblance to Eva. However that was one thing, and he also felt a slight pull from his bloodline towards her, but that was it.

It wasn't anywhere as intense a turmoil as what Gabriel experienced. It wasn't just Gabriel but the strong pull Draco felt towards Roma, Hikari and Zaine had greatly weakened to the point of being a slight buzz from a great roar previously.

This was because he now had 100 branches of his bloodline and more. When he was below 100%, he had only 3 branches, Demon, Dragon and Devil. He had never found someone to trigger his Demon side, but Hikari had triggered his Dragon blood and Zaine his Devil blood.

Roma had triggered his human and Ultima Sunt side, which was why he felt so strongly about them and treated them only barely one step below Eva.

However, after Eva fixed her bloodline, her attractiveness to him had increased so strongly that he hardly even sought his other wives for sex and mostly tormented Eva day and night, though his Soulmate obviously loved it.

Then came 100% and Shuangtian. His pull towards Eva and Shuangtian became to the point of almost being one entity after reaching 100%, and his pull towards everyone else weakened to the lowest level.

When was the last time Draco had even paid them a visit, except the time he had helped them reach Rank 6?

It was sad when you thought about it, for Gabriel, for Zaine, for Roma and for Hikari, but it wasn't Draco's fault. He previously only had 3 Inheritances, yet now had 100 branches. Was he supposed to find a Soulmate for each and everyone of them?

This was why Shuangtian had given the 3rd condition, that the three of them could no longer abandon family no matter what. If Draco's bloodline pull towards them weakened, then he should cultivate his feelings for them and love them for who they were, not which part of his bloodline they resonated with.

Not only that, he couldn't just give women children out of pity like Rina or the twins, who he felt deserved it because the help they had rendered him in the previous timeline. He even fought for Maria because of what she meant to him in the previous timeline, and Draco was a sentimental person.

He was even considering giving Amber a child, and she didn't even mean much to him apart from being the caretaker of the AI!

Still, this was not the reason why Draco was rubbing his temples. The reason for that was simple and quite predictable, Eva's mental reaction to seeing Gabriel was on a similar level to that of the True Goddess.

Not only was she shocked, but her bloodline was pinging crazily. It was telling Eva that if she could capture Gabriel and make her one of her 'little sisters', she could greatly advance her Goddess of Light, Light Angel and Supreme Goddess branches would advance in Eternal Control by at least 1 point!

So as you could imagine, Eva was extremely restless and filled with greed. If it wasn't for the fact that Draco did not want to cause trouble and prevented her from traveling over to him, Eva would have come over to grab Gabriel at all costs.

Naturally, now that Draco was stopping her, Eva was furious and was causing trouble and creating a ruckus. This gave Draco a headache as it was exactly like your wife screaming in your ear and tearing you a new one.

Like every other man in this situation, Draco could only use the ancient techniques to tune himself out and pretend like he was listening, but was thinking of something else. Meanwhile, he sized up Gabriel and felt a hint of interest in her, because her reaction toward him revealed all her thoughts and inner struggle.