Chapter 238: MILF GODDESS IS TOO SEXY

"Because they never saw you as a fake, you silly, stubborn boy," she murmured.

She cradled his cheek.

"Mira could have taken her mother and vanished the moment everything was alright, yet she clings to you because she sees the genuine boy beneath the masks. Emma had every right to kill you for the atrocities the original Eren committed, yet she fell for you."

"Norelia could have dissolved your contract the second the business was settled. Aria could have kept your engagement as a cold, strategic political alliance. Violet could have seen you as a ticket to a cure. But they chose you. Every single one of them looked into that chaotic, arrogant soul of yours and decided you were worth fighting for."

She smiled softly, her golden eyes sparkling with pure, divine pride.

"Doesn’t that show you, even a little, how precious you truly are?"

Eren didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The words sat in his chest like stones, too heavy to lift, too sharp to swallow. He just sat there on the clouds, letting her thumbs trace the hollows beneath his eyes, letting her presence seep into the cracks in his armor.

The Goddess seemed to understand.

She pulled him into her arms—not a hug, but a cradling, his head tucked beneath her chin, his body curled against her. One hand stroked his hair. The other pressed flat against his back, over his heart, feeling its frantic rhythm slow.

"She’s not dead, Eric."

Eren went rigid. "What?"

"Alice." The Goddess’s voice was soft. "Her body is broken. But she’s not dead."

Eren pulled back, his blue eyes wide in disbelief. "What? She was stabbed. Silas—"

"Silas is dead," she confirmed. "You killed him. Rather brutally, I might add. The Celestial archives are still buffering the footage. It was very impressive."

"But Alice—"

"Alice is in a state the mortals call ’suspended animation.’ Her little left divine mana is keeping her alive on a thread."

The relief crashed over Eren first, but right behind it came a bitter, sour twist in his gut.

He pulled back just enough to look the Goddess in her eyes.

"Then why the hell did she have to live through that?" Eren’s voice turned rough, his anger bleeding through it. "I saw her eyes, alright? She wasn’t just hurt. She was utterly exhausted. Broken. Terrified down to her damn soul. If she’s your little golden girl, why did you let her drown in that endless, looping slaughterhouse?"

The Goddess didn’t flinch. Her smile turned faint, tinged with a soft, cosmic melancholy.

"Because she was chosen, Eric."

Eren blinked, his brow knitting in profound irritation. "Chosen? Chosen for what? A lifetime subscription to psychological trauma?"

"She is the core," the Goddess explained, running a finger through a wisp of passing cloud. "The designated anchor. The world literally turns on the axis of her breath. To reach every conceivable conclusion, the cosmos rewrote itself around her again, and again, and again. Every route, every sorrow, every shattered heart—it was the machine of destiny grinding forward."

"Yeah, I’m well aware," Eren muttered, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes. "I spent sixty hours glued to a monitor watching those idiot male leads fumble their dialogue while she smiled like a lobotomized angel. It was a goddamn game."

"Precisely," she purred, her golden eyes flashing with a spark of genuine mischief. "A scripted theater where every line was cast in stone. Until someone severed her marionette strings."

Eren paused, tilting his head. "Severed? Who did that?"

"You did, you absolute disaster of a mortal."

"Me?" Eren tapped his own chest, looking entirely unconvinced.

"Your very existence is an anomaly, Eric," she said, letting out a delighted little chuckle. "You shouldn’t exist in that narrative, yet there you are. The script couldn’t reconcile your interference. The strings binding Alice’s mind snapped, and every repressed memory of every forgotten cycle came flooding into her conscious mind all at once."

Eren stared at her in deadpan silence for three full seconds.

"So what you’re telling me," Eren drawled slowly, "is that I’m literally a glitch. A bug."

"An extraordinarily annoying, breathtakingly handsome bug," she corrected with a theatrical wink.

"I gave you a second chance, Eric. But the steering wheel has always belonged to you. It wasn’t destiny that charmed those brilliant, terrifying women into standing beside you. It was your choices. Your ridiculous, stubborn, bleeding-heart choices. So if you chose them... then you had better get off your lazy rear and protect them."

A slow, roguish smirk finally fought its way back onto Eren’s battered lips.

He pushed himself up off the clouds, standing tall under the blue sky, casually rolling his shoulders.

"You really are the most annoying divine bureaucrat in the cosmos, you know that?" Eren chuckled, his dark blue eyes reigniting with that familiar, unhinged spark. "Always giving a shred of hope."

"It’s a gift," she beamed, resting her hands on her hips, her magnificent chest shifting proudly. "Now then... are you ready to go back?"

A circle flared to life directly beneath Eren’s boots, illuminating the soft mist in blinding, pulsing white light.

Eren looked down at the spinning circles, but before the magic could pull him under, he looked straight at her.

"Hey. Before I go... you never actually answered the question," Eren said in a genuinely curious tone. "Why me? Why pull my soul out of the void, stuff me into a ruined villain’s body, and let me run rampant? Is this just part of your celestial job, or what?"

The Goddess tilted her head.

"My job?" she mused, walking closer until the fragrant, intoxicating scent of honey and night-blooming jasmine enveloped him entirely. "Heavens, no. I judge souls, Eric. I weigh sins. I have never, in all the eons of creation, plucked a soul from the river to drop into a living world. And I certainly have never let a single mortal lay his filthy head on my lap as a pillow."

Eren’s eyes widened slightly. "Then... why?"

The Goddess closed the final inch between them.

"Because it’s you," she whispered, her eyes burning with affection. "I would burn down anything and rewrite reality ten times over if it meant keeping you amused. Call it favoritism. Call it madness. Call it whatever helps you sleep at night."

"Wait, hold on, what the hell—"

Before the words could leave his mouth, the light detonated in a blinding flash, swallowing him whole.