The words "Forbidden Seal" echoed in Nathan's mind like a quiet thunder, ancient and heavy, carrying the kind of authority only the Divine truly possessed.

This seal… it was far more than a simple brand of control.

A Divine-Rank Skill, carved from primordial law itself, capable of intertwining two souls so deeply that boundaries blurred and distinctions faded. Through it, slaver and enslaved could share not only strength, but essence — magic, skills, memories, emotions, sensations, and even the burdens one should never bear alone.

Nathan had already witnessed a fraction of its power when he absorbed Khione's divine life-force the day he bound her. Back then, he thought he understood what it meant to take another's existence into himself.

He was wrong.

What he was attempting now went far beyond that.

There was a gentler method to stabilize Pandora, a path without force or manipulation. Athena and the others had been correct:

Only someone Pandora truly loved and trusted could soothe the chaos inside her.

And somehow, impossibly, Nathan had reached her heart.

He had slipped past the walls even gods feared to touch — and Pandora clung to him with a devotion that bordered on worship.

But devotion could easily turn into obsession, and obsession… into destruction.

Pandora wanted him entirely.

Not shared, not borrowed, not divided — hers.

Her heart, wounded and unstable, could not accept the idea of Nathan belonging to anyone else. If he admitted openly that he had other women, others he cared for, she would break. She would snap apart utterly, and once Pandora lost control…

Nathan didn't even want to imagine the result.

A goddess who carried the burden of every curse in the world could annihilate more than his relationships.

She could kill him.

Or worse — slaughter the women around him in a moment of deranged heartbreak.

So Nathan discarded the gentle approach.

He chose the dangerous one.

The Forbidden Seal.

It was foolish. Reckless. Almost suicidal.

And yet… it was the only path that could save Pandora without destroying everything else.

Because Nathan wasn't merely trying to calm her —

he was trying to share the weight of her Box.

To take into himself a portion of the curses sealed inside it.

To carry them alongside her.

No mortal should ever attempt such a thing.

Even gods wouldn't dare.

But Nathan did.

The moment the luminous sigil of the Forbidden Seal flared to life across Pandora's bare back, the air trembled as if reality itself held its breath.

Nathan didn't hesitate.

He reached toward the cursed Box — now accessible to him through the bond.

The instant his fingers brushed the surface, agony detonated through his nerves. A shock so intense jolted his entire body, and he felt as if molten acid were poured directly over his skin.

His jaw clenched.

His vision blurred.

But he did not pull back.

Instead, he forced his trembling hand forward and plunged it deeper into the Box — into the heart of all curses ever conceived.

"NGHHHH—!"

The cry tore from his throat, raw and animalistic. His eyes snapped wide open as pain, pure and merciless, ravaged him.

Blackness swirled at the edge of his vision. His consciousness flickered.

For a brief moment, he blacked out — body collapsing inward from the sheer intensity — only to jerk himself awake by biting down hard on his tongue.

He tasted blood, metallic and warm.

And the pain only grew.

The curses felt alive, writhing like serpents of malice, clawing into his flesh. His Darkness Magic, usually vast and oppressive, was nothing but a thin scrap of paper against their assault. It protected him faintly — barely — like a thin shadow trying to shield against a storm.

It wasn't enough.

Black curse-marks crawled up his arm like living ink, burrowing beneath the skin. Nathan felt them entering his veins, burning through him with searing torment. His skin flushed into a deep, unnatural purplish red, as though tearing apart from within. Even his breath came in ragged, broken gasps.

His eyes, however — the only thing he still held control over — remained steady.

Hard.

Determined.

He had already taken several curses inside him, more than any human or god should ever attempt… yet it wasn't enough.

He needed to take more.

For her.

Across from him, Pandora felt it — a foreign warmth, a faint easing of the torment she had known all her life.

A pain she thought was hers alone.

Her eyes widened.

She understood.

She understood exactly what Nathan was doing.

"W...Why…?"

Her voice trembled — not from fear, but from disbelief. From the feeling of someone willingly stepping into her hell, choosing to suffer with her.

Why?

The question echoed inside Pandora's mind, faint at first, then growing louder and heavier, as if her very soul trembled beneath the weight of it.

Why would he go this far?

Why would someone willingly step into the abyss she lived in? Why would anyone, mortal or divine, choose to touch the curses that even gods refused to approach?

Was it to save the world?

No.

She could feel it. That wasn't his reason.

Was it to steal her power — to use her, exploit her, or claim the unimaginable strength bound within her accursed existence?

No…

Even in her confusion, she knew the answer was far from that.

No one sane would ever attempt what Nathan was doing — not even the greediest tyrant or the most reckless god. What he was doing was beyond madness. Beyond courage. It was the kind of act that could only end in death.

Yet there he stood, drenched in agony.

Nathan's body trembled violently, his golden eyes flickering like candles threatened by a storm. Black blood streamed from the corner of his lips. More dripped from his nose, his ears, even the corners of his eyes — as if the curses were ripping him apart from the inside, trying to escape.

Still… he looked at her.

Not with fear.

Not with regret.

But with a steady, unshakable resolve.

"I will be there," he whispered, voice raw and shredded by pain, "from now on… to share your suffering."

His breath hitched, but he continued.

"You don't have to bear it alone anymore."

The world seemed to stop.

Pandora's purple eyes widened, trembling as if struck by an emotion she had long forgotten. A glossy sheen formed in her eyes—

and then, slowly, tears began to fall.

Real tears.

Genuine tears.

Her lips parted without sound, disbelief choking her. She couldn't remember the last time she had cried.

Had she ever?

In thousands of years of torment, had she once shed tears because of something other than pain?

Perhaps not.

Perhaps these were the first.

She remembered her origin — forged by the will of the gods, created for a single purpose: punishment. A vessel of beauty crafted to tempt, to curse, to unleash all the things mortals were never supposed to withstand.

She hadn't known her purpose back then.

She was innocent.

Epimetheus had been given to her as a partner — shallow, yes, but sweet in his own simple way. He had cared for her, or at least she believed he did, and that was enough. His affection had given her a fleeting sense of belonging, the illusion of warmth.

But the Box…

It had always called to her.

A whisper.

A tug.

A compulsion placed into her by Zeus himself. She succumbed, curious and unknowing, and the moment she lifted the lid, her world shattered.

The curses escaped.

And then the Box fused with her — sinking into her body, into her soul, making her the eternal bearer of humanity's suffering.

Pain became her existence.

A torment so constant she no longer remembered what a moment of peace felt like. There was no escape.

No hour, no minute, not even a single breath free from agony.

Every now and then, the pain spiked beyond what even she could endure, and she lost control — lashing out with hellish force, spreading destruction without meaning to.

That was why they locked her away.

Why she had been imprisoned, guarded, sealed, and hidden for thousands upon thousands of years.

Everyone feared her.

Everyone fled from her.

All she ever wanted was someone — anyone — to stay. Whether they came for her beauty or her power didn't matter. Affection was affection, even if shallow.

But none could remain.

Not when getting close to her meant death.

Then Nathan came.

He intrigued her immediately because he was different.

He did not drool over her beauty.

He did not try to win her favor or manipulate her emotions.

He approached like someone fulfilling an obligation — calm, unreadable, simply trying to understand her so he could keep everyone safe.

It was strange.

Refreshing.

And then… addictive.

Her interest became fixation.

Her fixation became obsession.

She wanted him beside her — always.

She didn't care if he didn't love her.

Love, affection, admiration — she had never cared about the authenticity of those things. As long as someone stayed by her side, she was willing to take anything.

But now…

Seeing him in front of her — bleeding, trembling, yet still forcing himself to bear her curse — hearing those sincere, impossible words…

For the first time in her long existence, Pandora felt something warm, something terrifying, something overwhelming bloom inside her chest.

Something she never thought she'd feel.

Something that made her tears fall harder.

Why?

Nathan thought about it but he knew it already.

He had seen right through Pandora's loneliness when he first saw her and he recognised himself on her.

Being treated as monster, as something abnormal even making his own step sisters scared of him...

That was why he didn't want to leave Pandora alone.

At first yes it was to get control over Pandora before she could lose control and harm his loved ones but it wasn't just that anymore.

He will do it for Pandora's sake as well.

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