Death Knocks on Hell’s Door Chapter 31 Part 2

Chapter 31.2 Coming of Age

Meanwhile, Venus had bid Hephaestus goodnight, but he had no intention of going to bed. Instead, he slipped out through the window, bypassing the palace guards, and dove into the river once more.

On such an important night, how could he not see Adonis? He had been longing for the ball to end quickly, afraid that if he delayed too long, the day would slip away. If Adonis missed his coming-of-age, that would be a true regret.

Technically, now that he was of age, he could walk down the mountain openly without sneaking around. But it was late, and Adonis was someone he wished to protect. It wouldn’t do to draw too much attention.

……

Venus emerged from the sea, only to be met with a stormy night. The sky hung heavy with darkness, rain poured down in relentless sheets, and the waters churned with violent waves. The moment he surfaced, he was drenched from head to toe.

Not the best weather.

It was late, probably close to midnight. It was a thunderous, storm-ridden night.

Summoning Adonis in this weather felt unreasonable. Since he knew exactly where Adonis lived, he decided against blowing the conch shell and ran straight toward the treehouse.

His eagerness to see Adonis overpowered any thought of shielding himself from the rain. He sprinted through the downpour, his clothes soaked through as he made his way into the forest and climbed the ladder up to the treehouse.

The door was unlocked. No light shone from the windows.

Had he already gone to bed?

Venus climbed up the tree, pushed the door open, and shouted, “Adonis!”

The room was pitch black. Not a single lamp was lit. The bed was neatly made, untouched, with no signs of anyone having stayed there.

—

Poseidon was in a terrible mood, the kind that made him want to tear the world apart.

But for now, he had to remain here, guarding the depths of the sea.

Today was supposed to be important. According to his plan, he should have ascended Olympus during the day, bringing with him a hundred chariots filled with betrothal gifts, and brought Venus back to the seabed to become his Queen of the Sea.

He had intended to reveal that he was Adonis. Once Venus knew, he would surely accept his new identity. They would live a happy life together at the bottom of the sea.

But now the plan had been completely disrupted.

Not long ago, Poseidon discovered that the sea surface was unusually turbulent, as if it was issuing a warning. But in the past few days, he had been with Venus, and his heart had been light. By all logic, the ocean should have mirrored his joy, calm and serene.

The sea was no longer obeying him.

This was a serious problem.

At first, Poseidon assumed it was Zeus stirring up trouble. After all, the relationship of the three brothers had always been one of outward civility and hidden strife. On the surface, they each ruled their respective domains, with the sky reigning supreme. But Poseidon had never been one to accept a lesser position. He had long harbored ambitions to overthrow Zeus and take the throne for himself. Zeus, in turn, sought to weaken both his elder brothers and unite the three realms under his rule.

Hades had little interest in their power struggle, but since some of the gods Zeus aimed to undermine were his allies, he had temporarily aligned himself with Poseidon.

Given this tense dynamic, it was only natural for Poseidon to suspect Zeus first. But after careful consideration, he doubted Zeus, whose mind was constantly preoccupied with his lovers, had the foresight or capability to reach so deeply into Poseidon’s own domain and stir up such chaos.

So Poseidon investigated further.

And what he discovered was far worse than he had anticipated.

The Norse pantheon was at war.

It wasn’t a conflict with the Greek gods, but an internal battle of such devastating scale that it threatened to annihilate their entire pantheon. Poseidon had been observing for days. If nothing was done, the Norse gods would soon perish. This war would later be known to mortals as Ragnarok — the cataclysm that brought the Norse gods to their end.

Of course, the final disaster had yet to unfold, but Poseidon could already see where it was headed.

Ordinarily, the fate of another pantheon would be of no concern to the Greek gods. But Ragnarok carried a catastrophic consequence: when the Norse gods fell, so would their world. The entire realm would collapse and sink into the sea.

And Greece was part of that world.

That could not be allowed to happen.

Gods were nearly immortal and indestructible. It was rare for an entire pantheon to face complete annihilation, but when it did happen, the destruction of the world was inevitable. However, while one domain collapsing was of little concern to its own doomed gods, other pantheons still had their own territories to protect. Often in such times, the gods of the major pantheons become busy, not to save the collapsing pantheon, but to ensure that the regions they guard remain unaffected.

Poseidon was the Greek God of Sea, but his authority did not extend beyond Greek waters. If the northern seas surged southward, he would lose control even over his own domain. If he did nothing, the floodwaters from the Norse catastrophe would swallow Greece’s coastal cities, and in time, even Mount Olympus itself, wiping out the Greek pantheon along with it.

The way the Norse gods would perish was through a great deluge, and Greece’s seas would bear the brunt of its impact. The uncontrolled waters posed a grave threat to Poseidon as well. The storms would no longer heed his command, turning the sea into the most dangerous place to be.

With the sea now a high-risk zone, if Poseidon failed to contain the first wave of destruction, the land would not be spared either. Mount Olympus, perched high above, would become the safest place of all.

For Venus’ safety, returning him to the sea was out of the question, at least for the time being.

No wonder Poseidon was in such a foul mood.

If this had been the extremely bored and indifferent him, he might have simply let the world drown. But now, he had finally found something worth keeping. He had waited so long for Venus to come of age, had yet to truly claim what was his. How could he let everything be destroyed before he even had the chance?

He had already sent word to Zeus and Hades, informing them of the crisis. No matter how deep their rivalries ran, no matter how ambitious they were, this was a matter of survival. He knew how to prioritize.

Zeus, apparently, did not.

Perhaps his mind had rotted after too many years soaking in men and women alike, because he treated the warning as little more than a passing inconvenience. Knowing that Poseidon’s domain would be the first to suffer, he even took a perverse delight in it. Hypocritically, he told Poseidon to single-handedly protect the seas, while he offered nothing more than moral support from his throne on the mountain.

Hades, at least, was still clear-headed. He simply replied, “Thank you,” and immediately began reinforcing his defenses.

For the past few days, Poseidon had remained at the borders of his domain, tirelessly reinforcing the barriers to prevent the floodwaters of the Norse catastrophe from invading Greek seas.

No one knew how long this calamity would last. He couldn’t afford to leave his post for too long, lest a single crack in the barrier undo all his efforts.

His icy blue gaze swept over the countless layers of barrier he had woven into the boundary. Then, satisfied for now, he turned away.

At the very least, he had to make time to see Venus.

—

A dim candle flickered atop the wooden table. Venus sat in a chair, his clothes soaked through, only now realizing how cold he felt.

He had been waiting here for nearly an hour. The night was slipping away, and still, Adonis had not returned.

If he wasn’t home, then where could he be?

It was late. The rain outside was relentless. Surely, he wasn’t still out hunting in weather like this……

The storm raged on, the wind howling through the trees, thunder crashing overhead. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning split the sky, and with a violent gust, the already-unstable window burst open. Rain lashed into the room, striking Venus where he sat by the window.

The flowers on the windowsill were torn apart, their petals scattered, leaving behind a few bedraggled stems. In the harsh flash of lightning, Venus’ face appeared ghostly pale for a fleeting moment.

Then, with a sudden flicker, the candle went out.

The room plunged back into darkness.

Venus shivered. His fingers, which had been idly twisting his damp golden hair, stilled as a faint sense of unease crept over him.

This place was familiar to him. On bright, sunny days, he would sit right here, listening to Adonis tell stories. Those golden eyes would gaze at him with such warmth, warmer than the sunlight itself.

But had any of it been real?

Before reaching adulthood, Venus had only ever interacted with gods. Adonis was the only mortal he had ever known. Even on the island of Cyprus, they had spent their days wandering through forests and along the seashore, always far from human civilization.

He had often ventured down from the mountain, but he had never truly entered the world.

But today, he had come of age. And suddenly, he understood so much more.

He was the God of Love and Fertility. Only now did he realize that mortals needed to reproduce because they were not like gods. They aged, they grew sick, they died. They were not immortals. Their children were their only way of continuing on.

A human life lasted only a century.

How long had he known Adonis? A hundred years? A hundred and fifty?

Had Adonis ever aged?

When Venus first met Adonis, he had looked like a man in his twenties. All these years had passed, and he had not changed in the slightest.

He had to be a god too, hadn’t he?

Then why had he lied?

Was this treehouse truly his home?

Venus was a little displeased. It was the kind of displeasure that came from a thought he couldn’t quite shake: I told you my identity as the God of Beauty. But you? You’ve been pretending to be a mortal all this time. Do you not love me at all?

Ever since he had fully merged with his divine essence, he had sensed that something was off about Adonis. But he hadn’t wanted to dwell on it. He had still come rushing down the mountain to see him, without hesitation.

“Damn you, Adonis. My birthday is almost over, and you’re still not back. If you don’t come back soon, I’m leaving. And if I leave, I’ll never come back to see you again, you liar.”

He sat alone in the darkness, grumbling to himself.

Bored, he reached for a white rose from the windowsill and began plucking its petals one by one, destroying it in his restlessness.

“He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not……”

As the final petal fell, the clock struck midnight.

“He loves me not.”

Venus: “……”

Venus: “No, that doesn’t count. I’m doing it again.”

He plucked another white rose from the windowsill.

This time, just after plucking a petal: “He loves me.”

The door to the treehouse suddenly burst open. A golden-haired young man stood at the entrance, drenched from head to toe, the storm raging behind him.

Venus excitedly threw away the flower and rushed up to hug him. “Adonis!”

All his doubts, all his suspicions, none of them mattered anymore. The moment they met, trust was the only thing that remained.

If Adonis truly was a god and chose not to reveal it, then Venus wouldn’t ask.

Adonis held him close, resting his chin against Venus’ shoulder. “Venus, happy birthday. I’m glad I made it in time.”

“You were so close to being late!”

“But I wasn’t.” From his coat, Adonis took out a white rose, completely untouched by the storm.

“I originally wanted to pick a lot of flowers and then weave a wreath for you. But the rain came so suddenly, drenching everything. This was the only one I managed to save.”

This was, without a doubt, the most shabby gift Venus had received today.

But it was also the most touching.

This was the flower that Adonis picked for him in the heavy rain!

Without hesitation, Venus kissed him.

In the past century, they had long grown accustomed to holding hands, embracing, and even kissing.

Adonis reached back and shut the door, pressing Venus against the wall as they kissed in the darkness. Then, he pulled Venus to the desk, closing the window to block out the wind and rain, before lifting him onto the wooden surface and continuing where they left off.

Just as Adonis was about to let go of him as usual, Venus tightened his arms around his neck.

“Adonis.”

“Hm?”

“I’m an adult now.”

“Hm.”

“I learned a lot of things today.”

“Hm?”

“For example, after holding hands, hugging, and kissing, there are even more intimate things we can do.”

“……”

“I want to do them with you, Adonis.”

The young man’s voice dropped lower. “Do you most want to do them with me, or do you only want to do them with me?”

“Is there a difference?”

“Answer me. Give me your answer, and I’ll give you what you want.”

“……I don’t know. But the moment I learned about it, the first name that came to my mind was yours.”

The next thing he knew, his body was lifted. Adonis was carrying him to the bed.

In the darkness, Venus heard the quiet sound of buttons being undone, followed by a soft, helpless chuckle.

“Although it’s not the correct answer, it’s still the best response you could have given.”

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