Chapter 282 River of Time
The room walls were white, engraved with bright flowery designs. The engravings were real-like with them emitting a pleasant scent in the air.
In the center, Pythia sat on a chair opposite to Kiba and Ashlyn. On the table between them, there were three glasses of wine and a vase filled with a bouquet of roses.
The petals danced and sway in a mesmerizing manner as their sweet smell greeted the senses of everyone in the room.
Pythia rested her chin on her hands. The rotating hourglass pendant tucked between her cleavage glittered brightly as she opened her lips and said, "Don't you want to know just how successful you were in your dream of cuckolding every man with a beautiful wife?"
Kiba was truly stunned by her words. First, she mentioned how Fate has been smiling at him from the last 4.5 years. Now, this question about his dreams.
"Retrocognition - the ability to discern events of the past," Kiba thought in his heart. "Does she also knows about Cosmic Spark and the events that unfolded in BSE79 meteorite!? No, that should be impossible given what transpired in the final event."
Kiba relaxed as he recalled the event that changed his life.
"What is cuckolding?" Ashlyn's voice awakened Kiba from his thoughts. She was looking at him and Pythia in puzzlement. She only understood a part of Pythia's sentence and the word 'cuckold' made it difficult for her to comprehend the entire meaning.
"......"
Kiba and Pythia were left speechless by her curious expression. Kiba was sweating bullets while Pythia felt hot blood rushing to her face.
Pythia tried to cover her embarrassment by making a light coughing sound and saying, "Your partner is very good in explaining such things."
Ashlyn's emerald eyes sparkled. She nodded and turned towards Kiba for an explanation. The curiosity and thirst for knowledge were clearly visible on her face despite her cold, poker expression.
"..." Kiba wished he could bury himself in some hole and hide forever.
Anyone who has seen the promotional holographic projections of Wife Pleasuring Service Pvt Ltd and Mistress Massage Center would agree that he was very good in explaining things.
Daniel and Sarah would even agree that Kiba can make a couple feel just how beneficial cuckolding is for married life. (Chapter 43 and 77).
Kiba knew he was good but he couldn't actually state the truth to Ashlyn. He has been extra careful to hide his true personality so that she would think he was a kind and honest man who would commit no evil.
Alas, he didn't know that he failed in image building. As far as Ashlyn was concerned, she believed he was a borderline villain with heavy sadistic tendencies. The only thing she didn't know about was his sexual deviant side.
"The word cuckold basically derives itself from a bird species called cuckoo. The bird practices what is known as brood parasitism," Kiba took a deep breath before starting. He didn't want to entirely deceive her so he explained in details.
"Brood parasitism is practiced by cuckoo subspecies and other birds as well as fish and insects, but in the cuckoo's case, the basic gist is simple - rather than building a nest and incubate its eggs there like most birds, the cuckoo lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. When the parasitic cuckoos hatch, the host bird cares for the hatchlings like its own. Most often it is because the eggs she laid were destroyed by the cuckoo though not always."
Ashlyn was surprised. She felt cuckoo was truly deceitful and evil.
Kiba's lips were quivering as he observed the emotions on her face. He took another breath before continuing, "Obviously, in the human case, it is different. Most males might not agree but Cuckolding is a big responsibility. It is a noble duty that no one is ready to take due to the heavy burden."
"Burden?" Ashlyn was bewildered. She has assumed cuckolding should be evil given its association with the cuckoo.
"Yes," Kiba nodded and continued in a serious tone. "Human males are always busy and occupied thanks to their thirst for wealth, strength and power. They forgot the happiness of their better halves who are often left in their homes; cold and alone. Sadly, the fragile nature of male egos makes it difficult for women to seek happiness elsewhere. If they do, the bitter men feel they were hurt and offended. They call the act of seeking happiness as evil by giving it derogatory names. The society, in turn, refers to the so-called offended male as cuckold - associating it with the act of cuckoo. But tell me, just what was wrong in a woman seeking happiness? It is not like she is taking something from her better half. She is only getting happiness when her partner is occupied. In fact, as per research, this practice actually benefits the so-called offended party the most. Sadly, we live in a society where men refuse to see reason. Years ago, I swore to change this and help in women seeking happiness. Before coming to the forest, my main profession was sharing the burden of men by helping their women find happiness. To do this, I founded a few non-profit organizations and employed staff with my own money. My practice in the city benefits both husband and wife though most couples might not agree in open due to our close-minded and evil society."
"Oh!" Ashlyn accepted the explanation.
She did find it hard to believe that a sadist like him was helping couples for free but she thought he has no reason to lie. His impression improved in her mind and she believed a part of him was truly kind.
"So my dream in simple words is to cuckold every man with a (beautiful) wife," Kiba concluded in a heavy voice. "The visit to the forest has stopped my dream but I plan to pursue it as soon as I return back and help unhappy couples in finding joy."
Pythia's cheeks twitched and her entire face flushed red. She felt his skin was truly thick for him to give such an explanation with a straight face.
She glanced at Ashlyn and felt bad for her. The poor girl has swallowed the explanation even without understanding what type of happiness he was talking about.
"Most likely due to her closed and controlled upbringing in that orphanage," Pythia's eyes furrowed. "Being born as a cursed one is bad enough but living the life she has lived..."
She shook her head and cleared her thoughts. She didn't want to spoil her mood by thinking about what Ashlyn has suffered.
Pythia looked at Kiba to know his answer to the question she asked.
"No, I don't want to know just how successful I would be in my pursuit of dreams," Kiba answered with a smile. "There are things I'm curious about but I don't want to spoil my dreams. If I know I'm not going to be successful, then I would just get depressed and my mind would be pre-occupied with thoughts. On the other hand, if I know I'm going to be super successful, then I would get complacent. I would stop experimenting and seeking new schemes by thinking I'm destined to be successful. In either case, it would change me, even if the future might be the same. As far as I'm concerned, my dreams are my gifts to myself, and I want to unwrap them with my own hands. I don't want the surprise to be spoiled by knowing in advance."
Pythia let out a soft chuckle.
"Fair enough," Pythia acknowledged with a smile before she turned serious. "There are things you still might want to know though."
Pythia opened her eyes and her pupils glowed with the radiance of temporal energy as she looked at him. As an Alpha, she could sense the disturbance in time and feel the violent waves in the River of Time.
The River of Time was an incorporeal and formless river that flew throughout the universe. Instead of water droplets, the river carried the events forward. In a way, it was responsible for the very reality.
From the last six months, she has felt chaotic movement in the time flow. The disturbance was rather very faint and almost negligible but it was enough to shock her out of wits.
Time was one of the domains which were responsible for the governance of the entire universe. As such, even faint disturbance was impossible to create due to its stable nature.
As she looked at Kiba, she felt the flow of time around him as normal. He didn't emit any fluctuations related with the power of time.
Yet, she could feel a faint sense of hatred from the time waves.
This terrfiied her. River of Time didn't have sentinence and yet, it carried a negative emotion towards him...