CHAPTER 1538: CHAPTER 324 NOT CUTE AT ALL

"Uh, I didn’t avoid anything—it’s just lovers’ tiffs you were talking about." Pannis understood what Denia meant without needing her to elaborate, so his serious and solemn face quickly transformed into embarrassment. Subconsciously touching the wound that had healed, leaving only a few big holes in his clothes, he chuckled and said, "Yeah, yeah, just a lovers’ tiff. What kind of looks are you all giving me? Have you never seen lovers poking holes in each other during a quarrel? Okay, okay, this method of quarreling might be uncommon, but you can’t say for sure that it doesn’t exist, right? Hey, why are you guys staring at me like you agree with Lady Denia? This explanation was originally your idea. Alright, alright, I get it, I give up, I admit there was a little incident afterward, uh, a teeny tiny little incident, and this tiny incident, it’s related to what I just said."

"The ’little incident’ you mentioned, is it about being beaten half to death by your lover, then getting stabbed all over like a fishing net?" Denia teased him with a quirky smile as if she were a senior chiding her child, "Do kids your age now all have these weird habits? Or is this a unique new method of communicating feelings between you two? But regardless of whether it’s about expressing feelings or not, you should take care of your body. Look at you, after spending some alone time with Nellie to communicate feelings, you nearly came out on the verge of collapse. That’s not good, child."

"Well, thanks for your concern," Pannis rolled his eyes and changed the subject with annoyance, "But you’ve been in Lina’s body for so long, aren’t you worried whether she can handle it?"

"Heh, don’t worry, that kid’s fine. As long as I don’t send gifts to you like last time, she won’t feel pressured even if I stay just as long. You don’t need to worry about her," Denia said with a mischievous smile, shaking her head, "So don’t try to struggle. Just be honest and tell me how Nellie managed to beat you so badly."

"Cough, cough, let me clarify, I didn’t lose to her in a fight," Pannis coughed awkwardly, chuckling, "After breaking the seal, my strength grew to its peak. Now, if I were to face the Triclops’s strongest, as long as it’s neither Loki nor Sigein, I’m confident I could win. But because it’s Nellie, I was worried she might get hurt inadvertently, so I deliberately didn’t use my full strength. That’s why it turned out so badly. If I had used my full power, ha ha, of course I wouldn’t have gotten hurt, haha, right, definitely not."

"Is that so?" Denia looked at Pannis with skepticism, who clearly seemed to be lying. Not just Denia—all the ladies gave Pannis a peculiar look, as if watching a stubborn fool. But it was Denia who asked the most direct question, "Then, how is Nellie? Is she hurt?"

"Of course not," Pannis stated matter-of-factly, "Her body has been transformed by divine power into a divine body. I’m just a mortal. Even if my attacks did hit, how could they possibly hurt her?"

"Strange, it shouldn’t be like this," Denia frowned as she spoke, "By rights, you should be able to hurt her now, how can your attack be ineffective? You didn’t make a mistake, did you?"

"Of course not, I just tried and hit her many times, but there was no... Hey, Goddess, this isn’t very nice of you." Pannis had just begun his explanation when he suddenly realized something was amiss, and he glanced at the majestic Earth Goddess with sideways eyes. Denia was smiling a pure and compassionate smile, innocently blinking as she locked eyes with him as if she had done nothing at all. Grinding his teeth in annoyance, Pannis said, "To think that a respected deity of love would resort to deceiving a pure and kind soul using such methods. Can you still be considered a qualified deity?"

In actuality, when Pannis mentioned that he had hit Nellie many times, everyone had already understood the severity of the situation at that time. The ladies were well aware of Pannis’s feelings for Nellie. His deep love made Pannis value Nellie more than himself. If one of them had to die, Pannis would undoubtedly wish it to be himself, and if one had to be injured, he would likewise prefer the injured one to be himself. As he himself had said, if circumstances permitted, he seriously would have opted to sustain serious injury and refrain from using his full strength, rather than harm Nellie. However, there was one exception to this rule: when he no longer had any strength left, or even when he was overexerting himself, facing the situation where he could be killed by Nellie at any moment. He could die anywhere, but he could not let himself die at the hands of Nellie, because he did not want Nellie to carry the burden of pain he had once carried. Therefore, it was only under the circumstances where Nellie could potentially kill him that he would strike back, and because he had to exert all his strength, he couldn’t fully control the extent and power of his attack, which led to him actually hitting Nellie multiple times. Even so, he was still covered in wounds, which spoke volumes of the immense pressure he faced. It was almost as if he were constantly dancing with the Grimreaper, and indeed, from any perspective, this statement was not wrong.

Of course, everyone also understood that Pannis was pretending to have everything under control so that the ladies wouldn’t worry about him. It looked as if he was indeed fully confident, and it was only because of his concern for Nellie that he had gotten hurt. But even with this understanding, the ladies still glared at Pannis with disapproving eyes, expressing their dissatisfaction.

"Eh? Deception? Have I done something like that? Just now, I saw how naturally you conducted yourself in front of the gods, and subconsciously, I considered you as one among the deities, which led to a slight mistake on my part. How can you misunderstand me this way? This is blasphemy, you know." Naturally, the reproachful ones did not include the magnificent Denia. Clearly, compared to shirking responsibility, Pannis, who had only a little over a hundred years of life experience, was no match for one of the eldest deities, the great Earth Goddess Denia. The Goddess’s eyes, so innocent and pure, didn’t waver in the slightest as she complained with a sense of grievance. It was only after she turned her head away that she covered her mouth and giggled, muttering, "That’s what makes you such an adorable child. You weren’t cute at all just now."

"Hey, when you talk to yourself, it’s supposed to be so no one else can hear, you know," Pannis had no way to deal with the whimsical Goddess before him and said, looking troubled, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "Alright, I admit, Nellie really did put a lot of pressure on me, but you all are overthinking it a bit. It wasn’t to the extent that she was constantly putting my life in danger. It was just... indeed a tough battle."