Overflowing Love

The second floor of the house.

Thor slowly opened his eyes, deep fatigue flashing in their depths.

Providing dream training for three people at once was still too much of a burden for him in his current state.

However, just as Thor regained control of his body and tried to get up, he realized he was leaning backward.

The back of his head rested on an exceptionally soft "cushion," warm and yielding to the touch.

A pair of slender hands rested naturally on his shoulders, their arms wrapped around him.

His entire body was nestled in a warm embrace.

Thor turned his head slightly and looked up.

Syr sat with her legs tucked beneath her, embracing him from behind and holding him securely in her arms.

Her chin rested lightly on his shoulder, and her gray eyes gleamed with contentment in the dim light.

"What are you doing?" Thor asked hoarsely.

Syr smiled brightly. Her arms tightened slightly, drawing him more snugly against her.

"I'm replenishing my [Thor Energy]~"

Thor felt as though he'd sunk into a soft sofa.

The faint fragrance clinging to Syr, like a spring garden, drifted into his nostrils. Strangely, it eased some of his mental exhaustion and brought him a sense of calm.

"There's no such thing as [Thor Energy] in me for you to replenish," Thor said helplessly, trying to get up.

But Syr immediately tightened her arms, not letting him leave.

She pressed her cheek against the side of his neck, her voice saturated with affection. "Using your dream ability is still too much for you at the moment, Lord Thor~"

Her words reminded Thor of the flood of energy that had poured into him at a crucial moment in the dream.

That power had instantly steadied his faltering control over the dreams.

He understood.

It was Syr.

She had poured her divine power into him, allowing the training in all three dreams to proceed smoothly.

Realizing Syr had just helped him enormously, Thor relaxed his tense body a little and stopped insisting on getting up.

He allowed her closeness, letting her hold him from behind as they shared a moment of peace in the silent room.

His indulgence sent ripples through Syr's heart.

She greedily savored this hard-won tenderness, but the brief satisfaction did not ease the longing within her. Instead, it was like a lit fuse, making her possessiveness and desire burn even more fiercely.

She wanted... more attention, more affection, more touches...

The thought grew wildly in the depths of her soul, nearly overflowing.

She turned her head slightly. Her warm lips almost brushed Thor's ear, and, with a faintly sweet breath, she whispered into it:

"Lord Thor... you really need Stardust right now, don't you~?"

Thor paused and glanced back at Syr.

Of course he needed Stardust. He could never have too much.

Now that Syr had brought it up, was she planning to use the Familia's power to gather Magic Stones and speed up his recovery?

But just as the thought crossed his mind, Syr released her embrace.

She gracefully leaned back a little, folded her hands over her flat stomach, and smiled with a mix of pride and mischief.

"I really... did my best," she said, her voice carrying a coy note of self-congratulation. Then she deliberately paused, as if keeping a little secret.

Thor sat up straight, a flicker of surprise in his eyes as he looked at her.

Syr playfully stuck out the tip of her tongue, then leisurely added, "But... I think I might've tried a little too hard~"

Thor's gaze instantly pierced through her thin clothes and skin, settling deep within her abdomen.

More precisely, it fell upon the Stardust he had made her swallow the previous night.

Just one day!

The Stardust core, which had originally glowed only faintly, had now grown more than ten times its former size!

The energy within it was surging yet stable, like a carefully cultivated seedling greedily drawing nourishment from the fertile soil of divine power and growing at an utterly unreasonable rate.

That growth... really was astonishingly fast.

If he extracted it, he would immediately gain ten Stardust.

At this rate, would he be able to reach one million Stardust in just about 275 years, relying on Syr alone? What a magnificent feat!

That was already fast enough.

Thor tried to draw out the full Stardust within Syr by using the resonance between Stardust.

A slight shift of his thoughts brought back the familiar, heavy resistance.

As expected, just like the one inside Ais, it had taken root deep within her. The Stardust Power he had at present couldn't budge it at all.

Syr could clearly feel the Stardust inside her resisting. She tilted her head slightly and smiled. "I guess I cultivated it a little too much, didn't I?"

Thor pondered.

Extracting it remotely would apparently require a stronger force to act as a fulcrum.

It would probably take the resonance of at least 100 Stardust to pry it loose.

But by the time he had gathered 100 Stardust, who knew how large the Stardust inside Syr would have grown? Even then, he might still be unable to remove it.

Just as he was thinking about how to extract it, Syr seemed to have anticipated the problem.

She raised a hand and lightly touched her smooth cheek with a fingertip. A sly glint turned in her gray eyes as she suggested:

"It looks like the only way to take it out now is through more intimate physical contact, doesn't it?"

Thor understood at once.

When she swallowed the Stardust last night, she had probably already been planning for this moment.

The Stardust was too heavy to draw out from afar, so deeper physical contact really could be used to extract it. For instance, he could guide it through her mouth.

But that wasn't the only way.

Guiding Stardust Power with his fingers would work just as well.

With that in mind, Thor did not hesitate. He calmly extended two fingers, preparing to reach into Syr's mouth and guide the Stardust through his fingertips.

But just as he had reached halfway—

Syr gently clasped his wrist.

She lowered her head and pressed a warm kiss to his extended fingers.

Then, guiding Thor's hand, she didn't let it move toward her lips. Instead, she gently placed it against her warm cheek.

Her palm cupped the back of his hand, guiding his fingertips to feel the delicate warmth of her skin.

"You can't do that, Lord Thor~"

Her voice held a hint of sweet reproach, but her eyes shone brilliantly, as if she had already seen through all his backup plans and woven even this little "resistance" into her carefully crafted web.

"At a time like this, you can't be so rough~"

She pressed her lips together slightly, as if suppressing a surging emotion.

Moonlight poured through the window like silver gauze, tracing her hazy silhouette.

In an instant, the pure charm of the concept of beauty, born from the depths of her soul, blossomed without restraint. It seemed as if even the moonlight itself had become her adornment.

Even Thor, whose perspective surpassed that of ordinary mortals, had to admit that the concept of beauty embodied by the body before him had reached a certain pinnacle.

Syr had never been this nervous before.

She could clearly feel the flush spreading across her skin from her feverish body. She could almost hear her own heartbeat.

Her gaze on Thor was nearly overflowing with pure, unrestrained love and longing.

She knew all too well that even if she went this far, Thor would most likely do just as she expected and choose the more "efficient" method of extracting the Stardust through contact with his two fingers.

That was already the best outcome she could have imagined.

And yet—

Thor looked at her calmly, a faint, inscrutable glimmer seeming to pass through his deep eyes.

The next second, entirely beyond Syr's expectations, he leaned toward her of his own accord and kissed her.

The instant their lips touched, Syr's eyes flew wide open, and her mind went blank.

The contact, far beyond anything she had expected, brought all her thoughts to an abrupt standstill.

Almost instinctively, and very clumsily, she kissed him back.

She could clearly sense the heavy [Stardust] within her.

A gentle yet irresistible force was drawing it away from the core of her life energy. It rose slowly along some invisible channel.

The sensation was strange and intimate, as if a part of her soul were being gently drawn away. She could feel the tenderness of the Creator God.

Her arms tightened instinctively around Thor's back. Her fingertips nearly dug into his clothes, as if she wanted to press her entire self into his being.

Her love surged forth like a dam breaking, without restraint.

Time itself seemed to lose all meaning.

Only when the Stardust, nourished by divine power into an exceptionally full and powerful state, had completely left her body did Thor draw it into himself.

The glow of the 75 Stardust within him instantly rose to the level of 85.

Then he gently sent a brand-new Stardust into Syr's mouth. It sank deep into her abdomen and took root once more.

The moment their lips parted, Syr drew in a sharp breath, like a drowning person finally surfacing for air.

Her mind was blank. Only the lingering warmth on her lips and the frantic pounding of her heart echoed through her.

Her eyes were hazy, barely able to focus.

Thor's calm voice rang out, carrying the detached composure of someone looking down upon the mortal world. "I'm almost always willing to grant my Starry Heavens whatever they ask for. If this is your wish, naturally I'll grant it."

He paused, his gaze settling on her dazed face.

He knew all too well what Syr was thinking.

He doted on his "children" immensely. Now that he had accepted Syr, he would take responsibility for her.

But that didn't mean he granted every "child" absolutely everything they wanted.

"But if you want even more..." His words were like a divine oracle, weighted with unquestionable authority. "Then prove yourself to me. Prove that you deserve all of my attention."

With that, he stood up, without a trace of reluctance.

"I'm going downstairs to keep Bell company. You should rest here on the second floor."

His footsteps faded into the distance and disappeared at the top of the stairs.

Silence returned to the second floor.

Syr remained slumped where she was, feeling as though all strength had left her body.

Thor's presence, the warmth he had given her, the weight of his words... everything echoed and burned itself into her senses again and again.

She raised a hand and gently touched her lips with a fingertip.

Ah~

A satisfied yet endlessly greedy sigh silently escaped from the depths of her soul.

The wish that had been briefly granted did not fade. Instead, it became an even more intense and uncontrollable eternal longing.

She wanted more.

Far more than before.