Not Until

Hope's laughter filled the air with a bell-like chime.

It really wasn't fair at all. Hope's views on Ryu were completely different from everyone else's, not just because she had spent so long with him, or because he had saved her, but because from the very beginning, her ruler and gauge were different from everyone else's.

When they first met, she asked Ryu to be her husband because she could see through his potential. She needed someone with a strong path of Faith to follow because that was the only way to elevate her own from her otherwise grim fate.

As such, from the very beginning, it could be said that she already looked at Ryu like he was already a Dao God. Otherwise, she would have never asked him such a thing because it was completely unacceptable to her to be anything less than a Dao God in the future. Without at least that much power, she couldn't even begin to think about revenge for her home.