Twins.
To be precise, they were fraternal twins—a boy and a girl.
The boy was raised to beco a future general, the most loyal subordinate of Iskandar, a sword that could pierce through any enemy.
The girl, on the other hand, was trained as a magus, destined to be Iskandar's shadow—a perfect shield that would bear all harm for him.
The boy would beco Iskandar's most trusted lieutenant, Hephaestion.
The girl was the female warrior standing before them, who lived her life without a na.
In philosophy, a na is a symbol of self.
In the concept of mysticism, a na is intimately linked to a person's fate—they influence each other, cause and effect intertwined. In the mystical world, allowing soone to know your personal information, including your na, is taboo. In so special rituals, just knowing soone's na can increase the precision of a curse dozens of tis.
A na grants selfhood and an independent destiny. Only by remaining naless could she fully beco the shadow warrior, rging her fate with her master's, protecting Iskandar from all the harm and curses directed at him.
Of course, this anonymity could be inconvenient. Humans are accustod to calling each other by na, and it would be difficult to communicate without one. Therefore, when necessary, the shadow warrior would borrow her brother's na.
Olympias, considering this, gave Hephaestion a sowhat unusual na for that ti. According to Greek customs, boys were usually nad Hephaestus, not the derivative Hephaestion. It was a na that could be used by either gender; historically, there was even an Amazonian queen nad Hephaestion.
Furthermore, the na Hephaestion had another aning at the ti—it ant "offering to the gods."
But to whom was this offering made?
It was not to Zeus, the king of the gods, who had gradually beco more distant from human affairs. Instead, it was Zeus's divine son, Iskandar, who inherited the god-king's noble bloodline.
With this, everything made sense. From the mont Olympias set her sights on the twins, their destinies were bound to Iskandar's, dedicating their lives to him. Indeed, they both fulfilled this fate—Iskandar died at just 33 years old, and the siblings died even earlier.
The secret was unveiled, dissected with the precision of a scalpel, by the pair of Eyes of Discernnt that had instilled fear in countless magus.
Through various clues and hints, combined with his investigation and imagination regarding Iskandar, Waver had completely unraveled the secret that the shadow warrior had guarded her entire life, a secret never recorded in official or unofficial histories.
As the evaluation in the Departnt of Policies noted about him—a disassembler, the highest-level problem child, an anomaly in the realm of magecraft.
"But isn't it strange? A stand-in and a shadow warrior shouldn't look completely different,"
Gray couldn't help but ask after hearing Waver's analysis. Whether in novels or movies, the first standard for a shadow warrior is resemblance. Iskandar and the naless female warrior differed in appearance and gender, making them easy to distinguish at a glance. How could she serve as a shadow warrior?
"A shadow warrior doesn't need to look identical, especially in ancient tis when there were no photographs. If the ruler's appearance wasn't widely known, who could tell which was real? A little information manipulation, and it's easy to blur the truth. The historical descriptions of Iskandar's appearance already suggest that she or Olympias successfully manipulated the information. Besides, she probably wasn't a shadow warrior in the conventional sense but rather sothing akin to the 'substitute king' of ancient sopotamia—soone unrelated to the royal bloodline who was placed on the throne to avoid an on, only to be killed once the disaster had passed—"
"—Hey, what are you doing?"
The female warrior's voice suddenly interrupted him.
Waver's reasoning, like his lectures, held an irresistible charm, and everyone present was quietly listening, including the female warrior and Heartless. The only exception was Shinji, who, while leaning on his scythe, projected an image with his free hand. The towering figure, the bulging muscles, the dense body hair—there was no mistaking it; both the shadow warrior and Waver were familiar with the image of the Conqueror, Iskandar.
Shinji didn't rush to answer. Instead, he raised the image, overlapping Iskandar's figure with that of the shadow warrior, before finally speaking.
"They might have looked quite similar before they matured."
"Hey, are you blind? How could that woman and this big guy possibly resemble each other?"
The scythe's blade blinked, and a mocking voice erged—Add.
"There's an old saying 'A girl changes a lot in her teens,' aning that girls often look very different as they grow up. The sa goes for boys. Give a mont—"
As he spoke, Shinji began tweaking the image, altering Iskandar's appearance bit by bit, as if he were customizing a character.
Soon, the massive figure started to shrink, the solid muscles softened, and eventually, an exceptionally handso young man appeared, one whose looks could rival any of the won present.
Shinji then smoothed out the young man's facial hair and lengthened his red hair, braiding it into a long, thick braid that draped over his chest, similar to that of the shadow warrior.
"—Now, what do you see?"
The onlookers were stunned. Add, closest to them, was especially taken aback, his gaze darting back and forth between the shadow warrior and the young man in the image.
"This... is this possible?"
"Why not?"
"But how did you even manage to do this?"
Shinji snorted through his nose, speaking in a tone far too weary for soone his age.
"I only know a little bit. The masters of this craft could transform even the ugliest woman into the goddess Venus. Sigh, I've had my fair share of experiences."
The desire for beauty is universal. In this appearance-obsessed world, "beauty" is a VIP pass, granting privileges in social interactions, job hunts, and relationships.
When he said, "I've had my fair share of experiences," each word carried a deep, personal story behind it.
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