When the plot-skips players into the game world Chapter 1403 - 114: Hermes and Heracles

Upon hearing this, Aiwass paused for a mont: "Then... how many wives does Lord Hers have in total?"

"Of course, just ."

Hebashia said with indifference: "I’ve been with him since his youth, accompanying him until he died completely. When I first t him, he was about this big."

Looking at this little girl who wasn’t yet as tall as his waist, speaking so earnestly about such matters, Aiwass was montarily speechless.

There was a strange sense of dissonance.

—It felt like Sherlock’s ancestor was owed a handcuff.

Hebashia glanced at Aiwass, annoyed, and said: "I know what you want to ask—Sherlock’s lineage cos from the Grey Celestial Marshal.

"He inherited many powers of Hers, including his arts of deception and theft. He can transform into any form... whether it’s a man, a woman, an old person, a child, or even cattle, sheep, insects, birds, or a mist, a mountain, a lake."

"Isn’t the Grey Celestial Marshal your child?"

Aiwass was a bit confused as to why Hebashia also called him Grey Celestial Marshal: "Why don’t you directly call his na? And... is he male or female, after all?"

Hebashia and Arthur both referred to the Grey Celestial Marshal as "he", while the Lord of Scalefeather directly called him "Hers’s son". Aiwass also clearly rembered that although one of Grey Celestial Marshal’s forms was a beautiful woman fused with a spider... she was actually male.

Yet earlier Hebashia referred to the Grey Celestial Marshal as Krokos’s identical twin. Aiwass wasn’t sure if this was due to Hebashia having a different understanding than Aiwass concerning "identical twins", or if there were other reasons.

After all, Lily almost beca the vessel for Grey Celestial Marshal’s descent before. It’s normal for Aiwass to be concerned about this aspect.

"Not telling you is for your own good."

Hebashia rely shook her head: "Knowing his true na automatically leads one into his lies—his true gender is the sa. In other words, the deeper the knowledge about him, the less one can discern his lies. To those who know enough about him, anything they see might be illusory.

"It’s like ’rumors’... unless it’s propagated actively by his fervent worshippers, everyone else instinctively suppresses it. This is to prevent themselves from falling into lies soday."

"...Is he really that strong?"

Isabel listened with stars in her eyes: "Is it so sort of illusion technique?"

Though her legacy derived from the Playful Sky Departnt, Isabel was equally adept with illusion techniques.

Transforming Illusion into Reality was the direction she was striving for.

"It’s not rely an illusion, Your Majesty the Queen."

Hebashia laughed outright when she heard this, paying no heed that Isabel had already shed her queenly identity: "If it were just illusions at this level, seekers of the Truth would find it easier to see through. But the Grey Celestial Marshal’s lies are so profound, not even I... not even the Pillar God can see through them.

"Because the one deceiving oneself is one’s own heart—the mont you fervently believe in a lie, no matter how much evidence, no matter how many flaws you see, you won’t question your faith.

"The more unwavering the heart on the Path, the harder it is to escape from the lie."

"...The more you know, the more real it becos, huh?"

Aiwass chewed over this phrase, feeling that Grey Celestial Marshal’s rit might be higher than he imagined.

If even the Pillar God couldn’t see through his lies, what does that signify?

—At least in the area of "reality and deception", Grey Celestial Marshal has reached a level comparable to the Pillar God.

From this perspective, his death then... was it really death?

Wait a mont...

Aiwass suddenly reacted: "If Grey Celestial Marshal is Hers’s son, Hers a follower of the Fool... then did he participate in the Battle of Punishnt and sacrifice in it, perhaps to..."

"That’s right."

Hebashia said as the doll enveloped in glowing pink and purple light before her slowly floated upwards.

She watched the pink-purple luminescence bloom before her eyes, seeing the outline gradually clear in her fingers, yet felt no joy at reunion.

Her eyes seeped with lancholy: "He indeed intended to mimic the Fool of yore—to challenge the Pillar God.

"Because Hers never beca an Angel Envoy or a Celestial Marshal. The Fool we followed refused to follow any deity upon death, he didn’t accept even the invitation from the Pillar God... He even had the opportunity to beco a Celestial Marshal, yet completely abandoned even that chance, as an act of defiance against the gods.

"But even such a Fool was ultimately seized by Zagreus, the Banquet Master, and ascended together. Of course, I can understand Zagreus... He wouldn’t accept Dionysus’s complete demise, would rather be hated by the Fool but insists on keeping him alive.

"And Hers couldn’t accept this fact. He refused to beco petrified, refused to Amberficate. He didn’t want to beco any deity’s Angel Envoy, even if it ant returning to the Hourglass... Therefore, shortly after completing the ’Fools’ Chants Manual’, he chose complete death—as a way to utterly disappear from the world. That Codex Book was his posthumous work... It was also the summary of his own life.

"The term ’Fools’ Chants’ in that Codex isn’t rely praising the Fool; it sums up his life—’The Song of Foolishness’, ’The Incomparable Fool’s Chants’.

"At that ti, both Grey Celestial Marshal and I hadn’t ascended yet. Grey Celestial Marshal had already left descendants, Hers had beco a grandfather. He handed his na to that child as their surna..."

Hebashia said as the creation before her grew ever clearer.

Countless runes coalesced into flesh, and thought transford reality.

It was an elf looking about twenty to thirty years old, whose long hair had all turned pink-purple, appearing more mature than Isabel.

Aiwass watched this, silently reflecting.

—The "Blue Bird" in the ga, the companion pet players treat as their own daughter, if resurrected, has beco this big?

And Hebashia continued reminiscing about the past: "You surely also know another na... Heracles.

"The first generation of humans and founder of the Helasal Empire—he once learned martial arts from Grey Celestial Marshal."

"Grey Celestial Marshal knew martial arts?"

Aiwass was sowhat surprised.

In his understanding, the Grey Celestial Marshal should be a pure mage. Furthermore, the type adept at orchestrating threads and illusions, a frail mage filled with sinister energy.

"Of course," Hebashia dismissed it, "His birth predates humans, and ’beasts’ predate ’people’. So-called martial arts initially were ’skills for survival’, drawn from the beasts hatched by the Beast Master."

"I see..."

Aiwass understood upon hearing this.

Just as the Hawkeye Organization emulated the Shadow Demon’s abilities, acquiring Shadow Stealth techniques. The initial martial arts stemd from mimicking the fighting abilities of the creatures the Beast Master created. Humans easily grasped these techniques because humanity and the myriad beasts are essentially of the sa origin.

And among them, the Grey Celestial Marshal capable of transforming into any form and whose true self remains elusive truly should have been the first to learn martial arts.

"And Hers also imparted so knowledge to Heracles and gifted Heracles a Golden Sword."

Hebashia said softly: "You should know... what it signifies. His Holiness the forr Pope."