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Bang~!
Two solid knocks landed on the Gemini brothers' heads, and black lines immediately appeared across Lorne's face.
"What are you two thinking?
She's just drunk and fell asleep."
The two caught the scent of wine lingering throughout the garden and noticed the obvious flush on Her Majesty the Queen's cheeks.
The shock in their hearts quickly faded, replaced by a dull sense of disappointment.
That's it? How boring...
Seeing the two shake their heads in regret, Lorne's expression darkened even further.
Do they really think I'm that desperate?
'That I'd go after any woman I see?'
Not to mention that this was Atalanta's biological mother, whose feelings as his student he had to take into consideration.
Even judging purely by appearance, the Queen of Arcadia wasn't particularly outstanding among the women he knew.
She was nowhere near beautiful enough to drive him into a beastly frenzy.
After all, compared to those gods and heroes blessed with extraordinary bloodlines, this queen was practically an unknown figure in the epics; a reasonably attractive ornamental vase at best.
If not for the fact that she had remained secluded within the royal palace, had little involvement with Arcadia's Grand Sacrifice, and had been sensible enough to acknowledge Atalanta's identity after the King of Arcadia's downfall.
Thanks in part to the Temple of Artemis acting as mediator, and had genuinely tried to repair her relationship with her daughter, whether she could have even kept her title as queen would have been another matter entirely.
Fortunately, the queen understood her place.
She quietly continued serving as little more than the kingdom's ceremonial figurehead, which earned her a measure of respect and goodwill from both Atalanta and Lorne.
As a result, the few times they had interacted had been fairly pleasant.
But that was all.
"What are you standing there for?
Call the maids outside and have them carry the Queen inside to rest."
Looking at the two standing motionless by the doorway,
Lorne reminded them irritably.
The brothers snapped back to their senses as though waking from a dream and hurriedly obeyed.
Soon, several maids and two priestesses from the Temple of Artemis rushed over after hearing the commotion.
Amid a flurry of activity, they carefully helped the Queen back into her room.
Only then did Lorne turn toward the Gemini brothers and ask with a slight frown, "You said someone wanted to see me. Where is this person? Take me there."
At the mention of business, the twins immediately grew serious and quickly led the way.
The three of them left the royal palace together before arriving at a secluded old residence tucked away in the city.
Stopping before the entrance, the brothers turned back and warned him solemnly,
"That person's inside. He feels... dangerous. Be careful."
Lorne waved them off, signaling for the twins to leave first.
His gaze lingered on the faint star-shaped patterns and the twin-serpent emblem carved into the wall, his expression thoughtful.
A Hermes faction safehouse?
Just then, accompanied by a cheerful voice, a handsome young man with golden hair, blue eyes, and a brown sailor's cap walked out, his face overflowing with a warm, welcoming smile.
"Our guest has arrived! Welcome, welcome!"
"Come, come! The food and wine are all prepared. See if they're to your liking."
Hearing that oddly familiar tone and feeling the man's enthusiastic grip as he pulled him inside as though greeting an old friend after years apart, Lorne silently reached a conclusion.
Yep. No mistake about it.
It's Hermes.
After confirming the other's identity, Lorne followed him into the courtyard and took a seat before a table laden with food and wine.
However, he made no move to touch the utensils.
His expression remained stern as he got straight to the point.
"So, tell me. What do you want with me, Hermes?"
Having his identity exposed didn't surprise the Messenger God in the slightest.
Instead, he cheerfully handed Lorne a bowl and a pair of chopsticks as if greeting an old friend he hadn't seen in years.
"It's been so long since we last met. How about we eat while we talk?"
"Let's discuss business first.
Thanks to your blood descendant and all those disciples of yours, I've been extremely busy lately."
Lorne didn't take the bait and merely snorted coldly with an expressionless face.
"I've been wronged!" Hermes cried mournfully, his face filled with grievance. "Typhon did all of that!
It really had nothing to do with me!"
"You know Hippomenes?"
"Not really."
"He was the mastermind. And he's your blood descendant."
"If we're counting distant blood relations, then couldn't Father Zeus also be connected to him?"
"Then how do you explain the Hermes Sect carrying out the Grand Sacrifice? Those were your most devout followers.
Typhon descended through them.
Shouldn't I regard that as acting under your orders? Wasn't the purpose to use Typhon's resurrection to wipe out Arcadia's enemies on behalf of both you and the Hermes Sect?"
"Slander! That's outright slander!"
Hermes immediately jumped to his feet in outrage.
He raised his right hand and solemnly swore an oath before the River Styx.
Then, with utmost sincerity, he grabbed Lorne's hand.
"I swear I had nothing to do with it! It must be Typhon trying to drive a wedge between us. You can't believe him!"
"Whether I believe you or not doesn't matter."
Lorne answered calmly.
"The ones who suffered are the people of Arcadia. What matters is what they think."
After a brief pause, he casually added,
"I've heard that after the Beast Calamity... they've become rather dissatisfied with followers of Hermes."
In fact, although the greatest threats, Hippomenes and Typhon, had already been dealt with, the aftermath of their actions was far from over.
After losing the decisive battle in Arcadia's mountains,
Typhon's demonic army had broken apart into countless scattered groups, spreading across the various city-states, continuing to wreak havoc wherever they went.
After causing such an enormous disaster, even if the Hermes Sect wasn't the chief culprit, there was no way they could wash their hands clean of responsibility.
As clever as Hermes was, he naturally understood the meaning behind Lorne's words.
With a helpless sigh, he opened a magic array and reluctantly took out a pair of winged silver sandals, gently placing them on the table with obvious reluctance.
"I heard that Her Majesty, the newly crowned Queen of Arcadia, has shown great leniency toward my followers and is willing to let bygones be bygones."
He forced a smile.
"Please accept this small gift on her behalf... and convey my gratitude to Her Majesty."
Although Hermes' words sounded humble, there was an unmistakable hidden meaning behind them.
As the God of Messengers, he had naturally investigated everything beforehand, including the entire incident and the current reputation of the Hermes Sect, so that he'd know exactly what he was dealing with during these negotiations.
And while what Lorne had said wasn't false...
He had only told half the story.
The Hermes Sect certainly couldn't escape responsibility for Typhon's resurrection.
But the Arcadian royal family, the Eleusinian Mysteries, and even the Temple of Artemis were hardly innocent either.
To avoid provoking public outrage, all parties had silently agreed to throw the entire blame onto Typhon and Hippomenes alone.
As a result, all the shady things the Hermes Sect had done behind the scenes were quietly buried along with the truth.
Very few people in Arcadia knew the full story.
Because of that, although the Hermes Sect had suffered several internal purges and sustained heavy losses, their situation wasn't nearly as hopeless as Lorne had implied.
They weren't being hunted down by everyone.
After three months of working together, the followers of Hermes had contributed significantly to suppressing the lingering effects of the Beast Calamity.
Digging up old scandals now and exposing everything would simply be... impolite.
As expected...
Someone as slippery as Hermes was never going to bleed that much so easily.
Lorne glanced at the man across from him before taking out a shattered crimson crystal and idly rolling it between his fingers.
Clicking his tongue in admiration, he said, "To be fair, the Hermes Sect has indeed rendered considerable service."
"Not only did you recreate the forbidden technology of the Bronze Age, you also refined the Philosopher's Stone, a substance capable of allowing one to transcend the limits of life itself."
"Once everything settles down, I'll be sure to have Atalanta publicly commend your achievements."
He smiled faintly.
"And if you think the recognition in Arcadia isn't enough, the Academy of Athens would be more than happy to publicize your accomplishments for free."
"After all..."
"It's a truly groundbreaking achievement."
The instant those words left his mouth, Hermes' face turned green.
If news got out that the Philosopher's Stone had originated from the Hermes Sect...
It would practically cost him his life.
There was no need to mention offending Hades and Gaia by blaspheming the laws of life and death.
The Olympian gods, and even the Chief Gods themselves, would drown him in their spit.
On one hand, mortals, with their pitifully short lifespans, would never be able to resist the temptation of immortality.
They would all set their sights on the Philosopher's Stone, making the Hermes Sect the target of countless greedy eyes.
On the other hand...
What was the raw material needed to refine a Philosopher's Stone?
Human lives.
If certain aging kings or demigods were to obtain that knowledge and refuse to die of old age...
Who could say they wouldn't go mad enough to massacre entire cities and offer them as sacrifices to Typhon?
A decline in the human population would inevitably weaken the seals imprisoning the Old Gods.
If similar incidents happened again and again...
The first ones to eliminate Hermes wouldn't be the Hermes Sect's enemies.
It would be the Olympian gods whose interests had been threatened.
At best, they'd obliterate him.
At worst...
They'd reserve him a permanent seat in Tartarus.
So this wasn't praise at all.
It was nothing less than a beautifully wrapped death sentence.
Faced with such a vicious scheme, Hermes felt his liver tremble and he nearly dropped to his knees on the spot. "Please, brother!"
"My dear brother!"
"Aren't you just pushing me straight into a pit of fire?"
"How could I?"
Lorne replied with a warm smile.
"We're beloved friends..."
"Brothers in arms..."
"Practically family."
As he spoke, his meaningful gaze slowly drifted toward the pair of winged sandals resting on the table.
Hermes instantly understood.
Without another word, he hurriedly reopened his magic array and took out an enchanted quiver, a short sword, and a cloth sack, placing them beside the sandals.
Rubbing his hands awkwardly, he laughed sheepishly.
"I left home in a hurry this time and didn't bring much."
"Please let Her Majesty use these for now."
"If there's anything else you need later..."
"Just let me know."
"I'll definitely make it up to you."
Lorne inspected each item one by one, playing with them briefly before nodding in satisfaction.
The quiver automatically absorbed magical energy from the surrounding air at regular intervals, continuously producing new arrows.
The short sword appeared to have been forged by Hephaestus himself.
Its craftsmanship was excellent, making it a perfect secondary weapon.
As for the cloth sack...
It contained a collection of miniature livestock.
Lorne had seen something similar before in Pan's possession.
Combined with the winged sandals, which granted their wearer a measure of supernatural speed, Hermes had casually handed over four divine artifacts in one go.
For a meticulous god of merchants and travelers who counted every coin...
This wasn't merely bleeding a little.
It was practically carving flesh straight off his own bones.
Looking at Hermes, who clearly looked as though his heart was bleeding, yet still forced himself to smile and beg Lorne to accept the gifts, the man nodded with satisfaction.
"I've given it some careful thought."
"The Philosopher's Stone is simply connected to too many sensitive matters."
"Its existence... really shouldn't be made public."
"Exactly!"
Having successfully silenced the only other person who knew the truth, Hermes was so moved he nearly burst into tears.
"However..."
The sudden turn in Lorne's tone caused Hermes' heart to stop once again as he saw the latter raise a hand in a calming gesture and smile.
"Relax."
"I merely heard that fragments of information concerning the Philosopher's Stone, along with portions of its techniques, and even a few unfinished products, have already quietly spread during the Beast Calamity."
"If they're not dealt with properly..."
"They're bound to cause trouble."
Hermes immediately let out a long sigh of relief.
"Don't worry."
"I'll take care of the cleanup myself."
As the God of Messengers, crisis management had always been one of Hermes' greatest specialties.
Moreover, in his relentless pursuit of expanding the Hermes Sect, he had previously allowed numerous hidden dangers to accumulate.
In the end, his own religious order had nearly been hollowed out from within by an agent of an Old God, ultimately leading to this entire catastrophe.
Now...
This was the perfect opportunity to thoroughly cleanse the Hermes Sect from the inside out.
"Alright, we've finished discussing Arcadia."
Lorne leaned back slightly and looked at Hermes with a faint smile.
"Now it's my turn."
"My appearance fee isn't cheap."
Just as Hermes was pondering how best to deal with the troublesome disciples who had caused him so much grief, Lorne's quiet remark nearly brought him to tears.
"You... want something too?"
"I've got nothing left!"
"Really, not a single thing!"
"If you don't believe me..." He spread his arms helplessly. "Then go ahead and kill me!"
Seeing Hermes on the verge of weeping, Lorne couldn't help feeling a little guilty.
After a moment's thought, he said helplessly, "Fine."
"You can owe me a favor instead."
"When I need your help someday, lend me a hand, as long as it's within your ability."
"Deal!"
Before Lorne had even finished speaking, Hermes shot forward and clasped his hand with lightning speed, immediately sealing the agreement.
At that moment, there wasn't the slightest trace of the tearful expression he'd worn only seconds earlier.
Damn...
'I've been played.'
Lorne silently cursed before letting out a disgruntled snort.
"You really do know how to do business."
"A few crocodile tears, and you got me to change my terms."
"When I helped clean up your mess before, I nearly sacrificed one of my own incarnations."
Hermes chuckled awkwardly, making no attempt to deny his little act of playing the pitiful victim.
To be honest, aside from the winged sandals, which were somewhat valuable, the other three divine artifacts were fairly ordinary by divine standards.
They were nowhere near valuable enough to justify his earlier display of heartbreak.
What he had truly been worried about...was Lorne continuing to squeeze him dry.
Now that his objective had been achieved, and considering that they would likely cooperate again in the future, Hermes decided to offer a small gesture of goodwill.
"How about this?"
"I'll give you one piece of information for free."
"Ask me anything you'd like to know."
"There actually is something."
A glint flashed across Lorne's eyes as he asked in a deep voice, "Where did the name 'Thoth' come from?"
In the eyes of the mystics and alchemists of the Hermes Sect, Hermes the God of Swiftness,
Hermes the Messenger God, and Thoth the God of Wisdom, these three divinities together formed the 'Thrice-Great Hermes.'
He possessed these three aspects and understood the threefold wisdom of the universe; alchemy, astrology, and magic.
But logically speaking, the divine name Thoth should not have appeared here, nor should it have fallen under Hermes, because Thoth was an Egyptian deity.
Upon hearing the question, Hermes' eyelids twitched, and a rare look of difficulty appeared on his face.
"Can I not answer that?"
"..."
"Forget it. Telling you won't hurt."
Considering that Lorne still had leverage over him, Hermes let out a helpless sigh and spoke quietly.
"Actually, that divine name should have come from a foreign land, more precisely, from another Divine Age."
Although Lorne had long suspected as much, he still pretended to know nothing in order to obtain more information.
Frowning, he asked,
"Another Divine Age? Are you saying that, besides the Divine Age we live in, there are others?"
Hermes nodded. After pondering his wording for a moment, he slowly explained,
"True Chaos is boundless, and naturally, the worlds it can give birth to are not limited to just one. If Chaos is compared to a womb, then our world is merely one egg conceived within it. As the world continues to develop, it gradually cuts itself off from Chaos' nourishment, taking on a true and stable form until it matures into an independent individual. Perhaps, in the distant future, our world may even meet its 'brothers and sisters,' intersect with them, and together form an entirely new world."
"Why not now?"
"Because of the Sea of Chaos."
Hermes shrugged, took out a sea chart, spread it across the table, and continued explaining.
"You should know that our world is surrounded by the Oceanus. Beyond it lies the boundless Sea of Chaos, which greatly suppresses our divine authority. Therefore, whether Chief Gods or even the King of Gods, it is extremely difficult for them to cross that barrier, and so they naturally assume that our world is the center of everything.
"But in reality, there may be more than one Divine Age floating upon the Sea of Chaos. Ours is merely one of them."
"What's your basis for saying that?" Lorne asked, adopting a half-believing, half-doubting attitude.
"Do you remember the question you asked just now?"
Hermes wrote the divine name 'Thoth' on a sheet of parchment using strange characters and spoke quietly.
"I heard this name from the Sea of Chaos. Although no one has crossed that forbidden region, the wind is free and unrestrained. It brought me fragments of information that do not belong to this Divine Age."
Looking at the vaguely familiar characters on the parchment, Hermes sighed in regret.
"Unfortunately, what I was able to obtain were only fragmented pieces of information. It took me a long time to piece them together before I finally obtained the divine name 'Thoth', and learned that he is the god who presides over wisdom in another Divine Age."
"So you simply decided to use it?"
Lorne looked at Hermes with an amused expression.
"I was only trying it out..." Hermes replied with an embarrassed smile, his eyes flickering slightly.
After all, in Greece, a Chief God who possessed the Authority of Wisdom would be extraordinarily powerful.
Lorne naturally understood what Hermes was thinking, but he did not expose it.
What Hermes had appropriated was Thoth's divine name, and naturally, the faith and divine authority associated with it as well. In any case, the Egyptian God of Wisdom could hardly cross the Sea of Chaos to Greece to demand compensation for the unauthorized use of his name, so there was no reason for Lorne to play the villain.
Besides...
He was curious.
As the King of the Greek Divine Age, would Zeus be immune to the power of foreign deities?
Right now, he had the perfect test subject standing before him.
At that thought, the way Lorne looked at Hermes became noticeably warmer.
However, the friendlier Lorne appeared, the more vigilant Hermes became.
Almost instinctively, he hugged his chest and quietly took a step backward.
"If there's nothing else, I'll be leaving first."
"Very well. Until next time. If you encounter any trouble while recovering the Philosopher's Stones, have someone from the Academy of Athens send me a message."
Lorne smiled and waved his hand without trying to stop him.
Seeing Lorne's amiable attitude, Hermes relaxed slightly.
Before leaving, he looked at the Shepherd of the Mortal World for a moment, then spoke in a deep voice.
"I'll give you one more piece of information for free."
"Something seems to have happened in Thessaly. It's even livelier there than Arcadia right now. If you're interested, you should go and see for yourself."
Watching Hermes transform into a gust of wind and flee at top speed, Lorne frowned.
Thessaly?
Just as he was deep in thought, the Gemini brothers returned.
Entering the house, they spoke with solemn expressions.
"We've just received a divine oracle from Lord Apollo."
"It seems... we'll have to make a trip to Thessaly."
(End of Chapter)
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