Chapter 585: Moon in the Water
At the foot of the former divine mountain, beside a long-dried riverbed.
To quickly find useful clues, the group had already split up to search.
Taking a few steps, he passed a decayed tree stump.
Vaguely, Heracles seemed to still see that this place must have been a beautiful ancient forest tens of thousands of years ago.
At that time, when the wind blew, thousands upon thousands of maple trees rustled in unison.
Perhaps the people living here would dance alone in the wind, confiding their thoughts to the plants.
Shaking his head slightly, he erased these imagined scenes of the past from his mind.
Facing the desolate and dilapidated land before him, the Great Hero was helpless.
There was nothing here, let alone the 'true entrance' to the Spirit World.
In fact, half a day ago, Heracles had sought Ender's help for this, to glimpse past events here, such as the whereabouts of the Golden Humans.
That so-called entrance might have been built near their former gathering place; once found, the Great Hero would find the correct portal.
However, upon hearing his request, the puppet regretfully told him that it was somewhat beyond its capabilities.
"You must know, Heracles—"
Ender's mouth opened and closed, the wooden clatter of his body clearly audible: "For nearly an era, this place has been one of the few forbidden lands on the land of Chaos."
"It's not because terrible beings lurk here, nor is it fear of being seen by the God King of Mount Olympus as rebels nostalgic for the Titans. It's simply that this land contains too many distorted rule traps, and the lingering influence of the Primordial God is ceaseless, lasting for tens of thousands of years."
"I cannot glimpse traces of the past here, at least not from the previous era."
"Moreover, if I may be frank, I don't believe the Spirit World has any direct connection with the Golden Humans—I mean, that kind of fanatical reverence, equal to that of the gods, is so perfect it doesn't seem like the character of normal beings. They give me a feeling of being incompatible with the Spirit World."
"The Spirit World… probably wouldn't place its entrance next to beings whose nature is inherently locked."
"Phew…"
"Perhaps so."
"If there were other clues, I wouldn't want to search for traces of the Golden Age…"
Sighing softly, he continued forward along the riverbed. The Great Hero accepted Ender's explanation, but he didn't give up on searching.
After all, as he said, he couldn't find any other clues at the moment.
He walked for a while longer, all the way to the end of the riverbed.
Here, Heracles discovered the ruins of a similarly dried-up pond.
And right beside the pond, Prometheus was half-kneeling on the ground, head bowed, studying a broken stone tablet.
"Your Highness Prometheus… have you found something here?"
Unexpectedly, the two who had separated earlier met here, and the Great Hero couldn't help but feel a surge of excitement.
Taking two steps forward, Heracles looked at the ancient stone tablet.
Thousands of years of weathering had made its surface smooth and rough, and the few characters were no longer clear.
However, just like the several stone tablets discovered recently, both Prometheus and Heracleshad ways to restore the characters on them.
As the First Awakener's fingertip glided, strange yet familiar characters appeared on the stone tablet.
Concentrating intently, the Great Hero hoped for some useful discovery on it.
"…Red Leaf Forest… Blasphemy… Creation…"
"No need to look further."
Rising from the ground, Prometheus interrupted Heracles's deciphering.
"There's no mention of the Spirit World here. In fact, the former Golden Humans truly had no relation to the Spirit World."
"Except for their monarch, who seemingly gained knowledge of the Spirit World from dreams, the only remaining relationship between them was that of creator and created."
"As for this stone tablet… it records the deeds of a certain 'Blasphemer of Gods.' Compared to the Golden Humans, her connection to the Spirit World might be closer."
"Blasphemer? Were there blasphemers in the Golden Age too?"
Heracles was somewhat surprised at this. In the education he received since childhood, Golden Humans were synonymous with perfect morality. Even in the current human world, there is a certain etymological and morphological similarity between the words 'golden' and 'perfect.'
Facing the Great Hero's questioning, Prometheus merely shook his head slowly.
"She is indeed recorded as a blasphemer, but she is not a Golden Human."
"This place is actually where she once lived, an ancient forest named 'Red Leaf Forest'."
"In that era, this place was not far from the Golden Humans' settlement, and these long-lived beings even frequently came here to get water."
"Until one day, that 'Blasphemer of Gods' left this place permanently. And this former dwelling of hers also vanished into invisibility under that blasphemous power."
"Blasphemous… power?"
Frowning slightly, the Great Hero had a vague sense of déjà vu.
And from his chest pocket, Ender directly prompted.
"Witchcraft."
"If there is any power that the Golden Humans considered blasphemous, it would certainly not be physical strength, but only the ability to summon wind and rain like a god."
"Witchcraft is precisely such a power, for in that era, humanity was the only intelligent mortal race, and there were no diverse paths of transcendence yet."
"However, this is the first time I've learned that the origin of witchcraft is actually so ancient?"
"The Golden Age… a person who blasphemed the gods… for the Golden Humans to call her 'blasphemous' proves that this being was definitely not a god, and yet she could use witchcraft… how surprising."
"I had always thought that witchcraft originated at the end of the Second Era, born with the Goddess of the Magic Web. So, it turns out even she wasn't the original inventor of witchcraft?"
"Then who was this original inventor…?"
Encountering something interesting for the first time, Ender slowly crawled out of the Great Hero's pocket.
He looked at the stone tablet on the ground, but Prometheus merely shook his head again.
"No, Ender, she was the original inventor."
"Or, whether she was the inventor or not, she must have been the first being to display the power of witchcraft in the human world…"
His expression was complex, old memories flooding his mind.
Prometheus still remembered when he and his brother lived together harmoniously.
At that time, he was arrogant and conceited, believing he saw through the ways of the world.
Now, he was Zeus's prisoner, and Epimetheus was on the New God Court's wanted list.
The Sky-supporting Giant God knew no peace, holding up the firmament at the end of the West Sea.
"Heracles… you might not know, but in that era, the Goddess of the Magic Web was not a god in the true sense."
"She had no Authority, no domain, and even before the rise of faith, no means of acquiring Divine Power."
"So her parents cast her down from the Sky, and she fell to a corner of the human world."
"No one knew that one day she would become the Lord of the Magic Net, the source of witches, and the pioneer of innovative secret arts. The Golden Humans merely followed the will of the heavenly gods, rejecting this 'blasphemous' being."
"This should be her former home, the place where her Life first grew."
"And she… Heracles, perhaps she is the one who might have a connection to the 'Spirit World entrance' here."
Among the few people in the group, only the later Dionysus had not seen Ender.
Prometheus had previously communicated with the puppet beneath the Ocean Eye.
So, he was not unfamiliar with the former's existence and some of its abilities. The First Awakener raised his hand, gesturing for Ender to use his special ritual to reveal past traces of this place.
Since this place was related to the Goddess of the Magic Web, they might as well try to find the traces she left behind.
Unless she hadn't returned here for an entire era, the influence of Great Divine Power, while strong, wouldn't extend up and down the river of time to prevent later comers from glimpsing future events here.
Nodding gently at this, Ender leaped out of the Great Hero's pocket.
Exploring events that happened in this era… no big deal, this was one of his Divinity's abilities.
Drama, opera; its existence is the re-enactment of events that have already occurred, or the performance of things that have never happened.
Glimpsing history, composing melodies, and ultimately deriving true power—this was one of Ender's methods.
So, not long after, an intricate ritual appeared in the open space by the pond.
The puppet's fingers subtly twitched, and a hundred paper figures, guided by invisible threads, landed on the ground and began to dance around the ritual array.
It was like a mysterious witch's sacrifice, communicating with something.
Watching silently, Heracles waited for the change to come.
Goddess of the Magic Web… once not considered a god… blasphemer of gods… era changes…
He seemed to grasp something, but when he came to, there was nothing.
On the ruins of the former forest, blurry images gradually took shape.
······
Splash, splash…
The pond water gurgled, flowing ceaselessly.
The bright moon shone on the pond, its reflection like a jade disk.
Who knows how long ago, Hecate, in a red dress, took small steps, skipping over a fallen dead tree, and twirled in the moonlit clearing.
Not far away, the Moon Goddess chuckled, covering her mouth, but a hint of envy was in her eyes.
When she was very young, she had also longed for such a free and unburdened Life, but from the moment of her birth, the Moon was forced to live under the shadow of her father and brother.
Thousands of years passed, Hyperion might have fallen asleep, Helios had become a mere pawn under Zeus, and she finally regained her right to independence.
However, even now, Selene could no longer make such gestures.
The traces left by past suppression were hard to fade… at least not yet.
After all, not much time had passed since the era change; the Bronze Humans were still active on the land, though they were unknowingly nearing their demise…
"Ah—what are you doing?"
"Haha… what do you think (*^▽^*)?"
With a gasp, the girl in the red dress had somehow secretly come behind the Moon Goddess, who was lost in thought, and given her a big 'surprise.'
At once, the gloomy mood vanished, and a smile reappeared on the girl's face.
Evidently, despite revisiting the familiar place, Selene's subtle emotions were not hidden from Hecate, for it was here that Hecate herself had also experienced an imperfect childhood.
However, unlike her friend, Hecate was never alone; she had a talking stone tablet for companionship, while Selene was only by herself… After playing for a while, who knows how long, the two immortal gods sat side by side on a large rock beside the pond.
The pond water reached their ankles, and the moon's reflection intertwined with their figures.
Watching the Moon, which should have been driven by her, slide across the Sky, Selene couldn't help but feel a touch of melancholy again.
"Hecate… do you think the God of the West Wind, who secretly followed us for a while, will go and complain about me to the God King…?"
"I suppose I snuck out… although I'm not like my brother; I haven't separated my Divinity, and I can control the Moon without the aid of a divine artifact… and the Moon isn't that strong anyway…"
"Alright, don't overthink it."
"Zephyrus? A sycophantic little man, simply not worth mentioning."
"Didn't you see he didn't even dare to truly hide his tracks when he was following? He was just putting on a show."
"As for that Golden hair… he can't even sort out his own affairs yet, how dare he come looking for trouble with you."
"He's hoping for fewer problems right now, to first secure the human faith he treasures so much."
"If he dares to come looking for trouble with you, I'll help you teach him a lesson."
"By comparison, do you remember that Golden Human we met on the way?"
"Tsk, I didn't expect before that this once honest uncle would live until today, even outliving the end of the golden and silver ages, outliving the demise of their creators' God Court…"
"Selene, do you know, although I have no Prophecy, my intuition tells me that he might have an unbreakable connection with you, no, with your father and brother."
"Perhaps one day they will come to blows… Don't look at me like that; even though Helios is a Mid-level Divine Power, and he's just an ordinary human, intuition, you know, it doesn't follow logic."
"Besides, your relationship with them isn't that good, so why would you worry about him?"
Her calves swung, creating ripples on the water's surface.
Hecate dismissed the Wind God and Zeus, instead bringing up the most ancient Human King.
However, in her eyes, neither the Human King nor the origin of the future combatant path for humans held any significance.
If there was anything about him that she cared about, it was probably his genuine kindness, which, despite being constrained by God's Oracle, he had struggled to conceal.
"This is both good and bad…"
"Golden Humans… their kindness is unforgettable to me."
"But it's this boundless perfection that makes me feel their destruction was well-deserved."
"'Well-deserved crime'—how ridiculous that phrase sounds when applied to them, but that's what I think."
"Selene, what do you think?"
Her thoughts jumped around; almost no one could keep up with Hecate's erratic ideas.
But she didn't care, because she knew that no matter what she said, Selene would follow her lead.
"I don't know…"
"But since you say so, then they were well-deservedly punished."
Indeed, in a flash, Helios was forgotten, and Selene also began to speak of the Golden Humans.
It was just that she had no real impression of those people… so she merely smiled gently, like the soft moonlight scattered from the Sky onto the human world.