Chapter 1100
Hermes and Hercules
Hearing this, Eivass was slightly stunned. “Then… how many wives does Lord Hermes have in total?”
“Just me, of course,” Haibasha said nonchalantly. “I accompanied him from his youth until his complete death. When I first met him, he was about this big.”
Eivass was speechless, looking at this little girl who was not even up to his waist, speaking so seriously. He felt a strange sense of disconnect. It felt like Sherlock’s ancestor owed him a debt.
Haibasha glanced at Eivass and said irritably, “I know what you want to ask—Sherlock’s lineage comes from the Grey Heavenly Envoy. He inherited many of Hermes’ powers, including his arts of deception and theft. He can transform into anything… whether it’s a man, a woman, an old person, a child, or even cattle, sheep, birds, insects, or a mass of fog, a mountain range, or a body of water.”
“Isn’t the Grey Heavenly Envoy your child?” Eivass asked, a little strange. “Why do you even call him the Grey Heavenly Envoy? And… is he male or female?”
Both Haibasha and Arthur referred to the Grey Heavenly Envoy as “he,” and the Lord of Scales and Feathers directly called him “Hermes’ son.” Eivass clearly remembered that although one of the Grey Heavenly Envoy’s forms was a beautiful woman merged with a spider… he was actually male. But Haibasha called the Grey Heavenly Envoy Koroxes’ identical twin before. Eivass wasn’t sure if this was because Haibasha’s understanding of ‘identical twins’ differed from his, or if there were other reasons. After all, Lily had almost become a vessel for the Grey Heavenly Envoy’s descent. It was normal for Eivass to be concerned about this.
“Not telling you is for your own good,” Haibasha just shook her head. “Knowing his True Name will automatically plunge you into his lies—his true gender is the same. Or rather, the deeper your understanding of him, the more unable you will be to distinguish his lies. People who know him well might see anything as false. It’s like ‘rumors’… Unless actively spread by his fanatical followers, everyone else will instinctively suppress them. This is all to prevent themselves from falling into lies one day.”
“…Is he that powerful?” Isabel’s eyes lit up. “Is it some kind of illusion?” Although her inheritance came from the Heavenly Envoy of Play, Isabel was also skilled in illusion manipulation. Turning the false into the true was her goal.
“That’s far more than just illusion, Your Majesty the Queen,” Haibasha said with a laugh, disregarding that Isabel had relinquished her queenly title. “If it were merely at the level of illusion, those who seek truth would easily see through it. But the Grey Heavenly Envoy’s lies are too profound. Let alone me… even the Pillar Gods cannot see clearly. Because what deceives you is your own heart—when you firmly believe a lie, even if you see countless pieces of evidence and flaws, you will never doubt your own conviction. The more steadfast the heart of the Path, the more impossible it is to escape the lies.”
“…The more I know, the more obscured it becomes?” Eivass chewed on this sentence, feeling that the Grey Heavenly Envoy’s worth might be even higher than he imagined. If even the Pillar Gods couldn’t see through his lies, what did that mean? The Grey Heavenly Envoy had at least reached a realm comparable to the Pillar Gods in the domain of ‘truth and lies.’ In this regard, did his death back then… truly mean he was dead? Wait… Eivass suddenly realized, “If the Grey Heavenly Envoy is Hermes’ son, and Hermes is a follower of the Fool… then his participation in the Battle of Punishing Heaven and his sacrifice, was it for…?”
“That’s right,” Haibasha said. The puppet shimmering with pink-purple radiance in front of her slowly floated up. She gazed at the blooming pink-purple halo before her, watching its outline gradually take shape in her fingers, yet felt no joy of reunion. Melancholy seeped from the depths of her pupils. “He wanted to imitate the Fool of the past—to challenge the Pillar Gods. Because Hermes did not become an Apostle or a Heavenly Envoy. The Fool we followed, when he died in battle, refused to follow any god, not even accepting when invited by the Pillar Gods… He even had the chance to become a Heavenly Envoy at the time, but he completely abandoned that opportunity as a form of rebellion against the gods. But even such a Fool was ultimately taken by the Banquet Master Xagarios and ascended together. Of course, I can also understand Xagarios… He couldn’t accept the reality of Dionysus perishing completely, so he forced him to live even if it meant being hated by the Fool. And Hermes could never accept this fact. He didn’t want to be petrified, nor did he want to be condensed into amber. He didn’t want to become an apostle of any god, not even to return to the side of the Hourglass… Therefore, shortly after The Fool’s Eulogy Grimoire was completed, he chose complete death—a way of perishing entirely from the World. That Grimoire was his posthumous work… and also a summary of his own life. The term ‘Fool’s Eulogy’ in that Grimoire not only refers to ‘Praise of the Fool,’ but also describes his own life—’A Song of Foolishness,’ ‘A Chant of Utter Folly.’ At that time, both the Grey Heavenly Envoy and I had not yet ascended. The Grey Heavenly Envoy had already left descendants, and Hermes was already a grandfather. He gave his name to that child, as his surname…”
As Haibasha spoke, the creation before her became clearer. Countless runes condensed into a physical body, and thought changed reality. It was an elf who appeared to be in her early twenties—her long hair had turned pink-purple, making her look even more mature than Isabel. Eivass watched this scene with silent emotion. The ‘little blue bird’ in the game, which players raised like their own daughter as a companion pet… if resurrected, would it have become this big already?
Haibasha continued reminiscing, “You must also know another name… Hercules. The founder of the Hrasal Empire, the first generation of humankind—he once learned martial arts from the Grey Heavenly Envoy.”
“The Grey Heavenly Envoy knows martial arts?” Eivass was somewhat shocked. In his perception, the Grey Heavenly Envoy should have been a pure mage, and a frail mage who was good at manipulating threads and illusions, exuding a gloomy aura.
“Of course,” Haibasha said dismissively. “His birth predates humans, and the birth of ‘beasts’ also predates ‘humans.’ Martial arts, originally, were ‘skills for survival,’ taken from the beasts hatched by the Beast Lords.”
“I see…” Eivass understood at this point. Just as the Eagle Eye organization imitated the Shadow Demon’s abilities and obtained the skill of shadow stealth, the original martial arts were imitations of the combat abilities of the beasts created by the Beast Lords. Humans could easily master these techniques because humans and the hundred beasts originated from the same source. And the Grey Heavenly Envoy, who could transform into any form and whose true form was elusive, should indeed have been the first to learn the art of ‘martial arts.’
“Hermes also taught Hercules some knowledge and gifted Hercules a Golden Sword,” Haibasha said softly. “You should know… what it signifies, Former Pope.”
(End of this Chapter)
