[Greek Mythology] The Demons Under My Command - Chapter 56

After Li Jia woke up, she couldn’t find Hera anywhere. She stared blankly at the ring on her thumb.

Why did she leave the other half of Panda (the Divine Judgment Sword) to her?

Li Jia didn’t understand.

She planned to wait for her return to ask for a clear explanation, waiting from dusk until dawn, and from dawn until dusk, but she never came back.

Li Jia couldn’t wait any longer. Before she could even ask Winslow, she drove the Peacock Chariot herself and flew towards the Temple of the Marriage God.

Thinking back, she had learned many useful things during the years she spent with Hera, such as how to use Panda with great skill, almost achieving a man-and-sword oneness.

Hera taught her how to handle the affairs of the Temple of the Marriage God, so even when Hera wasn’t in the hall, she could handle every matter based on what she had been taught.

But now.

The person who had taught her everything had disappeared.

She looked down at the two rings on her hand; the anxiety wrapped around Li Jia’s heart like a vine, dull and painful, and her breathing suddenly became ragged.

The Peacock Chariot slowly landed outside the palace. The palace gates were open, but the hall was empty.

The silver snake white jade pillars emitted a cold light in the moonlight, and the glazed lamps gently swayed in the corridor, making faint, fragmented sounds, which only made the whole temple seem more desolate.

Li Jia stepped onto the cold jade steps and walked inside. Her gaze swept over the familiar furnishings, finally stopping at the marriage history book left open on the table.

She approached the desk, her fingertip touching the page that had been turned.

The moonlight poured down, illuminating the handwriting on the paper. The entire page of the history book was only imprinted with her name, while the name Hera, which should have been beside hers, had vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed.

“How could this be…”

Li Jia’s voice was dry and hoarse. She ran her hand over the blank paper, only touching a cold ink stain.

A huge panic instantly swallowed her. She stumbled back a step, hitting the jade pillar behind her. The dull pain in her chest intensified, making it almost impossible for her to breathe.

A figure appeared at the palace entrance. Li Jia subconsciously looked up and saw Dorin’s cold face.

As if she had found a life raft, Li Jia held the marriage history book and asked her, “Where is Hera? Where is she?”

“By what right? By what right did she arbitrarily erase her name from the marriage history?”

“Why did she leave Panda for me?”

“Why can’t I find her?”

“Is she going to do something?”

Li Jia was so angry she felt like going crazy. Was she just inexplicably divorced? Did she agree to this?

“The Divine Master has things she must do. She has entrusted the Temple of the Marriage God to you. From now on, you are the new deity, and you have no more connection with her.”

Dorin stiffened upon hearing Li Jia’s barrage of questions, forcing herself to maintain a cold demeanor.

“Why would I become the new deity? I am only a mortal. Isn’t it ridiculous to make a mortal a god?”

Dorin’s answer made Li Jia find it absurd. Why would she become a god?!

This was completely off track from the book’s plot and inconsistent with the mission.

She was a string of data that did not belong here, and according to the system’s calculation, the lifespan of her current body was less than half a year.

Dorin remained silent, standing motionless at the door.

Li Jia stared at her, frowning. Hera must have instructed her about something; she couldn’t dig any news out of her.

Then she’d try a different approach.

Li Jia raised her eyebrows and laughed, “Fine, you won’t tell me, right? Then I don’t care to listen. Since you said I am the new deity, then tomorrow, no! At dawn, I will hold a divine consort selection ceremony in Xiangcheng Spring Capital.”

“I will let another man live in her house and spend her money. And I want you to watch me and my divine consort be loving and happy until old age every day.”

“Li Jia! How could you do such a thing! Are you being worthy of the Divine Master’s entrustment and trust in you?”

The reprimand echoed faintly in the empty Temple of the Marriage God. Dorin’s face instantly turned bright red, and her eyes, filled with disbelief, were full of anger as she looked at Li Jia.

Li Jia, however, acted as if she hadn’t heard, a hint of coldness in the smile on her lips: “Entrustment? She threw me here without even an explanation, leaving only a marriage history with her name erased and a baffling deity status. Is this what you call entrustment?”

She looked up at Dorin, the anxiety in her eyes already covered by a layer of deliberately feigned rebellion: “She was the one who wanted to form a bond with me, and now she wants to sever it completely without a word. Then what I do has nothing to do with her.”

“My selection of a divine consort is inevitable. If you obstruct it, you will be defying the new deity’s command.”

“You…”

Dorin was trembling with anger, yet she was blocked from speaking by that very statement.

Hera had indeed instructed before leaving that the entire Temple of the Marriage God must obey Li Jia’s mobilization regardless of her decision, and Dorin had no right to interfere.

“If you don’t tell me, then everything she has done will be meaningless. When you also forget her, no one in this world will remember her and everything she has done.”

Li Jia’s words made Dorin hesitate whether to violate Hera’s instructions.

The Divine Master protected the order of the Temple of the Marriage God and maintained the thread of fate for marriages in the world throughout her life. If she, too, were forgotten, all that effort and sacrifice would truly become dust ignored by all.

The wind from outside the hall swirled in with the moonlight. The halo of the glazed lamp shook violently, casting Dorin’s shadow in flickering light and darkness.

She opened her mouth, her throat feeling like it was clogged with scorching gravel. It took a long time before she squeezed out a hoarse sentence: “The Divine Master… she went to Divine Mountain.”

“Divine Mountain?”

Li Jia’s heart sank abruptly. She had seen this name in the book; the Twelve Deities were all born on Divine Mountain. Divine Mountain and the deities constrained each other. Deities would leave Divine Mountain after their descent, unless a deity committed a grave sin or wanted to retrieve something they had left there.

“Before the Divine Master descended, cracks appeared in the world’s marriage order, allowing Hera, the Marriage God, to descend to maintain the world’s marriage order,” Dorin’s voice carried an uncontrollable tremor. Her cold face completely shattered, her eyes filled with surging pain.

“Hera sacrificed her own marriage. She cannot actively propose and register a marriage in the marriage history.”

“She violated her divine oath. Your life line cannot be connected to hers. The Divine Master knew her sin was profound. She left Panda to you because only you can wield it; her blood is dissolved within your body.”

“Her Majesty sensed your life force draining away. She traveled to the underworld multiple times. The netherworld has a prohibition, and the Divine Master went alone just to find your Bound Spirit Lamp. She was bruised all over every time, but more desperate than those injuries was the fact that she couldn’t find your Bound Spirit Lamp.”

“Bound Spirit Lamp…”

Li Jia muttered the three words, her fingertips clenching tightly. The edges of the two rings dug deep into her palm, causing a sharp pain, yet it was far less than the sourness and shock surging in her heart.

She had always thought she was merely a stranger who broke into this world, a string of data that could dissipate at any moment, but she never imagined that Hera would go to such lengths for her.

Traveling back and forth to the underworld, breaking through the prohibition alone, covered in injuries…

In those days and nights she was unaware of, how much unimaginable suffering did that deity, who was always gently smiling and managed everything perfectly, endure?

Li Jia looked down at her hands. Her palm still seemed to retain the warmth from when Hera taught her how to hold a sword. Her fingertips seemed to still be able to feel Hera’s warm gaze, which fell on the pages when she explained the affairs of the Temple of the Marriage God to her.

These meticulous care and unreserved teachings were not accidental; Hera had long engraved Li Jia’s life and death into her own destiny.

“Why did she go to Divine Mountain?”

Dorin closed her eyes, and tears finally slid down her cheeks, dripping onto the cold floor: “To accept her judgment, and to swap the life line with you, making you the new generation of deity, gaining eternal life.”

“No!”

Li Jia suddenly looked up, her eyes full of scarlet stubbornness: “I don’t want her life line! I don’t want to be her damn-it, life-and-death deity! And I certainly don’t want to trade her disappearance for my life!”

“Did she ask me if she could die for me? Does she think this is good for me? But she doesn’t know that eternal life without her will make me suffer more than death!”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Li Jia ran out of the hall. She drove the Peacock Chariot, transforming into a streak of light that broke through the night sky, speeding towards Divine Mountain.

Waves of red starlight emanated from Divine Mountain. Li Jia tried to hold and grasp them, but nothing could be held or retained.

Immediately, she felt a continuous surge of divine power pouring into her body. She was like a sponge, tirelessly absorbing this power.

Li Jia felt unbearable, too much, too much.

Tears streamed down her face involuntarily.

Hera gave too much.

A dark fire burned around Hera, refining her soul from bottom to top, scorching her internal organs. Every inch of her muscle made a faint cracking sound in the flames.

She kept her eyes lowered, her golden hair slightly curled by the licking flames, yet she maintained a dignified posture, as if the dark fire burning beneath her—enough to make a deity’s soul scatter—was nothing.

The Judgment Platform at the summit of Divine Mountain was forged from stardust left by the Creator God. The cold stone surface reflected her pale but calm face.

A voice devoid of emotion from around the Judgment Platform stated: “Hera, you violated your divine oath, using your own divinity as an anchor to swap the mortal’s life line. Do you acknowledge your sin?”

Hera slowly raised her head, a trace of lingering gentleness in her eyes—the mark exclusive to Li Jia.

She softly answered, “I do.”

“This sin shall be punished by the scattering of your soul, never to be reborn for eternity.”

As Gabriel’s voice fell, the air around seemed to freeze. Even the leaping dark fire briefly paused.

Hera, however, smiled lightly, the curve of her lips so tender it was heartbreaking: “Good, but I ask for one condition to be granted.”

“Speak.”

“Keep her life line complete.”

“I want her to become the Divine King, possessing the authority that will never be betrayed.”

She paused, her voice dropping a little, with a hint of an almost imperceptible sob: “I am willing to use my corpse to guard the Cinder Prison for all eternity.”

Upon hearing “Cinder Prison,” there was a moment of silence.

Finally, they slowly nodded: “Granted.”

On the statues of the Twelve Divine Masters, one soul lamp dimmed.

“The Marriage God has perished. Divine King Li Jia is established.”

The lingering sound of the divine decree echoed between heaven and earth, like a cold spell, heavily driven into Li Jia’s heart.

She violently looked up, staring at the sky above the summit of Divine Mountain, which was stained red by the dark fire. A broken sob escaped her throat, and tears streamed down so fiercely that her vision was almost blurred.

Divine Mountain was sealed by a prohibition from the Creator God, forming a golden barrier. Unable to enter Divine Mountain, Li Jia angrily took up Panda and hacked and slashed wildly.

Exhausted from slashing, Li Jia sat weakly by Divine Mountain.

How could there be someone in this world who hid their love so deeply, so deep that they had to achieve it through disappearance?

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