Chapter 485: The Abyss Makes No Distinction Between Friend and Foe

Beneath the terracotta mask, the woman herself was also bewildered.

"...I don't know," she said.

"You don't know?"

"I really don't know."

"I don't know how many times I reported something wrong with the fields this past year. The grain kept growing faster and emptier. I burned it year after year, and year after year it grew back."

"I thought the veil had grown thin."

"I thought it was..." She couldn't go on.

Hecate spoke up then. "It is my fault."

Everyone's eyes turned to the head seat.

"I actually knew about this long ago."

Demeter snapped her head up.

Hecate said, "The Roman table didn't try to buy her off; they merely planted a season of crops in her fields."

"That season's harvest gathered our intelligence for them for an entire year."

Richard stood in the center of the circle, tracing this line of logic in his mind.

Demeter was an honest farmer who had worked that plot of land for half her life. She would never raise defenses against her own fields.

Hecate said, "I wrote a letter to each of the six of you. The skeleton was the same, but the details in each were different."

"In hers, I wrote that Hermes belonged to the Classical Records Tradition."

Atop the Seven Hills, Minerva closed her eyes.

"...I see."

Hecate ignored the remark, turning to face Demeter directly.

"I should have told you earlier."

"But you don't know how to lie. I knew that."

"It is my fault that you were used by them."

The farmer let out a short laugh. "...You."

She lifted her hands from her knees, bracing herself against the ground to stand up straight.

"In that case, I should do something too."

"What are you going to do?" The big lug was no longer angry, scratching his forehead as he asked.

Demeter didn't answer. She hefted the sickle from her knees, her target the plot of land she tended.

"This field of mine sits on a weak point. I've guarded it for over a decade."

"Things started going wrong last autumn. The grain grew fast and hollow; break it open, and there's nothing inside."

"I burned it season after season, and it just kept growing back."

"I always thought it was an issue with the weak point."

She raised her sickle.

"Turns out someone was playing tricks in my soil."

Hecate suddenly raised her hand.

"Demeter... that season's roots have already fused with the leylines of your land."

"I know." Demeter's calloused hands tightened around the sickle's handle.

"But planting and harvesting are all I know. Reaping is my duty."

The sickle fell. The blade struck a swath of grain that grew fast and hollow, completely empty when broken open.

An entire season's harvest was severed at the roots.

On the sixth hill, the Wheel of Fortune stopped at that exact moment.

Fortuna looked down at the wheel in her hands, as if she no longer recognized it.

"...It's gone."

"What's gone?" Minerva asked.

"The line snapped."

Demeter rested her sickle against the ground and let out a long breath.

"That snapping saves me the trouble, though there won't be a harvest this year."

Heracles returned to their side of the line and walked over, supporting her arm with one hand.

"Are the seeds still there?" he asked.

Demeter wasn't sure what he meant.

"...Yes."

"Then you can still plant."

The man thought he sounded incredibly cool saying that. He hoisted his Great Club onto his shoulder and chuckled.

Richard stood in the center, putting the Reed Pen in his hand back into his inner pocket.

He looked at the furrow where dirt was crumbling down. The Virtuoso still hadn't answered Matthew's last remark.

Minerva walked to the edge of the hill, looking down at the tangled mass of formations below.

"Fortuna."

"I can't read anything anymore."

"I know. Sit down."

The Star Map in the sky was still there, but it was scattering outward from the center, much like a kicked-over tray of beads.

Of the incredibly fine threads connecting the stars, half connected to nothing and the other half connected to the wrong places.

The owl atop the Goddess of Wisdom's head twisted its neck. A star in the sky lit back up, and two connecting threads snapped into place.

Richard watched this play out clearly from the center of the circle.

"...They are harder to deal with than I thought," Hecate said.

She had been standing in the outermost ring the entire time, keeping her torch raised without ever lowering it.

"But the Star Map Tradition also has a weakness. It can only deduce forward based on what has already happened."

"Minerva's owl only takes flight at dusk."

Heracles planted his Great Club on the ground, panting heavily.

"Chief, what about that outside help you called in?"

"I asked her."

"Where is she?"

"I don't know."

The eyes beneath the Lion-Mouth Mask went wide. "...You called someone in, and you don't know?"

Hecate didn't turn back.

"When I went to ask her, I only asked if she was willing to step in."

"She said yes."

Below the Seven Hills, no one said a word.

"After that, no matter what I asked, she didn't answer," Hecate said.

"When she would strike, where from, how much force she would use, whether she would leave afterward... I couldn't get a single answer."

Dionysus hooked his cup onto his waist. "And what if she doesn't come?"

"She said yes, so we can only trust her."

After saying this, Hecate fell silent.

Richard glanced at her. Tonight, Hecate's ether field had grown chaotic several times. It was at its worst when Minerva's throw pierced her left shoulder.

But from the moment she entered the field until now, the hand holding the torch hadn't lowered once.

She truly was waiting for that turning point, waiting with a certainty that was almost terrifying.

A Major Adept asking someone for help, not daring to press with even a single question, yet willing to bet the entire table on that "yes."

Exactly what position did this requested helper hold?

On the first hill, Minerva had already begun to rebuild the Star Map.

She had no choice.

Mars's entire faceless legion was anchored to that map;

Fortuna's Wheel of Fortune relied on the map to draw variables;

And every stick of firewood the Hearth Goddess fed to the clay basin had to follow the map to reach the person it meant to heal.

With the map shattered, their table was reduced to seven individuals fighting their own isolated battles.

The owl twisted its neck.

The scattered stars in the sky lit up and snapped back into place, one by one.

While it was being rebuilt, the map lay open.

Richard was just about to tell everyone to press their advantage when an extra stroke appeared on the half-restored map in the sky.

That stroke obviously hadn't been drawn by Minerva. It just silently materialized.

Minerva's hand froze.

"...Who?"

No one answered her.

That stroke dragged down across three stars, moving one of them from the west to the south.

Minerva reached out to erase it, but the moment she wiped it away, two more strokes appeared in its place.

"Stop connecting them!" Fortuna suddenly shrieked from the sixth hill.

Though she was only a Minor Adept, her Inspiration was scarcely inferior to an average Major Adept's.

"Head Seat, stop connecting them! It isn't our map anymore..."

It was too late. The extra strokes began to write themselves out.

A thread meant to regulate the pace of the legions was rerouted into the unmentionable darkness beneath the Tiber River;

A star meant to shine on the granaries west of the city was shifted outside the furrow;

And a thread Richard couldn't comprehend was dragged straight down from the very center of the Star Map, its other end latching onto the owl atop Minerva's head.

"It's over," Minerva said.

When she said this, she already knew who had struck.

At that moment, Richard fully grasped the most fatal flaw of the Star Map Tradition.

The observer and the observed were connected. As she read the map, the map followed that same thread to read her in return.

She wanted to pull her hand back, but the backlash had already surged backward along the connection.

This woman, who had continuously seized the initiative from start to finish, suddenly fell from her position.

Something dripped from beneath her metal mask, pouring down and splattering onto the stone steps.

One of the owl's eyes on her shoulder closed.

Once closed, it never opened again.

"Head Seat!" Fortuna screamed hoarsely, clinging to a pillar.

Minerva didn't respond to her.

She reached out, grabbed the map that was no longer hers by its very center, and violently ripped it down.

The moment it tore, the Perception of everyone at the Roman table completely dislocated.

Mars crawled out from the ruins of the second hill.

His iron mask was cracked at the corner, and his left pauldron was entirely missing.

He gripped his bent spear, looked up, and found his target on the battlefield as he saw it.

Heracles stood exactly ten paces in front of him.

The lion skin, the Great Club, the Lion-Mouth Mask—even the three gashes still bleeding outward were in their original places.

Mars tentatively flipped his bent spear, dragged it across the ground, and cleaved upward toward the man's face.

The spear pierced through. Before he even had time to rejoice, a shriek rang out from behind the colonnade. The Goddess of the Hunt tumbled out from behind the pillars and crashed onto the stone steps.

She had been run through by the spear from her left shoulder to her right ribs. The bow slipped from her grip.

"...Diana!" Venus screamed.

Mars stood rooted to the spot, looking down at his own spear.

Across from him, Heracles was resting his Great Club on his shoulder, grinning at him.

The grin was completely identical to the one from half a quarter-hour ago.

"...When did she move over there?" Mars's voice was hoarse.

"She didn't," Minerva said.

"Then what did I strike..."

"You struck what you thought you saw."

And that still wasn't the worst of it. The altered stars in the sky started to move on their own.

One by one, they tore loose from their original positions and plummeted.

Furthermore, they had opened their 'eyes.'

Holes split open on the stars, their pupils caving inward to a bottomless depth. The thin edges of the rifts opened and closed, much like something breathing slowly.

Hundreds, thousands of them crashed down densely upon the entire City of Seven Hills.

"Pull back the troops!" Minerva was the first to react.

"It's too late," Fortuna said.

The first star fell.

It landed on the right wing of Mars's legion. It fell without a sound and without a flash of light.

That entire phalanx simply vanished.

The square shields of the Republic, the scale armor of the Empire—troops who had marched in lockstep across centuries left not a single scale of armor behind.

The second, the third, the fourth...

That endless expanse of faceless legionnaires was eaten clean in under ten seconds.

Mars stood frozen, letting out an inhuman roar from beneath his iron mask.

Then, the stars turned around.

"...Wait." Dionysus's cup dropped to the ground.

The sea of dead their Chief had opened the gates to summon from outside the city were raising their heads to look at the sky.

They had died outside the walls, having never entered this city for hundreds, thousands of years. Tonight was their first time inside.

The stars fell.

"Those are our people!" Heracles roared.

"Fall back," Hecate said.

"Chief..."

"It's out of our hands."

That massive expanse of the dead was eaten even faster than Mars's legion.

The torch Hecate had held high all night flickered, its flame dimming a little further.

She herself stumbled half a step.

"Chief." A line of text rapidly surfaced on Nemesis's scales: "Is she... friend or foe?"

Hecate steadied the torch once more.

"The Abyss recognizes neither friend nor foe, only what it can consume."

In the center of the circle, Richard kept the Shadow pinned down completely.

That mass of blackness, which had been spread out within the textures of the Stone Tablet, was shrinking back toward his feet on its own for the first time, trembling.

Last month, the Shadow had clashed head-on with a water horse on the mudflats. It had dared to run all night along Cloud Ridge amidst tens of thousands of cavalry. But tonight, it was trembling.

And then it was over. The stars finished eating, winking out one by one.

When the last star went out, the sky above the City of Seven Hills was completely clear.

From beginning to end, that person had struck only once, without even entering the battlefield.

"Absolutely do not try to probe her," Hecate said from the front.

"She agreed to step in, but looking at her might not fall under her protection."

Richard thought of all the materials he had read about the Abyss over the past year. They were nothing but warnings.

His aunt had said the Abyss Throat Method grew fast, became strong fast, and could not be stopped.

The Secrets of the Abyss described it as sweet, formidable, and lethal.

Richard had always thought the Abyss was a path that traded one's life for speed.

But tonight, he finally saw what the Abyss Tradition looked like when it reached the level of a Major Adept.

A Major Adept of the Star Map Tradition hadn't been able to touch her opponent even once from start to finish.

Despite being of the same Rank, she was completely incapable of resisting.

The situation came to a standstill right there. The Roman table had lost its vision of the entire battlefield.

One eye of the owl on Minerva's shoulder had never reopened. From this moment on, she could only see what was right in front of her.

The Goddess of the Hunt had been run through by her own side's spear, clinging to life as she leaned against the Goddess of the Hearth.

Not a single one of Mars's legionnaires remained.

The Greek side was faring no better.

Heracles wouldn't admit it himself, but the petrification wounds were still there.

The high-tier puppet had lost one of its arms, and Catherine's uncle could no longer stand up straight.

The two sides stood separated by the thoroughly overturned clearing beneath the Seven Hills, neither daring to make the first move.

Suddenly, a sound came from the banks of the Tiber River.