Chapter 87: Theogony Salon

Richard quickly carried out his grandfather's instructions. After explaining the situation, he handed everything over to Mr. Hutton and went straight home.

Back in his office, Mr. Hutton made a call.

He dialed a number belonging to someone who lived on Flower Moon Street in the Imperial Capital, at a residence that bore no sign.

Gerard's earlier call had likely reached the exact same person.

The old gentleman glanced out the window.

Night had fully fallen.

"My deepest apologies for the trouble," he murmured into the receiver, alone in the empty office.

...

Inside an unassuming house on Flower Moon Street in the Imperial Capital.

The telephone rang.

An automaton answered the calls—first the one from the Ashford Residence in the Imperial Capital, then the one from Greenwood School.

After the automaton relayed its report, the occupant of the house did three things.

First, she sent an urgent telegram to her most prized student, who was currently handling business in a northern city of the Empire.

Second, she pulled a map from the bookshelf and pressed a deep crease into it with her fingernail.

Third, she plucked a withered flower from a vase and tossed it into the fireplace.

...

When Richard regained consciousness, his attention was immediately drawn to the sight above him.

A suspended sea of stars stretched overhead.

They were so close he could trace the contours of every celestial body and watch the starlight spilling from their spheres.

Richard quickly deduced that this could not be a real night sky.

Only two things allowed a person to truly "see" stars like this: a telescope, or a hallucination.

He did not have a telescope. Therefore, it was a hallucination.

Whoever was behind this had forced him to sleep, pulled his consciousness from his slumber, and projected him into a pre-constructed space.

Everything he "saw" in this space was exactly what the creator of the Spell Formula wanted him to see.

As he pondered this, his surroundings began to shift.

He was not moving; the stars were.

The celestial bodies receded like a tide, moving faster and faster.

Blue-white, deep red, and dark, lightless spheres were all swept away by an invisible force, stretching into a blurred band of light at the edge of his vision.

Solid marble materialized out of nowhere, forming a wide foundation.

Twelve massive stone pillars thrust upward simultaneously from the platform's edges.

Crossbeams and intricate reliefs followed close behind.

The carvings depicted men wrestling with beasts, priests praying before fiery altars, fleets braving turbulent waves, and scholars deep in thought over ancient scrolls.

The folds of the robes, the manes of the beasts, and the leaping tongues of flame were rendered in exquisite, lifelike detail.

Richard mentally steadied himself.

Stay calm, he told himself. This is just high-end VR.

Better graphics, stronger immersion, and powered by ether instead of electricity, but fundamentally, there's no difference.

His host was trying to crush a newcomer's psychological defenses through sheer visual spectacle—the oldest trick in the book for displaying power.

Why were cathedral domes built fifteen meters high?

Why did royal palaces place twin rows of stone lions at their gates?

The underlying principle was exactly the same.

It was designed to make you feel insignificant the moment you crossed the threshold, subconsciously forcing you into a state of submission.

As these thoughts raced through his mind, an ochre round table and seven high-backed stone chairs rose simultaneously in the center of the grand hall.

Each stone chair bore a distinct design.

Some had laurels carved into their backs, while others featured olive branches, leaping flames, or coiled snakes.

They all faced the center of the table, forming an asymmetrical ring.

One chair in particular stood half a head taller than the other six.

From the materialization of the first stone to the forming of the final chair, the construction of the entire temple took no more than twenty seconds.

Had this been a real construction project, merely quarrying and transporting the stone would have kept hundreds of laborers busy for years.

Richard reminded himself once again: this was a hallucination. A Spell Formula. VR.

No matter how awe-inspiring the visuals were, it was essentially just someone playing a video inside his brain.

And he was not standing here alone.

About three steps away to his right stood another figure.

They were also standing between two pillars at the edge of the temple, making no move to sit.

Shrouded in a thin veil of light, the stranger's face and build were completely obscured.

Richard looked down and realized he was covered by the exact same veil of light.

He did not rush to speak, nor did he hurry toward the table. His best move right now was to stay put and silently observe.

A moment later, a figure materialized in the seat of honor.

One second the towering chair was empty, and the next, she was there.

The occupant of the head seat sat upon the tallest stone chair, wearing a golden mask.

The upper half of the mask bore the delicate, youthful contours of a young maiden.

The lower half, however, was heavily wrinkled, depicting the face of an old crone.

A stark horizontal line cleaved the face in two—youth above, withered age below.

Above her head, two objects slowly manifested.

A Torch and Key.

In that moment, Richard understood exactly why they called this gathering the Theogony Salon.

The Torch and Key symbolized her ability to illuminate the darkness, as well as her absolute authority to open any door.

The host's divine name projected outward autonomously—Hecate.

The Triple Goddess. The Watcher of the Crossroads. The Patron of Magic and Witchcraft.

An ancient entity who held dominion over the three realms of heaven, earth, and the underworld.

Initially, he had assumed the Theogony Salon was merely an organization dedicated to the study of mythology. He had not expected them to possess the sheer audacity to assume divine titles.

In the Greek pantheon, Hecate held an exceptionally unique status.

She was not one of the Twelve Olympians, yet Zeus himself treated her with great reverence, permitting her to retain the full breadth of authority she had wielded during the Age of Titans.

Hecate was one of the few deities whose power went unhindered during the transition between the old and new divine regimes.

Anyone bold enough to choose Hecate as their codename had to be, at the very least, exceptionally arrogant.

Following Hecate's appearance, the atmosphere inside the temple froze for about three seconds.

Then, a second figure stepped out of the void to the right of the head seat.

He was robustly built, broad-shouldered and heavy-set, and wore a mask of red copper.

As the man approached the round table, two distinct items coalesced above his head as well.

A blood-dripping spear, its tip constantly shifting directions as if always hunting for its next target.

And a round shield, its central boss etched with the head of Medusa—her serpentine hair tangled, her eyes glaring wide.

The divine name projected—Ares.

The incarnation of slaughter and violence, and the most universally despised among the Olympian gods.

He represented the bloodlust, cruelty, and unvarnished brutality of war itself.

Ares took his seat, spreading his legs wide and resting his hands squarely on the armrests.

A third person strolled in from the western side of the temple.

He was on the slender side, his shoulders narrow and relaxed, his face hidden behind a deep purple mask.

The surface of his mask was patterned with countless tiny ivy reliefs.

Ivy—the symbol of unrestrained, indomitable vitality.

He ambled over to his chair, crossed his right leg over his left, and leaned comfortably against the backrest.

His posture was so languid it bordered on insolence.

A Double-Handled Kantharos manifested above his head, accompanied by a dangling, luscious cluster of grapes.

The divine name projected—Dionysus.

The God of Wine, Revelry, and Theater.

His followers found liberation in their frenzied rituals, even as they lost their sanity to the madness.

Absolute freedom and total loss of control had always been two sides of the same coin.

A fourth figure emerged from the flames.

Wearing a mask of red gold, his build fell somewhere between the muscular bulk of Ares and the slender frame of Dionysus.

The man dipped his head slightly, offering a shallow bow toward the seat of honor before sitting down.

As he took his seat, nothing appeared above his head but a single cluster of flames.

There was no accompanying artifact beside it, but the fire alone was more than enough.

Because fire was the genesis of civilization.

The divine name projected—Prometheus.

The Prophet. The Fire-Bringer. The Titan who stole the spark of fire from the heavens for mankind.

"Prophet" was the true meaning of the name Prometheus.

Many people misunderstood him merely as a "friend of humanity."

In reality, he had not stolen fire out of a love for mankind; Titans possessed no such emotion as "love."

He stole the fire because he foresaw humanity's potential.

The price for this was being chained to Mount Caucasus, where an eagle tore out his liver every day. Each night it grew back, only to be devoured again the next morning.

To see four Greek divine names casually adopted like this, brandished atop their heads like titles, left Richard feeling instinctively uneasy.

From Eton to Greenwood, and from Imperial Capital University to any ordinary grammar school, every student who had ever paid attention in class could rattle off the names of Zeus, Athena, and Apollo, along with their associated myths.

But mythology was one thing; daring to claim a god's name for oneself was quite another.

Within the mainstream culture of the Empire, such an act was profound blasphemy—the ultimate transgression!

Even the most unhinged, rogue spirit mediums would, at most, "invite" a deity to possess them. They would never dare to actually call themselves by that god's name.

There was a massive chasm between "inviting" and "impersonating."

The former was a servant calling upon their master; the latter was the servant planting themselves in the master's throne.

Richard mentally mapped out several different interpretations for this display.

The most obvious possibility was that these people were simply foolish and arrogant beyond belief.

They probably thought using Greek divine titles as aliases was chic and a great way to prove how exceptional they were.

If that were the case, this organization would not carry much real weight.

However, their mindset would still be incredibly dangerous. A group of people with egos inflated enough to play god would inevitably attempt something far beyond their actual capabilities.

The second possibility was that this group actually possessed the backing to justify such titles.

Blatantly disregarding mainstream morality within the Empire's borders without facing immediate consequences required immense power.

Power great enough that the official authorities were forced to turn a blind eye to their existence.

In that scenario, the faction backing this organization would be terrifyingly powerful, operating on a level far beyond his current understanding.

Then there was a third possibility, the one most aligned with occult principles: the divine names were being used as ritual anchors.

The Greek gods were immensely powerful, universally recognized conceptual icons.

Over thousands of years, countless people had invoked these names in countless contexts, and every single utterance left an imprint upon the ether.

Thousands of years of imprints layered together would naturally form a kind of "conceptual sediment."

Adopting these divine names as aliases might allow them to "borrow" this ambient power, or perhaps serve as a flawless form of "camouflage."

They would be borrowing a conceptual vessel—one forged and polished by millennia of human belief—and nesting themselves safely inside it.

It was akin to wearing a cloak woven from the collective gaze of humanity.

The cloak would be far too thick for anyone to pierce through and discern the true identity hidden beneath.

If this third theory proved true, it meant the organization possessed an unimaginably deep mastery of occult techniques.

Richard was in no rush to draw a conclusion.