Several days later. Among towering mountains and steep ridges.
Two divine horses pulled the bronze chariot along at an unhurried pace.
Hera swept her gaze over the slowly retreating scenery around her, narrowed her eyes slightly, and looked toward the figure at the driver's seat.
"You seem to be taking a detour?"
"Did you not say you dislike dealing with strangers? Naturally we need to stay further from the city-states."
Lorne turned his head, immediately produced the excuse he prepared, and then offered sincere-sounding words.
"Besides, this is also for the sake of your reputation."
"Hmph! Reputation? He is not even embarrassed. What do I have to fear?"
Hera's mouth expressed disdain but her body honestly sat back down, and she made no further demand for Lorne to change their route.
Obviously, the Queen of Heaven still cared somewhat about keeping face, and her mood was not as relaxed as she outwardly showed.
But the moment Hera sat back down, a cuckoo flew through the shadows of the forest and landed on the Queen of Heaven's shoulder, then pressed close to her ear and let out a rapid series of chirping calls.
In an instant, Hera's face, which just settled into calm, turned deeply gloomy.
Above them, dark clouds rolled in, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, heralding an approaching storm.
Sensing the terrifying low pressure behind him, Lorne's heart gave a lurch, and he asked with careful caution.
"What happened?"
"He actually lured away another nymph and is out there fooling around behind my back!"
Hera answered with cold menace.
The knuckles of her clenched fists showed white streaks of veins. Her silver teeth ground together with a creaking sound.
'Oh, it is because of Zeus?'
A false alarm. Lorne let out a breath of relief and set down his anxious heart.
'Nothing to worry about then. Standard operation.'
Zeus was like this.
Hera only needed to think about catching him in the act, fighting his mistresses, and persecuting his illegitimate children.
But the God king responsible for the affairs had many more things to consider and many more targets to choose from.
According to verifiable sources, he had seven official wives, over twenty lovers, and with other records included, over a hundred and thirty affair partners in total.
Among them were not only partners of the opposite sex, but also same-sex ones, and certain non-human existences...
Hm..it's worth mentioning that Poseidon's numbers were even more impressive, with over a hundred and seventy affair targets, firmly surpassing Zeus.
The Sea King truly lived up to being the Sea King.
So under such an outstanding family tradition, although Alcmene was important, she was still just a tool for that God king to fulfill his destiny.
Once the sowing was complete, whether that old flame lived or died afterward did not affect Zeus's interest in merry-making outside in the slightest.
At this moment, the Queen of Heaven, after a certain someone's thorough persuasion, no longer fixated on making things difficult for women who were forced, instead she pointed the spear directly at the chief culprit.
"To press a small nymph using the authority of the God king just for momentary pleasure.
Truly outrageous!"
"Mm. Going too far!"
Lorne, at the driver's seat, habitually chimed in to agree, and in a subtle, gradual way continued to drive a wedge between Zeus and Hera's relationship as husband and wife.
However, barely after the words left his mouth, Hera seemed to catch on to something as she pressed her thin lips together and looked ahead with a smile that was not quite a smile.
"Since he enjoys forcing so much, why don't we try it too?"
"....."
Hearing her words. Lorne's body stiffened and he squeezed out a dry smile.
"Perhaps not. We are still on the road."
However, Hera's smile grew even more radiant.
She narrowed her watery eyes and spoke unhurriedly.
"If you agreed, can it still be called forced?"
"...!"
Lorne said nothing more, dropped the reins, activated the [Goat] authority, and leapt up, trying to escape the Queen of Heaven's clutches.
"Trying to run? Get back here!"
However, accompanied by a contemptuous cold laugh, Hera reached forward through empty air.
Her powerful godly force instantly sealed the space around them, and she effortlessly pulled the little lamb that barely got away back into her palm.
Seeing he could not break free,
Lorne could only let out a pitiful cry for mercy.
"Your Majesty the Queen of Heaven. Surely we can talk this through."
"I want you!"
"Do not ruin yourself over a momentary impulse!"
"I won't. I am perfectly clear-headed right now, and very happy."
Hera answered with complete calm.
Her stunning face overflowed with an unprecedented sense of satisfaction.
The covert and restrained moves she made in the past, compared to the direct and straightforward revenge she took now, produced far, far less pleasure.
And this satisfaction was not only psychological.
It also showed in the physical sense.
The Queen of Heaven, whose enthusiasm steadily grew, looked at the struggling prey beneath her claws, licked her lips with pleasure, her eyes brimming with an invasive gaze.
"I am Lady Hestia's attendant God..."
"It does not matter. You will soon be mine!"
Accompanied by this domineering declaration, Hera couldn't hold back any longer and began to enjoy the delicacy she captured.
And the more the prey resisted, the more excited she became.
After all, that was where the pleasure of forcing lay.
The two divine horses pulled the bronze chariot and continued their unhurried journey along the mountain road.
The jolting on the cart grew stronger each time.
---
Half a month later. Silent cries echoed through the void of space.
'Zeus. You animal!'
Lorne's eyes filled with hot tears as he accused that original culprit of his crimes.
Luring, shapeshifting, underwater, midair... In fifteen days, neither the methods nor the subjects repeated even once.
'Did that God king's head contain nothing but this filth?'
'Could he not take a few days off?'
'Even occasionally. Occasionally would be enough!'
In his grief and indignation, Lorne looked over at the radiant and glowing Hera beside him, who even seemed somewhat unsatisfied, and could not help but shudder.
Over half a month, the Queen of Heaven truly delivered on her word and transferred every portion Zeus accumulated from his affairs outside directly onto him.
And thanks to that God king's total lack of discrimination and nightly indulgence, Lorne, who ended up paying the debt for his father, barely slept a wink for fifteen days, and was cruelly wrung out and tormented by this Queen at every moment.
'Get to the War God Mountain! Must get there as soon as possible!'
Otherwise sooner or later he would die on the road!
The moment Lorne recovered some strength, he lunged for the driver's seat, grabbed the reins like clutching a lifeline, and at the same time raised the whip and gave both divine horses a hard crack across their hindquarters.
The road from Thebes to Athens was not far.
Taking a straight route got you there in two days.
Even taking a detour, three to five days at most.
The result was that these two beasts, not wanting to offend the Queen of Heaven, deliberately wound them around the mountains for a full half month.
"If we do not reach our destination tonight because of all this delay, I will have you both castrated!"
Hearing their master's sinister threat, the two divine horses with their human-like understanding gave an involuntary shudder, immediately ended their passive resistance, and charged toward Athens at lightning speed.
The howling wind ruffled hair loose.
Hera leaned against the side of the chariot with elegance, played with the cuckoo perched on the back of her hand, and asked with a smile that was not quite a smile.
"What? Ready to move now?"
Obviously, this Queen of Heaven of Olympus, who lived through the succession of God ages and the struggle for God authority, was no fool easily manipulated.
She long saw through a certain someone's earlier deliberate stalling.
"Afraid to take me to Big Sister to claim someone?"
"What? Did being with me wrong you somehow?"
Hera felt a cold displeasure inside and laughed. 'Feel wronged, do you? The more you do not want me to do something, the more I will do it!'
Then the proud Queen of Heaven stood up and proposed with an unhurried tone.
"How about we stay a few more days. Keep me company and look at the mountain scenery?"
"The scenery in Athens is better!"
Sensing that familiar gaze land on him again, Lorne immediately spoke up, then wiped the nervous sweat from his forehead and carefully produced a message tube.
"Besides, there is someone on the War God Mountain who wants to see you..."
Hera took it casually, tipped out the letter inside, and lowered her head to read.
The expression on her face, initially still somewhat indifferent, shifted repeatedly after she saw the content titled [Marriage Law].
As a discreet signature at the end came into view, the Queen on the chariot furrowed her brow slightly.
'Justice Goddess Themis? She is also on the War God Mountain?'
Seeing Hera behind him sink into thought, the tension in Lorne's heart quietly relaxed.
'Got it!'
He finally shifted the Queen of Heaven's attention away from how to give Zeus a taste of his own medicine behind his back and vent her emotions, and redirected it toward the marriage lawsuit that carried real practical significance.
After all, after being cheated on so many times and even coming to blows over the matter of illegitimate children, Hera never once thought about divorce.
This was no longer a question of love.
The reason she endured her grievances and maintained this relationship was because the continuation of this marriage related to her own God authority.
Even when the dissatisfaction and fury in her heart long broke past its limit, she kept enduring and enduring.
But what if someone could help her break this deadlock?
Such as the Justice Goddess who created the laws of marriage, invented the concept of family, and established the duties and responsibilities between men and women?
Lorne glanced at the somewhat uneasy Hera and could not help showing a scheming smile.
In the half month he got tormented, he already thought out his next move.
The birth of the marriage laws, though it came about because Themis resented Zeus swallowing his first wife Metis, ended up making Hera the greatest beneficiary once it took shape.
Hera took over as Queen of Heaven as a result and shared Zeus's authority.
But as time passed, that God king gradually revealed his true nature, and his relationship with Hera as husband and wife reached the edge of rupture.
At this moment, a reform accumulated enough variables.
How could the laws of marriage have only "marriage" and no content about "divorce"?
Compared to a topic that touched upon the root of her own God authority, the matter of poaching Big Sister Hestia's attendant God became rather insignificant.
That way, Lorne could neatly package the problem together with Hera and hand both to Themis, who originally established the marriage laws, completing the loop of the one who tied the bell being the one to untie it, and extracting himself from this dangerous whirlpool.
Though doing it this way was a bit underhanded, who else but the Justice Goddess was one of the few people who could actually hold Hera in check.
He raised this soldier for so long.
It was time for the Justice Goddess to come out and take a bullet for him.
Lorne thought this through and gave the two divine horses several more hard lashes.
Finally, at sunset, the racing chariot stopped outside the dense forest of Athens.
A graceful goddess in a white long dress, eyes covered with a light veil, stood quietly in the forest, a golden longsword with a balanced scale decoration in her hand.
The brilliant lingering rays of the setting sun outlined a sacred and solemn tone around her.
At the sound of wheels entering the dense forest, the goddess slowly turned.
The eyes beneath the light veil fixed on the two visitors.
Her voice was cool and low.
"You are both much later than I expected..."
"The road was long."
"Some things caused a delay..."
Hera and Lorne on the chariot both felt a pang of guilt at the same time, covered for each other, and unconsciously looked away.
'It was not the little stand-in of her disciple Astraea who came.
Themis herself showed up?'
And seeing that things took an unexpected turn, Lorne felt a faint sense of foreboding gradually rise in his heart.
"You are here now. That is what matters."
Themis in the forest gave a gentle nod, then turned the scale on both sides of the sword hilt, and summoned countless rays of starlight to fall from the night sky.
A towering and magnificent hall of light rose from the ground around them, pulling all three into a vast sea of stars.
Themis stepped up onto a high platform built of starlight, sat down composedly, and spoke with gravity.
"Then. Court is now officially in session!"
Sensing the invisible weight of rules and restraint descend upon them, Lorne and Hera standing below the platform both went pale at once.
'This is not what we agreed on at all.'
(End of Chapter)