The true new entrance to the Alchemy Workshop was a cast-iron door embedded in the stone walls of the third basement level.
After continuous reinforcement, the surface of the door was covered with dense protective runes...
Anti-tracking, anti-intrusion, anti-apparition, anti-floo...
Every rune had been etched by Jerry himself into the molecular structure of the cast iron using Synthesis, merging them with the door itself.
The door opened automatically as Jerry approached, the runes recognizing the magical signature of the enchanted jewelry on his person.
A small figure stood behind the door.
Old Bob was dressed in a well-tailored, miniature version of a black tuxedo.
A tiny black bowtie was fastened at the collar of his white shirt, with about half a centimeter of white cuff showing.
The silver buttons of his tuxedo reflected faint points of light from the magical wall sconces in the corridor.
A pair of large, bat-like ears stood up from the sides of his head, their tips slightly curled outward.
His nose was long and pointed, like an upside-down carrot.
His eyes were tennis-ball-sized emerald orbs, with pupils that were vertical slits that would dilate into circles in the dim light.
"Welcome back, Young Master."
He bowed slightly, the angle precise to fifteen degrees, then straightened up and stepped aside to clear the way.
Jerry stretched, raising both arms above his head, interlacing his ten fingers and pushing his palms upward.
His shoulder joints and spine emitted a few soft cracks, after which he dropped his arms and rolled his shoulders twice.
"Good work, Bob."
He stepped into the Alchemy Workshop.
The interior space of the workshop was far larger than the cast-iron door outside suggested.
An Extension Charm had expanded what was originally a twenty-square-meter basement storage room into a massive factory floor.
It was roughly eighty meters long, forty meters wide, and six meters high.
Dozens of magical industrial lamps hung from the ceiling.
These were not candles or wall lamps, but high-intensity lighting devices designed by Jerry himself using a combination of Perpetual Flame Charms and light-refraction arrays.
The white light covered the entire factory floor uniformly, leaving no shadows or dead zones.
The factory floor was made of magically hardened grey flagstones, polished to a surface so smooth it reflected the ceiling lights.
Yellow magical marking lines divided the floor into different functional zones: production, storage, quality control, and packaging.
The production area occupied about two-thirds of the factory floor, containing seven assembly lines.
Each line was about fifteen meters long, composed of silver magical guide rails, automated enchanting stations, and various specialized alchemical processing equipment.
The conveyor belts on the rails ran at a constant speed, transporting semi-finished products from one station to the next.
Every station was equipped with a wand fixed to a mechanical arm, running automatically according to a preset program, applying specific enchantments to the passing products.
Four of the seven assembly lines were currently in operation.
Jerry walked along the aisle between the lines, his gaze sweeping over the products in production.
The first line produced rod-shaped objects about fifteen centimeters long, streamlined, and covered in a soft silicone material.
As each rod passed the third station, it was enchanted with a vibration spell by the wand on the mechanical arm.
Once completed, the surface would briefly flash with a pale pink light before returning to normal.
The final station automatically packed the finished products into exquisite boxes printed with patterns...
Magical vibrators.
The second line produced items woven from magical silk threads that looked like delicate bracelets.
However, the inner side of these "bracelets" was sewn with miniature sensory runes.
When the wearer's heart rate exceeded a certain threshold, the bracelet would automatically tighten, producing a slight sense of restraint...
Sensory bondage rings.
The third and fourth lines respectively produced liquid sensory-enhancement potions in small bottles...
And shapeshifting silicone products that could change shape and hardness according to the user's intent.
All of them were sex toys.
This was currently the primary product line of Jerry's Alchemy Workshop...
High-end magical adult products aimed at adult consumers in the wizarding world.
The profit margins were astronomical, market demand was robust, and competitors were virtually non-existent.
No other alchemist was willing to apply their techniques to such "undignified" products.
Jerry walked past the four operational lines and arrived at the fifth and sixth lines.
These two lines were empty, the conveyor belts stationary.
The mechanical arms at the stations hung at the sides, wands tucked into their holsters inactive.
The equipment was all in standby mode, clean and tidy, ready to start at any time, but lacking any product.
The seventh line was also empty, in the same state as the fifth and sixth.
Jerry stood at the starting point of the fifth empty line and tilted his head.
"Bob, why are these three lines empty?"
Old Bob had followed him silently... house-elves made almost no sound when they moved.
He bowed slightly, hands folded at the front of his tuxedo.
"Young Master, these two lines were left by Miss Hermione."
"The purpose is to manufacture various magical props and souvenirs to be sold at the Quidditch matches."
"However, Miss Hermione has yet to bring the blueprints, so they are temporarily empty. The seventh line is a backup, kept on standby at all times."
Jerry tilted his head and looked at the empty lines.
The silver rails glinted with a cold metallic luster under the white lights.
The wands on the mechanical arms sat quietly in their holsters, like a row of soldiers at rest.
"When Hermione arrives later, tell her to come to the office."
"Yes, Young Master."
Old Bob nodded.
Jerry turned toward the door at the end of the factory floor that led to his private office.
After two steps, he paused.
"Bob, is there anyone in the office?"
Old Bob's large ears twitched slightly...
That was a house-elf's instinctive motion when sensing magic. He then shook his head.
"There is no one, Young Master. Old Bob has checked."
Jerry didn't move, his eyes fixed on the office door in the distance...
Dark oak paneling, a brass handle.
No light seeped through the cracks of the door, and it truly appeared to be an empty room.
But Jerry shook his head.
"I'm going into the office first. Without my command, even if Hermione arrives, tell her to wait at the door."
Old Bob's large emerald eyes blinked twice, clearly confused by Jerry's denial of his own senses, but he did not question it.
"Yes, Young Master."
Jerry walked to the office door and gripped the brass handle. It was cold.
He turned the handle and pushed the door open.
The lights in the office were not on.
The only light source came from the enchanted window behind the desk...
Outside the window was the Scottish Highlands, perpetually frozen in the hour of twilight.
The orange-red rays of the setting sun sliced in through the window, painting rectangular patches of light on the floor.
Desk, leather chair, bookshelves, carpet... and a woman.
She stood by the window, the setting sun shining from behind her, outlining her silhouette in a gold-red halo.
Jerry closed the door, the lock engaging with a click.
He didn't turn on the lights. In the backlight of the sunset, the woman's details gradually became clear.
Tall, very tall, at least one meter eighty-five, perhaps taller.
In this office with only a three-meter ceiling, her presence was so immense that the entire room felt cramped.
The proportions of her body were not human. She wore no disguise—no wizard robes, no Muggle clothes.
She was wearing... if it could be called "wearing"... a gown composed of some translucent, flowing fabric of light that did not belong to the material world.
The color of the gown shifted constantly between white and pale gold.
The texture of the fabric was like solidified moonlight, every minute movement of her body producing ripple-like changes in light and shadow.
The gown draped from her shoulders to her ankles, but its translucency allowed the contours of her body to be faintly visible from certain angles:
The curve of her shoulder blades, the hollow of her spine, the arch of her waist, the outline of her thighs—all appearing and disappearing beneath that layer of flowing light-fabric.
Hera.
Her golden eyes watched Jerry as he entered, but she did not speak.
Jerry didn't speak either. He walked behind the desk, pulled out the leather chair, and sat down.
The chair back tilted slightly under his weight, emitting a creak as the leather was compressed.
His hands rested on the armrests, his legs spread naturally, his body leaning back...
That sitting posture was almost identical to the one he had in Cassiopeia's office—relaxed, casual, and utterly defenseless.
Hera walked over from the window, arriving in front of Jerry and extending her right hand.
Her fingers were long, her nails an unnatural pale gold with a pearlescent effect.
She gave a light flick with her index finger.
Snap.
An extremely faint sound, like flicking away dust.
From Jerry's entire body—from the top of his head to the soles of his feet—wisps of white gas simultaneously emerged.
The white gas seeped from his pores, the fibers of his clothes, and even the gaps between his hair strands, swirling in the air for two or three seconds before dissipating.
The total amount of gas wasn't much, roughly equivalent to the steam from a cup of hot water, but the aura it carried made Hera's brow furrow.
That aura... dead, absolute, irreversible. The silence of a completely destroyed world.
"You went to a world of total annihilation?"
Hera's voice, like her appearance, did not fall within the human spectrum.
The sound wasn't produced by vibrating vocal cords but was generated out of thin air directly on the listener's eardrums, bypassing the transmission of air.
Every syllable was so clear it felt unreal, as if carved into Jerry's auditory nerves.
"Yes."
Jerry's answer was brief.
Hera's brow furrowed deeper.
"Do not go there again."
Her tone was not a suggestion; it was an order.
"In a world of annihilation, all laws have collapsed. But the wreckage after the collapse possesses an extremely stubborn inertia that will attach itself to any living thing that enters that space, like an impurity."
Her golden eyes stared at the last few wisps of white gas dissipating from Jerry's body.
"If these inert residues are not cleared in time, they will gradually penetrate your magical core and lower your mana conduction efficiency. Long-term accumulation..."
She didn't finish, but the consequences implied by the incomplete sentence were clearly nothing good.
Jerry leaned back in the chair, watching Hera standing before him.
The sunset shone through the window, forming a gold-red halo behind her.
Her long black hair looked like a vertical shadow in the backlight, and her golden eyes emitted a faint internal glow in the darkness.
"Thank you."
Jerry said.
Hera's expression didn't change. She took a step forward and raised her right foot.
That foot was bare, wearing no shoes. Her toes were long and perfect.
Emerging from the hem of the light-fabric gown, her foot rose, crossing the space between Jerry's legs.
Thump.
Her sole landed on the seat cushion of Jerry's leather chair.
Specifically, it landed between Jerry's legs, at the front edge of the cushion.
Her toes were less than five centimeters from that thick, straining bulge in Jerry's crotch.
Hera's height, combined with this leg-raising posture, gave her body an absolute downward perspective.
Her golden eyes looked down from a height of nearly two meters at Jerry sitting in the chair.
That angle made Jerry appear exceptionally... small.
A teenager, with only the height of an average adult male, sitting in an ordinary office chair, looked up to by a woman nearly one meter ninety tall, possessing a divine body, whose foot was planted on his chair in a condescending stance.
"The treaty has been signed."
Hera's voice dropped from above.
"Can you give me the positioning device for the crystal golems now?"
Jerry looked up at her.
The backlight of the sunset prevented him from seeing the details of Hera's face; he could only see a tall silhouette wrapped in a gold-red halo, radiating a pressure that did not belong to the mortal world.
He smiled.
"Certainly, that is no problem at all."
His tone was as relaxed as if he were agreeing to lend a classmate a quill.
"I am merely curious. You wish to return to the Pantheon—do you truly still need a positioning device for that?"
Hera's golden eyes narrowed slightly.
Her foot on the chair didn't move; her toes even extended forward a bit, getting even closer to that thick ridge in Jerry's crotch.
"Zeus is not dead."
She said.
Jerry's expression didn't change, but the look in his eyes did, switching from "casual chat" to "listening intently."
"He has merely fallen into a deep slumber."
Hera's voice underwent a subtle change when she said "slumber"—not anger, not sadness, but a more complex emotion, a mix of disgust and helplessness.
"Before he slept, he sacrificed Athena."
Jerry's fingers tightened slightly on the armrests.
"Sacrificed?"
"Using Athena's Divine Persona as fuel, he activated the Pantheon's ultimate defense mechanism... the Eternal Seal."
"The entire Pantheon was stripped from real space and folded into an independent, closed dimensional pocket."
"From the outside, the Pantheon has vanished. From the inside, it still exists, but all entrances and exits are sealed shut."
Hera's toes moved slightly on the chair.
"I was locked outside."
Her voice was extremely flat as she said this, but that flatness was an emotion in itself...
The cold fury of being excluded from her own home by her husband.
"So I need the positioning device. Not to 'find' the Pantheon—I know where it is—but to penetrate the spatial folding layers of the Eternal Seal."
"The positioning device of the crystal golems uses the spatial information resonance principle of World Crystals, which is the same root technology as the Floo Network."
"It can establish a temporary information channel within the layers of folded space. With this channel, I can find the weak points of the seal, and then..."
She didn't say "and then" what, but Jerry could guess:
And then she would tear open the seal, return to the Pantheon, and face the sleeping Zeus.
Jerry leaned back, looking up at Hera.
"Why did Zeus seal the Pantheon?"
A fleeting shadow of gloom flashed through Hera's golden eyes, like a memory of an unpleasant scene.
"Because of Aurora."
Jerry's eyebrow twitched.
"You must have heard something of how Aurora threw the Pantheon into chaos."
Hera's voice changed, shifting from her earlier commanding, condescending tone into a lower, narrative tone, like telling a passage of an epic.
"But the versions you have heard are all just incomplete fragments circulating outside, having been retold and redacted countless times."
After Hera withdrew her foot from the chair, she didn't step back.
She simply shifted her posture... half-sitting on the edge of Jerry's desk.
The curve of her right buttock pressed against the black leather pad on the desktop.
Her left leg hung naturally, her bare toes suspended about two centimeters from the floor, while her right leg was crossed over her left.
The light-fabric gown slid aside from her thighs in her half-sitting posture.
The translucent, flowing material made the outline of her right thigh clearer in the sunset light.
The entire line from knee to hip looked as if it were traced in liquid gold.
Her hands braced on the desk, her body leaning back slightly, her golden eyes looked down at Jerry in his chair.
"Do you want to hear it?"
Jerry nodded.
"Of course. It isn't just anyone who gets to hear a story from Queen Hera."
Hera began to speak.
"In the Pantheon on the Winter Solstice, the sun stood still in the vault of heaven."
"That is within Apollo's domain. The Winter Solstice is the lowest point of the sun's orbit in the year; Apollo's divine power drops to its absolute nadir on that day."
Her toes curled unconsciously in the air, and the silver patterns rotating slowly in her golden pupils seemed to accelerate slightly.
"The Pantheon's first line of defense is the Divine Realm Barrier that Zeus cast two thousand years ago using his own thunder-power."
"That barrier covers the entire surface of Mount Olympus, from base to peak, forming a hemispherical shield about twelve kilometers in diameter."
"The outer wall of the barrier is composed of solidified Divine Thunder. Theoretically, no power below 'Third Class Divinity' can penetrate it."
She paused.
"Aurora penetrated it in forty-seven seconds."
Jerry's fingers tapped lightly on the armrest.
"She did not break the barrier head-on. That would be impossible. Even a Major God of the same level would need to output full-power attacks for at least an hour to punch a hole in the Thunder Barrier."
"Aurora used infiltration."
Hera's voice grew even lower.
"She shrunk her body to the cellular scale and then slipped into the microscopic gaps of the barrier's structure."
"The macro-structure of the Thunder Barrier is perfect and seamless. But at the molecular level, no solidified energy structure can be absolutely dense; there are always gaps at the quantum scale."
"Aurora moved through those gaps, like a snake slipping through cracks in a stone wall. Forty-seven seconds later, she unfolded back into a full human form on the inner side of the barrier."
Hera traced a circle on the desk with her right index finger.
"The barrier didn't even trigger an alarm, because from a macro perspective, its integrity had never been compromised. No gaps, no cracks, no trace of any power impact."
"She was like a gust of wind blowing in through a crack in a door—the door was still closed."
The corner of Jerry's mouth moved slightly.
Hera continued.
"The location where she landed was the Pantheon's outer courtyard... the Garden of Muses."
"That is the residence of the nine Muses, a garden of about three square kilometers maintained by the magic of eternal spring. Everywhere are blooming flowers, flowing springs, and pavilions and galleries carved from white marble."
"The Muses sensed the intruder."
Hera's tone carried no emotional fluctuation as she said this, as if describing the beginning of an event with a pre-ordained outcome.
"Terpsichore... the Muse of Dance, was the first to arrive before Aurora."
"Her combat style is to drive divine power through dance. Every dance step leaves a cutting line in space. Those lines form a constantly contracting cage around the target, eventually slicing them into pieces."
"Aurora stood there, not moving a single step. She watched Terpsichore perform her war dance around her for about fifteen seconds."
"The cutting lines closed in from all directions—hundreds of them, forming a dense web of light less than a meter in diameter around Aurora's body."
Hera's toes stopped in the air.
"Then Aurora reached out her right hand. Just her right hand. She pressed her index and middle fingers together, as if pinching an invisible thread, and then pulled outward."
"All the cutting lines, every single one, were caught by her two fingers in the same instant and pulled right out of space. Like pulling a clump of tangled yarn out of a garment."
"Having lost all her cutting lines, Terpsichore became an ordinary goddess with no means of attack. Aurora walked up—two steps—and pushed her left palm against the goddess's chest."
Hera's voice paused briefly here.
"Terpsichore's body flew from the eastern end of the garden to the western end, a distance of about two kilometers. She smashed through three marble gazebos and a stone wall, finally becoming embedded in the outer wall of the Temple of Muses. But she didn't die. Gods do not die so easily. She simply lost her ability to fight."
Jerry's right hand moved from the armrest to his thigh, his posture shifting slightly. The fabric of his sweatpants produced new wrinkles over the ridge on his thigh.
Hera's golden eyes flicked to the movement, then she resumed her narration.
"The remaining eight Muses attacked simultaneously. They no longer came one by one; Terpsichore's fate had told them that a duel was a death sentence."
"They used the 'Chorus of Nine'... a combined attack of the nine Muses, merging their respective divine powers into a single, comprehensive composite attack covering sound waves, light waves, spatial distortion, and mental shock."
"That attack completely erased one-third of the area of the Garden of Muses. Flowers, springs, marble buildings—all matter within the coverage of the attack was reduced to elementary particles. Not even ash remained."
"After the attack ended, the eight Muses stood at the edge of the erased area, looking at that scorched ground that looked like it had been cut by a giant laser."
"Aurora emerged from beneath the ground."
The corner of Hera's mouth quirked up an infinitesimally small amount. The arc was so tiny that if Jerry hadn't been staring at her face, he wouldn't have noticed.
"She dove underground zero point one seconds before the Chorus of Nine was launched. She penetrated about thirty meters of rock, waited for about two seconds outside the coverage of the chorus attack, and then broke through the soil directly beneath Calliope... the Muse of Epic Poetry."
"As she broke the surface, her right fist swung upward, hitting Calliope squarely in the chin."
"The force of that punch sent Calliope's body flying vertically from the ground to the vault of the Pantheon's outer courtyard, a height of about eight hundred meters. She then fell back down like a meteorite."
"The remaining seven Muses were all dealt with within three minutes."
"The methods varied—some were punched through, some were thrown out, some were pinned to the ground—but the result was the same. All lost their combat capability."
As Hera said this, her right hand left the desk and hovered before her body, her fingers making a tiny pinching motion in the air as if recalling a vanished sensation. She placed her hand back down.
"Then, Aurora entered the Inner Court."
Hera's tone grew slightly heavier on the words "Inner Court."
"The Inner Court of the Pantheon is the residential area of the twelve Major Gods. From the Garden of Muses to the main gate of the Inner Court, there is a staircase about five hundred meters long, cast from Divine Gold. We call it the 'Path of the Gods'."
"On either side of the stairs stand six fifteen-meter-tall stone statues of the Major Gods. From bottom to top, on the left: Hestia, Demeter, Hermes, Ares, Hephaestus, Aphrodite. On the right: Dionysus, Artemis, Apollo, Poseidon, Athena, Zeus."
"Those statues are more than just decorations. They are the core nodes of the defense system. Each statue contains a portion of the corresponding Major God's power. When an intruder steps onto the Path of the Gods, the statues activate automatically, releasing their stored power to intercept the intruder."
"Twelve statues activated simultaneously."
Hera's golden eyes narrowed slightly as she recounted this part, her expression like she was recalling a scene that was "too violent" even by her divine standards.
"Aurora did not deal with them one by one."
"She stood at the bottom of the stairs, raised both hands, her ten fingers spread, palms upward."
Hera's narration slowed down here.
"Then, she brought them together."
"She interlaced her ten fingers."
"An extremely simple gesture."
"But in the instant that gesture was completed, the gravity field on the Path of the Gods was reversed."
"Everything... the stairs, the statues, the offensive energy released by the statues—all of it was pulled 'upward.' The twelve statues were uprooted from the ground like twelve leaves blown by the wind, tumbling as they flew toward the vault of the Pantheon. Then, at a height of about two thousand meters, the collisions between the statues smashed them all into pieces."
"Shards of Divine Gold and stored divine power poured down from the sky like a storm of gravel and lightning."
"But the storm could not reach Aurora. As she reversed gravity, she created a miniature, spherical gravity barrier five meters above her own head. All the shards and energy falling from above were deflected the moment they touched that barrier."
"The Path of the Gods was cleared. Over the five hundred meters of stairs from the bottom to the main gate of the Inner Court, not a single statue remained, not a single flagstone was intact. She destroyed them all with a single gesture."
Hera stood up from the edge of the desk. Her light-fabric gown produced a wave of flowing light in her rising motion, spreading from her buttocks down to her ankles, as if her body were being re-wrapped in liquid moonlight within a second.
She walked to the side of Jerry's chair, standing at his right hand. She reached out, her long fingers touching the position of Jerry's right shoulder. Her fingertips pressed lightly against his trapezius muscle through the fabric of his hoodie.
The touch was extremely weak, but the temperature was high. A god's body temperature is at least five degrees higher than a human's. The heat from her fingertips penetrated the cotton fabric, scalding Jerry's skin.
"The main gate of the Inner Court was kicked open by Aurora—a literal kick. That door, cast from pure Divine Gold, fifteen meters high, eight meters wide, and over half a meter thick, was kicked right off its hinges by the sole of her foot. The entire door panel was like a catapulted coin, flying about three hundred meters before finally crashing into the central square of the Inner Court, smashing Apollo's Sun Fountain in the center of the square into a pile of rubble and splashing water."
Hera's fingers slid down a bit from Jerry's shoulder, following the outer side of his upper arm.
Through the hoodie, she felt the layer of muscle forged by combat and exercise—muscles far too firm for a mere youth.
"In the Central Square of the Inner Court, four Major Gods were waiting for her."
"Ares, fully armed with God-forged armor, shield, and spear. He possessed the highest pure combat power among the twelve Major Gods."
"Apollo, the Sun God. Though it was the Winter Solstice and his power was at its annual nadir, even at his lowest, Apollo was not an opponent to be underestimated."
"He held a longbow forged from condensed sunlight; every arrow it loosed carried enough heat to evaporate an entire lake."
"Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom and War. She carried no weapon; her style of combat relied not on physical strikes, but on absolute mastery of battlefield information to command and coordinate the other combatants."
"She was the commander of the Pantheon's defense."
"And Poseidon, the Sea God. He summoned approximately ten million tons of seawater from the ocean floor into the Inner Court."
"The entire Central Square was submerged in knee-deep water. Within that range, Poseidon's power was amplified threefold."
Hera's voice remained a flat narrative tone as she described the lineup of the four gods.
However, the pressure of her fingers on Jerry's upper arm increased slightly.
It was an unconscious muscular tension, born of describing a scene that had left a deep impression on her.
"Aurora stood at the edge of the crater smashed by the kicked-in door, her legs below the knees soaked in the seawater Poseidon had summoned."
"Before her were four Olympian Major Gods, each possessing the power to level a city, and together, enough to wipe half a continent off the map."
"Ares was the first to charge; the God of War does not wait. His spear was accelerated by his divine power to three times the speed of sound, the tip aimed straight for Aurora's heart."
"Aurora stepped aside from the point with a minimal movement—only about ten centimeters. The spear tip grazed the left side of her chest, cutting the fabric of her outer robe but never touching her skin."
"Then, her left hand caught the shaft."
"She simply caught it, five fingers closing around the middle of the spear, physically halting the momentum of a supersonic thrust."
"Ares's body lurched forward from the sudden stop, his center of gravity shattered."
"Aurora struck his faceplate with her right fist."
"One punch."
"Ares's God-forged faceplate, tempered in the waters of the Styx and theoretically indestructible, cracked right down the middle."
"Beneath the mask, his nose broke, his cheekbones shattered, and two incisors were sent flying."
"The God of War stumbled back seven steps, each footfall creating an explosive splash in the seawater. Then his knees buckled, and he fell to one knee in the thigh-deep water."
Hera's fingers left Jerry's upper arm and moved behind his chair.
Standing behind him, she rested both hands on his shoulders, pressing her fingertips against his collarbones through the cotton of the hoodie.
From this angle, the back of Jerry's head was roughly level with Hera's chest.
If he leaned back, his head would rest against her full breasts, which were translucently covered by the light-fabric.
Hera's voice drifted down from above Jerry's head.
"Apollo loosed his arrows the moment Ares was repelled. Three arrows, fired simultaneously."
"Three golden bands of condensed sunlight snapped from the bowstring, aimed at Aurora's head, chest, and abdomen."
"Three heights, three angles—a fan-shaped spread that was nearly impossible to dodge all at once."
"Aurora did not dodge."
"She opened her mouth and took a deep breath."
"Those three arrows of condensed sunlight, each capable of boiling a lake away, were sucked into that 'breath' when they were ten centimeters from her lips."
"Like three noodles being slurped up, they turned from sharp bands of light into three streams of radiance converging into her mouth, vanishing into her oral cavity."
"She ate the power of the sun."
Hera's ten fingers tightened on Jerry's collarbones.
"Apollo's face, in 그 moment, took on the closest expression to 'terror' I saw that day."
"The Sun God, in his own domain of authority, saw his attack being eaten by a human. His hands trembled, and the light of the next arrow on his string began to flicker with instability."
"But Apollo is a Major God, after all. He made a judgment through his fear: if long-range attacks failed, he would go to close quarters."
"He discarded his bow, summoning a pair of daggers made of sunlight from the void, and charged."
"Aurora met him."
"The two fought at close range in the knee-deep water. Apollo's twin blades carried the solar heat; every swing vaporized the water within a half-meter radius."
"The white steam from the boiling sea enveloped their silhouettes in a scalding fog."
"From outside the mist, one could only see two blurred shadows exchanging strikes at extreme speeds. Golden flashes—Apollo's sun-daggers—burst out from the fog intermittently."
"The melee lasted for about thirty seconds."
"Then the mist cleared."
"Aurora stood her ground. Her left arm hung at her side at a wrong angle, the bone broken. The area between her shoulder and elbow showed an unnatural, outward-bending curve."
"It was a compound fracture, caused by a lateral slash from Apollo hitting her shoulder joint."
"Her chest was also wounded; three ribs were snapped. The front of her robe was sliced open by Apollo's daggers, the edges of the cut charred."
"Through the gap, one could see a blackened blade wound running across the left side of her ribcage."
"But Apollo..."
Hera's voice hit a tiny pause, as if suppressing some lingering emotion.
"Apollo's left leg was gone."
"From the knee down, the entire calf and foot had vanished. The cut was smooth, as if sliced by an impossibly sharp blade. There was no blood—divine wounds do not bleed—but the missing limb would not regenerate, at least not in the short term."
"The Sun God knelt in the water on one leg. The fear was gone from his face, replaced by a blank daze—the cognitive void of a being who had never known defeat tasting it for the first time."
"Aurora looked down at him."
"Then, using her good right hand, she grabbed Apollo by the hair and shoved his face into the seawater."
Hera's fingers released Jerry's collarbones. Her hands slid off his shoulders as she moved to the right side of the chair.
She sat on the edge of the desk again, this time facing Jerry with her legs naturally spread.
The light-fabric gown bunched into several folds at her thighs. Between the folds, the divine flesh of her inner thighs emitted a faint golden glow through the translucent material.
Jerry's gaze swept down from Hera's face, past her neck, her collarbones, her breasts shimmering under the fabric, and her cinched waist.
It landed in the shadow between her slightly parted legs before returning to her face.
Hera didn't mind his gaze; or rather, she didn't care at all.
"Apollo's face was held underwater for about five seconds. For a god, five seconds of suffocation is harmless, but the meaning of the act—shoving the Sun God's face into the water before all the witnesses of the Pantheon—was a hundred times more severe than any physical injury."
"Poseidon made his move then. All ten million tons of seawater in the Inner Court square responded to his command simultaneously."
"They closed in on Aurora's position from all directions, forming a high-pressure cage of water less than five meters in diameter. The pressure was equivalent to being ten thousand meters deep in the ocean."
"Aurora let go of Apollo's hair and crossed her arms over her chest, taking the hit."
"The water cage held her for about seven seconds. The high-pressure sea squeezed her body from every direction. Her broken left arm let out a clear crack as the bones were crushed further by the weight."
"Then, with her right index finger, she drew a circle in the air."
"One circle."
"The ten million tons of the water cage, in the instant that circle was completed, were compressed into a water ball about thirty centimeters in diameter."
"Ten million tons. Thirty centimeters."
"The density of that sphere approached that of a neutron star."
"Aurora held the sphere in her right hand, turned toward Poseidon, and threw it."
"Poseidon exerted all his strength trying to control the ultra-dense sphere made of his own water, but the spatial compression Aurora had applied to it far exceeded the scope of his authority. He could not control it."
"The sphere hit Poseidon in the chest, blasting the Sea God from the square. He was propelled through the north wall of the Inner Court, out of the Pantheon, and all the way to the foot of Mount Olympus, becoming embedded in the rock of the mountainside."
"Ares, Apollo, and Poseidon—three Major Gods—were broken one by one by a human witch in less than two minutes."
Hera's golden eyes stared directly at Jerry.
"Only Athena remained."
The temperature of her voice shifted subtly when she spoke Athena's name; it turned cold.
"Athena never participated in direct combat from start to finish. She was the commander. She stood on the command platform at the edge of the square, using divine links to transmit battlefield data to the other three in real-time."
"She told them Aurora's attack patterns, her weaknesses, and the optimal counter-strategies."
"But every strategy failed."
"It wasn't that the strategies were flawed—Athena's tactical judgment is the most perfect among all the gods—it was simply that the power gap was too wide. No strategy, however perfect, could bridge the chasm of absolute strength."
"After dealing with the other three, Aurora turned toward Athena."
"Athena stood on her platform, her grey eyes watching the human witch approaching her—wounded, left arm shattered, ribs broken, yet still smiling."
"Athena made a judgment: she couldn't win. Not in a duel, and not by commanding others."
"So, she did something else."
Hera's lips pursed.
"She sent a distress signal to Zeus."
"The highest level."
"She injected her own Divine Persona pheromones directly into the Pantheon's core authority channel. That signal meant: 'The Pantheon faces an existential threat; intervention of the Supreme Authority requested.'"
"Zeus received it."
Hera's expression turned utterly frigid at the mention of Zeus.
"He had been watching the whole time. From the moment Aurora entered the Garden of Muses, he sat on the Throne of the Vault at the highest point of the Pantheon."
"He watched the nine Muses fall. He watched the twelve statues be destroyed. He watched Ares, Apollo, and Poseidon be defeated in turn."
"He did nothing."
"Until Athena sent the signal."
"He stood up from his throne, but not to descend into the fray."
Hera's hand clenched the desk, her nails carving five shallow grooves into the leather pad.
"He activated the Eternal Seal."
"Using Athena as fuel."
"The moment Athena's signal reached the throne, Zeus's response was not rescue, but an authority command. That command forcibly activated the core of the Divine Persona within Athena, switching her godhood from 'Operating State' to 'Combustion State'."
"The Pantheon began to peel away from real space."
"Aurora felt it. The ground beneath her feet began to feel unreal, like standing inside a painting being torn from a wall."
"She turned and ran."
"Then the Pantheon vanished."
"Even Mount Olympus itself disappeared. That mountain, which had existed in Greece for millions of years, was erased from the map the moment the Eternal Seal activated, as if it had never existed."
Hera's narration stopped. The office was silent for about five seconds.
Outside the window, the light of the eternal twilight seemed to dim slightly during the silence.
Hera's golden eyes watched Jerry.
Jerry sat in his chair, his expression largely unchanged.
His right hand unconsciously rubbed the fabric on his thigh. That movement produced new folds over the ridge at his crotch.
The outline of that massive bulge became even clearer under the rearrangement of the fabric.
Hera's gaze swept over that spot, lingering for half a second, before returning to his face.
"So, the positioning device."
Her voice regained its earlier commanding tone.
"I need it to penetrate the spatial folding of the Eternal Seal, to find the exact location where the Pantheon is hidden, and then..."
The rotating silver patterns in her golden eyes accelerated.
"Go in."
Jerry shrugged and said, "It seems you haven't told the whole story."
"Of course..."
Just then, the door was pushed open without a knock.
Hermione stood at the doorway, her brown curls still holding the dampness of being incompletely dried. The collar of her beige sweater was slightly askew, revealing a small section of her right collarbone.
Her hand was still on the doorknob, one foot halfway inside, and then she froze.
She saw Hera.
That woman, tall enough to nearly touch the ceiling, radiating an unearthly glow and dressed in fabric like flowing moonlight, was half-seated on Jerry's desk, her golden eyes watching the door calmly.
Hermione's face went pale for an instant. Her body instinctively recoiled half a step, her heel hitting the doorframe with a light thud. She turned to leave immediately.
"Stay."
Hera's voice wasn't loud.
Hermione's feet were nailed to the floor. It wasn't magic that held her; it was the natural pressure belonging to a higher being that stripped her muscles of autonomy in an instant.
Hera slid off the desk, her bare feet making no sound on the floor.
She walked up to Hermione. Six-foot-one against barely five-foot. She looked down at the bushy-haired little witch.
The silver runes rotating in her golden pupils were like two miniature whirlpools in the dim office.
"How long were you eavesdropping?"
Hermione's throat bobbed.
"I wasn't..."
"Mmh?"
Hera uttered only a single syllable, but the pressure it carried crushed the lie inside Hermione's lips.
Hermione lowered her head.
"...I heard most of it."
The corner of Hera's mouth quirked up with that particular amusement of a god looking down at an ant.
She glanced back at Jerry in his chair. Jerry spread his hands, his expression innocent.
Hera turned back, her golden eyes landing on Hermione again.
"Eavesdropping comes with a price."
Hermione looked up. A flash of nervousness crossed her brown pupils, but it was mixed with a secret expectation she wouldn't admit to herself.
Hera took a step back on her bare feet, her slender fingers making an elegant guiding gesture toward Jerry—like inviting a dance partner.
"Go."
Only one word, but the meaning was clear enough.
Hermione's face went from pale to pink. The flush spread from her cheekbones all the way to the tips of her ears, looking like two small flowers blooming on her cheeks in the dim sunset light.
She didn't hesitate long. Her steps were light and fast as she walked to the front of Jerry's chair.
Then her knees bent. The hem of her school skirt spread out across the floor as she knelt, forming a circle of dark grey fabric centered on her knees.
She was kneeling, Jerry was sitting; the height difference was amplified in this posture. The top of her head was roughly level with Jerry's chest.
Her face was directly in front of the waist and abdomen area wrapped in his sweatpants.
Hermione's fingers carried a slight tremor—not of fear, but the automatic excitatory shiver of the body approaching what it craves—as they climbed the waistband of Jerry's pants.
The waistband was pulled down. The weak gust of air produced when that thing sprang from the restraint of the fabric brushed across Hermione's face.
It was semi-erect.
Hermione took a deep breath, her nostrils flooding with that warm, musky scent she had become addicted to.
Then, the tip of her tongue emerged from between her lips.
Starting from the base, the flat of her tongue pressed against the skin at the very bottom of the shaft.
The temperature there was higher than elsewhere. She began to slide upward at an agonizingly slow speed.
Hermione's tongue wasn't very long; each lick could only cover about four centimeters. She had to bring her mouth close to the next section and start again, climbing upward piece by piece.
Stimulated by the repeated passage of her tongue, the shaft began to engorge and expand.
From semi-erect to seventy percent, to a full, throbbing stand. The diameter expanded from four centimeters to nearly eight during the process.
Once the shaft was fully swollen, Hermione's mouth could no longer encompass it from the side.
She could only use the flat of her tongue and her lips to press against the arc of the shaft, licking and sucking in a planar fashion.
Slurp... slurp...
The wet sound of saliva against skin.
Her tongue-tip finally reached the top.
Hermione opened her mouth, her jaw dropping to its near-limit. Her lips were pulled into a ring so tight they turned white.
She took the dark red head—a size far exceeding the capacity of her oral cavity—into her mouth.
Only the very front part entered, about two centimeters.
No more would fit. Her jaw joints began to send faint signals of aching from the angle of the opening.
The inner walls of her mouth were forcibly stretched. From the outside, her cheeks bulged in two symmetrical arcs, as if she were holding an oversized piece of candy.
Gulp... squelch...
A massive amount of saliva secreted by her mouth mixed with the temperature difference of the shaft, producing a sticky, sucking sound.
Hermione's brown eyes looked up at Jerry. They were swimming in a layer of mist produced by the physiological reaction.
A few tiny tears hung on her lashes. It wasn't from sadness; the aching in her jaw joints had triggered a reflex from her tear glands.
Jerry's right hand rose. He threaded his five fingers into Hermione's damp brown curls, gripping the back of her head.
He pulled back gently.
The object slid out of her mouth, dragging a transparent thread of saliva connecting his tip to her lower lip.
The thread stretched thinner and thinner before snapping with a pop, the broken strand landing on Hermione's chin.
Jerry gripped the mid-section of the shaft with his right hand.
Then, he slapped her right cheek.
Smack.
A dull, fleshy sound produced by the engorged, hard shaft hitting a soft cheek.
Hermione's head was knocked aside a few degrees by the force. Her brown curls whipped through the air.
A pale pink mark from the impact immediately surfaced on her left cheek.
The left cheek.
Smack.
A symmetrical strike.
Hermione's head tilted the other way, an identical mark appearing on her right cheek.
Smack. Smack. Smack.
Hermione didn't pull away. She even tilted her face up slightly, exposing her features more completely to the trajectory of the slaps.
Her brown eyes were half-closed, her lips curved into a tiny, nearly intoxicated arc.
Jerry's hand accelerated the frequency, then stopped.
His waist and abdomen tensed.
Hermione felt it; the shaft gave a violent throb against her cheek, the precursor to pressure about to break through a valve.
She closed her eyes.
The first jet of hot, thick liquid landed on her forehead, stretching from her hairline to the bridge of her nose.
It formed a milky-white band about a centimeter wide over her closed eyelids.
The second hit her left cheek, running from the bone to the corner of her mouth, some of it leaking into the gap of her slightly parted lips.
The third fell on the right side, from temple to chin. The volume was slightly less than the first two, but still enough to draw a complete arc across her skin.
Hermione's entire face—forehead, eyelids, nose, cheeks, lips, chin—was covered in that warm white fluid.
Beads of congealed droplets hung from her brown lashes, looking like an irregular string of pearls in the orange light of the sunset.
Hera watched the entire process from the side. Her expression maintained that divine detachment—neither disgusted nor excited.
It was merely the flat gaze of someone observing an interesting phenomenon.
She picked up an item from the desk—a large, thick-walled glass mug. It was the one Jerry usually used for coffee, with a capacity of about seven hundred milliliters.
Hera held the mug under Hermione's chin.
"Collect it all."
Hermione opened her eyes, her brown pupils emerging from the gaps in the milky liquid. She saw the mug and took it with both hands.
Her fingers—sticky with fluid—scraped gently across her face.
From forehead to cheek to chin, she carefully gathered every drop adhering to her skin onto her fingers, then swiped them clean against the inner rim of the glass.
After several repetitions, most of the liquid on her face had been transferred into the mug.
But some remained in the fine textures of her skin and the roots of her lashes. She scraped again more carefully with her fingertips, not even missing the stray droplets caught in her eyebrows.
Jerry added some more directly into the mouth of the glass.
The mug trembled slightly in Hermione's hands as the liquid level climbed slowly up the inner wall.
Finally, the mug held about a third of its capacity. The thick, milky fluid sloshed slightly, presenting an opaque, near-porcelain white hue in the sunset.
Hermione held the mug in both hands. The large glass felt exceptionally heavy in her small hands; she needed both to keep it steady.
Her ten fingers were spread across the sides of the glass, her tips just barely meeting.
She lifted the mug, the rim touching her lower lip. Then she tilted her head back.
Glug... glug-glug... glug...
The sound of her throat swallowing was exceptionally clear in the quiet office—continuous and rhythmic.
Like the sound of a stream flowing over smooth stones. Every roll of her Adam's apple corresponded to a mouthful of liquid sliding from her mouth through her esophagus and into her stomach.
Her eyes were closed as she drank, her lashes trembling slightly.
A strand of liquid overflowed from the gap between the rim and her lips, trailing down her chin and onto her neck, but she didn't stop. She kept drinking.
Glug-glug-glug-glug...
The level of the liquid in the mug dropped at a visible rate.
The mug was empty.
Hermione set it down. A thin layer still coated the inner walls. She used her index finger to scrape the inner circumference, gathering the last residue onto her fingertip.
She put the finger in her mouth, sucked on it for two seconds, and pulled it out.
Spotless.
She opened her eyes. Her brown pupils shone with a bright light, a mix of satisfaction and happiness.
She looked like a kitten that had just finished a whole bowl of milk.
Her lips were curved, her cheeks were flushed, and her entire being radiated a content, warm aura.
"It seems this was not a punishment."
"It looks more like... a reward?"
Hera raised her right foot.
Bare, radiating a heat higher than human body temperature, the divine foot—every inch of it perfect to a suffocating degree—lifted silently from the floor.
Her toes curled slightly. Her sole faced downward.
She stepped down onto the top of Hermione's head.
Hermione was still kneeling. A final trace of white residue remained unlicked at the corner of her mouth. Her brown eyes were still swimming with the satisfaction brought by the "drink."
She didn't even have time to react before her field of vision was covered by a warm shadow.
The sole of the foot landed on her crown.
Pat.
It wasn't heavy, but it was enough to press her head down.
Hermione's spine curved under the conduction of that force. Her neck tilted forward.
Her forehead was pressed toward the floor. Her brown curls were crushed beneath Hera's foot, strands spilling out through the gaps of her toes.
Hera's five toes closed around the top of Hermione's head, like gripping a ball that fit perfectly in her palm.
The pads of the toes sank deep into the bushy curls, pressing against the scalp.
The temperature of the sole was so hot it made Hermione's scalp go numb.
Her body went rigid. Her hands braced on the floor beside her knees.
Her fingers tightened against the stone, her nails producing an extremely faint skritch.
She was slowly being pressed down!
But at that moment, a palm tightened around Hera's neck...
"Mmh... isn't this... Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom?"
It was another one—Hera!