Chapter 243: Supreme Union!
Logically speaking, any god with even a slightly thin face would truly be unable to keep up the pretense at this point.
Not to mention an ordinary bird—even an ordinary god would have long turned to dust under Hera’s divine power.
But even after it had come to this, what Hera saw was Zeus still pretending to be dead there.
And pretending even more exaggeratedly.
As she exerted force, His two little claws kicked out, and His bright red little tongue was deliberately stuck out.
Beautiful Hera truly felt both angry and amused.
But she was equally unable to do anything about Zeus.
Thus, she suddenly snorted coldly and “fiercely” threw this “dead bird” onto the ground, turning to leave.
But she had just turned around, not yet taken half a step, when a powerful and warm large hand tightly grabbed her fair wrist.
The next instant, an immense force she could not resist at all pulled her back into the extremely familiar, extremely solid embrace.
The entire world changed in that instant: dark clouds dispersed, sunlight shone everywhere, and the air was instantly filled with the masculine aura of thunder and sky, completely replacing the moist fragrance of earth and rainwater.
That was the most solid chest she was extremely familiar with and forever extremely anticipated.
It was the sky embracing her into its chest.
Between the universe, the most tender, most moving, and most magnetic voice slowly sounded by her ear, more beautiful than the lark’s song by a million times:
“My most beloved beautiful goddess, my Hera, why must you be so cruel to a poor little bird that loves you the most?”
“My love, do you know that this little bird would rather lie forever and ever in your palm?”
Hera’s originally slightly angry heart, tender and soft, was extinguished like by a sudden rain and instantly lost all its firewood.
This was her most beloved male god, this was the embrace she most yearned for.
While listening to these soul-stirring words, her rage uncontrollably dissipated.
At the same time, endless grievance and deeper soreness surged into her heart like a tide.
She did not struggle free from her beloved male god’s embrace, nor did she make any responding action.
She simply said expressionlessly in an icy tone: “His Majesty the God King, the most noble between the universe, the supreme sole master—why would he use such despicable means to bully a goddess?”
“Yes, Your Majesty the God King can do as one pleases, can’t he?”
“Everything in this universe is at Your beck and call. You are the master of everything, and whatever You wish to do is entirely justified.”
Her voice carried a faint tremor, filled with self-mockery’s desolation.
“As long as You beckon, any goddess will immediately throw herself into Your embrace, shed her garments, let You toy with her wantonly, and breed children for You.”
“In the end, she will even gratefully thank His Majesty the God King for the supreme bounty You bestowed, won’t she?”
Goddess Hera slowly raised her head, gazing directly at this most beloved God King.
Two pairs of golden eyes from the same origin quietly met.
One pair of eyes was filled with love and desire blazing like fierce fire, along with rare pity and guilt deep as the deep sea.
The other pair contained love as deep as the abyss, yet filled with endless heartbreak of shattering.
Just like a violent rain falling on a mirror lake, rippling circles upon circles on the surface, every layer of waves silent with pain.
“Respected Majesty, great Majesty, supreme Majesty. Between this universe, who can defy Your will?”
Her voice was calm, yet every word bitter to the bone: “Why must You use such despicable means? If You desire it, then I too can shed my garments now and offer You everything.”
Hearing this, Zeus closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled it.
He could only embrace his beloved Hera even more tightly, pressing her closer to his heart.
He pressed his cheek against Hera’s delicate and fair ear, murmuring in the most cherished, most affectionate tone: “Hera, my Hera, my eternal beloved.”
“I truly want to split open my chest and let you see with your own eyes how sincere my love for you is in my heart? I so want you to see how my heart is filled with your name?”
“I also truly want to unfold all my divinity for you to examine closely.”
“See if my love for you is truly forever engraved in the deepest part of my divinity? Let you see clearly, in the deepest light of my divinity, how your name shines brilliantly?”
“Hera, my Hera, my beloved, my divinity’s light, all my tenderness.”
“I know I have too many flaws, too much indulgence and unworthiness.”
“But my love for you is forever beyond doubt! I have never, nor will I ever, waver, conceal, or hesitate—my beloved Hera, I love you!”
“I swear upon the name ‘Zeus’: I forever deeply love my Hera! This love is eternal, unextinguished, unwavering!”
“My treasure, my beloved, my most supreme and most precious Hera, how much, how much I do not want you to suffer even the slightest harm.”
The God King held his beloved even tighter, murmuring in plea: “My love, what must I do to prove to you this love I have for you? What must I do for you to believe my heart?”
“Do you know, I am willing to share everything with you.”
“My universe, my sky, my thunder, my throne—I wish to share them with you; my laws, my radiance, my order, all my rewards and punishments—I wish to share them all with you.”
Zeus’s these scorching yet sincere words were like a gentle giant stone pressing down, making Hera’s mood even heavier.
She was not doubting Zeus’s sincerity.
It was just that love’s loyalty, a woman’s expectation, her unwavering principles—should they truly be abandoned?
The God King also felt his beloved’s heaviness and struggle. He paused slightly, then chuckled softly, the laughter shedding all frivolity, leaving only tenderness soothing enough to melt ice and snow:
“If you still won’t believe me, then I will become a little lark again, and from now on, sing before your window every day. Singing until every first ray of morning light thoroughly illuminates the entire Olympus. Anyway, you can never shake me off.”
Hera’s butterfly-wing-like eyelashes finally trembled lightly.
Every first ray of morning light
These words, like the softest feather, precisely plucked the string deep in her heart named “desire.”
Gently soothing her already riddled tender heart.
All the authority and glory promised by her beloved God King—she cared not for any of it.
What she wanted, from beginning to end, was merely every morning they could nestle together with Him.
Just that simple “being together.”
The Heaven’s most radiant female lead listened to her most beloved God King’s words; her heart was filled with endless moving emotion, yet torn by inexpressible heartache.
Sourness, bitterness, endless grievance—all converged in this moment into an uncrossable sea of suffering, completely submerging her.
The final pillar supporting her divinity’s persistence groaned under the unbearable weight in the sweet sea of suffering’s waves, breaking inch by inch.
All her strength, all her persistence, slipped away like sand through her fingers, irretrievably fading.
She could never, ever refuse her beloved God King.
Because she loved Him so, so much.
Their names and their fates had long been tightly bound together in that eternal time.
Mention Hera’s name, and Zeus is inseparable; mention this eternal God King’s name, and Hera is indispensable.
This eternal High Heavens’ Queen of Heaven, endless Heaven’s female lord, supreme female lead, queen of all gods, Great Mother Goddess upon the golden throne.
Hera wearing golden boots slowly raised her pair of flawless jade arms crowning the universe, using her last bit of strength to gently, gently embrace her beloved God King.
With a heartbroken tremolo, like a sigh, like a whisper, slowly blowing from her beautiful red lips like a clear breeze:
“Majesty… You wield thunder and order, Your radiance makes all gods revere. What You wish is almost without fail; yet what I wish ultimately cannot be fulfilled.”
“Zeus… my eternal beloved… why, why? Why did I fall in love with you?”
“My lord, please tell me… why must I endure this most painful torment?”
“You let my divinity drown in your great sea-like sweet love, but you… but why must you make me endure suffocating torment?”
“Why… why?”
“Hera…” No matter how silver-tongued Zeus was, no matter sweet talk, He could say no words of defense at this moment.
He could only use all his love to tightly embrace his beloved Hera, almost wanting to fuse her completely with himself.
He could shield Hera from all windswept sands, but the greatest pain and torment was bestowed upon her by Him, this amorous God Lord, with his own hands.
And even omnipotent and omniscient as He was, He remained powerless against this.
In this eternal love, ultimately He was the more selfish one, and ultimately Hera tolerated everything of His.
“My love, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
The supreme God Lord, for the first time, truly spoke words of apology from the heart. Toward any other goddess, He would never have such profound guilt.
Solely because He deeply knew that the sole root of all torment Hera endured was her noble, flawless, singularly loyal love for Him!
Hera deeply exhaled, as if expelling all the fatigue of her divine soul.
She didn’t want to say these things anymore; she really didn’t want to think about these painful matters anymore.
She barely calmed her mood and softly asked in turn: “Zeus, my love, please speak—what is it you came to find me for?”
The amorous God King, harboring endless love and guilt, lowered his head to kiss between that fragrant beautiful hair.
He replied in a nearly pleading gentle voice: “My Hera, I—I can no longer bear this love for you. Please, please don’t refuse me anymore—become my wife.”
“I don’t ask you to agree now. I only ask you to keep me in your heart, let me always stand there, waiting for you to come or call me over.”
Radiant Goddess Hera, upon hearing this, suddenly froze.
The wind stopped in this moment.
She quietly gazed at the eternal beloved before her; in those golden pupils burning with blazing flames, she saw only her own sole figure.
She suddenly remembered how she had countless times stood at the Summit of Olympus, looking toward the boundless earth and starry sky.
Facing the vast boundless world, she had countless times wanted to give up.
She was unwilling to hate, because she firmly believed that the opposite of love is not hate, but “indifference.”
Yet this god before her made her forever unable to achieve “indifference.”
Not even hate could she do.
She smiled heartrendingly, looking into Zeus’s unwavering eyes, and said faintly: “Zeus ah Zeus—haven’t I already been in your embrace?”
“Don’t say it anymore, please don’t say it anymore…”
“Just like this… just like this.”
“My God King ah, my lord… my father… my everything… just like this.”
“Please possess me. The rest… don’t say anymore… just like this.”
Before her words landed, radiant Hera’s golden crown symbolizing loyalty and pride atop her head quietly slipped off.
The golden crown made no sound, simply falling quietly onto the mortal world’s grassy ground, rolling amid the fragrant flowers.
Ultimately, gently received by a petal.
She had defied her own noblest divinity.
Solely because of that incurable love.
She offered everything of herself to this beloved God King.
With resentment, without regret, and without hate.
The supreme Heavenly Father finally possessed the great Mother Goddess of Reproduction.
——
The entire universe, in this instant, stirred up the most vast aether tide!
That tide’s fluctuations were like the most violent waves, stirring the wildest cosmic storm, shaking the entire universe with unprecedented intensity!
Boundless golden clouds gathered from the void, with unprecedented thickness and glory, completely obscuring the entire world of existence!
Endless, boundless sacred golden thunder madly flashed within the golden clouds.
Continuous, filled with joy and delight thunder roars resounded through every corner of the universe!
Golden-white lightning embroidered a supremely gorgeous wedding crown upon the pitch-black cosmic sky dome!
And that warm abundant reproduction power surged from the earth’s depths, spreading the boundless world into the most dazzling wedding gown!
Winds from all directions tuned their pitches, transforming into grand string music playing heavenly sounds!
Myriad colorful clouds gathered between the stars, forming the most brilliant endless wedding dress!
A massive heavenly rainbow containing all colors of existence coiled into the knot symbolizing the eternal pact!
In this moment, the boundless universe’s starry rivers and endless stars were all guests to this sacred wedding; They raised high the blessing lights for Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother!
Heavenly Dao Order’s sacred network manifested its most origin threads of order, upon its sacred loom, with eternal time as witness, weaving this unique sacred marriage covenant!
Great Father God’s thunder descended from the universe’s highest point—not as destruction’s majesty, but transformed into sacred golden light rain containing endless codes of life, gently sprinkling toward the boundless world represented by Hera, thirsting for vitality.
Great Mother Goddess had already transformed into a boundless “sea of reproduction” bearing all life’s origin.
That ocean was warm and profound, surging within it the primal embryos of all life, the universe’s densest, purest essence of life.
Her divine power transformed into warm, moist life mist rising from this ocean.
Like a colossal canopy, gently and firmly slowly unfurling, welcoming the sacred blessing from Upper Heaven.
The entire universe trembled violently for this most sacred union!
This was not from fear, but from supreme ecstasy of returning to origins and achieving ultimate harmony!
This was no mere mortal copulation, not even simple fusion of concepts and laws!
This was the “yin” and “yang,” “masculine” and “feminine” driving the universe’s operation; the “power to bestow form” and the “foundation nurturing all things”; the supreme Great Father God and the paramount Great Mother Goddess in their greatest sacred union!
The supreme Great Father God provided sacred order and domain to all living beings between the universe.
While the paramount Great Mother Goddess infused this order with ceaseless, vibrant flow of life.
Heavenly Dao Order’s light veins were rewoven; the patterns symbolizing “existence” gained a tough line named “growth.”
The universe was no longer merely a cold mirror self-contemplating; it learned to explore outward, grow inward.
It learned to transform “possibility” into “growth.”
Henceforth, life was no longer mere savage disorderly growth in chaos, but prosperous reproduction under sacred order.
Order was no longer cold rigid rules framework, but a life-vital, constantly evolving organic whole.
The universe thus entered a truly meaningful ordered and abundant Golden Age!
A great era of prosperity and reproduction!
Then, the “sacred thunder” finally struck into the “sea of reproduction.”
Golden “light of laws” instantly poured into the profound “sea of life.”
Sky’s order and life’s derivation; masculine will and feminine gestation; Great Father God and Great Mother Goddess’s fusion reached perfect creation harmony in this moment!
In this moment, the entire universe was thoroughly enveloped in unprecedented brilliant rosy clouds!
Within those rosy clouds were both thunder’s golden sacred patterns and the flourishing fragrant misty aura.
Stars swayed for it, shedding blessing silver radiance; oceans calmed surging waves, instead resounding the deepest praise.
On the earth, every budding flower instantly bloomed, every unripe fruit accelerated to maturity, the air filled with the sweetest scents of birth and reproduction!
This was a great union transcending the flesh! The universe’s ultimate resonance and fulfillment!
All things and spirits fell into the deepest ecstasy originating from life’s origin!
Because from this day, the world possessed the right to “more”!
Zeus, the supreme Sky King! He is the omniscient lord, the omnipotent sovereign! He is existence’s creator, order’s establisher! Eternal movement’s energy, originating from all yet above all, the sole god!
His thunder is not only destruction’s tool, but sacred light cleaving chaos, creating all things, birthing life!
His embrace is Great Father’s vast coverage of the universe, justice and axiom’s shelter and norms for life!
Hera, the solemn loving Goddess of Reproduction and Fertility! She is life’s mother, survival’s bestower! Endless evolution’s pusher, universe progress’s source! Gentle mother of all reproduction, eternal evolving life’s embodiment, the supreme Great Mother Goddess enabling all existence to advance!
She is fertile soil, accepting sky’s dew and radiance; she is motherhood’s ocean, nurturing myriad forms; she is sky’s female lead, granting all living beings sacred rights of reproduction and evolution!
Her existence symbolizes life’s own tenacity, continuation, and vigorous power; reproduction and fertility’s promotion and great love for life!
Their sacred union this time was the cosmic laws’ own fulfillment!
It opened a great era of perfect fusion of order and life, power and reproduction, fatherly and motherly authority, allowing all things to prosper and create under sacred framework!
Their union was cosmic evolution history’s grandest sacred wedding!
The entire world leaped from static “existence” state to dynamic “growth” state!
In this ultimate harmony representing creation’s origin sacred fusion, at the deepest of their divinities’ fusion, a nameless light was ignited.
Bearing the highest mystery of “will to bestow form” and “potential to nurture all things” combined, a great deity began to gestate.
The reproducing Great Mother Goddess took this seed of light into her womb, granting it endless vitality.
Thunder Great Father God forged for Him the fetal heartbeat pulsing to cosmic rhythm.
Prosperity wove for him a warm swaddling; order erected solid standards.
That was the old God King’s supreme “creation” authority, sublimating and gestating once more in Hera’s womb.
The supreme God King infused authority defining form, establishing rules, exquisitely constructing.
While the loving Great Mother Goddess infused endless gestation, granting life vitality, transforming conception into reality’s maternal source power.
That was “possibility” captured by “reality”; “blueprint” presented by “matter”—the first sacred forging ring!
That was “energy shaping matter,” “laws building form”‘s great authority!
His name—Hephaestus!
The enlightened wielder of “all creation, creating all”!
He is the God King’s eldest son!
The supreme Great Father God and paramount Great Mother Goddess’s eldest son!
The great god of creation all civilizations will eternally worship!
He is the old God King’s supreme authority, rewoven by God King Zeus’s supreme order, then sublimated and gestated in supreme Great Mother Goddess’s womb into a new great god!
He obtained ceaseless creation power from Mother Goddess’s endless life; he obtained precise laws without the slightest deviation from Father God’s order thunder.
He will take “rules” as his crucible; “will” as his hammer.
He will smelt scattered “materials” and “elements” into tangible “vessels” and “forms.”
He will forge fleeting inspirations in the void into tangible things graspable by living beings.
Wherever He goes, repeatable miracles will appear.
Wherever He arrives, inspiration will no longer be ephemeral, great undertakings no longer mere in songs.
Because of Him, “creation” will no longer be gods’ exclusive privilege, but teachable “craft,” preservable “technique,” inheritable “path.”
Because of Him, all living beings can finally master rules set by gods, binding all wandering between heaven and earth!
His birth symbolizes the universe, after supreme gods’ union, gaining intrinsic, ceaseless, inheritable creative power.
Henceforth, civilization can be forged; art can be born.
The world, beyond “reproduction,” gains brilliance of “craft” and “civilization.”
This is the ultimate meaning of Great Father God and Great Mother Goddess’s union: father and mother fused, yin and yang interlocked, abundance and discipline verified, survival and creation advancing together.
The world’s “birth” henceforth has “order”; the world’s “order” henceforth serves “birth.”
After this day, cosmic evolution’s rhythm tuned to a new frequency.
Thus, the great era of prosperity and reproduction officially unsealed.
Creation granted learnable form; life bestowed continuable order.
Universe’s all things and spirits thus smiled.
Because all things each got their life; all spirits each got their hope.
An endlessly reproducing, creating, evolving, forever prosperous great era opened.
Praise Zeus!
Praise Hera!
Great Father God and Great Mother Goddess’s deep fusion lasted a full three hundred thirty-three days of perfect cycles.
During these three hundred thirty-three days, the entire universe was thoroughly enveloped in the grandest, most glorious sacred auspicious phenomenon of harmonious life and order resonance since creation.
Until Zeus and Hera parted, these endless auspicious phenomena reluctantly receded like tides, leaving only warm, enduring rainbow afterglow on the sky dome.
Zeus remained in place; heaven and earth’s roars had long faded like distant tides. Upon the vast plain, only He one god remained.
His fingertips gently stroked the lock of purest golden hair on his forehead, forcibly left by Him, matching his own color.
Feeling the temperature seemingly not fully dissipated, his heart felt lost and empty.
The God King still reminisced about those three hundred thirty-three days of love and beauty poured into each other, making all His divinity deeply intoxicated.
In this deepest fusion, He could clearly feel Hera’s love, a obsessive love capable of completely enveloping His boundless divinity.
Pure flawless, singularly loyal deep love’s soft chant still echoed in His divinity’s depths, like the eternal morning star at long night’s end.
Hera had returned to Olympus, to her Temple of Fertility.
Upon seeing Asteria already with Leto, she understood why she left, but she held no blame.
Who could defy her beloved God King’s will?
She simply sat alone on her divine seat, absent-mindedly lost in thought.
She could feel the sweetness and joy in her heart—that was a beautiful taste deceiving no one, not herself.
Yet her heart still rippled like a lake struck by continuous raindrops, unable to calm.
She didn’t know how to face Zeus, nor how to face the other goddesses, especially those she respected and her friends.
Although perhaps they wouldn’t care, even treating her with generosity and magnanimity.
But she cared.
She cared for the principle of “loyalty” and the desire for “being together.”
She could not refuse Zeus.
Yes, no matter what, she could not refuse Zeus, much less deceive the truth deep in her heart.
But she absolutely unwilling to footnote her own happiness with any goddess’s happiness and dignity.
This forced her, with immense willpower, to flee-like temporarily leave Zeus and hurry back to her temple, quietly sitting here.
Because her heart was in turmoil.
The child in her womb, the God King’s eldest son—though his divinity and authority complete, he had not yet been born, still in deep sleep being gestated.
As supreme Great Mother Goddess, her first offspring’s birth was destined to follow “conventional birth” mode, setting the standard for all spirits.
This time required a full cycle of “sacred twelve months” gestation.
This year’s time was homage to great motherly love.
It was also sufficient to gestate this already incomparably powerful child even more perfectly, more powerfully.
The main god of “creation” was about to appear.
When the main god of “creation” descends, all civilizations’ dreams of vessels and methods, forms and principles, blueprints and crafts will truly have inheritable, replicable, widely spreadable hope and future.
During Zeus and Hera’s three hundred thirty-three days union, many goddesses in the universe simultaneously paled.
Regardless of whether goddesses previously knew “Zeus loves Hera most,” now they all understood.
Because this time’s commotion was greatest, duration longest!
And all gods could sense that the great God King made no concealment, declaratively granting his eldest son and that crucial, extremely special “creation” authority entirely to the Goddess of Reproduction and Fertility.
Even though this divine child not yet born, it was no longer any secret.
In the netherworld, a certain great Goddess of Night unwilling to reveal her surname—though long roughly knowing Zeus loved Hera most—still had an extremely ugly expression at this moment.
The night shadows under her divine throne seemingly deepened several shades, cold and gloomy terrifying to the extreme, as if to devour all.
Beside her, gentle and tender Hemera, seeing her own Mother Goddess’s face gloomy as if dripping water, was somewhat frightened.
