I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Venus leaned against a pillar, blood dripping from the cracks in her mask onto the stone steps.

Mars gripped the iron spear, its tip pointing downwards.

"Experts shouldn't directly enter the fray," he said.

"I know." Matthew put his hands in his pockets without even looking up.

"I know the rules better than you do. When I was young, I made a living by exploiting loopholes in these rules."

It took a step forward.

The road that stretches from the end of the Tiber River continues to be paved forward.

"I don't fight, I just care about the road."

Richard suddenly felt a loosening in his footing and tried to take a step forward.

He stepped much further than he had anticipated, and nearly fell over, only managing to regain his balance by grabbing onto a nearby broken wall.

"When the road is reached, the power will follow." Matthew clapped his hands.

"You guys fight your way, the middle section is mine."

Dionysus took the amphora from his waist and raised it upwards.

"This taste is a tribute to the well-maintained road!"

He tilted his head back and took a big gulp, then burped. The burp echoed throughout the city of Seven Hills before dissipating.

Richard could see the etheric field of the city beneath his feet.

The enormous maw that had been pushing all outsiders away was now being lifted up.

The traditional principle of mazes is this: wherever there is a wall, there must be a door.

"Mars," Minerva said, sitting on the steps of the highest hill, waving her hand. "Read it."

Mars held the spear upright and closed his eyes.

"Encircling the beginning of ten thousand cities, sharing the same foundation as the walls."

As the first sentence fell, someone was plowing the field in the darkness to the southeast.

Richard heard an unseen cow panting, followed by the muffled sound of a plowshare cutting into the earth.

"He who once drew the line between life and death with a single plow."

The furrows meander from the southeast around the first hill, past the sheepfold and the cut-off irrigation canal, and finally converge in the northwest at the mouth of the Tiber River.

"Blood has formed trenches, bones have formed walls, only the boundary lines remain forever in this world."

The ditch has been closed.

Richard's relaxed demeanor vanished instantly.

This time, the city pressed even harder, and he had to suppress the Mirror Condensation Technique until the third cycle before he could catch his breath.

Hercules' club pressed down on his hand again.

"...My rod was definitely working just now," he said sullenly.

"It's blocked now." Matthew stood still.

The road that had been paved out from the deep realm was pushed back by the ditch and retreated beyond the city walls.

The voice from the ditch spoke.

"Kid, you've come a long way."

"Just trying to make a living," Matthew said with a grin.

"For hundreds of years, no one has ever stepped over this ditch of mine."

"That's because they can't cross." Matthew pulled his hand out of his pocket and gestured in the air.

In the very center of the city of Seven Hills, two experts collided.

The impact caused by the collision left only a speck of dust in the cracks between the stone slabs on the people below.

Richard collected the still water.

The man guarding this city has the backing of thousands of years of history accumulated over the entire Apennine Peninsula.

Matthew doesn't follow the rules, but when he's standing in someone else's yard, no one can gain an advantage.

The next match is theirs to play.

Hercules was getting impatient.

This big, clumsy guy had been clutching that giant olive wood stick since he entered the arena; the opening remarks he'd been listening to all night had made his palms itch with desire.

"Are you done talking?"

He hoisted the giant club onto his shoulder and charged down the slope.

The depression below the Seven Hills sank in under his foot.

As he charged, the lion skin unfurled behind him, revealing a ferocious laugh beneath the mask.

"Mars, right! I'll open one for you first..."

Minerva thrust his left arm forward, lifting up a round shield.

It was covered in goatskin, with a ring of extremely thin, still-moving live snakes hanging from the edge.

The shield has a woman's face embedded in the center, with closed eyes and snake-like hair.

"Aquarius!"

Minerva uttered the name, and the Gorgon opened her eyes.

Hercules continued charging forward headlong, his feet already turning to stone.

The stone climbed upwards, and when it reached above the knee, the upper body lunged forward while the lower body remained rooted to the spot.

Halfway through the swing, his arm was already stiff.

It quickly climbed up to the chest, and finally to the lion's mouth mask.

The mouth under the mask was still open, the swear word that had just slipped out was still unspoken.

In the very center of this depression, a stone statue appeared.

"...I'm petrified." Dionysus put down the amphorae, feeling somewhat weak.

Demeter's scythe rested on her lap.

The dark bronze doll of Prometheus took half a step forward, then stopped.

Minerva lowered the shield, and the Gorgon's face closed its eyes again.

"If we take down the toughest one at the start, the rest of the night will be much easier for us."

Richard poured still water over the stone statue, and there was still ether moving inside the stone; the person was still alive.

"He's not dead yet," Richard said.

"I know." Hecate stood on the outermost circle, holding up two torches.

She turned around, her overlapping eyes, seen through the golden mask, fixed on the stone statue for a long time.

"Everyone."

"Step back."

"Chief..." A line of words quickly appeared on Nemesis's scales.

"Wait."

Hecate inserted the torch in her left hand into the crack in the stone slab, and then she reached down and took the key from her waist.

Richard had always thought the key was a symbol, but tonight he saw the real thing for the first time.

It's made of copper, slightly longer than the palm of your hand, and the teeth are polished to a shine.

Hecate held up the key.

"The Key Holder".

"Every door has a lock."

"Any lock can be opened."

The key was inserted, and a small section of the etheric field of the entire Seven Hills City collapsed in that direction.

Hecate began to rotate.

"Cheer".

A muffled sound came from the center of the stone statue.

Hecate tightened her grip on the key with her right hand, pressing it down half a circle...

"Clatter."

The lock is open.

The stone statue split open from the center of its chest, and stone fragments fell onto the stone slab and shattered into powder.

Hercules lunged forward.

He lunged too fast, and before he could stop swinging his arm halfway through, he crashed to the ground.

He lay there coughing, and what he coughed up was all gray.

"...Fuck!"

He stood up, supporting himself with the giant stick.

Hercules raised his right arm, but it got stuck.

"Why is there something inside the joint?"

"Stone chips." Hecate pulled the key back from mid-air; a tooth was missing from the key.

"I dragged you out of there, but the petrification marks are still there."

Hercules slammed his club into the ground and turned around.

"Thank you, Chief."

"I can still play, I'm just a bit slow."

Hecate raised the still-burning torch, and the flame dimmed further.

Minerva rested the shield on his left arm, drew his short spear with his right hand, and threw the first spear.

Hecate shifted her body to the left, but the spear still pierced through her left shoulder.

Richard frowned; Hecate had indeed dodged.

Hecate gripped the spear on her left shoulder and pulled it out, the threads in the wound slowly healing.

"Minerva, you can't hurt me."

On the first hill, Minerva stretched out her hand downwards.

The spear flew back from the stone slab and landed in her palm.

"Mars".

Mars slammed his iron spear into the ground, and a bottomless crack stretched out toward the Greeks.

Hercules held his giant club horizontally in front of him.

When the crack reached his feet, the entire stone slab flipped up and threw him out.

"His spells can't follow curves," Hecate spoke up from behind. "They can only go straight."

Hercules understood.

He charged along the S-shaped path, much like a bull circling a fence looking for a door.

With each thrust of his spear, Mars created a new vertical trench in the ground.

The unmarked areas between the ditches became all the places he could find to stand.

Hercules swung to the left, and the club finally struck Mars' shoulder guard.

Venus smiled at that moment.

She leaned against a pillar, blood still dripping from the corner of her lips.

Hercules' club was too slow, and the point of impact slid from the shoulder guard to empty space.

Mars swung his spear backhand, grazing his ribs and leaving a gash in the lion's hide.

Hecate said, "The power of the goddess of beauty will make you reluctant to act."

"I'd be more than willing! I'd rather beat her to death with a stick!"

Hercules roared so loudly that the whole hill echoed.

"You're willing, but your hand isn't."

Hercules looked down at his hand, which was still covered in stone chips.

The next moment, an arrow, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, shot out from the side and headed straight for Hercules' eye.

The puppet that Prometheus had been following the charge activated its automatic defense mode and stepped forward to block the arrow, which then pierced the puppet's left shoulder armor.

The bronze doll's left arm got stuck on the spot, and Prometheus groaned.

Behind the colonnade of the third hill, only a trace of etheric warmth remained, as if scraped by a bowstring.

"Thanks!" Hercules shouted and continued charging forward.

Demeter's scythe swept out at that moment, blocking Nemesis's path.

The first column of people advancing from Rome was cleanly sliced ​​in half by that blade, and what flowed down from the cut looked like wheat husks.

"What is that?" Nemesis asked.

"The legion summoned by Mars," Richard replied.

On the open ground below the Seven Hills, rows of figures climbed upwards.

They had no faces, and their armor styles were several hundred years different.

There are square shields from the Republican era and scale armor from the Imperial era. Fortunately... there are no firearms.

They marched in a frighteningly orderly fashion, their steps perfectly synchronized.

"Cut off one row at a time." Demeter's hand tightened on the sickle handle.

"This cut of mine will have a head."

Hecate had already turned the torch upside down.

The instant it was turned upside down, all the light in the City of Seven Hills went out briefly.

The sound of a brass key being inserted into a lock came from the darkness.

"Cheer".

When the light returned, the countless dead had already stood up.

Mars didn't look too good.

"...You summoned the man who died outside Rome."

Hecate smiled.

"I just opened the door; they wanted to come in."

The entire mass of dead, clashing with the Roman legions enhanced by localization, quickly crumbled, but managed to hold out for a while.

"In that case, let's have a match between the two of us, the chiefs."

The two experts began to exchange ideas.

Nemesis lowered the lash of punishment, its tip extending outwards.

As Richard lashed out, he saw the whip pass right through the middle of the line, and nothing happened after it went through.

The queue split half a step to each side, then came back together.

Nemesis stood frozen in place.

She pulled the whip back to her forearm and swung it again.

This time she aimed at Mars, and when the tip of the whip struck Mars, she ejaculated.

"...Why?" Richard heard himself ask aloud.

A line of words floated onto the balance scale, very slowly.

"I don't recognize who should be punished."

Nemesis’s whip is used to punish those who transgress: those who take what does not belong to them, those who occupy what they should not have, and those who owe money and refuse to pay it back.

In this city, the people at the table in Rome were all eating their own food.

The ditch is Rome; the city is theirs, the land is theirs, even the faceless soldiers that rise from the earth are theirs.

If the scales cannot weigh the injustice, the whip cannot fall.

The red-haired girl wrapped the whip tightly around her forearm, turned around, and charged toward the gap in the side where a figure was flipping upwards.

She rushed halfway there, but someone stood there before her.

He was a man in his forties, wearing the most ordinary field coat for hunters, the cuffs of which were worn white.

He stretched his arms out in front of him, and the line of soldiers pushed him backward.

"uncle!"

"Stand back," the man said.

He didn't turn around when he spoke.

Dionysus poured the contents of the cup onto the ground.

The wine spilled onto the stone slab, creating a mist that was half a person high.

The figures, reeking of alcohol, began to stagger, and several of them bumped into each other, fell down, and couldn't get up.

"It's done." He didn't even have time to feel smug.

On the fifth hill, the female hearth goddess moved slightly.

She sat there the whole time, with a ceramic pot at her feet and a small fire burning inside.

She reached into the basin and added a piece of firewood.

The figures that had fallen in the fog of intoxication stood up one by one.

Dionysus's expression changed.

"This splash of wine will cost me money," he muttered. "It's the finest wine."

"Stop splashing," Richard said.

Why?

"You pour a round of firewood, she adds a piece of firewood." Richard's gaze fell on the fifth hill.

"As long as the fire in the hearth remains burning, this meal in Rome can make up for it."

"So we have to concentrate our offensive," he said.

"What?" Hercules roared as he dodged the attacks.

"Kill the Kitchen God first."

On the sixth hill, Fortuna turned the wheel of fortune at that moment.

The stone slab beneath Hercules' feet suddenly cracked.

The stone slab was fine from the start, but it cracked when I lifted my foot to use it for leverage.

Mars' spear is already waiting.

Prometheus used the puppet to shield him, but the bracers were pierced.

Seeing that the situation was not optimistic, Hecate took a moment to remind her, "The Wheel of Fortune will adjust the probabilities."

"Then we..."

"Don't think about her." Hecate tugged at the silk thread, and Minerva stumbled.

"The more you think about whether your feet will crack, the more likely they are to crack."

Hercules grinned, plunging his massive club into the ground to prop himself up.

"Fine, then I don't want to."

He swung the stick and charged forward, but after only a few steps, the second stone slab under his feet cracked.

"...I really didn't mean to!"

In that moment of vulnerability, another arrow came flying from the other side.

The puppet crossed its right arm across its chest, once again shielding Hercules.