Myth: The Ruler of Spirituality

'Should I directly deal with this demon by defying the restraints of the rules? But strictly speaking, it hasn't really done anything deserving of death.'

'Even today, it was I who came to its doorstep...'

Silent and speechless, Heracles was somewhat hesitant.

However, in front of him, the Sphinx seemed completely unaware of this hesitation.

"What's the matter, no answer yet?"

"Give it up... Humans cannot understand things beyond their cognition, and neither can gods."

"True omniscience and omnipotence are but a fallacy... This is something that even I, with my wisdom, cannot answer."

Chuckling softly, the Sphinx gently shook its head.

It did not believe this human could provide a reasonable explanation; the questioning was over.

Yet in front of it, the Great Hero's brows furrowed slightly.

He felt as though he had realized something, but it was not yet clear.

"Sphinx... Did you just tell me that omniscience and omnipotence are fallacies?"

"Are they not?"

Casually retorting, the Sphinx played with pebbles on the ground.

"...Perhaps they are, indeed, fallacies."

Slowly nodding, Heracles slightly raised his head.

Looking up at the towering demon, the stature of humans still seemed too small.

"But whether it's a fallacy or not no longer matters. Sphinx, I've found the answer."

"But before that, let me express my doubts about your question."

"That is your right," the Sphinx spoke indifferently: "You may begin at any time."

"Very well.

"So then... Oh child of Typhon, listen to me."

Putting aside the use of the talisman for the moment, the Great Hero posed his own question to the Sphinx.

"When I heard you tell that story before, I felt that something was amiss. But only just now did I understand the root of what was wrong."

"Just as in our questioning, under the shroud of your ordered rules, our positions are equal; much like the scales of the Goddess of Justice that weigh all things, on its two sides, must be placed items of equal value."

"Demanding that a blind person distinguishes colors is unjust questioning, which order would not permit; sand and gold, when placed on two ends of a scale, to force them into balance, is an act of injustice."

"So at the end of it all, the Faithless in your story is no different."

"The cognition of humans has its limits... and so do all gods. They call the things within their cognition 'logic', and discard anything outside their cognition from logic."

"So, asking someone to draw a circle is logical, and both mortals and deities believe it can be done; asking someone to draw a square is also logical, and no one would question its reality."

"But if you ask someone to draw a 'squared circle', from the myriad Stars to the bottomless Abyss, no one thinks it can succeed, no god believes it can exist, because it exceeds their cognition and hence violates the logic in their eyes."

"However, does a squared circle truly not exist? That, I cannot answer."

"But I do know that an Insect Jackal with a lifespan of just a morning will not believe in the night, and a creature that only lives through a single Spring cannot fathom Autumn or Winter. This is the limitation of life's wisdom, inherently difficult to break."

His voice was calm; in the process of answering, the Great Hero felt as if the barriers within him were also breaking.

The secrets between heaven and earth are inexhaustible, what in this world is 'absolute'?

If there is anything, it is probably the fact that 'there is no absolute'.

"The Faithless try to understand God with their own logic, and the God they comprehend is the one within their logic, not the true God. The questions they pose are beyond their own logic, not truly unachievable questions."

"Whether God is indeed All-Knowing and all-powerful is unknown; whether the truly All-Knowing and all-powerful can create a stone They cannot lift is also unknown. However, the Faithless attempt to make the God within their logic perform tasks outside their logic; that is truly the impossible task, and their questions are nonsensical."

"If they wish to question, then they can only do this: understand God with their own logic and then ask God whether He can perform tasks that are comprehensible within their logic, in order to verify God's All-Knowledge; or they must admit that God exists beyond their logic, and only then would they be able to use questions beyond their logic to test God's all-powerfulness."

"Correspondence between the internal and external, unity of the two, only then is the question valuable... As for their previous questions, they are meaningless in themselves."

His statement stops there, and strictly speaking, these explanations have nothing to do with the answer itself.

Yet both Sphinx and Heracles know that his words were not meant to answer the question in the first place.

Just as the Sphinx previously said, the outcome of the question lies outside the question. When matters outside of the question are resolved, the question itself becomes unimportant.

Therefore, facing the gaze of the Sphinx, the Great Hero slowly delivered his final answer.

"To your question, my answer is 'yes'."

"Because since the question itself is meaningless, I no longer need to consider the reasoning for correctness or incorrectness in my answer."

"And since reasoning is no longer important… hence, my act of responding is merely derived from my respect for the Deity itself."

Hummm…

As the word 'yes' was spoken, the familiar fluctuations of the Law appeared again.

The Law itself does not care about whether a question is internal or external; it only cares about the act of answering the question.

And nearly at the same moment, the Law, which knows it cannot verify All-Knowledge and all-powerfulness, judged Heracles the winner of another round, granting him his second Victory.

"I've won, Your Excellency Sphinx."

"Let us proceed directly to the third round…"

The Domain swayed slightly, and the turmoil brought about by two consecutive failures made it unstable.

However, the Great Hero obviously didn't care about this; he was just waiting for the next question.

Silent, besides the once Oedipus, the human before her was the first to consecutively solve two questions… Yet looking into Heracles's eyes, Sphinx suddenly said:

"There's no need for a third round, young human, I concede."

"Hmm?"

His expression changed subtly, and upon hearing this, the Great Hero's first reaction was not joy, but vigilance.

There's no need for a third round… he didn't think the Great Demon before him was the type to willingly rush to their death.

Oedipus, in the past, committed suicide here after answering two questions, and perhaps beneath the valley, the opponent's blood still remains.

"Don't be nervous, human, I am serious."

"Actually, this is also to preserve my own Life."

Shrugging his shoulders, Sphinx ignored Heracles's wariness.

"You should know, as I said before."

"If you had not answered any question correctly, death would have been certain for you. After all, you did not Sacrifice yourself on the scales before the valley; so even if I didn't want to kill you, the Law would have immediately erased you… But young human, as you might have guessed, the reverse is also true."

"If all my three questions are thwarted, even if you do not wish to kill me, I am doomed to die."

"I don't want to die, nor do I want to gamble on your failure to answer the third question with my eternal life. So, I'd rather give up directly and give you everything that belongs to the victor."

"There's nothing wrong with that, accept my surrender, and you've won; everything that has accumulated in this Domain over the centuries is yours."

"Likewise, I can swear to you, I swear to the Styx River, I swear to All Gods above and beneath, that I have not deceived you."

"When you accept my surrender, although you cannot take my Life, you can take everything else."