Shepherd Tantra

Chapter 1002 Anne de Vendome
——This can be said to be a pleasant surprise.

Aiwass never thought that he would find out the true identity of his biological mother so easily...

Anne de Vendôme.

This should be the real name of Aiwas's mother before she got married.

If Anne were still alive, she would probably be in her forties now.

Yassen is now about forty years old... and Angelique is eight years older than Yassen, which means she should be at least close to fifty. She should be Anne's sister, and Aiwass's aunt.

The Duke of Vendôme is now an old man. Aiwass doesn't know how old he is... and since Angelique is the second daughter, he should be at least seventy years old.

But the Abigail that Aiwas saw now looked only about seventeen or eighteen years old!

"Your Excellency the Duke...how many children do you have?"

Aiwass couldn't help but ask, "Generally speaking, shouldn't the fertility of higher-level extraordinary people be weakened?"

"Yes, but the Duke himself is only at the fourth level, so the weakening is not that strong. The blessing of the Path of Love allows him to have many children... He can afford to raise them anyway."

Yassen nodded. "The Duke has seventeen children in total. My wife Angelique is the second one... and the Duke's eldest son has passed away due to illness. Because of this, I can become the son-in-law of the Vendôme family... The old Duke wanted Angelique to inherit the family."

"The Duchess?"

"Well, we have quite a few Duchesses in Iris. This is different from Avalon and Star Antimony."

"What about Abigail? Which one is she?"

"The youngest one. She's only sixteen years old and still in middle school. That's probably why Mia dreamed about her."

In other words, Abigail should be the Duke's youngest daughter... Is she Edwards' aunt?
Although she is my aunt in terms of generation, she is even younger than Aiwass...

Anne should be between Angelique and Abigail, and it is unknown how many daughters she is. I didn't expect the Duke of Vendôme to have so many children, which is really rare for a supernatural family.

Thinking of this, Aiwas's expression became a little subtle.

From this perspective... Arsene is actually Aiwass's uncle?
Thinking of this, Aiwass recalled the contents of the letter Sherlock sent him, and suddenly understood:

[While investigating this matter, I accidentally learned a secret that you would never imagine but is closely related to you. Please forgive me for keeping it a secret, because I am so eager to see the surprise and curiosity on the face of the respected God Slayer with my own eyes——]

Although Sherlock was under house arrest in the Duke of Vendôme's mansion, he must have seen Arsene's wife, Angelique de Vendôme, or her other sisters. There is even a high probability that he has seen portraits of the "Vendômes" in the past, perhaps including Anne de Vendôme.

In the promotion ceremony that Sherlock experienced for the first time with Aiwass and Isabel, he, who played the role of a newsboy, had already seen Anne Alexandre, played by Isabel. In other words, he actually knew what Anne de Vendôme looked like.

——With Sherlock's intelligence, he should have known the origin of Aiwas's mother the moment he saw the other members of the Duke of Vendome's family. This was also a "hint" that he wrote in the letter but did not make it clear.

Because Sherlock couldn't keep it a secret - when Aiwass arrived near the Duke of Vendome's mansion, he would definitely know about it. This was a fact that couldn't be hidden. And he didn't mention this in the letter, which actually implied that he was not in a good position to talk about it.

If Aiwass had not met Arsene and did not know that Sherlock was imprisoned in the dream world... at least this method could allow Aiwass to realize that Sherlock was unable to communicate normally when he arrived at the Duke of Vendome's Palace at the latest.

Fortunately, he did not use his true appearance to contact Yassen, otherwise he would have been able to see through Aiwass's true colors in an instant. This white-gold hair is too iconic...especially since he has had too many contacts with the Vendome family.

But thinking of this, Aiwass keenly realized a problem:
Why are Abigail and Anne so alike?
If the old Duke had multiple wives, the children would look very different from each other... But if he had only one wife, she would have gone through menopause and should not have given birth to Abigail.

Thinking of this, Aiwass asked, "How many wives does the old duke have? Are they related by blood?"

"...How do you know? There have been three of them, but..."

Yasen was a little surprised at first, and his expression became a little subtle: "They do have some collateral blood relationship - because they are all from the Sarzo family, and they are more than ten years apart. The second one is the niece of the first one, and the third one is the niece of the second one. There are two generations in between.

"But for a transcendent on the path of love, this is not considered too much... at least it's not his own daughter. For the Iris nobles, this is not a taboo. Instead, it's a fashion. It's just that the old man's preference for women from the Sarzo family is puzzling."

……wrong.

Aiwass narrowed his eyes slightly.

This sounded a little unusual. Rather than a special XP, Aiwass felt that this was some kind of ritual.

Because the relationship between the old duke's three wives is too regular. This regular distribution, like a test question, is most likely a ritual in this world.

By the way, what exactly does the thing he asked Sherlock to investigate mean...

Aiwass suddenly fell silent and fell into deep thought.

"What's wrong, Aiwass?"

Yasen saw that Aiwass hadn't responded for a long time and was a little confused: "Are you still thinking about Abi?"

"...So be it."

Aiwass said vaguely.

He asked Yassen the question that concerned him most: "Does the Duke have a daughter...who has ever been missing?"

"What about being more specific?"

"For example, he once went abroad to study, and then stayed in Avalon and didn't come back... something like that."

Aiwass stared at Yassen and asked.

Yassen did not respond immediately.

He touched his chin and thought seriously for a while, but did not give an answer. This made Aiwas feel depressed.

"How old is she?"

Yassen asked, "About how old?"

"Now he should be... in his forties."

Aiwass simply said, "Her name is Annie."

"-Anne de Vendôme? Ah, there is such a person."

Yasen directly said her name, and Aiwass' heart moved slightly.

But Yasen's next words made Aiwass feel cold all over: "But she didn't stay in Avalon. She has always been at home. Maybe she went abroad before, but she didn't stay."

……what?
"Is she married?" Aiwass asked.

"No, she has never married. But it is said that she has someone she likes, so father did not force her."

Yassen smiled and said, "After all, the Vendôme family is very prosperous... and there is no need to form an alliance with other families. It's just a matter of keeping an idle person. It's no problem to raise him until he dies.

"And Miss Anne is not a pure idler - she is a very good opera singer, but now she is old and her voice is declining, so she stays at home... Do you know her? No wonder you care about Abby, they do look alike."

"…Maybe. I'm not sure."

Aiwass spoke slowly.

After listening to Yassen's narration, Aiwass had roughly guessed the truth -

—It’s the Swamp Man.

This also explains why the Duke's daughter was able to stay in Avalon and even died in Avalon without causing any diplomatic pressure; originally Aiwass thought that the Duke's family had too many children, but now it seems... it is because "Anne" has gone back!

The Duke of Vendôme had no idea that he had a daughter left in Avalon!
But…is it the one who stayed behind, the Swamp Man, or the one who went back?

From her behavior, it is clear that she knows the existence of "another Anne". She is not married and has someone she likes... This is Aiwass's father, which means that the creation of this swamp man should be after she fell in love with Aiwass's father.

For a moment, Aiwas was eager to return to the material world and go to the Duke's Mansion to meet this "mother's counterpart".

But he still suppressed his chaotic emotions and decided to rescue Sherlock first.

However, he changed his attitude towards sightseeing and became much more serious:

"——Let's not talk about that for now. Let's enter the dream world first."

Aiwass walked quickly to the front and generously shared the precious knowledge of the dream world with Yasen: "If you want to enter the Kingdom of Shadows, you need to pass through the gap between the shadows."

After all, Arsene and himself are more or less related - although not by blood, he is still an actual "relative" of Aiwass.

"This gap must be at least more than thirty degrees, but no more than one hundred and twenty degrees. And each step must deviate at least one degree. Generally speaking, this can only be reached when you get lost in a dim forest... But there is such a place in the school - that is the spiral staircase."

As he spoke, Aiwass took Yasen to a clock tower on campus.

He searched several places... and then found that the stairs in the bell tower here happened to be spiral.

He led Yasen up the stairs, and at the same time advised Yasen: "Don't remember how many steps there are, and don't count how many steps you have taken. Dreams are illusory and subjective... Use your imagination to cover the imagination of the dreamer. We need to walk down this staircase a total of 3,600 degrees, which is to rotate ten times - I know this clock tower does not have a tenth floor, but this does not affect our going down, do you understand? Don't care too much about 'common sense', but pay attention to imagination...

"If that doesn't work, just cover your eyes."

This is like "Platform Nine and Three Quarters". Common sense shows that there is no such gap - just like there are no ten floors in this staircase.

In the forest, the condition that can only be triggered by "getting lost ten times in a row and returning to the original place ten times" can be achieved more conveniently and stably by going down the stairs.

“…I’ll try my best.”

Yasen said seriously, a little nervously. Apparently, Aiwass's request was still a little difficult for him - to forget or even ignore the "ground on the first floor" and force himself to continue walking down...

"Don't be too nervous, and don't count how many degrees you walk. Just listen to my footsteps, and when I walk, you walk."

Aiwass consoled.

As they were talking, they had already reached the top of the bell tower, closing all the doors and windows on the way, leaving the place in complete darkness.

He searched everywhere and simply tore a hole in his hat, turned it into an eye strap, and tied it on Yasen's eyes.

As for Aiwass - he doesn't need that kind of tool assistance.

Yasen held his shoulders, while Aiwass walked in front. They walked down step by step in the dim environment.

as predicted.

As long as Aiwass kept going down, the spiral staircase would extend infinitely. It had already exceeded the length when Aiwass went upstairs, but it didn't seem to stop at all...

The further he went down, the darker it became. He couldn't count how many steps he had taken, but after at least six hundred steps it was already too dark to see anything.

Suddenly, Aiwass's feet touched flat ground.

He paused, took a step forward, and asked Yassen to come down as well.

Aiwass stopped Arsen who wanted to go further down and untied his blindfold.

Yasen subconsciously took a step back, only to find that there was no staircase behind him.

Suddenly, a bolt of thunder struck, illuminating the gloomy dark gray sky.

As the lightning gradually dimmed, they keenly scanned everything around them.

There was no sun or moon in the sky, and the dark grey sky was always covered with dark clouds. Only when thunder roared could one vaguely see the outline of this world.

They were in the middle of a vast black and grey wasteland.

There is no way to make a difference.

The good news is that there are no threatening phantoms around.

The bad news is, they don't even know which direction to go.

"We're here," Aiwass looked around and said uncertainly, "This should be the Kingdom of Shadows."

"……should?"

Yasen was stunned: "You... haven't you been to the dream world?"

"I've never been here, but I should have someone I know here... I'll call him and ask."

As Aiwass said this, he cancelled his mirror transformation - he wanted to use the prayer spell, but this body of the Moon Child was not suitable.

In the split second before the light disappeared, Yassen saw Aiwas's face clearly.

At that moment, his eyes suddenly widened.

(End of this chapter)