069: This Chapter Is a Tiny Bit Filler

Alaya ultimately did not respond to Rimuru's request.

It was true that Rimuru had a good relationship with Alaya, but that did not mean Alaya would satisfy all of Rimuru's demands. The hero Heracles had boarded the Argo alongside Medea during the Age of Gods. If he descended completely, the current world simply could not sustain his Spiritual Foundation.

Moreover, no matter how Heracles was manifested, Heracles's will would remain singular: the Berserker who had now gone mad and lost all reason.

Many people assumed that since Servants were projections of Heroic Spirits, the Heroic Spirits themselves resided in the Hall of Heroes and could freely send down more projections, just like the gods. In truth, that was wrong.

The Hall of Heroes was not the divine realm of the Age of Gods. The gods of that era had true bodies because they genuinely existed—they were alive. As for Heroic Spirits, Alaya merely used contracts to ignore time, forcibly preserving heroes at the instant of their near-death and completely sealing them within the vessel known as the Hall of Heroes. Put bluntly, it could be understood as preserving their souls or consciousnesses. Whenever they were needed, they would be awakened, then given bodies from different periods of their lives to fight in.

That was why Archer's memories consisted of endless warfare.

Whenever he awoke, he had to fulfill the duty of protecting the world, then fall asleep. The next time he woke... there would only be fresh slaughter.

Only through that endless cycle would his convictions collapse.

And calling them projections was not wrong either. After all, those bodies were indeed inferior products Alaya created to prevent their Spiritual Foundations from collapsing—false bodies composed of spiritrons, sustained merely by a Magician's magical energy.

Yet even so, the consciousness within those