Soon, amid the sailors' worship and awe, Little Illusion became good friends with Odysseus.
But Wenren Sheng knew one fact: Odysseus's friends generally did not meet good ends.
Still, he did not say it aloud.
Children needed to grow.
Then Big Shark followed Odysseus's warship eastward.
Before long, Wenren Sheng learned what they were going to do.
"All the kings and lords of Greece have been summoned by the gods. To the east, a City of Deception has appeared. It will corrupt the entire world, and even the strongest force is ineffective against it," Odysseus said.
His expression was grave. The greed for wealth and shrewdness he had displayed earlier had completely vanished.
"City of Deception?"
Wenren Sheng pondered those four words.
He was not surprised that the Greek gods had ordered mortals into battle, because their mythology followed a principle: "gods and men share the same nature." That was to say, gods and humans possessed the same temperaments, and in terms of intelligence, most gods were little different from humans.
Only a small number of gods were intelligent enough, while mortal wisdom could rival that of deities. Gods could also commit mistakes even more foolish than mortals because of flaws in their character.
Under such circumstances, relying on the gods to deal with the City of Deception would not be worthwhile.
Though there were countless Greek gods, nearly ten thousand lived on Mount Olympus alone. The Nymphs and Woodland Fairies who served as attendants also counted as gods.
But most gods merely possessed ageless lifespans. Their intelligence was no different from ordinary people's, and their personalities were even more extreme.
As he pondered, Odysseus's warship arrived at an eastern island, where a grand feast was underway.
This was a midway rest stop. Kings and lords arriving from the west