The Shepherds Are Dense

Chapter 101: The Creation of the Grey Celestial

The card combines four potent effects: repelling targets, removing negative statuses (seals, freezes, burns, binds, petrification), granting invisibility, and applying a blinding curse if invisibility breaks. These statuses align with light, water, fire, wind, and earth attributes, covering common restrictions like Authority’s “Arrest” or “Shackles” (binds) and “Silence” or “Stillness” (seals). Its main flaw is failing to counter dark-attribute curses, as shadows can’t dispel darkness. Still, it’s the most versatile “Moon” card, outshining many upper-tier phantom cards. Moon cards typically focus on control removal, stealth, detection, prophecy, frenzy, or illusions, and excels universally unless a boss demands or has unique mechanics. Players often agonize over timing its use, as its tactical value risks being wasted if mistimed.In the current peaceful world, superhumans lack combat readiness, unlike players who prepare for all scenarios. Most only counter local threats—e.g., Avalon’s rarity of Twilight path means few prepare for petrification, and Love path’s charms, fears, frenzies, sleep, or madness are rare, with no Steel Mind potions in Glass Island. These Love effects, not negative statuses, resist even Dedication’s illumination. Aiwas doubts the Red Nobility Society, his main foe, will use strong controls, making ’s stealth and blinding curse ideal, as Adaptation’s invisibility doesn’t include curses, catching detectors off guard.

Worried about Lily, who hasn’t greeted him post-breakfast, Aiwas fears she’s fainted from reading her secret text. Entering her room, he sees dense grey spiderwebs that vanish like illusions. Lily, weak-voiced, stands unnoticed in the corner, her presence masked by ’s Authority spell, “Command: Unseen,” confirming her Adaptation path success. She moves silently, like a moth or spider, and explains her text, , a weightless book tied to the Grey Celestial’s creation, “Spider Silk”—a collective phantom, not an individual, living in lies, not contracted but symbiotic with Lily, a unique Adaptation trait.

The text’s secrets, rooted in the Lord of Scales and Feathers’ domains (excluding deception), involve “snake’s hair, cat’s footsteps, moth’s cage, centipede’s noose”—nonexistent metaphors for poison/drug (snake), disguise/hunting (cat), disappearance/change (moth), and foresight/safety (centipede). The Grey Celestial’s “lie” domain overlaps with the Lord’s deception, possibly causing rivalry or alignment. The text’s sixty-seven secrets form a complete legacy, including , , , and , enough for a profession like “Spider Walker.” Lily, mastering three overnight, erases footsteps, senses intruders via webs, and wields tough, sharp silk threads that can’t be poisoned or enchanted but are infinite and self-safe.

Aiwas gifts her , enhancing her stealth, which she’d cleaned after Chloe’s death. Wearing it, her strengthens, making her nearly undetectable behind Aiwas’s wheelchair, negating the need for protective items like the asbestos collar. Her perception and stealth make her a living danger detector and invisible sentinel, stronger than unequipped Aiwas, potentially threatening even Haina with a sneak attack. Now a bodyguard, Lily allows Aiwas freedom without escorts, and her knowledge of his Shadow Demon ensures secrecy, unlike with Sherlock or Haina.

With Lily’s talent, she might join Aiwas’s first advancement ritual. They head to Bishop Mathers’s home—“Madame Mina’s Divination Shop”—where Sherlock recovers. Aiwas must explain activating the holy sword in the key, requiring 33 mana, revealing his second-tier Dedication level to Mathers. Instead of hiding, Aiwas plans to confess advancing to second-tier and aiming for third-tier next month, letting Sherlock deduce he’s “Fox.” If Sherlock and Isabel both know but think the other doesn’t, their reactions at the ritual could be amusing, revealing Aiwas’s mischievous side.

*

(Chapter End)

---