The reason why they had grown so much that they had evolved into new third order living mechs was the mech pilots standing proudly before their respective machines.
"The Handmaidens of Death." Gloriana introduced. "If there is anyone who is most familiar with the Valkyrie line from the perspective of pilots, it's them. They are also the ones who have offered the clearest statement on what has happened."
Ves did not have a strong impression of Venerable Olivia Remis and Venerable Eona Ballentine. They were typical Glory Seekers who possessed a lot of Hexer traits but also mellowed out a lot after spending a lot of time outside of hegemony space.
Aside from that, Ves didn't really pay attention to them seeing as he did not interact with the Glory Seekers on a daily basis. He paid more attention to his own Larkinson mech pilots most of the time.
"Holy Son."
"Holy Son."
"Don't call me that!" Ves protested.
"Why not?" Venerable Olivia looked puzzled. "You are the son and brother to deities."
Ves didn't bother correcting these misconceptions. "Just call me by my title. Now what is going on with your mechs?"
"Your mother has given birth to your sister. As you can no doubt feel, Helena has already assumed her responsibilities as our goddess of death."
Ves took a deep glance at the pair of Valkyrie Brunhilds. He could tell that their new design spirit was paying close attention to what was taking place in the hangar bay.
"Have your close ties with the Superior Mother told you exactly why she has decided to relinquish her place for her daughter?"
"The Supreme is already powerful enough." Venerable Eona explained. "She is known to every Hexer and is worshiped by all. The Daughter of Death has just appeared and still needs to be introduced."
"Daughter of Death? Is that how she goes by?" Ves wondered.
"She's also a better fit for the Valkyrie line." Gloriana remarked. "I can definitely feel these mechs have all grown stronger and more deadlier than before. I wonder how much better they perform in battle now that my little sister-in-law inherited my mother-in-law's position!"
Ves scratched his head. "Why give birth to Helena, though? Has anything happened that necessitated her creation?"
Venerable Olivia Remis looked surprised that Ves didn't know what was going on in his own family.
"We have heard… that a major battle took place in the Nyxian Gap."
The Glory Seeker expert pilots quickly narrated what they learned from their colleagues serving in the Oblivion Empire and what they received from their new but already intimate bonds with the Daughter of Death.
The tale sounded fantastical to the point where he wondered whether the Handmaidens of Death had imagined at least half of the story. Oblivion Empire? Abyssal Empire? New dark gods? The Dark Saint?
All of this sounded like an unreasonable plot for a childish fantasy drama rather than a serious recounting of an actual battle.
Even though Ves knew that battles in the Nyxian Gap tended to be a little weird, this was something else! He found it difficult to accept all of this nonsense about 'gods' and 'heroes' duking it out while a large number of mechs and warships were completely rendered irrelevant!
Yet the truth was that the Superior Mother had truly pulled out of the Valkyrie mechs while Helena took her mother's place.
Just the notion that a spiritual entity had actually given birth to another spiritual entity was new to him! He never knew that spiritual life forms could reproduce in this manner.
Even though he created the Superior Mother around the concept of an ideal mother, he didn't actually mean for her to be able to reproduce in this manner!
Had she evolved to the point of being able to do this herself? This sounded plausible, but extremely difficult to accomplish!
Ves knew exactly how difficult it was to create new spiritual life forms from scratch. It was not just a simple matter of gathering a lot of spiritual energy or cutting it off an existing form of life.
Without the spark of life, there shouldn't be a way of creating an entirely new spiritual life form.
"Wait a second…"
As Ves took a deep look at the new design spirit, he recognized the signs that indicated that he was involved somehow.
He began to develop a clearer guess of what kind of role he played in Helena's birth!
The Superior Mother couldn't have just concentrated a lot of death-attributed spiritual energy and be done with it. She needed to get the spark of life from somewhere, and the only known source of that was…
"Me!"
Ves widened his eyes! Had his mother swiped his spiritual seed without his awareness before using it as the most crucial ingredient to bring Helena to life?
"Doesn't that mean… I'm Helena's…?"
He started to get another headache as he tried to puzzle out his increasingly more convoluted family tree.
The Superior Mother was technically his mother since she was Cynthia's incarnation. At the same time, the Supreme was also his 'daughter' since he brought her to life in the first place.
By these same relations, now that the Superior Mother had given birth to Helena, the latter had become his sister as well as his granddaughter!
Yet technically speaking, he was also Helena's direct father as the Superior Mother had presumably stolen his spiritual seed some time in the past in order to catalyze a new life.
With three different possible family relations, how exactly should he regard the newborn Daughter of Death?
"Are you my new granddaughter, Helena?"
A flare of anger burst out of all of the nearby Valkyrie mechs at once!
A grey arm materialized above Ves' head and gave him a good smack!
"MOTHER WAS RIGHT! YOU ARE AN IDIOT!"