Lance's Role

by Thrudgelmir2333

A 'shonen' fic that sequels Next Dimension and Lost Canvas. In 1960, the Pope of Athena receives three prophecies from an old enemy that irremediably set the course of his reign over Sanctuary's tragic history and almost two decades later a Saint of Pegasus finds himself put through the unfolding of a new age of violence caused by the Pope's actions. Please enjoy and review.

56. 2A: The One Closest to God - Part 1 of 3

Notable OCs: Pegasus Lance's Saint Generation, Civil War Saint Generation, World War Saint Generation, Daemon Lucifer's Specters, Maiden Elisa, Priam's Black Saints; Cyrulian Refugees

Notable Original Concepts: Mount Olympus Training Ground, Sanctuary Court, Teos Cloth, Athenian Empire mythology, Isle of Gardens, Stardust Prison, Hades' Dark Princes; Desert Beyond, Sanctuary Town Layout & Buildings; Kido Mount

Recurring/Cameo OCs of Jenny DeVic: Mrs. Schafurwatt, Cyrus

Recurring/Cameo Concepts of Jenny DeVic: Great Bodyguard Legend, Golden Line Heritage, Sanctuary Orphanages, Andromeda Island's Geography & Tests, Sanctuary Nobility, 88 Knights Festival

Author Notes:

-Important note regarding chapter 54: as of 20th of March of this year, there was a massive update on chapter 54 (House of the Dead Part 1) of this story immediately prior to this chapter, which focused mainly on cutting out excessive writing content and rewriting some of the Lance/Adriana scenes!

The combat plot devolves the same way, but if you're the type of reader that values characterization/development more, I recommend you revisit that chapter since it takes the character of Adriana in a different direction that is hopefully far more appealing

If you've read that chapter after to the posting of this one, you can ignore this note.

-If this chapter feels abnormally short, it's because up to 4000 words were cut from it after Beta. Some of it permanently, and some of it moved to future chapters.

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Please enjoy and review (^_^

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"Duhkha."

That was the first word I have heard out of Shaka's mouth when I met him in India. It means Suffering. I had just asked him for what purpose a child like him had dragged himself across the tumultuous hinterlands of the Ganges Plain. He vanished from the manor of his parents one day, starting a panicked search from his Parsi mother that lasted for months. It seemed, though, that this attempt to emulate the path of the Buddha was accomplished in more than the physical level, as one day he was discovered being worshipped like a glowing idol in a poor village at the foot of the Himalayas.

Ultimately, he had been heading towards Bodh Gaya, the mythical location of Buddha's enlightenment. His feet were scarred from the walking and his ribs showed.

Even my Lemurian mind is terrified of imagining what inspired a four-year-old child to do something so extraordinarily dangerous and, most frighteningly of all, succeeding at it. When we conversed, he did so with a clarity that I had only witnessed in the most enlightened of Athena's priests, debating the meaning of life and the mysterious power of the Cosmos. I was frequently assaulted by memories of Asmita. The 108 beads which I brought to every Virgo candidate I had met over the centuries practically took a life of its own in the boy's presence, as if finding an old master.

More importantly, he looked at me as if he knew me personally. He spoke of details about myself that even I had forgotten, details about my intimate relationship with my mortality. His poor mother could only stand there and watch as her son spoke to me, his benefactor, who helped her find him, of things completely alien to her. When we talked of more philosophical matters and Shaka spoke of things beyond the 7th sense, my heart began to sink in realization…

…By the Goddess… I am two hundred years older than I was when Asmita died… and apparently, I am still just as much of a child before his wisdom now as I was back then.

-Pope Arles III's thoughts on meeting Shaka, the Saint of Virgo, dated 1974

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The Past - Lost Canvas War (1751)

Hades' Earthly Castle

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Sitting by her table in the castle tower and gazing out the window to the swampy forests, Pandora bit her finger anxiously, awaiting the results of Nasu Veronika's mission to eliminate the Pegasus Saint, Tenma. She wished her eyes could peer beyond the leafy branches into the disgusting abode that the Specter inhabited. The arrival of Hypnos and Thanatos after Alone's incursion into Sanctuary had made an already difficult situation for her even worse, with the two Gods threatening to take the reins of the conflict from Hades' hands out of fear of the vessel having more power over the Underworld God than he seemed to have.

Pandora could not allow this to happen; the Twin Gods were wise, but if they were given full control of the war, she feared Lord Hades would see it as a failure on her part to be a proper liaison of the Underworld. How could they be rewarded with salvation if they proved to be so impure and useless to the point the work meant for them had to be done by Hypnos and Thanatos instead?

She hoped that the quick extermination of the Godslayer after their appearance would appease their spirits, but now she could sense the cosmos of Cancer Manigoldo on the scene and, predictably, the affair now dragged on endlessly at the swamp.

"How hard could it be to kill one Bronze Saint?!" she sneered, furious. The longer that boy lived, the bigger the threat he represented to Alone and herself. "I should have listened to Rhadamanthys! Relying on mere Celestial Stars is an invitation to catastrophe!"

The voice she invited into the room pronounced itself. "With due respect, Lady Pandora, it's not the job of the Judges to put an end to the Godslayers either… it is mine." The blonde, red-eyed man affirmed.

Her scorned eyes turned to him. "Dark Angel Michael… you say that, but you had the chance to finish him at the Sanctuary, didn't you?!" she threw at him, earning an acknowledging nod from the Dark Prince. "You call yourself the Right Arm of Hades, yet you accepted traumatizing a Sagittarius Saint over killing that boy! What right do you have of criticizing the Judges?!"

The Celestial Absolute Star took this as if he's heard it a thousand times before. Pandora's fury was only matched by her terrifying beauty, but the Prince was the icon of the Specters and therefore their shield to her wrath, which he faced with dignity.

"It was not the time yet. Tenma was joined by unexpectedly strong allies. I believe you saw them." Michael argued, referring to Dragon, Andromeda, and Cygnus. "In the face of such a situation, I had a chance to cut our losses while inflicting a moral blow on the Saints. To them right now, killing Tenma would have meant very little. Crippling their heroic Sagittarius Saint, however…"

Seeing the logic in this, flimsy as she perceived it to be, Pandora relaxed, realizing she would have likely chosen the same path. "I see…"

"My master Hypnos now holds their bravest Gold Saint in the palm of his hand," Michael reminded her. "If Tenma truly is the Godslayer the Emperor fears…he shall be destroyed soon, but for now he is merely someone who used to be Alone's close friend. Sanctuary will therefore continue to cruelly use him to get to Alone and give us infinite opportunities to pick apart their Golds one at a time. Cancer Manigoldo may not realize it yet, but sanctioning Tenma's reckless ventures has placed him as the next neck on the Emperor's chopping board."

Her eyes widened and she looked out the window with a new perspective. "You believe Nasu Veronika is up to the job?"

Michael nodded. "If not her, then we will be. I've eliminated their champion, Asmita, and now crippled the very spirit of their hero, Sisyphus. In addition, their strongest, Aldebaran, was killed by Lucifer. Because of this, Sanctuary is so motivated by fear of us, that they decided to send their best Bronze Saints with Libra Dohko to pursue some fantasy in Death Queen Island, where, as we speak,… Daemon is about to crush them."

The liaison of Hades took a pause, feeling in her mind the black chess pieces moving according to Michael's description, taking out the white knights and bishops in succession. It did paint a pleasing picture.

An evil smile filled her lips. "Just like headless chickens… To think Athena, goddess of strategies, is at the helm and Sanctuary still behaves on the decisions of mortals. Good. Your words have relieved a weight off my heart, Prince."

Secretly, there was more to Pandora's criticism that the Prince wished to contest, but Michael kept to himself his opinion that a lot of their successes were owed to Specter initiative as well, not the commands of Alone, as he did not wish to ruin her new delight.

Still, his concern for the Specters was paramount. "We live to delight you and your brother, Pandora. It is why I humbly ask for the Specters to be held in higher conside-"

Before he could even finish, she scoffed and stood up, taking her trident in a gallant stroll. "The Specters?!... After the blunder that Minos committed? You are too forgiving of them, Michael. You should look to Rhadamanthys and Aiacos in how to treat them as the mere weapons of war they are!"

His red eyes glassed as he envisioned his dream for them like he many times has. "I believe in them, Pandora. And I will work towards making the 108 Evil Stars shine brighter than even the constellations in the sky..."

The daltonic woman's gaze was stern, yet a thought had crossed her mind that this attitude was pious, and even in tune with Hades' love for his Specters, and there had been times when she had seen the fruits of this, but as the sister of Hades, she had to succeed always, not just sometimes.

"We shall see if your kindness is rewarded by Veronika, then," she mused, raising her trident tip at him and smirking in the delight of hanging the Prince at the edge of Thanatos' sword. Seeing he wasn't bothered by this, as if she had threatened him a thousand times before, she lowered her weapon and huffed. "By the stars… If I couldn't see the Surplice on your shoulders, I might confuse you for a Saint otherwise."

Anger flashed through the Prince's eyes. "You'd be confusing me for an indulgent, then. I wish them to burn in the fires of hell…and for every bone and piece of flesh to turn to ash in an inferno, so they may be reborn wiser from those ashes, innocent from their evil… and join our Specter brethren in Elysium."

Her gaze suddenly felt bluntly colder and the smile disappeared off her face. Even the room seemed to get darker as her mood descended abysmally into a pit of sourness. "In Elysium… with us?"

"That's correct."

Her small, pale nose tried to scowl in an ugly way against her will at the very thought of this.

The Specter wondered to himself if it was a good idea to feed this train of thought of hers. As an underling, he could not disobey her, and as someone who cares about her as much as about everyone else, he would not lie to her. However, the only truth he had to offer her would certainly earn more of her wrath. More importantly, it was an opportunity to dig her emotions up that he could not pass by. For now, though, he would brave her fury.

And her fury was indeed let out. "Is that what you told that Buddhist Saint as you battled him?! That you wished for him to enter heaven with us, the purer?!"

And then the Specter said something she truly did not expect. "Not just that, Pandora… believing in this is how I defeated him."

The liaison's eyes widened in shock! It made the darkness in the room deepen terrifyingly, but the Prince was unafraid of her silent wrath, firm in what he said.

Her mind went through what had happened when Michael went to Jamir to exterminate the forger of the bead seal, searching for what could be making the Specter say such absolute nonsense, but her thoughts, deeply entwined in Hades' cynicism, completely failed to see the wisdom in the Prince's words, spotting only folly and affront.

She indignantly eyed him and gave a chance to explain himself. "Go on."

"Virgo Asmita… he accused us of terrible things," Michael recalled. "After pulling me into his Six Paths,… he showed me the hells of his religion. In them, I suffered hunger so powerful it made me want to eat myself whole…, violent urges that nearly ripped my own body apart,… my feet bleeding on rock spikes as I traversed an endless black desert…. and worse… but nothing hurt me the most than hearing him say that we, Specters,… are misguided and lied to. That we were cruel creatures told what we wanted to hear so we could kill and kill and kill."

More filthy Saint lies, then. "Hopefully you cut his tongue off for the affront before you forced me to rescue you."

He nodded humbly. "I did worse, my lady. I showed him he was wrong."

Her curiosity was piqued, causing her eyes to soften. "Is that so?"

"When he tried to put my sins against me in the style of Sphinx… when he said he would make my cruelty as a Specter devour my body from the inside like parasite worms… He instead destroyed himself." He recounted. "In that strange world where both our souls were laid bare, I looked into the eyes of Buddha and felt the madness of the infinity of his enlightenment… and, as an answer, I showed him what Hades inspired in me the most. A weapon that was enough to destroy the most dangerous Gold Saint instantly."

Pandora blinked. A weapon that destroyed the Virgo Saint instantly? They were talking of the heathen demon, the monster from India that crafted the barrier beads that Specters were powerless against, correct? The Celestial Absolute Star was their champion and a mighty champion at that, but this weapon couldn't possibly exist.

"That weapon… was love," Michael announced, stunning her further. "An emotion the Virgo believed was impossible to exist in the heart of a Specter like me. I am not as furious as Rhadamanthys, nor as proud as Lucian…Yet, Pandora… I deeply love Hades, for the mission he has given me, and I deeply love my Specter brothers, for the passion I feel in them to embrace the same cause. I want to give my all in making them shine in the Underworld sky like the tears of the Gods themselves. I believe in it so much, I would extend Hades' kindness to the saints as well."

With her guard lowered by her curiosity, Pandora felt these words take an effect on her. She looked away to the ground, deeply confused. "Love…"

He nodded determinedly. "That is what I am willing to do for you, and for Hades, and for the Specters… I am willing to show the Saints the love they think I cannot have for them. That anchor prevented Asmita from dislodging me from my ground and made his own power destroy him."

The raven-haired woman held her forehead, bedazzled. She remembered strange things all of a sudden. Her toes curled, feeling blades of grass beneath them that were not there, and her body tightened, feeling embraced by paternal arms that were long gone.

Then, she hugged herself, feeling a trembling in her skin. "I…"

Michael noticed her discomfort. "Pandora?"

She looked around with a weird confusion in her eyes. "When… did this room get so cold?" she looked up at him for an answer and blinked, seeing that his eyes were colored red. "Ah…you…"

The prince became seriously concerned and extended his arms instinctively to help. "Are you alright, milady?"

But the sister of Hades went quiet and she saw the world go grey once more. The feeling of the warm color also vanished from her mind.

She straightened up sharply. "Of course I am!" she lashed out. Walking past the Prince, she headed for the halls to await news of Veronika's success. "Go make sure your co-Prince succeeds in his mission! I want my brother's smile to fill the halls of this castle at the news of those Bronze Saints' deaths!"

The Celestial Absolute Star was stunned, feeling something equally disturbing and incredible had just happened. As the sound of the doors closing behind the woman was heard, he recalled his memories of battling Asmita to himself, wondering if he should have kept them close to heart instead of sharing them. The hardships they all faced for Hades in these Holy Wars against the Saints made it very difficult to expose themselves to emotions prone to creating vulnerabilities, like kindness and love.

In moments like these, he wondered if it was better to be like Lucifer, whose blindness lost him their fight at Judgement Day, but was totally unbridled from things like regret and hesitation. Michael firmly believed that Lucian's motivations were silly and he misguided himself away from a truly grand path, but a small part of the Absolute Star wondered how the Pride Star would have fared against Virgo.

Would he not feel the hells of the Six Paths at all? Would he just laugh in the face of Buddha, calling himself the Devil like he always did and prove himself immune to the moral judgments of the Virgo Saint? Was a fool more powerful than a knight?

Or would he have a painful hole torn through his heart like Michael did, and have none of the love that saved the Absolute Star to rescue him from the terror of Rikudō Rinne?

Alas, fate would not tell, for Michael intended this war to be the last sacrifice of blood before reaching Hades' new world.

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The Present – False Holy War

November 1976

Sanctuary, Temple of Virgo

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The candles inside the Temple of Virgo flickered, upset by the invisible currents of Cosmos coursing through the room as a soft humming sound like that of chorus echoed gently amidst the pillars. The blonde youth sitting at the lotus throne in his Virgo Cloth smiled peacefully to himself, finding a balance with his emptied surroundings as he cupped the large bead necklace in prayer.

"Oh, Athena, your mercy is indeed endless," he complimented to no one, eyes remaining closed. "That you would become the guardian of the Earth, of us children of lowly Man, be harassed by the vile and wicked for shining your light upon them. Yet, you extend your hand in order to teach forgiveness and patience. That the 'Awakened One' would have scoured the realms of the Hindu Gods, spoken to every single deity, only to then finally meet a match not in the skies of the Ganges, but distant Mount Olympus instead…Truly you are the one God worthy of the Buddha's smile."

These words echoed in the abandoned temple, seemingly reaching no one. To would-be onlookers walking into his House, it would seem Shaka of Virgo spoke to himself, shining the light of his peerless golden cosmos to the dead walls. The Sixth Temple didn't even seem to be in the middle of a giant invasion, with its owner sitting in meditation and no urgency about him.

It was like the silent eye of a hurricane.

Yet just a moment before, a huge battalion of enemies had walked right in.

The six-year-old child lowered his praying hands and raised his chin. "But her mercy is not my own… and everyone who dares trespass the House of Virgo shall be obliterated!" His face turned up as his smile extended. "Isn't that right, hordes of the Underworld?"

Floating far above against the tall ceiling, throughout the length of the huge 'Hall of Innocence' that comprised the core of the Virgo Temple, named so after one of the aspects of the Goddess Astraea, a large conglomeration of man-sized bubbles with the same color as the maroon beads Shaka held in his hands floated, seemingly stopped in reality. Inside each one, the silhouette of a black-armored person of different, beastly outlines could be seen, some carrying weapons, but every single one stuck in a pose of struggling, shock, panic, or fetal, depending on how mad they've been driven inside them already. They all burned with a black cosmos inside which was either being drained by Shaka or used to resist him, and all had been flawlessly captured the second their presence became known to him.

The Sixth Gold Saint nodded approvingly at their silence. "You sought to bring darkness into Sanctuary, Specters… now eternal darkness is all that you'll be in."

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Chapter 56

Second Arc – Episode 19

The One Closest to God

Part 1

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Romania,

Crow Nest Fortress

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The commander of Lucifer's forces at their headquarters, Nasu Erika, was followed inside the central castle of the fortress by her men. "We need to do something, fast!"

Necromancer Kuro, her direct aide, a lowly Specter who despite his Surplice was more suited for dark magic than combat, had never seen the Prince's main spy so preoccupied. "How serious is this, Lady Erika?"

They made their ways down the spiraling stairs, intending on going to the Cyrulian catacombs. "By itself, not as much as you think; we can always recover our men once the dust of the battle settles and Cancer is dealt with. We would not attack Sanctuary if risking so much manpower was irreversible at the slightest setback. However…"

They reached the prison quarters, which was halfway through.

Kuro saw the Elite False Specter bite her nail as her words ceased. "Yes?"

The bug-armored necromancer groaned. "We cannot allow the Saints to discover the true nature of us, False Specters, through this. If they do, they will pull their forces away from Pandora's castle and concentrate their attack here! All of Lord Lucifer's plans could be put in danger because of this! Our survival depends on the Saints thinking we are still servants of Hades."

The Necromancer Specter gulped, picturing the full wrath of the Civil War veterans amassing unto Crow Nest. Even the protecting curses that Lucifer ritualized into the old Cyrulian edifice would not be enough to stop such terrifying forces.

As they crossed the hall of jails, a chuckle was heard.

They both stopped and faced the dark cell it came from.

The coarse, aged laugh continued. "Eh, eh, eh… you Specters seem preoccupied." The man sitting on the ground mocked. He raised his face to show his old commanding eyes. "Do you feel the noose around your necks already? It will tighten soon."

The female Elite snorted lightly, recognizing the prisoner. "Oh, it's you….Shouldn't you have starved to death, already?"

Fort Commander Lacaille approached the bars, exposing his emaciated body to the torchlight of the hall. It had only been a couple of days since he was captured, but the stardust shackles on his ankles and wrists drained his cosmos constantly, preventing him from sustaining himself. Ordinarily, food would be more than enough to keep someone in these kinds of bindings healthy, but the aged man had refused it even from Sagittarius Priam(*).

(*) Chapter 43

His trembling fingers grasped the bars and he looked the woman in the eye. "I won't die… not until I see you murderers hung by Akassius," he promised. "That was his cosmos I felt outside earlier… battling your men. Anyone that fought under him would never mistake it!"

Kuro punched his fingers on the bars, hurting him. "Quiet, you failure! Or you'll join the rest of your men!"

Lacaille whimpered as he held his hand in pain, but the hate in his face at the Specters survived. "You drew first blood… you desecrated our men… and you used our Cloths and walls for vile purposes. That Specter Akassius killed was just the start! By Athena, you will all be made into Coliseum lion food and rue the day you ever stepped outside your Castle!"

The Nasu Specter darkened her expression. "Is that so?" asked Erika, wondering who told this guy about Coronis' death. It was probably not that hard to figure out because of how loud he screamed before Lucifer shut him up. "Let's go, Necromancer."

The lower Specter followed her. "Lady Erika, are you going to let that stand?"

"Some prisoner's provocation?... Of course not. I just know a better way to punish him than whipping him around…" she assured, leading him down to the catacombs. "We have to assure Lord Lucifer that his plans continue unabated by Cancer's arrival. An earlier-than-foreseen test must be made."

They entered the torchlit chambers where they stored all the soul jars of their fallen, as well as any bodies they could be returned. A third Specter awaited them there, already, getting the preparatory work done on Coronis' dead body, which had been laid on the rectangular rock slab with a simple cloth for dignity's sake. The Lycaon Surplice had turned to ash and returned to the Underworld, likely in the hands of the True Lycaon.

The third False Specter welcomed them with a bow. He possessed an arboreal armor, with very large shoulder pads curving down on his arms and an exaggeratedly long guard kilt, both features contributing to the armor's outline resembling a tree trunk, an effect which resembled bark enhanced by the ongoing segmentation of the chest plate linking these two pieces.

His face was tattooed with lines around his eyes and going down his jawline. "Dryad Dryope, at your disposal," he practically hissed.

The two of them were shown Coronis' corpse. "Is the body preserved?"

Dryope slouched, being an unrefined person, and pointed a long finger at the bed of white flowers below Coronis. "Perfectly. With my Curse of Lily, I can summon the flowers of the Hesperides, Lady Erika, and they will sedate, cure, or preserve those who step unto the forbidden Eden as I wish!... Provided you get me the body quickly enough."

Nasu breathed a sigh of relief. "Excellent. We'd otherwise have to wait for Phase Erebus of the Prince's plan to get our hands on viable bodies," she calculated, referring to the point where they'd exact vengeance on Hades by invading the Underworld. She then burned her cosmos, igniting her swampy, dark aura, and held her hands crossed over the body. "ZOMBIFICATION!"

Suddenly, as she called this technique, the entire room around them burned up with energy, enveloping the walls and floor with coursing black cosmos. The two lower Specters felt dark forces being coursed through a large portion of the castle around that catacomb room. Necromancer and Dryad heightened their senses and felt their Skeletons who were scattered throughout the castle take guard as well, startled by the sudden rising of energies in the edifice. With the entire fortress cursed by Lucifer acting as both a powerbase and dais for their evil ritual, Erika's dark powers were heavily focused and enhanced, concentrated by the evil shapes of the blackened stronghold into a new, more terrifying violation of nature!

This allowed the Specter to do things previously impossible for her, or at least only a pale version of what she wished to do here. With darkness forming into six separate spots around them and coursing through the floor into a center on Coronis's corpse, a crest on the ground was formed out of pure energy, geysering cursed Cosmos of Darkness around them. One of the jars on the wall, labeled 'CORONIS', began to shake violently, like something inside it was roused until its lid was popped open! The three of them then watched as a swarm of black flies came from inside it, carrying Coronis' shadowy soul. With the help of her two aides, Erika then used Cosmos to lower the mass of energy bugs down onto the corpse until it was inhaled through the nose like smelling salts.

They waited a bit, allowing the eruption of energies to subside.

Then they saw the clothed chest rise.

Dryope was ecstatic, raising his arms and clapping his hands above his slouched head. "AH, AH, AH! He's alive! ALIVE! We are gods! Divin-"

The Nasu's hand slapped his head, bringing him back to reality. "Quit it with that! Necromancy is no blessed thing…We are merely repurposing it."

Necromancer Kuro held his hand over their fallen comrade, using his powers to stabilize the link between the body and the soul, and felt heat slowly returning to the resurrected Coronis. "Incredible… We truly can restore our forces as much as we want. I thought my powers would only be good to throw zombies at my opponents."

"Not with the proper gathering of efforts,… but make no mistake, we are still down one powerful Surplice with Coronis here," Erika reminded her subordinates. "Coronis will also take a while to recover. We can't do it like Hades, where he would revive and restore the strength of his True Specters on the spot like at the Battle of Jamir."

Kuro laughed. "This will teach that failed Fort Commander back up there that all his hopes are for naught! Excellent, Lady Erika!"

"Mm-mm, that is the idea…" she acknowledged, before turning her focus to mental messaging. "(Lord Lucifer… we've tested the resurrection of Coronis. He is still unconscious, but it worked!)"

For some reason, the message took longer to be relayed than she expected, but a response returned nonetheless. "(Good, just as planned. Keep your messages shielded, Erika, and sparse from this point, unless an emergency occurs.)"

Erika blinked her purple eyes. "(Of course, but… is there a reason for it?)"

A hint of anger in the Prince's cosmos was relayed back with his words. "(Yes… Ainsel has just been beaten.)"

She staggered. "(What?!)" Out of all the False Specter Elites that could have already been defeated, Ainsel was the most important one. Her mind coursed through all the chaos this would cause. "(Is this fine to be talking then? Is he alive?!)"

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Sanctuary, Golden Zodiac

Leo Temple - Exit

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At the exit of the burning Fifth House, where the stairs between the Temples of Leo and the Temple of Virgo began, a collection of five False Specters, namely Golem Treble, Dullahan Hedron, Cait Sith Palug, Mandrake Nevil, and Elf Roussalier, awaited patiently and beheld the Prince standing a distance from them focused on his mental conversation with Erika at their headquarters. They were joined by their False Skeleton companies and exchanged nervous glances among themselves as they saw their Papillion comrade escaping from the damaged Cancer Temple through the air after the fierce clashes of cosmos they felt from it.

And furious the Prince was "(Of COURSE he is! I'd be blocking these stupid questions from reaching us otherwise!)" Lucifer ranted back, making her flinch all the way from Greece. His red eyes stared down at the distant figure of Ainsel floating up and down the stairs to Cancer, away from those who fought him off. "(He's flying away as much as he can in this place, like a whimpering, scalded dog, but he's relaying messages and jamming the enemy nonetheless! He may have failed me in battle, but he knows to keep fighting for me in other ways… You won't let that point be reached yourself, will you, Erika?)"

The might of the Prince's clenched fist or the zapping of his vicious thunder cosmos came to her in Romania, paling her more than what she usually already was. Her throat swallowed hard. "(Of… of course, Prince! I will NOT fail you!)"

"No, you won't…" Lucifer muttered out loud to no one amidst grinding teeth as he shut off the conversation.

Golem Treble folded his large arms. "To think an Elite would lose already to the Gold Saints… pathetic."

Cait Sith Palug climbed the Golem's large shoulder to sit on it. "Nye-eh-eh, Ainsel has always been so uppity, saying everyone else wasn't careful enough. Now he runs like a scared mouse from the Cancer Temple!"

"Then let that be a lesson to you all not to underestimate the Saints!" Lucifer snapped at the cat man, startling him off the Golem's shoulder. "We've been encountering nothing but youths so far, but it's clear their adults are finally joining the battle!"

Golem Treble rubbed his large jaw at this. "Why did they leave this place so defenseless anyway?"

Mandrake Nevil scoffed in disbelief. "Didn't you see the toys and books we found inside the Temple before you wrecked it? They have kids in these temples pretending to be Gold Saints! I've always heard the Leo Temple is where the bravest warrior in all of Sanctuary resides, the fighting paragon of Saints! This is so underwhelming…"

The Prince silently concurred; Leos were, historically, the figures of what every Saint aspired to be. Wyvern Rhadamanthys learned this lesson the hardest way imaginable in the last war cycle, going up against the likes of Ilias and Regulus.

This was reflected in the interior architecture and design of the Temple of Leo that they just passed through; much like at Taurus, the main hall was a tribute to the triumphs of the House's master, showcasing tapestries and engravings on the walls of men wearing the lion mantle trampling over their many adversaries.

"Now the 'Halls of Herakles' burn with the green fires of hell," the Prince commented. "All because of how much Arles feared his previous Gold Saints."

"Is that what that place was called?" asked Treble, folding arms. "It figures! Saints comparing themselves to myth fig-"

Lucifer snapped at him suddenly. "Hercules was the first to wear the Nemean mantle, you ignorant buffoon! That's why this place is named after him!" he lessoned, startling and humbling the giant. "Urial was killed by a devotee of him… When Saints put their minds to it, they can and will match the myths of old. That is why you should not underestimate a grown man in a Gold Cloth!"

A chill went down Dullahan Hedron's spine. The Prince's fury was frightening to behold. "I suppose we should be lucky the Pope was foolish enough to empty this Temple, Prince?"

Lucifer scoffed. "…In a way, yes. The former master of this House was a mighty Saint. He would have presented a problem even to me."

The Skeletons and Specters exchanged glances. They found the idea of Lord Lucifer being challenged to be ridiculous, after everything they went through.

Yet, the Daemon beheld the burning House of Leo with a tension in his eyes like that of someone remembering a frightening moment of his life.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

14 years earlier, (1962)

Germany, Bavaria - 'Battle of the Monster'

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

The valley was a field of vicious storms, concealing the dark, colossal figure in a shroud of terrifying black winds. Huge, sharp, bright white eyes were seen narrowing in the air just above a gaping jaw that let out a chilling roar. Lucifer beheld the chaos from the mountain peak, having been sent by Hades to stop the creature, but he arrived short of the Gold Saints of Athena, who stood far below before the hardened feet of the mind-boggling adversary. Forests were ripped out of the ground by the gigantic tail's mere waving, the ground shook with the force of a quake with every step, a dark purple glow of the fire was seen in the throat of the abhorrent creature as its screech went louder and louder. Its hands rested on the mountain's slopes as it advanced on the Gold Saints.

Waves of interdimensional forces cast by Akassius tried to swallow the aberration, but the beast simply advanced, already being from another world.

Glacial waves of ice cast by Malta flooded the floor, trying to arrest the feet, but the steel-hard toe-claws burst through it, melting the ice with the heat of the armored flesh.

A large figure leaped across the air and shouted its powerful technique, sending quakes through the wings that battered the monster, but the golden bull's mighty Magnitude Atlas barely detained it.

A cacophony of billions of attacks and energy blasts followed, harassing the beast, chipping away at its hard exoskeleton, and many pained howls were heard, but the flesh just healed back, acquiring newer, stronger layers. Panicked gasps were hard from the younger generation of Saints as more ground was taken over by the unexplained cataclysm of an animal. None of them understood what to do.

Knowing the origin of the creature, Lucifer did, but he was not about to aid the enemy against it, especially with how dangerous it was to Hades to let the association be known.

"Fools. Even Gods fear this thing…It was locked away for a reason. Only Specters can stop it." the Prince thought to himself, beholding the futile efforts. He saw Sagittarius fire his Crystal Shard arrows but they failed to pierce through the monster's hide. "You will all be eaten and become part of its angry existen-"

"LIONET ROAR!" Everyone turned to the air in surprise, seeing the flame of cosmos burst out from the arriving figure, multiplying the power level of its caster several folds, burning a hole through the black storm conjured by the monster's present to let rays of light in. The creature screeched with its pained eyes and recoiled before the sound of thunder was heard. "NOW FOUL BEAST! HEAR THE ROAR OF THE LION!"

Saints raised their weapons in hopeful shouts! "KAISER!"

Sagittarius Priam looked up with his goggled eyes. "Kai'?!"

The golden figure raised his fist and hammered down. "ROYAL BLASTER!"

And to Lucifer's complete shock, a shockwave burst created by the punch cast the cosmic image of a lion's head roaring, from whose mouth a colossal golden beam fired, its recoiling sound echoing like the cry of the savannah king! The 'Monster' was blasted in the head so powerfully his jaw was instantly destroyed, tearing a hole even through space, and its colossal body tumbled down like a beanstalk giant. The entire valley shook with this as the arriver landed before the rest of the Saints, brimming with cosmos.

His armor shined with an inspiring light and his raised fist tensed in urging. "Do not cower! We are the Saints of Athena, the bringers of miracles! Why are you scared of this one monster?!" His eyes narrowed at the collapsed abomination, which seemed to be regathering its strength, and the Gold Saint burned his power once more, countering its darkness. "If it's invincible, then burn your cosmos even higher! Believe in your power! And make your wish come true! Now FIGHT, Gold Saints! Battle awaits us!"

The Saints raised their weapons as the Leo Saint landed before them and Lucifer's jaw dropped. "KAI! KAI! KAI!"

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

The Present

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Kaiser would inspire us to believe we could survive jumping off a cliff with him. He was the most heroic, the one most capable of creating a miracle. He was everything I wish I could be...

Priam's words about his former Leo comrade echoed in Lucifer's mind, punctuating his memories of witnessing the Gold Saint in action. "Leo Kaiser II, the Titan Slayer," he said. "A fanciful title, but who am I to speak? But now Sanctuary is a shadow of its former self, manned by incompetents, amateurs, and frightened old Lemurians!" Lucifer finalized, turning to the temple above them, the House of Virgo. "And its new guardians will bend the knee before my might!"

Golem kept up with the Prince. "Are we going to the Sixth right away?"

The True Specter nodded. "Yes. I want that Virgo taken care of while I have the chance for it. That attack he made on us before we struck Aries will be avenged."

"But, Prince,… do you lack faith in Lords Lemon and Neferti?" the hulk asked. "You gave Alraune the task to kill Virgo."

The pale man of silver hair did not answer this, leaving them all in the dark about what he was thinking. While they were used to not being given all the details, the False Specters got a bad feeling about this, especially considering it was Virgo they were talking about.

Golem saw them hesitating and whipped them into formation, pointing at the shine coming from the ninth House. "Get in formation, you wimps! Do you want to get shot down by Sagittarius?! Now go!"

The False Specters and Skeletons awoke from their trance and moved into a column, keeping their shields and Surplice protections raised before stepping outside the cover of the Leo Temple's back door.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Rodario, Circe's Grove

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

After making sure there were no more Skeleton Soldiers active in the village, Iaso and Mu had finally begun searching for allies put to sleep by the Nightmare Sonar. The first place they checked was the popular Bed & Breakfast by the 'Greatest Generation' fountain.

After some work by Ophiuchus, Sagitta Nam was already awake, trying to get his bearings near Mu. He rubbed his irritated nose which had just been exposed to smelling salts. He felt like his brain was split in two. "Goddess… what happened?"

"You guys were asleep on the seats, so we woke you up!" Mu casually explained.

Nam rubbed his reddened cheek. "Why does my face hurt?!"

"Because I tried to slap you first," the Ophiuchus Saint said. He leaned over the unconscious Cassiopeia Amazon carefully and held the smelling salts in his palm against her mask's thinner layer on the nostrils. As they found through Nam, the sleep they were put into was quite deep.

The blue armored archer Saint looked around and saw the patron of the diner asleep on the counter. "What's going on? Why did we all lose our senses?" he got up and looked out the window, seeing the quiet streets. It looked as if they were still in the middle of the night. "Why is everything darker?"

Iaso scoffed. "You're not gonna believe it even when I tell you! Let me take care of Cynthia first!" Before long, her body jerked in reaction. Iaso smiled in relief, but then her fist clenched. In an instinctive reaction, it swung right at his face in a fraction of a second, bashing his nose and making him howl back in pain. "A-AGH, SHIT! God d-damn it, Cynthia!"

She was quickly mortified when her dizzied mind realized she punched a long-time friend. "O-Oh gosh, Iaso?!" she gasped. "W-what the heck were you doing?!"

The Ophiuchus held his bloody nose tightly and burned purple cosmos in his hand, mending it. He tried to be patient, remembering Amazons had good reason to fear waking up in someone's arms. "I was waking you up, U-UGH! We found you guys passed out on the table here!"

"Here!" Mu chirped, handing Saint Iaso a napkin for the blood on his face.

Nam raised his hand as if marking presence to a teacher. "He's right, something made us pass out. We've been asleep for hours. Look at the clocks."

The Cassiopeia Saint saw her Silver Saint friends around her, as well as the Grove's tender still unconscious by the counter, and looked at the wall clock, realizing it was nearing 3 am. Her brain timer last remembered being awake talking with Nam and Yuzuriha at around ten to eleven, causing her to panic. "What?... Why? What's going on?"

"There's an invasion going on, Saint Cassiopeia." The Lemurian child said like it was nothing.

Their faces paled. "What?!" the Amazon gasped,

Nam approached the kid. "Hey, that's not funny, kid! Don't they teach you not to lie in Tibet?!"

Mu's cheeks puffed. "I'm not lying! I almost got eaten by a butterfly man! Saint Iaso saved me!"

"…Kiki is right, guys." Iaso vouched, still thinking the boy's name wasn't Mu. The doctor cleaned the blood off his nose and thought about how to start his story. "You are going to want to sit down for this one. The Papillion Specter is just the start…"

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Cancer Temple,

Mountain Side

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Singed, injured, bruised, and bleeding, the Papillion Specter could barely fly properly over the jagged, rocky slopes to the west of the Cancer Temple. His body was very weakened by the blows he suffered, his Surplice was damaged and, to top it all off, he was fought off by the Gold Saints at Cancer to outside the main path of the temples into the Golden Zodiac's western mountainside, where the protective blessings of Athena were in full force.

Said blessings were coming in the form of an immense increase in his bodyweight that made him feel his fragile wings would not support. The Specter felt an immense dread in his throat like he was swimming off a reef into a wide, expansive sea full of gigantic predators when in reality he was just flying over some unpaved ground of the Golden Zodiac.

His face was pale and sweating.

He felt as if the eyes of the goddess herself were on him.

It was a horrible sensation, like two orbs of severe green in the sky gazed down on him, ready to cast down a lightning bolt on the violator.

Every second he spent outside the main path of the temples was a risk of being eternally condemned to a horrible dimension of pain and suffering, to be the butterfly pinned on Athena's glass display for a thousand years.

Suddenly, his weakening body fell to the ground with a painful and loud thud, crushed by the invisible torment creeping into his body.

"You didn't think hiding from the Gold Saints would be so simple, did you?"

Ainsel's head rose. "Prince? P-prince… please help me!"

"This is what happens to those that defy the blessings on this mountain by going outside the main path. There's no bolt from the sky or opening of the ground… instead, Athena's judgment will rip your heart with horror from the inside out!" the Daemon described. "You'll lose your mind as her thoughts fill your head and everything nasty and cowardly in you rises to the surface, tearing you to pieces! It makes braving the Gold Saints at the Temples seem merciful, does it not?"

The bug-armored Specter crawled on the sloped ground, trying to not get buried by the rocks he displaced by his trembling, flinging arms. He felt as if a child to whom even a screaming adult would appear monstrous and that the divine eyes he felt on him promised death and terror catered especially to him. Worst of all, he felt made to believe in it!

Soon, either his body or his mind would give out. "I'll… I'll h-honor my duty to you, Prince… I s-swear!"

"I know you will. It is why I held my hand from launching a spear at your fleeing back,…so lock unto your moths and fly back to the Temples before you lose your mind. You have a job to do!"

With a lot of struggling, Ainsel's hands rose his chest from the ground and he faced the direction back to the main path. He saw his Underworld moths floating around, indicating him where to go as his vision faded. "My darlings…"

"Once you're back, avoid any direct battles with Gold Saints, even Taurus. Try to do it before you run out of time, too…" Lucifer instructed. "By now the Saints likely believe they cannot find you anymore. We can make use of that…If you see an opportunity to prove yourself as not a failure, let me know immediately, and I'll consider giving you permission to redeem yourself."

Crawling in the direction of the glowing insects, Ainsel smiled and thanked his kind leader. "Y-yes… yes, I will! Your victory shall be made guaranteed!"

A chuckle was transmitted. "Good… I am making my way to Virgo. Once he is neutralized, I'll draw the Cancer Saint to his own demise. Then my victory will indeed be assured."

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Sanctuary, Golden Zodiac

The Temple of Virgo

(?)

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Alraune Lemon knew not where he was!

The last thing they remembered was walking into the Virgo Temple and finding its Gold Saint's light.

But, now, he was in a world with a ceiling of maroon water and a floor of darkness. His body arched back in agony, as every sense of his body was assaulted, sunk into a dark, liquid world where time stood still as if frozen inside a marble.

He was not alone. Nearby, dozens of other Skeletons and Skeletons sank together with him into this black ocean, going deeper and deeper into the dark abyss of oblivion below them. None of them understood anything of what was going on or comprehended how they ended up there, yet they all felt an incredible dread deep inside of them about what would happen once their consciousness faded.

It is not your time yet… Sleep.

Yet, in this lack of understanding, there was a familiarity. They had experienced something like this long ago in their lives, years before even. The strongest and most awake among them, and especially the Alraune False Specter with his defiant mind, tapped into this familiarity, revolting against it as they had against their fate.

He could not move. All he did was put every thought of hate into this interrogation in this mind. "What… what are you?!" he raged, unable to move his mouth.

Sleep, Alraune… it is not your era yet.

Since his limbs did not move, his nervous system seemed to tap into the unknown every time he questioned the strange sensation currently strangling them all, like hands searching for a switch in a dark room. It slowly shaped a silhouette, which in turn began to shine brighter in his third eye. Alraune Lemon could feel that whatever was there in front of him, or above or below or whatever, was the cause of this vertiginous descent he found himself in.

Being the only thing to guide him in that numbing existence, he 'reached out' to it, focusing all his thoughts and energies in identifying this infuriating existence beholding him. The more it did, the more it shined, and Alraune began to furiously wonder if it would take shape or forever be out of the reach of his cognition state, like trying to read letters on a paper in a dream. He tried, tried, tried and the shine grew, grew, and grew inside his mind.

Alraune's eyes suddenly managed to open as he finally grasped what was before him. It was not a person.

It was a star!

His Surplice's star!

The blue eyes of Asmita, the crafter of the beads, were above all of them in the darkness ceiling of that liquid world, amidst a sea of Evil Stars!

Sleep!...

The former servant of Hades howled in a mix of terror, rage and effort in an attempt to revolt against this thing he was lied about, this bright promise of Hades, the Celestial Demonic Star which empowered his Surplice but saw the human in its armor as merely a replacement for Queen, the True Specter of Alraune. Several others around him, especially Neferti, one by one realized the same about themselves and the power gripping them and began resisting as well. The abysmal world they were in was powerful, but the contrast between the lie it was trying to tell them; the lie of them being the Specters of Hades, and the truth of their fate revealed to them by Daemon was too steep. It evoked in most of them a sense of injustice and, in Alraune in particular, a sense of his destiny being robbed by the arrogant True Specters.

Said injustice made their darkness cosmos burn strongly, bridging the gap between their minds and body that the maroon world was trying to sever, and their bodies were set alight by the cold, evil fires of their powers! Their auras charged until they all connected, clasping each other's hands in search of support in a bewildering world, and large cracks began forming in what was supposedly a liquid horizon, searing bright beams of light into it.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

CRASH!

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Virgo Shaka was not pleased.

The golden aura in his body reignited, releasing a soft humming sound and slight release of force that made the candles around him flicker gently, as the many maroon beads floating up against the roof of the Hall of Innocence began cracking, shattering, and spilling their contents unto his pristine marble floor. The maroon bubble pieces disintegrated into sparkling dust and the forces of Hades whimpered and crawled around like they just saved themselves from a tidal wave.

"*cough*! W-what happened?!" a Skeleton wheezed, resting a hand on a pillar to get up.

"I… don't know. Are we back?" another wondered, shaking his unconscious friend's shoulder.

Sphinx Neferti was one of the first on her feet. "Damn!… That was… I thought I was back in the Underworld… t-that I was going to die or worse!"

Young Shaka's lips curved upwards, amused. "How interesting that you got out. I thought for sure this matter was settled for you all."

With a tense arm pressing against a pillar to help him up, Alraune Lemon sneered at the sight of the child in golden armor on the lotus throne. "You… bastard! So you're just a kid?! What did you do to us?!"

This seemed to awaken the senses on some of the dizzied Skeletons, who looked up and realized that their Elite was right. "A… a kid?!"

Others stepped up as if to take a better look. "What the hell is going on?! That's the Virgo Saint?!" one exclaimed, recalling the Taurus Saint looked young but still quite tall. This one, on the other hand, was barely four feet high. "He's just a child! What the fuck is this?!"

A third wasn't sure whether to be amazed, shocked, or finding this ridiculous. Perhaps all three! "Where's the real Gold Saint, kid?! Did he go hide like a coward while you distracted us? If he thinks we'll hesitate because of your age -" he then laid out his sharp scythe, the edge shining under the candlelight. "-then he hasn't met a soldier of the Underworld!"

But the Virgo was adamant. "Oh, soldiers of the Underworld, I am Shaka, the Gold Saint of Virgo!" he proudly announced. The superficial nature of those that judged him at first glance, insensitive to the danger he truly represented, would never cease to put a knowing smile on his face. "I was the one who locked you in the beads of Asmita just now… and I was the one who gave you that fright with Sati down the stairs…"

All the Skeletons recoiled and gasped, recalling the pitch-black shadow of Buddha they all got pulled into before breaching the Aries Temple.

"H-How would you know that?!" one asked. "Did the real Virgo tell you?!"

The world was not eternal, nor was his patience. "I am him." The Saint then took his finger and dipped it in water laid by his lotus, wetting it. "Allow me to demonstrate!"

The liquid was then tossed at the ground at their feet and the sound of a foreboding bell echoed ominously. The floor beneath their feet waved like a pool of water. The horde of the Underworld staggered, finding the marble tile transformed into a mirror of their previous lives. Each and every one of the Specters were horrified as they saw past events engraved deeply in their hearts, the bad things they had done in particular, being played in front of their eyes.

Shaka's closed eyes turned to one of the Skeletons. "Alexander Grant. Thirty-four years old. You lived a peaceful life in Alberta, Canada, until you shot and killed your wife for suspicions of adultery."

The Skeleton gasped in horror. "W-WHAT?!"

"You thought you could kill your feelings if you took your crime to an extreme length, so you strangled your young baby girl as well. It didn't work." Shaka continued, making the Skeleton's face sweat. "Her face and crying haunted your dreams. You found no rest, and the pain opened a gash in your heart for Hades to exploit, who promised you to make you forget your sins."

"STOP T-THAT!" the Skeleton Soldier roared, swinging his scythe.

The Gold Saint instead continued, turning to another Skeleton. "Bayu Panjaitan. Twenty-eight years old. Your family left your tribe in Sumatra to live in the cities of Indonesia, inspired by your Iman. Your parents were murdered and your sister kidnapped while you were framed for their deaths. You tried to prove your innocence but ended up in prison instead, where the violence and isolation you were subjected to drove you into suicide. You failed, and Hades came to you in your hour of despair."

The Skeleton collapsed on his knees, seeing his life reflected on the floor. "S-Stop… STOP IT!"

The blonde child did not. "He promised you paradise for your family, did he not? And you took it… but only after you agreed to murder the cellmate who brought food to you, calling his kindness false. From that moment, Hades owned your soul," he stressed. "Tell me, Bayu, were the Underworld God's lies worth it?"

The man in Damascus armor grabbed his head beneath the helmet, utterly horrified at the look of terror in his friend's dying eyes being displayed back to him. "N-no… NO!"

The Alraune Elite eyed the child venomously. "ENOUGH! I'll cut off your head!" his armor tendril lashed out like a very long whip toward the lotus throne, but the cosmos around Shaka repelled this strike, cutting a nearby column instead and spreading dust everywhere.

The Sphinx saw the state the men were in. "How could a mere child do this?!"

Shaka ignored the destruction and chuckled. "It's simple… I can see it in your hearts and no matter how much you try, you cannot hide your sins from one who is the closest to God!" His young face turned to her. "Haqikah of Giza, a follower of the Priests of Ra."

Neferti froze, her face twisting into shock.

Even the child himself seemed impressed at this discovery. "So before you were ever a Specter… you were a servant of 'that' cult. Interesting…No wonder you display a different spirit than these other lost souls. Hades must have fetched you deliberately," he elaborated. "You failed to become a Priest. How interesting that your 'sin' was no evil deed, but a failure towards those you loved."

Her teeth gritted in defiance. She was stronger than the Skeletons in mind and would not succumb to a mere child's words. "You know nothing about any of us!"

The mental battle continued as Shaka preyed on the guilt in her. "The insecurity that has followed your entire life wraps around and pierces your heart like thorns upon a vine. Then Hades offers you a path to acceptance as the Sphinx Specter. You've since sought the approval of people around you that you see as strong or dedicated to filling the hole in your soul." His open palm then raised at her and shone like a star. "But you've gone too far, violating Athena's sacred land as you have. Now those thorns will drag you back into hell."

The golden light felt like it swallowed her whole and a powerful illusion overtook Neferti, in which the marble floor beneath her broke apart and huge, thorny vines sprouted out violently, wrapping up her entire body in binding! Neferti screamed, dropping her instrument, as the vines squeezed against her body and penetrated her Surplice with seemingly no effort, piercing her flesh.

The Skeletons gasped. "Lady Neferti!"

Alraune watched her scream at nothing and gripping her arms tight as if chained up by something no one else saw. "What the hell is the matter with you?! He's just sitting there and you're squirming like a b-"

Sphinx screamed harder when she saw her blood pooling out from her armor onto the ground. "N-NO! This… This isn't real!"

The smile of the Buddha filled her mind. This weakness in the woman was the same reason he had once rejected the promising Saint Shinta Akiyama from becoming his apprentice. "To the world as we see it, it might not, but to your soul, it is very real, dear Sphinx." Shaka then faced the rest of the Specters. "As for you all, do not worry, you will all experience worse punishments for your crimes against Athena. This silly invasion ends with this temple, for I, Shaka of Virgo, shall see to it."

The Specter of the Pyramid of Gluttony pulled her instrument into battle, burning her cosmos. "Is that so?! Then perhaps I should show you a taste of your own medicine!" and her fingers danced through the strings of her harp, releasing the notes of doom.

Said notes echoed throughout the temple, carrying the strength of her dark cosmos, and the Skeletons stepped away in fear of the terrifying powers they knew it to have. Before long, the illusion of them all being phased into a world made of hieroglyphic walls took over the Hall of Innocence.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

The green-tinted pillars and torches were replaced by the peering eyes of Horus and the frozen dances of the servants of Anubis. The watery reflections on the ground that tortured the Skeletons with their pasts were fissured into an abyss of darkness made up of the corpses judged by the Second Prison.

Shaka's hair fluttered, feeling the force of the soft shockwave heralding this illusion, and tensed his young features at the sound of the bass music. "So you seek to defeat me with the song of Ma'at?" he called. "You truly know not the power you deal with, do you?"

Neferti gritted her teeth and tensed her fingers on the instrument's strings, releasing sharper notes as the tempo of the song descended into an abyss of the Underworld. "I don't care what kind of a monster you are, Virgo! You're still human! And you still have a heart!"

The child giggled, unimpressed. "Mm, mm, I wasn't referring to my power. I'm talking about yours."

A cold shiver struck her spine at this. "What?!" she staggered to herself, staring at the impassive child. What was he trying to say? He couldn't possibly…

"JUDGE HIS HEART!" Alraune Lemon screamed. His tendrils sharpened discreetly in the darkness, awaiting the moment Neverti's move took effect. Child or not, once this blasted Virgo's heart weighed the scale down, he would pierce it with his blades, claiming triumph over the Virgo House for himself. "He's trying to confuse you!"

Agreeing with him for once, Neferti steeled herself and readied for the act. Still, beholding the young boy, a maternal instinct made her hesitate. Once she activated the technique, there would be no going back and the dark powers of the Sphinx would judge this young child's sins. Hades had taught them that every mortal commits sins and it was not uncommon to see young children crossing into the Prisons, even innocent as they were compared to adults. But in all her years in the Underworld, she had never truly gotten used to the ruthlessness in this.

Shaka tilted his head. "You hesitate? How disappointing. You are willing to move your mouth when you should be moving your stings. Is it because of my age? Mph!" he mentally scoffed at her. The golden shine of the cosmos outlining his body then seemed to grow gradually. "How backwards. You showed no mercy with the weak and innocent and yet it is I who the olive branch is offered. The murder and defiling of souls you've perpetrated so far won't be atoned by mercy now. Strike me with no hesitation, phantom… because if you don't…-"

The music player gasped, seeing the shadow rising out of Shaka's glowing body as these words pierced her mind like the most intimate of secrets.

The sensation of the boy's eyes, which should be closed, were being projected above him and the two twin clear blue orbs of the almighty Buddha were felt. "- … I will annihilate you!"

The False Specter cried out in fear, stepping back and nearly interrupting her tune, but her terror gave place to a determination to destroy the threat in front of her, one which promised to eat her very soul.

She played the final notes of the enchantment. "CAST OUT YOUR JUDGEMENT, ANUBIS!" and her hand raised, releasing a powerful burst of black cosmos. "BALANCE OF CURSE!"

The entire battalion saw the mythical Egyptian scale emerge around Shaka, held up by the figure of Anubis, the guardian of the Underworld. The jackal god beheld Shaka and seemed to hold him in his hand while the other raised the scale. Upon each of its plates, emerged the pure white Feather of Ma'at and a red heart representing Shaka's.

The Skeletons were in awe. "This is it! The song of the Second Prison!" one called out. "If the Gold Saint's heart weighs more than the feather, Neferti will have total power over it! She will even be able to rip it out!"

The battalion watched expectantly for the result to come in. The illusion of the God Anubis, which towered over all of them in the dark illusion, waited for the scales to tip.

The scale shook as one of its plates began to move.

With a tremble, the Feather of Ma'at weighed down, raising Shaka's heart to the skies.

The child turned his closed eyes up as if to behold the result. "It appears I've passed the test."

Neferti froze in place. "It… it cannot be!"

The Skeletons were equally horrified. "No, no, N-NO! This has never happened before!" one swore.

"E-Even Lord Daemon's heart would have been ripped out!" another assured, dropping weapon to the ground in terror. "What in the Pride Star's name is going on?! Who is that child?!"

The illusion cracked like a battered mirror, returning the fighters to the Hall of Innocence.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Finding themselves back in the real world, the Specters felt the hot wash of horror come over all of them, except for Alraune Lemon who just clicked his tongue in resignation at him having to do all the work again. Seeing a mere child pass the test of the Ma'at feather was something that seemed all but impossible except for the vessel of Hades himself.

"W-what the h-hell are you?!" Neferti demanded to know, trembling all over.

The idea that such a simple curse would be so shocking to beat for the phantoms insulted Shaka, as it spoke books about the assumptions of their superiority and his lack of development.

This ignorance needed correction! Cosmos then erupted all around Shaka, startling the Specters with the golden geysers of energy that illuminated the Hall of Innocence like a blazing sun. "I am He who hath entrusted his soul to the eternal Wheel of Time!"

The Skeletons screamed, shielding themselves with their arms and battered by the hot currents of light and heat. Even Neferti and Lemon were startled by the display of energy, though their powerful feet stood their ground.

"Ye hath met me! And hath known me a thousand times before! I hath awaited you all at the very end of your lives!" the Virgo continued, casting out with the mere sounding of his high-pitched voice the weight of all the lives he has lived as the Buddha. It pierced their souls like the voices of Thanatos and Hypnos themselves. "And I am He who the Cursed of Hades have feared, for before my existence, thy foolish fall into malice is laid bare! Let the name never wear off your hearts; SHAKA OF VIRGO!"

With this, his body shone once more and a more powerful outburst of energy was released as the geysers around Shaka softened into a lotus of cosmos. They blasted the screaming Skeletons as if manifested by his mere presence, and the two False Specters elites resisted bravely against it, but also felt as if before the presence of a creature that had known them intimately since their very conception, or somehow even before that. Shaka's eyes, despite being closed, felt like they looked right through their very souls, beholding the secrets of their reincarnations and the weight of the malice they carried inside all their lives.

But as the injured Skeletons fell to the ground, the most painful words awaited still. "The fear of death has corrupted you all. It has made you sign contracts with dark gods, and been made into Damascus shells on your bodies, and Hades' lies fashioned into excuses for your cruelty! Now, after a lifetime of indulgence, your sins are as if bloody nooses around your necks, stanching your evil and waiting to be pulled!"

The trembling Skeletons raised their heads off the ground. One raised his hand at the distant light of Shaka. "This p-power…!"

The child's chin lowered sternly. "Do you feel that? The burning in your stomachs? The shame in your souls?!... That is you realizing the folly of your paths! The road towards enlightenment was always there, and my existence proves it attainable… but you all chose instead to fall right off it!" he lambasted, feeling both the utmost disgust and the utmost pity for these poor maleficent souls. He then turned to Neferti, who stood defiant, and raised his hand. "You spoke of giving me a taste of my medicine. Well now, by the holy law of Athena, whose land you've sought to violate, I shall exact punishment upon you!"

The Sphinx False Specter saw the golden-armored hand form a ball of light that then burst into a shower as if in a reactive explosion, startling her with a shower of light that coursed right over her. She blinked, surprised at feeling nothing different.

Alraune Lemon also stared at her. "What?... What did he-"

Neferti was about to respond when she suddenly felt a scream leaving her throat, shocking everyone and sending her to her knees! She grasped her chest, feeling it pump hard like a ticking time bomb!

"Lady N-Neferti!" one of the False Skeletons called.

She gasped for air, feeling a horrible pain inside her chest plate, and her fingers clawed at her neck guard like searching for a way to take it off. "A-AGH, gahh,h-help me!" she cried out.

Lemon's fist curled, not really inclined to assist someone who backstabbed him but still feeling threatened by what could very well happen to him next. His cosmos burned in preparation for an assault. "Hey, what the fuck are you doing, Virgo?!"

"It's simple, I'm realizing her karma." The child worded, confusing him. His high-pitch response carried the terrifying nonchalant tone of an executioner. "Neferti, is it? You must have used that technique of yours many times."

Sphinx struggled to breathe, feeling like her chest armor would explode at any second. "Y-you… this can't be happening! GAH!"

"It is only fair that with my heart being acquitted in your trial… you must pay with yours."

And then the woman arched her body back, screaming to the ceiling, exposing the swelling in the Damascus metal of her chest, horrifying her Specter comrades. It started cracking!

But her cosmos then burned, engulfing her in the aura of her Darkness energy. Sweating profusely, the elite warrioress fought against what was being done to her, refusing to let a child hijack a power so intimate to her, even if it was given on the premise of Hades' lies.

In a show of determination that inspired her men, Neferti focused all her cosmos in battling Shaka's condemnation, and, little by little, she began showing signs of regaining control of her body, managing to put herself on her foot while gradually reducing the mad beating in her chest. Amazed gasps were heard from the Skeletons as Neferti managed to stand on both feet and raise herself until her cosmos peaked and manifested itself like a bonfire from hell in defiance to Shaka's peaceful, harmonic energies.

The beating began to slow even more until the insane energy of Balance of Curse was entirely resisted. Neferti let out a gasp of relief that seemed to show how utterly exhausted by this she was.

Shaka chuckled. "Ah, ah, ah. How impressive! That was quite a show of clarity in your mind. I thought the pain of your technique would drive you phantoms mad before your heart even managed to poke out of your skin."

Her brown-skinned face raised at him in a defiant sneer. "You… little demon!... Do you think this will be enough to defeat me?!" she defied, standing up with her hand firmly in a pained chest.

"Y-YEAH!" One skeleton roused, bleeding from his head.

"P-PREPARE TO DIE, V-VIRGO!" a terrified scytheman with half his armor blasted off shouted, tucking his weapon defensively.

Alraune Lemon looked around, seeing the foot soldiers rally once more around someone other than himself. His teeth gritted frustratingly, first because Neferti failed to do her purpose of judging the Virgo Saint's heart and second because now she was encroaching on his deserved role of leader just like Lucifer had. He had to do something before he was forgotten entirely by these idiots!

Eyeing the Gold Saint enviously, he stepped forward, practically shoving Neferti to the side. "Out of my way, you useless harpist! I'll take care of this!"

Neferti shrugged his arm off, fed up. "W-what do you think you're doing now?!"

The red-haired man's almond eyes turned to her offensively. "I should be asking that! This Gold Saint is completely immune to your main technique and your first thought is thinking you can take him on anyway?! Don't make me laugh!" the Alraune then presented himself to Shaka, igniting his dark aura. "I'm the one tasked with cutting the Virgo's head off. Only the sharpest guillotine in the Underworld is worthy of defeating the supposed champion of Sanctuary!"

The confidence in the Specter gave the Skeletons extra morale. "Y-yeah! This is far from over!"

"Lord Lemon once led our efforts against Daemon himself!" another reminded them. "He will surely defeat this Virgo!"

Shaka, however, was not impressed. "Uh, so you want to try your hand at me, phantom?"

Lemon's eyebrow twitched. The boy kept calling them this. "…That's right."

"And why should I take your challenge any more seriousl-"

Two blitzing motions, like twin flashes of light, were felt crossing the distance between them, interrupting Shaka's words. Sweeping sounds of the air being sliced through followed after slicing the lotus throne at the edges! The force struck the wall behind the throne with immense force, blasting it, and spreading soot everywhere.

Everyone in the room was startled by this speed and force, realizing that Alraune Lemon's aura was now projecting in the air the image of the mandrake witch from German mythology. "THAT is why!"

The blonde Indian boy with closed eyes paused for a bit, hearing the cut pieces of his throne drop to the sides. His hand felt a stinging and he clasped it with the other, feeling a small amount of liquid oozing from a light cut.

Alraune chuckled and burned his aura some more. "Mm, mm, mm… Would you look at that? I wasn't even trying to hit you," he mocked, causing his energy to spread everywhere. The image of the cackling mandrake witch was followed by dreadful horizons of countless hanged men, whose bodies shook from their nooses left and right in a red-skied landscape. "The Pope of Sanctuary must be a cruel man… he has left a child in charge of this House, and that child will now face the deadliest of the Specters!"

The Skeletons were now emboldened. "Look at that! Lord Alraune's guillotine has reached the Virgo!"

A crossbowman raised his weapon. "He's not invincible at all!"

Lemon laughed. "AH, AH, AH! Do you see, men?! He acts like some heathen god, but he's flesh and blood like everyone else!" he stressed, referring to Lucifer in particular. This was the chance he needed! "I can lead you to victory! Now, to destroy this Gold Saint!"

To which the damaged Skeletons got up and confidently marched forward, approaching the Virgo Saint, his illusion of terror destroyed. Even Neferti stood out of their way, stunned at how much she had overestimated this Saint.

Leading from the center, Alraune awaited for the skeletons to take positions in flanks slanted forward, surrounding the Gold Saint. The poison in their bolts dripped to the floor and the candle shine in their scythes and swords returned. They burned up their cosmos in unison, just like they trained, sharing it among them in a convex bonfire of killing intent that threatened to swallow up Shaka.

"You will pay for your insults, you brat!" one hissed.

"You should have kept your snotty nose out of my life!" the Indonesian one ranted.

Shaka's thumb pressed against the cut on his hand, sealing it shut with cosmos before his blood could taint the Gold Cloth. "Ah, incredible…"

Alraune tensed his body in a battle pose, tightening his fists and laying his battle tendrils ready. "Now you see how powerful I am? Too late! After that little speech of yours, your tongue will hang from this Temple's doorway!"

His face turned up at him. "Once again, you're mistaken. I'm not referring to you." Shaka interrupted. Alraune's brow raised. Shaka's head then shook lamentingly. "I still have so much to learn… You see, when I felt your cosmos, I was quite shocked. It made me drop my barrier from how utterly insignificant it was."

A tense beat of silence followed, in which the Skeletons and Lemon, in particular, widened their eyes in fury.

The ground trembled slightly with the force of Lemon's cosmos exerted in the atmosphere. "…What did you say?!"

Shaka chuckled. "How embarrassing… I must recompose myself."

With this simple statement, the golden aura of burning cosmos returned to Shaka's body and armor, releasing the perfectly balanced power of the one who reached enlightenment! Despite carrying no force to it, Shaka's cosmos imposed itself on the battlefield, evoking the image of the constellation of Astraea, and a humming wave of power softly spread in all directions like a ripple in the water, completely drowning out the dark projections on the cosmos of Alraune and his soldiers, immersing the occupants of the Virgo Temple in an atmosphere of utter silence.

The previously battle-ready warriors found themselves hesitant once more with the emasculating sensation of their mighty energies completely canceled out by sheer overshadowing. Even Alraune paled, feeling back in the presence of someone who his senses could not comprehend. They felt their cosmic energies still active, but it was as if their warmth was nothing compared to the absolutely drowning level Shaka was capable of, and the atmosphere of dread and sorrow that they as Specters should be able to create with the rousing of their energies was replaced by a calming, yet creepy air, as they walked in the hand of a giant and none of their actions had any meaningful impact in the real world.

In his refusal to accept this, Alraune acted rashly. "I.. I… ATTACK!" he ordered, wishing to defy this revolting sensation of being outmatched. He swiped his tendrils forward. "DESTROY THIS SAINT! KILL HIM! BLOOD FLOWER SCISSORS!"

A unison roar of revolt against Shaka's very presence was sounded and the Skeletons charged in supersonic strikes, swinging their scythes, shooting their bolts, and thrusting their swords, following after the much faster lashing of Alraune's whip-like tentacles which came down on Shaka like a pair of razor-sharp cutting blades.

The first piece of Damascus in the flower scissors came down a fraction of a microinch from Shaka's forehead. In the realm of the cosmos, this was as if two galaxies were about to collide.

However, one was tiny, and the other was colossal.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Meanwhile,

Rodario, Circe's Grove

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

A golden shooting star suddenly coursed through Mu's imagination, carrying the unmistakable glow of the Virgo Gold Saint's transcendental Cosmos!

The lilac-haired boy raised his head in alarm, gasping out his friend's name. "Shaka?..."

Fear for the sixth temple guardian's life froze the Aries for a second, alienating him from his surroundings. Soon after, the heat and warm light of Circe's Grove returned to him and the Lemurian child found himself aware of where he was at again.

Iaso saw Mu staring away at the window. "Hey kid, is something wrong?"

The lilac-haired boy gulped. "I had a bad feeling again. I think one of my friends I used to chat through the cosmos is in danger. We keep a special line together."

The doctor raised his brow and assumed this was more of his weird Lemurian nonsense. Everything was being jammed. This would have to be a heck of a special line. "Considering the Zodiac is being stormed, that's probably to be expected."

Nam and Cynthia straightened up, alarmed. "What?!" they shouted in unison.

The brown-haired doctor sighed and sat them down, appealing to their calm and trying his best to recount events as he understood them. He began with his trip to Tibet to get info on the Waters of Life, where he met and saved Kiki from the attack of the Sylph and Papillion Specter. He also made damn sure to mention the trouble he went through to defeat Sylph all by himself, the trouble of getting the Water of Life, healing Saint Pegasus and encountering the Saint of Gemini in yet another battle that supposedly took place at the Lemurian Colonies.

The blonde Sagitta Saint slowly relaxed as the story continued. "So wait a minute, you say Saint Gemini showed up to where Pegasus was?"

"That's right," confirmed Iaso. "They all had one cozy conversation at the Old Master's house, with Yuzuriha of the Lemurians, to boot! Top secret crap! It turns out the Punk of Rodario is cozy with some pretty powerful VIPs."

Mu jumped with his hand up. "I was there too!" he participated.

The adults ignored the child. "It's just a coincidence, I was at Arcadia as well and met Gemini." Cynthia reminded the two before they went down another rabbit hole. "You're not going to say I'm an insider as well, are you?"

But Iaso had an ace up his sleeve. "Oh yeah? What if I told you that Andromeda Shinta has been involved in all this as well? He was sitting right outside the hut with me!"

Her eyes widened behind her mask. "What?! But -" and she interrupted herself as her mind scoured for details about Guardnia's surviving student. The last time they had seen each other was when Shinta told her he intended to run for the Virgo Cloth and she tested his determination.

"I don't mean to alarm you, but he says Andromeda Island was attacked by Specters, Cynthia," the doctor reinforced. He searched for his cigarettes but felt frustrated at feeling his pockets empty when he patted them. Instead, he stole a toothpick from the table. "Amphion and Bat brought a bunch of Skeletons for Cloth-robbing. Our princess Saint fought them off and even saved his kids with the help of Kastiel."

Cynthia rested against her padded table seat, feeling her mind rush around like a dishwasher. Nothing made sense about the idea of the Andromeda Saint being included in the inner circle of people as ruthless as Pope Arles III and his indifferent Gold Saints, much less Andromeda Island being of importance to the murderous Specters. Was this revenge for Shinta's participation in stopping the attacks on Arcadia? Were Elda and Albiore okay?

"Where did Kastiel take them?" she demanded to know.

Iaso's brown eyes shifted between her and Nam, who nodded at him to just tell her the truth. "You're not going to like it, Cynthia, but Kastiel took them to Cetus' place. They will be the safest in New Lalibela."

The Cassiopeia slowly nodded, absorbing this information. "Okay… okay," she repeated to herself in self-soothing. She wanted none of the people dear to her anywhere near the cruel king, but spending one night behind the walls of the White Crown City was better than them being out there while Specters rampaged through Sanctuary. The Kerberos Saint is also with them. Kastiel was a neglecting jerk, but he hated Cetus as much as everyone else.

"I know this is a lot to take in right now, but you're the only Silvers around and you need to understand the situation so we can save more lives," Iaso argued, getting them to nod along. "Me and Kiki here have been taking out Skeleton scouts so we could approach you guys safely, while the rest have been converging at Sanctuary to stop the invasion going on."

"Invasion?" Nam asked, remembering what he and Cynthia were discussing immediately before everything going black. "Does… this have anything to do with what's going on at Crow's Nest?"

Iaso's brown eyes reeled and the toothpick dropped off his mouth. "Going on where?!"

With this topic brought up, the four of them found themselves discussing a whole other aspect of the situation at hand. The Sagitta Saint told Iaso how he noticed military movement, including Herakles Aguilon's division of elite hoplites, moving north to Romania to Crow's Nest, from where all communication had suddenly stopped. He shared his theory with them that the Black Saints of Priam were likely involved since it didn't make sense for Hades to be acting like this with the famous Seal of Asmita still a few years left to reach its end.

Meanwhile, Mu just sat nearby with an anxious sweat in his brow, hearing the adults theorizing about what his Master had been lying to them about. He looked at his feet in guilt, wondering what to say or do to make things better.

Noticing the Lemurian child looked stressed, probably from all the terrifying things going on, Cynthia tucked him close to her side to comfort him while she kept the discussion with her friends. "Are you okay, sweetie?"

He nodded. "Yeah… I'm just wondering what's going to happen to my friends, Saint Cassiopeia."

Deducing he was likely the famous child shopkeeper from the Aries Temple who would often swindle dwellers, Cynthia realized the poor boy likely had half the people he knew in life in the path of this cruel attack on Sanctuary. She saw the bag of sweets abandoned by Yushira on the table and reached over to take one to give the boy.

Her hand stopped in realization.

She turned to Nam. "Wait… where's Yushira?!"

Nam's eyes widened and he straightened up, realizing the Crane Saint was indeed not with them. "What the… She's not here with us?!"

Iaso was bewildered. "I just found you two. I didn't want to wake up any of the civilians just yet."

"What's going on?" Mu asked, curious.

"Oh my goddess, did she wake up and go after those murderers by herself?!" Sagitta Nam asked out loud. It was completely in character with the perky Crane who often sought ways to advance in prestige among the Saints. "Is she crazy?! Why didn't she try to wake us up?!"

Cynthia began rushing out of the diner. "We have to go after her! She's going to get killed!"

Iaso saw the two of them rush out the door and followed. "Hey, hold up, you idiots! Do you have any idea how serious this is?! Stop for a second and think! Look, I want to kick some Specter ass as much as the two of you do, but we have to be careful unless we want all of Rodario to join the pile of corpses they've probably already made. We can't just leave an entire town full of sleeping innocent people unguarded, especially considering that Gemini, Andromeda, and Pegasus have already rushed ahead through the mountain pass!"

Nam looked up. "I don't either, but we should keep at least two Silvers here, at least until we get some sort of message or communication from the Zodiac, while sending someone ahead."

Cynthia volunteered immediately. "I'll go. I don't want either Yushira or Shinta on their own on a battlefield with Specters!"

But to Iaso, this was a terrible idea. "Think with your head, not with your heart. That the third one to go ahead should be me. The village is full of people that are sleeping and Sanctuary is most likely filled with people who are dying. I'm the only awake medic within distance of helping anyone right now."

The other two pondered this. It made the most sense. The Ophiuchus Saint was ruthlessly logical about everything as he usually was.

Still, their training made them very protective, and therefore very frustrated with having to relinquish the fighting to him. Cynthia bashed the side of her fist on the diner's wall, cracking it. "Damn it…! Ares curse these Specters!"

Iaso folded his armored arms. "I'm sorry, I know it's frustrating to you especially, Cynthia."

All the blonde Amazon could think about was Elda and Albiore at risk with Cetus, Yushira at risk doing Goddess knew what in Sanctuary Town, and Shinta, the worst of all, is probably right in the heat of the fighting with the Gold Saints! She felt flashbacks to the Civil War when she was forced to go to Cetus' side while everyone else she cared about was shipped to combat.

"Do you know what happened to guards who failed the castle, Cynthia? I'd have their lazy feet ripped off before serving them to my lions… How lucky of you that you'll just face the wrath of my husband later…"

"Quiet, you witch!..." she mentally muttered to her armor. The last thing she wanted to think about was Cetus.

Sensitive to the cosmos in armors, Mu recognized the anguish in the Silver Saint. While he did not possess Master Shion's talent to talk with any armor he wished, which was unique even for Lemurians, he could tell a conversation was going on just by subtle fluctuations of energy in the Cloth and the owner.

Saint Cynthia looked upset, so Mu wondered if her armor was yelling at her. The Golden Fleece of Jason that was the Aries Cloth was quite patient, so Mu never had to deal with a lot of stressful things with it. However, he imagined the sensation that Saint Cynthia was going through, unbeknownst to the Silver Saints, was similar to the ones the Gold Saints like Aiolia and Saga had been feeling from afar as their Temples were invaded. Mu himself had felt it back at Twin Peaks Mountain while waiting for Lance to wake up.

The Lemurian hugged her. "It's okay, Miss Cynthia, you can trust Saint Iaso. He kept me safe all day."

She looked down on the child. The issue wasn't trusting in Iaso's abilities, which she did. It was living with herself. "I can't just sit here… I can't!" she muttered, trembling. Her head rose and she took a breath, gulping. "…But I will. Goddess forgive me!"

"Good luck, man…" Nam wished, eyeing the far-off mountain pass nervously.

Iaso understood the fear in his look, feeling his heart beat faster as he was about to super-speed his way towards Athena's capital.

Blast! He should have gone into accounting instead! Then he'd be cozying up with someone cute like Eurydice instead of having to go save that dumb Crane Saint! With a spike of his cosmos burning, he spat out his toothpick and launched off with a sonic boom towards the mountains.

The lilac-haired Mu stared at the trail of energy vanishing before him. He told Saint Cynthia it was okay to rely on Saint Iaso, but the reality was that the feeling he got earlier that Shaka was in danger was haunting him. He wouldn't have sensed it unless those crazy abilities of Shaka were being put to use, abilities which made use of forces that he himself understood very little of. They were so insane that someone as sensitive as Mu could feel them across whole dimensions like they didn't even operate on the Cosmos at all.

He had once asked Master Shion about them, and the Pope answered the only person other than the Virgo Saints he knew that demonstrated powers of this nature were a lady from Death Queen Island who also was born under Virgo. Those abilities being called upon meant that the Virgo Saint was in a fight.

Called by the two adults, Mu followed the Saints of Sagitta and Cassiopeia and began helping them scour the rest of the streets, likely with the intention of waking up the residents one by one, searching their house for stragglers and warning them to stay inside to protect their families.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Golden Zodiac

Virgo Temple, Hall of Innocence

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Light exploded inside the temple as the force of the Specter attacks encountered the power of Shaka, Saint of Virgo!

They screamed, feeling their armors and arms reel! In a fraction of a nanosecond, the terrible sensation of them having attempted to pierce an object of absolute sanctity, like violating the innards of a temple dedicated to their most precious personal values, took over their bodies, and the very significance of their attacks was thoroughly rejected by the cosmic presence.

Far more than striking a barrier, their blows had as if been denied by Buddha himself, whose endless patience, eternal smile, and omnipotent power put a distance greater than the stretch of the universe itself between the Skeletons and their target, piercing each of their minds with the mortifying barbarity of their actions.

The repulsing light, therefore, shot out of Shaka's aura like a fatherly slap, quiet yet forceful, blasting them all away from the child in every direction, entirely rejecting the violence of the act they just tried to commit. The False Specter army gasped as three of its members flew through the air and crashed on the floor and Alraune's battle tendril deflected away against a side pillar, cutting it apart instead of the boy. Cracks filled their armors and golden smoke emanated from them.

Lemon felt sweat falling down his temple, eyes opened up in shock at his move being used against everyone!

"T-They're dead!" he gasped, staring at the Surplices as they slowly turned into black dust. "They just tried to attack him and now they're dead just like that!"

Sphinx Neferti stared in horror. Her own move having been reflected hinted that this would happen.

The other Specters took a step back in fear. Lemon looked up to the lotus throne at the end of the room. Hovering a little above it, a Specter's worst nightmare, the Saint of Virgo, meditated in utter peace. Despite all the terror he caused, the Virgo child still ignored all of them, locked in his meditating pose and emanating small flickers of golden light that illuminated a temple otherwise darkened by the night.

"How can he just ignore us?" a Skeleton protested, feeling panic as he gritted his teeth and turned to their main elite. "Lemon, do something!"

The red-haired man snapped back. "QUIET, I W-WILL!"

As the False Alraune argued with his men, Virgo Shaka maintained apathy to all. Frankly, the chaotic energy before him irritated him as he was forced to endure the presence and bickering of these phantoms. He cleansed his mind of this annoyance with a simple breath, emptied his mind, and allowed his 6th and 7th Senses to expand in their reach. Heading towards the Temple of Leo, where the heat of hell burned, he felt Cancer Lance, Andromeda Shinta, and Gemini Saga on the way. He also felt a dark presence rushing towards the Temple of Virgo. Soon, their leader would arrive…He was the only one worth considering.

As for Andromeda Shinta, Shaka was unsure of what to feel. After his checkers game with Aiolia(*), Virgo Shaka decided to keep a watchful eye on the pacifist Bronze, whose newfound motivation to achieve a higher rank became of a purer clout and helped cleanse his mind of the nasty layer of guilt Shaka had detected in him nearly a year before. Perhaps once the Andromeda Saint reached his house tonight, Shaka should announce to him his new interest in mentoring him?

(*) Chapter 40

Shaka pondered further what to make of the Andromeda Saint. He detected intentions in him purer than most, so perhaps something interesting could be made out of the green-haired teenager that could not with the usual disciple Shaka took, who simply feared falling to their sins. Perhaps more than just another soul seeking to master their emotions, Shaka could educate someone who would be an example to others and a messenger of his ideals.

The blonde boy sighed; he should have asked Daniel to transfer Shinta up to him. If he knew that the source of Andromeda's guilt was his lack of inspiration, the Virgo would have happily shown him a way past it. It seemed that as far as understanding enlightenment went, Shaka was perfect, but in detecting why others did not, Shaka was very much not yet perfected. He should perhaps meditate on this to understand the source of why he underestimated the potential student.

With some luck, the ongoing battles would give the Virgo Gold Saint a chance to witness the depths of the Andromeda Saint's cosmos-

"BLOOD FLOWER SCISSORS!" Lemon screamed, dashing at Shaka and casting out his blades.

The cosmic slashes grazed against the surface of Shaka's bizarre barrier, deflecting right off it like tank armor and going on to instead further cut apart the rubble of the wall that the lotus throne was set up against.

Alraune's fist encased itself in dark energy and hammered down on Shaka, colliding with his barrier. The impact point released a blinding flash of force, but the elite False Specter fought against it, pressing his knuckles as hard as he could into this rejecting power. He refused to accept the futility of his action. But despite burning his cosmos as he might, he couldn't dig his punch further even a single inch.

Saddened by this futility, Shaka pondered what drove these phantoms to pick the path they have. Was the fear of death that crippling that a Faustian deal with Hades was to be made? How pathetic. Death was a natural part of one's existence. Only being in tune with the teachings of Buddha and understanding that our true nature was of no birth and no death, rather than buying a dark, evil immortality, could one truly overcome this anxiety. It had been one of his first lessons upon his awakening.

Roaring madly in frustration, Alraune's hands pounded against the round surface over and over. His gauntlets cracked and his knuckles bled, but he couldn't even get the boy's hair to shake with the force of his blows against the barrier, much less trespass it. He didn't understand why his attacks didn't work at all! It felt that rather than hitting a wall, he was hitting empty air that rendered his aggression nulled.

Yet, his dark heart burned with more and more anger and frustration. He felt his chance to supplant Lucifer slip away with every second he didn't kill this boy.

"D-DAMN YOU!" Raising his fists, he hammered down as hard as he could, and once more his blow was stopped and its violence was thrown back at him, blasting him off with a transparent shockwave that sent him spiraling over the floor.

Alraune rose from the ground trembling, feeling the metal cracking from his knuckles. "I… I d-don't understand!" He turned and could see that his men were appalled that he couldn't even scratch the barrier.

"Alraune, stop! Just wait for the Prince to get here!" Sphinx demanded through a mental message. "This is clearly out of your league!"

"Q-QUIET!" Lemon roared, revolted at the thought of being off his depth against a six-year-old boy! He would NOT accept this humiliation! Not after failing to kill an unarmored Pegasus, getting jumped by a stupid tiger, and losing his destiny to that blasted prince!

Shaka chuckled in pity. "You poor phantom. The harder you try, the deeper your karma falls into arrogance…Don't you understand that?" he asked. "I am he who has touched Nirvana. Your worldly attacks cannot reach me."

Blazing his aura of darkness and earth once more, Alraune got on his feet and tensed his arms and tendril. "I SAID QUIET!" he demanded. "I will not be humiliated again! I won't!"

The Virgo Saint stood quiet, shaking his head.

The False Specter burned his cosmos to the max, preparing his deadliest attack! The image of the Alraune mandrake witch of folklore emerged once more, cackling at the sight of its new prey and the warrior began combining his elements to empower his next move.

The Skeletons gasped, seeing the Specter's Surplice petals light up with colors, like a hypnotizing flower that was projecting rainbow patterns of energy on the walls that made the surfaces seemingly breathed. The Specter then clasped his hands together above his head and hummed loudly as he focused on gathering his energies, causing the tendrils that hang from his shoulder plates to rise and wrap tightly around his arms!

Earth cosmos flowed up these sharpened tendrils, causing his arms to be completely encased in a sizzling layer of black energy. The Temple of Virgo began to shake, reacting to the evil concentrating in the hands of the Specter, and chilling cries began to be heard faintly in the background as the negative emotions from the Woods of Suicide fashioned a peerless edge.

Alraune laughed, amazed that the Virgo would just sit there and let him charge his move. "Do you see this, Virgo?! With this move, I will cut you down with the sorrow of all the lost souls of the Underworld who've hanged themselves!"

The boy recognized such sorrow. He felt it oozing off the attack. It hailed from the Sixth Prison, where the Alraune Specter likely resided, under the premise of the Ptolomea Circle, and was composed of the abyss in the hearts of all those who lost hope and sinned against heaven with the mix of self-harm and sloth towards life. One could not imagine the pain such an attack would inflict, as it was composed of the pain of countless others.

He raised his chin expectantly. "Show me."

Lemon's eyes widened. "What?!"

"I have waited a long time to see the pain of those you torture in the Underworld. Seeing the might of this attack will be a great gift to me." Shaka revealed, appalling them. "So, unleash your slash, phantom. We shall see if all that pain is enough to leave the palm of Buddha."

A vein twitched in Alraune's forehead, feeling his ultimate move wasn't being taken seriously. "Fine, then just DIE!" and his joined fists flared out like the shining tip of a blade and he brought down his arms as if swinging a sword, firing off the move in the shape of a jet-black crescent moon wave that seared through the Hall of Innocence! "SORROW OF SOULS!"

The Specters recoiled fearfully as one of the mightiest strikes in the Underworld flew towards the Gold Saint, tearing through the ground with the force of its travel and unleashing high pitched booming sounds, as if painting the air itself with its evil. Those who merely gazed upon it felt in the presence of a sea of trees weighed down by the corpses hanging on their branches, a sight from the Sixth Prison that depressed the spirits of all, celebrating how easily humans cast away their most precious gift, life itself.

Time seemed to slow down as Shaka felt the technique about to reach him. Sensing every single moment frame-by-frame, Shaka studied the movement and prepared a proper counter to balance the karma. He instantly understood the pain that was in the heart of every spirit used to form this dreadful attack and, yet, there was something in the karma beyond the hopelessness of Sorrow of Souls.

Traitorous thoughts? Conspiracy against Daemon Lucifer? The Cloth of Hope?

Having learned all he needed to, Shaka smiled and allowed time to resume its pace. "…KAN!"

The black crescent's energy blade struck Shaka's barrier, it sizzled for half a second before promptly and loudly shattering off into countless shrapnel of highly-condensed cosmos, startling the onlookers and cutting apart the ground all around Shaka much like Orion Ray's Excalibur shrapnel had done to the Halls of Daedalus, ravaging the temple further with soot-raising shockwaves and ground bursts.

The air of the temple waved with the force of the broken impact, yet Shaka sat there in complete peace, undisturbed.

The boy sighed. "As I believed… the sadness of the fallen is indeed beneath me." And his closed eyes faced the Alraune in sincerity. "Thank you, phantom, for now, I am reinforced in my belief that I've chosen the correct path."

The False Specter just stood there with wide-open eyes, frozen in his stance. "I… N… No…"

"It didn't work…" Neferti gasped. The power of one of the realms of the 6th Prison had been put into this move, and yet still they danced in the palm of Buddha.

Alraune grunted as he tried to move his arms, but to no avail. "W-What's happening to me? What have you done?"

"Alraune Lemon…" started Shaka, as if about to pass down a sentence "No, wait; I can't even call you that, can I? I can't because you aren't real Specters, but farces!"

All the False Specters opened up their eyes in shock!

"What? How the hell do you know that?" asked Lemon, before trying to move his arms again, though failing. "Let go of my arms! What is this? Telekinesis?"

Shaka scoffed a little in contempt "Telekinesis? I wouldn't waste a single bead of sweat on that," he declared. "The time of battle has simply come to an end. What is holding your arms still is nothing more than the futility of your efforts."

Alraune gasped "W-what?" he then made one final attempt to move his arms. If only he could lose his hands around the bastard's neck, the child would be bloodless on the floor in just seconds! "D-damn you!"

"Enough…" muttered Shaka "It's time for your judgment. Behold…the bad karma that you've piled up."

Before any of the False Specters could react, ghouls of golden light suddenly emerged from behind the meditating child and attacked Alraune. Lemon screamed! His cries reached top volume when his body was thrown through the air, billions of golden slashes running across his Surplice and cutting it to pieces. Alraune finally fell to the floor, gasping and feeling his Surplice completely falling apart.

Alraune slowly, and painfully, managed to get on his knees and look up at Shaka. From where he was, kneeling and his body bloody and damaged all over, it seemed as if Shaka's transcendence had finally emerged in the form of a day-like aura, and Alraune widened his eyes as Shaka's pose and emanating cosmos seemed to reduce him to the most absolute insignificance.

"W-who are you?" he muttered, on the brink of despair.

Shaka joined the pinky and index fingers of his left hand on his lap and showed the audience in front of him his raised, right palm. "I'm the one Closest to God. And I shall show you the error of your ways." An orb of light formed itself in front of his chest "Rikudō Rinne - Transmigration of the Six Paths."

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Alraune tried to scream, but the expanding orb of light swallowed him up completely and, after a while of darkness, Alraune found himself in a completely different place. He seemed to be hovering in the air and, below him, a massive jungle, expanding much further beyond the horizon than the eye could see, seemed to await him. To his horror, the massive growling of a thousand beasts battling and consuming each other could be heard while hundreds of trees crashed to the floor every second, victim of the massive conflict hidden beneath them.

"Whe… Where am I?!" he screamed in horror, feeling suspended.

"Alraune Lemon… no, Johan Ewers." Shaka's voice sounded, echoing from all directions. "Welcome to Chikushōkai, the realm of the beasts."

"What? Realm of the Beasts?" asked Lemon, terrified that he would fall to the jungle. "Why am I here? What is going on?"

Shaka's chuckle echoed "Hm, hm, hm. Farce, do you not understand your sins? Perhaps I should remind you?" The clouds in the sky spiralled like the dance of the 108 beads. "You were born in Dusseldorf, Germany, and throughout your life, you were a puppet to your own desires. At my age, you murdered the pet of your best friend, for your parents would not give you one, and at thrice my age, you betrayed another's secret when he confessed himself to you, fearing rumors of his love would hurt your standing among your friends. You then took the recommendation handed to him for yourself, eating his destiny."

Lemon's face paled, being reminded of things he had forgotten about. "You think you frighten me with that?! Think again!"

But Shaka's voice only sounded louder as his sins were counted. "But your greed was outpaced by your inadequacy! At four times my age, you felt robbed by your parents for disowning you and so your contract with Hades was born. On a night at the theater you starred in, you revealed to the audience that you had hung the entire cast as the Alraune Surplice ate you like a blossoming flower beneath your feet. Throughout all of this, not a single thought was spent on their suffering from you…"

"They deserved it!" Alraune proclaimed, raising his fist at the skies.

"Just as you now deserve this fate, Johan Ewers…Even as a Specter, your conniving continued and you earned the spite of your phantom brethren. You spent your life conspiring to overthrow your betters, seeking to consume their power for yourself. Such animalistic behavior is surely worthy of being sent to this realm."

Alraune felt the force suspending him weaken. "W-wait! STOP!"

"Begone, shadow of a Specter."

With this, the voice disappeared along with the unknown force that was maintaining him in the air. Alraune screamed and waved his arms as he fell, trying to catch something, anything that he could hold on to, but it was too late.

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Alraune Lemon was on the floor, drooling and mumbling incoherent nonsense, horrifying his brothers-in-arms. All they saw was a flash of light from Shaka's aura and the Alraune False Specter struggling and screaming on his own as if his very heart was being invaded, and now he looked completely pacified like a lobotomy had been executed.

"This is what awaits those who viciously hunger for power and status," Shaka declared, his face turning through the direction of each Skeleton and Neferti herself. "This was a man who spent his life wrapped in envy, from stealing the toys of children to killing their lovers, to making a deal with Hades so he would outlive his peers, to finally conspiring to unseat his new masters…Now he has been eaten himself."

"I was supposed…" mumbled Alraune, gasping between words. "…I was supposed to become Teos…" And then he fell silent and his eyes rolled up in a sheer expression of a broken mind.

Shaka did not even bother to notice the death of Alraune's sanity, abstracting himself from the entire Specter army in prayer for another foolish, lost soul.

Neferti, however, was not amused by this. Lemon had been a huge pain, but he was still one of their own. "You will pay for this!"

"It's pointless," warned Shaka, insensibly. "Your wrath will do nothing more than help me choose a proper realm to send you to." he pointed his index finger at the woman. "TENMA KOUFUK-" but Shaka suddenly narrowed his eyes and grunted, interrupting the execution of his attack.

Sphinx's foot also screeched on the ground, halting her dash, as her face turned in the direction of the cosmos she felt charging outside the main door!

THROOM!

The sealed doorway to the Virgo Temple was blasted by the purple light, sending the wooden doors flying and burning all over the ground and smoke screening the temple with the ripped ground's dust.

The Skeletons gasped and stood back, startled.

Shaka tensed his face for the first time, sensing the newly arrived threat. His palm, which had been singed by a strange black fire when he used Sati on these Specters earlier in the night, was rubbed. "So you've finally reached me, thrall of Hades."

"They say that the Saint of Virgo is a Specter's worst nightmare." a man's voice echoed from the shadows. "They say that his powers are so terrible that no Specter has ever managed to beat a Saint of Virgo on his own."

"That is correct." Shaka confirmed, seeing the shadow of a man approaching from the depths of the temple "The power of the Saint of Virgo is usually the greatest among the Saints. It would take an army, and perhaps even more, of Specters for a true Virgo to be fallen by Hades' hands."

"I beg to differ." the man argued, stepping out of the shadows and dust. "For even in my life, a Saint of Virgo has fallen on the hands of a single Specter. Sadly I was not the one responsible…"

Shaka narrowed his eyes, amazed at the endless arrogance he felt in the soul of this one man. "Nor shall you repeat that feat."

The red-eyed man smiled. Grasping his black cape in front of his chest like a horror from a vampire movie, he revealed himself, causing the Specters and Skeletons to raise their weapons and shout in support. "IT'S THE PRINCE!"

Lucifer laughed, joined by his lackeys Golem, Mandrake, Cait Sith, and Dullahan. "HA, HA, HA! We shall put that invincibility to the test tonight, Virgo! For the first time in history, the Celestial Star of Pride shines over the Temple of Virgo, and it shall not depart until it instills the ultimate darkness within you!"

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Chapter End

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Next Chapter: Chapter 57 - Episode 19 – The One Closest to God – Part 2

Description: The confrontation between Virgo Shaka and Daemon Lucifer at the Sixth Temple begins, and Lucifer demands to know how has Shaka uncovered the true nature of the False Specters. Shaka, however, is confident he can decimate these slaves of Hades, as none of them have shown even the slightest ability to overcome his powers.

Author's Notes:

Shaka is a hard character to write. He has a very particular mentality to him and I've even ranted once or twice in my Discord Server about how tough it is to nail it down. The tough thing about him is that you have to balance his age in the context of LR with the attitude he displays in the canonical show and, finally, Buddhist teachings, which require their own research to do properly. Fortunately, though, adversity stimulates creativity and my Beta-reader was quite happy with how he's portrayed in this chapter.

This storyline will hopefully explore the themes of the Virgo Temple very comprehensively. I was rather proud of it in V2, but it was very unstructured at the time and had a bunch of missed opportunities and mischaracterizations. This time around, though I aim to create a much more concise work, with 3 parts instead of 5 and a more interesting resolution.

Originally this chapter was close to 23k long, as opposed to its current 19k, but unfortunately a lot of content got cut out and a whole scene between Camus and Shinta was removed, but this I hope to be able to bring back in, maybe, part 3 of this storyline.

Anyway, this time we're talking about the etymology of Lemon's name. We've had a chapter previously explore his False Specter name, but this time I mean his real name, Johan Ewers. His is a composite of Johan, the name of the main villain of the manga Monster, and Hanns Heinz Ewerz, the author of the novel 'Alraune' published in Germany in 1911, which inspired a large number of films and theater pieces in Europe about the myth figure of the Alraune Surplice.

Jenny actually mentioned that Lemon was her favorite Specter and was quite sad to see him finally beaten for good... Those who remember V2, however, know that there's worse to come to Alraune next chapter.

Make sure to check out the Saint Seiya Reddit Discord server, where I'm currently one of the co-admins. Other writers like Jenny DeVic also can be found in it. You can hang out with the rest of the English-speaking SS community and we host several weekly events, like episode streams, games and now a whole new Horror Let's Play themed after the Underworld.

See ya O.O

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