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.

51. 2A: The Great Beast

otable 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

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:

-I'm currently aiming to condense my chapters into becoming slightly shorter reads, for the reader's convenience. This chapter succeded in going below the 25k mark;

-Also, a big thank you for my friend Anastasia for consultation on the message in Greek in the latter half of this chapter. You can check her drawings on Twitter;

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Please enjoy and review (^_^

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"The Titans languished in Tartarus. The Olympians who trapped them there wished to punish us, worshippers of the Titans. They hunted us, but we hid in the shadow of Behemoth who was as tall as the mountains and twice as long. He protected us, bellowing as Zeus's lightning struck his thick armor. Caladria blessed Behemoth and healed him after every stroke of Zeus's lightning. The Olympians could not break tireless Behemoth and they returned to Olympus. We were safe."

- Oaths of the Oracles, The Lay of Ioleta, from 'Age of Mythology'

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Eleven Months Earlier (January, 1976)

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Totting and kicking the soccer ball outside, Aldebaran chased it out of the Taurus Temple, trying to enjoy his rare day off training. Unfortunately, it didn't always coincide with everyone else's and the young Taurus candidate had to live with the fact he'd have to relax on his own at the Second Temple.

Usually, Lord Daniel would spend a day like this with him so that he wouldn't be so lonely, especially since the Taurus Gold Saint heavily encouraged socialization among Saints, but recently the giant man of long blonde hair had been attending meetings with the Pope. He was saying it was likely that Aldebaran would get a new neighbor at the 4th House, soon, which was why the silver giant, Herakles Aguilon himself, offered to spend the day with the Taurus trainee on his break.

However, the Herculean warrior, rather than making due on his promise and spending a didactic day with Aldebaran, decided to spend the morning hours napping by the entrance of the Taurus House, sitting at the last stair step with arms folded and breathing deeply through the nose.

He looked like he would stay like this for hours.

Walking around him, Aldebaran sighed. The gall of the man. "Lord Aguilon?" he called, to no avail. "LORD AGUILON?!..." but again, no response. It was like talking to a statue of the Thinking Man.

The Brazilian boy fumed and paced around, stepping on the ball frustratingly. Mu was out studying with Camus while Saga was off doing whatever for the Pope with Aiolos, as he usually did.

Supposedly, there was going to be a vote on a new member of the Cancer House. Aldebaran did not know much about it, only that Saint Aguilon had approved him through battle for consideration and the Pope decided the Gold Saints would all discuss the matter soon at his Temple. The guy would become a Gold right away since there was no Cancer Master to teach him. Aldebaran also heard he was older and kind of a mean jerk, so prospects for a friendly new neighbor with a wide soccer schedule were slim.

The whole thing just made him even more frustrated. While Aldebaran loved his teacher and training to get stronger, Saint Aguilon was a very close second, a famous symbol of heroic masculinity in modern Sanctuary. He inspired Aldebaran to train to get even stronger and respect his Silver Saint inferiors. They could be doing anything that day, like lifting broken pillars at the Daedalus Hall or running laps around Sanctuary while pulling the Master's war chariot packed with lead.

But no, he picked Sunday, the Lord's day off, to take a freaking morning nap!

Aldebaran frowned, a rare thing for him.

He looked at the soccer ball and realized the angle was perfect.

Snorting like a young bull and running straight at it, Aldebaran arched his leg and kicked the ball harder than the entire national team put together, releasing a thunderous sound and shooting it off a neck-breaking speed, aimed right at the Silver Saint's face! The rubber object burned up, incensed with the speed it crossed the air with and was about to strike Aguilon's forehead when his huge armored hand collided with it, the ball grinding in his palm with smoke coming out until it was stopped in its tracks, scorched.

The giant eyed him annoyedly. "Aldebaran…"

But the boy showed his tongue. "Sleepy much, Saint Aguilon? It's broad daylight, you know?"

Immediately realizing what this was about, the older warrior relaxed. "I was not sleeping. I was …" his eyes then shifted. "..communing with this House's great warriors, listening to their wisdom."

"Nah-ah! Bullcrap! I could totally hear you snoring!" the tall boy denied, pacing around the teacher. "The only wisdom you were getting was in catching zees. You dropped your guard, Saint Herakles. The Greek hero would never be caught with his pants down unless you gave it to him poisoned!"

Aguilon smirked and caught Aldebaran with a swift hand movement, pulling him into his chest and giving him a heartfelt knuckle grind on the head. "AH, AH, WELL, what kind of know-it-all squirt is Daniel raising? Who dropped his guard now?! GREAT NOOGIE!"

"OW! S-stop!" Aldebaran yelped, feeling the pain of the grind but laughing in happiness with the attention.

This was why deep down he couldn't get really angry with Aguilon. He was too much like a big teddy bear grandpa. Aldebaran had just kicked a ball straight at him and the Silver Saint just laughed it off like a regular incident of life and solved it with a bit of revenge. It was a sharp contrast to most teachers like Malta who would punish them for defiance.

Aguilon put Aldebaran down and looked at the ball, particularly the indentation from the kick. "Mm, mm, that was a nice shot, though. But it takes more than muscle to be as good as Pelé. You need good instincts, too."

The boy rubbed his chin pensively. "Is that how you saw the ball coming even though you were sleeping, Saint Aguilon? I barely put cosmos into it cause I wanted to be sure I smacked your face."

The aged leader of the Herculean Guard sweated, feeling a bit threatened by the amount of thought that Daniel's disciple put into hitting him. Usually, Aldebaran would use as much cosmos as possible which gave everything he did away. "Of course… instinct is very important. Most Saints neglect the 6th sense's application in martial arts, though, except for maybe Roshi."

Aldebaran sat with the veteran. "Roshi? You mean Saint Libra?" he asked.

The current owner of the 7th House was a bit of a mystery to a lot of people, including those of the Golden Zodiac. Some greedy nobles, as well as other people with more reasonable concerns, thought it infuriating that one of the twelve armors was being hoarded away in China by a Saint who respected no duty to report, even to the Pope.

He was also a bit of a martial arts legend, and this was where Aldebaran's interest lied. "Do you know him?"

Unexpectedly, the warrior let out a hearty laugh. "No, but your teacher Daniel met him once… fought him, too."

Aldebaran gasped so loudly and deeply that he nearly choked. "WHAA?! No way!" The two greatest warriors he had ever met or heard of had squared off once? "What was he like?"

"How would I know? I wasn't there." Aguilon argued though he had heard some testimonies. "But Daniel did come back from it humbled, with all these new takes on training the mental side of yourself. I was amazed, cause it's easier to teach your teacher quantum physics than to respect a new style of fighting..."

Aldebaran imagines epic poetic undertones to this, picturing a warrior that was Saint Daniel's other polar end in climatic terms like morality and fighting style. He got so hyped he shadowboxed. "Man, it must have been an incredible battle, two great rivals facing off before the waterfall of Rozan, clashing bull and tiger, two opposite forces in nature!" Aldebaran then eyed him skeptically. "Wait, did he also teach you how to pretend you're meditating while you nap?"

"That IS one of his talents, yes, AH AH AH!" Aguilon laughed out loud. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to encourage a lack of respect in Aldebaran, but doing so just collided too much with the enjoyment he got out of laughing at his own mistakes. "But no, what he taught Daniel was instinct… and a bit of history, too."

Aldebaran raised his brow. He didn't expect his awesome teacher to be interested in what was, quite frankly, one of the most boring topics in Sanctuary school. "What do you mean?"

Aguilon just closed his eyes and fell asleep again.

A vein popped in Aldebaran's head. "MASTER? Aw, I want the rest of the story!" he shouted, but Saint Herakles just began breathing deeply again. The boy stepped back and rested his hands on his hips pensively. "This is a trap, isn't it? He's tricking me into some lesson." He then smiled and cracked his knuckles. "Alright… I'll buy it." Then he swung right at the Silver Saint.

As expected, the sleeping giant sensed the threat perfectly and despite the trainee's best efforts, not only did he catch his wrist without even heightening his 7th sense, but the aged hero perfectly tossed him over all the way up to the upper balcony, producing a pained yelp when the large child landed his butt on the Taurus roof garden, where months later Daniel would toast Sanctuary goodbye with his friends (*).

(*) See chapter 26

Aguilon laughed. "AH, AH, AH! Don't you know, Aldebaran? You never approach a bull from the front!"

The boy came up to the balcony. "Ouch… that's not fair! How did you do that?! And you're NOT a bull, you're Hercules!"

The aged warrior smiled sadly. The story to this was much darker than he would tell the trainee. At the time, learned from Daniel, who learned it from Dohko, was of Roshi being friends with Daniel's predecessor from the Lost Canvas War and him being almost cruelly murdered after a Bat Specter put Sanctuary to sleep.

From that point on, Taurus Daniel and Herakles Aguilon, both contenders to the Second House, realized why Taurus Teneo tried to implement sensory training in the Temple that was uncommon in the House's tradition and Daniel began feverishly researching the matter, seeking a way to perfect himself to help the Civil War efforts.

Naturally, as his competitor, Aguilon had followed suit. "I will teach you…It has to do with the thoughts left behind in your House by warriors of old." Daniel offered, intrigued by how Aldebaran would respond. "But don't tell Daniel. I want you to pull it on him when he comes back and sees you sleeping in the middle of the Daedalus Halls, HA, HA, HA, HA."

The unibrow youth hesitated and pondered this. He loved spending time with Saint Aguilon and the idea of pranking Master Daniel was alluring, but this wasn't really what he had in mind for the weekend. Sundays were sacred after all.

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Present

Pacific Ocean,

Death Queen Island Waters

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While it was just after midnight in the Sanctuary, the morning sun was already rising in the middle of the Pacific, in the deep waters right on the black island of death and fire. The trio of boats that the small party of Skeleton soldiers led by Troll Grendel took therefore all thought it was odd that light now slowly dimmed as they approached their destination, as the ash clouds constantly swelling in the air were gradually obscuring the sun above them.

The otherwise pristine Pacific waters were now sludge and dark. The temperature was climbing rapidly and it couldn't be just because of the morning sun. The Skeletons beheld the dead bodies of fish of all sizes raising up to the water, reminding them of the Underworld's rivers, and the humidity of the air was making their throats sore, as if somehow more acidic. They pressured on, though, motivated by the unseen whip of Lucifer's orders.

Troll Grendel, the False Specter counterpart to the Celestial Defeat Star, stood at the bow and looked through his binoculars. He saw the glowing orange light of a large, black volcano's mouth warming up the black clouds like a furnace over a large, rocky, chaotic landscape of magma rivers, jagged passes, and black sand. Even before his eyes ,the terrain was harassed by lava spills and fire raining from the sky, vomited by the mountain.

There was no sign of development, not even a garrison Saint's hut. Just the most miserable environment that nature could give you.

What the hell were they getting themselves into?

The main rowboat suddenly rocked and the Skeletons quivered, seeing the large white shark fin poking out the water nearby, speeding northwest as if fleeing from the island, probably already poisoned by whatever killed the other fish.

"Steady!" Troll ordered, determined. He sweated under his helmet, though. "Ugh, it's like I'm back at the Cauldrons of Blood… why did I draw the short straw on this? I suppose it's better than fighting freaking Gold Saints on their own turf."

A Skeleton manning a small radio and looking out for mental pings at the other end of the rowboat called for him. "We're still getting nothing from the Prince about the other parties other than updates on his direct attack, Lord Troll. Lord Ainsel transmits that they've broken into the Aries Saint's Temple!"

There was a collective celebratory gasp and cheer from the rowers, who shared looks of happiness. "Yeah, they're doing it! Hear that, guys?! We're taking over Sanctuary!"

There were thumbs-ups from the other boats.

"Focus on the paddles!" Troll shouted out, not tolerating indiscipline. The more they approached the damn island, the more terrible a feeling he had. "In all my years in the Underworld, I never felt anything like this. I'm a False specter, so I've still seen the worst Hades has to offer humans…" he then gazed at the island some more, saw a disheveled human corpse float by, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. "…So why do I feel so goddamn scared?!"

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Aries-Taurus Staircase

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The staircases between each temple were long and windy, going through narrow elevations up the mountain's side that zigzagged left and right, allowing for invaders to be targeted from multiple angles for long and extenuating periods as they ascended up the stairs. Added to this basic defensive design, there was the equally common atmospheric defenses that prevented lightspeed travel from forces going between the temples, usually in the form of passive barriers projected by the Temples which exponentially increased the strength cost of lightspeed bursts, limiting their use to close-combat or very particular projectile techniques, like physical arrows carrying the cosmos.

This allowed the defenders to fire down at invaders with relative ease and quickly march down lower, unprotected temples to garrison them in emergencies, but made the marches back up and counter-firing much more difficult beyond the obvious factors of gravity.

Such was the case that night as the army of Specters and Skeleton Soldiers slowly marched up the stairs to the Taurus Temple. The staircase off Aries began moving along the left side of the mountain before turning back forward into the temple itself, forcing the Skeletons and the Specters to present their right side to the Papal Guards already stationed at the Second Temple that was delaying them by firing flaming arrows and rolling marble blocks and incendiary carts down the stairs.

The larger Specters and Skeletons, like Golem and Behemoth, took the lead and tried to bash off the objects being hurled down at them with their massive strength, kicking and punching the huge pieces of rock and fire into smithereens while their men attempted to shield themselves from the arrows.

"KEEP MARCHING!" Golem Treble roared out loud, enticing the shielded formation behind him to pick up the pace despite the hail of piercing missiles, but, among the arrows, some were golden missiles coming from the 9th Temple that their more powerful specters constantly had to protect the men against, which slowed down the entire army. Seeing this, as soon as he reached the slight turn of the stairs, Golem caught the next marble block tossed down at them, span his body, and hurled it right back. "ROLLING BOMBER STONE!"

The object flew across the air immersed in purple cosmos that densified it with power, crashing like a rising meteor on the Taurus Temple's façade, shaking the whole structure, and sending toxotoi back screaming. With a roar, Golem prepared another bombardment and sent it away, filling the air with large boulders aimed like an artillery barrage at the temple.

Just as expected, the lightspeed arrows of the Sagittarius Saint were forced to target these to save the Papal Guards from being crushed by the ruthless rain of rock, filling the air with explosive impacts of golden light shattering the catapult shots to smithereens. The men of Lucifer took advantage of this to pick up the pace and march faster towards the Taurus Temple, which was being quickly sealed up by the hoplites that escaped the killing at the Aries Temple.

Using their armored arms to cover themselves from missiles, Torak and Rock led the army up the final turn of stairs. The Behemoth was grazed by many cosmos-filled arrows and javelins, but his Surplice seemed to resist and remain intact after only some drizzles of burning. "They're barricading the Taurus gate, too!" he announced.

"Well, then someone better do something about it, then, right?!" Alraune Lemon ranted, before raising his hands together. "BLOOD FLOWER SCISSORS!" his plantoid armor's tendrils then lashed down at light-speed across the air, creating a razor-sharp crescent moon slash wave that flew across the remaining distance at the Taurus Temple's gate.

But the slashing lash of the long tentacle, despite as mighty as a blow from Excalibur and impacting on the barricaded wooden doors with a powerful sound like a huge battering ram, was somehow only able to shatter the large metal locks and bash the barricade back a little before it got quickly reinforced and pushed back into place by the troops inside.

The Alraune was agape. "What?!"

Ainsel flew above them, intrigued. "It's like the strength of his blow just dissipated tremendously..."

Standing at the center of the troops, Lucifer chuckled at the naiveté of the False Specter. "Mm, mm, mm, did you think it would be that easy, Lemon? These are the Twelve Temples. Long-range attacks without a direct physical host won't work quite as well as you think." He then took one of the real spears from one of his Skeletons and immersed it in an electrical cosmos, turning it into a sizzling blue thunderbolt in his hand. "This is how you do it! LIGHTNING FANG!"

And the Prince hurled it like an Olympic athlete with a mighty toss, launching the thunder spear across an even longer distance than Alraune did and impacting the gate with ten times the force, blasting it and the barricade right across the doorway and showering the Temple with electrical pulses.

The Skeletons and Specters raised their fists in triumph. "THE DOOR'S BROKEN!"

Behemoth thrust a hand forward to signal. "CHARGE, MEN!" he roared, allowing the scythemen to take lead in the spring across the last staircase. Behemoth then waited until the Pride Star passed him. "Prince, my turn has come… I will not disappoint you."

The Pride Star squinted warningly. "You better not, or I'll consider a bit more seriously Neferti's request that she just gave me to replace you. Dally around with Taurus and you'll regret it."

The youth gritted teeth and clenched fist. "This is none of her concern, she shouldn't-"

But the Daemon's red stare was enough to silence him. "… Who do you think you're serving under, Torak? That capricious fool Aiacos?! Under Daemon Lucifer, you will fight who I decide you fight. I'm taking enough of a risk by letting you battle down here when you should be leading the charge with the other heavies!" he reminded the young warrior. "Remember, this Taurus Saint is only associated with Herakles… He's not your teacher's killer."

The tall Specter nodded, gulping. "…Yes, Prince." He then looked up at the Temple and shook his head, realizing his own stupidity. "(He'll likely be asleep in any case…I can't let my Surplice's passions take control over me, or I'll be just as useless to Lucifer as I was to Urial.)" Yet, the shadow of the Behemoth weighed heavy on his head, constantly reminding him of how he just stood there in the Underworld and let Urial die. His whole body was therefore tense as he marched up the stairs and the rageful glare of a monstrous rhinoceros inhabited his mind. "(I feel like I'm going mad…)"

The Skeleton Soldiers gave way to the Specters and Lucifer as they took positions by the entrance. Some of them took crossbow potshots at its innards to target some of the retreating Papal Guards. "The gateway is secure! The enemy flees again, Prince!" a huge lieutenant reported.

Some of the crossbowmen looked frustrated at the cowardice of the Guards. "Why aren't those asleep?!" one complained as he reloaded.

"Obviously they must have devised some countermeasure dependent on an early warning," Papillion Ainsel deduced, flying above them. He rubbed his chin. "Though I wonder how it is that a Gold Saint fell under such an obvious curse?"

"Mm, mm, it seems that without Andromeda Shun by his side, the Saint of Taurus doesn't have much of a defense against Nightmare Sonar. Has this house learned nothing from the last war?" Lucifer wondered to himself. He then personally dragged the green-armored Bat Specter to the front. "You're taking the lead inside, Brune! I want everyone who fell under the initial Sonar sweep to stay that way!"

And the whimpering blood-drinker crawled inside, burning his cosmos continuously to command the bats flying into the Second House. "Y-yes, Prince, it's certain!"

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The Sagittarius Temple

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From his perch on the 9th House gateway, Sagittarius Aiolos easily saw the light of the burning in the Aries Temple as well as the torches going up the stairs to Taurus, bow and arrow in hands. He cursed Hades and prayed to Athena. So many arrows had been fired, yet so few lives had been saved.

And now the guardian of the Second House would be next.

"A-Aldebaran, no!" Aiolos lamented, steeling his determination to stop the Specters but unable to not feel the pain of letting his vulnerable friend down. The fact he had just spoken to him right before the strange sleeping curse afflicted the Golden Zodiac made it all worse.

A protective rage then took over the young archer's body, igniting his veins with a hot, golden cosmos that coursed down his hands and filled his weapons.

"Aiolos!" Shura called, sensing the fury in his cosmos all the way from his Chambers.

"I knew those men, Shura!" the archer gritted between teeth, while also messaging it. Mental lines weren't good for venting out physical rage. "And so did you!"

"You did all you could, Saint Aiolos. The cosmos you shared with them was as if you were there yourself." Virgo Shaka assured him. His spiritual side allowed him to understand and deal with the loss despite his younger age.

A new voice then joined the conversation. "Shaka is correct, Aiolos. You cannot lose yourself over this. We will continue to need your arrows for the rest of the battle." Said Aquarius Camus, the eternal voucher for cooler heads in tense situations. "These are Specters and they will specifically set out to cause us psychological pain. Moreover, they are obviously led by someone abnormally competent. Whoever he may be, he likely wants you to fire recklessly so they can learn more about you."

"Camus is right, if they just decide so, they can start using human shields against you. We need to think about our move carefully." Shura argued, expecting the worst.

The frustrated archer kept the arrow in bow but lowered it, trying to think the situation over. He had to concur with Capricorn and Aquarius; the priority was to get everyone safe, not put more people at risk.

A shine like a shooting star crossed his eyes. "Shura, what would you say your range is?"

There was a calculating pause. "Not much, probably not more than right over your House, if I want to keep any degree of solidity and accuracy in Excalibur."

The archer cringed bow against the string, aiming it up. "That's good enough…I want you to give your best shot at my signal!"

An older voice joined. "Aiolos, what are you planning?" he asked, worried. "Remember, I ordered you not to engage the enemy one-on-one. Like Shura said, if you begin targeting the leader, he might retaliate more cruelly against you!"

"Deathmask, are you UP OR NOT?!"

"Uh, y-yeah, I am!" the dark-blue haired boy from the Cancer House responded, sounding like he was stumbling over objects to get himself ready. "L-look, you have to give me a minute to process that there's a freaking army outsi-"

"Just get Lance's Cloth out of there and move up to Aiolia's Temple, RIGHT NOW! This is not playtime anymore, people are DYING!" Aiolos interrupted.

The Pope insisted on knowing his thoughts. "Aiolos, your actions may dictate the safety of many in this battle. I need to know what you're planning."

But the stalwart faith in Aiolos' heart was unshakeable. "This foe has underestimated our Golden Zodiac, your Holiness. We are young, but we are still Gold Saints." He proclaimed. The safety of Aiolia weighed on his heart, but that just made him even more determined to put a stop to this invasion right then and there. "And as Athena is my witness, not a single drop of blood will be spilled from the innocent tonight!"

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Chapter 51

Second Arc

Episode 16

The Great Beast

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Death Queen Island

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The waves crashed loudly, landing two bodies on the littered, hot, black sand of Death Queen Island's beach with its force. The first was a man who huffed in rage, his wet white hair dripping water unto the sand and his scarred, tanned muscles pulling a rope from the ocean. Blood dripped off the teeth of his demon mask, his stench was so rotten that even the saltwater couldn't disguise it. With a mighty pull, he dragged the second body further up into dry land.

The white-haired teen stepped on the rough skin of the enormous prize that he caught and pulled the makeshift trident right off its eye. As he stood next to it, his scarred, red-skinned arms folded and he smiled, analyzing the beast.

"So..." he said, having gotten used to talking with himself with the loneliness on the island. "Miss White Shark thought she could make the waters around my island her territory, huh? And bring her male buddies with her, too?"

With this, he kicked the fallen beast, causing it to tremble despite its obvious enormous weight.

"Yes, yes, yes. It made sense, right? An empty water space in the middle of the rival-filled Pacific, far away from the finning ships and bursting with dead fish that I'm sure you would have enjoyed. And no one to oppose your stay." Guilty then knelt next to the shark's pierced eye. "Well, now I get to enjoy you! HA, HA, HA, HA!"

The entire island then shook, making its Master tumble around over the dead creature.

The masked man looked up at the volcano. "OH, THAT AGAIN?! Are you on your period today?!" he roared, but it only made the mountain spew flames even harder, attached to his cosmos as it was. "WILL YOU STOP THAT, YOU STUPID FIRE-BREATHING CUNT-"

A massive, half-solid rock of flames and magma among the many hurled by the volcano then meteored down from the clouds right next to him, blasting the shark to pieces of burnt flesh and sending Guilty flying off the ground to the sand.

The masked killer coughed and saw his prize destroyed.

"…"

There was nothing but a burnt sand crater collapsing with the liquid fire unto the ocean water and bits of burnt shark bones and meat everywhere.

"…"

It took him two weeks of patience for a good one to show up. He would now have to make burgers out of cockroach flesh and bits of dead sailors again.

He didn't say anything. His hand just clenched so hard it snapped the trident in half, took the biggest chunk of the tail that survived and he simply walked away back to his hiding hole, muttering curses about mountains named after dead whores. The sand practically turned into glass beneath his feet with how hot his anger was making his cosmos. The eruptions had only increased after Guilty took charge of the island post his best friend's visit, three years prior. However, lately, the Queen's volcano had been in an uproar, as if reacting to outside events.

Crossing into the burning hinterland, he eventually reached his cabin made out of salvaged cement bricks and metal plates that were hidden among the black, jagged rocks, far from prying eyes. Human skeletons with bite marks on them littered the ground by its doorway. He noticed them, snorted in an apathetic lack of care, walked right over the mess he made, and threw the large shark tail over the shoulder to the infertile ground, intending to carve it up as soon as he got his tools.

He entered the kitchen, or what he called the kitchen. It was a dark room with nothing but a basalt table on it with many recent marks of dry blood and a makeshift balcony with rusty knives, forks, cleavers and pokers stabbed into it. Sets of twin round spots on the ground around the table were roundly marked as if pairs of human knees had bruised and bled on them, and small bits of rope and broken metal links littered the ground.

Guilty shook his own head, knowing he had to clean the place from back when he entertained his last guests with a round of guillotine poker. Not only did he have to tie them all to the table so they'd respect the rules, but they kept making messes on the floor whenever their turn to go all-in came.

He turned to the human face nailed to the wall. "Friends just aren't as polite as they used to, right, Fred? All they do is dirty your house when they come over."

Nothing was heard from Fred except the sound of the blood dripping off his flat chin.

Guilty laughed. "AH, AH, AH! Oh, Fred, you're such a jokester. What a good friend you are. You always cheer me up! Not like my last friend, who only made me happy when I tossed him down the lava!" he then went to his tools. His fingers danced on the handles of the various cutting objects, undecided. "Mm, let's see… eeny, meeny, miny, moe…who'll make them scream 'please let me go'?"

*creak*

The masked man's face mechanically turned towards the sound of a bone being stepped on outside and he instantly made his decision! Taking the cleaver off his board, he pressed himself against the edge of his doorway and listened to the voices outside.

"Holy crap! What the hell is this?!" someone said as if suddenly frightened by something.

"It's a shark tail, you moron! There were pieces of it at the beach!" Troll Grendel shouted. "The waters around this place are filthy! It must have washed up after being poisoned and rotted away to chunks!"

Intruders! Guilty suddenly felt the hate igniting inside his guts, causing his blood to burst into flames and the scars on his body to cringe! He would NOT allow this to happen again! No, he would not! No one would steal his recipe for Toe Frittata!

He moved the door just a little and peeked through the small opening to the outside. He saw two men standing next to the shark, black armors engulfing both of them, looking at the decomposed animal part.

"Specters..." he thought. Just a bunch of corpse fuckers, probably there to step on his game. It didn't matter, though. Whether Saints, Specters, Mariners, or even goddamn tourists and scientists, NO ONE stepped on his island! Oh, how he would make them suffer! Oh, would it be fun! His hand played with the cleaver as he mused a thought. "I wonder if they already taste like a corpse if they are already dead…"

"How the hell did it get here, then? We're a mile into the island!" asked the first one.

"Someone must have carried it all the way from the beach," concluded the second one, seeing the trail Guilty left behind as the beast's bony tail dragged through the sand, flanked by a row of footsteps. "Which means the Prince was right and someone really is here!"

"Man, who would live here?! This place is worse than the Underworld! Let's just go!"

Troll Grendel immediately punched him. "Calm down!" he shouted, picking him back. "Who are you scared more of, this place or the Prince?! Remember! Go back without the Cloth and you'll get lynched by the others just like they said Brune was!"

The first Specter seemed to relax, reminded of his objective. Guilty, however, only felt The Hate burning even more intensely! They were there for his cloth? How dare they?! First, they invaded his territory, and now they wanted Phoenix?! Oh, no, no, no! This was too much!

Guilty's foot raised itself from the ground and its base crashed with the door, bursting it open. The Skeletons screamed and widened their eyes in shock as they saw the pale mask staring right at them.

"What the fuck!" one shouted.

The others picked up arms, raising scythes and unsheathing swords. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!"

Guilty's shoulders shook. "I'm your new boyfriend! " he mocked, an unnatural, thick voice leaving his throat. He stepped towards them and showed off the cleaver's edge, seeing the disciplined soldiers flinch and step away. "No, come inside, I'll show you how much I appreciate your inner beauty!"

The many Skeletons screamed and stepped back, terrified by the bulk mass of dreary cosmos they felt off the man walking towards them as if reminded of the horrors of the dead they experienced in the Underworld.

Guilty laughed, raising the cleaver. The Skeletons screamed, feeling a horror creep up inside their hearts like they never experienced before.

The blinding flash of black light followed by the blaming sound of Grendel firing off his hand's massive energy beam then startled everyone as it blasted the island master's head and blew it right off his damn shoulders, decapitating the body and hurling it off in spirals to the ground, landing inactively, the cleaver dropped.

The Skeletons breathed out in disbelief that the threat they sensed was so suddenly gone.

Troll Grendel towered over them and smacked each of their heads "YOU COWARDLY IMBECILES! You lost file and rank in front of A GUY WITH A FUCKING KNIFE! Were you going to piss yourselves too or did you have some other embarrassment prepared?!" He then kicked Guilty's decapitated body. "SEE? He's DEAD! Probably not even a freaking Bronze Saint! I should have Behemoth flog you for this!"

Many of them held their chest in relief despite their commander's rant. "By Persephone's screams, I-I t-thought something horrible was going to happen."

Troll pointed at the volcano. "MARCH, YOU PISSANTS! We have a job to do! The prince wants that armor found!"

Reluctantly, the many Skeleton soldiers regained order in their group and gradually left the area, just relieved they got through this experience and wouldn't have to deal with such a freak anymore. Troll Grendel stared at the cabin the man came out of with a strange feeling in his gut that made him gulp as if he would regret going inside. Soon enough joined his men.

The wind blew by as the area was deserted, spreading ash and embers everywhere.

Guilty's hand closed on the cleaver's handle and his body ignited into flames!

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

Aries Temple Entrance

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

The two Saints of Athena rushed up to the staircase of the Aries Temple, ready for anything.

They had seen it from afar already, but coming across the scene of blood up close still shocked them.

Slowing down, they stepped over broken siege equipment, shattered javelins, arrows stuck on the floor, and bodies of Skeletons that got shot down before reaching the balcony. There were also Papal Guards that fell down from it from arbalest bolts, Golem's boulder tossing, or even the explosion of Aiolos' initial bombardment. All in all, it looked like the Specters had not gathered them up before sealing up the gateway to Aries with Osiris' Tomb.

Having come across scenes like this at Fort Ismara and the village of Arcadia, Shinta resisted the wrenching in his heart better than he usually did. Still, it seemed that even though Aries Mu was absent, it didn't mean the Specters wouldn't go through a trial to conquer the first House, and the lives these men put into protecting the mountain moved the Andromeda Saint, whose eyes held back tears. He clenched his silver-star pendant and once again prayed to Athena for their souls.

Saga kicked one of the fallen Skeletons over to look at his armor. "Full body armoring and altered weaponry… They even brought assault equipment like ladders. It's all so unusual." He then noticed the flying yellow bumblebee lights all over the air. "And these must be the Fairies of the Papillion Specter."

The green head looked around, seeing that the insects littered the air like a current of dandilions. "They're all over the place!"

Saga took one into the palm of his hand. It looked like such a gentle butterfly. "Through these, they have total information control over the area. They probably already know we are here." His hand then closed on it, crushing it. "Damn it!... I could really use a fire-user about now."

Shinta sniffed his pain away and addressed this, recognizing from experience that their equipment and preparation did seem abnormal. "Roshi commented that the leader was savvy of Sanctuary… a claimant to being Pope, right?"

The idea of this revolted Saga; that of any murderer, let alone a Specter, would dream of sitting on Athena's throne. He focused on the matter at hand. "I think this goes beyond that. It would have been simple for him to blast any resistance in this Temple to pieces, especially considering that move he charged against Lance that we all felt through all the buffering barriers. Instead, he commands a direct, traditional assault."

Resorting to a more hands-on approach like this, rather than superpowers, was certainly something that reminded Shinta of Lance, but this was back in the days before unlocking the 7th sense. "It's as if he wants to preserve strength, Saint Saga,… or teach his men for the future."

Saga held chin. "They did take over the fortress of Crow's Nest, but… after the Zodiac what could they possibly be aiming to storm next? That's the question." He wondered, completely ignorant of Lucifer's betrayal from Hades.

Despite his good nature, Shinta's mind considered other darker possibilities. "It could be that he simply seeks to terrorize us with these tactics, make us feel unsafe." His eyes then narrowed angrily. "…Or maybe he takes joy or glory in unnecessary combat."

The Gemini Saint sensed the rising frustration off his teammate. It reminded him of when Aiolos would get mad, an equally rare sight that promised a storm in what was otherwise a calm sea. Not knowing him as well as Lance did, he hoped Shinta would have the same amazing battle prowess the Sagittarius displayed when pushed past his patience.

The Gemini decided to focus on the obstacle ahead of them, namely the large rock slab marked with elaborate hieroglyphs of Horus and the sun. He sensed an incredible and dreary power off it like it was summoned from the land of the dead itself where status was meaningless and everyone's hearts were weighed the same, transcendent to power or class. Knowledgeable of history despite the nasty surprise of learning about Princes of Hades, Saga easily associated it to the gate written to have protected access to the fabled Lost Canvas fortress.

Shinta saw the Gemini smiling suddenly. "Saint Saga?"

The blue-haired Gold Saint scoffed. "The enemy has already underestimated us, Shinta. This gate…" his hand then raised, burning with golden cosmos. "….is nothing to me! ANOTHER DIMENSION!" and it thrust forward, releasing a loud impact in the air like a great hammer striking the very foundations of time and space.

Whatever the Gemini initiated with this, it did not manifest right away, but Shinta gasped, stepping back, and felt the cosmos of all of Sanctuary Town itself burning, namely the little specks of it that were universally present in a matter that would usually not even register in their 7th senses, insignificant as it was. Small, seemingly random pebbles around the ground lifted up as if gravity was slowly being upturned and Saga's burning aura crackled electrically as forces beyond Shinta's comprehension were grasped.

Then a line of bright light was drawn down the large stone slab, which then slowly opened up like a zipper into a passage consisting of a grid of light entering a cosmical world, like a magical road.

Shinta was amazed "You did it! I thought it wouldn't be so easy with Another Dimension!"

The young Gemini smiled confidently. "So did I,… but many houses in Sanctuary Town were built from materials scavenged off the Lost Canvas fortress itself, a fortress with a common curse running through it. They are bricks of marble that were in direct contact with a much more powerful version of this gate. Bricks that I could practice on." He explained. "Long ago, a predecessor of mine warped into the Lost Canvas. That memory remains in my armor. Through it, I know from which plane to travel past this sort of obstacle. This…. is why you don't ignore history, mm-mm."

The Andromeda Saint was seriously impressed. He took his chain and knew instinctively how to help. "GO, Nebula Chain!" he cast, launching the triangle end into the chasm before them. Coursing at the speed of light across Saga's pathway, it searched out the other end of it by pursuing the threat of Specters it sensed. Eventually, Shinta felt the chain striking something material and sticky and made the triangle end latch on to it. He tugged it twice, testing the grip. "We got a direction and end!"

Saga was equally awed. He didn't even have to instruct Saint Shinta on what to do. "…I wasn't finished saying I only had an opening, not a full path." He then put more cosmos into it, widening the narrow way the Andromeda chain marked so two people could cross over. "How did you know?"

There was a confident smirk from the green-head. "The chains of Andromeda have a lot of incredible powers!" he then felt the shadow of melancholy briefly pass through his mind. "…Master Guardnia also dabbled with subspace techniques, so I know a thing or two about trans-dimensional aiming."

There was a chuckle of approval from Saga. He could see why Shaka had lately been expressing interest in the pink-armored Bronze Saint.

Holding on to his metal links, Shinta watched as light began pouring in from the depths of the small dimensional rift as Saga reached the end. Soon they would have a full shortcut. "I can almost see the insides of Mu's Temple, Saint Gemini. Just a little mo-"

Saga widened his eyes, crossbows were fired and the Gold Saint tackled Shinta "WATCH OUT!" and the two rolled on the ground over and over as sharp, poisoned bolts pierced the marble stairs. Landing on his side, Saga saw the shadow of the Cyclops lifting a huge boulder and tossing it at him. "COSMIC METEOR SHOWER!" his hand then fired a torrent of blasts that destroyed the large object to dust particles.

But a winged shadow descended unto the Temple's roof, its hand slashing down the hair. "FAIRY THRONGING!" Curtains of rainbow light then collided with the remaining of Saga's blasts, blasting them a distance off the Temple. Papillion Ainsel revealed himself in the afterglow of the attacks and pointed down. "All yours, Balgo."

"ATTACK! ATTACK!" Cyclops ordered, pointing a finger at them as the line of crossbowmen reloaded. "TURN THEM INTO PIN CUSHIONS!"

Saga smiled. "So they're sparing us the trouble, uh? Well, don't m—mi-" and he stumbled over, landing on his knee. "W-what?!"

Shinta also felt dizzy and grabbed his ears. "U-uggh… this sound!" he recognized. Although he couldn't hear anything per se, he felt the dark image of a screeching bat on his mind and the sensation of his very brain numbing. He pulled Saga in with his hand and grasped his defensive chain before tossing it around. "R-ROLLING DEFENSE!" he cast, initiating the pillar of rotating chain links that blocked out Nightmare Sonar's waves.

As the chain danced around them, blocking crossbow bolts and soundwaves alike, Saga slowly recovered his senses. "W-what happened? How did I lose my s-strength like that?"

The blue-haired Specter, Ainsel, chuckled. "Don't think that's all, Saints."

Shinta looked at the rift they opened, which now had a complete path through Osiris Tomb to the other end. "It's coming from the Temple. I think the Bat Specter may have left some of his creatures inside." He tried to pull his triangle chain back. "Oh no, I'm stuck!"

Saga gasped. "Stuck?! What do you mean?!"

The green-haired Saint tried to pull his offensive chain back so he could counterattack the Specters, but it wouldn't dislodge. "Something is sticking to my chain!"

Cyclops laughed. "AH, AH, AH, you thought it would be so easy, right?! But you're powerless! Ainsel has left a good thick layer of Silky Thread at the Tomb! You can't force your way through Neferti's gate without lowering your guard, and you won't stay awake long enough to cross inside!" He then stomped the ground to scare his men into reloading faster. "QUICKER! Have your sights set on them! Fire as soon as those chains drop!"

The temple of Aries then burned with a dark cosmos of powerful Specters directed down from the main army force up the stairs, which got immediately alerted to what was going on and lent much greater reflexes and power to these lesser warriors. The House itself seemed to have its marble bricks darken upon being filled with this energy.

The orange-armored moth-winged foe held out hands confidently, readying an attack. "What will you do, Gold Saint? Will you stay a sitting duck and let your Bronze Saint take the hits for you? Or will you just lower your arms and die?"

Saga gritted teeth. The First Temple had been turned into a true obstacle. If they got pinned down there for too long, more Specters could show up and overwhelm them! Were their efforts for naught? He thought about what to do.

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

House of Sagittarius

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

Completely ignorant of what was transpiring down at the Aries Temple, Aiolos still feverishly planned how he would pull off his intentions to help out and even save Aldebaran. With his cosmos burning like a torch, his 7th sense tried to figure out the Taurus Saint's exact position inside his own temple.

He had halted the bombardment of the Specters for now, though, not only because he was biding energy for his next critical move, but because the difficulty of isolating the target he needed through the many buffer barriers was turning his brain into a furnace. It was hard enough to just sit up there, not allowed to leave the 9th House for fear of compromising anti-warping defenses in the Zodiac, but now he could hardly lend his strength to his friends, too.

This difficulty was because, as the Specters moved up the stairs and the golden moths filled the mountain's air more and more, even Agapethos' visual reports were getting drowned out by the enclosing barriers of jamming carried up by the Papillion Specter and the mysterious Pride Star. The only indication Aiolos even had of the progress of the enemy was the tip of their bat-winged star flags rushing up the Second House and the flame of Taurus at the Fire Clock flickering as it tracked the position of the enemy leader.

The ninth Gold Saint did not surrender, though; it was not in his character to forget about protecting others just because it was difficult. Already he aimed his bow high, preparing his mental calculations for what to target with his ace in the hole.

Still, others questioned his methods. "Aiolos, I understood your plan, but there's the matter of knowing what to fire at. This only works if you can tell where Pride Star or one of the strategic enemies are." Capricorn Shura pointed out, not wanting a vital element of surprise to go to waste.

The Sagittarius Gold Saint acknowledged Shura's preoccupations. "True, Shura, but are we to abandon Aldebaran to doom? I refuse that, not when I can carry this bow, buy him one more moment of breath, or help his death have more meaning," Aiolos argued. Before Shura could go on about the difficulty in knowing what to fire at, Aiolos preceded him. "Earlier I was conversing with Aldebaran mentally. I got a pretty good idea of where exactly he walked into his House based on a ping timeout. If he's really asleep and I fire somewhere that my pings take longer to reach, I'll be aiming at a spot closer to the enemy than to him."

But the guardian of the tenth house was not convinced, especially because he was being asked to lend Aiolos his blade. "That is logical, but does it matter if you hit the empty ground? Or just a single Skeleton? We would be putting all our might into a nuke that would go off harmlessly or worse! And then the enemy would be on his guard! They might even kill Aldebaran right away as a reprisal."

A pause and a sigh of resignation of the difficulty followed from Aiolos. He knew all of this. He was the one trying to figure out the angle and tension of his bow, after all. He couldn't blame Shura for his preoccupations for they were also his own.

Still, he would defend Aldebaran as if he were Aiolia himself. "We are Gold Saints of Athena, and they will kill Aldebaran anyway if we just fold our arms! I have to do something, Shura. We cannot let our fear stop us from protecting the Sanctuary and our friends." he argued. His mind then rushed a mile an hour to come up with a REAL solution. "Perhaps… if I send enough pings I can overwhelm their ja-"

"It sounds like you're facing a navigational problem if you will." Camus suddenly interjected. "I would forget about trying to force your way through the jamming, Saint Aiolos. We wouldn't be in this situation if the enemy's methods were so easy to foil. Perhaps I can help…"

Loosening his weapon in reaction to the Aquarius' offer, Aiolos looked around as he felt a sudden chill in the air. He saw the ground, already of marble white, attain a slight blue tone as his golden greaves grew colder, a tone that was spreading down the floor to the steps of Sagittarius to Scorpio. Looking up, the eagle-eyed Aiolos also saw that the Capricorn Temple had been covered in this slight frost and, more importantly, small snowflake crystals were dropping from unseen clouds, seemingly formed in the air from sparse humidity.

"I thought I was feeling a cold breeze," Shura commented. "What is this, Camus? Are you trying to freeze the mountain?"

Golden cosmos with an aurora-like shine burned at the entrance of Aquarius, likely from where Camus was casting his move. "We currently do not know what to target, for even Shaka cannot pierce the enemy's shadowy veil with his thoughts. However, there is a way to overcome this, a new way that my Lord, Malta, devised during the Civil War. With it, he would counteract the Black Saint Priam who employed similar tactics," he explained. His cosmos then ignited further and Aiolos' sharp sight barely detected a wave of the arm from his friend. "AURORA STREAM!"

Blunt, forceful waves of Borealis light then burst from the Aquarius Saint's hands, quickly dissipating in the air but deeply dropping temperatures all around him. More importantly, the thin frost at Aiolos feet spread with accelerating speed down the whole of the Zodiac, like an actual river stream going down a new sliding path it got directed to.

Aiolos gasped and instinctively stepped back. Microscopic cracks on the frost caused by his weight and heat fractured it without him even feeling it, thanks to the protective elements of his armor. This information, nevertheless, got carried all the way back into the source of cold, the Saint of Aquarius.

Thus, Camus knew what he had just done, even though it was a mere physical act. "You just took a step, did you not? Don't fear it. The frost of Aurora Stream won't go below even negative 5 Celsius, a temperature that the common Skeleton armor is resistant to…. And therefore won't feel." Camus explained. "With this expanding sheet of white, however, I can track the heat of bodies and cosmos by reaching out to them with my frost. It will take a bit for it to reach so long down as the Taurus Temple, but the advantage is that I'll find the feet of every enemy and ally, information that I can then guide you with."

The winged Gold Saint was amazed, taking one of the snowflakes into his hand. "That's incredible, Camus!" he messaged, also saying out loud out of sheer elation.

There was an embarrassing hesitation from the Aquarius. "It's not a comfortable technique…I can't even move from where I am and I have to wait for the Stream to spread. Like I said, my teacher devised it because he had to find ways to discover Gold Saints who specialized in hiding and jamming, not for combat. If the enemy figures out what I'm doing, they'll definitely find a countermeasure."

There was a head shake from Aiolos. "No, this is definitely incredible. With this, me and Shura will know precisely when and how to act!"

"I agree… though a lot will depend now on Aldebaran for lasting long enough for Camus to reach his house," Shura argued. "Let's hope the enemy is the type that plays with their food."

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

Taurus Temple

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

The heavily armored steps of the Papal Guards filled the inner rooms. They had to move quickly and carry the innocent out of the Temple up to beyond Virgo's. If they could not fight, they would at least put their lives on the lines saving the occupants of the Golden Zodiac by carrying the unconscious occupants, both servants and guards, using cosmos to increase their physical speed and carrying capacity.

For some reason, Saint Sagittarius' bombardment stopped, which just concerned them even more.

Agapethos signaled and shouted command after command. "They've broken through the gate! QUICK, to the Gemini Temple!" he urged, feeling the urgency as if the very blades of the Skeletons were at his throat once more. He saw four men struggling around the Taurus Saint, though. "By Athena, what's going on with him?!"

The tall Saint of Taurus just stood there with arms folded, completely unconscious yet firm like a statue without falling over. His mighty armor was on, but his mask was absent, revealing his identity to the few guards who didn't know already. His deep breathing and closed eyes clearly showed him to be asleep.

The four hoplites made another herculean effort to budge him, timing their push and burning their cosmos, but once more all of them were met with a bizarre, colossal resistance from Aldebaran's body, which just burned its golden cosmos ever so lightly.

They wheezed. "H-he just won't let us move him!"

"We don't have time for this, they're walking in as we speak! He's just one young kid! Do you want us to lose a Gold Saint?! Get it together and lift him off his feet if you have to!" Agapethos yelled.

But the guards assured him it could not be done. "We've been at it since you went down to Aries to try to stop the Specters! No matter how much strength we put into it, he puts more back! It's as if the damn armor was making him dead weight on purpose!"

Bewildered, Agapethos took a hand at it himself, burning his above-average cosmos and pushing Aldebaran's body as much as he could. He huffed loudly, dragged his feet on the ground, and was even helped by the other soldiers, comically enveloping the Taurus Saint and yet completely unable to make him so much as stop burning his cosmos back as if his feet were leaded into the floor.

Agapethos eventually put so much strength into it that he slipped and fell at the Gold Saint's feet, defeated. "W-what the fuck!..."

"It's as we said… the Taurus Cloth doesn't want him to leave," a subordinate stressed.

The lieutenant looked up and saw the golden aura around Aldebaran swell. The faint image of a beast of a bull was seen, standing guard over the main hall and facing the last doorway to them, impassive like a mighty animal god. The ages the beast spent defending that House then weighed down on all of them, transmitting with a mere presence of the Gold Saint the blood and battle of the Taurus House and its steel-hard vow to crush every impertinent worm that stepped on its territory.

The loud sound of the reinforced inner doorways towards the main hall being rammed echoed.

Agapethos sweated. He felt as if a rebellious, snorting bull stood there in place of the Gold Saint, refusing to leave his prairie. They really didn't have a choice. "A-Athena have mercy on us… RETREAT! To the Third Temple!" he commanded, leading the last groups of soldiers out.

Just in time, the main hall doors were forced open by almighty punches with the sound of the metal reinforcement bars splitting loudly, spreading iron everywhere, and forcing down the last defense to Taurus' inner sanctum. Behemoth Torak and Golem Treble were the first to enter, totting Bat Brune by the hand of the giant rhino, followed by contingencies of Skeleton Soldiers who quickly rushed to the flanks and began trying to shoot down the fleers, only for the exit gateways to be shut before their arrows could reach them.

The dark army immediately occupied the hall, carefully facing the golden Hercules before them. Scores of bats filled the room, spreading soundwaves of darkness. The men of the Star of Pride stood a cautious distance from Aldebaran, moving into the side halls first, with raised weapons, burning fists, and suspicious looks in their eyes, not trusting the angry bull to be truly calm.

This was it, their first Gold Saint adversary.

And from the looks of it, he was entirely asleep.

One Skeleton was brave enough to slowly approach and tap the horned helmet with his scythe, clinking it loudly. He then quickly stepped away, grasping the weapon, expecting to be blasted to pieces.

Nothing happened and the Skeleton breathed out. "Oh, thank Persephone…He's really asleep!"

Golem Treble chuckled. "Geh, eh, eh, eh, the Nightmare Sonar really works! Even a Gold Saint has fallen to slumber. Lord Lucifer! The Temple is as good as ours!" he announced, giving way.

The Daemon Specter made his way inside, eyeing the second of his conquests. He was satisfied with the success of his strategy, and they would soon likely take over Gemini without resistance as well. Hopefully, the Cancer Saint would be put to sleep by the bats by the time they got to his temple.

And just like that, he could almost claim to have already checkmated five of the first Twelve Houses within the first hour of the Fire Clock. Shion wouldn't have a guaranteed obstacle to him before the Virgo Temple. The Pope pretty much made sure any veteran forces would be crippled by feeding Priam's Civil War. The rest was a matter of waiting for Arles III to get overconfident and initiate the transition of power.

This is what happened when you seized the initiative after a long, careful process of studying the enemy; you'd beat them before ever setting foot on the battlefield. It was surely something the Judges never understood how to do, just blindly attacking whatever targets they pleased and then wondering how they got taken by surprise by the craftiness of Saints.

Even Michael had his moments of naiveté. In some ways in greater magnitude.

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

1751, Lost Canvas War

Pandora's Earthly Castle

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

Taking the shape of a dark cathedral on top of a cylindrical cliff in this era, Pandora's Earthly Castle was filled with music from the concert of harps coming from the mass hall. The melancholic melodies were similar to the tunes of Sphinx Pharaoh, speaking of the darkness one felt when descending to either a deep sleep or death, and aimed to appease the godly painter inhabiting the halls.

These sounds were also soothing to the Specters packing the entry hall, and truly was filled with figures of the renown of the Underworld. Not only were the two surviving Judges, namely Aiacos and Rhadamanthys, present before Prince Michael himself, but so were their respective direct aides, Violate and Kagaho. To them, the sounds of the Gods of Sleep and Death spoke of the quiet world promised by the Emperor, which appealed to all of them in different ways.

However, not everyone in the castle approved of the music. Wyvern Rhadamanthys' fanged teeth gritted with a contained roar as he stood before the Princes of Darkness. Gods or not playing them, to him music was a waste of time. "Those incessant shrills…"

The red-eyed blonde man in Dark Angel Surplice saw him about to explode. "You are welcome to go ask my Master to stop," Michael suggested. "Though he passes a visage of calmness, Alone was very rattled by the battle at Sanctuary. That bloodthirsty Sagittarius Saint almost struck him with an arrow. Master Hypnos seeks only to soothe him."

Garuda Aiacos smiled maliciously, sided by his aide Behemoth Violate. "How humble of you not to make mention of how you saved him from that, Prince."

Both Kagaho and Rhadamanthys' eyes widened. "What?!"

The Celestial Valiant Star chuckled. Little things amused him more than watching Wyvern lose his composure and Aiacos understood few things better than how important the bonds of servitude were. "Did you not hear? The Prince caught the golden arrow aimed at Alone's head and then sunk the bastard Gold Saint down to Eternal Darkness. Impressive, right?"

Rhadamanthys scoffed. "Only that he has even allowed such an opportunity to kill the Emperor to arise!" he twisted, eyeing the Prince. "What good is there to be Princes if they can't even protect him?!"

"What good is there to be Judges if they can't even beat a single Gold Saint?" countered Daemon Lucifer, the Celestial Star of Pride, arriving into the room. "You do not mean to compare Michael's distraction to Minos' colossal failure, do you, Rhadamanthys? Unlike him, and unlike you, the two of us already have Gold Saints of this era on our belts!"

Aiacos and Violate immediately bowed their heads. "Welcome, Prince Lucifer."

Kagaho followed suit. "Lord Pride Star," he simply greeted. The silver-haired warrior was one of the few Specters in the Underworld other than Rhadamanthys whose fierce dedication to the Emperor he respected.

The Celestial Absolute Star welcomed his rival with a nod, but when he saw the Fury Star fuming even hotter, he was unsure if this was the correct approach. "…Let's not bicker. Our counterattack to Sanctuary's vicious oversteps unto the Underworld were successful, but we need to remember that Asmita's seal lives on and we are down one Judge and several strategic Specters."

The more warmongering Prince folded his arms. "Oh, but I think we should bicker just a little bit. It calls attention to these Judges of how worthless they are being in this war!"

Aiacos smiled playfully. "Oh, so burningly he stings…"

But Violate was outraged. "Do not speak of my Lord that way!" The scarred woman demanded, referring to Aiacos. "Not when I had to pull you out of the corpses in Sanctuary's grounds, Prince!"

The Pride Star eyed her venomously and the room darkened. "Do you think I needed your help for that?! And who do you think your Lord's Lord is?!"

She was immediately paralyzed, feeling like her own Shadow Sewing had gripped her throat. "I…"

Aiacos practically pulled her down to her seat, dispelling the crushing sensation. "Don't you speak for me, Violate. I do not permit that," he coldly demanded, silencing, and embarrassing her. "The war is still young, we will have opportunities to ascertain everyone's true worth, isn't that right, Princes?"

Michael nodded in agreement. "Yes, Aiacos, you can be sure my counterpart will cease these provocations. I was told your attack on Asgard was quite successful."

Aiacos smirked confidently. "It was just a bit of up-startness from the snow pissers, nothing a little bombardment from my warship wouldn't cure. Why, Violate even took this off their temples." He then showed off a broadsword belonging to a temple to Siegfried. "Along with the… hostages we captured, they'll think twice before answering Pope Sage's call to war."

Michael smiled. "I knew it was a good call to send you and Violate north. You have a uniquely effective bond with the army. The Specters will now be able to wage war freely with Sanctuary without fearing assaults from that direction."

Lucifer stared at them tensely, his imperial blood boiling upon the mention of the northern kingdom. Asgardians were big historical enemies and traitors to his family. The white hair that many of their kings sported was not a coincidence.

The room quieted down and Violate practically shrunk like a dead flower next to her lord, head lowered to shadow her reddened face. Bennu Kagaho saw this and took mild amusement from it. He hated loudmouths like her who couldn't back their shrieks with actions.

"Unfortunately for those of you more anxious for battle, the conflict may soon be immensely shortened," announced Michael, getting their attention. "Master Hypnos and Lord Thanatos have decided to take a more direct approach to the war. The children of my Master have gotten involved as well. It is likely that from this point, much like the Holy War of the last era, they will simply massacre the Gold Saints themselves to pave a path for Alone to finish the Lost Canvas peacefully."

There was a mix of reactions to this. Aiacos seemed ambivalent, as while he would miss the spectacle of violence that Violate usually provided him, he valued the Emperor's success more. Lucifer seemed displeased but accepting of it, knowing he would likely not have the chance he waited two centuries to exercise his brilliance over the Gold Saints in warfare, but being too knowledgeable of how much Thanatos could make one suffer to protest.

Behemoth Violate raised her brow quizzically. "This can't be it, can it? Prince Michael, please tell us there's something for us to do." She crackled her knuckles loudly, bored. "How about I go storm some of their fortresses near this castle in the meantime? I can make sure there's no remnants left after the Twin Gods are done."

"I appreciate the initiative, Violate –" Michael acknowledged. "- and there will be indeed tasks for you all to complete in the meantime. The castle will continue to be guarded and Hades' other enemies will be subdued. As far as Sanctuary itself goes, though, I'm afraid I can't permit any more offensives like the one Minos tried. It wouldn't be wise."

The warrioress laid back, sighing in resignation. "…Bummer."

Rhadamanthys, however, was predictably vexed about this. "…That's it?! Our part in the main front is just done?!"

Michael nodded. "If all goes well, yes." He then smiled genuinely. "Isn't that fantastic, though? The Gold Saints will be neutralized and we will be able to secure the quiet world we've fought for-"

The wyvern bashed the long pews adorning the cathedral to the side, loudly shattering broken wood all over the brick wall. "…Fantastic?! I should think that missing my chance to personally break the neck of every single decadent Saint to be fantastic?!" The wyvern pointed a finger at the Prince. "Bugger that! You think I should serve Thanatos and Hypnos instead, rather than the God I swore fealty to?!"

Michael's chin lowered in contemplation. "…Yes, you should, Rhadamanthys, because it means we can stop the violence of this world sooner."

"WHERE'S THE GLORY IN THAT?!" the English dragon roared, his dark cosmos making the hall's currents colder. "These wars are more than just about peace, they're also about punishment!"

The light of the candles flickered, intensified by the clashing of different wind cosmos. There was a sudden silence in the room where everyone present in the entry hall processed this. Violate and Kagaho were particularly bewildered, sharing glances of complicit disbelief in that room filled with elites that they could not with their superiors. Aiacos and Lucifer just folded their arms and scoffed at this clash.

No one knew what to make of Prince Michael and his strange philosophy. The Dark Angel had a wild interpretation of the Emperor's vision, seeing Saints as decadent but also ultimately relatable, which angered many, but also being a figure of encouragement and leadership among the Specters. It was no exaggeration to say that the Dark Angel was seen as the One Closest To God in the Underworld in this regard, as his traits were often associated with the benevolent, kind Emperor they all saw in Hades. It was difficult therefore to go against him for the meeker Specters, who mostly ended up admiring Michael as much as they would their God himself.

Therefore Specters and Skeletons saw Michael as, like his star implies, the Absolute interpretation of what a Specter was supposed to be; an Underworld warrior with a classical concern of the Emperor's quest to cleanse the world's canvas anew. Michael saw the best in everyone in the army, from Frog Zelos to Wyvern Rhadamanthys, under the argument that if Hades picked them, it was because they were somehow ultimately purer than any other decadent human.

It was a startling difference with Lucifer, who saw the Specters as pawns in his personal army, rather than brothers. Michael lacked the glory-hounding that characterized not only the Pride Star but the three Judges of the Underworld.

Said attitude was now in display. "And do you seek to punish your brothers with more war for that, Rhadamanthys?" asked Michael, turning his argument on itself. "I understand you all worked very hard for this moment,… but sallying you while Lord Thanatos blasts Sanctuary to pieces is simply not productive. It puts you all at risk without need. My Second Function is to command you all. Letting Specters die needlessly would be against that."

The Behemoth Specter sweated. She was not averse to violence, quite on the contrary, but the man had a point. "Sheesh, when the Prince puts it like that it's hard to argue against it."

Aiacos then chuckled maliciously. "Mm, mm, don't worry, Rhadamanthys will find a way. You cannot argue with results, though… Minos did perform poorly."

The woman was incensed. "That's his own damn fault, though. I'm supposed to go without cracking heads because that bucket-headed freak got himself killed?"

Bennu Kagaho stood up, eyes narrowed indignantly. "…Do you think me so weak-spirited that I would mind that, Prince Michael?"

The blonde Prince staggered. "… No, that is not what I wished to imply."

Lucifer narrowed his eyes at the Dark Angel. "Don't be a fool, Michael, put him in his place before he makes you look like a weakling!"

Kagaho continued, "to you, Prince, it is important to spare our brothers the suffering of war. That is admirable. However, to me, it is even more important that I can lay out my life in the Emperor's service. It is my purpose, my raison d'etre!" he argued. "I was born to protect the Emperor and burn this blasted world's mistakes to the ground. It is why I suffered so much in my normal life, why I lost my little brother; so I could see how unacceptable it was to just let it all be solved without me fighting for it as well."

Violate smirked. "Damn right…"

And despite Lucifer's warning, Michael's cosmos reduced, and the temperature in the room dropped. Worst of all, he tried to reason with the inferior soldier. "… Whether you like it or not, Kagaho, the Twin Gods will now take the helm of the war. If you think subverting the Emperor's desire for peace by fighting even more is the just thing to do, then what could I possibly say to convince you to stay?"

And then, unexpectedly, the Celestial Violent Star raised his chin proudly and touched a spot in his Surplice next to the neck guard. It caused the entire upper body armor piece to disconnect and fall off his body to the ground with a loud clang, undressing the warrior's chest.

Everyone's eyes were drawn to the scars all over Kagaho's torso, particularly the ones caused by Taurus Rasgado's Titan Nova, but also a scorching smear across the upper chest from Phoenix Haisaku's bizarre Hoyoku Tensho move. Even Violate, who was known for her battle marks, was impressed by the amount of damage the Specter took since the war started.

His thumb pointed at his own chest. "You can tell me, Prince, if you really think these wounds are meaningless! That the suffering from my battles for Alone is meaningless! I'm subverting the Emperor's desire for peace? Bullshit!" he cursed at his superior, risking to incur the wrath of not just the Princes, but the Judges as well. "You are denying me my destiny, my chance for inner peace!"

This visibly confounded the blinking Prince. "What are you trying to say?"

"With all due respect, Prince, Judge Rhadamanthys is absolutely correct! What you're suggesting us to do is a disgrace, and I would rather fly out there and cause as much destruction to those bastards in Sanctuary as possible than sitting out just because your teachers have graced us with their presence for once!" the Bennu assured. "We have all trained for decades for this moment… do not commit the cruelty of denying us finality!"

Rhadamanthys chuckled, proud of his follower. "This is what it means to be a true warrior for the Emperor, Prince Michael. Kagaho is merely picking the path of giving Athena's dogs what they deserve."

Michael turned his back to them, ashamed that he would have such people under him. "I will draw or authorize no plan that sends Specters to their doom needlessly. Until Lords Thanatos and Hypnos are done, you are all expressively prohibited from setting foot near Sanctuary. Those that you who disobey, can be expected to have the beating they took from Taurus repeated."

The Celestial Violent Star's eyes froze in anger and his cosmos burned, igniting a black flame. "What?!"

Aiacos chuckled at this. "Oh no, Prince, I think you struck a nerve with him."

"My orders are clear. Those that endanger the army will be disciplined. Maybe then they'll avoid embarrassing the Emperor with shows of petulant immaturity against Gold Saints!" Michael eyed Bennu Specter disdainfully. "If you're concerned that you'll be left out of closure, then I can give you plenty of missions to work out your aggression on, Kagaho. The enemy has a former Skeleton Soldier in their ranks and- "

"SKELETONS?! I trained to kill Gold Saints!" he roared, unaware that the Prince was speaking of Haisaku, the woman who scarred him. With the discarded chest plate turning into a black fire and putting itself back on Kagaho's body, his cosmos aura roared in fury, fists clenching. Prince or not, no one belittled the sacrifices he made to protect Alone.

But his movements were suddenly paralyzed by a surge of electricity that coursed through his body.

"You will do what you're told." Lucifer sneered at him. He then turned to Michael. "And you, Michael, do you think it's funny to let undisciplined upstarts like him raise their fists at you?!"

Kagaho trembled in pain, feeling electricity surging through him and falling to his knees. Breathing heavily and looked up to see Prince Michael's red eyes gazed at him. The archangel only had pity in them, the most painful and humiliating thing they could have. "D-damn you! Don't you look at me l-like that!"

"All of you LEAVE! And take that broken fool with you!" Lucifer ordered the Specters.

Aiacos and Rhadamanthys obeyed and Violate carried Kagaho out. "Come on, you big winged idiot." She mocked him.

Daemon waited until the door of the cathedral closed behind them. "Is this your idea of leadership, Michael? To show weakness to those vultures?! Do you think it doesn't rub off on me in the army's eyes when you act like this?!"

The Celestial Absolute Star folded his arms, seemingly tired. "The men fear you, Lucifer. They would never question your pride. You've made sure of that. Don't act like what I do affects you."

"And how do you think I managed that?! BY SHOWING DOMINANCE!" he stressed. In moments like this, Lucifer often could not believe he had lost the most important fight of his life to this coward. He pointed at his rival. "But you insist on giving that winged loser leeway on these meetings about what's best for the Underworld! No matter what you think we're doing here as Princes, he's your SOLDIER, not an equal!"

The Dark Angel gave him a questioning look.

Just this almost drove Lucifer absolutely mad. Enough for his fist to clench in readiness for a punch.

But his pride demanded he defeated Michael through words. "…Do you think every Specter in the Underworld worships you, Michael?! Haven't you gotten in your head that he's Rhadamanthys' lapdog?! You need to stop daydreaming about the better nature of inferior men! Warriors like Kagaho don't respect idealists like you! They only know the language of strength!"

Michael then pointed the obvious thing out. "The language of strength? That never stopped you from claiming your family's lineage, Lucifer, has it? To you, it seems easy to bring up your old life to go on and on about how you should be sitting on Sage's throne, even though you lost against me, a cur from Munich."

Lucifer froze for a second. "You… You bastard! That's completely different!"

Michael nodded. "Yes, you're right. It is different because the way you go about it is far more outrageous." He punctured, stunning Daemon even harder. "You and I are privileged, Lucian because Hades has chosen us to be the better version of what he envisions in mankind. The superior men, as you would probably call it. Isn't that how you argued your rights against Athena yesterday? By eschewing their lower methods, their hypocrisy in violence, the way they claim the world through strength… rather than birthright?"

The demonically armored Specter couldn't feel more disgusted. The problem was that he wasn't sure if it was because of Michael's soft-heartedness or his own inability to argue back.

The Dark Angel dusted himself off. He didn't even seem mad that Lucifer visibly threatened to punch him, like it was Tuesday for him. This indifference just served to remind Lucifer that more often than not, Michael extended his pity to him as well.

"He may not acknowledge it, but I do. Kagaho is still tearing himself apart like he was in his old life." Michael characterized. "And so are you. We're back from the battlefield and already the virtue you displayed in it is gone for the sake of these… petty ego contests."

Lucifer stepped forward, sensing in the way he put this what Michael hid beneath the surface. "…And what the hell do you care?"

The red-eyed angel answered very matter-of-factly. "I care as I do for every Specter. Like I did when you were in that jail after Judgement Day. All I want for him is for him to blossom as the Specter that I want everyone to be. I just thought that… these battles would have given him a different perspective."

"…Liar!" Lucifer sneered at him. There was no man of eternal forgiveness in the world, even Michael. If faced with the likes of Rhadamanthys, even Dark Angel would lose his patience, for sure. "There's plenty of shit-brained projects among the Specters you could be working on, like that scum Zelos! Only someone as sick in the head with idealism like yourself would come up with such a bullshit excuse to hide what he really wants!"

But it seemed nothing would drive the pacifist over the edge. "Believe what you will." Michael retorted. "I simply admire Behemoth Specters for their protectiveness, is all. They're armored after a beast made by evil Titans, yet Violate would sooner die than let harm come to the one she cares for. The same goes for Sanctuary's Taurus Saints because there's real strength to this…. It's something I wish Kagaho would understand, too." He then saw the Daemon walk away, flipping his cape. "Where are you going? We need to decide our next strategy."

"I already have. Unlike you I don't waste time with meets-and-greets with my subordinates, I just take action! I make our plans reality!" Lucifer assured. "And I will bring Kagaho with me since you care so much for him. I have an activity that will clear his head right up!"

Michael blinked, concerned. "Wait a minute, what are you planning?! What activity?"

The silver-haired spared him a look. "Why, just the sport of kings! Tiger hunting!" he hissed, his cosmos practically dancing as he envisioned his prey.

While he almost raised his hand to halt him, Michael ultimately lowered it, knowing that when Lucian got this look on his face, he wouldn't stop until his objective was fulfilled. Hopefully, Hades would have mercy on his victims.

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

Present

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

Lucifer's fist squeezed at just the memory of this conversation. At the time he should have taken it as the first sign that Michael had been shaken by his encounter with Athena. The Dark Angel was acting even more naïve than before like he wanted to get reacquainted with all the bad ideological habits that the centuries had slowly hewed away from him.

Kagaho had been the same, just as Michael implied at the time. His encounter with Rasgado had shaken the firmness of his brutality and made him vulnerable to Dohko's lies. Taurus Saints had a gift for beating ideas into their enemies, apparently, but this one looked too young, and too asleep, to impart any wisdom onto his enemies.

Lucifer folded his arms mockingly, mimicking the favorite stance of every Taurus Saint. "Good job, Brune. Perhaps you've been of use to me this war after all."

The sorry excuse for a broken-bat plastered his head at his feet. "Y-yes, Prince… I have cursed all in my range to the deepest of sleep! They will NOT a-awake!"

He then beheld the great square they stood on, the battlefield where many enemies had fallen. The air was cold and austere as if coming from great distances in an endless building. As the soldiers spread out and readied themselves to occupy the Temple, Lucifer felt that maybe the small breathing window was good enough to reflect on where they were.

For they were not in a commonplace. "Take awe, my Specters, you stand in a place of wonders, rebuilt time and time again." He mentioned. "From this stand, the great champions of Athena have battled off men and creatures from above our world."

Mandrake Nevil only saw more pillars of the like Greeks were obsessed with. "Isn't this just another temple?"

Alraune Lemon couldn't agree more. "I'm sure it will look fantastic once we flatten it."

There was a chuckle across the battalion. Even Behemoth Torak, a zealot to his masters but hateful of the Saints, had to smile at the idea of tearing down that house of hypocrites.

But the Pride Star was not amused. "…Only fools cringe at the treasures of Earth for having another king's face on it." The Prince argued, silencing his forces with the slide of his red gaze across them. Taking lead, he then signaled for the Skeletons to light the torches of the large room. "Behold, the Great Changing Hall of Daedalus!"

The oil of the many pedestals was then set alight by flickers and sparks of cosmos and their orange light flared out, filling the massive space guarded by the Taurus Saint.

And the Specters of the Pride Star awed.

Everywhere they looked where there was previously darkness, great pillars of different rocks and patterns formed row after row, column after column, supporting the wide ceiling from where underneath some of the grand battles in the defense of Sanctuary's abode took place, but also where every humble child of Taurus bled and broke a bone on. They stretched beyond the reach of the humble lights, which in turn yet touched the walls, revealing rows and rows of massive carvings of huge warriors in horned armor stepping over fallen foes, wrestling them down, standing gallantly in their way, and generally triumphing over various beasts and adversities, telling an endless story going back to before the great civilizations of Man.

And tall was the ceiling of these halls that the carved Trajan pillars reached up to, creating an even greater sense of imponent epics to the walls and pillars and tales told in rock. Cracked was the flooring of the Second House, telling tales of iron stomps of gods of bulls clad in thick glinting gold. Humbling was the clear signs of relentless reparation in each and every corner of every tile, brick, and base of every piece of the room as if the songs of the warriors and laborers that made those Halls were still heard across time and memory, right then and there.

Named after the designer of the minotaur labyrinth of Crete, it was the inner sanctum of the Temple where every rock had a different memory of battle to them, for the bull was the most punished of all the Zodiacs, and patterns of paths were drawn with great care on the ground in-between them like the zigzagged roads of the Minotaur and were endlessly cracked by the quakes of golden bellowing.

Behemoth Torak took one of the torches and danced it in the air, wide-eyed at the immensity that stood before him. Not even the innards of the Palace of Antenora had this beauty to them. He touched the marble in disbelief. "…Saints made this?"

Daemon could not blame their shock, for Specters lived in large part in ignorance. "They are corrupt, but not without greatness. The annals of antiquity stand around you. Even greater marvels await you up the stairs, inspired into the minds of artisans by the Gods themselves," he warned. "Take it in, Specters of the Pride Star, for this shall be the realm of your King."

And so many of the Specters did. It was a dissimilar sight to the innards of the Aries Temple, which looked borderline virgin as if the Aries Saint ever even let fighting take place near his elaborate workshops. Instead, this place was a true house to the legacy of the Ancient World, where war was common, Saints were mighty and heroism spoke of different virtues. Explaining the name, the pillars, like Trajan's, changed patterns engraved on them almost one-by-one, as if countless artisans had worked on them over the ages, reflecting how often the House had to be repaired.

The sleeping Saint standing at the center, therefore, looked surrounded not by a simple building, but by the memories of gallant predecessors of his and their clashes, which pressed down on his armored shoulders, in turn thick as if designed to withstand the weight of responsibility rested on Taurus to honor his ancestors.

Lucian also viewed himself as its rightful Prince returned home, and thus he was sensible to the meaning behind the place they stood on, for it would by morning be his. He would be sure his Specters understood it as well, for it only contributed to the magnitude of his rise to power. From Halls like these, his knights would sally out, carrying the shields of the owl and the spears of the mountain down on the dark, unenlightened world.

But these things were forgotten by Sanctuary's occupants, who saw Athena's land as a place not of greatness or of the light that burned the darkness of ignorance away, but a place of hiding from the darkness, keeping its fire a secret. He doubted the Taurus Saint himself realized the history that the Hall of Daedalus breathed or that he would pass it down to his followers, limiting it to lessons of statuesque resistance to melancholy.

Lucian, however, would restore it. He would empty Sanctuary of Arles' cowards and fill each Temple with new champions worthy of true celebration, like the Greatest Generation of Arles I. He would holster flags of the Pride Star, and of the blessed laurels of the Emperor, and of the great demon of Hades, who would carry out and enforce his law, defeat every God and incarnate every glorious aspect of each Zodiac.

His red eyes then analyzed Aldebaran, facing the first true champion against him in that war since Libra Dohko. He noticed the tall stature contrasting with the young, underdeveloped features of the faces, which in turn contrasted again with a thick unibrow that would make Rhadamanthys hiss like a cat. It shocked him that the first guardian that Shion put before him looked so young. Has the prolonged peace driven the Pope passive? That fool. Tonight, Daemon Lucifer would remind him of what fear is.

Soon enough, he felt on his skin the heat of the cosmos burning off the armor and the faint sound of a bull's bellowing, clashing energies with the Daemon's. It was a familiar sensation and Daemon's mind was transported back two hundred and twenty-five years, to that night he battled Rasgado. While the Daemon feared not Taurus Saints, their Great Horn was a truly fast technique and it was likely that, had this Gold Saint been awake, he would target a strategic False Specter before even Daemon Lucifer could do anything about it. He would pay the price of it with his life, but so would Lucifer with an important asset.

His initial plan was to have Deep Amphion deal with Taurus, as Lucifer knew how vulnerable Taurus Saints were to sensorial attacks, as well as underwhelming deaths. The failed attack on Andromeda forced him to improvise, but Nightmare Sonar was equally useful to Deep Fragrance.

Sphinx Neferti saw Behemoth disappointed by this. "This is good, Torak," she argued. "The less we battle to claim victory, the better."

The black-haired warrior grumbled in frustration but took a moment to consider it. "… Perhaps you're right," he admitted. It was foolish to think he was upset over having one less obstacle.

Golem Treble went ahead and blasted the doorway out towards Gemini to pieces, revealing the next set of stairs. He stood cautiously by it and his covered face peeked up at the 9th Temple, expecting golden arrows to come down. The Temple shone with a strange light, but he wasn't getting immediately sniped from it. "…I think that coward in the 9th Temple stopped firing for good."

"Then we're advancing right away! Treble, Mandrake, Lemon, lead the troops up the Gemini Temple!" Daemon Lucifer ordered, to which the three Specters obeyed, forming columns by the exit in preparation for marching out. "Ainsel, stay in the air and have them warned whenever you feel a spike from the 9th Temple!"

The blue-haired flier nodded. "Yes, prince. Also, perhaps you'd delight to know that Troll's party has reached Death Queen Island. They found an occupant but quickly dispatched him. Moreover, I'm currently at the Aries Temple and Cyclops has encountered the enemy's reinforcements. The gate Neferti set up did its job and they seem stuck at the entrance." He relayed. "Just like you predicted… it is Gemini and Andromeda. They probably wanted to save their Taurus friend."

The silver-haired Prince tapped his fingers on his folded arm. This was all good news, but something else concerned him. "… But what about the damn Aries?! I refuse to believe he'll stay off this fight!" he asked, not really expecting an answer. "I want that pink fairy armor secured! Order Cyclops to prioritize the defense of the Temple, but if the Andromeda tries anything stupid, he's to capture his armor!"

"Yes, Prince. He has his chain stuck on my webs, though, so I doubt he'll go far without it…"

"Occupy the Temple! Flush out anyone hiding in it!" the Prince commanded, causing scores of Skeletons not assigned for the next attack to rush up the floors and down the basements, turning over furniture and breaking through locks.

Dullahan Hedron approached the sleeping Taurus, poking him. "What do we do with this guy, Prince? I can cut off his head if you want me to."

Lemon whipped the floor. "I can do it without a mess."

Cait Sith Palug sharpened his claws. "I can claw out his heart, instead."

Sphinx Neferti drew her instrument. "I can make the heart come out on its own."

Precaution took priority in his mind. He knew Taurus Saints had their own tricks up their sleeves. "First chain him up." he ordered. "Don't touch him, though… even if he's asleep, that armor is definitely not. Neferti, move along with the others. I doubt your music will do much if Nightmare Sonar is still out."

The Sphinx Specter nodded, conforming herself to this, and moved along. While the Skeletons hesitated, they took several thick chains brought for their own equipment needs and wrapped the Gold Saint top to bottom, turning him into a big metal mummy. They tugged the metal until it wouldn't budge. It also seemed as if the armor wouldn't just blast out of it on its own, as feared.

Lucifer then seriously thought over all of the options given to him by his Specters. This was their first Gold Saint capture. They actually caught one with their pants down and now one of the 12 Golden Armors was in their hands. However, even if Nightmare Sonar had worked, it wasn't wise or useful to leave this Gold Saint behind while they pressed onwards.

His mind inevitably turned to how he could use this capture to gain even more advantage in the war. Grotesque options like parading the Saint's corpse on a flag pole came to mind. Having Golem catapult it back at the 9th Temple to teach Sagittarius a lesson in war was also considered. Perhaps simply keeping him as a valuable hostage, though, was the best option. It was always good to have a backdoor in case some sort of setback happened in the upper temples.

Paranoia made his lips curve down. "Brune, reinforce the Nightmare Sonar as much as you can."

Bat stepped up before the chained Taurus and burned his cosmos, making the bats in the air screech out stronger waves than ever before. Aldebaran's head seemed to slump even deeper within the mountain of chains he was under. "It's done, P-Prince!"

But the Devil felt the eyes of the horned bull on him, not through projections of aura, but through the invisible sensations of the cosmos itself. It brought him memories of the bellowing bull that blasted him with Titan Nova two centuries earlier, an untamed beast that cared not for how profane a creature you were; it would crush you for stepping into his domain.

He's supposed to be asleep.

So why did the Pride Star feel like the bull was dragging its paw on the grass, ready to charge?

"TURN IT UP! I want my hostage secured!" Lucifer roared, startling the Bat. "Do you think you can keep one of the twelve guardians asleep with this weak screech?! If he wakes up the second I walk past him, you're getting turned into dust! Understand?!"

The green-armored Specter panicked and charged his cosmos as much as possible. The Specters exchanged looks, bewildered by the Prince's demands. The Taurus Gold Saint was clearly under Brune's spell. There was no need to push the guy so hard that they could feel their helmets itching at their heads with the increased resonation.

Traumatized by his punishments, though, the Bat was obedient and practically raised his hands right at the chained bull's face, making sure the curse penetrated deep into his slumbering mind.

The young armored boy slept on peacefully.

His ears twitched, taking in even more powerful soundwaves.

"Mm, mm, mm…" a mental voice of deep, male tone echoed in the room, alerting the Specters. "Twelve Specters and over eighty Skeletons…Is this all?"

The force of Specters recoiled. "What was that?!" Behemoth roared, tensing his body.

Their eyes searched all over, not recognizing the source. "Who's there?!" one Skeleton asked.

Another similarly deep voice. "You stand in the Halls of Daedalus and you know not who welcomes you?"

Many crossbows and swords were armed and aimed, with the Skeletons turning back to back. "SHOW YOURSELVES!"

Even the Specters seemed nervous, not understanding the sources of these sounds. "I can't feel any cosmos around us…" Lemon hiss, tendrils ready. "Who would stay awake with all these soundwaves anyway?!"

"Those who have left their bodies, perhaps?" Lucifer wondered, eyeing the engravings of fallen warriors around them. "Or is this a trick from Virgo?"

Yet again new voices were heard, but this time, the whole temple seemed to brighten up. "The House of Taurus is guarded by Taurus, Specters, not by the wise men of Aestrea."

The entire House then brightened up with golden cosmos, like when the Papal Guards were blessed at Aries with the vigor of the Gold Saints, and more voices drew the eyes and ears of the invaders. "And it shall be by the hand of Taurus Aldebaran that you shall be crushed, slaves of Hades."

Lucifer scoffed amusedly. He had not expected this. "So the spirits of old need to come to the defense of today's Gold Saints? How pathetic…" he mocked, before calling out loud. "Perhaps among you is the lost spirit of the fool I've murdered, Rasgado?! Or perhaps not, for he would know among you that Daemon Lucifer fears not the House of Taurus, nor do Specters fear the dead!"

A burst of confident laughter then filled the halls as the cosmos kept shining brighter, heating up the floor beneath their feet. The eyes of the many warriors engraved in the halls shined like stars. "Mm, mm, mm, mm! I welcome the challenge, Specters! Let the bellow of the bull be heard, then!"

Lucifer's 7th sense snapped and his eyes widened. "What?!..."

Behemoth pointed at his men, fearing some sort of incoming curse. "Break down these walls and pillars before we're trapped!"

The Daemon rushed to Aldebaran. "NO, FOOLS! YOU'RE BEING TRICKED!" he roared, charging his cosmos and sprouting a spear of lightning. "BAT, GET AWAY FROM THAT GOLD SAINT!"

Bat Brune staggered. "W-what-"

What followed then happened within nano-seconds.

Aldebaran's whole body then brimmed with cosmos, his hair flowing up. The chains shook against the massive power building up underneath them and his aura cast rays of light through them. The stardust in them lit up, absorbing the cosmos, but the escalation of power was too much as the burned up.

Then they shattered, breaking into tiny burning metal pieces that shot in all directions in slow motion, unleashing the shining warrior of howling bull armor underneath, whose folded arms ignited like swords of light and split apart, ominously aiming palms at his enemy. The Specters all seemed to step around in slow motion, even their fastest ones, for nothing could outspeed what would happen next.

The aura around Aldebaran projected the mad bull of Crete for all to see, whose thunderous hoof crashed the ground in eruptions of light, and the warrior called out his move. "GREAT HORN!" and the hands struck the air at the speed purest to light among all the Saints of Gold, creating a blast of raw power in the form of a great ray, like the wrath of Athena herself given brute form, its target the most dangerous of Specters.

Bat Brune screamed in horror, seeing the corridor of gold that shook the ground swallow him like a wave of fire. Waves upon waves of cosmos ran through his body, incinerating his Surplice, and the brute power of Aldebaran's simple move carried through like a mighty locomotive, instantly breaking his body to pieces and washing the rest out of existence with its heat, killing the Bat Specter.

The attack carried on, not satisfied with obliterating a single adversary, and just its adjacent waves of force pushed many Skeletons off their feet against the walls and pillars of the halls, tributing the power of the Gold Saint. It crossed right through the room like a beam from Zeus itself, aimed at the leader of the Specters that tried to save Brune, and Lucifer grinded his feet to the ground, seeing the charging bull. In the few micro-moments he had, his mind focused on meeting the challenge, and a horned demon manifested in his own aura as his hands, drowned in masses of darkness, collided with Great Horn.

The released force was like that of two mighty stags matching horns and the image of two-horned beasts colliding heads was immediately projected. Lucifer roared, his impressive physical power matching that of a young Taurus Saint, and knowledgeable on how to handle this typical Gold Saint move, his hands pulled it up as hard as he could, tossing the force of the bull of light up the air. It exploded onto the ceiling, stabbing the roof of the Taurus House with a blast of golden light that made large parts of the rocky top fall down on them and the entire Temple shook as the Specters and Skeletons scurried around for safety.

Lucifer hissed furiously, disbelieving how he fell to such a simple trick. "B-Blast you!..."

Lemon gritted his teeth in disbelief at the pile of ash before Aldebaran. "We lost our damn trump card, you fool of a Prince!"

"QUIET!" Lucifer roared, not daring to have his authority questioned. Things were far from over. He then faced the Gold Saint before him. "How?!... How did you awaken from the curse?!"

As the last pebbles fell around him, the young man in bull armor smiled nervously, his hands smoking. He had, indeed, fallen into a deep slumber. In fact, he was having a very pleasant dream of being on the beach. However, Master Daniel had taught him the power of the 6th sense, of instinct, and in his dream, Aldebaran not only knew he was committing a great neglect, but that a very dangerous foe stood before him.

In his dream, he searched for the source of his drowsiness, focusing on the feelings of luring to rest he felt, for these were not natural in him, and before long his dream turned into a nightmare when he saw himself held in the wings of a giant bat creature, facing its saliva-filled maws. Then the mighty bull of Crete showed up to stomp it and on its back, many riders of former ages of the House shouted at him to man up and face the enemy.

Perhaps Aldebaran could explain that. Perhaps he could sound like a lunatic in front of a huge crowd of uninvited guests by saying the ancestors he entered in communion with awoke his spirit from the deep dark dream of Nightmare Sonar.

But instead, he chose to mock them. "…Do you not come from the underworld, Specters? You should know from Cerberus that closed eyes mean not slumber!"

The reeling of crossbows, grasping of scythes, and tensing of Surplice gauntlets was immediately heard all around him, along with angry sneers from the insulted Specters. Aldebaran only chuckled, trying to put up a front of confidence, but quickly realizing that he was in much more terrible odds than he initially conceived.

The enemy leader, who carried a Surplice more terrifying than anything he had seen in books or drawings, seemed particularly mad. He had even deflected Great Horn perfectly, which was not ideal for Aldebaran. What kind of scary foe was he up against?

Fingers clad in Damascus laid out and sprouted sets of lightning spears that crackled brightly. "Perhaps I'll correct my mistake personally, then… and put you to sleep forever!"

Aldebaran's arms merely folded, faced with these odds. He could barely even believe that all of this was really happening. He was guarding the temple one moment, happily conversing with Aiolos, and now he was surrounded by deadly enemies. He sweated, realizing that he would likely not live to see morning.

The optimism and gallantry instilled in him by Daniel, however, burned much hotter than the glaciers of fear. He merely charged his cosmos once more and hoped the one casualty he caused would make the difference. "Well… you've underestimated the Bull, Specters... Before any of you pass, I will let you know the strength of the great beast of Sanctuary!"

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

Aries Temple

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

The shock of Great Horn resounded throughout the entire mountain, startling Specter and Saint alike, as a bright sudden flash of gold flared out from the far off innards of the Taurus Temple.

Cyclops felt a spike of cosmos and turned his head, sweating. "Ah… Brune!" he realized, sensing the cosmos of their strategic Bat Specter gone. His teeth gritted. "(BLAST! This isn't good… Lemon, what's going on up there?!)"

"(Our precious prince got careless and lost us a major strategic asset, that's what.)" Lemon immediately snapped. His smug smile was felt across houses through his messages. "(Turns out he's as flawed as everyone else.)"

"(HOW THE FUCK DID THAT HAPPEN?!)"

"(Does it matter? All you should care is that this is more than enough evidence that he's not really paying that much attention, isn't it?)" Lemon lured, referring to Cyclop's fears of reprisal for potentially going after Cerah. "(So kill Gemini and go after his princess, Balgo… You will never get another chance.)"

Shinta's eyes widened as he maintained Rolling Defense. He also saw the Cyclops Specter and his men disconcerted. "That was… Aldebaran! I'm sure of it! Saga, he's okay!" he celebrated.

The Gemini Saint recalculated the situation. "He's awake?... That means-"

"KILL THEM!" Cyclops roared, maddened, making the Skeletons make even more attempts to penetrate the perfectly cast Rolling Defense. He took his fist and charged his earthly cosmos. "Smash them under these stairs! POLYPHEMUS KNUCKLE!" and the red gauntlet punched the air, releasing massive shockwaves that shook the entire Aries Temple and collided with the Saints' metal barrier.

Shinta felt the force of the blow through his weaponry and screamed, his feet sinking into the stairs as their marble crumbled beneath them. He gritted frustratedly, as a staircase was not the perfect flooring for using Rolling Defense, and soon enough some bolts, accelerated to super speed, managed to start squeezing beneath small gaps and strike the floor by their feet.

"POLYPHEMUS KNUCKLE!" Cyclops shouted once more, blasting the Saint's again and recoiling them further back. He absolutely had to stop them from getting into the stairs. With an endurance boosted by the cosmos shared amongst the False Specters, he would make sure these Saints didn't get a moment to breathe! "I might not be strong enough for a Gold Saint, but I sure as hell can stop you from touching Neferti's tomb! Get ready to be buried! POLYPHEMUS KNUCKLE!"

And yet a third blow blasted them back further, with marble pieces beginning to pile up over them and the ground growing increasingly uneven. He burned his pink cosmos frustratingly, which grew hotter and hotter. If his Triangle End wasn't stuck, he would lash those Skeletons right off the balcony.

The Gemini's decision, seeing this, was immediate and he reached over and snapped Shinta's stretched offensive chain.

"SAGA?!"

He then began pulling Shinta back. "We're falling back, Andromeda! Leave the Triangle End!" he ordered, surprising the green-head. "NOW!"

Rolling Defense was dropped and the two Saints immediately super-sped away, dodging an array of lightning-fast bolts immersed with dark energy and taking cover behind the rocky edges of the mountain.

The triumphant laughter of Cyclops could be heard from there. "THAT'S RIGHT! RUN! WE WILL FIND YOU BY MORNING!"

Ainsel stared down at the fleers. "The Prince wants that armor, Cyclops… we shouldn't have let them get away."

Balgo sweated. "Um…I'm sure we'll get that Bronze Saint, Lord Ainsel."

The more powerful Specter's helmet antennae then twitched, sensing a powerful cosmic vigration. His eyes turned up to the 9th temple, where a growing shine could be seen.

The giant noticed his preoccupation. "Lord Ainsel?"

Taking flight, the blue haired Specter explained himself. "Sagittarius is up to something again. I must find out what. Keep the watch, Balgo." He instructed, before flying off towards the Taurus House.

Meanwhile, off the limits of the Golden Zodiac, Saga irked, frustrated with not only by being embarrassed in the encounter, but for costing them their element of surprise. The enemy had prepared well for the eventuality of a rear attack.

Shinta's expression darkened, realizing the consequences of this. "Saga, what have you done?! The enemy curse is down! We have to get to Aldebaran now more than ever!""

The blue-haired teenager sweated. Aldebaran was his friend, too, even his neighbor. "Exactly, Shinta… A vulnerability has been created, which means the enemy will be on their guard even more. I think we should take the shortcut you suggested. It's better if we try to rescue Aiolia and Deathmask, at the very least. As for Aldebaran… may Athena be with him."

Faint tears were felt in Shinta's eyes. This was so frustrating. When he felt the cosmos spike in the Taurus Temple, his hopes had gotten up, but Saga was right in that it didn't change the fact that nearly a dozen Specters were up at the Taurus House. His pink-gauntleted fist tightened angrily. He deeply wanted to go help. All he could think about were the difficult training moments he endured together with the Brazilian Saint under Lord Daniel.

Saga got up, sensitive to Shinta's pain, "This is not the time, Shinta. Our attempt to enter Aries will not go to waste, though. We now know more about the enemy's readiness and we still have a knight on the way to checkmate these pawns. He will be fast enough to overwhelm them."

Shinta nodded. "Right." and he then searched the ground around him.

The Gemini was curious. "What are you doing?"

Shinta then found and took a rock slab on the ground. Burning cosmos on his finger, he began writing on it and left it in a spot where Lance would not be able to miss it as soon as he charged into the Aries Temple and departed. "Okay, I'm ready, let's go!"

Saga took a moment to read the inscription in Greek.

Το μονοπάτι προς τον Κριό είναι ανοιχτό. Κάνε επίθεση, Πήγασε.

(The path to Aries is open. Charge the enemy, Pegasus.)

A wily smirk filled Gemini's lips and followed the Bronze. At the very least, this would warn Lance that a path was opened in the rock slab for him. Being a much faster striker and presumed to be defeated by the Specters, he would surely make better use of it than the two of them.

The Saint of Andromeda clenched his pendant anxiously, praying for his friend's swift arrival. He also felt an uncharacteristic rage swelling inside him at the thought of Aldebaran's fate that doubled his determination to stop this vicious invasion. Maybe they wouldn't get everything they wanted out of this, but the enemy surely wouldn't either.

He then rushed off to guide Saga towards the secret passage to Aiolia's Temple, his eyes glancing occasionally at Taurus with a heart full of sorrow.

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

Taurus Temple

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

The Skeletons and Specters moved around, surrounding the lone Gold Saint and aiming their weapons at him. Aldebaran sweated nervously but steeled his smirk, refusing to show weakness, and his cosmos burned again, igniting his arms warningly.

His eyes were on the enemy Specter leader, whose eyes reminded him of Lance's. More importantly, the cosmos he felt off his javelins was startling, like he held one of Aiolos' Lightning Bolts in each hand. "Mm, mm, I might break a sweat this time! Who do I have the pleasure of crushing tonight?"

The dense miasma of darkness splashed off Lucifer's aura to his own feet as his energy charged. He was not one to miss an opportunity to introduce himself. "… You stand before Daemon Lucifer, Celestial Star of Pride, and his Spect-"

"Never heard of you!" Aldebaran simply bit, emphasizing the 'never' part. The interruption alone seemed to make the silver-head's brow twitch ever so slightly. "But then again I don't really study the history of uppity graveyard watchers! I just break every bone in their body!"

The javelins spun gracefully in Lucifer's hands. He should have expected this stonewalling attitude. "…Alright, then…" his eyes then picked a target on the Gold Saint, something to humble him with. "Since you're the first Gold Saint to face me this war, you'll be the first to learn to fear me!"

But young Aldebaran only laughed! "HA, HA, HA, HA, HA… I like intruders to know the name of the reason they had to high tail out of Sanctuary!" His aura then swelled highly, manifesting the Taurus constellation, intimidating the encircling Specters.

Many of them stepped back and aimed their crossbows. "STAND DOWN, FREAK!"

Cait Sith Palug sweated and got behind Torak, hissing. They all feared the collateral damage of what Lucifer would do. "That fool; does he think he's up against any other Celestial?!"

Their fear only filled the Taurus with confidence. "Well, Celestial Star of Pride, I'll take the courtesy of introducing myself back!" he assured, beginning to unfold his arms. "My name is ALDEBARAN OF TAURUS, and this is the fastest attack in Sanctuary, my GREAT HO-"

The colossal beam of blue light fired near instantaneously off Lucifer's hand toss with a deafening thoom-ing sound, blinding the Taurus Saint with its light as it flew right at his head, freezing the Taurus Saint in the nano-second it traveled right through the Temple in. All Aldebaran felt was a sudden spike of heat as intensely focused electrical cosmos collided and burned right through the metal of his Gold Cloth.

The Specters gawked.

The javelin collided on far-off ends of the Taurus Temple, exploding into an enormous geyser of blue light that blasted apart countless pillars of the halls of Daedalus and filled the air around them with sparks as big as lightning bolts that coursed away instantaneously.

The metal, curved object span rapidly in the air, going up, up and up before coming right down, and the left horn sliced right off Aldebaran's helmet stabbed the floor with a tense ringing of its thick gold.

The halls went silent as the echoes of the sliced horn ended. Aldebaran stood there, still frozen. His eyes were as wide as they had ever been and his hands still burned with the cosmos of an unfired Great Horn. His large heart beated tensely as his brain realized what happened.

The Prince's bloodthirsty red eyes tensed as it picked the target for his second hurl. "I got bored of you lagging around…But those horns of yours are really shoddy, aren't they?" he inquired. "I didn't even pack enough power in that one to really damage a Gold Cloth…."

After the awe of what happened subsided, the Skeletons and Specters nervously cackled before outright exploding in laughter at the Taurus Saint, who frankly felt a bit embarrassed at the emasculating symbology of what just happened.

"If I live through this, I swear to the Goddess, I'm gonna kill Mu!" Aldebaran thought. He had been asking for ages the Lemurian to scan his Cloth for weaknesses. "Alright, then, time to get REALLY serious!"

The laughing Specters then recoiled when Aldebaran's aura flared up. Many of them gasped worryingly and stepped away as if the golden light burned to the touch. Normally they wouldn't attempt such a thing from someone to get over such humiliation by brute force seriously, but people with the 7th sense could often feel the embarrassment from others in their cosmos, hot an emotion as it was.

Still, Aldebaran could feel the difference in odds. His sense of confidence was not as tempered as Lord Daniel's and therefore being surrounded by Specters, even pretending his horn didn't get sliced off just now, was still difficult to laugh at.

It was at this moment of reluctance that Aldebaran then felt the chill beneath his feet. He spared a very brief glance down and saw the floor whitening with a layer of frost so thin it was nearly imperceptible in the dark. "Camus…?"

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

House of Sagittarius

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

The winged archer's whole body burned with bright golden cosmos as he aimed his arrow slightly upwards. It tensed against the metal cord of his gold bow as his eyes narrowed at the stars, his 7th sense pushed to the max.

"Come on!..." he urged to no one. The heat of the weapon in his hands was becoming unbearable, but so was the ticking of the clock on Aldebaran.

Then the moment he waited for arrived as Camus' cosmos suddenly spiked. "I found him! The enemy leader! His cosmos darkens the frost of Aurora Stream like frozen sludge!" he acclaimed, before relaying all the information he felt back to Aiolos. "These are the positions!"

Immediately, Aiolos' 6th sense spiked with a huge influx of visual information that briefly blinded him! To his amazement, the last ping sent to him from Camus' House transmitted directly all the precise layout of what Aurora Stream felt. He saw the hoplites rushing up the stairs to Gemini, he could swear he even saw someone lurking around in the Third House. He sensed Deathmask scurrying around the Cancer Gold Cloth to get things ready to meet up with Aiolia. He also felt his brother being frantically explained what was going on by his helpers at the 5th House.

This was all vital information that the enemy's jamming had been denying or partially obfuscating up until now, but Camus' move allowed him to briefly perceive it. This brief flash of where everyone was all he needed. His cosmos now burned past the point of no return, announcing to Shura that his part was now to come as well.

The lives of the inhabitants of the lower Houses hinged on this. Aldebaran's life, as well as that of his brother, were on the line.

He could not fail. "Athena, show me the way!" he prayed. "Show me the path to the enemy's black heart and make my arrow true as a bolt! For this brief moment, we will unite our powers for you!"

The eleven remaining Houses of Gold ignited once more like they had when the strength of Gold Saints was shared with their lesser men. One by one they brightened up like torches, carrying the blessings of the Goddess to those who hoped for a brighter future. Aiolos himself was practically a torch of his own, showing off a cosmos uncommon even among his peers, that of a spirit of unrelenting determination to protect his brethren and show them the way to a brighter future with the glint of his arrows.

The Sixth was the first to voice its spell. "Athena, cloak our skies! Take my strength and blind the enemy for a brief moment!" Shaka called, projecting his own powerful jamming field to obfuscate Aiolos' attack. "Let the enemy know not that the sword of fire rains upon him till after his heart is pierced!"

The tenth House above his also burned very strongly. To onlookers, a bright, sharp shine could be seen in it. "And may that sword shine through the air! Athena, bless my strength, for it shall be only used for the sake of others!" Shura's voice boomed.

The eleventh house followed, and with it, the stars of Aquarius seemed to spark strongly. "And let not your own Houses be the impediment to justice, but a path made clear for the righteous blow of us all!" Calculating the path, Camus then pictured the roof he had to target and a rainbow-like flash was then seen from the innards of the Aquarius Temple before a massive beam fired out, arching through the air like an aurora flare.

Shura saw it from his temple as his arm practically became a claymore of light, like his Master's Tempest Slash. "Athena, bless Aiolos' Arrow! Let it fly with the sharpness of the blade you entrusted upon me!" he begged, aiming his arm at Camus' flare. He ran out of the temple and swung his arm as hard as he could, crying out his attack. "HOLY SWORD: EXCALIBUR!" and the blade-sharp blast fired out in the shape of a massive sword of light trailing through theirs.

Soon, it will dissipate, its range limited, before ever coming close to following Camus' flare.

Time slowed down.

Aiolos was there at the Tenth Temple, his bow ready to fire at it, and his heartbeat fast with what was at stake. Suddenly, in the darkness he felt coming from the Second House, he saw it in the light of the goddess; the mighty bull of Crete standing off to a terrifying, demonic monster made of shadow and sparks in a battlefield full of memories of old.

And as he aimed at its core, the cry in his heart came out his voice! "ATHENA, make our golden cosmos BURN! AND MAY A BEAM OF LIGHT PIERCE THROUGH THE ENEMY'S HEART!" and his fingers released the butt of the arrow, firing it off at a speed pure to light. "ORION'S RAY!"

To the amazement of everyone who saw it, Aiolos' arrow struck the fired Excalibur beam, but rather than exploding along with it into nothingness, it fused together with Shura's attack into a glowing ray of light shaped like a massive arrow with a sword-like tip that arched down on the Golden Zodiac, following Camus' rainbow flare.

Said flare which arced down on the Taurus House, aiming to rip a path open.

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

Taurus House

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

Aldebaran watched as the frost at their feet thickened ever so slightly, cracking under their weight and body heat.

It was nearly nothing. Not even the Specters with their powerful dark senses seemed to notice. Were it not for Aldebaran's familiarity with the Aquarius Saint's powers, he probably wouldn't have, either. Still, this strange outreach cleared his mind of fear and the young warrior did not seem the least bit faltered anymore, reminded of who stood behind him.

Experienced with Taurus Saints, Lucifer smiled at the appearing image of the bellowing bull. "That's more like it…Aldebaran, was it? Perhaps now you'll be worth a quick death!"

Aldebaran's eyes tensed. "Who do you think I am, beyond that name, Specter? Someone to just quickly roll over and die at your first attack?!" he roared, his voice strengthened by his burning cosmos. "I am the Saint of Taurus… This is the House of TAURUS! And that Bat Specter is just the first of the casualties I'll inflict on you!"

Lucifer laughed. "Yes! NOW we got a warrior in our hands! Step away, fools, if you don't want to get caught in the blast!" he warned his Specters, who all moved away from Aldebaran, and the Prince raised his remaining javelin, ready to fire. His senses locked on Aldebaran's chest. In the previous war, Lucifer had penetrated it with his Dark Revenge Fist. The prince could visualize the same spot in the same armor, two centuries earlier, and he would repeat the feat with a much more challenging move. "Say goodbye!"

Aldebaran burned his cosmos, ready to face his fate with a battle roar that would ignite the skies! "HEAR THE BELLOW OF THE BULL! GREAT HORN!"

Lucifer tensed his body and arched forward, ready to counter Great Horn and pierce the bull's heart like a matador! "Come and get it, FOOL! LIGHTNING FA-"

"LORD LUCIFER!" Papillion Ainsel shouted from outside!

Lucifer stopped his movement with his grinding foot, startled when suddenly the entire temple shook and the ceiling of the Great Hall of Daedalus was blasted open by a cold explosion of rainbow light like the blast of Aurora Execution!

Everyone had but nano-seconds to make their moves, if they had the speed for it!

Aldebaran instinctively jumped back, firing off his Great Horn to propel himself faster! The Specters shouted, all taken by surprise, and many hurried even further away in the little time they had, but just as they thought this was what Ainsel referred to, Lucifer looked up and froze as his eyes and 7th sense saw and felt the colossally powerful sword of light flying right at him!

In fractions of moments, his cosmos charged to its maximum levels, causing even the strength imbued in his left arm by Michael to ignite in a fire along with Lucifer's native electrical sludge of an aura, and his hand instinctively rose and threw his remaining thunder javelin drenched in the Flaming Sword, forming a combined cosmos attack to try to explode the Gold Saint attack in the air! He gritted his teeth, feeling it was too late to avoid the resulting massive explosion from Orion's Ray!

Just as he fired it, a huge hulking body in blue armor tackled down the Prince, and the blue and gold attacks collided above all of their heads! The impact was one of the most powerful that even Lucifer in his long life of battle had felt, like a meteor exploding with the force of countless megatons of dynamite. The entire Temple was filled with light and the explosion consumed everything around Lucifer with its brute force of cosmos, erupting the Second House with a geyser of cosmos that reached for the skies and shook the mountain.

Pillars were annihilated, atomized, broken, or shattered. The ground with Minoan carvings was instantly cratered before deeper layers of ground compressed, cracked, and broke apart by burning rays and maddening kinetic force. Behemoth Torak's huge body was smashed against his own leader and the Specters screamed, launched into the air back against the walls. The quakes went on and on, with cracks and fissures going through the remaining floor and up the temple's walls and even the stairs surrounding the House fractured.

This, however, was just from the initial blast, as the Excalibur-drenched arrow, hit by the flaming lightning bolt, broke its power off in every direction, spreading shrapnel of Shura's all-slashing holy sword everywhere, ripping apart the ground even further, slicing many Skeletons in twain and even grazing Aldebaran's armor in several spots, whose legendarily thick gold plates had to resort to their sheer mass to deflect the damage.

Powerful air currents also burst everywhere, especially as the energy geysered upwards like a nuclear condensation cloud. Flying in the air, Papillion Ainsel brought hands to head in horror as he saw the place his prince and brothers stood on burning with day-like light, the resulting air currents bashing back and threatening to smack him against the encircling mountains.

He screamed desperately as the explosion slowly waned, his butterflies rushing down! "PRIIINCEE!"

"AINSEL, WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!" Nasu Erika contacted him from Romania. "I just felt a big drop in our men!"

Countless rocks and pebbles littered and fell on the floor with segments of the roof continuing to crash down even after the darkness of night slowly returned to the valley. Standing up from the dusty ground, Taurus Aldebaran coughed, having only barely gotten out of the direct radius of the blast.

"B-by the G-Goddess! F-Fucking Aiolos, m-man!" he uncharacteristically cursed. His heartbeat so fast just from thinking how he almost launched himself at ground zero of his friends' plan. He looked around and saw many of the Specters and Skeletons still alive, picking up one another, but some corpses with boney armor did appear on the ground.

The Taurus Saint saw strange shadows lift from the corpses and being taken away into the air. Unbeknownst to him, Nasu Erika was collecting their spirits after death all the way from Crow's Nest. Alraune Lemon coughed and dusted himself, while Sphinx searched for the Prince. She gasped and ran towards him when she saw Lucifer slowly lifting Behemoth's body off him. "TORAK!" she screamed.

Alraune Lemon coughed and dusted himself. "By the fucking gods! P-please tell me the bastard's DEAD!"

Neferti took him up. "N-no, the blasted Gold Saint is alive!" she lamented. "D-damn it!"

Daemon Lucifer gritted his teeth hard, his dark cosmos burning maddingly. A second distraction from him in the same House?! He looked up and now could see from the cracked roof the far off ninth temple. "Sagittarius!..." First, he loses Bat, and now he almost gets nuked by the Gold Saints because his attention was focused on the Taurus Saint! This was unacceptable! His fist clenched, mad at the Gold Saints, but even angrier at himself! "I'll MAKE THESE RUNTS PAY!"

Sphinx took the unconscious, bleeding Torak into her arms. "T-Torak, WAKE UP! W-wake up!" turning him over, she saw the golden arrow's tail sticking right out of his upper back. "It's… It was Sagittarius?!"

The Prince gripped the arrow tightly and ripped it off the unresponsive Specter. His fist cringed on its golden shaft so tensely that it nearly snapped the object. Blood red eyes maddened with rage looked up at the ninth house. How could he have distracted himself like this?!

In this brief moment of chaos, as Aldebaran coughed and got his bearings, the jamming set up by the Specters was very briefly broken by the sheer amount of cosmos radiating everywhere.

"ALD…RAN, …RE YOU OKAY?!"

The Taurus shook his head in dizziness. "Ugh… Ai-Aiolos?!" he recognized. "I am, but Goddess save me, that nuking!"

"Y… VE TO G… OUT! NOW!"

Aldebaran was having a terrible time hearing Aiolos. While he understood the order, he saw Daemon Lucifer standing over the Behemoth Specter that had taken the brunt of the blow for him.

His heart was filled with rage. "Sorry, Aiolos… I can't!"

"ALDEBARA…E WON'T GET TO DO THIS AGAIN!" Aiolos urged. "T..E YO..R CHANCE! RETREAT!"

The words from the ninth Temple were filled with concern for him. Aldebaran knew this. His friends were probably aware that a chance to give him an opening like this to save himself against such terrible odds.

"A…BARAN, RU-" Aiolos tried one last time before the jamming completely resumed.

"GET YOUR WEAPONS AND FEET UP, MEN! We're smashing every single one of these houses until we string that Sagittarius' neck from Athena's statue!" Lucifer roared.

Scythes and swords were frailly raised. "Y-YEAH!"

"L-LONG LIVE LORD LUCIFER!" others acclaimed, moralizing themselves after the massive attack they suffered, stepping over their fallen.

"Sorry, Aiolos, but no piece of crap like this guy is getting past my house when I still have a say in it, especially if he's off to kill you!" The Taurus Gold Saint almost felt insulted at being ignored. He made sure to really step into the Prince's path with a burning of his golden cosmos. "You're not leaving this House!"

Lucifer was silent, just closing in.

Though having to steel himself before the terror that was feeling the Prince's cosmos growing bigger and bigger, the bull just amassed his strength. His energy then exploded and he performed his technique, unfolding his arms at a speed pure to light. "Not before we finish what we started, Specter. GREAT HOR-!" and his whole body then suddenly arrested. "G-gah…. What?!"

The Pride Star wiped the Behemoth blood off his face and walked past the Taurus, followed by his men. "You earned my respect! So I'll let you have the fight you want!" he said out loud, confusing Aldebaran. "Kill him, Torak, or I'll come back down and do it myself!"

Realizing that the Specter wasn't talking to him, Aldebaran turned his face as much as his body still could and he saw, to his horror, the Behemoth Specter enacting the move! "W-what?! How is that guy standing?"

The black-haired warrior was a disheveled version of himself. His dirty long black hair was set free as his helmet had been blasted apart by Aiolos' attack and blood dripped from nearly every corner of his body, from several gashes on his face down to his feet, drenching the blue pieces of Behemoth with red. Black eyes were now visible without the headpiece and several missing chunks of the Surplice exposed heavily muscles abdomen, arms, and legs.

More importantly, his fingers were tense in the air as if he was holding something invisible, which was when Aldebaran realized that a great shadow on the ground that didn't seem to originate from the light of any of the torches filled the ground between the Specter and the Gold Saint's feet.

The blue-armored warrior's cosmos burned, projecting the aura of a menacing rhinoceros. "T-thank you, Prince! I will NOT d-disappoint you! Go and have your vengeance!" he hissed, the Shadow Sewing he was casting on Aldebaran's body transmitting his anger like reverberating metal chains. "For I will have mine… starting by punishing everyone Herakles Aguilon holds dear!"

Aldebaran grunted in frustration as he was forced to watch the Specters progress past this House and move up the stairs towards Gemini, a feeling of intense failure coming down on him. He didn't have much of a choice, however, considering the strange, shadow-based technique arresting his movements now.

The Specter at the source smirked, sensing his frustration. "How does it feel, Taurus, to know you have failed your friends?" Behemoth Torak asked, provoking him, as the Halls were finally emptied. "You missed your one chance to stop the Prince… Now the Zodiac will fall."

But the unibrow Brazilian smirked back. "… mm, mm, I suppose it depends on how you look at it. I got to see the look on your boss's face when Aiolos almost punted his face with an arrow! That felt pretty good!"

"The archer will get what's coming to him, thanks to you," Torak reminded him. His fist then tensed and his cosmos burned in preparation for his next move. "But I'll imprint the feeling of failure unto your body if you're having such a hard time perceiving it! SHADOW SEWING!"

Aldebaran then yelled, startled, when his entire body weight was tossed into the air in the Specter's direction by the same shadowy force arresting him. The Behemoth leaped and then smashed his fist with a meteor-like force straight at the Gold Saint's head, hammering him right back to the floor with a huge cratering of the ground. A martial shout was heard and the Specter then rolled and landed a heel drop on the Gold Saint's body, sending dark shockwaves everywhere that blasted the surrounding debris away!

Torak's foot buried unto the floor, blasting Aldebaran straight down through layers and layers of rock softened by Orion's Ray and contaminating the ground with the dark energies of the Specter. His hand then charged a sphere of purple cosmos which swollen to basketball dimensions, the bellow of the rhino was heard and the Specter fired it, blasting the area with an explosive force, lightening the entire hall and filling the air with blinding dust and the resounding sound of a residual explosion, just for good measure.

The black-haired warrior stepped away and watched the buried ground patiently.

Around half a minute went by.

Before long, rays of golden light peeked out between the many loose debris pieces that buried the Gold Saint. The entire floor then erupted to the broken ceiling, showering Torak with debris and allowing the massive figure with a broken helmet horn to arise from the tomb, still wrapped in shadow chains but able to force out his power.

Aldebaran coughed and smirked, his teeth reddened. "That was an okay punch..." he lied, bleeding from his mouth.

Torak couldn't lie; he half-admired the young man's optimism. "I can do it again if you want. With my Shadow Sewing, you're pretty much my new punching bag, Taurus."

He then began charging his cosmos, raising the heat around him and making Shadow Sewing's chains shake. "It's my move now…!"

The Behemoth paused cautiously. "Are you going to show me a Gold Saint's power? I'll have you know I've arrested even your war hero, Akassius, with this technique."

Aldebaran raised his brow. "Oh!... That is seriously something!" he admitted. Akassius was only his third favorite Saint card in his entire collection of Sanctuary's greatest champions. "However, it's only in the House of Taurus …"

Sensing a counter, Torak put more cosmos into his Shadow Sewing. "That what?"

The Gold Saint then put all his power into his core and unleashed his cosmos. "THAT YOU'LL TANK A MOVE THE FIRST TIME YOU SEE IT!" and his body shattered the tight roping of shadows around it, arms spreading everywhere and armor burning head to toe with Aldebaran's maximum cosmos, which burst out in the form of a large wave of light that blinded Torak, making him scream.

The Behemoth was pushed back, dropping to his feet and knee by the shockwave of sheer force as the bull pushed back the rhino.

Now was his chance. "Hear the bellow of the bull! GREAT-" he roared, body flaring out brute power, and his hands thrust forward, creating once more the launched force in the form of a massive beam of golden light. "-HOOORN!"

Behemoth gasped, feeling like a deer in the headlights of a train, and raised his hand to stop the move, which collided him with such brutal force that half his arm armor was immediately blown away, breaking everywhere! Torak was pushed back and smashed against the wall where mosaics of Aldebaran's predecessors laid, crashing through it, his hands eventually deflected the beam off to the side to some forgotten corner of the Taurus House.

The ground shook and Aldebaran cackled triumphantly. "Got you!"

The Specter gritted his teeth, feeling the burning pain across his entire armor. His muscles were singed and his Surplice was heavily damaged. Still, he got right back up and faced the Gold Saint.

Folding his arms for his next round, Aldebaran was happy to welcome him back to the fight. "You sure are tough, no wonder you got back up from Aiolos' attack, but do you want to continue, Specter?" he asked, looking at his ruined Surplice. "Between one ass kick and the other… I can give you a moment to pick yourself back together."

For some reason, this made Torak happy. "… Well, if you don't mind." The Behemoth Specter hummed in concentration and burned his energy, igniting the forces of his armor and making the eyes on the rhino shoulder plate shine. Strength began radiating from it and the broken pieces of Behemoth on the floor started shaking.

The Taurus Saint stepped back, bewildered, feeling the menace of the legendary creature before him and immediately regretting his offer. "Well, how about a change of plans?! Take THIS!" and he fired off a huge blast of golden cosmos at the Specter.

But Torak's arm filled itself with dark energy and slapped the blast right off, which collided on another sector of the temple, flooding it with light. The Specter's head shook in denial as if denying the child it's playtime.

Aldebaran sweated. What was going on?

What followed then, shocked the Gold Saint; the roar of Behemoth was heard and the blue metal pieces began growing back at tremendous speed, eating the Specter's cosmos! Before Aldebaran's eyes, as if Mu's tools were invisibly at play, the destroyed segments of the Surplice reappeared, formed out like flesh given birth. Torak's cosmos kept dropping, seemingly inexhaustible, but the armor's strength kept growing back, seemingly immortal.

It wasn't long before the entire Surplice was healed back and the beastly Specter let out a sigh of relief, having undergone a great effort.

"Ugh… I hate doing that!" Torak swung his arm, testing the regenerated armor pieces' flexibility and fitting. He saw the completely dumbfounded look on Aldebaran's face and smirked. "Hm, hm, surprised, are you? It seems Sanctuary has forgotten the legends of old."

A teeth grit followed. "What is this, some joke?! What kind of armor heals itself?!"

For some reason, this question really amused the chuckling warrior. "Mine is one of few… and a group of ours is soon to secure another like it off one of your territories," he revealed. "I believe you call it… Death Queen Island? The Prince is very interested in it."

The bull was incensed, reminded of the Phoenix Cloth. "So on top of murderers, you're Cloth raiders too, huh?!"

Then Torak said something that really puzzled him. "That might depend… is the one we're after really the one that's yours?..." he questioned. "Those were some powerful blows from you, Taurus, but they were for naught. Now it's time to destroy you."

Black and golden cosmos flared in the Halls of Daedalus and the two massive warriors collided their hands together in a contest of strength, their arms bulging and swelling inside their armors and their noses snorting like moose fighting for territory as their antlers clashed. The damaged ground cracked further under the powerful pressure they exerted unto one another and their clasped hands conquered and lost ground irregularly between each other.

Outside the Temple, as Daemon Lucifer's furious steps move up towards Gemini, the dying light of Taurus burns out of the Fire Clock.

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Green Valley

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Under the moonlight and the trees, the unarmored Gold Saint of Cancer rushed at a sublight speed across the valley, quickly traversing it but not setting off any of the alarms and watching the enemy likely set up ahead of him. The red-eyed youth had a pretty good idea of the timing with which he should strike the Specters rearguard, as Shinta and Saga undoubtedly had scouted ahead and done some work for him. Back in mission days, the Andromeda Saint had gotten used to communicating with his partner whenever they had to split and the Pegasus was sure he would find some clue as to how to proceed in synchrony with the Andromeda Saint.

He halted suddenly when he saw the far off shine of eleven blue fires on Sanctuary Town's massive clock tower, whose head was so high it could be seen over the curvature of the Green Valley's end. Lance's red eyes squinted to see better and he gulped when he saw the eleventh flame flicker brightly before suddenly going out. "The light of Taurus is gone…! Has Daemon Lucifer moved past Aldebaran already?!"

Going from that, he should rush up the Taurus House immediately. Already from there, his 7th Sense could feel something literally bombastic had just occurred, likely a trap set off by the young Gold Saints on the enemy, as the cosmos deeply resembled a mix of Aiolos and Shura's. The game had probably changed for the enemy, which could be conducive for an opportunity to safely rescue Aldebaran. Lance should therefore approach with a mix of haste and caution, trying to get there in time but not so much that he would endanger everyone by alerting the enemy.

An alarm did go off on his head, though, when he felt a strange sensation against his skin. Slowing down and fearing a Specter trap, Lance paced through the forest road with the strangest sensation he was walking through dark, invisible hands curtaining the air. He blinked, worried, and was about to reach the upward curving of the valley road when, suddenly, a loud neigh was heard as a large animal mass with hooves immersed in cosmos surged from his flank!

The youth screamed and fell back against a tree, completely startled, hitting his head on the trunk. His cosmos immediately began burning as he shook his head from the impact, tensed his body, and rolled over to face the enemy. "HEY, WHAT'S THE BIG ID-"

Before he finished the sentence, a shining edge, drenched in unfamiliar blood and with a moonlit glitter was drawn towards his neck, halting and silencing him.

But the horse-rid edge hesitated and a befuddled chuckle was heard from its own. "What's this?…An assault Saint caught on his rear?" it mocked, making Lance defy the weapon and dare to look up. He saw a familiar smirk from someone on a white horse. "This is not the night for that, Saint Lance."

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Chapter End

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Next Chapter: Chapter 52 - Episode 17 – The Twin Temples

Description: The Specters make their way into the seemingly unnoccupied Third House of Sanctuary, the Temple of Gemini, but they quickly learn that despite their best plans, it is not as easy to cross as it seems. Meanwhile, Shinta and Saga make their way into the Zodiac's shortcut while Cerah and Yushira come across the massacre at the doors of Aries

Author's Notes:

This chapter was a challenge to write at some points, mostly because the House of Taurus just doesn't have all that much to explore in the series. As I work on the next chapter, which deals with Gemini, I'm already finding out that it's being produced more easily

Regarding the chapter's starting quote, the 'Lay of Ioleta' is something that the makers of the game 'Age of Mythology' came up with to write up a mythos on their Atlantean faction for the game. It's not part of actual real life mythology, as the Behemoth is a Abrahamic figure, but I thought it was a really interesting take on their part and wanted to integrate it on the Behemoth Surplice, which I always felt was a bit underdeveloped. The regenerative powers are especially pertinent given Violante's role in Lost Canvas was to be Alone's guardswoman.

Now for the False Specter etymology; Bat Brune is the False Specter that has fallen this chapter and his etymology comes from a word portmanteau between Bruce and Wayne, the first and last name of the universally known DC character Batman. While usually I name these guys with something that somehow means the opposite of their True counterpart, Bat Wimber just isn't something whose meaning is very intuitive.

Finally, 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. Just yesterday we enjoyed our friend Siena making her way through SOMA, by the makers of Amnesia: the Dark Descent.

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