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.

52. 2A: Labyrinth of the Mind - Part 1 of 2

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

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

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:

-Thank you to Jenny DeVic for special consultation on this chapter's flashback scene;

-Also, a big, big thank you to my friend Roseko (aka Roseko Hestia from the Saint Seiya Reddit Discord server) for medical consultation on the Mu/Iaso autopsy scene!

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Please enjoy and review (^_^

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"I found Yoma lurking around again, whispering things to Alone's ears. He must think Thanatos and Hypnos' hostility towards Alone's frolicking in Sanctuary made the Emperor vulnerable to new points of view. Why the Emperor tolerates that worm-tongue's presence is beyond me. Somehow his face reminds me too much of the Godslayer's, which makes my Dark Prince blood boil. I have half a mind of punching the snake and say my Third Function compelled me to it.

Even Michael keeps him off his speeches of unity among Specters, which is coming from the man who thinks Frog Zelos is 'misunderstood'. As a proud manipulator myself, I think what I hate the most about that top-hat-totting freak is the lack of subtlety; if you're trying to get the Underworld to drop its pants and take your lies, at least don't carry that obvious fucking smirk on your face wherever you go.

My displeasure with him started when he began conniving against the Gemini House in Sanctuary, years ago. Usually, I would find that kind of initiative to sabotage the enemy applaudable, but he was far too successful at it. He nearly tossed the whole place into Civil War by just whispering a few things to Aspros' ear, for Hades' sake, forcing Pope Sage to replace the madman with Abel. Now those lips say things to Alone.

Even as I write this I find myself laughing, though. The idea that the Pope thinks he can fix what's wrong with my Zodiac's temple by switching the maniac in charge of it should warrant shackles on the Lemurian dog himself. That house is not cursed; it's blessed with the greatest trial of all of Sanctuary. Any Gold Saint who overcomes it will become a champion of Sanctuary remembered for generations to come.

Still, I suppose it's more evidence that Sanctuary is lost without me. I will enjoy turning it into a dark fortress for the Emperor on Earth once he prevails. And that House will be the first to burn for the destiny that was robbed from me."

-quote from Lucifer's journal, discussing his relationship with the Gemini House

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1969 (8 years earlier),

Underworld, Ptolemy Palace

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The ruling mansion of the Third Circle of the Underworld was a cold place, and not just because it was situated so close to the border with the Cocytus river. The large corridors, windows, and turns allowed the entry of the freezing winds of the Underworld into the relatively austere Judge abode, which lacked the luxuries and fancies enjoyed by Minos and Aiacos due to Rhadamanthys' historically spartan habits. It was a fantastic place to get drunk on whiskey, thanks to Wyvern's near-endless cellars of the stuff, but otherwise, it lacked even the nominal warmth of fairy tale castles.

This, combined with the shadows of gargoyles of screeching wyverns whose pawed wings spread widely in every corner of every great hall, alley, or staircase made young Cerah's hiding place from the prying eyes of Hades a terrifying new home that she had not gotten used to even after half a year of living there. Her small body tucked the coat firmly in the abandoned study, whose only source of light was a small candle left with her by her guardian that illuminated pages of books from the deceased Judge's shelves. The paper was old and dusty and filled with words about the cosmos.

A loud sneeze came about her that caused her to turn to the side. The young girl cursed the cold metal box that her butt sat on; a Pandora Cloth receptacle for the Corvus Cloth that she was using until she learned how to Lightcraft the armor out of a Cloth Stone.

She also felt her head spin at the amount of text in front of her when she turned the page, where many images of people using Lightcraft were shown along with lots of explanatory paragraphs. The little girl was supposed to get a good idea of what to do by the following day, as another round of practicing the fabled and elusive Cyrulian technique of Lightcrafting was coming up.

According to the Prince, a good theory would help her make good use of the hundreds of hours of practice that awaited her. "So many words…. All this about shaping armor bits? Do I have to do all of this?" she wondered, distraught. She put her hands in the shape that the pages instructed and tried to focus her thoughts in prayer as the page said, but nothing happened. "Um, I don't understand any of this…"

When her hand tiredly turned another page, she paused, noticing how white and thin her fingers had become. Even back home in Russia, in the dark gothic fortresses of the Ural mountains, Cerah and her family had never been much in the way of tanned, but the eternal night of the Underworld had robbed her of the little tone of life she had left in her body. The young child grew increasingly ghostly, which only raised the sense of dread she felt in spending night after night, with no rise of the sun, in a place where the dead walked as if living.

How much longer would she have to stay there?

She missed Daese so much.

Her tired green eyes turned up when heavy metal footsteps were heard in the corridor outside and she sniffed her hidden sorrow away.

Her custodian walked inside, fully armored like always, sporting his terrifying red eyes and inhumanly silver hair which made him look like an evil vampire. It had been around six months since Daese left her with him, but the Underworld Prince turned out to be far, far removed from Prince Charming of the fairytales she would be sung to sleep to. Not only was the Specter visibly intimidating, with his inhuman looks and monstrous armor, but he was harsh, cold, insensitive and seemed to have a bone to pick with any signs of weakness that she showed as if they personally inconvenienced him.

Being around the Celestial Star of Pride was being reminded not of medieval romances, but of how much you were a waste of space for him to be around. He didn't want to hear from Cerah unless it pertained to maintaining her basic needs, like he vowed to Daese, and assuring she was keeping up with training and studies, over which she was having a terrible time. Of the sixteen hours she spent awake, she likely spent fifteen working on these, either breathing in the dust of old Underworld books, doing physical training in Wyvern Rhadamanthys' old, blood-marked sparring hall, or learning 'lessons in manners' from the Prince whenever she complained about it.

Worst of all, she wasn't allowed to talk to anyone; when Skeleton Soldiers entered the palace to maintain the edifice, she was supposed to hide in the study until they were gone. When doing laps around the mount that the Palace of Antenora stood on, it would be under the Prince's eye, with her hair hidden under a skull helmet and her mouth gagged by its protective mask to ensure her high-pitch breath wouldn't be heard. If someone, including Hades, found out she wasn't a Skeleton, something horrible could happen to both her and the Prince, yet it was still better than being where Sanctuary's eyes could potentially find her.

It wasn't long before the nightmares began, as the young child's stress piled up under the training and social isolation. Her dreams were inhabited by dark birds cawing at her, trying to peck her eyes, and no one being around to help her. Sometimes she dreamt of being chased by the Pope. She had never seen a picture of him, and imagined the Pope as a dark-robed monster with red wings and fanged teeth whose long-reaching arm made up of men in brilliant Greek armor would grab her even at the ends of the Earth.

The monstrous Lucifer was, therefore, ironically, not the worst thing in her life.

He had a box with a letter on it in his hand which he placed on the table without a fuss. "We're not doing training outside today. The undead hordes are out of their pens again. Useless replacement Skeletons…" he hissed, the tone seemingly frustrated.

Cerah gulped, imagining the disheveled corpses walking around out of their chains. This had happened many times and the young girl had more than one run-in into them and it had been one of the most terrifying things that had ever happened to her. They weren't just visceral in looks, but they would grab at you and scream, too, like monsters under the bed. She didn't need the Prince's orders to want to shut herself inside for a month at the knowledge of them running wild once more-

"Don't you have anything to say?" he suddenly asked, interrupting her thoughts.

She gulped when his eyes were felt on her sternly. "Um… Sa…" No, salutations was too big a word and the Specter hated phoniness, as he put it. "Good morning, P-Prince!"

"It's past midday already, actually." the Specter told her. "A new afternoon on the surface, not that you would be able to tell down here, mm, mm.."

The amusement he seemed to find in it pinched her spirits and her green eyes wandered down sadly. "Yes." She then faced the object he brought with him, especially the letter, and her hopes were raised. "Is that… from Daese?"

"No. This is mine." The Prince sternly informed. Taking a seat by her in the only good chair in the room, the adult went through the notes and exercises she had piled on silently, taking a pen to mark every single little mistake on it. This was part of a routine where the general of all Specters would supervise her every educational move, intending to groom her into a Cyrulian knight.

'Likely the last of them' as the Specter would cruelly put it, believing that the only survivor, Cerah's older sister Daese, would sooner or later meet her end as the last of Priam's Black Saints were hunted down by Sanctuary.

Her stomach growled. "Prince, …. I'm hungry. I haven't eaten since I fell asleep. Can I have lunch yet?"

"No."

Cerah wasn't sure if she should be relieved. Underworld food served to her was often the same given to prisoners; a moldy bread and a glass of water, except for training hours when she would be given a disgusting grey slob of mashed oats that for some reason the Prince called 'a Saint's breakfast'. It looked more like vomit from the undead and she often had to close her nose to stomach it. The girl had no idea how she kept the strength up for the barest of trainings after ingesting the stuff.

This made her think of her sister again, who cooked wonderfully for someone so young, like when she would make delicious Pelmeni dumplings with mushrooms or minced meat soup. "Prince,… can I see my sister today, then?"

"No."

A typical denial. "Did she… send that letter to me?"

"I told you, no."

Her eyes wavered painfully. "Do you know where she is?"

He flipped the pages annoyedly. "No."

Her throat dried up. "Is she ever c-coming back?"

"No!"

She felt like she could sink her face in her hands. "Is s-she okay?"

He closed the textbooks loudly, punctuating his next response. "I don't know. She's probably about as well as your penmanship, so I'm going to guess not." He then dumped a huge stack of papers that he somehow got through in one-thousandth of the time it took her to solve them.

They were filled with so many red tint crosses and corrections that Cerah's eyes practically crossed. She was so sure she had gotten everything right this time.

The Daemon mercilessly poked the errors on the page. "Work on these. You have until tomorrow to get all your vowels at the same height or you'll be holding buckets of rocks in your hands until you learn what leveling means!"

The young blonde girl painfully steeled herself, mechanically taking the papers and setting them aside to work through them after she got done with her present studies, her face frozen by the regiment of hardship she had been going through yet unable to contain tears pressing up against her eyes. These were coming from months and months of hearing 'no' from the lips of the Prince and knowing that months and months of the same 'no' would likely follow.

What must have been approximately ten minutes followed with the adult pacing around the room as she solved on exercise after the other. The Prince was especially making sure she mastered mathematics for some reason, exposing her to concepts like fractions and geometry that were years beyond a regular child's understanding. When asked about this, the Celestial Pride Star merely said that she would thank him for once she began training with cosmos, which was a typical adult response to the questions of a confused child who did not understand the importance of the difficulties she was being put through.

Yet, that day, the Prince seemed to be acting strangely. Cerah noticed that he was sparing her a lot of looks that weren't so much about scrutinizing her studying, but more like he expected her to say or ask something. Perhaps it was about the box he brought with him, as his red eyes kept shifting between the two as if he didn't want to initiate the conversation himself.

But the young girl didn't know the brutal Specter well enough to trust him, much less pick up on his nuances. In fact, she feared that if she asked any more questions, he would remind her to keep working instead. She therefore stayed quiet and diligent.

Looking out the study's window to the frozen horizon of the Cocytus, Lucifer saw the palace of Giudecca at the distance. "How old are you, again?"

The blonde girl paused and did the math. Her early life was so rocky she was genuinely unsure. "I'm…I think I'm seven."

"You think?"

Her eyes shifted self-consciously. "I don't remember my birthdays, only the time I got signed up for the reserve back home."

The silver-haired man scoffed and chuckled. "Typical…"

Her eyes wetted. Was it such a dumb thing to not know your own birthday? "I-I'm… I'm sorry."

He eyed her, shocked. "I meant your Cyrulian brethren, little girl, not you." He clarified, surprising her. "It would figure those Castellans and Paladins wouldn't hesitate to press children younger than six into the army in a time of emergency. Athena's dogs in Sanctuary have always kept that bar pretty low, anyway…"

Having been raised in such an environment, it was just normal for Cerah, especially because young kids were trained anyway for the simple fact they were better at learning Cosmos. "Isn't it normal, though?"

The proud prince scoffed. "It is, but the Specter method is superior!" he assured, folding arms. "Rather than scrape the bottom of the barrel for those who can unlock the cosmos, we revive our losses, eliminating the need for putting new recruits into that hell."

The Cyrulian girl stood quiet, unsure of how to react. While what Lucifer said sounded wonderful on the surface, she was coming from a past of being the daughter of Cyrulian knights, so her very blood burned with the desire to oppose Hades' men. She had cried in fear in the Prince's presence every day and every night during the first few weeks with him. In fact, not out of any rational reason like his terrifying eyes, scary armor or the harshness with which he conducted himself towards her, but simply because of the cold shadow she felt whenever she looked at him, like a monster under the bed made himself seen.

He smirked, sensing this in her. "Do you hate me, puppy of Athena? Do you hear a voice in your head telling you to hurt me?"

Her hand tightened on the pen harshly. She had many reasons to detest the man, as underdeveloped her understanding of what was around her was; he stood in the way of Cerah seeing her sister, he put her through extremely harsh training and he made her live in a world where she could not step outside, talk to anyone or be seen for fear of Hades finding out a Saint of Corvus lived right under his nose, not to mention the simple lack of sun and warmth in the Underworld.

Therefore, her burning knight blood was really just an added reason, not the central cause. "I… I don't." she lied, fearing punishment.

But punishment came anyway when his hand slammed on the table loudly, making the girl gasp and press herself away on her box seat. It was a triggering reaction, something that Lucifer almost couldn't help himself but do before an obvious falsehood.

"I told you, little Cerah… lies are the language of worms. People of pride don't need them," he warned. "And without pride, you won't ever leave this hell."

Slowly her breathing calmed down. While harsh with his troops, the man had never laid a hand on her outside of training, preferring subtler forms of reprisal like intimidation or a tome of denser language for her to memorize. Still, he was a figure of darkness in her life from how chained she felt to the Underworld by him, like a caged bird.

Something in her, though, felt sympathy with the tone of his voice. "What pride? Please tell me." She found herself asking. "I… spend so much time down here, in the dark and cold. What do I care about pride? If you hate me, why do you train me and teach me things and act like you're my t-teacher?! All I want is to go back to normal, yet you won't let me. I want to know why!"

The quincentennial Specter paused in reflection. "What a fantastic question…" he admitted. "Perhaps I'm hoping that I can get a fellow zodiac sharer to understand the greatness of her potential."

She blinked, teary. "My… potential?"

His hand touched chest. "Sanctuary would have you think you were cursed, young Cerah, but you and I are blessed… with a most wonderful Zodiac… and one that is the most misunderstood; one that both causes us intense suffering and yet, because of it, it sharpens us into the strongest steel. Outside you show a nice face of an obedient student, but you're really projecting the opposite of what's deep inside, are you not?"

The little girl stared at him utterly confused.

The silver-haired prince sighed and explained it better. "You're trying to pretend all this doesn't bother you when in reality you want to cry harder than ever before. Isn't that right?"

Wiping her eyes immediately, she shook her head. "Of course it makes me want to cry! This is just too much. I've never studied so much or trained so hard in my whole life and yet you won't let me see my sister or play! I want to cry all the time! I can't help …" but her throat dried up suddenly, something in her insisting on not showing her inner weakness.

"Yet look how far you're getting. How far you want to go!" he confronted as he pointed at all the books around them, chuckling. "Any other seven-year-old would have failed to keep up with all this pressure, Cerah. You should be proud of how much you're surviving by fighting with yourself."

A pause from the girl followed. Was she losing her mind with all the berating, or was the prince subtly complimenting her? "I'm… fighting myself?"

"It is difficult to accept the contradiction in ourselves. Sometimes it's enough to drive a grown man mad." Lucifer taught. "You want to see your sister, but you know it's not safe on the surface, so you've been learning how to cope. You hate the pressure I put on you, but you want to overcome it as well so you can see Daese, so you've been learning all this stuff that kids your age would soil themselves at the sight of. This is because you've known both an easy life and now a hard one. At the same time, every fiber of you wants to stop, every fiber also wants to keep going."

Again, she was utterly confused.

He sighed, realizing he shouldn't talk to a child as if she's an adult. "Your Gemini-ness is making you stronger. You should be proud of it, like me. You're developing resilience in your tiny stupid head that is not common for your age precisely because you fight yourself all the time. It's the opposite of talented people who master things easily and then can't deal with difficulty. Pretty soon, you'll be so strong that the hours you've been spending practicing rock punching or Lightcraft will feel like nothing."

Her tiny head lowered. She felt like it was splitting in two. "I… I don't know. Right now this all feels horrible!"

But this confusion pleased the Specter, as it meant that her immature Gemini instinct sensed a logic in it that she couldn't yet understand. More and more, Lucifer felt like he made the right move in taking this brat under his wing. The first months were being bothersome, taking time away from his agenda to raise the Aquila Saint's stupid brat of a sister, but the last of the Cyrulians would blossom into a fantastic warrioress, should he keep being patient.

"You will see in time… this mental resilience that you're growing is typical of our Zodiac and will be your number one attribute with the cosmos." The Specter prophesied, walking away. He then noticed something. "I'll be back by the end of the day to check on your training. Oh… you may open the box now."

Cerah sat there, bewildered, as the Prince left the room, loudly closing the wooden door whose lock echoed in the Palace's halls. She turned to the lettered box apprehensively.

What a strange meeting. The red-eyed man was rarely ever this talkative to her. If only he didn't say such strange and harsh things, she could perhaps get to know him better, but being a Specter, he would undoubtedly continue to be harsh and cruel to who was essentially a child of his enemies.

Months were passing without a word from Daese. Cerah couldn't even tell if she was still fighting the bad guys of the Pope. All she had from Daese was the Corvus Cloth and the obsidian pendant she was supposed to learn to shove the large metal box into, somehow. Couldn't she have left her with anyone else? Were they that hated by Sanctuary, that a bleak palace in the depths of the Underworld that belonged to a drunk of a Judge was the only safe place for the seven-year-old to grow up in?

Her hand took the letter. Lucifer said Daese didn't make it, so who else would have? Maybe he was lying?

Before she even finished this thought, the girl realized how strange that would be; Lucifer, lying? After his worm language screed? But that meant…

She tore the box open and the sweet, warm smell of milk and sugar textures immediately infiltrated her nostrils. The girl was greeted by the chocolate-covered shortcake with the letters "HAPPY 8th BIRTHDAY, FROM ONE GEMINI TO THE OTHER" written on it with pink frosting.

They looked like they had been made in a rush, perhaps right after Lucifer asked her age with the help of the speed of light. A single unlit candle and a spoon laid next to it. The Cyrulian took the shortcake to her hand, completely speechless, her mind reeling as she pictured the merciless, cruel Specter that she had been told as a child would sooner bring darkness to the surface instead of baking something specifically meant for making her happy.

Seeking answers, she ripped the letter open and took out the colored card with the impeccable cursive handwriting that she could only associate to the Daemon Specter. Her green eyes widened in amazement, going left and right as they read the touching words that the prince would not dare say out loud. The paragraphs were beautifully written, encouraging her to have hope in a bleak world where only harshness awaited her, yet the blossoming of a bright future would be a reward. They complimented how she endured despite her sister abandoning her and Lucifer himself subjecting her to the same draconian training he would anyone else. They also spoke again of how strong all of this would make her someday, and how she would be able to fix everything wrong in her life by her own two hands, even if she didn't believe it right away. Finally, a last promise to try to get her on a more nutritious diet than just bread and water was made, explaining that it was difficult to get more good food down the Underworld without Hades suspecting something.

The young girl lowered the letter down in distraught, not knowing what to think of the Prince anymore, but with tears in her face wetting the first smile of happiness she's had in months.

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Japan,

Priam's Black Saint Base

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It was halfway through the morning in the Far East and the new headquarters for the faction of Black Saints loyal to the former Sagittarius Gold Saint, Priam. It was bathed by the rising sun of Japan in the mountain forests of the archipelago's hinterland. Despite the possessions Sanctuary had in China, like Mount Rozan, countries further to the east of it were often overlooked by Sanctuary for a variety of reasons, ranging from distance to clashing of cultures to an inability to foment Hellenic ideas in the region, which, strangely, made it as ideal for housing enemies of the Pope as the vast forests of the Congo.

This is not to say that attempts to recruit people in the east had not been made, as many argued that hand-to-hand martial arts culture, which Sanctuary valued, was more refined in eastern countries, as Mount Rozan exemplified. At one point, it was even thought by some radically-minded Sanctuary strategists that the rising animation and comic book industry in the Japanese nation could perhaps be used to subtly spread ideas about Sanctuary, thus slowly building up an ideological base for future candidates for the House of Tenma orphanage. It was often joked that said strategists wanted to send mental images and ideas to artists in Tokyo to 'inspire' them into writing and drawing comic books about young men dressed in armor shaped like constellation figures.

Ridiculous plans like these, in combination with a healthy dose of racism, contributed to the Far East becoming a pariah of a recruitment zone, in turn leading to less Saint activism and vigilance over these regions. Back when he was a Gold Saint, Priam had always thought that this kind of mentality contributed to places like Death Queen Island, almost literally located on the opposite side of the hemisphere relatively to Greece.

Now, as a very high-ranking member of Sanctuary's list of public enemies, who was nearly assassinated while at the safety of Lucifer's Crow Nest tower, Priam almost thanked Athena for such obtuseness.

The place was small and practical, possessing only one major workroom other than the mess and sleeping chambers where the Black Saints were concentrated in their newest task; tracking the progress of their ally Daemon Lucifer's invasion into Sanctuary. They were not only using their usual communication and spying tools but also the page from the Book of the Dead being displayed by the projector on the wall, where everyone could take a good look at its creepy contents.

The page itself was being held sandwiched over the light beam by a pair of special plexiglass sheets, light-crafted by Aquila Daese off mass from her own Silver Cloth. The reason why was because when they first held the cursed object over the device's lamp, the direct passing of focused photons through the material caused words to be burned on the wall, strange whispers to be heard in people's heads that did not match from testimony to testimony. The lamps would flicker wildly and many of the Black Saints felt indisposed, ill and, in one case, suicidal. The plexiglass sheets didn't change much about the passing of light but judging by their growingly darkened texture, it seemed that the layers were absorbing whatever evil was cast out the page earlier, to the point one of the Black Saints had to replace it with a new one as the old got too dark for the page to be read.

If anything it had served to convince the group that it was the genuine article.

All of a sudden, a change began to occur on the page. On the indexed line of one of Lucifer's men, previously only detailing the name, Surplice, and the Underworld Star from his True counterpart, the text began appearing on the page with the light of burning paper, as if pressed on it by a hot iron.

Terrestrial Search Star Replacement | Bat | Brune | Murdered by Taurus Aldebaran with Great HornAwaiting Judgement Soul Location: Earth, Romania, Crow Nest Fortress

One of the Black Saints at the desks took a series of pictures of it with a flashless camera and documented it. "It's happening again, just like with Deadly Beetle, Worm, Deep, and Sylph. The page records the death of Lucifer's men in real-time."

The goggle-totting burned man of curly brown hair held his chin, standing among his sitting men. "…Fascinating."

Standing next to him, Aquila Daese held her arms as her face paled and a shiver went down her spine. Her Cyrulian upbringing made her cringe at witnessing such dark magic from the Underworld and crave instead for a world flooded with light. "…I respectfully disagree, Priam."

The famous traitor hummed. "Sorry, I know it's not easy to purge the pollution off this paper."

Daese took out the top plexiglass sheet, which was already growing as black as coal, and laid it next to some other used pieces for later treatment. They were made out of mass from her Eagle Cloth so she couldn't afford to just toss them out. She then took a pre-fabricated new one and gently rested it on the object.

She winced. Just being briefly exposed to the page's grim energies forced her mind to remember sad things in her life. "It's alright, this is very useful information. Even with all the barriers Lucifer put up, we can tell through this he has made it at least to the Second House, perhaps past it."

One of the goons pointed at the last information bits. "What does it mean, it's awaiting judgment?"

Priam reflected on it. "All the other ones who died have the same annotation. You wouldn't think the Underworld would take this long to get its hands on its traitors. It must mean Lucifer has done something to his men about their death," he deduced, before frowning. "I wonder if it has anything to do with his Nasu Specter still being in Romania, the same place all these souls are going into."

Aquila Daese, who in her childhood took part in the defense of the fortress against Sanctuary, thought back to the layout of the castle. "It's a grand place… A necromancing Specter like her would probably find it useful for casting techniques. Lucifer must be preventing these souls from falling into Hades' hands."

Priam blinked, amazed. "That's… awfully kind of him. He's protecting his fallen men?" he wondered, chuckling happily. "That devil…Who would have thought?"

The blonde woman squinted. "Don't give him too much credit, Priam. He probably just doesn't want his men ratting out intel to the real Specters."

The former Sagittarius frowned, seemingly disappointed. "Yes… that makes sense."

The Diamond Paladin stared at her leader worryingly. One of the main characteristics of Priam was his hope and insistence on seeing everyone's better side. This had both blessed and plagued the former Gold Saint many times, depending on the situation. Daese confessed that one of the first things that attracted her to the Black Saint and his cause was, precisely, this facet of his that oozed honesty and optimism. In the dark moments of her early life, which she spent running from castle to castle, fleeing Saints of Athena with Cerah in her arms, before ultimately falling in the hands of the Black Saints, Priam's idealism had perhaps saved her from falling into despair, reminding her that people who genuinely wanted nothing but to do good still existed.

However, as a paramilitary leader, this idealism collided with taking the best course of action and being a good judge of character. Daese breathed out sadly, finding herself in a position of having to often look after her chief's missteps. "Remember, Priam, he's not there to bring justice."

Resting his hands on the nearest table, Priam nodded somberly. "Yes, I know… he's different from us. Still, a side of me sympathizes with him, or I wouldn't be his ally."

Daese often felt that Priam wished he could say 'friend' instead. As mad as it was, the Gold Saint was someone who had lost the support of everyone in his previous life, so he probably valued the few people he could still count on, like Scorpio Paris and Daemon Lucifer, even if the two of these were villainous scumbags using him for their selfish purposes.

As a knight of Cyrul, however, Daese was obliged to have nothing but wrath towards Specters. "Even if they're False, they are still men of the Underworld. Their lives have been shaped by Hades' nihilism, Priam. They're murderers."

But, surprisingly, Priam's wiser side showed its shy face. "Worse than that, Daese…They're murderers who think they're heroes." He described, having no small amount of experience with this kind of delusion. "This is the kind of power Lucifer has over these men; after proving the worthlessness of their existence in Hades' eyes, he has convinced them they are following a higher cause by serving him instead. On top of it, he has accomplished victories with them and taken measures to safeguard their afterlives … It is a masterful form of manipulation. They will follow him until the day they die."

His blue eyes then fixated on the False Specter names. It was bizarre to follow an attack on what was still, for all intents and purposes, his homeland without knowing who to root for. "This is the biggest danger about the Dark Princes, their power to mess things up. Hades designed them wisely to prey on Sanctuary's weaknesses, and our division is among them."

"There used to be a second one, correct?" Daese asked.

Priam scoffed. "Yeah, a more dangerous one to boot, if anything Lucian told me is true." He paused. "He is about to reach the Third Temple. Did you know Lucian was born under that House's stars?"

Surprisingly, there was both a visibly disgruntled frown and a head shake. "No."

"…What's wrong?"

She shrugged and looked away awkwardly. "Ugh, I just… It's the same for Cerah. She's a Gemini, too. I hate the idea of them having that in common, especially after the disgusting things he said to me. (*)"

(*) See Chapter 40

It was indeed a noticeable coincidence, especially considering how tied the fate of Daese's little sister became to Lucifer's, but Priam talked away from that. "Well, in any case, Lucian and I would once converse a lot about that House, especially because Akassius was my big enemy in the war. He would ask me a lot of questions about what Akassius was like and in turn talk about the things he thought of previous Gemini Gold Saints."

While this was interesting to her, she had to question its pertinence. "Okay, so?"

"So that he and other people with insight on Gemini seem to believe that traits opposite to a task sometimes offer more powerful insights. Kind people being stronger than harsh ones. Gentle people being more explosive than angrier ones. So on and forth." He recalled. "Sometimes… Lucian would dare suggest that the well-minded people could be the more evil ones, and the pessimistic ones could have the brighter souls."

Again, Daese felt compelled to protect her boss from his own naiveté. "Priam, that's just him justifying his sick, sick, sick philosophy to you. He wants you to think his takeover of Sanctuary is earned." She patted his head. "You need to stop listening to what that guy says."

The older man frowned and gently moved her hand away. "Perhaps you're right, but… Akassius has always had this incredible willpower and cosmos that was beyond anyone's understanding, and I think it has a bit to do with what Lucian said. The crisscrossing of opposite thoughts seems to be at the heart of what makes Geminis so talented and dangerous."

One of the phones then began blinking its red light.

Priam clicked its speaker. "Yes?"

"Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I got news from 'Sea Prince'."

The entire room raised their heads at the mention of this codename.

Daese folded her arms. "Speaking of crazy Geminis with dubious motivations."

Sweating self-consciously, Priam just addressed the phone. "Go on."

"He has communicated to our landlines that the Specter force is indeed present in Sanctuary, making its way through Temples." The agent confirmed. This argued more towards the validity of the page Lucian gave them. "He's also confirming that the Fire Clock has burned out its Taurus light. That is all."

"Thank you." Priam then released the button.

The Paladin stared at the phone intently. "…That's another ally of yours I'm not so sure about, Priam. He didn't even ask for help surviving Lucian's invasion."

"Sanctuary is big. I'm sure he's watching from somewhere safe. He's also proven himself a lot." Priam argued, before a sad frown formed on his face. "Thanks to him,… I was able to see Guardnia one last time."

Her heart melts before this. If there was one thing she sympathized with, was losing loved ones as Priam did. "Alright, alright,… He's good for having a pair of eyes in, I suppose."

One of the goons nearby couldn't resist. "I guess you could say the intel is 'canonized'. Right?"

Both Daese and Priam gave him a good 'get back to work' glare.

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Chapter 52

Second Arc

Episode 17

Labyrinth of the Mind

Part 1 of 2

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Sanctuary Town

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Standing over a house by the edge of Sanctuary Town that faced the Golden Zodiac, Crane Yuzuriha and Corvus Cerah observed the light flashes and smoke coming out of the Second House.

The Corvus knight was shocked. "What… was that attack? It rocked the entire valley."

Yuzuriha touched her mask and no longer felt the faint vibrations on it from the Specter's residual soundwaves. They could see bats flying out of the Taurus House and escaping the area. "I don't know, it looked like he came from the 9th House. Something tells me, though, that whatever was putting everyone to sleep is gone."

With this in mind, Cerah looked around the town with her Emission Lenses. She could see souls starting to quiver where they had laid asleep, some even starting to slowly stand up, likely rocked awake by the bombardment they saw.

Things have just gotten more complicated. Cerah remembered from her time in the Underworld enough about the False Specters to get a good guess of who was casting the curse. "If I'm right, it was likely Bat Brune putting people to sleep. If everyone starts moving around at this point, it might get dangerous. There's still Skeletons and Specters lurking around." She bit her nail nervously as a dangerous thought then formed in her head. "If… just by chance we happened to take over the Aries Temple, we could stop bloodshed from spreading out of the mountain and contain Lucifer's forces to the mid Houses…"

The Crane Silver Saint faced her. "Yo, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

The blonde girl irked. Even knowing her as little as she did, Cerah could already tell Yushira was probably considering striking the First House as well, especially if she has family in the Zodiac. "I don't think attacking the enemy at Aries is such a good id-"

Yushira gasped. "That's a GREAT IDEA! Why didn't I think of that?!" she then leaped off the house before Cerah could do anything about it. "I was gonna suggest following those two Saints some more to see what they're up to, but this is a perfect opportunity to take back Aries!"

Cerah was horrified and jumped immediately after. "WAIT, NO, Saint Yushira, that's incredibly dangerous!"

But the Crane Saint went on, outpacing the Cyrulian girl. "Duh, of course, it is! Fighting those hulks in their turf would be suicide, BUT…" and the teenage Amazon chuckled. "That's why we're gonna do this the Yushira Way!"

Oh gods, what was the Yushira Way? Stuck between wanting to help innocent people and not wanting to defy her teacher, Cerah then rushed ahead and practically grabbed Yushira. "No, WAIT!" she demanded, running after her.

As they came across the stairs of Aries, though, both girls stopped in shock.

Way up by the entrance of the Aries Temple, bodies dripping with blood and with broken armor littered the way. Corpses from the first fighting between Lucifer's forces and the brave men who lost their lives in defense of the First House made the steps redder and redder while crows began to fly in the air amongst the underworld moths. Crossbow bolts, javelins, and abandoned swords were carved into many, bringing to Cerah's head images from her lost youth in the Underworld.

Yushira walked among the first bodies. "These are Papal Guards among the Skeletons, foot soldiers that dedicate their lives to defending the Temple. The Specters killed them."

Cerah shook, grabbing her arms. "I… I know…I…" and her green eyes closed as they teared up, thinking of Lucian. "He… ordered this. H-He made this happen." She then saw the Crane Saint getting on her knees and turning over some of the bodies. "Saint Yushira… is your relative here?"

The masked warrioress sighed. She could tell that right away based on the heights. "Fortunately, no, he's not here… but I knew some of these guys. I hadn't heard of them for a while and I figured they got promoted… Guess I was right."

Cerah's Emission Lenses then picked up cosmos sneaking around in the Temple's balconies "Watch out! Enemies!" she mentally warned, pulling Yushira by the arm back to behind the corner rocks.

A bit startled, it took the Amazon a second to realize that shadows were moving around at the top of the temple, the glint of their binoculars faintly visible. "Damn, thanks!... I thought they would be inside! If I stood around there, they would have skewered me." The Crane then saw Cerah laying back, hugging herself and shaking. "Cerah, what's wrong?"

The Corvus sat there, shivering, as her mind reeled with what she had just seen in the stairs. So many dead. And by Lucian. What was she going to do now?

Correctly, assuming her friend was in shock, Yushira gave her a moment and peeked at the Golden Zodiac. She saw men in dark armor moving up the third set of stairs, shouting around things, and holding up enemy flags. "They're already past the Second one. They'll soon be at Gemini."

Hearing this, Cerah took the black feather and felt its temperature. It was still hot, but growing colder by the second, indicating her teacher was moving away. "That's… a relief."

"There must be more fighters up the Temples, though. This killing is going to repeat itself." Yushira argued. While relieved that her relative was not at the First House, there was no saying where he could be. "…We have to do something! Come on, Cerah, get up!"

Tears streamed down her cheeks, the image in her head of the Prince cracking under the weight of reality.

The Amazon groaned and practically lifted her by the arm. "I said get up, princess! This is not the time for dirtying your silky Saintia panties!" she harshly roused. "People are getting killed as we speak and we can do something to help!"

But the Corvus barely reacted, the pain she felt drowning Yushira's very reasonable words. Still, she tried to force herself past it, and that's where the words of Cyrul awoke in her. "R-right! F-For protecting the meek!"

"Now we're talking!" the Crane encouraged, gloved fist clenched up. "For our friends!"

The Corvus' green eyes tensed in rage as everything she feared in her mentor finally materialized in her head. Her mind pictured the Skeletons taking potshots at people in the streets. Of course, these men were not Lucian; they were just his cruel pawns. They wouldn't hesitate to enact the violent tendencies that Hades filled their heads with, just like when she had protected Eurydice from them.

"For our friends!" she repeated back at Yushira, her Cyrulian blood beginning to boil, accidentally igniting her bright yellow cosmos. The blood of Capricorn Cyrul's followers burned in her, igniting her cosmos and drawing a clear, steep line between her adoration of Lucian and what he had done, setting these men loose in a place full of innocent people. Of course, of course! How could she be acting so stupid? "Lucian… I don't want to oppose you… but I can't stand by this, either! You taught me to embrace what I am and that's what I'll do!"

The Crane Silver Saint was patient, recognizing all that initial fear from Cerah in herself, in days gone by. "It's gonna get dangerous now. Are you ready?"

Cerah stood up, sniffing her tears away. "Alright… let's do this!" she affirmed, nodding. The blonde girl had to ask, though. "What is the plan, then?"

"Oh, don't worry about it, that's the easy part!" Yushira then turned the corner, presenting herself right to the Skeletons at the balcony, and cupped hands around her mask mouth. "HEY! ASSHOLES! OVER HERE!"

Several bewildered heads with skull helmets turned to her. "Hey, what the hell?!"

Cerah was instantly horrified, her face now ghost-white.

Crossbows pointed at her. "I knew it! INTRUDERS!"

Cyclops Balgo awoke from his thoughts. "What?!

Yushira kept baiting them, waiving around her waist and making ugly hand gestures. "WHAT ARE YOU STARING AROUND FOR, YOU CORPSE-FUCKERS?! Have you never seen a living piece of ass?" she then slapped her butt. "Come get me!"

Cerah grabbed Yushira. "Wait, what the heck are you doing?!"

But Cerah only succeeded in making herself visible, too, as the Skeletons made evident. "THERE'S TWO OF THEM! FIRE!" a lieutenant ordered, causing a line of poisoned crossbows to unleash bolts empowered to tremendous speed.

The Crane Saint immediately tackled Cerah out of the hail of arrows that punctured the ground.

Cyclops was incensed, burning his cosmos and activating his Eye of Arges! "YOU USELESS BLIND REPROBATES! YOU LET THEM GET AWAY?!" he then turned his sight towards where the Silver Saints ran off to, his mystical vision piercing rock and flesh. He very quickly found the two sources of warm blood and his angry jaw dropped when he recognized the cosmos of one of them. "W-what?!"

Yushira dragged her out, laughing, her locked 7th sense feeling faint movement out of Aries. "Okay, I think it worked! Let's go!"

Cerah tried to keep up but wanted some answers. "What did you just do?! I thought we were going to plan an assault?!"

Yushira scoffed, guiding Cerah to the west flank of the mountain. "An assault?! Are you kidding me? That's how those knuckleheads like Pegasus at the MMC do it! We, undercover Saints, have a different way to go about things that involve less D-Day style storming! I told you, it's the Yushira Way."

The knight was intrigued. "Then… where are we going?"

Yushira smirked behind her mask. "To get the home-field advantage!"

Back at the Aries Temple, the riled up Skeletons took the floodlights and surveyed the area. "They're gone! Should we pursue?!"

But their hulking lieutenant slaps their heads for even suggesting such a thing. "Stay where you damn are, it's obviously a trap from the Gemini Gold Saint! We don't have to go anywhere! The Prince ordered us to safeguard this House! Isn't that right, Lord Cyclops?" he asked the red giant, but the man seemed transfixed on where the two women fled to. "… Lord Cyclops?"

Huffing furiously, the man himself then leaped off the balcony and concealed his cosmos. "YOU STAY HERE! I'll get those two rats!"

The lieutenant was bewildered. "But we have orders to-"

Cyclops charged down the stairs, concealing his cosmos. "DO YOU THINK THE PRINCE WANTS SILVER SAINTS RUNNING AROUND FREELY?! If you can't hold the temple for five minutes without me, THEN YOU'RE MORE USELESS THAN ZELOS!"

This rant was more than enough to get obedient activity running in the Aries Temple, with the lieutenant ordering the men to keep the watch and away from Lord Cyclops' return.

Meanwhile, the man in horned, red armor lurked into the shadows, his bloodthirst growing. Lemon was right; it was her, he was sure of it! She had the bird Cloth and the cosmos that broke the eye of his Surplice! The Cyclops armor burned its dark cosmos in Balgo, holding memories from Servo's final moments, infecting Balgo with an oddly personal quest for retribution.

Said memory of his lost brother burned in his veins, igniting Polyphemus' wrath in Balgo, and his Eye of Arges followed the two souls westwards. They had no idea what dragon they just awoke; for he had grown much stronger than his predecessor. By the one-eyed children of Poseidon, the False Specter would have his revenge!

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Golden Zodiac,

Western Outskirts

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Shinta guided Saga through the forested areas west of the Golden Zodiac's slopes, right by the massif's edge, where no clear path was built in but faint footsoldier tracks would be visible in the daytime to the sharp-eyed. Having followed Papal Guards here once with Lance, the Andromeda Saint needed little to no encouragement in keeping onwards, but Saga had never been there before and wondered if the pink-armored youth knew what he was doing.

Yet, to the Gemini's amazement, the chained warrior managed to find the slab of the boulder by the mount's feet concealed among the trees. He pointed at an unusual fracture in one of the smaller rocks. "Usually you take a key to unlock these, but I'll have to pick the lock open." He then made his Round Chain slide inside the crack and tried to focus. "My Triangle End would have been better, but I'll have to do with this."

"By the way, don't you think you can just leave my arm back there! You are going back to get it, mister!" Princess Andromeda ranted in his mind. "I don't want that horse brute to lay his hooved hands on it more than I have to, got it?!"

The bronze Saint nodded. "Don't worry, Princess, I'm sure Lance's hands are clean. He went to get water, after all. Now, could you help me with this loc-"

Saga cleared his throat and his hands crackled with cosmos and pointed at the rock slab. "ANOTHER DIMENSION!" and much like back at the Aries Temple, a zip-like doorway was opened down the obstacle's surface.

The green-haired boy blinked at the artificial passage, which easily created a warping bridge to the staircase inside the mountain. He scratched his head. "Oh, right…Thank you, Saint Gemini, I forgot you could do that."

"No problem, just step past the road of light." Saga instructed, to which Shinta obeyed. He watched the Andromeda Saint lit up the first torch, which somehow caused a chain reaction up the winding staircase. "How was I not told of this place?"

Shinta genuinely shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, Saint Saga. I think this is mostly used by the guards."

Saga held chin. "Mm, maybe the Pope prefers us Golds not to feel like we have a backdoor out when we defend the Houses, but still…" The Gold Saint then gasped when he felt a spike in cosmos and a sudden chill go through his heart.

Shinta saw the young Saint sweat and tense up. "Saint Saga, what's wrong?"

"I just… felt something awful, like my very home was broken into," he confessed. Looking up the mountain, he didn't have a good angle with which to spot his own House, but he still felt his mind drawn to the idea of defending his Temple all of a sudden. It wasn't long before he felt the familiar emanations of Cosmos from the Gemini Temple. "The enemy… I believe they have reached my House. The Fire Clock has also burned away the Taurus flame."

The Andromeda gasped. "Oh no!... What about Aldebaran?!" Shinta demanded to know, feeling now more than ever he could just rush up the stairs.

Saga shook his head. "I don't know… we just have to pray to Athena the attack we felt earlier from Aiolos and the others diverted the enemy up the stairs."

Distraught, the Andromeda Saint tried to stay objective, even though his fist clenched so hard on his remaining chain that it made Andromeda complain. "We have to get to Aiolia's temple in time, then. If we can get the kids safe and let the enemies pass their houses, we'll then have a clear shot to separate the Specters that Aldebaran is fighting from the one's Shaka will."

Saga smiled, pleased with Shinta's objectiveness. "That is the plan. However…" he then glanced once more in his House's general direction. "I get a feeling we may have more time than you think."

"How so?"

A sly smirk curved itself on the Gemini's lips "My House is not harmless. The enemy has a big surprise in store for them if they think they can just walk through. Now let's go." Saga assured, before rushing up the stairs with Shinta. In the shadows of the passage, though, his preoccupation made him frown. "And hopefully they won't run into the wrong surprise."

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Gemini Temple,

Entry Stairs

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Golem Treble practically pushed the bone-armored men up the stairs while Mandrake Nevil sounded the horn of war, motivating the march. "MOVE! Move, you cretins! Do you want to get caught in the next enemy barrage?!"

Way behind, the biggest source of motivation for the men to clear away fumed as its dark cosmos burned with rage. Daemon Lucifer's eyes were fixed on the 9th temple, incredulous that he had allowed such a massive attack to slip past his radar. Now both the Virgo and Sagittarius House had gravely insulted him, doubling his determination to crush the entire mountain under his foot as he conquered his way up the Gold Saints' Houses. Even his men gave him a healthy amount of space. The crackling black sludge of a cosmos, that kept dripping off the Prince's body and cape, seemed to boil the sacred rock of the steps into misshaped forms.

He saw another round of arrows coming down on them and his fist immediately shot up. "DARK SPEAR BARRAGE!" The explosion of purple, javelin missiles countered Aiolos light arrows, filling the air with cosmic fireworks that turned night into day in brief successive flashes. The rage felt in the attack was so clear that Specter and Skeleton alike made their way up the stairs faster.

Only Alraune was amused by this. "This is just the beginning, fool…Pretty soon, Cyclops will make sure you turned a blind eye to something far more important to you. And when these Gold Saints inevitably kill you…" he then smiled hungrily. "I'll take all the treasures and glory you seek in this place!"

Pretty soon, as the stairs turned, the group came across the imposing visage of the Gemini Temple. "There it is, the Third House!" Mandrake Nevil announced.

The army spread out and took over space at the entrance of the massive structure, beholding it. While it was smaller than the Taurus House, the third temple of Sanctuary was still imposing thanks to the two massive wall slabs flanking its entry and the triangular tympanum over it. The left slab had a huge carving of a young angel with a mischievous smile and a bow aiming downwards, while the right one possessed a twin image that frowned melancholically and held a musical harp instead.

The Skeletons and Specters of Lucifer were immediately apprehensive, as the architecture drew them towards the huge doorway and the flanking slabs looked like perfect places to rain spears, arrows, boulders, and boiling liquid down on them, like a castle's killing zone. Without Brune's Nightmare Sonar, the Papal Guards could be operating from anywhere close to them, waiting for a chance to pick off unsuspecting Skeletons, making the force immediately regret their neglect back at the Taurus Temple.

Still, they had to continue, and they sent a vanguard force ahead for a reason. Approaching the doorway, Golem peeked inside its dark innards. "Cait Sith and Elf rushed ahead with their guys, so surely they must have made their way past this Temple, right?"

One of the Skeletons heard steps echoing from within in their direction and aimed his crossbow. "Watch out, someone's coming out!"

Golem was incensed "What?! Is it Saints?! Did Palug and Rossalier get wiped out, too?!" he then burned his cosmos and got ready to crush anyone who showed up. "Come and face the mighty Golem, you Sanctuary sons-a-bitc-"

But everyone gawked and halted their attacks when, to their shock, Cait Sith Palug and Elf Rossalier came out of the Temple, followed by their men.

Confused looks were exchanged. "G-Golem? Lord Lucifer?!" Palug muttered.

Golem's concealed face went red with rage. "WHY THE HELL ARE YOU TWO TURNING BACK?!"

Elf folded arms. "We're NOT! This is the end of the Temple! How the hell did you reach this before us?!"

Mandrake Nevil joined the fray. "Are you two daft? See these stairs behind us? They're going down!"

Seeing the mess, Lucifer stormed his way past his men. "What is the meaning of this?! I told you to occupy the Gemini House!"

Cait Sith immediately bowed down on all fours. "Your highness, I swear to every star in the Underworld, we did nothing but march forward from the moment we entered this place!" he begged, face on the ground. He peeked at his soldiers. "Isn't that right, men?"

The many Skeleton Soldiers nodded frantically, not daring to give the Prince the idea they could be deserting. "YES, yes, Prince!"

"We found no one so we kept going!" another swore. "We thought this light at the end would be the stairs to Cancer!"

Alraune Lemon gritted teeth. "Are you for real? You expect us to believe you fools got turned around in a one-way pass?"

Sphinx Neferti approached the Temple, intrigued.

Meanwhile, the Skeletons kept swearing they were telling the truth. "Lord Lemon, Lord Lucifer, we swear! Please don't blast us to p-pieces!"

Even the Specter Elf Rossalier was as terrified as his men. "We lit every torch candle inside along the way! We wouldn't dare turn our backs to where these Papal Guards might shoot us from!"

The Alraune whipped the ground menacingly, slicing apart pieces of the stairs. "QUIET, you cowards! That's a ridiculous story! We saw you coming out of the front!"

Sphinx took out her instrument and played a short tune, focusing her thoughts towards the innards of the Gemini Temple, trying to ignore the racket by her. Lord Lucifer would be upset if things got delayed over this and she wanted to clear the path to the Pope as quickly as possible so she could get back to Torak. She searched within the hearts of any Skeletons that could be lying.

The strange, resonating high pitch that Neferti heard back hurt her ears and made her widen her eyes. "Lord Lucifer, something is not right…"

The Pride Star saw what she was doing and agreed with a nod. "So the stories I've heard are true."

Rossalier and Palug practically got on their knees and begged Lemon for mercy. "P-Please, don't cut off our heads!"

"W-We are loyal! We'd rather die than turn our back to the Prince's enemies!" Palug reinforced.

This sickening display just infuriated Lemon further and he raised his tentacle. "Oh quiet with that, you'll make me vomit! If you won't fight, we might as well have Treble catapult your heads!" the bloodthirsty Alraune then raised his hands above head. "Blo-"

Lucifer caught his arm and held it down. "Save it!" he assured, pulling the offended Specter back. "Golem, take some men and walk through that temple, then signal us when you're about to reach the other side. We'll wait here."

The hulking man saluted the Prince. "Absolutely, Prince! Right away!" he then gathered some Skeletons with him and eyed Palug and Rossalier. "As for you, when I get back, I'm punching the two of you so hard you'll have the walk back to us from the Pope's temple!"

The entire army then took the chance to collect themselves and take cover by the Temple's entrance, where Sagittarius wouldn't be able to fire at while Golem's company ventured into the building. The many groups took the chance to recheck all their equipment and convene with their Specter leaders and lieutenants. All stood away from the fuming Prince, who eyed the House with a tapping foot.

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Rodario

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The town of Rodario was still dead quiet, even after Nightmare Sonar's lingering soundwaves were gone, for its victims would not simply wake up without alarm just because the curser was dead. It was probably preferable for the Saints this way, as it meant that the scouts and communication relayers left behind by Lucifer would not have to worry about neutralizing resistance in the village while the invasion went on.

It did not mean they were not in danger, though.

A clawed shadow dashed between the alleys, taking cover behind objects, corners, trashcans, and crates, his metal-covered back pressed against walls while his eyes peeked around the corners, focused on a particular destination by the town's church. He saw a single bone-armored man sitting at the top of the bell tower in meditation, scythe rested against the wall and likely content with the perch. Smiling venomously, the shadow saw a safe path around the block and rapidly made its way around it, rearing the religious building.

A mighty leap followed, with a landing as soft on the roof tiles as that of a bird's. The shadow now faced the Skeleton from behind. With his tiptoes, the shadow clinked along the length of the roof to the tower before leaping unto and clawing its wall. The sharp fingers released a small pebbling sound when carving into the cemented bricks, making Iaso irk, but he stood confident that he had not raised any alarms and circled up the ascent like a serpent by scaling the indentations, senses locked on the target.

He finally leaped onto the tower top, where the bell hung on and approached the sitting Skeleton from behind. This was it; the main enemy relay in Rodario. With his fingernails dripping a toxic poison, he raised his left claw and reached out to grab the specter with his right!

As soon as the shoulder was held, the helmeted head immediately fell off its shoulders over the tower fence, leaving behind an open neck and sinking Iaso's expectations with the clunking sound the main appendage made when landing right at the doorstep of Athena's church.

The Ophiuchus doctor straightened up. "… SHIT!" All that work sneaking around for nothing!

A bright flash of white burst at his side as Mu teleported into the tower. "Dr. Iaso, did you do it? I saw something fall off the tower-" the lilac-haired boy then saw the decapitated body and paled. "…Oh. Another one, huh?"

The brown-haired man sighed. "I didn't do it, Kiki," he called, still thinking this was Mu's name. He then dragged the body out of there to where he could check on it peacefully. "Now face away, this isn't something a kid your age should look at."

But Mu shrugged his shoulders. "It's okay! I see body parts all the time!"

Savvy to his eccentricity by now, Iaso was skeptical. "How many of them were still attached?"

The Lemurian shifted eyes. "… Most of them. My friend Milo showed me a toe in a wine bottle once, tho'." He then tried to look over the doctor's shoulder. "Come on, you didn't let me see the others and I wanna see what an autopsy looks like! It's for science!"

"Look… away!" the medical professional demanded. Iaso laid down the dead body and examined the cut. "This is serious. All the other Skeletons in the village were like this, too. We know Pegasus didn't do it because he just left. I seriously doubt Saint Gemini would not simply send this guy to the Twilight Zone and your other Andromeda friend doesn't strike me the type that decapitates people. Especially this cleanly."

Mu pouted and walked away, playing with the abandoned scythe rested against the corner by tapping his fingers along its metal edge. His alchemical eyes entertained themselves noticing all the little details on the Damascus carving.

"Well, it wasn't done with this big thing… it has no blood on it." The child commented. His peerless Lemurian eyes looked around. "There's no blood spats anywhere else, either. That's kinda weird, isn't it?"

As the doctor opened a slight gash on the dead man's arm, he frowned. "… No, not anymore." Putting a blanket over the open neck wound, he then called Mu's attention to this new cut, over where the doctor pressed his thumb. There was blood inside, but it was a very dark red and coming out like a sponge. "See this coloring and thickness, Mu? It's completely coagulated. It's no wonder there's no blood in any of these scenes because the victims had their red cells turned into gel."

Mu was fascinated. "Ohh, that's so cool!... but what does that mean?"

The doctor sweated. Lemurians were so obsessed with their arts that their detachment from what was around them, even at such a young age, came off as off-putting.

"Usually, about an hour after death, you start seeing signs of livor mortis. This means the settling of blood on lower parts of your body." He then pointed at different parts of the body, where small spots were black. "However, the settling is uneven throughout the body, instead of on the thighs which he's been sitting on, suggesting that coagulation occurred equally throughout the body, not depositing at all."

Mu scratched his head.

The doctor dumbed it down. "It means all the blood in the body was artificially clotted by an injected agent before the cutting ever even happened. This guy's bloodstream was poisoned! All over the body at once. All the blood cells shrunk at the same time, cutting off oxygen circulation and therefore proper use of Cosmos to save himself… This guy never stood a chance. You might as well have Medusa petrify him."

The Lemurian boy gulped, imagining such a thing. "Oh, I see…"

This was why drowning and asphyxiation was a common death cause in Cosmos users; being a burning power, the cosmic energy of the universe relied on the body having access to oxygen. A good way to prevent your foe from fighting back with it was targeting the throat unless they were trained against that cheap tactic.

What the doctor observed in the body was a fancy way of doing this. Ophiuchus Iaso would lie if he said he didn't shiver at imagining how it must have felt. "…Really, the 'final cut' is more of a mercy blow than anything else." He then noticed the setting they found. "Judging by how he was still just sitting here, everything must have happened so quickly he never even noticed someone got the drop on him."

Again, Mu was nothing if amazed. "Holy moly, that's insane! How did they do that?!"

This was a damn good question, and Iaso rapidly stripped the rest of the bone armor off to ascertain more. Initially only finding the same signs he found in the other two Skeleton Soldiers that Mu detected for him, like the blackened veins, the stiff musculature, and rolled up eyes.

"I don't know the exact agent, but with the Cosmos, it's a simple matter for you to pump it very rapidly into someone else to create the reaction you want in a timeline of less than a second," Iaso explained. "Sword slice is also simple; any sword user worth his salt in Sanctuary knows this cheap cutting-off-without-sliding-off trick…."

Mu could tell the doctor was concerned, though. "Then… what's wrong, Saint Iaso?"

The brown-haired man frowned. "This is." He then turned pointed at the two ugly bite marks on the nape. They made Mu irk with how gross they looked. "I've seen this before. Recently a noble from the Solo family died from these wounds. I was answering letters and calls about the autopsy for a whole day. I thought a giant spider had done it…"

Mu paled. Nothing crept him out more than spiders, but a giant one? "What do you think now, doctor?"

A grim darkness came over Iaso's face. "Now I think someone got to Rodario before us, but after the Sonar that Saint Shinta talked about. And whoever they are, they're deadly, realized what was going on, and didn't bother to wake up any of our allies." Iaso concluded. "This can only mean one thing…"

The Lemurian shivered. "What, what?"

The doctor stood up and tensed his sight. "That on top of all the Specters, there's a murderer in Sanctuary. And whoever it is, he doesn't like making messes."

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

Green Valley

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

His red eyes stared at the blood-soaked sword pointed at him. It glittered in the moonlight as it dripped to the floor, making his stomach go cold.

Pretty soon, however, the weapon's horse-backed owner turned it away in favor of reaching down her other hand. "Good to see you, Saint Lance."

Lance took the cavalier's slim hand to raise himself from the dirt. "Adriana?... Thanks…" and his eyes squinted suspiciously "but you're not supposed to be here."

Adriana smirked knowingly from her saddle. "Are there more dangerous men around these parts?"

He pointed at her sword. "Judging by the blood on that thing, you know exactly what I'm talking about."

Pulling her bridle, she smirked and galloped around him. "Yes, I did get my hands on a Skeleton or two…Like the one sitting on top of Stardust Prison. I found out about this raid through my network and came right away to get Sophie to safety. Isn't that right, sweetie?" she petted her horse's mane and the white horse neighed pleasantly.

Reaching in for the bridle, he held Sophie still. "It's not just a raid, there's a whole invasion going on, Adriana. The Golden Zodiac is getting stormed by Specters and their leader is fairly astute as well. It's dangerous for you to be here attacking them."

The silver-ringed woman froze. Her blue eyes blinked and her fingers tensed on the reins. "Oh…"

Lance nodded, sweating. "Adriana,… it could get ugly. I'm not sure if I can even save one of my friends anymore. You have to get out of here."

A consternating pause of contemplating the true dimension of the danger came from the young woman, who looked away and gulped as if embarrassed by how much she underestimated the situation, yet trying to remain composed.

Yet, she had to refute him "I see. Then I'm definitely staying for the night…"

This wasn't the reaction the stunned Saint wanted. "What? No! Look, Adriana, this is not a-"

She made her horse clop away from him to deny him further words. "I have to protect my assets, Lance. My family makes money with Sanctuary, not the Underworld." she worded.

The undercover Gold Saint rested a hand on his hip. Even knowing her unpredictable nature and the weird tendency the two of them had to encounter one another, coming across the strawberry-blonde noblewoman in the middle of the forested valley while on his way to save Aldebaran was the last thing he had expected that night.

However, both as a Saint and as someone who was starting to get along with the Ghisi representative as of recently, Lance had to express concern. "I won't be able to cover for you. There's enemies all over Sanctuary and I'm needed at the Zodiac."

And the woman scoffed, bewildering him. "I can look after myself." She assured, cleaning the blood off her sword with a silk cloth. "And besides…"

Lance didn't buy this. All of Sanctuary was getting caught by surprise by Lucifer's invasion, and the young noblewoman was unconcerned. "Besides what?"

Strangely, she then raised her free hand and smiled at him in a show-offish manner. It was then that his red eyes saw them; faint strings barely visible under the moonlight rested between her fingers, like a web. "Like I said, I have my network."

The Cancer Gold Saint stood back, the sensation of many spiders walking up his body like a shiver suddenly felt. Just before the beautiful aristocrat showed up, the Saint had sensed himself as if running straight into an old web which broke off at the slightest touch. Now he realized the trees all over them had thin threads going in between them, which didn't even look particularly tense, but just like naturally abandoned silk webs, one would find in nature or at unclean rooms.

It was the type of thing no one would suspect was laid by anything but the common variety of garden spider looking for flies, yet could transport the faintest vibrations across their length nonetheless. Lance's hand reached out for one and flicked it, and he saw the tingling take but less than a second to propagate across unknown stretches of webbing then right back to the threads on Adriana's hand.

She pressed a finger against her lip in a playful, shushing gesture. "Don't tell anyone, mm-mm."

The teenage Saint folded arms. "… I didn't realize you were spying on Sanctuary."

Her eyes rolled. "It's not spying, it's… surveillance. Like an alarm system." she saw he was unconvinced, though. "Do you know how important it is to know before anyone else when a business opportunity arrives? In fact, I'd say you could use my help."

The Gold Saint widened his eyes. "What?!"

She nodded. "That's right. Do you have any idea the kind of footprint you're leaving behind you? The other two Saints who ran through here sure didn't." she warned, referring to the two girls, Cerah and Yushira, which she spotted from afar. "I bet every Specter in Sanctuary already knows they're coming."

Lance, however, thought she was talking about Andromeda Shinta and Gemini Saga. "SHIT, then they're walking into an ambush!" he appealed to the noblewoman. "Adriana, I have to get down there! Our strategy is not gonna work!"

Adriana paused, her confident smile suddenly gone. "Oh!… So you know them?"

Lance gave her a puzzled look. "…Yes, of course!"

Strangely, Adriana seemed to blink rather flustered and look away. "Ah…How… close are those two to you?"

What kind of question was this? "One is a very dear friend. We've been through a lot together," he explained, which for some reason made her hand tighten on her sword. "But whatever, that doesn't matter! They're in danger!"

She shook her head to dispel unknown thoughts and nodded. "Yes, yes of course. It's… likely they thought that just moderating their speed would be enough, but these Skeletons have been well trained. The last one I killed was messaging someone called 'Lemon' about them. Does it ring a bell?"

Lance folded his arms and tensed, recognizing it. "… Yes, he's the Alraune. He attacked me at my training ground before the main leader did." And the Saint calculated that Adriana had to be telling the truth because there was no way she could just guess both the Specter's name and his friends' separate offensive. "Adriana…I have to help them."

She nodded. "Of course, and I'll do what I can, but can you even guess how many Skeletons are parked in Sanctuary's rooftops and the Temples?" Adriana challenged. "You can go ahead on your own into a nest of forward scouts, but then you'll be the one putting your friends in danger."

The Saint took a minute to ponder this over. He had no time to lose, but he could put his friends at risk if his attack was detected before it was ripe.

Eventually, he made his decision. "How fast can you get me to the entrance of Aries undetected?"

Something about this surprised her. "Just to the entrance? Pretty fast, I'd say. My network can spot their scouts for you without them seeing us first till we get to Aries, but judging from the Fire Clock, they're already at Gemini…Is the First House close enough for you to reveal yourself to them?"

The black-haired youth banged fist in palm determinedly. He wasn't the most powerful Gold Saint in cosmos, or even the one with longest-reaching attacks, but he sure as hell knew how to strike hard. "Get me to that Temple unnoticed and I'll kick every ass inside that place, Specters or not!"

Intrigued, the noblewoman smirked and galloped her horse around him, as if judging him under new eyes. The Bronze Saint grumbled. He didn't like the look in her eyes on him. She had done the same back at the ranch. What was so fun about this? Did she really enjoy feeling like her horse gave her the higher ground in conversations?

She sheathed her sword, ready to aid. "Very well, a lightning strike it is. I'm curious to see if you can pull it off." she accepted, before offering her hand. "Get up, I'll take you there. This way I won't let you step on the line of sights you shouldn't."

A bit taken aback by the offer, the Saint nervously accepted, getting on the horse behind her. The white steed snorted a little, unused to his weight, which unsettled Lance, but this was nothing compared to when she practically pulled his hands around her torso.

She felt how shaky his hands were on her stomach. "I didn't figure someone so confident in battle would be so anxious…"

He had no idea what to say. This was because she was the one making him anxious, not the battle. "There's just… a lot at stake." His face went completely red and Lance forgot about the war for a second. "A lot on my mind, too."

The young woman then said something even stranger, at least considering her usually cold outlook. "And you're worried about those two friends, I bet?"

His eyes looked away. "Yeah." He felt a tensing in her breathing, expressed through her torso tightening ever so slightly. "What's wrong?"

"…Do your best, and you'll get through it. I'm sure of it." And she pulled the bridle. "Let's go, Sophie!" Adriana's cosmos then burned, igniting Sophie's hooves with faint flames of energy, and the horse neighed before taking off the valley at a shocking speed, the sound of its hooves softened by a path of silk projected by its owner on the road.

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

Gemini Temple

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

Shakes were felt from said Taurus Temple, accompanied by flashes of black or golden light. The battle between Torak and the Taurus Saint raged on and the tremors were getting worse by the minute. Sphinx eyed it apprehensively, wishing the Behemoth would just get it over with already and move on.

Lemon saw this. "Worried about the big freak? Don't. Unlike the rest of us, his Surplice heals back." he bit. "That Taurus will get what's coming to him soon."

She paced around. "I'm not worried." she lied.

But the venomous man of red hair scoffed. "… What do you care about him? Be more worried about Golem. He's taking way too long inside this temple." He pointed out. There had been several minutes since Treble disappeared inside Gemini with his men. "Not that I'm surprised; we wouldn't be stuck here now if our leader had a plan to get through these Houses."

Eyeing him, Neferti got sick of his bitching. "Don't talk like you could just waltz in yourself into the most powerful fortress in the world, Lemon. If it were up to you, the extent of our miserable lives would be being Pandora's slaves."

His teeth greeted, resentful. "Of course… I should expect a lack of gratitude from traitors like you three." He hissed, referring to her, Ainsel and Torak.

She then scoffed. "You ambushed me at the Pyramid. (*)" she reminded him. "You simply had no idea someone else could be thinking of a picture bigger than the one in your head. And do you think this is the time to be talking about this?! We're attacking Sanctuary!"

(*) See Chapter 32

Although the plantoid Specter quieted down, he spared her vengeful promises with his eyes. "You'll see! I'll have you play music to her filthy dog again once Lucifer's dead! I'm not dying because of his ambition!"

Meanwhile, Ainsel would fly above them, spreading moths everywhere. "It's as I've said, Prince." He told Lucifer mentally. "I cannot scan the other side of the Gemini House at all. Good thing I've informed you in time or Lemon would have punished our men unfairly."

"We'll see about that…"

"The loyalty of the men is unquestioned, Prince. I doubt they would dare turn their back to the Saints."

Lucifer doubted it as well, or else a round of Eternal Darkness awaited them.

Soon enough, Golem's message came through. "We see the other side, Prince! We're about to reach the stairs to Cancer. Here we go!" And then, to everyone's shock, Golem and his men walked right out of the Gemini House to the Prince and the rest of the army. "….W…. W-WHAT?!"

Elf didn't waste time pointing fingers. "SEE, SEE?! He did it too!"

"QUIET, you c-coward, or I'll kick you right across the mountain!" Treble warned, clenching his huge fist. "Prince, I swear to all the stars in the Underworld, it's some sort of trick! There must be an illusion inside!"

But the Pride Star was skeptical of this. "An illusion? I need a physical test, then; attack the temple's inner hall from here! Shoot your boulders in a straight direction, as long as a trajectory you can! Illusions are not gonna work on something that doesn't have a mind!"

The gigantic man nodded obediently. "Yes, Prince!" and he raised his arms, conjuring enormous boulders of Sisyphus with his Earth cosmos. "Tear it down to rubble! ROLLING STONE BOMBER!" and the enormous pieces of rock then fired off like crude rockets right into the temple's innards, seeking to bombard its interior halls.

The Skeletons stood guard, awaiting the loud sound of impacts.

It wasn't coming.

One of them approached the doorway and peeked inside. "What the hell-… W-WATCH OUT!" and he then screamed and recoiled back when a rain of giant rocks came flying out, shocking everyone!

Alraune was quick to action. "BLOOD FLOWER SCISSORS!" and his tendrils reached out and sliced the many empowered boulders to perfectly cut bricks of stone which shattered everywhere harmlessly, causing many intrigued murmurs among the Specters. Lemon himself was bewildered. "What the hell just happened?!"

"The rocks came flying back out! They must have giant trampolines inside the Gemini Temple!" one Skeleton concluded.

Lucifer was stunned at this stupidity and rolled his eyes, groaning.

Feeling his exasperation, the Sphinx stepped in, having finished analyzing her test. "It's not an illusion or… trampolines, it's some sort of space loop," Neferti explained. "Sanctuary uses these a lot, like at the off-Sanctuary location of the Pisces Cloth temple(*). Earlier I played my music and felt its soundwaves to try to find beating hearts inside… but even though there should be nothing but pillars and support walls inside, at some point every single wave was returned to me."

(*) Read Chapter 19 – Ghouls n'Roses Part 2

"What does that mean?" Golem asked.

"It means that they're all getting sent back instead of traveling across the Temple to the other side," the Sphinx explained. "Which can't be done without twisting space you're traveling into a U-turn. Elf and Cait did walk all the way through the Temple, my brothers… but the Temple showed them the wrong exit."

A new collective murmur followed through the entire army, with many heads being scratched beneath helmets. "Then what do we do?"

"Yeah, it sounds like the same will happen to us if we go inside." Dullahan Hedron wondered.

The Prince himself volunteered to show his men the solution by stepping ahead of his men and conjuring a ball of purple, crackling cosmos. "I'll show you what we'll do! We'll blow this place's roof right off its foundations!"

The men stepped away. "W-whow, watch out!"

Many were slightly shocked by the sparks that started crackling from their leader's hands and yelped away. "It's Dark Revenge Blast, the Prince is about to use it!"

Lucifer laughed, raising hands to the air and making dark cosmos conjure around the ball like a black vortex. "Mm, mm, mm! I've always heard about the Labyrinth of Gemini, but these temples are rather short in length, after all! No far-off horizon to help give the illusion of progress! Let's then see if you can allude our senses without the shadows of a boxing enclosure!" his smile then expanded lethally. "As a bonus, I'll just blow up whoever's triggering this defense! Two birds in one blast!"

The black-armored men laughed and cheered, inspired by their leader's brute power while keeping a cautious distance away from it.

Suddenly, the entire House of Gemini began brimming with golden cosmos, reacting to the threat. The cheering stopped and Lucifer paused his charging and, to everyone's bewilderment, as if their eyes were playing tricks on them, their collective visions began to blur and the sight of the temple began doubling to the sides. Many winced painfully, subjected to the invasive ocular illusion, but before long their sights unblurred and the Specters found themselves with a whole new problem in their hands.

Lucifer completely halted the technique and stared tensely at the bewildering nonsense before him, while the rest of the Specters gawked.

Golem in particular was outraged. "WHY ARE THERE NOW TWO OF THEM?!"

In a miracle of dimensional work and sensorial illusion, the entire passage in the mountain had doubled in width and now housed two perfect replicas of the Gemini Temple side-by-side. Even the stairs from where they stood to their respective entries had been replicated and shifted to the sides and the brimming cosmos of before was sensed in both directions as if the same energy was occupying two places at once.

Alraune eyed his leader as the tick-tock of the Fire Clock was the only audible noise. "Are you gonna blow up both of them now, Prince?"

The Celestial Pride Star clenched fists and gritted teeth. If Shion thought this was enough to stop him, he was dead wrong. The Specter was a Gemini, after all, and by his Zodiac, he wouldn't let his own House delay him like this. "Split the forces between me and Neferti! We're crossing both of them and finding whoever's operating the temple! NOW!"

The men yelped in fear and immediately began organizing, with the Skeletons picking Specters to back up and the Specters picking high-rankers to follow.

"I will fly overhead the Temple, Lord Lucifer," Ainsel suggested, already traveling over the two Houses. "I would take you with me, but it would take so long and I don't want to get us shot down by Sagittarius."

"I'm fine with that! Be there to guide us as we begin reaching the other end." Lucifer ordered. The Prince went to their bag of supplies and took out a long steel cord, which he handed to the first among his men. "Here, use this. Stake it to the ground here and then hold it along as we cross the Temple!"

The Skeleton smirked. "Ah-ah, this way we won't get lost!"

He then squinted at his chosen Temple's innards. "I want to make sure there's no rat inside this House anyway…"

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

Cancer Temple

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

Loud steps were heard going up his house and the great wooden doors were banged at with a mix of urgency and respect. "Young lord, please open the doors!"

"Whow-whow-WHOW! What the heck is happening?! Why are you fish sticks already falling back all the way here?!" Mephisto asked, sweating bullets as he opened the gates of his temple to let the escapees in. He then felt his feet cold and he saw the way the ground was whiter. "And would you tell me who did this to Lance's temple?! The entire mountain road looks like it was frozen!"

Immediately, scores of people rushed inside the Cancer House, some military, some civilian. Mephisto stood out of the way and was stunned by the smell of fear in the air and the rushed pace with which the Papal Guards guided the servants inside.

A lieutenant Papal Guard with marks of fresh blood wetting his gold-carved equipment from top to bottom bowed at the trainee. "Thank you, young Lord, we are glad to see you're awake. We will be moving up soon enough! You should come with us as well!"

The subtle tone of preoccupation in the warrior was palpable to the sly thief. He knew there was an attack, as Aiolos had been screaming at his ear to get moving for almost an hour, but Mephisto thought the Specters would have been crushed the second they stepped into Aldebaran's House and that the Sagittarius Saint was making a big deal out of nothing.

However, as if to stress reality, many injured Papal Guards and terrified servants made their way around them, the former trying to stay strong and spirited so they could prevent panic and further life loss while the latter whimpered, cried, and prayed in whispers to Athena as they hurried past Lance's House, ignoring the Golden box in the center of its dark hall.

Deathmask, as he made himself known despite Lance's displeasure, had to ask what was going on. "I've been hearing things flying over my temple from the 9th House all night and there was that big quake just now; how the hell are you losing ground?!"

The lieutenant from Saga's Temple elaborated, a bit exasperated by the kid's distraction. "Have you not paid attention to the Fire Clock? Saint Sagittarius is doing his best, but the enemy turned out to be much stronger than anticipated, young lord. They've already occupied two temples. Saint Taurus is battling for his life as we speak."

Deathmask blinked. "Wait, what?! This is that serious?! An actual full force invasion?! How the hell did it all escalate like that?! I thought Holy War was only, like, a lifetime away!" he gasped.

Agapethos shook his head. "…I don't have any answers, young lord." He confessed, before pointing at his men. "You three, get the Cloth Box out of here! We can't allow Lord Cancer's armor to fall into enemy hands!"

The young, dark-blue haired teenager was agape. "You…This is unbelievable!" he bitched, pacing around with a look of increased panic on his face. Lance was still gone. Was Deathmask supposed to take up his armor and defend the stupid Temple with his life, like everyone else? "Hopefully Taurus Bigfoot downstairs is buying me some time to flee, damn it! At least he's good for something other than soccer."

The other foot soldiers tried to lift the Cancer Gold Cloth box but, much like earlier with Aldebaran, the armor seemed to refuse to be handled, much less taken outside its Temple. "Lieutenant, it won't b-budge!"

The lieutenant heard the Fire Clock's faint ticking and grew nervous. "Young lord, I stress that you must take a course of action! The Gemini Temple is already being breached. After everything I've seen, I don't expect its labyrinth will delay these attackers for long!"

Groaning loudly, the thief conceded. "AAGH, goddamn it! Alright, out of the way, you useless fish sticks! How hard is it to lift a dumb box, anyway?!" the kid lambasted, referring to the gold-carved armor of the Papal Guards and heading for the Cloth box and, to the shock of the soldiers, picking it up and strapping it to his back with no resistance whatsoever, as if his compatibility with it was as high as the anointed Gold Saint himself. "There, easy! Now let's go get that pant-pissing-punk Aiolia! That will get his older brother off my ears!"

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

Gemini Temple,

Left Passageway

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

Sphinx Neferti and Alraune Lemon charged through the House of Gemini, heading a larger half of the Skeletons. As the two most powerful members on the ground, it was the right balance to have them go through one of the halves of Gemini's illusion while the Prince and the other army went through the other.

As they made their way through, Neferti and Lemon realized why Golem Treble took so long to say anything as he made his way through the House. It was deceptively deep, going on for much longer through the large hall filled with support pillars than the size of the temple indicated from the outside. They were likely already inside a space loop meant to create an illusion of distance, in turn allowing the greater U-turn loop to fool them by robbing their eyes of the sight of the exit.

This was a much more sophisticated loop trap than the ones they were used to. The Gemini Saint was fabled for his powers of dimensions and all of them had seen the battle between Akassius and their elites at Crow's Nest that cost Lycaon Coronis' life (*). But Akassius had not employed Another Dimension or any kind of illusion in that fight, simply overwhelming the trio of Specters who battled him with his raw power. The army of Specters was justly stunned at how hard it was to get through his stupid House, even when it was empty.

(*) See Chapter 43 – The Shadows Move

Alraune, as always, was the first to complain. "When will this goddamn corridor end already?!"

Sphinx persevered in her run, trying to keep her senses alert to the way space was being bent around them. "Our only chance to get through is to overwhelm the House's defenses by crossing both Temples at once, Lemon. Even space loops can't do too much at once. It will take a while, but Gemini can't delay us forever!"

Sharp of eye, one of the crossbowmen spotted a far off light source. "I think I see the exit!"

Invigorated, the battalion doubled their pace. "It better not be the stairs to Taurus again!" Golem growled.

Sphinx gasped. "That means…Ainsel, are you there?!"

And everyone saw an orange-clad figure land on the ground ahead of them. "Yes, brothers! I see you as well!"

Sphinx went ahead by herself and saw, to her delight, stairs going up instead of down! "We did it! It's the stairs to Cancer!"

"Hooray!" a Skeleton celebrated.

"Take that, you stupid House!" another ranted, kicking down a torch plate.

"Fucking finally!" Alraune hissed, stepping outside to get a good look at the next Temple. "Now if only Lucifer got stuck on his end, that would be perfect…"

Elf Rossalier had his doubts, though. "I don't get it… Why was it so easy this time?"

"That is a good question." Sphinx Neferti admitted, before greeting Ainsel with a reassuring arm crossing. "Ainsel, I've never been so relieved to see you. I thought for a second we had made a big mistake in picking the left way."

"It's good to see you as well… but pardon me for saying I would have preferred meeting Lord Lucifer on his way out of there." The Papillion responded. "Unfortunately, I can't even reach him anymore. I lost contact with the Prince shortly after you guys just left the House."

Golem Treble then volunteered. "Well, it's fine! We'll just keep a few guys here and then walk back through the right one to get him out!"

Lemon tapped his shoulder to get his attention. "You wanna take another guess at that, big guy?"

The entire battalion then looked back at the House and, to their shock… the two houses were one once more.

Sphinx jaw dropped. "What?!" her 7th sense tried to search for the Prince's cosmos, but it was completely gone. "I can't feel the Prince! Where did he and his men go?!"

"It's like the House they went through just vanished!" A Skeleton screamed

Elf Rossalier grabbed his head. "UGGGH, I'm so confused, what the hell does this mean now?!"

Alraune Lemon was quick to capitalize on this. "It means he got himself Another Dimensioned! Fucking fantastic!" he roared. "Half of our army, including our commander, is gone!"

"QUIET! I had enough of you complaining, Lemon!" Sphinx screamed.

He just shrugged. "Fine, then what do you suggest we do?!"

She thought about this seriously. It was a dire situation indeed, she couldn't lie. But then she realized something important. "Look, the Fire Clock is still ticking with the Gemini fire."

"So what?!"

She stepped up to him. "Don't you know what that means?! Sanctuary is still trying to track the Prince and Nasu hasn't received any of the souls he took with him! They both haven't counted him out, which means he's still alive!"

The skeletons lifted their spirits. "She's right!"

"He LIVES! The Prince lives!"

"I knew it!"

"YOU FOOLS DON'T KNOW THAT!" Lemon screamed.

Ainsel's helmet antennae perked up, receiving signals from Romania. "Mm, Nasu?"

"Ainsel, where's the Prince?!"

He held ear as if to hear his thoughts better among the ruckus around him. "I was hoping you could help us out with that, frankly."

A reflecting pause was sensed from the Specter at their base before she continued. "Well, your Surplice just bounced some bad news my way… and I might be able to use them to find him."

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

Gemini Temple,

(?)

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

Having taken the temple to the right, Lucifer headed the charge through the Labyrinth of Gemini. However, just like he informed Sphinx before communications were suddenly cut off, his party was making no progress through the structure, merely passing row of pillars after row of pillars.

"Prince Lucifer, wait!" one of the men at the rear yelled. "Someone has cut the cord!"

"W-what?!" another gasped as the sliced object was brought before their leader.

The Pride Star beheld the damaged wiring, which had been singed in twain. "Is that so?... Interesting. So the House may not be as empty as I thought." He then beheld the emptiness around him. "But now I know you are here, whoever you are, and not on the other 'Gemini Temple'!"

Frankly, though, the Prince began to lose his patience. He stopped, causing the group to halt as well, and looked at the ceiling like he was ready to blast a way up.

Perhaps this wasn't such a bad idea, though.

His men saw their Prince pausing. "My Lord? What's going on?"

"His red eyes widened and Lucifer looked around, now aware of the gravity of the trap he fell into. "I'm still inside the Temple of Gemini, though. I must have been uplifted into some separate, overlaying space… There MUST be someone here." He turned to his many men. "Do a headcount, NOW!"

The Skeletons were sent into a flurry and began grouping up to count individuals. A nervous grunt approached the Prince. "L-…Lord Lucifer, we regret to inform you that two of our men are missing."

The ground sizzled with sparks as the Prince's rage subtly manifested in his cosmos. "I see…Continue on ahead, then!"

"My lord?"

The Prince pointed forward. "I said, keep going! I'm staying here and forcing this temple to focus its space trickery on me! I'm it's most valuable target anyway!" His red eyes looked around suspiciously. "If we all go after the one who exited, all our eyes will be in his direction and this temple will just morph space around us all over again. Someone has to fall into its trap… and I intend to find out who's responsible for it."

"B-but… what will you do to get out?!"

The silver-haired man pondered this. It was indeed a dangerous gamble to make, but something told him that keeping his men moving around and walking into these ambushes was worse. Besides, if he confronted what was causing these illusions and killings, he could find a way to put a stop to it before moving on.

As it stood, after all, even if all of them found a way out, leaving the Gemini Temple like this was tantamount to having their direct communication with Taurus and Aries completely cut off, and Behemoth Torak and Cyclops Balgo's groups would be made vulnerable to Sanctuary's agents. They would then have to rely on Ainsel to keep things linked, and having only one backdoor was unacceptable. Daemon Lucifer had to make sure that the threat of the Gemini Temple was neutralized before it bit him in the ass later.

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

Sanctuary,

Western Forest Grounds

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

Corvus Cerah Héloise tried to keep up with Crane Yushira as she was guided along the side of the Golden Zodiac's mountain, pursued by the red-armored False Specter with the glowing helmet yellow eye. The terrain they were moving into was losing all signs of development and brick to give way to grass, bushes, and dirt paths into what looked like the dark, dense forest that surrounded the Golden Zodiac in all directions but that of Sanctuary Town itself.

The knight's green eyes saw a signpost at the entrance of the forest. It pointed northeast to 'Star Hill' which lay behind the Golden Zodiac, north to 'Fire Clock' and northwest to a place called 'Aretias'. Cerah knew about the former two, of course, and could even spot their tops easily from where she ran, but the very last one was unfamiliar. Yet, Yushira confidently strode ahead into the trees, paying no mind to the sign.

The dark cosmos of their pursuer swollen far behind, along with the sensation of a great hungry eye on the back of their heads. This was, adversely, way too familiar a feeling for Cerah, who was coldly reminded of the bleak night that she battled Cyclops Servo and Gryphon Urial.

"It's the Eye of Arges. It's after me again!" she realized, feeling her heart beat faster and her soul could at the idea of enduring the great storm of terrors that Servo once put her through. "Saint Yushira, where are we going?!"

The Crane didn't even slow down. "Told you, to get home-field advantage. We're in the forests surrounding Aretias, the Amazon village!"

Cerah gasped. "We are?!"

Yushira laughed. "You don't know about this place, do you?" she asked, getting a head shake. Suddenly, a large tumbling sound accompanied by a furious howl was heard, like someone just fell into a pit. "Well, neither do those guys! This place is packed with traps. They're meant to keep away assholes who want to peek at Amazon faces. It's literally the second most dangerous place in Sanctuary."

Halting for a brief moment, Cerah's trained senses felt the pursuer leave the deep crevice he fell on only to immediately spring a rope by his ankle that swung him right up a tree, releasing more loud cursing. She calculated that Yushira planned some sort of guerrilla tactic against the much stronger foe and realized her new friend once again had a method to her madness.

"Hey, stop dawdling and follow this way!" Crane then took a mighty leap into one of the trees and moved onward by traveling from branch to branch, like a jaguar. "Keep going at ground level and track me with your cosmos senses."

Cerah paused, bewildered. "By myself?! But what am I supposed to do if he finds me?!"

The Crane's hand wave. "Just fight him for a while! Trust me, I have a plan! For now he's just triggering the warning shots, but there's some really serious seals up ahead that will blast him to pieces for stepping into Aretias. He has to think you're scared, tho', or he'll see through it!" and she went on ahead.

The Corvus was completely exasperated. Was Yushira putting her through this cause it was part of a clever plot, or because it was more fun for her?

Way behind, boulders were loudly shattered apart and vegetation violently ripped out of the way. "CORVUS! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Cerah screamed and ran, doing her best to follow the signature of Yushira's cosmos as it blitzed among the trees. She didn't have to pretend to be scared, because she was. The fight with Cyclops Servo had been brutal and a test to Cerah's psychological endurance, both because of the way it drained her strength and the powerful mental attacks that the Specter tortured her with.

The cosmos behind her was larger and angrier than the one she fought in Germany. False Specters were not revived the way regular ones were, meaning this Cyclops was likely a replacement of a replacement. She could tell it was similar enough to Servo to likely belong to a resentful sibling that took up the dark mantle.

The last thing Cerah wanted out of that night was being put into another coma.

Yet, as she made her way through the forest, followed by the increasingly loud trashing behind her, she suddenly screeched her foot to a halt, thinking about what she was doing.

"Oh-oh, what's this?... Did you remember something you lost along the way?" Corvus teased.

The girl's heart beat faster as the Cyclops ripped apart the trees and came across her, now fully visible. He was at least three times as tall as Cerah, and his maddened energy burned into a blood-red aura that sizzled like boiling blood. His helmet's yellow's eye burned insanely along with the red shot human orbs beneath it and the man's muscles bulged in readiness for revenge. "I found you! After all these years!"

Cerah's foot stepped back and her hands assumed a pose, raising one at the enemy while tightening the other near the waist. "T-that's right!"

"Cerah, what are you DOING?!" Yushira screamed in her head, going back to a tree by what was happening.

The girl's cosmos burned, letting out a yellow brim of fluttering photons.

The Cyclops slowly approached. "Do you know how long I've dreamed of this moment?! Where I would find the bitch that cost my brother's life?" he hissed, already gathering strength in his hand. "I don't care what the Prince thinks… or that I have to leave all those other useless clots guarding Aries! I'm not leaving this sanctuary without your head, just like you didn't leave that valley without the head of my brother!"

Yushira paused, observing the confrontation, stunned at what the Specter was saying. Had these two battled before?

Cerah gulped. Hopefully, this guy wouldn't talk too much in front of Crane. "There's no need for conversation, is there? You're here to kill me, and that's all that should matter, so let's get this over with!" she provoked, feeling her heart beat faster. "Stop being scared, you can do this!"

The massive Specter paused, taken by surprise. He wasn't sure if he should feel offended at her dismissal or intrigued by her eagerness to fight. "You will regret those words… after tonight, there will be no body to be buried, no bone to be collected! Your neck will be broken as soon as my fist hammers it and it will be strung in these trees without eyes, arms, and legs and eaten by the dogs of this filthy land!"

The girl breathed out her last hesitations and her green eyes froze with determination. Her guts welled in terror at having to face the massive power in front of her, but her mind abstracted itself from that fear, calculating her strategy. The intense focus put into this made her aura expand a little, igniting the forest with yellow light.

The illuminated Specter narrowed his eyes and backed away a bit, bewildered by the apparent lack of fear in her. "Do you think you should look at me that way, Saint?!"

She gave him no answer.

So he laughed. "Ah, ah, AH! Then I'll put something else on your face! An expression of pure distraught and terror. I am CYCLOPS BALGO, brother of Servo, Specter of the Underworld, servant of the Celestial Star of Pride! And so his cosmos expanded as well, veining his way into his helmet's eye. "NOW SHOW ME YOUR FEAR! DARK CRATER!" and the eye's light burst out like a lighthouse, countering hers with its bewitching spell.

"CERAH!" Yushira screamed.

Rather than activating Emission Lenses, Cerah closed her eyes and concentrated. It wouldn't do any direct good, and it wasn't meant to. Her spirit simply relaxed and her body was struck wholly by the Cyclops' maddening curse. Illusionary storms were raised around her, wrapping her in the terror of the cannibalistic one-eyed monsters of the Cyclades.

The ground cracked, fissuring up into a large, endless abyss, and the knight fell, fell and fell, swallowed by the tempestuous darkness. The screams of the swallowed, crunched men haunted her ears and huge dark hands reached out to her, grabbing her body, Cerah's mind allowed the gripping terror of the obscure creatures to drown her brain, showing her sights of carnage, bloodshed, and human cattle being sacrificed to the gluttony of giant beasts.

The hellish existence she was being subjected to was even stronger than the one Servo showed her, surrounding the knight with brutalized colossi who wanted to rip her apart in the deepest caverns of the world, where light and hope would not reach her.

But the Saint had seen all of this before, before the great sleep she undertook.

With a martial shout, her cosmos burst out, shooting rays of light everywhere that pierced veil after veil of the powerful concoction of illusions, and the spectacle of terror, meant to paralyze and madden her, instead was run through by the beams, cracking, and ultimately was shattered around her, giving way to reality.

In said reality, Cyclops was already lunging in with a fist wrapped in a bubble of earth cosmos, believing her frozen by her own mind. "POLYPHEMUS KNUCKLE!"

Lunging forward, Cerah right between the Cyclops legs, letting the red armored gauntlet strike and shatter the ground, spreading grassed dirt, mud, and debris everywhere while releasing shockwaves that ripped apart surround trees. With a rapid spin, her light immersed foot then struck the back of the giant's leg, making him scream and fall to his knee.

Roaring, Balgo swept his huge arm around in a lariat that missed the much smaller knight, who leaped around the arm, hand-stood on it, and bashed her other foot right into the Specter's large face, stunning him back.

Blood shot out. "Y-YOU.-!"

The entire forest was set alight when her fist then formed a ball of cosmos and she jumped at his head! "PRISMATIC SHOT!" she chanted. The cry of the crow was heard, her aura swelled, the convex lens was instantly Lightcrafted over her hand and her fist then came swinging down on the helmet's eye, firing the blast through the lens! "TIMES TEN!"

The fisted blast struck the man's Eye of Arges like a huge blasting beam of Light elemental cosmos with the force of ten dispersed rays convexed into a single point, instantly shattering it and exploding into a shockwave of yellow light that ripped the man's helmet apart, revealing a mane of brownish-red hair and making the man roar in pain as he was floored by the immense force of the exploding punch.

His hands stopped his fall and he tumbled over. He heard pieces of his head protection fall to the grass. "Y-you… you fucking rat!"

Yushira was absolutely stunned, observing from a far off branch. "That attack!... That was the element of Light!"

Cerah's fauld skirt waved enchantingly with the back leap of her fighting dance and she landed gracefully on the ruined ground, reassuming pose, her chest breathing, and her arm already feeling the aftereffects of her decoupled overcharge. "Come on, then…! Let's see how you do without your spells, C-Cyclops!"

The Specter picked himself back up. His expression was as mad as it was bruised, with blood gushing down his forehead "You're supposed to be a v-vegetable! H-how?!"

The knight herself was not entirely sure, but under the terrifying spell of Dark Crater, she faced the terrors of the Cyclops once more and found them less threatening, something in her spirit stronger than the last time she faced it. "I don't need my Emission Lenses for what can't swallow my h-heart! So fight me, Specter!"

The Crane could not help but feel hyped for her new friend. "Alright, you're awesome, Cerah!"

The Corvus knight's green eyes shifted a bit, embarrassed by the compliment.

Cyclops took this distraction as a cue to lunge at her with a roar!

Unfortunately for the Specter, his arms wrapped themselves around a fleeting shadow that rapidly jumped into the skies, its foot charging power in the air before landing right on his nape with a powerful kick that floored him. Screaming, the Cyclops rolled around, screaming and cursing, and got up only for the lightning-fast knight to land a dash punch to strike him right in the exposed neck, interrupting his breathing and stunning his body.

His following attempt to bash the stupid girl while she still stood close, therefore, came clumsy and awkward, fighting through the pain, and Cerah was easily able to escape the arm toss with a back leap even though her body visibly burned like a star. Not willing to be outmatched, Cyclops's hand bashed the ground and ripped a huge boulder out of it, tossing it at Cerah all in one smooth movement.

The knight was forced to gasp and confront the threat "PRISMATIC SHOT!" she screamed, blasting the object apart with a basic form of her technique. Sharply edging the sides of her forearms with Lightcraft, she then ripped the remaining debris apart in a series of supersonic slashes.

The obvious distraction still allowed the giant to flank her and swing his red-blood charged back hand at her. "BIG KNUCKLE!" With another Lightcrafting flash, Cerah's arm formed a wide, shield-like defense that blocked the impact, though the immense force still launched her screaming against a tree!

Crashing through trunks, her light body rolled on the grass dirt and the knight heard a massive body leaped into the air above her.

Balgo laughed, hammered his hands, and came swinging down with them "I'll club you to DEATH!"

She rolled over, "P-PRISMATIC STORM!", formed a concave lens over her and fired her hand's cosmos through it. TIMES ONE HUNDRED!" and the light element beam came out like an authentic spectacle of laser lights, all loudly blasting at the airborne target.

Realizing he was caught completely vulnerable, the Cyclops screamed as his body was swallowed up by light and then bashed all over by the impact of dozens of powerful rays of light, each striking with the force of a supersonic punch. Far away from the temples where he could share energy with his peers, the Specter had virtually no defense, and his huge body's armor was cracked, sunk, bruised, burned, and blasted all over in an exploding mass of loud successive blows which smoke-screened him entirely.

Gasping out of the cloud with a heavily damaged body, the Cyclops fell, crashing far away from the knight with a loud thud, a ground shake, and a huge burst of rubble and dust.

Cerah panted and sweated, slowly standing up, her hot arm grabbed by her hand as the lens she crafted vanished into specks of light returning to her Cloth. Using Prismatic Storm was always a huge risk. It was a devastating move, but it had to be smartly used to make efficient use of all its rays and always left her feeling like she just ran a marathon.

Still, it looked like it paid off. The Specter was down, face first, and his Surplice heavily damaged. Even if he got back up now, Cerah doubted he would put up much more of a fight. After all the fear she felt, it turned out it wasn't such a big deal after all.

It would be kind of anti-climatic if there wasn't so much at stake to worry about.

Yushira stood up on the branch she had been lunging on. "Man… you kicked his ass! I guess my plan wasn't needed after all."

"Look at what you can accomplish when you get your head over your little insecurities." Corvus pointed out. "A year ago you would be struggling against this Specter, now you one-sidedly beat him."

Cerah nodded. The Specter was still moving, but there wasn't much of a fight left. Still, she felt gratitude for the recognition being given to her progress compared to a year back. "…Thank you."

Yushira scratched her head. "For what? I didn't say anything. This is on you, girl."

Cerah blinked confusedly. Yushira was right, who was she thinking?

A thumbs-up was given to her from the trees. "Still, Cerah, that was incredible! Nice job!"

The knight smiled happily, holding her arm shily.

While they were busy celebrating, Cyclops Balgo, at much pain and effort, lifted himself from the ground, feeling pieces of his Surplice falling off. "Ugh… it… it can't be!"

Yushira saw this and took cover. "Watch out!"

Cerah turned to the enemy and resumed her pose, narrowing her eyes in readiness for round two. "Stand down, Cyclops!"

The warrior of the Underworld ignored the demand and got on his leg and knee. "I… I am the Specter of Cyclops, the monster of the Cyclades! How could this be happening?!" he grabbed his head, feeling the eye of Arges somehow on him. "N-NO!"

You puny weakling!

Noticing something wasn't right, Cerah lowered her hands. "H-hey, what's wrong with you?!"

Balgo's entire body shook. He felt like shadows were swimming around him, dancing and pointing fingers at him. "N-NO! S-STOP! NOT AGAIN!"

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

Underworld,

Giudecca Palace

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

At the dark palace of the 8th Prison, where the shadows roam the corridors and the God of the Underworld rests Hypnos, Lord of Sleep, aided his dark lord Hades at sitting down on the large table.

"Emperor, are you sure you want to pursue this?" the golden-haired god asked. "I've already sent the summoning to Pandora to convene with you here and accompany the war at Sanctuary, but…" he then hesitated.

The puppet eyed him, affronted. "But what?"

"Forgive me for saying, but you were very much… hurt by the betrayal of Daemon," Hypnos argued as he made sure the puppet was comfortable in the seat. In reality, he was referring to Lord Hades being struck with Eternal Darkness and being reminded of the pain of the memory of Persephone. "Your judgment is impeccable as always, but if you wish so you can continue to rest and we will make sure to tail every single move Sanctuary makes."

But the glass eyes turned away. "The wheel of time waits not for even the Gods, Hypnos. Besides…" an evil smirk then filled his lips. "… you shouldn't worry too much about how my Specter has hurt me. I intend to pass the time while my round table gathers to return the favor to my Pride Star."

The god of sleep stood aback. "How so, your Majesty?"

A peal of soft laughter was returned. "Perhaps you should look at the stars more often."

Blinking, the confused God turned his mind to the skies of the Underworld, his third eye piercing across the dark brick of the Palace of Giudecca. He saw the one hundred and eight stars of the Specters, being made one hundred and ten since the creation of the sins of Pride and Absolutism.

At first, he saw nothing abnormal, but then he felt a lone, lower star shining more than usual. "Is that-"

"Mayhem? Yes. The star of Cyclops Gigant shines brightly tonight. He aches to awaken, but his true body is not ready yet." Hades confirmed. "Before we get on to that, though; Lucifer stole the spell you taught your student, Hypnos, …"

The Sleep God gulped. "Lord Hades… I never would have dreamed he would get his wretched hands on Eternal Darkness, much less use it on you!"

Hades laughed. "It's quite alright… it gave me a bit of perspective, shall we say. I got to take a look at how it works… how it roots itself in you way after its shadows seem to have lifted from around you."

The implication that the Underworld God was planning something was obvious to Hypnos. "And?"

A soft head tilt was made. "Well, it just so happens another poor victim of it was a False Specter that Lucian tried to teach a lesson in insignificance to, a False Specter with a grudge against the mortal girl he winged here for years. Someone whose mind is very fragile right now… almost… vulnerable to more insidious attacks."

The God of Sleep expanded his mind, sensing the cosmos of Lord Hades already stretching out to the unknown, singing songs of revival of one of his True Specters. "An attack… like a possession, Emperor?"

A venomous smile curved on the puppet's face. "Exactly."

Hypnos smiled. "I suppose we will be seeing our dear Gigant sooner than expected, then."

Hades agreed. He then joined fingers in contemplation. Blinding Eurydice was only the first of the punishments he would give Lucian from the comfort of Giudecca. "However, it will be a small price to pay to have someone who dared to lay their hand on my heart's desire to learn a lesson in loss!"

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

Sanctuary

Forests of Aretias

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

A low-pitched laughter was heard by him and no one else. "False warrior, false Cyclops! A mockery of the real thing, ME! Nothing more than a puny weakling! You should be swallowed by the giants you impersonate!"

Balgo screamed in horror, holding his head as he felt his mind invaded by alien thoughts. "AAGHH, STOP IT!"

Singing followed, speaking directly to his traumatized heart by the shadows of Hades' evil, conveyed by the Surplice he wore. "Eat him, eat him, the shadows shall! Fed to the one-eye like a human thrall!" The encircling shades formed hands that took one another and circled him like playing children. "A false slave of Hades is what you are; A shadow in history no one cares about!"

And the voice of the True Specter's spirit went on. "You're nothing but a joke! A mockery of the real Gigant! You and your headless fool of a brother! Now you went as far as seeking revenge against your Prince's wishes… and you failed miserably!

Balgo grabbed his face, trembling and babbling incoherently.

Meanwhile, the two warriors stared in bewilderment. The Crane was the first to get her bearings. "Umm… maybe you should step away, Cerah!" Yushira suggested.

Cerah did so, but her eyes were fixed on the enemy, unable to turn away from the evil she sensed surrounding him. She had felt it before, in Dark Crater itself, when the malice of the star governing the Cyclops Surplice was laid bare to its victims. Was it now turning on the Specter somehow? False Specters, however, lacked the blessing of the Evil Stars, so much that they were not allowed to reference themselves by their titles. Was something more terrible happening, therefore?

Indeed, however, did the Terrestrial Mayhem star burn in the Underworld as they stood there and as it drove its False Specter mad, and Gigant's voice went on. "Do you feel insignificant? Weak? Why should you not be the one eaten alive?!"

"N-NO, PLEASE DON'T, NOT AGAIN! I'm alive! I deserve to e-exist!" Balgo screamed out, recognizing the magic of Hades coming out from within and laying his arms out at the moon. The shades, which no one else could see, grew bigger around him, threatening to engulf him like they once had at the Second Prison. A headless giant then rose from them and stood before him, driving him over the edge as its black hand reached down on him. "N-NOT THE DARK! F-FORGIVE ME! NO-OO!"

Cerah charged an attack, ready to blast the Specter out of his misery. "That's e-enough! STOP IT!"

But Balgo just screamed louder than ever before, burning his blood-red cosmos in a desperate attempt to escape his fate. "S-SAVE ME!"

Then, before the eyes of the two stunned female warriors, the red-armored Specter was taken by a swirling hurricane of shadows, completely swallowing him. Screams from inside the vortex sent chills down their spines as they could barely make out the large limbs toss around like a desperate creature in a jail of horrors. Red energy burned hotter and brighter on the inside and broken pieces of the Cyclops Surplice that littered the floor from the battle were lifted and sucked into the black hole of obscure evil.

The cosmos that they previously felt like that of the Cyclops was gone!

Cerah's eyes widened, her hair fluttering with the force of the vortex. "W-what is going on?!"

A thooming sound was heard from within the vortex before the shadows of Eternal Darkness ripped apart in all directions, slicing off pieces of trees and bashing Cerah back a bit, leaving in their wake a gasping Balgo, still dressed in the Cyclops Surplice.

A beat of absolute silence followed before the wind resumed its pace, blowing the leaves of the forest around.

"Is it over…?" Yushira asked.

Cerah gulped, unsure.

Then, in the shadow of Balgo's restored helmet, a pair of red stars brightened up, like opened eyes. The man's neck slowly turned to her, blood dripping down from every corner of the armor. "Burn the Terrestrial Mayhem Star!" The giant of darkness grabbed him and a floating eye of gold burned in the space above its neck. "Rush your jaws, CYCLOPS!"

A huge shockwave blasted around once more as the body of the Specter was ignited into a pillar of blood-red cosmos and a chilling roar of a hungry monster echoed in the valley. Cerah gasped, bashed off once more, but her heels anchored the ground and she focused her senses on the threat. What she felt, though, made her voice fail once more!

With the many horns of the Surplice elongating, the red of its paint growing bloodier, and the segmentation of the plates growing more complex, the Cyclops armor seemed to take a much more animalistic form with its owner, as if approaching a deeper union with the beast that it was supposed to represent.

The violent might of Polyphemus took over the man as the claws forming the knuckle covers of the gauntlets descended upon the fingers, sharpening them. More yellow eyes of metaled glass sprouted around the body, from the sides of the torse to the greaves to even the back, creating an ugly monstrosity of vision. A large egg-shield sprouted out of the back, adorned with a huge yellow gem of a slitted eye, while a deadly looking flanged mace grew out of the arm like a ripping bone, which the giant took out of the body and wielded with the other hand.

Even the body was made more savage, with the canines in his gawking mouth growing longer and letting out hot, bloodthirsty breaths while the posture lunged over with the weight of muscles swelling unevenly in the shoulders and brutal tattoos of curses of wrath forming in exposed parts of the man's skin.

The energy broke apart as the transformation ended and the mace' head was merely rested on the ground, instantly breaking it with its weighted tip, intimidating Cerah. The man gasped out. "Aggh… I…"

"What in the name of Athena just…" Cerah whispered, feeling like a wild animal now stood before her, rather than a man. Her cosmos burned warningly as she re-tensed her pose, not understanding what just happened but sensing the threat before her much bigger than before.

The man looked up and his nose twitched. "I smell… blood to drink! Sweet skin to flay!" he realized, the red stars in the shadow of his visage widening. He looked at Cerah and stepped towards her, his feet cracking the ground and filling it with boiling blood. "I smell flesh to eat!"

The knight gasped, feeling the terrible evil of an Underworld Star bearing down on her.

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

(?)

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

"I'll find a way. Now go! Take a second steel rope, follow the direction of the pillars beyond me, and then keep your eyes closed! Use only cosmos to guide you." he ordered, to which the men obeyed.

"You heard the Prince!" one shouted, staking a second cord to a pillar. "Go, go, GO!"

And the many Skeletons left the Prince behind, taking the cord onward and relying only on their senses of the cosmos to find their way forward.

Lucifer waited patiently for the last echo to not be heard.

To pass the time, he then looked around and breathed his surroundings, finding a moment to himself to pinpoint the threat.

For a bit, all he saw was pillars and pillars, much like at Aries, but it didn't mean he was dulled by it. He stood at the House of Gemini, after all, the one that honored his Zodiac and that of Cerah's. When he was very little, in the sixteenth century, before Pandora snuck her way into his parents' home as the new maid and she burned his life down to ash, this was the place his parents raised him to one day become the guardian of.

This place, therefore, spoke to him a bit more than any of the other Houses. Lucian imagined another world where he lived and died as the sixteenth century Gemini Saint, probably only to be slaughtered like the rest of his generation by Thanatos and Hypnos, as history indicated. He had, unfortunately, never visited this place, so finally being inside it by himself made him reflect on how things might have been.

It would be nostalgic if it were not what he knew to be the Temple's curse.

He had heard about it from the mouth of his parents and Hades alike, but had Lucian lived that imaginary life, he likely would have fallen into a greater or equal tragedy like the one he lived, since the House of Gemini was the one where insanity most often ruled, right next to Cancer to boot. Every generation seemed to have a Gemini who struggled with schizophrenia, dysfunctional family relations, or even a good dose of demonic possession, with good Geminis being the ones considered to be those who were merely lightly psychotic or sexually deviant by Sanctuary's standards.

As a result of the instability of its Masters, the Gemini House, therefore, lacked the sophisticated culture of the Changing Halls of Daedalus, and instead, its innards reflected the obsessions of its owners, being either impeccably cleaned, ordained in a ruthlessly symmetrical fashion, or possessing bizarre architectural shifts in its inner rooms with countless corners and doors leading nowhere that didn't seem to serve any particular purpose other than making the life of cleaning serfs bothersome.

The current owner, named Saga from what everything indicated, seemed to be the type that was anxious about hygiene, efficiency, and organization. The House looked squeaky clean from top to bottom, with the marble of the pillars being fresh white, the hanging tapestries dusted or replaced and, surprisingly, the stairs leading to the upper floors having directional signs and "You are here" maps on its walls, as if the owner rejected the labyrinthic tradition it always had reveled in, opting instead for order.

Or at the very least trying to force order in.

The very idea of it made Lucifer cackle out loud; so another madman who thought he could overcome his Cloth's trials by rejecting them? It was a shame that this generation of Gold Saints would get displaced before Saga had a chance to entertain Lucifer with his inevitable failure.

There was, however, the case of Akassius, the legendary Civil War hero, who Lucifer had the pleasure to see in action at Crow's Nest. Of all the men Lucifer had seen be blessed by the House he stood on, Akassius was the only one to have ever not shown any signs of being afflicted by the madness of the Third Temple. The Celestial Star of Pride had asked Priam once if the stories that he had mastered the Path of the Gemini Cloth were real. The disgraced Sagittarius would nervously nod yes, but that he was ignorant of how since Akassius was a notoriously reserved man who endured a lot of tragedy and thus didn't enjoy talking details about his training. Priam had hinted, however, that he believed Akassius' wife, a noblewoman named Cecilia, as well as the former Scorpio Gold Saint Paris, who fought side by side with Priam at Andromeda Island(*), may hold some of his secrets.

(*) See Chapters 24-26

Fiendishly curious, Lucifer wondered if perhaps after all of this, should Akassius not surrender his secrets to the new King of Sanctuary, the Celestial Pride Star should track down and interrogate Cecilia Steiner and Scorpio Paris about it. You never knew, after all, if he would have to take up the Gemini Cloth to exact revenge on Hades with.

Little by little, the sound of the metal feet of his Skeleton Soldiers finally ceased to reach him.

Done with his thoughts, Lucifer took the cue to confront the shadow he spotted. His instincts had detected it by now. "Your viciousness stinks to my nostrils. You can come out now, whoever you are."

Only silence was returned.

The Specter was offended at the notion that this person was pretending to not have been caught. His hand charged a large ball of purple cosmos sparkling with electricity and he aimed it at the source of the killing intent he felt. "Are you deaf?! Step out of there or I'll blast that half of the Temple you're standing on to rubble! Then we'll see where you'll cower around!"

The whirring sound of the charging attack filled the halls, and its light cast out shadows of the pillars away from it, revealing the subtle silhouette of a person that had been hiding behind a tapestried one. Its breathing stiffed at being detected and a turn of the face was seen, revealing a sly smile before the person stepped out.

Lucifer's hand lowered cautiously to properly examine the threat.

Standing before him was a tall, young male teenager of long hair colored with a shade of dark blue. White training wrappings enveloped his forearms and he dressed in a belted blue trainer common in Sanctuary while his light brown leggings were leather-padded in the knees and greaves. He looked slightly bruised as if he had been recently beaten up in a tough fight, but his hands were smudged with someone else's blood, likely that of the fallen Skeletons.

Gemini and Gemini met looks, and Lucifer saw a deep ruthlessness in the narrowed orbs of this young boy as if a sharp promise of stabbing him in the back at the slightest vulnerability was silently made. Their cosmos met in its separate world of energies, softly colliding the Specter's deep, angry shadow with the young killer's golden, brimming power. Lucifer realized that, strangely enough, it felt exactly like the great power that was felt at the moment of Deadly Beetle Gauromydas' demise, as if the one standing before him was responsible for the huge Specter's death rather than the Gemini Saint, and the shadows in the corner of the Pride Star's eyes seem to grow longer and darker, as if the youth sank them into his abysses of the universe as they stood there, setting a monstrous trap.

The Daemon Specter readied himself for battle.

Yet, a sudden sigh of frustration was let out. "Drat,… I was sure I hid myself pretty well." The blue-haired boy lamented, surprisingly relaxed. "How did you find me, Specter?"

The tension broke and Lucifer laughed, finally understanding what was going on. So this was the cross that the current Saint of Gemini had to bear?

He entertained the youth's question, curious about what kind of depraved spirit stood before him. "…You wouldn't know what it entails, but I am a Prince of Hades, raised to be the bane of Sanctuary. My master had me familiarized with the Golden Zodiac's tricks by the time Henry VIII was still considered a faithful husband!"

The youth raised a brow. "Interesting. So you're a Gold Saint slayer of sorts?" he asked, already knowing many Specters were indeed very likely to be many centuries old.

The history of the death of many Gold Saints at his hands brought a smile to the Specter's lips. Technically speaking, he was a slayer of God Slayers, but why refuse the extra honors? "I kill all sorts of Athena's little crutches. Now, who are you, and why are you here?"

The teenager rested a hand on his chest proudly. "My name is Kanon,…Shall we call myself the more honest Saint of Gemini?" he phrased as his cosmos burned ever so slightly. A confident shine was seen in his eyes as if a target was picked. "As for your second question; I suppose that in the eyes of my brother… my honesty makes me a bigger threat to Sanctuary than all you Specters put together."

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Chapter End

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Next Chapter: Chapter 53 - Episode 17 – The Labyrinth of the Mind – Part 2 of 2

Description: Lucifer confronts the guardian of the 3rd Temple, whose outlook on the conflict takes him by surprise, while Cerah fights for her life against the maddened Cyclops. In the meantime, Lance, Adriana, Saga and Shinta all make their separate ways towards the Golden Zodiac.

Author's Notes: This chapter started off more fun and quicker to progress through than the last one, in large part because the House of Gemini has more to work with than Taurus, but somewhere along the way, progress began to lag in part because the stuff I wanted to explore outpaced the regular content of a common LR chapter (24-28 thousand words), but not enough to fill two of them, so I had to rethink the pace and content of what has now become a two parter.

This time I will talk about the etymology of Servo and Balgo, the two False Specter brothers of the Cyclops Surplice. Their case is a bit counterintuitive, because they were named at a time where I decided the titles a bit more ad hoc, but the story is that the true Specter, Cyclops Gigant, is from the former nation of Yugoslavia, so after Jenny encouraged me to bring back the Cyclops False Specter, I figured I'd just name them after separate members of the fractured nation (Servia and Bulgaria).

I will remind readers that some False Specters, yes, are as stupidly named as that. Just be happy I'm not naming them after random syllable sounds like Minotaurs Guen and Gorgon Pell.

Anyway, 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.

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