The Sanctuary that the Greek Sanctuary calls the "Little Sanctuary," and that calls itself the New Sanctuary, is located at the ruins of ancient Babylon—right beneath the legendary Tower of Babel.
Or rather, this Little Sanctuary is actually a complex built on the Tower of Babel itself. The leader of the Little Sanctuary, the new Pope, calls himself the "War God" Mars, and he claims that Athena is in this "New Sanctuary," while the Athena in the Greek Sanctuary is a fake.
At the same time, no one knows where this so-called "War God" found twelve warriors wearing Gold Cloths identical to those of the Gold Saints. He even makes it sound convincing enough that many small factions who don't know the truth are left completely confused. But any organization with even a bit of history and foundation understands which one is the real Sanctuary.
Not only does the Little Sanctuary have warriors similar to Gold Saints, it also goes around promoting an alternative Cosmo theory of its own—attribute-based Cosmo.
In other words, Cosmo has different attributes, and the attributes can counter one another. It does sound fresh, but attribute Cosmo? What does it even do once Cosmo has attributes?
The real answer is: absolutely nothing.
Meruem looked at the report in his hands and felt a headache coming on. "War God" Mars? Isn't that the first villain boss from Saint Seiya Omega? By Omega's timeline, this should only happen in a different branch where, after the Hades arc ends, Seiya was not cut by the sword of Hades, and the story did not go through the Heaven Chapter or Next Dimension—more than ten years later.
So why is a storyline that should be more than ten years in the future appearing now?
And isn't "War God" Mars supposed to be an offshoot of the war god Ares from outside legends? Ares was sealed by me, so what's certain is that this Mars is not Ares, the war god of Greek myth.
No one knows where Mars found twelve Gold Saints and twelve Gold Cloths. Most importantly, if we go by Omega's story, among those twelve "Gold Saints" are Genbu of Libra, Kiki of Aries, and Seiya of Sagittarius—all of whom are tightly tied to the current continuity.
Genbu is Dohko's last disciple, Shiryu and Wang Hu's junior brother, but in this world, as far as Meruem knows, Dohko has never had a disciple named Genbu. Kiki is Mu's disciple, but in this world Meruem has seen Kiki—he's still just a little kid. And Sagittarius Seiya… Seiya himself is in the Sanctuary, okay?
Weird. Meruem felt an indescribable sense of wrongness. The appearance of this Little Sanctuary was far too abnormal.
And there's another point: there's no so-called Pegasus successor, Kouga. So is the final boss still going to be Apsu, the strongest god from Babylonian myth?
Meruem believes the Sanctuary's current strength fears no challenge from any faction—fully awakened Underworld forces included.
But if they ignore the Little Sanctuary, it will likely damage the Sanctuary's reputation worldwide. What a pain.
If we set Apsu aside for the moment, in Omega's first part the only figures truly worth watching are War God Mars; his second wife, the "holy sorceress" Medea (in Greek myth, Medea is the witch of deceit and betrayal); Medea's younger brother Amor, who can one-shot Leo Mycenae, a fellow Gold Saint; and Mars's Four Heavenly Kings, who show up already half-dead, exist mostly as controlled pawns, and are talked about more than they act.
As for Sagittarius, Aries, and Libra, let's put those three constellations aside for now.
The rest—Gold or Silver—aren't so outrageously strong. Especially Gemini, Aquarius, and Scorpio… yeah, let's not even go there.
If Meruem's memory isn't failing him, the official setting says Mars's Four Heavenly Kings have strength above the Gold Saints.
Oh, and as a side note, official settings also say "that trash Saga" is the strongest Saint; Corona Saints are set to be far above Gold Saints; holy-demonic angels are set to have the power to one-shot Gold Saints; Heavenly Warriors are set to have Cosmo far above Saints; and first-class Pallasites are set to have three times the power of Gold Saints.
Gold Saints really are pitiful—they've become a measuring stick for combat power.
But settings are settings. "Gold Saint level" basically uses the Seventh Sense as the dividing line. Anyone who reaches the Seventh Sense is at Gold Saint level, so the setting isn't wrong in that sense. Still, the gap between peak Seventh Sense and early Seventh Sense is even larger than the gap between early Sixth Sense and early Seventh Sense.
So take those settings as reference only.
Even so, it at least indicates the Little Sanctuary has multiple Seventh Sense figures, and it's very possible they have more than ten people at mid-Seventh Sense or above.
That's basically Underworld-army scale. Meruem has managed Death Queen Island for so long and still couldn't produce that many experts—unless he went all-in with Chimera Ant human modification without caring about the consequences.
Which means this newly emerged Sanctuary's strength is roughly equivalent to Ares's Berserkers, Abel's Corona Saints, and Loki's World Tree-guarding God Warriors combined.
Of course, that doesn't count the power of the three gods themselves. But if you add in the Babylonian primordial god of darkness Apsu, War God Mars, the holy sorceress Medea, and the strength-unknown (at least Eighth Sense) Amor, that lineup is no weaker than what came before.
Even if Greek gods are the strongest in the Saint Seiya world, Apsu is still a primordial god, and his strength certainly won't be inferior to Abel's.
Taking all of that into account—if Meruem didn't exist—even the Sanctuary's current power would have a hard time dealing with this "Little Sanctuary."
No wonder they dare provoke the Sanctuary so directly. They really do have the confidence to do it.
"But if they're already bullying their way to our doorstep, wouldn't doing nothing make us look weak?" After thinking it over, Meruem decided to test whether this Little Sanctuary matched the Omega Sanctuary he remembered.
At that moment, a fresh, faint fragrance slipped into Meruem's nose. Saori, with short hair and a sharp, heroic air, hugged him from behind the chair, her arm draped across his neck. She leaned in close to his cheek and whispered into his ear, "This newly appeared force is enough to give even you a headache?"
Looking at those soft pink lips so close, Meruem couldn't help feeling his mouth go dry.
"I'm just a little worried."
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