In the end, after discussing it, Meruem and Saori still dispatched several Saints to the "Little Sanctuary" to investigate the specifics.
Know yourself and know your enemy, and you can fight a hundred battles without peril. They didn't need to find out what the other side's true intention was, but at the very least they needed to find out who the other side had and what they were called.
What Meruem didn't know was that he wasn't the only one thinking along the same lines.
At the highest point of the "New Sanctuary," within the "War God" temple, stood someone wearing an extremely distinctive suit of airtight armor, draped in a tattered yet very long red cloak. The strangest part was his body, which looked like a starry sky, like the cosmos and the Milky Way.
In short, no matter how you looked at him, he didn't resemble a human at all. The armor on him was a Cloth rather than a God Cloth, yet its quality was not inferior to a God Cloth, and it had a peculiar name: the Galaxy Cloth. It was an armor with extremely strong corruptive influence, and also an armor meant to conceal his true appearance.
"Humans of this era can actually enter space, and even fly in the sky. Unforgivable, unforgivable. This is blasphemy against the gods—only gods have the right to do such things." Mars crushed the wine cup in his hand into powder, and the eyes visible through his helmet brimmed with murderous ferocity.
This was naked killing intent. The setting of Saint Seiya Omega is quite strange: Saint Seiya is set in the modern era and can even produce high-tech things like Steel Cloths, yet by the time Omega comes around, it's as if technology has regressed by decades.
Walking relies on feet or horse-drawn carriages? You can't even see steam-engine-level technology. It even seems like lighting requires candles or oil lamps. All high-tech devices, including phones and weapons, have vanished as if they never existed.
"Darling, don't be angry." A heavy-makeup woman with algae-green hair stepped out of the darkness to Mars's side, holding his arm as she spoke softly. "Once you eliminate Athena, the whole earth will be yours. Then however you want humans to live, however you want to punish them—it'll all be just one word from you, won't it?"
But Mars didn't seem particularly interested in this heavily made-up woman. After she arrived, his temper eased, but he calmly and quietly drew his arm out of her embrace. "The Athena of this world is not simple. Setting everything else aside, on this earth in this era I can sense several powerful Cosmos—none of them weaker than me. Especially up in the sky; I always feel like something is watching us."
"There's something wrong with this era. It doesn't seem to be the past of the era we came from."
When Mars pulled his arm from her embrace, a flicker of hatred appeared in Medea's eyes. But she hid it well—when she raised her head, that trace of hatred had already vanished without a shadow. When she heard Mars's words, her expression changed, and she rarely showed surprise. "You mean… that man deceived us?"
Mars shook his head. "No, that man probably didn't deceive us. It's just that this era really is different from the one we came from in certain ways. But one thing is not wrong: this earth contains power even greater than our world."
"If we could control this world, perhaps…" Mars only murmured the last sentence in his heart and did not say it aloud.
Hearing Mars's words, Medea's eyes lit up. Then, where Mars couldn't see, she revealed an extremely eerie smile. "Then, darling, what should we do?"
"Send a few Gold Saints and Silver Saints to the Sanctuary to gather intelligence. I need to know exactly how strong the Sanctuary of this era really is."
"As you wish, my love."
Watching the departing figure of his wife in name, Mars murmured, "Do you think I haven't noticed something is off? It's just that to me, all schemes and plots are illusory bubbles before absolute power."
"I hope you don't do something that betrays me, or else…"
No one in this world is a fool. The most laughable people are those who think they act without a single flaw.
"Leo Gold Saint Mycenae, Scorpio Sonia, and Cancer Schiller; plus Hound Silver Saint Miguel, Peacock Pavlin, and me, Crow John—our lineup should be enough to crusade against any evil force, right? Lord Mars having us go to that fake Greek Sanctuary realm is making a mountain out of a molehill." A certain Saint wearing a Silver Cloth that looked like a tight plastic shell spoke while muttering quietly to himself.
"John… this is Lady Medea's will. You don't get to question it—move it. Besides, this mission has three Gold Saints. Doesn't that make the burden on our shoulders a bit lighter?" Miguel of the Hound patted John's shoulder and said.
At the very front of the group were three Gold Saints, but each had a different expression on their face. Sonia had only recently been transferred to the Scorpio Temple and taken up the post as a Gold Saint. Unlike Schiller and Mycenae, she had only just become a Gold Saint and hadn't even reached the most basic requirement of a Gold Saint: the Seventh Sense.
But compared to the useless Silvers in the "Little Sanctuary," Sonia's strength already counted as top-tier. And as the daughter of War God Mars, her status also made sense.
As an aside, besides his daughter Sonia, Mars also had a son who was an Orion Saint.
"Lady Sonia, are you not used to it yet?" Schiller, wearing a strangely shaped mask, walked to Sonia's side and spoke with an ingratiating tone. "Come to think of it, this is Lady Sonia's first mission. Don't worry—so long as I, Cancer Schiller, am here, those petty riffraff of the fake Greek Sanctuary are all no match for me."
Others might not know that Sonia was Mars's daughter, but how could Gold Saints not know? What's more, among the Gold Saints there was also Pisces Amor—put simply, Sonia even had to call him uncle.
Mars's whole family was upper management of the "New Sanctuary." How could Schiller not suck up to them?
"Heh heh, did you hear that? These knockoff frauds actually want to take out the Gold Saints of our Sanctuary." A deeply mocking voice sounded in the silent night sky.
"Who's there? Light-Speed Punch!" Mycenae, who had been walking silently at the side, suddenly opened his eyes and immediately threw a punch toward the woods nearby.
Several black figures emerged from the thicket Mycenae attacked, appearing before the people of the "New Sanctuary."
"Sorry about that—we're the Saints from the Sanctuary that you counterfeit trash said you'd easily take out."
"Let me introduce myself: one of the Black Iron Saints, Dark Phoenix Nidhogg."
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