Medea stared in disbelief at what the crystal ball in her hands was showing. She did look down on her husband in name, Mars, and being with him was only to use him to achieve her own goals.
But she still highly recognized the strength of this husband in name. War God Mars possessed high-level divine power that did not belong to Athena; even if Athena herself came, she could not defeat him so easily.
Yet the scene inside the crystal ball made Medea start to panic.
It was only a clone, and it was still fighting Mars to a standstill.
Then what about the original body?
Useless. But it's fine—Lord Apsu is about to revive. Medea thought to herself.
"Mother, Father..." Prince Eden, who should have been confined, was standing beside Medea now. Besides him, there was also Aria, the one Mars revered as Athena.
Medea could see Mars's situation, and Eden could see it clearly too. Even if Eden didn't agree with his father's actions, in his mind Mars was practically invincible.
Yet that invincible father was now being driven back step by step by the enemy. It was simply unbelievable.
"How touching." Before Medea could say anything, a mocking voice sounded beside her. The moment she heard it, Medea's face changed drastically.
Leaving aside whether Medea could identify who it was from the voice alone, just the place they were in wasn't somewhere an ordinary person could enter. This was the most secret space in the Little Sanctuary.
"Don't struggle uselessly. Don't try any little tricks." A streak of light flashed. The crystal ball in Medea's hand fell to the ground and shattered into several pieces.
Medea covered her injured right hand and fixed her gaze on the dark shadow to her left.
"Mother!" Eden was shocked. Even if he didn't agree with what his mother did, she was still his mother, bound by blood. "Orion Mourning Extinction!"
Without another word, Eden attacked the shadow.
"Don't!" Seeing Eden's movement, the still-composed Medea cried out. She had done all of this for her beloved son; in Medea's heart, Eden stood far above everything else.
Eden came fast and flew back even faster. Before he could even touch the shadow, he was blasted backward at greater speed, crashing into a nearby bookshelf stacked with books.
Aria, flustered, hurried over to check on Eden.
"Don't think that just because you're a so-called god's child you can act up. Even if you were a god, if you provoked me, I'd kill you without hesitation. I've killed quite a few gods." Meruem's figure walked out from the shadow, looking down with contempt at Eden as he struggled to stand, as if mocking his overestimation of himself.
"So it really is you. Who are you, exactly?" Medea asked, forcing herself to stay calm. Seeing that Eden wasn't in mortal danger, she let out a slight sigh of relief. If anything had truly happened to Eden, this woman would have dragged the whole world down with her.
"Every self-important fool asks me that. When you people provoke someone or go looking for trouble, can you at least investigate who you're dealing with first?" Meruem answered Medea with a question. Honestly, he was sick of even answering it; every boss had to ask it once. Every self-righteous god thought there was nothing to worry about in the Sanctuary besides Athena. Gold, Silver—everything was trash, and their own warriors were supposedly higher-tier by "setting."
But that was only on paper. If "settings" were really absolute, the Olympians wouldn't be the rulers of the heavens; their predecessors, the Titans, would be.
Especially when these self-important types saw Bronze Saints—the contempt only grew more obvious.
Seriously—did they forget that Athena's five guardians are Bronze Saints? Did they forget that the great sinner of the heavens once was the Pegasus Bronze Saint?
What a joke.
These gods' intelligence networks are unbelievably worthless.
"It's time to show your trump card, isn't it?" Meruem didn't answer Medea's question. He looked at her with interest. "Let me see which god you're relying on."
Medea was terrified by that, her expression changing completely.
Why would he know something like this? She hadn't even told Eden.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Medea still clung to a sliver of hope, but it was useless in front of Meruem, who already knew the plot.
Just like being in front of Yoma—there were no secrets. The difference was that Meruem knew the plot, while Yoma could see the future.
Meruem's gaze swept past Eden and finally stopped on Aria.
Strictly speaking, Medea and Mars were the same kind of people. They wouldn't care about the life or death of someone useless, even if that person were their son's sweetheart.
So if you thought about it carefully, wasn't Aria the obvious answer? There was no Kouga here, so as Apsu's vessel, they could only look for someone else.
And Apsu, a primordial dark god, required a light-attribute Cosmo as a vessel. In their current world, aside from Saints who originally belonged to the Little Sanctuary, Cosmos didn't have these so-called attributes.
So if Medea wanted to continue her plan, she had to find someone who originally possessed the light attribute to substitute in. Wasn't the result obvious?
Aria's Cosmo was the rare light attribute. Where light shines brighter, darkness stands out more clearly. Once light falls into darkness, that becomes an endless, absolute abyss.
"What are you trying to do?" Seeing Meruem's ill-intentioned gaze, Eden struggled to put himself in front of Aria.
"Helping someone count money after they've sold you out." Meruem sneered at Eden, then turned to Medea. "Can't you see it? That girl is your son's sweetheart. Are you really that ruthless?"
"..."
Medea didn't speak. Instead, she looked at Eden with a complicated expression.
At once, a bad feeling rose in Eden's heart. He didn't know what his mother was planning, but one thing was certain: for Aria, it would absolutely not be anything good.
Since the plan had already been seen through, Medea had nothing left to hide—especially when the man in front of her was this strong.
Even as the holy sorceress, she had no ability to resist at all.
"Everything I've done has been for him!"
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