Chapter 235
"Welcome back." Athena stood in the cemetery of the sanctuary and smiled at Lansemello who had crawled out of the tomb in the garb of Asclepius. "Did you encounter any trouble?"
"Overall, it went smoothly." Lansemello stood up from the grave like a corpse in the horrified eyes of the crowd, and controlled Ereshkigal's power to repair the cemetery. "We found the souls of some people, and they have all been transferred to Ereshkigal's underworld. The only ones who can be considered troublesome are probably Hypnos and Thanatos."
"What?" Athena raised her eyebrows, looking at the emotions in the Paradise Fairy's eyes, "Did you fight with them?"
"Then you wouldn't be seeing me now." Lansemero tucked his large black sleeves and answered Athena simply, "There was no direct battle. I just took a look at them before leaving. As for the purpose of this look, I guess you don't need my explanation. As for the Sanctuary..."
"I think they should know about the Gorgon's Eye - sight has power, of course. It's common sense."
When Lansemello entered the Pope's Hall again, all the members of the existing Sanctuary's highest-powered group were already waiting for a meeting. Lansemello reviewed the progress of her plan and decisively hid in a corner to fish until Athena, who was in charge of the meeting, called her name.
"...Kilonomia's protection in the sanctuary has been completed. This is a protection for the living. In order for the living to enter the underworld to fight, the protection of the goddess of the underworld is also indispensable." Athena summarized the previous work progress and pointed to Lansemello, who was responsible for the next round of work. "She should have told a few people about this part - the trial of the seven gates."
"The Seven Gates were originally a test for the dead. Although it is called a test, it is actually similar to the Gate of Hell in Hades' underworld, and it only serves as the gate to the underworld." Lansemello followed Athena's introduction and introduced the Seven Gates to the participants of the meeting from the basics. "The Seven Gates correspond to seven questions and answers. The questions and answers are not important. What is important is the person who answers them."
"As for passing through the seven gates to obtain the blessing, it is actually because the blessing of the underworld cannot fall on the living." Lansemello smiled at everyone and used magic to write the introduction of basic concepts in the air as if he was teaching students in the past. "In order to understand the entire process of the blessing, we will start from the most basic points."
"First of all, we need to know that on the mysterious side, concepts are the rules and foundations of everything."
So, in theory, only the dead exist in the underworld - therefore, it can also be considered that people who enter the underworld alive are also conceptually dead.
"That's why we have to protect you after you've been tested." Lanser Melo paused and wrote some magic words in the air. "Only after you've passed the seven gates will you officially enter the underworld, which means you'll conceptually become the dead of the underworld - even if your bodies are still alive."
"After all, in the days when gods still walked the earth, when people died, their bodies still breathed and their hearts still beat, but their souls had already left their bodies and gone to Hades."
"The essence of this trial is to make you conceptually equal to the dead - so that you can obtain the protection bestowed by Ereshkigal." Lansemello waved away the words floating in the air and gave a tangible example to the people in the papal hall. "Speaking of the use of concepts... you should still remember that when I came back, I crawled out of the cemetery in the Sanctuary, right?"
In fact, when Lanthemello set out for the underworld, many of the people currently in the Papal Palace witnessed her walking out of the gate of the sanctuary - and they also witnessed the scene when Lanthemello came back today, breaking through the ground of the cemetery like a zombie and then crawling out of the grave.
"Let me tell you how I went to the underworld and how I returned to the Sanctuary."
Before the end of the Age of Gods, the sky, the human world, and the underground were all part of the same painting.
The underworld is under human feet, and the kingdom of the gods is above human heads.
When Lancermello went to the underworld, he left the Sanctuary only to prevent the Hades' army from invading the Sanctuary directly in the opposite direction. In other words, the method of entering the underworld itself was still the same simple and crude method used by Ishtar in the seventh singularity to open the underworld for Fujimaru Ritsuka who was looking for Gilgamesh.
“…Although we are no longer in the Age of Gods, Ereshkigal’s Underworld has been rebuilt under your feet—all underworlds are underworlds, so the means that can be used to enter Ereshkigal’s Underworld can certainly be used to invade Hades’ Underworld.”
——In short, Lancermello managed to blast a big hole in the ground and entered Hades' underworld through this hole.
"Ah, but I need to explain something here." Lansemello cleared his throat and reminded everyone, "Because in reality, Hades' underworld is not directly connected to the real earth, so not just anyone can enter Hades' underworld by digging a hole. Strictly speaking, I merged Ereshkigal's underworld with Hades' underworld, so I was able to use the means of entering Ereshkigal's underworld to arrive at the gate of Hades' underworld."
"So you repaired the area that was accidentally blown up?" Athena suddenly asked.
"...I filled it in when I entered - because I wanted to cancel the conceptual overlap to prevent Hades' army from using this channel to flood into the human world." Lanser-Mero shrugged and continued to explain to everyone, "Before I filled this gap, Hades' underworld was also connected to the real earth because of the assimilation of concepts."
"Just like the ritual has a beginning and an end - after the beginning, the two underworlds merge into one concept; and after the end, the two underworlds separate again, from the same concept to different concepts. So after I fill in the gap on the ground, Hades' underworld no longer borders on the real earth."
When Lancermello returned to the Sanctuary and took away the souls of the Eighth Hell, he also used the concept -
Ereshkigal used the power of the goddess of the underworld to gain control of Hades' underworld and turned Hades' underworld into his own territory. Controlling the underworld to stop the twin gods was only the most basic operation. The most important role was to take away those dead souls and provide conditions for Lancermello to escape from the underworld.
"Ereshkigal is the oldest Lord of the Underworld. She can suppress all the Underworld Gods in the world, regardless of the pantheon." Lanser-Mero drew many different tree-like branches in the air. "So Ereshkigal seized control of Hades' Underworld when I went deep into the Underworld. That means that the Underworld has actually become 'Ereshkigal's Underworld'."
In the underworld of Ereshkigal, the oldest goddess of the underworld uses a gun prison to collect the souls of all humans. No matter what the person was like in life, after death they will be imprisoned in her gun prison forever - this is why Ereshkigal can take away all those souls in one breath with the gun prison.
——In her underworld, it is natural to use guns to capture the souls of the dead.
"Similarly, since it's the 'Ereshkigal's Underworld', of course we can dig back to the ground." Lancer Melo paused and added delicately, "Although I crawled out of the cemetery, I didn't return directly from Hades' Underworld to the Sanctuary - because I was bumped into by the Twin Gods at the last moment of the operation."
"Originally, the direct return passage had already been opened, and I only needed to go up - but it would not be appropriate to let the twin gods follow behind, so I left a little gift for them." Lansemello smiled and blinked, "Then I turned to the underworld of Ereshkigal, and then the scene of breaking out of the ground in front of you occurred."
"Although you don't usually use concepts, I think it's better to explain this part to you - after all, for us, the essence of battle is already a battle between concepts. There are no strong ones and no broken ones, it just becomes a matter of calculating the results of the battle based on order."
"Ereshkigal's blessing is the protection of Hades - the protection of Hades can only be bestowed on the dead."
"And you who have passed through the seven gates are, of course, also dead in the conceptual judgment."
"——Well, that's all I have to say. Is there anything else you want to say?"
Lansemelo waved away the golden words and pictures he had left in the air, looked around at everyone in the Papal Hall - and sat back in his seat with satisfaction in the silence of everyone.
The Pope of the Sanctuary did not speak, and the Gold Saints who attended the meeting were also silent. Athena, who had initiated the meeting, ended it and decided the fate of the silent Saints to face the Seven Gates Trial led by Lancermello.
"I heard that the first question you asked Aquarius was this - should humans bid farewell to the gods? And the trial he accepted at the first gate was the Naga." After everyone left, Athena smiled and confirmed the content of the trial with Lansemello, "Are you ready for the questions and trial content later?"
"The questions are ready - and based on the results of the Aquarius battle, I have revised my assessment of their combat power." Lansemello stood with Athena on the edge of the pure white steps, looking at the town in the distance. "The subsequent trials will be much more difficult than the Naga... But I believe they can handle them all."
"Then I'll wait and see..." Athena, who had just put her mind at ease, turned her head to look at Lansemello, "No, it's much more difficult than Naga - what are your options!?"
"They are all Fujimaru's past enemies." Lancer Melo paused and whispered to Athena, "I have prepared Aphrodite's Mecha God's true body - although it is just a fake projected by projection magic, I plan to put it at the seventh gate. They are going to fight Hades, so it's not too much to give them a true body projection of one of the twelve main gods as a test, right?"