Chapter 279

Lancermello and Kido Saori turned around together and saw that everyone had taken their seats in turn under Shion's arrangement and were waiting for the meeting to begin. Among the two popes, Shion was the one who was ultimately responsible for taking charge, while the others took their seats in the order of the twelve constellations. As for Dohko, who was far away at Wulao Peak, he was kept outside by Shion on the pretext of guarding the Demon Star Tower.

——So now it has become a situation where there are a few bronze saints and two magicians sitting among a group of gold saints.

Originally, Phoenix wanted to leave, but Kirshtalia and Olgamari, who always obeyed Lancelmero's orders, used magic to trap her in the sanctuary. She had no choice but to sit to the left of Eolia's seat and wait for the meeting to begin. Fortunately, the conversation between Lancelmero and Kido Saori, which blocked out the outside world, had ended, and the meeting was able to officially begin.

"…Should we start from the basics? Or should we directly enter the reporting process?" Lansemello followed Kido Saori and sat down on the last two empty seats opposite the Pope. "This generation is different from the previous ones - strictly speaking, Shion and Dohko were the members who knew the least intelligence in the previous generation; this generation, even Saga, Aphrodite and Camus only knew scattered information..."

"Just tell me the result." Shiroto Saori blinked and turned her head to look at Lansermero who was sitting next to her. "It seems that the preliminary plan was completed smoothly. So as long as we continue step by step, this holy war will surely be resolved smoothly, right? There is no need to start with such details, right?"

"Then first of all, the first thing." Lansemero skillfully projected a conference screen in the center of the table in front of everyone, showing a bird's-eye view of the Sanctuary. "During Saga's rebellion thirteen years ago, Shion and Aiolos experienced death. Their fate ended there, so after resurrection, they are no longer controlled by the goddess of fate."

"Judging from the current situation, Saga probably solved the problem thirteen years ago - we were planning to let him die today as well." Lansemello replaced the projection with a photo of Saga, "Thirteen years ago, the Saga who tried to assassinate Athena and killed the previous Pope was not the Saga we see now."

"To explain the reason in detail, we need to expand on the development process of the Gemini myth—"

"…Just tell me the result." Shiroto Saori interrupted Lancermello with a smile.

"Well, thirteen years ago, I killed and 'purified' the 'evil' that existed in Saga." Lancer Mello followed Kido Saori's request and directly stated the ending. He ignored most of the Saints who seemed to be listening to a mystery and continued to speak. "In short, according to the plan of fate, from the murder of the Pope thirteen years ago until now, all the actions of the Sanctuary should have been formulated by that 'evil'."

"Therefore, when that 'evil' disappears, the thread of the goddess of fate no longer binds Saga."

"So, there are three people who broke free from the shackles of fate thirteen years ago. Those guys from the previous generation cannot be called up for the time being, so they are not included in this range."

"Then, the second thing - or you could say it's the same thing." Lansemello glanced at the gold saints sitting on both sides of the long table, "All the silver saints who died in the past thirteen years - no, it should be said that all the silver saints and bronze saints who died in the past two hundred years have been preserved according to the plan made at the end of the last holy war."

"It also includes their holy clothes - but this plan should only be known to Shion, and Mu cannot be expected to complete the final stage."

"Also, it was Camus who collected the bodies of the Silver Saints who died in Japan and were sent by Saga to assassinate Athena. Because it was troublesome to move the bodies, Camus's right to know about this should be... higher than Shion's."

Camus, who was sitting next to Aphrodite, calmly learned from the previous generation Aquarius Gold Saint whom he had never seen before, and made a detailed analysis of the contents mentioned in this meeting in his notebook. The moment he saw the blank expressions of many colleagues around him, as if they were listening to a foreign language, Camus understood why Dieter's notebook was getting thicker and thicker.

——It’s not that the Saints are unwilling to use their brains to think, but when it comes to magic…it seems that the Aquarius people have the fastest and most accurate brains in the entire Sanctuary.

——Even Hyoga seemed to understand it better than the other Bronze Saints.

"Finally, the third thing is today's Battle of the Zodiac." Lanser-Mello knocked on the table, causing everyone who was distracted by not understanding to focus on this meeting again. "Except for Shion, Saga, and Aiolos, this Battle of the Zodiac would have killed half of the members of the Golden Saints, the highest combat power group in the Sanctuary."

"Strictly speaking, the only ones who survived were the twenty-year-olds—ah, but Camus was the only twenty-year-old who died."

"Can we not mention this, teacher?" Camus slammed his notebook shut and stopped Lansemello from repeatedly mentioning him in the meeting with a title that had never appeared in their conversations before. "By the way, can I talk about this part? You know, Saga revealed the list to me through Aphrodite."

"I thought you didn't know about this." Lansemello raised his eyebrows and looked at Camus.

"If you didn't know, you wouldn't have let me participate in the previous meeting." Camus opened his notes again and announced the situation of the Battle of the Zodiac to everyone, "According to the original trajectory of fate, I, Aphrodite, Deathmask, Shura and Saga will die completely in today's Battle of the Zodiac."

"And now, everyone is sitting here intact - from this, it can be seen that the plan you prepared in the Battle of the Zodiac was successfully completed, and everyone has escaped the thread of the goddess of fate... Am I right?"

"That's enough for now, but I have to talk about what your resurrection avoided - I didn't mention that part during the last crusade because you had the internal strife and half of your people died, forcing everyone to find a solution." Lansemello cleared his throat, "If you don't resurrect now, before the crusade begins in the future, all the gold saints who die now -"

"Except Aiolos, the others will be resurrected by Hades as vanguard soldiers to attack the Sanctuary."

"Although in fact, it's because Shion died too early that no one knew that Athena's holy cloth also needs Athena's blood to be resurrected."

"Speaking of which, I'm curious about one thing." Shiroto Saori asked Lancer Mello, "If you first appeared at that time - how would you deal with Hades?"

"We have plenty of experience in 'fighting from failure.'" Lancer Melo paused, avoiding Kido Saori's curious gaze. "First of all, considering the powerful force that Hades has prepared for more than two hundred years, I think Shion and his men can't achieve their goal. At most, they have opened the way to break through the twelve zodiac signs. The Hades Army will not allow them to go before the goddess of the throne."

"So Athena's Cloth should not be awakened - in the future I saw, Saori took the initiative to go to the underworld." Lansemello was silent for a moment, and gently told everyone another way to awaken Athena's Cloth. "However, it is inconvenient to fight Hades without the Cloth - but even without Athena's blood, we have other ways to awaken Athena's Cloth."

Athena's blood can awaken Athena's sacred cloth for the same reason that Asclepius could not create a true resurrection potion without the high-purity divine power of Artemis or Athena - as long as there is a large amount of highly concentrated divine power, Athena's sacred cloth can be awakened again.

——It is not necessary to use Athena's blood.

"There is another being who has compounded Athena's divinity with us - although she herself may not really want that part of the element." Lansemello smiled and blurred the source of the divine power. "We have the technology to purify the divine power, so we can rely on the purified high-concentration Athena divine power to awaken Athena's holy cloth."

"But let's put it more bluntly."

"If we were to intervene from this holy war, there would be no need for us to awaken the Athena Cloth - because we have the power to directly deal with Hades. Hades is the source of the underworld of the whole world. As long as he is dealt with, the future of the destruction of humanity will not come."

"Many of my current plans are the result of the covenant between me and the gods of the underworld. At the end of the last crusade, the gods of the underworld made a covenant with me." Lansemero tapped the table with his index finger and slowly spoke out the covenant. "If they had not taken any initiative to break free from the seal I set for them before the start of this crusade, I would not have appeared on the front line of this crusade."

"In short, I am not the main force in this crusade - but if I appear in this crusade directly without the interference of the previous crusade, then what I have to do is the same as last time... I only need to break into the underworld and deal with Hypnos, Thanatos and Hades."

"The oldest underworld god chose me as her body, so I have the power to directly control and rule over all the underworld gods - because no one became the underworld god earlier than Ereshkigal, the mistress of the Sumerian underworld."

Lansemero interrupted the conversation and changed the topic of the meeting - "Okay, now that we have reported on the previous preparations, it's time for us to arrange the new work in the future."

Everyone present came back to their senses from Lancermello's casual words about dealing with Hades alone, and focused their attention on the arrangements for the Holy War. The dead Silver and Bronze Saints were all saved, and the former Gold Saints could not be awakened for the time being...

From these few words, the participants realized that the Sanctuary had extremely strong reserves of combat power in this holy war.

"First of all, this crusade will begin in 1990. Therefore, for the Bronze Saints who accompanied Saori from Japan to the Sanctuary, your mission is only to continue forward according to the trajectory of destiny."

As Lancelmero finished his words, the ten Bronze Saints who were originally members of this meeting were directly driven out of the Papal Hall.