Saint Seiya, but Athena who disobeys?

His choice of timing was undeniably brilliant; it was precisely during the crucial moment when Seiya and Aaron were locked in a power struggle, making defense nearly impossible.

But at that very moment, a fourth voice rang out in the air.

"—Sekishiki, Netherworld Wave!"

The Ghost Cluster in Cancer is known in China as "Accumulated Corpse Qi," formed from the condensed jealousy of the will-o'-the-wisps rising from countless billions of corpses. In other words, the Ghost Cluster is the gateway for souls to ascend to heaven. The spirits that were about to devour Seiya from behind were now twisted and deflected by the white light descending from the sky, disappearing into the opened spatial tunnel. But the attack was not over; the fist of Cancer Gold Saint Manigoldo had already slammed into Thanatos, the god of death.

A violent shockwave erupted at the other end of the battlefield. Thanatos, the god of death, looked at the Gold Saints who were openly expressing hatred, anger, and joy towards him.

“Cancer Manigoldo, I never thought that weak humans like you would have the courage to raise a fist against a god.” Thanatos, the god of death, did not change his expression. With just one finger, he blocked Manigoldo’s full-force attack. “You seem to have intense anger and hatred towards me. When did I kill your close friends and relatives?”

Cancer grinned menacingly, shifting its stance again in mid-air. With a swing of its legs, it unleashed a devastating crab-claw strike.

"But it doesn't matter. Since you don't understand the difference in strength and still dare to appear before the gods, then I will grant you the death you deserve. I will take your life as compensation for the recently fallen Nasu Veronica of the Heavenly Star."

Thanatos, the god of death, raised his hand, purple light gathering in his palm. He prepared to kill this ignorant human with a single blow!

"—Ultimate Heavenly Might!"

Chapter 123: The Passage of the Gods

The power of God was more terrifying than expected. Manigold felt his own universe melting like snow in early spring when it was fighting against it, and the overwhelming destruction of God poured down on him without reservation.

To outsiders, the flamboyant Cancer Gold Saint appeared utterly powerless against Thanatos, the god of death. After a single strike, he was sent hurtling backward at an incredible speed, imperceptible to the naked eye! He shattered the towering mountains behind him, cleaved a jagged ravine in the earth, and tumbled and bounced with immense kinetic energy before finally crashing like a meteorite embedded in the ground, slamming heavily onto the edge of an abyss seventy kilometers away. His once imposing aura was now as faint as a candle flickering in the wind.

"That's really something, Thanatos, the Grim Reaper!" Manigold spat out a mouthful of blood, his left hand bracing against the ground as he struggled to his feet. He endured the excruciating pain that felt like his bones were cracking, his cosmic senses instinctively opening again, attempting to pinpoint the Grim Reaper's location—but the chilling aura of death already hung overhead!

Without any hesitation, relying entirely on physical instinct, he rolled to dodge the stomping blow.

"Oh?" Thanatos, the God of Death, showed a slight surprise at not being able to crush the Saint Seiya with one stomp, but that was all.

Thanatos, the god of death, gazed down at the struggling Saints below. "As a human, you dare to challenge a god. I don't know if you're blinded by anger or if you don't understand your place. Perhaps you'd be worthy of being toyed with normally, but now you'd better just die."

He raised a finger, not as a sign of contempt, but as a purple halo emerged from his fingertip and rapidly spread, expanding at an almost infinite speed to encompass the entire layer of hell before him into his battlefield.

Seventy kilometers away in the Death Forest, Aaron, with his long hair flowing, watched his best friend, who was exchanging punches with him, with a half-smile.

"It seems you don't care about your companion's safety at all." Aaron looked meaningfully at the expanding purple light. "He only appeared to stop Thanatos to save you. Is this the friendship and bond that you Saints have always touted?"

Aaron said this to distract Seiya, because after his mind, which had been dominated by inflated power, calmed down, he realized that even if the Hades power within him awakened further, it would be impossible to defeat his best friend in a short time. For Aaron, and even for many evil gods, this was completely illogical.

Judging solely from the perspective of his cosmos, while his cosmos is not weak, it is only mediocre among the Gold Saints.

However, if you combine his endless and targeted combat techniques, you can leap to the level of an outstanding fighter.

However, if we add his Saint Cloth, which is far stronger than normal, and his physical attributes, he can reach a point where even the gods would find it troublesome. But we will soon find out the answer to why.

At this moment, he circled around Seiya, probing him with sharp eyes, like a lion preparing to hunt its prey.

Of course, Lu Mingfei was invisible to the lion.

"Not going to say anything? Now, taste your power!" Aaron smiled and suddenly unleashed both fists. Countless fist shadows, carrying a dense aura of death, tore through the air. It was none other than Hades - Meteor Fist!

The fighting techniques belonging to Pegasus were now being performed by Aaron.

In the third stage of awakening, Aaron truly began to master some of the core abilities belonging to Pluto, from constellation display to resurrection of the dead, from bestowing death upon all things to understanding the realm of all things.

But those meteors that approached Seiya only scattered specks of light, as if an infinite barrier surrounded him. Then the real Pegasus meteors filled his vision.

Thanatos's attacks have expanded here. As the purple light completely covers the real world, the Death Forest, which was originally dominated by Seiya, is now a dark starry sky dominated by the gods.

Neither above nor below, neither before nor after, for those who are not qualified, there is only one path to walk in this world—

--die.

"This space is the passage of the gods. However, if an ordinary person takes a step out, they will be torn to pieces." Aaron's gentle voice echoed in Seiya's ears. He stared intently at the state of the Saint Seiya in this space, then revealed a ferocious smile of sudden realization.

"As expected! You really are able to survive in this passage of the gods. You, like Sasha and me, are not normal humans!"

At this moment, the pressure Seiya was under was even heavier than that of Cancer Manigoldo, who was seventy kilometers away. Whether it was Aaron and Pandora or Thanatos, the god of death who suddenly appeared, their arrogance as gods made them not take the other Saints seriously.

Only Seiya, or more precisely, Pegasus the God-Slayer who injured Hades' true form in the last Holy War, is qualified to be a serious opponent for the gods!

“Do you know, Aaron?” Seiya spoke first.

He paid no attention to Manigoldo of Cancer, who was teetering on the brink of collapse in the Path of the Gods, nor even to Pandora, who was poised to launch an attack, nor even to the whispers about himself that were lurking in the void. His eyes were fixed only on Aaron.

"Arrogance is the first original sin, the root cause of bringing down gods from their pedestals, and that includes you now!"

A sharp cracking sound, like the sound of glass shattering, rang out above my head.

This was neither the crumbling Cancer Manigoldo nor Seiya's fighting technique, but a white figure tearing through space.

That was the leader of all the Saints, the representative of the Saints, the successor to the master of all disciples, the High Priest, Pope Sage of the Sanctuary. He tore open the passage of the gods with the talisman in his hand, which contained the power of Athena, and destroyed the battlefield that was originally unfavorable to the Saints.

"What?!" Aaron's pupils contracted sharply; the sudden appearance of the Holy Pope was completely unexpected. This moment of shock, in the heat of battle, was a fatal flaw!

In the blink of an eye, as Sage tore open the portal to the gods, the golden light dispelled the purple glow, and the battlefield landscape shifted dramatically, Seiya moved! As if he had foreseen this moment, his accumulated power erupted, and his figure transformed into a white-gold comet that tore through space, instantly rushing to Aaron's side!

What kind of move is this? Just as Aaron was still pondering, the Saint Seiya in front of him had already crashed into his arms.

As Aaron's throat was being gripped, he suddenly realized that this wasn't a fighting technique at all, but the most primal hand-to-hand combat! He had intended to make Seiya make a mistake, but in the end, it was he who was distracted!

Chapter 124: Aaron, say goodbye to your balls.

We have no choice but to fight!

Aaron's primal fighting instincts compelled him to make a choice. The two bodies collided, and the boar's destructive power contorted Aaron's face. He then grabbed Seiya's neck in return, his cosmos forcing a burst of power in his hands. Seiya's neck guards flashed with arcs of light, clearly indicating that the Cloth was overwhelmed.

Instead, Aaron vomited blood. At this moment, Seiya charged forward like a wild boar, relentlessly destroying Aaron's defenses with his destructive power, plowing out thousands of meters of trenches in the earth.

"You heartless, bastard!"

"Consider yourself dead, Pegasus!"

Throughout the entire battle, Aaron's grasp of the situation and his mindset were far inferior to Seiya's. Even more fatal was the fact that the wound Seiya had inflicted on him last time, which hadn't fully healed, recurred at this moment.

Black blood oozed from the lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead, and Aaron's head throbbed with pain.

Pandora and even Thanatos, the god of death in the distance, launched attacks, but the eerie light barrier turned all the gods' attacks into specks of light. Seiya continued forward, his ribs caved in, punching Aaron's chest again and again, causing it to cave in and crack, blood spurting out with a sound of unbearable pain.

As Seiya and Aaron's battle enters a heart-wrenching phase, Thanatos, the god of death, also intensifies his conflict with the two generations of Cancer Saints.

"You still can't understand the difference between gods and humans? Now I'll show you just the tip of the iceberg of my power."

The gates of Hades opened behind him, and the spirits, even closer to death than the souls of the dead, enveloped the Cancer Saints before him in a raging torrent of screams. This fatal blow, which should have been borne by the god-slaying Pegasus, instead fell upon these two Cancer Saints, displeasing Thanatos, the god of death.

Because he felt it would lower his own status for no reason, "but temporarily reaping the souls of two Gold Saints isn't bad, including the Pope of Athena Sanctuary—Terror Abyss!"

The spirits of the dead were as numerous as smoke and as vast as the sea, and just as they were about to engulf the Saint Seiya, a blue light shone from the depths of the spirits.

"what?!"

In an instant, it scorches away the undead before it; this combat technique is designed specifically for the dead. If used against ordinary opponents, it might not even be as effective as the most basic combat technique. However, when fueled by the current horde of undead, it transforms into a terrifying move capable of injuring even gods.

—The accumulated corpse's spirit has been shattered!

Azure flames devoured the dead, transforming into ultimate soul power that enveloped the high and mighty god of death, Thanatos.

At this moment, Pandora finally understood what Aaron had felt. She was now unsure whether to go and support Thanatos, the god of death, or to join Aaron in slaying Pegasus.

However, she quickly made up her mind, because Thanatos, the god of death, after being injured, not only did his aura not weaken but even became more violent, covering this underworld region. Although she had gained a slight advantage over the god of death through some cleverness and targeted combat techniques, she still had no chance of winning against a god.

She summoned the carriage again and sped towards the two men who were already on the ground, exchanging blows and cursing each other.

At least Thanatos, the god of death, can still suppress these two Cancer Saints, but if he doesn't intervene soon, Lord Hades might really be preparing to resurrect the dead for him. As for that unseen sense of being watched, he'll put it out of his mind for now.

------------

------------

Just as the entire underworld was almost completely captivated by this chaotic battle, at the border between the third and fourth hells, before the Great Waterfall of Blood, Yaren and Rangye finally arrived at the Tree of the Golden Tree.

"Is it really that simple?" Yeren looked at the lush, leafy tree in front of him and felt a sense of disorientation.

But as he was struck on the back of the head, and as he glared at the Crane Saint behind him, he said, "Don't be stupid. If it weren't for the Gold Saints holding you back, do you think it would be this easy?"

"Yes, I was stupid." Unexpectedly, Yato was so frank in admitting his mistake this time. He looked southwest; although it was another dimension, the terrifying cosmos was still palpable here. He couldn't believe how intense the battle would be, and that they had only made it this far safely thanks to the Gold Saints.

“Let’s take these fruits and return to the Holy Land as soon as possible,” Yeren said, taking out a container he had prepared in his backpack.

Just then, a white puppy appeared from behind a big tree, wagging its tail.

"What an adorable puppy!" Yeren exclaimed in surprise.

"Idiot! How could there be cute puppies in hell!"

Just as the white puppy was about to bare its fangs, it seemed to sense something, let out a whimper, turned, and ran into the hell behind it. Meanwhile, in the eyes of the Saints, a holy golden light emerged from beneath the tree.

Also appearing was a figure resembling the Buddha.

Sanctuary's true backup plan: Virgo Gold Saint Asmita makes his appearance.

Under the current circumstances, no one, not even a god, has the time to stop him from completing the refining of the Luanzi.

In the Great Forest of Death, the battle between humans and gods has completely descended into its most primal state.

In a completely chaotic fight, Seiya used his knee to press against Aaron's sunken chest, while his hands gripped Pandora's neck as she attacked from behind, slamming her head against the ground repeatedly. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Aaron, ignoring his injuries and headache, struggled to break free, biting his heel into the air, grabbing Seiya's waist from behind, and slamming him backward with gritted teeth, sending him crashing to the ground as well.

"I'm going to kill you, Pegasus!"

Pandora, realizing what was happening, swiftly lunged forward, thrusting her trident straight at Seiya's face. Seiya, however, delivered a lightning-fast kick to the abdomen, and Aaron's expression changed drastically as he realized he couldn't control Pegasus. At that moment, a chilling light seemed to flash in Seiya's dark eyes. Then came a powerful knee strike—the Pegasus Spinning Egg-Smashing Kick!

The excruciating pain of the two demon orbs shattering was unbearable even for Hades' human form; he collapsed to his knees, his expression contorted.

"Lord Hades!" Pandora screamed.

Her scream consisted of only one sentence, because in the next instant, the Pegasus Spinning Smash was successfully executed, hitting the dazed Pandora completely. Her wrist armor deformed instantly, and Seiya suddenly exerted force, breaking Pandora's wrist. Just as he punched her head into her sternum, Aaron, whose pain would be fatal to any man, even a god, still used the combat technique he had just learned at this critical moment.

That is the giant crab strangulation technique, which involves clamping the opponent's neck with its legs and then using fighting techniques to completely sever the opponent's hand that has its joints reversed!

Chapter 125: The Grim Reaper Retires, Seiya Possessed

Seiya's joint lock against Pandora, originating from Aaron's Cancer Strangulation, occurred at this very moment.

A blinding light burst forth from the sacred garment.

For all beings in the underworld, no matter which level of hell they were in, at this moment they seemed to see the sun.

Two suns, one in the east and one in the west.

The Tenbu Horin, belonging to Virgo Asmita, rises, thus announcing to the Saints fighting in the distance that the Wood-Layer Fruit has been successfully refined and the mission is complete.

If one could travel light-years and traverse several layers of hell, one could reach the Pure Land of Bliss.

In the temple of Hypnos, a demigod spirit with pointed ears and a white veil serves coffee to a blond man. Hypnos, the other of the twin gods, has the exact same face as Thanatos, except his hair and eyes shimmer with golden light.

Compared to the renowned Thanatos, the god of death, few know of His terror. But for a select few who do know, Hypnos, the god of sleep, might be an even more terrifying being than Hades.

Even though his own brother and Hades, who nominally followed him, were fighting to the death with Pegasus, He leisurely enjoyed his afternoon tea. When he saw his brother being injured on the cheek by a Saint, he even revealed a meaningful smile.

“Thanatos, compared to arrogance, a lack of self-awareness is the original sin of a god.” He gently stroked Cupid’s head, but spoke cruel words without mercy. “If you don’t realize this, then let your endless life as a god be branded with an indelible scar of shame.”

Thanatos, the god of death, was unaware of his brother's mockery.

But He had already felt the shame; to have been entangled with two lowly humans until now was itself a great disgrace.

"Unforgivable, humankind!" With Death's declaration, this underworld was once again transformed into a boundless, unparalleled passageway for the gods under the power of Death.

The amulet inscribed with Athena's blood had been used up, and at this moment, Pope Sage and Cancer Manigoldo were completely trapped in a state of despair.

"Heh heh, this really is a desperate situation, isn't it?" Cancer Manigold wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.

"Desperate situation? Don't talk about desperate situations so easily. We can't be sure whose desperate situation it is until the very end."

As Sage spoke, his gaze drifted to the distant battlefield where Pandora, Aaron, and Pegasus were locked in a fierce, literal fight. Even across a distance of over seventy kilometers, the light and heat emanating from them were almost unbearable.

"At least we can't leave the problems to the younger generation; let us old folks solve the problems of the previous generation!"

Sage felt a mournful signal emanating from his body. As a human, as a Saint, he was already the successor to the master of all disciples, the Pope of the Sanctuary. But this Path of the Gods was a special attack targeting beings at a higher level; those without the qualifications would be as insignificant as dust.

The purple light spread again from Thanatos's fingertips, but Sage showed no fear in the face of his inevitable death, and even revealed a smile that should have been there all along.

“Manigold, do you remember the last fighting technique I taught you?” Sage said.