Chapter 102: Purifying Aspros

“Have you heard? The prospective elder Alexis has returned!”

“I heard he is a Silver Saint with the strength of a Gold Saint. He once lost to Master Dohko in the struggle for the Cloth and then disappeared for ten years!”

“And this time, as soon as Lord Alexis returns, he is going to decide who will inherit the Pegasus Cloth!”

“Come on, let’s go see it. There’ll be quite a spectacle!”

The arena was already packed to overflowing, a sea of aspiring candidates, and among them was Pegasus.

Through a string of battles, Pegasus’s strength had risen at a remarkable pace. After only a few matches, he had emerged like a dark horse and become one of the favored contenders.

The moment Pegasus unleashed the Pegasus Meteor Fist, the Pegasus Cloth sensed his Cosmo, flew out on its own, and draped itself over his body.

The entire arena erupted. It had been a very long time since anyone had seen a Cloth choose its master of its own accord.

Sasha, holding the scepter of the Goddess of Victory, appeared beside Feng Zhe at that very moment. Watching her friend Pegasus receive the Cloth, she could not help but smile.

That night, Sasha, standing in the goddess’s temple, suddenly felt a wave of death spreading across the earth. She stepped outside.

A blood-red moon was slowly devouring the lunar glow. The chill that swept through her made Sasha’s pupils contract.

Hades had awakened.

The Holy War was about to begin.

Pegasus, who stood guarding Sasha nearby, changed color at once.

Meanwhile, Feng Zhe was playing chess with Pope Sage.

“My teacher has gone to the Jamir Plateau?” Feng Zhe asked.

Sage nodded. “He went to prepare a divine artifact.”

“The sacred fruit, then.”

Sage nodded again, but Feng Zhe frowned. “To forge that artifact, you need at least the sacrifice of a Saint who has attained the Eighth Sense. Are you really willing to pay that price?”

“To change the course of the war, to turn defeat into victory, such a sacrifice is necessary.”

“Give me ten liters of Athena’s blood, and I’ll handle the sacrifice for you.”

Sage frowned at him. “Do you know that a normal human only has about five liters of blood? Asking me for ten liters is no different from asking me to kill Sasha, and even that would not be enough!”

Feng Zhe also felt that this was indeed too much to ask of the Pope, and said, “Then I need the blood of all twelve Gold Saints, along with the Golden Apple.”

“That much, I can give you. However...”

“So in the end, we still cannot stop Aspros from assassinating you?”

At those words, a sharp pain pierced Sage’s heart, and tears spilled down his face.

“He did not die. I only sealed his soul in the Valley of the Dead...”

Feng Zhe’s hand slipped, and a chess piece fell from his fingers. He cried out, “That’s bad. That place is now under the rule of the Underworld Army!”

With a thunderous shout of “Corpse Energy,” Feng Zhe vanished from Sage’s sight.

...

Valley of the Dead

With Hades awakened, the already grim Valley of the Dead was shrouded in an even deeper pall.

“Good. Because of Hades’s awakening, the Underworld Army is no longer here.”

After a few swift leaps, Feng Zhe arrived at the entrance to the Abyss. By the edge of the bottomless cliff stood a small prison cell.

This was where the soul of the former Gemini Saint, Aspros, was imprisoned.

“You are... Alexis!”

Aspros stared at him, and the dullness in his eyes suddenly gave way to light.

“Aspros, do you now admit your wrong?”

“I was not wrong! What do you know?”

Aspros grew agitated, gripping the iron bars of his prison with both hands as he shouted at Feng Zhe. Then he began to speak.

“Ever since I became the Gemini Saint, everyone called me a genius who appears once in a hundred years in the Sanctuary. But who knew how much effort I had poured into getting here? Every mission, wasn’t I always the first to charge ahead? For the faith in my heart, wasn’t I always the one who gave everything I had?”

“I may have had a younger brother born under an ill fate, but was that my fault?”

“On the surface I took care of him, but who could understand the pain in my heart?”

“Only by becoming Pope could I change all of this!”

“How could Sisyphus, that lucky man who lived in the sunlight, compare to me, someone who clawed his way up from the very bottom?”

“It is nothing short of an insult to me!”

Feng Zhe looked at the furious Aspros, who raged in unwillingness and resentment. With that kind of obsessive and extreme temperament, such a man could never become Pope.

“Do you know the most important quality a Pope must possess?”

Feng Zhe asked a question that seemed entirely unrelated, and Aspros answered with open contempt.

“In the face of overwhelming power, none of that matters!”

Feng Zhe laughed. Aspros roared in displeasure. “What are you laughing at? Am I really that amusing?”

“With your strength, could you defeat Hades?”

Aspros stopped his frenzied shouting, though he still glared at Feng Zhe.

“Hades has one hundred and eight Underworld Warriors under him, as well as the two lesser gods, Death and Sleep. Oh, and let’s not forget the Four Dream Gods, warriors who are almost divine.”

With every word Feng Zhe spoke, Aspros grew a little clearer-headed. At last he said, “Given enough time, I am confident I could defeat them!”

Feng Zhe laughed again. “Moderate arrogance is confidence. Blind arrogance is simply overestimating yourself.”

Then he asked, “Do you know the greatest difference between gods and humans?”

He went on, “The greatest difference is not in the understanding of Cosmo, nor in the difference between secret techniques. It lies in the way they look at problems!”

Aspros murmured, “The way they look at problems...?”

“Mortal men take one step and see one step ahead. Saints take one step and see three. An exceptional Saint can take one step and see a hundred. But gods, by taking a single step, can take in the whole picture!”

“A moment’s victory or defeat does not decide everything. A Pope is the one who leads the way. If you want to stand against gods, you must have enough wisdom.”

As Feng Zhe spoke, a faint reddish-brown glimmer appeared above Aspros’s head.

“So, you finally showed yourself!”

Sacrifice!

Purification!

A blaze of holy fire appeared around Aspros, then transformed into a crimson radiance that directly enveloped the top of his head.

At once, Aspros suffered tremendous agony. He dropped to his knees and screamed.

At last, that reddish-brown light appeared again, as if struggling against the holy flame.

Sacrifice!

Blood Sigil of the Gods!

A blood talisman written with Athena’s blood appeared in Feng Zhe’s hand, and he hurled it forward.

After a thunderous blast, the reddish-brown light shattered into a cloud of blood mist and dispersed into the air.

“As expected, it was him.”

Seeing Youma’s trace once more made Feng Zhe’s mood plunge into the depths.

Indeed, that man had not perished. He still lingered in this world, disturbing the peace of the Saints.

If Feng Zhe had not struck the right chord in Aspros’s heart just now, causing him to struggle within himself for a moment, then even purification would not have been enough to dispel Youma’s demonic fist, the Phantom Space.

By then, Aspros had regained his senses and knelt on one knee before Feng Zhe.

“I was wrong, Lord Alexis!”

Feng Zhe smiled. At last, the effort had not been wasted.

Just as Aspros was being released, Hades’s shadow spread over the Valley of the Dead.

“Let us leave this place.”

And so the two of them departed at once.