The moon had climbed to the treetops, round and full. Pansy opened her eyes and came to.
"Is this... the graveyard lounge?"
"Shaina?"
Alert, Pansy scanned the surroundings and slowly pushed herself up from the bed.
Whenever she was alone in the graveyard, she instinctively felt afraid. In the graveyard, only Shaina could protect her from a certain muscle brute.
Carefully sitting up, Pansy noticed by moonlight that someone lay on the bed opposite.
A woman.
The woman's features were delicate and soft, like a doll, with bandages wrapped around her head. Seeing the broken white mask at the headboard, Pansy finally recognized her.
It was Marin, the Aquila Silver Saint.
Right, Marin had been savagely beaten by that muscle freak and thrown hard down right in front of her.
Pansy now recalled the terrifying scene, and those two signature pecs. She couldn't help trembling.
Too cruel!
Damian didn't show mercy even to women. It seemed she was lucky not to have been beaten.
Why am I so unlucky?
Nothing was going as planned at all.
She looked out at the starry sky and the bright moon, thoughts surging.
Hades and Athena were mortal enemies. Since the mythic age, they had fought continuously for dominion over the earth.
For a thousand years it had been a stalemate, neither gaining much over the other, until a little over two hundred years ago, when Athena's Saints sealed the twin gods of Death and Sleep, and Hades finally suffered a loss.
You could say that Athena's Saints in every generation could fight the Specters evenly, because the Sanctuary's foundation wasn't weak and it always managed to cultivate powerful Saints.
But the Sanctuary wasn't unshakable.
Now the Sagittarius Gold Saint had defected, the Gemini Gold Saint had gone missing, the Aries Gold Saint ignored orders, the Libra Saint hadn't returned, and the Pope's conduct was getting stranger and stranger.
Judging by the intel, something might have gone wrong within the Sanctuary, and some Saints had fallen into conflict with the Pope. Therefore this was the best time to enter the Sanctuary.
By relying on her own methods, plus help from the hypnotic divine art, she could easily infiltrate the Sanctuary, find out what had been happening lately, and also locate the holy casket that sealed the twin gods.
Before entering the Sanctuary, she had planned each step.
She hadn't expected so many accidents. She'd been in the Sanctuary for more than two months and hadn't carried out any substantive operation.
Most of the time had been wasted by Damian. If she wasn't feeding pigs, fish, chickens, and ducks, she was cleaning. If she slipped up, her senior brother would punish her, so she had no time to act.
Tonight was the full moon. As agreed, she had to report progress to Lord Hades. She'd already missed two full moons in a row.
Ugh...
She didn't even know what to say.
Pansy slowly closed her eyes. Her breathing grew steady, and she slipped into sleep.
In a haze, mist swirled, then her sight cleared. Looking up, she saw the Hades divine throne.
On the throne wasn't Hades himself, but a portrait of Hades. In the portrait, Lord Hades was a handsome youth, wreathed in black-violet mist, as lofty and unreachable as a god, inspiring awe.
Lord Hades's soul hadn't fully awakened, so she could only use this portrait named Alone to make temporary contact with him.
Looking down at herself, she was wearing a black gauze lace dress. Her figure was willowy and voluptuous, her peaks full, her legs slender, noble and regal. She had returned to her true form—indeed the S-curve big sister figure Damian had described, if not more so.
This was her real appearance.
It was an ability granted by the god of dreams, letting her use her soul to pay respects to Hades on the divine throne in a dream.
Hopefully those two pecs wouldn't show up this time.
Pansy squinted subconsciously, as if to scrutinize the chest of the Hades portrait on the throne to prevent any accident.
It was... quite flat.
"What are you looking at?"
The pressure and voice belonging to Hades came, startling her to the core. Her knees bent of their own accord.
"Pandora, you haven't reported in. Have you been delayed?"
Lord Hades's voice flowed out slowly, languid yet full of pressure.
"I have been delayed, but it's not a problem. I'll find the holy casket very soon."
Pansy replied.
"It doesn't seem to be going well."
Hades said coolly, "I thought highly of you before. You've disappointed me."
"Pandora knows her sin."
Pandora lowered her noble head. In this world only Lord Hades could make her kneel and bow.
No—there was also that damned Damian...
"Delayed? If you're having difficulty, you can deploy the 108 Demon Star Specters. Their seals have loosened."
Hades asked again.
"Why..."
Pansy's mind flashed back, filled with foods she'd never seen before: egg tarts, desserts, all kinds of roasts... and all those chickens, ducks, fish, plus the sow Pandora.
All this time she had been doing trivial chores, cleaning and working hard. Her time had basically been filled up.
Just thinking about it made her want to die. Yes, because of Damian, time had flown by—more than two months gone in a blink.
"Pandora... Pandora... I feel unwell. I sense a strange force..."
Suddenly, Hades's voice broke intermittently, tinged with pain.
She looked closely and saw the portrait of Hades shifting—turning into a handsome, dashing man's face that looked very familiar. His pecs suddenly ballooned like inflating balloons...
S-Such big pecs.
Damn!
Interference!
Pansy shivered, snapped awake, and cut off contact with Hades.
"Who's there?"
She scrambled up from the bed at once, her eyes darting.
In the dream, she had still sensed the outside world.
It seemed someone had been speaking right by her ear, calling her name.
Just as she narrowed her eyes to find the person, she felt a chill wind sweep the room. It was bitterly cold, and shadows seemed to sway among the branches outside the window.
Who's there?
Pansy stared tensely at the shadows outside, feeling a nameless threat.
This was the graveyard—should she call Damian for help?
B-Better not.
As she was anxiously thinking of a plan, a pale hand suddenly grabbed her ankle.
"Ah!"
Even with her composure, a veteran of many storms, she couldn't help a shock that stopped her breath.
Steadying herself, she looked down and saw a ghost face.
The face was twisted, with slanted eyes and a crooked mouth, tongue lolling like a hanged ghost's, its pallor so ghastly that a glance made one want to cry.
The ghost face wagged its tongue and spit out three words: "Pandora, Pandora, Pandora!"
"It's saying my name?"
"Am I still dreaming?"
"Is this a nightmare?"
It would be a lie to say she wasn't afraid. Pandora trembled all over.
As the commander of the Underworld, any dead or evil spirit was mere air to her, yet now she panicked—she was afraid.
"Wh-Who are you?"
Fortunately, her mental toughness held. Pansy forcibly steadied her mind and trembling body.
"Pandora, you died so miserably!"
Suddenly, the twisted ghost face shifted in an instant—becoming handsome and full, heroic and striking, exuding divine presence that made the heart race.
The man under the bed had sword brows and starry eyes, a noble bearing and extraordinary handsomeness, like a god walking the earth.
It was him!
Seeing that handsome face, Pansy's mind blanked for a second, then she jolted, her body trembling again.
Right—the man before her was the ruthless one who'd thrashed Marin.
Don't be fooled by how he only trained muscle—his physical power was terrifying, enough to crush a Silver Saint.
Now that strong man was under her bed, calling her true name.
Too scary!
Could he know something...
Pansy clenched her fists and asked nervously.
"S-Senior Brother Damian."
"Were you just... calling me?"
"Pandora is that dead pig. Are you a pig?"
Damian slowly crawled out from under the bed and wiped tears from the corner of his eye. "Senior brother was weeping for that pig. Oh, Pandora, you died so miserably..."
Pansy: (｀Д)!!
"So you were crying over that pig. Hey, why are you under my bed crying about a pig?"
And you ate plenty of that pig yourself.
Damian gave a slight wave. "I just missed the pig too much, so I came to chat with you—tell you a story."
"Because you miss a pig... you came under my bed late at night to tell me a story?"
Relieved at first, Pansy now felt her mouth twitch. A bad premonition swept over her again.
"What exactly are you going to tell? How about a ghost story."
You...
Pansy clenched her fists, suddenly seized by an urge to summon a divine trident and skewer Damian on the spot.