Where Is the Athena You Swore Allegiance To? (Eighth Update, Extra Chapter for 2,200 Monthly Tickets, Please Vote!!!)

Lake fell silent the moment he heard Hermione say that.

Hermione held her cup, watching Lake with a smile in the corners of her eyes.

After a while.

Lake wiped his face, let out an awkward laugh, apologized, and then said to Hermione, "What did you say? I drove them off?"

Hermione nodded. "Wasn’t it you?"

Lake had originally wanted to shake his head.

But considering his usual honesty toward his women, he didn’t deny it. Instead, he frowned and looked at Hermione with some amusement. "How are you so sure it was me?"

Hermione tilted her head and smiled at Lake. "Gemini, Saga, Saint Seiya. Come on, you haven’t forgotten the stories you once told me, have you?"

Lake closed his eyes.

Deep down.

Smack! He slapped himself once again.

That’s what you get for plagiarizing. That’s what you get for spoiling things.

Actually…

When Hermione had said that, Lake had searched through his memory bank and vaguely realized where the problem lay.

But…

Lake was still unwilling to give up. He said to Hermione, "You were only two years old back then. Besides, you fell asleep while I was telling the story."

Hermione shook her head. "I didn’t fall asleep. I thought your story was very interesting, so I shut down most of my functions and kept my hearing active to listen to it."

Do you think you’re a robot?

Fine.

He accepted that Seifer still remembered the stories he had told her when she was four.

But two?

Are you kidding me?

I don’t even remember what I was doing at two years old. Does it have to be this broken?

Hermione said, "Actually, I forgot for a while too. But do you remember how, in 1998, I cast a Memory Charm on my parents and myself?"

Lake nodded.

Hermione shrugged. "Afterward, when Harry restored my memories, his powerful magic apparently also helped me recall all those little details from my childhood."

Harry Potter!

This time, Lake finally understood how Voldemort felt whenever he said Harry Potter’s name.

It was the kind of hatred that made him want to kill Harry as soon as possible.

Fine, your magic is powerful. Show off all you want. But why did you have to drag me into it? Is there something wrong with you?

After saying that.

Hermione smiled brightly again as she looked at Lake, whose expression kept changing. "So, Saga of Gemini, where’s your Athena?"

Lake came back to himself and pointed at Hermione’s stomach. "What do you think?"

Hermione was slightly stunned, then rolled her eyes at Lake. "My daughter has no interest in becoming Athena. If I remember correctly, didn’t Saga kidnap Athena?"

Lake said, "Saga became the Pope. Besides, after Saga’s death, Athena never chose the next Pope."

Hermione shrugged and then asked, "Then, Saga of Gemini, how far have you awakened now? Can you shatter the stars with a wave of your hand?"

Lake remained expressionless. "Almost."

The quality of this conversation had completely fallen into garbage time.

God was his witness.

When Lake had told Seifer about the Black King and Hermione about Saint Seiya, he had only been trying to amuse children. But who could tell him why things had developed this way?

Right.

Have I told any other people other stories?

Lake rapidly searched through his memory bank. He was worried that one day another alias he had suddenly thought up would be seen through at a glance, so he carefully looked into it.

It seemed… there really weren’t any more.

After searching through everything, Lake finally felt somewhat relieved.

Forget it.

It was no big deal if Seifer and Hermione knew. They were both his women, after all. As long as it wasn’t something at the very core, Lake still held to the same principle: he was willing to share everything with his women.

As they spoke.

Hermione seemed to think of something else and looked at Lake. "What about your Cloth? Have you forged it yet?"

Lake looked at Hermione. "You want to see it?"

Hermione nodded. "Of course. You said the Cloths of the Twelve Zodiac Temples were the most beautiful."

Lake smiled.

The next second.

Lake flipped his right hand, and a token resembling a military dog tag appeared between his thumb and index finger.

Ding!

The Cloth Token rose into the air and landed steadily on the hall floor under Hermione’s gaze.

Boom!

The brilliant Gemini star map, dazzling like gold, was instantly activated when the Cloth Token touched the ground. As the projection of the Gemini star map slowly rotated over the floor, a one-person-tall Cloth chest, made entirely of gold and engraved with the same Gemini star map, appeared in this world with a bang, as if it had come from another dimension.

Clang!

The Cloth chest opened. Amid a radiant golden light that shot into the sky, the Gold Cloth of Gemini, one of the Twelve Zodiac Cloths, appeared before Lake and Hermione’s eyes.

Hermione couldn’t help standing up from her high stool and stepping onto the floor.

Lake’s voice came from behind her. "Well? It lives up to its name, doesn’t it?"

It seemed that all the demonic essence he had previously devoured had been used to give birth to this Gold Cloth of Gemini. No wonder Lake could feel the power fed back by the Force Seed, yet also somehow couldn’t feel it.

Hermione turned to glance at Lake, then looked at the breathtaking, incomparably magnificent Gemini Cloth lying quietly inside the open chest. Her eyes flickered repeatedly. "You really forged it?"

Lake smiled. "How is it? Beautiful, right?"

Hermione nodded.

Lake spread open his right hand and gave a hard grab. With a whoosh, the Cloth Token instantly returned to his hand. After another flip, Lake put the Cloth Token away again.

Hermione said, "Put it on so I can see."

Lake pursed his lips around the bourbon. "I can’t wear it right now."

After seeing through the Sixth Sense, Lake felt that he could barely wear it for three minutes at most. Beyond that, he would be crushed to death by the Cloth’s own power and fall into a terrifying repeating cycle.

If he wanted to truly wear it, he would need to comprehend the Seventh Sense first. Only then, after comprehensively raising his strength to a physique like Superman’s, could he wear it without any side effects.

Now?

No. Three minutes at most.

Huh?

Have I become Ultraman?

Lake blinked. He suddenly thought of the most famous three-minute man.

There was no helping it.

This world originally had no Saint Seiya system. The source of the Saint Seiya Cosmo’s power actually came from the Chaos Universe that Lake himself had comprehended through combining his insights with the Force Seed.

So…

Hermione blinked. "You can’t wear it?"

Lake nodded. "The Cloth’s power is too strong. If I force myself to wear it now, I’ll probably die the moment I put it on."

Remembering the immense fluctuations of power coming from the Gemini Cloth, Hermione nodded. "I can feel the tremendous power contained within the Gemini Cloth."

Lake brought the conversation back to the main topic.

The Federal Mages did not act because they had become traitors to their country.

The Templar Mages, meanwhile, were restrained by the so-called dimensional agreement?

As someone who regarded knowledge as her first source of power, Hermione immediately began explaining to Lake. "The Sorcerer Supreme is the guardian of our dimension. Without the Sorcerer Supreme, we wouldn’t have the lives we have now. The Sorcerer Supreme has always been on the front lines, helping Earth’s dimension resist the covetous gazes of the various dimensions. After all, our Earth is special."

Lake said, "Because it fell from the World Tree?"

Hermione shot Lake several sidelong looks. "I really want to use Legilimency to look into your mind right now. You’ve never appeared in the supernatural world all these years, but you seem to know some things we don’t even know. Yet, for some things that count as common knowledge, you’re completely ignorant."

Lake smiled without saying anything.

Of course. I learned all this from movies. Movies give you the big picture. Who cares about all the trivial details?

After finishing, Hermione warned Lake not to interrupt again and resumed Hermione’s little lecture, helping him catch up on matters concerning the supernatural world.

Because Earth was special—it had fallen from the World Tree and possessed extremely complete laws—it had naturally become the target of the dimensional beings who had laws but whose incomplete laws meant they could only become dimensions and live within them.

Hermione didn’t know when the first Sorcerer Supreme had appeared, either. She only knew that the Sorcerer Supreme seemed to have existed from the very beginning, and that, long ago, they had beaten back one dimension after another that had attempted to invade Earth.

Across the endless ages, the Sorcerer Supreme had also reached an agreement with all the dimensions: neither side would interfere with the other. The Sorcerer Supreme would not attack them, and they would not covet Earth. At the time, the Nightmare beings of the Nightmare Dimension had been dissatisfied. But what if the humans on Earth summoned them themselves?

The Sorcerer Supreme had directly declared that the Supreme Temple would not interfere with beings who had been summoned.

That had also become an established rule.

If Black Heart Demon had crawled into the mortal world through the Hell Rift on his own this time, then there would be no question. As a named dimensional demon who had illegally crossed over, he would undoubtedly have been a target of the Supreme Temple’s attack.

But Black Heart Demon had been summoned by humans this time. Although they had exploited a loophole, he had still been summoned by Tony Stark and Obadiah Stane.

So…

If the Supreme Temple intervened in this matter, it would undoubtedly break the balance they had spent so many years establishing with countless dimensions.

After saying that.

Hermione looked at Lake as if asking, I’m done. Do you have any questions?

Lake really did have a question.

"Then what about those Parasitic Demons you captured earlier?"

"That’s precisely because someone summoned them before. That was how Hell noticed them."

"…"

Hell hadn’t known that humans on Earth could think of a way to snatch souls from Hell like that. The first time had been a complete accident, but once the Hell Dimension noticed it, the second and third times naturally fell into its calculations.

Lake sighed.

Fine.

Tony Stark and Obadiah Stane had simply been unlucky. This cloning-and-resurrection method had been usable only once. After they used it, Hell discovered the loophole and even came up with a way to use it to reach Earth.

But there was still one problem.

"If the Federal Mages won’t act, what about you? You’re just going to stand by and watch?"

"What else can we do?"

Hermione looked at Lake with some curiosity. "Back then, the Federation caused a huge disturbance because of the Fantastic Beasts. Afterward, the Federal Mages accused us of destroying their existence. In a fit of anger, we completely severed ties with the Federation. When things happen elsewhere, we’ll act. But when they happen in the Federation, the magical oath is still inside the Blood Oath Sanctum at Hogwarts."

Lake: "…"