Devil in a Red Dress

14

Naturally, since Athena was the strategist, she was the one who came up with the plan to take the Black—Hades, down. Unfortunately, Chaeyoung was essential to said plan if they were to ever lure him in. considering they couldn't find him anywhere no matter how hard they tried.

Athena had drawn up thousands of battle strategies over the century, looking at all of the angles with Chaeyoung's help, as Chaeyoung told her of the infinite possibilities that might happen with each choice Athena made as she drafted up their final battle plan.

Eventually, after millions of attempts, they thought they had finally come up with the most solid starting point. The most solid strategy, one with the highest rate of success according to Athena and Chaeyoung's calculations.

Zeus, Ares, and Athena would go down with Jisoo and Chaeyoung to confront Hades. Poseidon was to watch over the rest of time in the living realm all on his own and keep all of the corruption Hades had already managed to create while roaming freely in the realm at bay—keeping as many demons and evil spirits away from humanity. The rest of the gods would provide support from the heavens and possibly also the Spiritual Realm too—they hadn't decided that part yet.

Letting Gods into the Spiritual Realm might be a double edged sword and Chaeyoung hadn't worked out yet if it was worth it or not. The only thing she was sure about was that there were two gods she would absolutely never allow in. Three guesses who, though she figured if she asked anyone they would only need one to know who they were.

The important bit was to protect the Heavenly Realm as much as they could while the battle raged below, because it had always been the bridge to the Spiritual Realm. Crossing through the Heavenly Realm and going through the stars—the correct ones—was the only way anyone could make it in to the Spiritual Realm unless a soul had managed to ascend to it after thousands upon thousands of pure lifetimes and reincarnated into it.

The realm itself always summoned that particular soul before it was even passed judgement by the judges of the underworld because the Spiritual Realm was the ultimate judge.

Though it did happen, it was incredibly rare because less than several hundred thousand souls in the entirety of creation had been worthy enough to make it to the Spiritual Realm. Only the purest of souls made it there.

The souls in the Celestial Realm could seek entrance themselves if they wanted, though that was rare in itself too. Since the Gods were immortal, it was the only way for them to get there, and the Angels could only die at the hands of the Underworld creatures, they didn't have natural deaths either so it was unlikely that they would die in order for the Spiritual Realm to summon them.

But considering only a few thousand Celestial souls had ever been accepted in when they made the long arduous trek across the stars from the Heavens, many didn't even risk it. The Celestial realm was almost as good in most of their eyes anyway, especially since no one really knew what the Spiritual Realm was really like. They knew for a fact it was utopia, but knowing and experiencing were two different things, so most didn't challenge the odds.

Why waste their time trying to enter it only to be rejected? Because of that no one had ever even thought to try and overthrow the Sage and take the Spiritual Realm for themselves either. Not even the greedy, arrogant gods that wanted more power.

No single soul in the history of creation had ever bothered to see if there was another way in but they all very well knew if anyone would try, it would be Hades. They needed to protect it and make sure that if the Gods and their remaining two creators were defeated in the living realm, that Hades and his demons couldn't enter the Spiritual Realm because then all would really be lost.