Kuro slowly opened his eyes while being in a half asleep hazy state. Upon waking up, he expected that he was still in the same dark and desolate forest wherein he almost died. However, he was startled to see that instead of being a forest, his surroundings look like a graveyard. Countless skeletons where scattered all over the place, and almost all of the trees were dried up.

“What the hell happened?” Kuro softly murmured.

Kuro heard a voice in his head “You have been asleep for a couple of months”.

“The world has changed a lot since your slumber!”.

Kuro was startled.

“No wonder the world feels different.” Kuro replied.

“Let me give you a brief background of the world after your brief rest” stated the consciousness of the Yin-Yang Sagittarius Cloth (YYSC).

The year now was 2040. The world was overtaken by the followers of the Dark Lord Soma who inherited the Soul of Dracula 3 years after the first appearance of Dracula’s castle from the Solar Eclipse. The Belmont Clan was unable to push back the hordes of creatures that appeared during the said Eclipse. The current bearer of the famed Whip Vampire Killer was the descendant of the Belmonts and is named Julius Belmont. Julius, together with Genya Arikado (Alucard in sealed form), Yoko Belnaldes (an agent of the church) and Hammer (a retired army veteran) failed to stop Soma Cruz from awakening as the Dark Lord.

What startled the heroes was that 3 powerful figures, claiming to come from the Underworld, appeared at the side of the Dark Lord. These powerful figures were seen wearing Black Cloths and they introduced themselves as the “Judges of the Underworld”. They were Garuda Aiacos, Wyvern Radamanthys and Griffon Minos. With the strength of these 3 Judges, the heroes were forced to retreat. Julius Belmont, although possessing the natural ability to restrain evil and darkness, was severely injured during a 3on1 assault.

This happened while Soma (possessor of Dracula’s Soul) was restraining Genya Arikado. In order to escape, the church deployed a powerful spell that stopped time for 30 seconds, allowing Yoko and Hammer to safely extract the injured Julius and Genya to safety. Julius was in a sorry state, but due to his innate powerful body that is almost immune to curses and corrosion, the powers of darkness, whether it be the Dark Lord’s or Hades’, were naturally nullified to at most 80% efficiency.

This powerful time stopping spell was similar to the power wielded by Julius together with his Vampire Killer and his sub-weapon the Divine Clock, but in a larger scale. This large scale Divine Clock spell was deployed with the help of the Hero Avan (the Hero and Hero Trainer in DQ-GAD), using the spell Minakatoru which amplifies divine powers and the powers of light by 5 times, enabling the 6 seconds time stop to be multiplied by 5 and allowing for the 30 second interval to rescue the heroes.

With the defeat and temporary retreat of the heroes, the forces of the Dark Lord Soma ravaged thru Europe. The world leaders quickly convened a meeting and deployed Nuclear bombs and other modern weaponry in order to stop the Dark Lord’s Horde, but to no avail. Even the newly restored castle of the Dark Lord in Transylvania remained unscathed despite numerous bombings of modern weaponry.

In order to stop the spread of the dark forces, the reincarnation of Athena named Sapphire (Aria is already dead in this timeline after being killed by Mars in SSO and Saori is missing), donned the Athena God Cloth and stood on top of the Sanctuary in Japan. She projected the Divine Power from the 12 Temples of Sanctuary in order to create a barrier all around Europe. The Barrier extends even beyond the Earth’s core and even above the atmosphere.

Sapphire closed her eyes and muttered in a dignified voice: “My power, amplified with the help of the 12 Temples will buy us a year’s time”.

Within a few moments, all of the 12 Zodiac Temples of the Gold Saints lit up, and all of the cosmos contained therein was channelled to Athena’s Colossus (the Statue of Athena in the uppermost part of Sanctuary after the Pope’s chamber). Afterwards, the cosmos was further amplified by the connection of Athena’s Staff and Athena’s Colossus, before being redirected by Sapphire towards Europe.