"Is this the first Authority you usurped from the war god Verethragna? An armament that truly befits you."
Looking at the dazzling platinum Cloth before him, the God King Melqart did not spare any praise. But in an instant, he flashed a magnanimous smile that only a conqueror would have.
"And only when worn by me can it show its true value! In the true name of a God King, Baal-Hadad, I call upon you! O Storm, answer the summons of the Rider on the Clouds and come swiftly!" Melqart chanted the incantation and brandished his weapons. They were the storm and the lightning.
A strong wind with the force of a tornado blew on the shores of Sardinia. Buildings of stone and reinforced concrete were blown until they creaked. Cars parked on the roadside were overturned. Ships moored at the docks were tossed into the sea. Tens of thousands of lightning serpents intertwined in the dark clouds. The target of the storm and lightning was, of course, the Saint Seiya. A torrent of wind and thunder, like an angry tide, rushed towards the youth who was leading a nebula of a thousand streams of light.
And at this very moment, a golden light rising from the youth canceled out the sky full of wind, rain, and lightning.
—It was an incantation. It was light. It was a sword. At this moment, it swirled around Seiya.
The Authority of the Victorious God of Combat. The Authority most befitting this God Robe was now, in Seiya's hands, fully unleashed.
"Melqart is a god born in the ancient Middle East. His true name is Baal. He was originally the god worshipped by a primitive nomadic people who were accustomed to herding sheep and lived off them for sustenance. In ancient times, people regarded the gods as the infinitely vast sky itself!"
Several small orbs of light began to appear in response to this incantation. At first, there were only about ten, but soon their number increased several times over, all of them a shining golden color. And these were the Golden Orbs of the God of Combat Authority, the golden swords that symbolized the strongest armament, that could sever divinity itself.
"The nomadic peoples of Central Asia—for example, the Mongols—also deified 'heaven' in the same way. But Baal-Melqart is a god born in the Middle East... a land of the East. He is not purely a sky god. This is his greatest characteristic. He is the god of the rainy season!"
Just what kind of existence was this god before him? The surrounding brilliance increased with Seiya's high-speed divine words. From a hundred to a thousand, from a thousand to ten thousand. In the space of a few breaths, a sky full of shining golden swords appeared.
They shone like the myriad stars that fill the night sky, like a brilliant galaxy.
"In the Middle East, a region with distinct dry and rainy seasons, it is only during the rainy season that storms arrive. The earth is ravaged by violent storms, tornadoes, and heavy rain. Lightning also falls from the sky. But because of the rainwater brought by the storm—if not for the grace brought by this water, then plants, beasts, and humans certainly could not survive. Your storm, although it has killed many things, has also in exchange brought the sustenance of life!"
"Hmph—it is as you say. I am the storm of the rainy season, the god who manifests both the grace of heaven and the destruction of heaven!" Melqart shouted loudly. He too had sensed the approaching danger. "Then let me experience just how formidable the sword you have forged with your clever mouth is! O wind, O rain, O lightning!"
This was also an incantation. Like the one Seiya used, these were words containing power.
However, the orbs of light surrounding Seiya did not lose to the fierce wind and lightning.
The orbs of light—the swords of incantation produced by the God of Combat's own incantation—danced about lightly, tracing brilliant trajectories in the air. The storm, when cut by the brilliant orbs, was immediately extinguished, and the wind stopped. The lightning, when cleaved, was likewise extinguished, and the heat and impact of the flashes were transformed into nothing.
In fact, the moment the sword-light drew near, the sky full of wind and rain ceased for it.
"Ugh..." The God King Melqart let out a pained grunt he could not suppress.
The physical pain he could certainly endure, but the swords of light generated by the incantation, which were aimed at him, were cleaving his very divinity. His Authority to command the storm could not be used again during this time.
The God King Melqart raised his leg and his eyes. His vision was filled with a brilliant golden ocean. A sky full of swords of light shot towards him to kill him. As always, Melqart's strong body dispersed into a storm, several hundred streaks of lightning fleeing in all 360 degrees.
"You are the storm sky god worshipped by a nomadic people. These people later came into contact with settled agricultural peoples who worshipped the sea and the earth, and then dominated these people with overwhelming military force!"
"Hehehe... The weak should, by their very nature, submit to those stronger than themselves. This is the truth of the world!"
"The sea god worshipped by the agricultural peoples who lived in villages and towns is the sacred beast that symbolizes the earth god—the Dragon. Therefore, Baal-Melqart is a dragon-slayer!"
The sky full of swords of light and the streaks of lightning speeding through the air chased each other. The golden blades that could sever divinity enveloped the heavens. Until there was nowhere left to run, the death countdown for the God King Melqart finally began.
—Storm Authority, severed and sealed!
—Lightning Authority, severed and sealed!
—The Warrior, the Wilderness, the Swarm of Death Locusts, the Desert and the Wasteland, the Rainy Season and Life, the Dragon-Slaying Hunter. At this moment, under the effect of the swords of incantation, all were likewise affected.
And at this moment, the most crucial incantation sounded from Seiya's mouth.
"You are the god of the storm, and also the god of the sea, the god of the sun, and the god of life who governs both bounty and ruin. You use a wind powerful enough to blow away the cities where people live, a legion of the dead summoned from the underworld, a tide as furious as a flood, and thousands of lightning bolts like the spears of heaven. Your weapons, Yagrush and Aymur, mean 'to drive away' and 'to expel' respectively. You used them to draw the dragon king Yam from his throne and then killed him. And with this conquest, you ascended to the throne of the God King!"
And at this very moment, His form completely solidified, even if the effect of the swords of incantation could only last for a brief moment now. But a danger more terrifying than the swords of incantation was already closing in.
It was the God-slaying Pegasus, Seiya. He was already at arm's length. Melqart could even clearly see his pure smile. This final killing move was simple and unadorned, only five words.
"Pegasus—Light-Speed Fist!!"
A torrent of light once again rose from before his leg. This time, he could no longer transform into a storm and lightning to evade Seiya's attack.
The light that covered his vision enveloped the God King Melqart's entire body. The fists belonging to Seiya trampled the God King's body. His muscles, tougher than the hardest steel in the world, and his bones, which contained divine power, all disintegrated at this moment, making the God King Melqart completely unable to feel the existence of his own body, causing his entire massive frame to fall like a cannonball into the nearby sea.
The massive weight splashed up a monstrous wave. In a few minutes, a tide would arrive at this island.
But at the same time, the torrential rain that had been hovering over Sardinia suddenly stopped, and the typhoon that was about to make landfall also slowly dissipated, revealing a bright and beautiful night sky.
The Saint stood under the night sky, his hands raised, bathing in the moonlight that shone down through the dark clouds onto his body.
"Athena, I know you're watching me." Seiya spoke slowly, gazing at the moonlight that seemed to favor only him in the pitch-black night sky. "Are you listening to my words?"
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