They had continuously overthrown their enemies, from Bronze to Silver, and through constant battle, had honed their Cosmo to the peak of the Sixth Sense. But never before had anyone brought them such despair.
"Come on!" Shiryu roared.
His eyes were tightly shut, yet he unleashed a powerful Cosmo far exceeding anything before. From his palm flew a hundred dragons soaring through the sky, howling as they charged toward the Leo Saint before them.
They had no chance of victory. The chasm between Gold and Silver was far deeper than that between Silver and Bronze. With every moment, he drew closer to death—this was his intuition, and Shiryu's intuition was always sharp.
Those hundred dragons soaring through the sky were the Rozan Hundred Dragons Punch, but using his Cosmo to drive such a deadly technique was far too taxing. Each strike held the power to shatter mountains and part waters, and this combined force of a hundred dragons instantly burned out Shiryu's Cosmo completely.
But in the final moment, Aioria moved.
An invisible golden lion's roar shook the heavens and the earth. The roaring golden lion swept away all the dragon spirits before it with crushing force, then impacted Shiryu's entire body. There was no rescue, no cry of alarm, because Phoenix Ikki and Cygnus Hyoga were already closing in on Aionia from both sides.
Since they were Saints, they had to seize the opportunity created by their comrade and grasp that sliver of hope.
—Diamond Dust!
—Phoenix Genma Ken!
Extreme cold and extreme heat exploded simultaneously on either side of Aioria, forming a swirling vortex! Just as they were about to rejoice, a massive shadow fell over them.
"Not bad. This genuine camaraderie has made me see you in a slightly different light." It was hard to imagine such words of praise coming from the menacing Leo Saint, but in the next second, his tone shifted.
"In that case, I shall show corresponding sincerity in return for this bond of friendship!"
—Lightning Plasma!
Even though both were prepared, having burned their Cosmos to elevate their states to the absolute limit, they still couldn't perceive any attack. They only saw countless fine golden threads spreading throughout the castle ruins and the forest.
Time seemed to freeze. Hyoga and Ikki didn't even feel anything amiss. Just as they were about to let out a breath, every inch of their skin and every bone in their bodies erupted in a pain so intense it made their minds scream. Unbeknownst to them, their bodies had already been pierced by the lightning.
Their Cloths shattered into countless fragments, exploding off their bodies. The armor, so intimately connected to their Cosmos, had protected them at the last moment, but this also meant the Phoenix Cloth, the Dragon Cloth, and the Cygnus Cloth were all destroyed. This heartache was worse than any physical pain.
Aioria slowly walked up to the three fallen figures, looking down on them.
"Although you are traitors, you possess the spirit of Saints. Your greatest mistake was betraying Athena and the justice that Saints uphold. I will spare your lives, so that you may repent before the Pope."
"Shun." A flame ignited in the eyes of the fallen Phoenix Ikki.
It was Andromeda Shun, who had just left with Saori Kido. He had returned.
"My foolish little brother... I must protect him!"
Aioria's expression remained unchanged; he had sensed this Saint's arrival long ago. But what difference would one more make?
"It's good that you've returned. You must have taken that Saori Kido to a safe place. I will capture you, then go and find her."
Hit.
Aioria could naturally sense the fighting spirit in his opponent's eyes. Although as a Gold Saint, he was reluctant to trample upon these Saints he had come to admire, he would only do one thing to traitors.
Andromeda Shun stood before everyone.
"A betrayal you can see is not frightening. The truly frightening betrayal is the one you cannot see. In your self-righteous justice, you are oblivious to the fact that you are the real traitors!"
"Enough talk!"
A golden lion, almost condensed into a solid form, appeared between his hands. Yet, facing the pressure of a Gold Saint, Andromeda Shun showed not a trace of fear. He only felt the wind howling through the forest, carrying a scorching wave.
A scorching wind? Aionia's eyes narrowed. At that moment, within Andromeda Shun's eyes, he saw a figure that had long been standing behind him.
The lion's head twisted, trying to change direction, but it was too late.
A dazzling flash of light pierced the entire forest, and the resulting whirlwind violently shook the surrounding trees. Forced back several meters by the scorching light, Aionia, unsure of what had happened, looked up. In the next instant, he felt an overwhelming pressure, and every bone in his body grew rigid.
The one who appeared before the Saints was a figure in ordinary clothes.
It was immediately clear from the overwhelming aura he exuded that this was a top-tier Saint.
Despite this, there was something extremely unconventional about him—
For a being called a Saint, his appearance was far too plain. He wore no armor that could be called a Cloth, and the clothes he had on seemed of little value. Of course, a Saint's power is not determined by appearance alone, but—even so, to not even carry a single weapon was strange.
A formidable opponent he had never met, a Saint without armor, yet this Cosmo allowed Aioria to recognize him instantly.
"It's you! The Sagittarius Saint!"
In the southeast of Lushan, Jiangxi, there is a place where the mountain's summit is broken by a gap, forming five parallel peaks. Viewed from below, they resemble five old men sitting on the ground, hence the name Five Old Peaks.
And beneath the waterfall of the Five Old Peaks, a Saint wearing a Gold Cloth, his skin dark, confidently approached a waterfall and cupped his hands in greeting. "Master Dohko, still alive, I see."
Though he was his master, this Gold Saint's words held little respect.
The one he called Master was a shriveled old man meditating cross-legged under the waterfall, wearing a conical hat and a blue robe. His eyes were closed in contemplation, seemingly unsurprised by the Saint's arrival.
"Deathmask, why has that Pope sent you here?"
"Ah, ah, ah... While your seniority is great, he is still Lord Pope." Deathmask pursed his lips, but seeing the old man's wizened appearance, he knew there wouldn't be any pleasantries.
"Alright, I know you don't like to hear it, but couldn't it be that a student came specifically to visit you?"
"Those with different principles cannot conspire together. You and I walk different paths; we will only grow to resent each other."
True enough. Deathmask dropped his false smile. No matter how many years had passed, he still disliked listening to this old fossil's long-winded lectures.
"The Pope sent me to consult you, a veteran of the last Holy War, on whether any Saint can master the combat techniques of multiple Saints, even including the secret arts of the twelve zodiac signs."
"There are."
"What? Master, hurry up and tell me. Since you don't want to see me, just get it over with so I can report back." Deathmask was overjoyed; he hadn't expected his master to actually be able to answer him.
"It could be Aries, Altar, Caelum, Crater, Sculptor, Cancer, or the Sanctuary Pope," Dohko said slowly.
"Forget Aries. How come I, as Cancer, don't know this? And Altar, Caelum, Crater, Sculptor... aren't they all Silver Saints? You're not trying to fool me, are you?" Deathmask was puzzled.
"Because Saints who possess the power to repair Cloths can, in essence, acquire the combat techniques of the corresponding constellation from the Cloth itself. Therefore, the patriarch of the Jamir clan can certainly possess multiple combat techniques. The Sanctuary Pope and some Saints with special lineages can also master techniques from multiple systems."
"What if this person also carries a god-level pressure and can even open the Path of the Gods?"
The old man meditating in the waterfall abruptly opened his eyes.
And at the same time, in Greece, in Athena's Sanctuary, in the Pope's Palace, second only to the Athena's Temple.
"It seems Deathmask has his results." The Pope, clad in a black robe, looked at the mirror before him.
"Aries, Altar, Caelum, Crater, Sculptor, Cancer, the Sanctuary Pope, the patriarch of the Jamir clan... who do you think it is?"
The Pope looked at his reflection in the mirror, while his chief of staff, Gigars, answered respectfully, "Lord Pope, your insight is like a flame. You must have already identified this scoundrel. However, in my humble opinion, it should be Mu of Aries."
The Aries constellation has the closest relationship with the Jamir clan among the twelve houses of the zodiac, and has mastered Cloth repair techniques for generations. It's possible that over such a long time, he could have truly mastered the combat techniques of other Gold Saints.
Just as Chief of Staff Gigars awaited the Pope's response, he heard the mirror in front of him suddenly make a sound.
"Don't you already have the answer in your heart, Ophiuchus?"
The mirror spoke? How is that possible! Just as Chief of Staff Gigars stumbled back in shock, he slammed into a hard object. He raised his head and met the cold gaze of the Pope's mask.
Pope Arles grabbed his head, and with a spray of blood, his entire head exploded in the Pope's hand. But the blood didn't splatter anywhere; it converged into a single point and slowly dissipated as white smoke.
The Pope was not, of course, referring to the current Silver Saint Shaina of Ophiuchus, but to a much older one. The Saint who was hailed as a god.
If Saga of Gemini was considered an incarnation of a god, a demigod among men, and Shaka of Virgo was known as the man closest to god, then the Ophiuchus Saint of that era was regarded as a god himself.
From the fragments of information Pope Arles knew, he deduced that he was a Saint who was powerful to the extreme, not a true god. But if the Saint who broke into the Goddess's Palace a while ago was Ophiuchus, perhaps he truly had crossed the chasm between man and god, forging his own path to divinity.
"Whether it is Aries or Ophiuchus, they should be defending the peace of this world. If they wish to start wars and chaos, then they are no different from evil gods."
A new voice sounded from the other end of the Pope's Palace. The chief of staff, whose body was still warm, probably never imagined that the Pope wasn't asking him, but rather this man, Aphrodite of Pisces.
This Saint, beautiful to the point of being bewitching, expressionlessly stepped over the chief of staff's corpse and knelt before Pope Arles.
"Aphrodite, go and deal with those Saints who are unwilling to truly serve the Sanctuary, those with wavering hearts. Then return to your Pisces House," Pope Arles said.
"As you command." Aphrodite nodded his head.
Lightning danced wildly in the sky, illuminating half of Pope Arles' face.
One side was like a hideous demon, the other like a dignified statue of a god.
No matter who it is, whether it's Aries or Ophiuchus, whether it's the Goddess Athena or the evil gods of the heavens, no one can shake my, Arles's... no, my, Saga's, rule over this Earth!
He took the large black bow from the wall. As his hand touched the bowstring, the pure black gradually turned into a brilliant gold. Finally, a golden arrow, glowing with unparalleled light, was shot toward the distant sky.
A golden light pervaded the space. Aioria felt as if he had encountered a mirror image of himself, another self far more perfect than his current one. His own Lightning Plasma, the signature move of Leo, could not even reach his opponent.
"Who in the world are you!" Aioria roared.
Seiya placed his fingertip on Shiryu's forehead, and a warm light, like a spring breeze, covered the battlefield.
"Probably not Regulus, I guess," Seiya said with a snap of his fingers.
The Saints who had been paralyzed on the ground suddenly opened their eyes, feeling their bodies filled with power. Then, their shattered Cloths reassembled, forming into a brand-new state.
A feeling more fulfilling and powerful than ever before surged through their bodies.
"Cloth repair." Aionia clenched his fist.
He had already witnessed all sorts of illogical things, even seeing the Path of the Gods with his own eyes. Cloth repair technology was nothing in comparison, but among the current generation of Saints, it was an ultimate technique only mastered by Mr. Mu of Aries. A Saint's Cloth is not just armor made of a mysterious super-metal; a Cloth can transcend space by its own will to protect its owner. That is its mystery—Cloths have a will, they have life.
The ability to be repaired and grow along with a Saint's battles is a core function of a Cloth. And for one who masters Cloth repair, the power boost after reassembly from a shattered state would be far beyond imagination.
But no matter who it was, he would defeat the person before him today!
Aionia burned his Cosmo completely. The ultimate technique of Leo—the Lightning Plasma, also known as the Lightning Speed Fangs of the Lion—was unleashed without reservation toward the mysterious warrior.
But the same scene repeated itself. A completely identical light-speed fist negated his attack, and his own fist was caught in the opponent's palm. Then, he heard that familiar taunt.
"A Pegasus who dares challenge a god without understanding the gap in our strength... Now face my Pegasus Meteor Fist!"