Seiya didn't speak, he just kept swinging his fists.
Visible shockwaves spread from their position. Fist against fist, leg against elbow, neither side retreated. All that remained was a flurry of blows, fast against fast, an exchange of punches that grew quicker and quicker.
Athena's blessing continued, and the warm power squeezed from his heart constantly forced his injured bones and muscles to heal once more.
The Pegasus Cloth, now fused with the Authority of Strong Wind, possessed a sturdiness and resilience far beyond Seiya's expectations. It was damaged and then reformed, gradually deepening its resonance with him, as if they were breathing in unison with the heavens and the earth. Until, a kick of explosive force was unleashed.
"All you who do evil, fear my strength! For now I shall obtain the might of ten mountains, the power of a hundred rivers, the strength of a thousand camels! I, in my might, raise the fierce mark of the Camel!"
This was a blow that absolutely could not be met head-on. Even a mountain range would be split apart, even the earth would crack. And this was the Camel, one of the three Authorities Athena had mentioned he must never touch.
Following his Saint's combat instincts, Seiya dodged to the side. But a hand suddenly clamped down on his shoulder. It was, of course, Verethragna. As the terrifying power of his kick increased, his strength grew with it. The force coming from his shoulder was so immense that Seiya could hear the shattering sound of his own scapula groaning in protest.
"The Camel is the symbol of endurance and might. To think it merely enhances a kick is to sorely underestimate my avatar. The mind's eye it grants is enough to see through divine speed. The protection it grants will allow me to fight on even if my heart is pierced. The consciousness it grants allows me to completely dominate you. Fear me who possesses strength, for this strength is victory!"
The knee strike that could shatter mountains did not hit Seiya's abdomen, but the force of the subsequent blow to his chest sent him hurtling down to the earth like a meteor, blasting through the desert behind him and crashing straight into a mountain peak.
But a new incantation had already been declared.
"I am the strongest, and the one who holds all victories. Whether man or demon—I am he who crushes the enmity of all foes. I shall strike down any enemy who stands in my way! O Bull with shining golden horns, grant me your aid!"
The second avatar, the Bull with shining golden horns, symbolizing the overcoming of obstacles, had manifested.
Seiya had no time to breathe. A gust of indigo-blue wind caught his body and shifted him swiftly to the left. The next second, an immense divine power descended from the heavens!
This was a tactic meant to kill Seiya outright. Verethragna's speed had long since broken the sound barrier. The war god, moving at ten times the speed of sound, carried a momentum equivalent to three hundred tons of TNT. A shockwave, like a meteorite striking a planet, erupted from a corner of Sardinia, sending a blast wave hundreds of meters into the air.
Even though he wasn't hit directly, even though he was only swept by the aftershock, the force still sent Seiya flying into the distance like a cannonball.
At this moment, in the magic workshop on the border of Sassari and Ossi, the two witches watched as the image in the scrying pool was buried by yellow sand. And they knew that this shockwave would soon reach them.
This terrifying scene made the witches' hearts palpitate, and the same question rose in their minds once more.
—Can humanity truly challenge the gods?
This was a question that only the six forerunners, and now Seiya, could answer.
Because at this moment, he was covered by a vast black domain. This was the otherworld that summoned the Boar, and even though the ferocious beast that symbolized destruction had not manifested, its devastating power to destroy all foolish things before it was still being called forth by the war god's incantation. Blood seeped from every bone in Seiya's body. His bodily functions had been pushed to their absolute limit, and the high blood pressure caused his capillaries to rupture one after another.
As his consciousness blurred, he finally felt a searing heat in his left chest. It was the location of his heart, the blessing of Athena. Before Seiya could even think about it, the final incantation arrived.
"Fear those who have wings! Let the wicked and the strong fear me who has wings! I shall carry out justice, so show me the correct path and the light! O light of justice, pass judgment on evil!"
Finally, the Phoenix, the avatar symbolizing divine speed, descended. But its appearance was closer to that of a reddish eagle-like creature. The moment the incantation ended, it transformed into wings for the war god Verethragna.
—It was divine speed, it was light, it was a flash of lightning. It was the Vareghna bird. It was the human-headed eagle, Hvarenah.
The Phoenix avatar, in the ancient Persian Avesta, is the Saena bird, originally referring to a bird of prey like an eagle or hawk. This divine bird is depicted in Iranian art as a giant winged animal, capable of lifting an elephant or a camel, resembling a peacock with the head of a dog and the claws of a lion, sometimes with a human face. It is said this bird can be reborn in flames and become immortal.
In any case, there is evidence that this divine bird has different forms in different cultures, and that the same name is used for both real birds and mythological composites, and even for both good and evil animals.
At this moment, the scene was a perfect manifestation of the divine splendor of the god from Persian mythology who annihilated evil. A shining red light burst from the depths of the war god's eyes. The wings of the Phoenix allowed him to cross space, and in a domain of ever-accelerating divine speed, only he and Seiya remained. The ever-victorious golden sword had already locked on.
This was the final, fatal blow. The battle had been pushed to this point; it was kill or be killed. He would pierce Seiya's chest with the swiftest light, and after this strike, he would reclaim his final avatar and return to his complete form of victory.
But it was also at this moment that He noticed his opponent was staring directly at him.
It was too late to react. Blue flames erupted from Seiya's chest, enveloping both the charging Verethragna and himself.
After this moment, Athena's blessing was completely gone.
For Seiya, this was the only path to victory the goddess had shown him.
"Only in this state of divine speed would the mind's eye of the Camel and the warrior's instinct for victory fail, because there is simply no time to make a change, and no way to evade the power of Prometheus." Only the God King and the goddess in the spirit world saw the truth of the matter.
For the war god Verethragna, the golden disk of his ten avatars turned. In the hands of the Saint, Seiya, the White Horse that carried the sun was swallowed in the form of light.
"I see. So you used the characteristic of divine speed to, in turn, snatch the White Horse avatar from my hands." The war god Verethragna showed no panic, his face still holding that usual, ephemeral smile. "And what will you do now? The White Horse avatar is not as simple as the Strong Wind. Wielding this power will first burn you to ash, and even then, you cannot defeat me who holds victory."
In response to the war god Verethragna, Seiya took this radiance of the sun, this power of a star, into his own body.
Even as his body was incinerated from the inside out, even as his Cloth was on the verge of shattering, he broke into a smile. Because in this moment, he felt the sun, he felt that light.
In an instant, a brilliance that made even the gods turn their heads shone from within Seiya. His completely burning Cosmo became a vortex of radiance that enveloped his body.
Then, with the war god before him as its core, his Cosmo became a shining Pegasus that pierced through heaven and earth.
It was the concept of spreading the sun.
It was a shining halo born to overcome great hardship and obstacles.
Even when facing a Heretic God who defied myth, Seiya still tightly grasped onto hope and took a step forward.
"Face the brilliance of the stars! Pegasus Corona Punch!"
—It was a halo, it was the sun, it was the radiance of the stars.
The advancing star was surrounded by a corona. Fully ionized plasma rushed forward in the form of light. The coronal hole at its deepest point devoured all of creation, blanketing the surroundings in a heat of millions of degrees. And at the end of that path was the white-robed youth, his teeth gritted, his expression sharp and stern.
His lips moved, as if he wanted to say something. Was he praising Seiya, or was he once again chanting a spell of invincibility?
But before he was enveloped in that pure white light, his face broke into a smile of release and acceptance.
—Finally, the radiance of the sun consumed the warrior.
_____
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