As one of the Gold Saints most proficient in psychokinesis and mental power, Mu clearly did not need to follow directly behind Shiryu to reach the battlefield.
Even with the suppression of the Earth's barrier, as a top-tier psychokinesis master, Mu's sensory range was still sufficient to cover more than half the globe; if he hadn't been worried about causing any issues, he could have actually opened a space channel and arrived in just a few minutes.
Shin, needless to say, didn't even need 0.1 seconds to circle the globe, so the two of them just slowly followed a few dozen kilometers behind Shiryu, eventually stopping at the seaside to watch him head toward Death Queen Island.
Shin had no intention of interfering in the battle on Death Queen Island; bullying some Black Saints held no meaning, but he was somewhat curious about the origin of these Black cloths.
Since he didn't understand, he asked, looking up at Mu: "By the way, where do these Black Saints come from? And where did they find their Black cloths?"
"Also, among this bunch, several of them have quite decent Cosmo, right? With that kind of strength, even if they aren't the best among the Bronze Saints, they could at least be considered upper-middle tier. How can they not even get their hands on a cloth?"
Mu shook his head and began to bluff: "cloth has a life of its own; if it doesn't acknowledge you..."
Seeing Shin looking at him with a half-smile, Mu suddenly realized that this guy had already learned all the theoretical knowledge about repairing and crafting cloths, and could even communicate directly with them. What he had just said might fool others, but it definitely couldn't fool him.
He coughed twice slightly: "You know, in past Holy Wars, Sanctuary has actually had traitors and deserters. These people were all cast away to Death Queen Island, where they gradually multiplied and thrived."
"As descendants of those original sinners, although they learned quite a bit from those traitors, Sanctuary would certainly never issue them cloths."
"As for the so-called Black cloths..."
Mu was silent for a moment, seemingly feeling that it wasn't too big of a secret, and began to speak: "There was once a candidate for the Aries Saint who was cast away to this island because he committed a grave error. Those Black cloths on Death Queen Island must be the handiwork of him and his descendants."
Shin curled his lip slightly. Looking at this from a modern perspective, it certainly had nothing to do with so-called humanitarianism. Modern people all understand the principle that the sins of the father should not be visited upon the children.
However, considering that the Saint generations span over 200 years, for those ancient people from the previous generation, this wasn't considered too outrageous. If one were to trace it back further, for generations even older, concepts like punishing descendants or being the offspring of sinners were simply considered matters of course.
This was the limitation of the era. Even for the so-called side of justice, Sanctuary was, to put it plainly, a militarized organization—and a militarized organization that was both ancient and severely disconnected from the outside world. Many of its rules might seem out of place, but if viewed in the context of that ancient era, they were indeed unproblematic.
Shin wasn't here to liberate these Black Saints anyway. He had just asked out of curiosity. Now, he focused his energy on his Super Vision to watch that group of Saints fighting intensely.
It must be said that the current Five Bronze Saints were still quite immature. The strongest in terms of appearance strength was likely Ikki, followed by Hyoga. As for Shun, purely in terms of Cosmo, he was actually not much worse than his older brother Ikki, but due to his personality, his combat effectiveness had never been very high.
As for Seiya now, he was actually the weakest of them all. Truth be told, at the Galaxian Wars Tournament, if Shiryu had been slightly more cautious during the fight and hadn't destroyed his own fist and shield while also sustaining heavy injuries, Seiya would likely not have won unless he tapped into his tenacious nature.
The battle on Death Queen Island was the same. Hyoga killed his opponent in seconds, while Shun fell into a disadvantage due to his personality; if he really fought all out, it would probably only take a few moves.
In the original story, Shiryu suffered from severe blood loss; although he was better now, he wasn't wearing his cloth, which was why he fought so perilously against the twin Black dragon Saints.
As for Seiya, perhaps because he was the protagonist and faced the strongest opponent, or perhaps simply because the still-immature Seiya hadn't leveled up enough and couldn't even keep up with his companions, he ended up in a near-mutual destruction battle against the Black Pegasus, the Black Saint of his own constellation.
Although the Black Pegasus's Black Death Fist, which ignores cloth defenses, did have some merit, the current Seiya was indeed quite weak, as he had only just ignited his Cosmo a short while ago.
Shin treated it as if he were watching a live-action Saint Seiya anime and was watching with great interest. Although Mu had no expression on his face, one could feel from his constantly fluctuating Cosmo that he was certainly not as calm as he appeared.
Finally, after defeating the two Black dragon Saints, Shiryu found Seiya lying there like a corpse. After a session of so-called Star Point bloodletting therapy, he finally managed to save his life.
Seeing this, Mu breathed a slight sigh of relief, and then the group of Bronze Saints marched aggressively to go bother the phoenix Ikki.
How could Ikki tolerate these guys! A group of newly debuted Bronze Saints who hadn't leveled up much ended up getting beaten to a pulp.
The saying goes that "darkness makes one twice as strong, while redemption makes one three-tenths weaker." Although Ikki belonged to that rare type of character who didn't get weaker after redemption, one had to admit that the boost the darkness gave to his early strength was indeed significant.
The group was quickly beaten to a pulp. In the end, just like in all shonen manga, the group decided to entrust their Cosmo to Seiya to deliver the final blow.
While watching, Shin complained to Mu: "By the way, is Cosmo really this easy to merge? This ability, which is entirely derived from personal spirit, isn't energy, so how can it be completely mixed?"
Mu said calmly: "Normally, there is no possibility of merging Cosmo. But if the spiritual cores of both parties are relatively similar and are simultaneously focused on one opponent, this kind of short-term Cosmo fusion phenomenon can occur."
Of course, what Mu didn't say was that even for Gold Saints, wanting to achieve this would require the perfect combination of favorable timing, location, and personnel. For a few Bronze Saints to reach this level, one could only say their potential was immense.
*******************************
If you would like to gain early access, you can join me at www.patre on.com/bookbattalion
Now available - Chapter 698: Finale (ENDING)