However, even after merging everyone's Cosmo, the battle between Seiya and Ikki was extremely strenuous, especially with Ikki's phoenix cloth, which possessed the ability to be reborn from the ashes, and its vitality was terrifyingly powerful.
In the anime, Ikki himself even had the ability to be immortal, able to resurrect directly even after death.
In this current real world, Ikki certainly wasn't that overpowered; otherwise, an immortal body combined with the near-death explosive power of Cosmo would have made him invincible long ago, right?
Clearly, reality followed the manga; Ikki's cloth possessed the power of restoration, but he himself was still subject to death.
But even so, his strength was far above that of the current group of Bronze Saints.
Especially because Shiryu's dragon cloth had not been repaired, Seiya, who should have gathered the other cloth attachments, now lacked the dragon's shield, resulting in an even worse performance in battle and another outcome that was nearly a mutual destruction.
As a phoenix Saint, although Ikki could not resurrect from the dead, his recovery ability was still much stronger than that of an average Saint, so he probably wouldn't die.
But as for Seiya, who was lying on the ground, that was hard to say. Furthermore, because their battle seemed to have triggered a volcanic eruption on Death Queen Island, Mu could no longer worry about arousing Shin's suspicion and directly took action to pull Seiya off Death Queen Island.
Shin glanced at Mu. He had long anticipated Seiya's importance and naturally wasn't surprised by Mu's actions. On the contrary, the question he was truly puzzled by in his heart was the phoenix cloth, which seemed incompatible with the other constellations.
After pulling Seiya over, Mu directly utilized his Cosmo to drag Shiryu over as well. Among the Saint on the island, only these two had severely damaged cloths or no cloth at all; the others were protected by their cloths, so even with the volcanic eruption, they wouldn't be in any serious trouble in the short term.
As Mu continued to act, soon, all four Bronze Saints were moved out by his telekinesis.
At this moment, Shin also reached out his hand and pulled the heavily injured Ikki over, even though he wasn't currently in a state of fusion with his cloth. Without Cosmo, relying on his space abilities, this could be said to be an easy task.
"What is going on?" Ikki, who had been lying at the foot of the mountain recovering, looked around and happened to see Shin and Mu standing in front of him, as well as his other four brothers.
Shin looked at the phoenix cloth with keen eyes: "This cloth is completely different from the other bronze cloths; its vitality is simply incredibly vigorous, and it seems the materials used to make it are different as well."
While speaking, Shin glanced at Mu: "What exactly is going on with the phoenix cloth?"
Unlike the other bronze cloths—the dragon's strongest shield and strongest fist, the cygnus' ice cloth, or the Andromeda's defensive and offensive chains possessing vitality—these things basically ended up being devalued in the end.
These unique features might only be able to reign supreme among the bronze cloths; when facing silver cloths, they could only be considered ordinary, and compared to the gold cloth, they were even further behind.
Only the phoenix cloth, which could be reborn from the ashes no matter what—even if it was beaten into dust—demonstrated a restorative ability that surpassed the gold cloth. It could even be said that this restorative power had already exceeded the limits of a cloth. Throughout the entire history of Saint, across the four realms of Heaven, Earth, Sea, and Underworld, no other battle suit possessed such terrifying restorative power as the phoenix.
Mu's expression was a bit awkward, and he whispered to Shin: "I'm not quite sure. The phoenix cloth actually doesn't use Mu people technology. Furthermore, in the various Holy Wars, there have been very few phoenix Saint."
There was one more thing Mu didn't say: when a phoenix Saint appeared, they would at least have the strength of a peak Silver Saint, and basically end up with the combat power of a Gold Saint.
Moreover, the phoenix had always kept a distance from the entire Sanctuary. Besides, if the phoenix cloth was shattered, it could directly restore itself, so there was no need for cloth repair technology. Therefore, Aries had almost no experience dealing with the phoenix, let alone getting their hands on the phoenix cloth to examine it.
Under these circumstances, Mu actually knew nothing about the phoenix. He only knew that the original phoenix was not manufactured using any Mu people technology; instead, it seemed to have some connection with that mysterious ancient country in the East.
Shin nodded upon hearing this, not feeling surprised.
The style of the phoenix was indeed completely different from the other cloths. Right up until the final battle, it had almost never been devalued, unlike that so-called strongest shield of the dragon, which didn't know how many times it had been shattered by other Saint.
If those people from the Mu people could have replicated this special ability, they surely would have added it to all the cloths long ago. If all the cloths had this ability to be reborn from the ashes and become stronger the more they fought, the combat power of the entire Sanctuary would have increased by at least thirty to fifty percent.
Clearly, it was precisely because the people of the Mu people couldn't achieve this that only the phoenix cloth was so special.
"Who are you people?" Ikki, covered in dust, severely injured, with a large hole in his chest, demanded to know while standing up and blocking the two of them.
"This guy, did he switch to the side of justice so quickly?" Shin's eyes twitched slightly as he looked at the other four Bronze Saints being shielded behind Ikki.
"We are not your opponents; I suggest you take a look behind you."
Behind? Ikki was slightly stunned, and when he turned around, he happened to see several meteors falling from the sky.
Those were the Silver Saints sent by the Pope to hunt down Seiya and the others!
Ikki's personality was both passionate and prideful; he was typically cold on the outside but warm on the inside, with a tsundere personality. At the same time, deep down, he actually had quite a bit of affection for his younger brother and his other half-brothers.
At the beginning, for the sake of the Sagittarius Gold Cloth, or perhaps to vent the resentment in his heart, he fought fiercely against the other Bronze Saints. But now, seeing that someone really wanted to cut down his younger brothers, especially since they wouldn't even spare his own full-blooded brother, Shun, this guy immediately changed sides.
At this moment, several Silver Saints landed, including the Silver Saints of the Lizard, Hound, and Whale constellations.
Shin glanced at the five Silver Saints, then looked at Ikki, who was swaying even while standing, and gave Mu a look, signaling: should we take action?
If they didn't take action, these Bronze Saints would be doomed. Although these "cockroaches" were famous for their powerful ability to do "sit-ups" (keep getting back up), these guys were all unconscious now, and even Ikki, who was still standing, was down to his last breath. No matter how good they were at "sit-ups," they at least had to follow some basic rules, right?
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Now available - Chapter 698: Finale (ENDING)