"Hmph, so-called Goddess, is this the only trick you have up your sleeve?"
Dark Saga's low, contemptuous voice echoed above the chaotic battlefield like cracking ice. His long grey hair moved without wind, and his Cosmo, burning with near-physical intensity, distorted the surrounding air.
Those eyes, deep as an abyss, pierced through layers of defense and locked onto Saori. Amaterasu's black flames had just been forcibly suppressed, and the residual energy left faint marks on the Gemini Gold Cloth, making it look even more menacing.
Shisui's heavy injury and fall, and the four Uchihas' seemingly fierce but forced-back joint counterattack, all appeared pale and powerless before the absolute gap in strength.
At this moment, in the eyes of Saga, who had completely suppressed his benevolent personality, Athena's struggle and the desperate fight of this group of otherworld guards were nothing more than the futile attempts of ants trying to shake a mountain.
"..." Saori did not answer.
Her expression remained as calm as if she were in a state of nothingness. Saga's reflection did not appear in the depths of her violet eyes; she seemed to look through him, gazing at a much more distant river of time.
That faint but world-heartbeat-like ripple of protective Cosmo still wavered around her, precisely covering every part of the battlefield like the finest strings, maintaining a thread of life for those fighting for her—or rather, extending the timeline of their fall.
She didn't even show a ripple of emotion at Saga's irony; her silence itself was a judgment that transcended the mortal world.
"Enough!" Saga's voice suddenly rose, carrying a hint of uncontrollable mania and impatience. "Let me show you true despair, the true methods of the Gold Saints!"
As soon as he finished speaking, his voice, burning with the will of destruction, exploded like the clashing of metal:
"Deathmask! Aphrodite! Come here!"
This command carried absolute authority that brooked no question. The two Gold Saints, who were facing off against Fugaku's Susanoo and Izumi's blue giant, did not hesitate for a moment.
Little Di had just recovered from the shock brought by that eerie black sword (whoever uses the sword of totsuka determines its color). The aftereffects of his Sekishiki being forcibly sealed made his Cosmo appear somewhat unstable. Hearing the command, he felt as if he had been granted a great reprieve and immediately abandoned the deep black giant opposite him. His figure flickered a few times as he retreated to Saga's right side like a streak of dark golden light.
A trace of lingering fear remained on his face, but it was overshadowed by a fanaticism as if he were about to execute an ultimate mission.
Aphrodite's Rose Storm came to an abrupt halt. A hint of wariness flashed in his eyes as he glanced at Izumi's strange eyes that could perceive the trajectory of pollen. He also withdrew without hesitation, his elegant figure landing on Saga's left side. The Golden Pisces Cloth flickered in the surging Cosmo. The three powerful Gold Cosmos instantly merged in front of Fugaku and Izumi, who had deactivated their Susanoo, and Shisui, who had just climbed up and was still trembling.
"Boss!" Deathmask steadied his breath, his tone carrying a question and a trace of imperceptible worry. Aphrodite also nodded silently.
Saga did not reply, nor did he even spare them a glance. His eyes, occupied by ultimate darkness like a star in eternal night, were firmly locked onto Kido Saori in the distance.
"Use that move!"
"Huh? Boss! Is it necessary?"
Saga only slightly turned his face, sweeping a bone-chilling glare toward Deathmask.
That condensed, physical killing intent and absolute pressure made Deathmask feel as if his heart had been frozen by ice in an instant. His throat felt as if it were being strangled, and the words that followed were stuck in his mouth.
"Uh... I-I was just saying..." Deathmask lowered his head sheepishly, a drop of cold sweat forming on his temple. All doubts and unnecessary thoughts vanished before this absolute authority.
In the next second, the three Gold Saints made a movement that completely froze the air of the entire battlefield!
They did not take the unique battle stances of their respective constellations; instead, they stood in an extremely ancient way, full of a sense of forbidden ritual!
Saga was in the center, his arms slowly extending to both sides with his palms facing up, as if he were embracing the abyss or holding up a star of destruction!
Deathmask and Aphrodite stood on either side, slightly bowing their bodies with their arms crossed in front of their chests. Their Cosmos were not shining individually but were converging toward the central Saga with a sacrificial obedience and resonance!
The light of their Gold Cloths suddenly became extremely restrained—not dim, but with all the radiance compressed to the extreme, like the core of a supernova about to explode!
Three massive Gold Cosmos, enough to shake continents and shatter stars, began to produce a terrifyingly intense resonance! It was no longer a summation of energy, but a collapse and fusion toward an absolute center!
Space distorted and collapsed violently between the three of them, and a visible, all-consuming dark energy core was frantically condensing in the center of their overlapping energy fields! Just the preamble leaking from this process made the air at the foot of Mount Kido as heavy as lead, making even breathing extremely difficult. The earth wailed silently, and cracks spread at a visible speed!
"This is!!!" Fugaku's pupils suddenly shrank to the size of pinpricks! Shisui endured his pain, his Sharingan filled with unprecedented horror! Izumi immediately retreated, and without hesitation, she and Itachi protected Hiroki and Saori at the center again. Four Susanoo rose simultaneously, their Reiatsu fully released. But facing the energy fluctuations radiating an aura of world-ending destruction from that center point, even the skeletons of the Susanoo began to emit an unbearable creaking sound!
"Holy crap!!!!!" Hiroki's roar instantly changed pitch, filled with extreme terror and a sense of absurdity, nearly breaking his voice. "What the hell are you planning to do!!!"
He recognized it! This stance, this destructive resonance! Although he had only seen it in the anime, the current situation undoubtedly pointed to that ultimate forbidden technique personally sealed by the Goddess Athena, whose very name carried an ominous curse!
"Hey, hey, hey!!! Is this really necessary??? You guys are the ones with the advantage!!!"
He was going crazy! The opponents were actually being dishonorable, flipping the table and using their ultimate move! This was a complete steamrolling tactic!
"You're already planning to use the AE!!! You're not leaving me any way out at all!!!"
Hiroki looked into Saga's determined and cold eyes and understood everything in an instant! Why he had specifically brought Deathmask and Aphrodite to hunt down a target that "should have been easily dealt with."
This wasn't a simple "deicide"; this was to ensure that nothing could go wrong, to completely erase the existence of "Athena" herself, along with all the struggle and hope around her, from this world in the most thorough and unstoppable way!
Athena Exclamation! That was the name of the forbidden technique! Because its power was so immense that it could cause uncontrollable catastrophic consequences and even shake the foundations of the universe, it was a joint forbidden technique of three Gold Saints that the Goddess Athena had strictly prohibited from being used!
Unfortunately, Saga's trio, whose faith had collapsed and who had already committed betrayal, had long since trampled the prohibition underfoot!
"Lord Hiroki, what should we do!" Fugaku's voice was more urgent than ever. The massive Susanoo tightly gripped the sword of totsuka, but facing that core of destruction that combined the power of three people and was still frantically expanding, even the divine artifact appeared somewhat dim.
Izumi, Itachi, and Shisui, who was struggling to re-condense some Chakra, all solemnly pushed their Susanoo's defense to the limit, as if facing the end of the world.
Hiroki stared fixedly at the dark energy ball that was about to reach its critical point. The power contained within made his soul tremble. Two million points... Gold Cloths... in the face of imminent death, they all became distant and laughable.
After extreme fear, it was instead a sort of "nothing to lose" attitude. Hiroki took a deep breath of the iron-heavy, foul air, and a glint of extreme pain flashed in his eyes.
"Fuck... I'll have to be bedridden for a few more days again!" He cursed in a low voice and stepped out, walking directly to the very front of all the Susanoo, facing the three Gold Saints who were creating a miniature cosmic singularity.
The four Mangekyo users cried out in shock: "Lord!"
But Hiroki ignored them. He looked at Saga in the center; the other's posture in condensing power was perfect, and that energy core seemed to connect the origin and end of the galaxy.
Hiroki slowly raised a hand. It wasn't a fist; his palm was facing outward, and his index and middle fingers were pressed together in a sword-finger gesture. His expression became extremely solemn, as if he had stripped away all emotion. His eyes were distant, no longer focused on the enemies before him, but piercing through the barriers of space to connect with a cold will at the end of some distant universe.
An ancient, grand voice, as if from the beginning of primordial chaos and formed by the resonance of the laws of the universe itself, rang out low and clear at the foot of this mountain on the brink of shattering:
"God is the ultimate of change..."
The air instantly stagnated, as if even time were listening to this proverb of the laws.
"The wonder of all things, beyond description..."
As each syllable fell, it triggered incredible phenomena. The ether strings wailed, the void trembled, and even the bright moonlight in the sky dimmed in that instant. From Hiroki's fingertips, a pure concept that was definitely not spiritual power nor Cosmo began to burst forth—it was the will of "Ending" itself!
Great Void Sword Qi - Divine Implication!
BOOM!
Two powers reached their respective peaks at this moment!
"Athena Exclamation!" Saga's roar was like the horn of the apocalypse!
The ultimate shockwave, a fusion of three wills and the peak of three Gold Saints' Cosmos, turned into a torrent of energy that condensed infinite light and infinite darkness. It instantly tore through space and roared toward Hiroki! Wherever it passed, light vanished, sound was swallowed, and matter was directly vaporized and annihilated, leaving only a trail of pure void!
At the same time, the golden light bursting from Hiroki's fingertips was not dazzling or blinding. It was a near-transparent, faint glow of intent that seemed as if it might go out at any moment. It didn't have the momentum to tear space, nor did it cause a violent energy reaction. It was as if it had simply extracted, compressed, and polished a piece of the deepest vacuum into the shape of a sword—a conceptual sword composed of pure "nothingness," existing between being and non-being!
This invisible sword of will, with a nonchalance that looked down upon the vicissitudes of the universe, went straight toward that world-ending torrent that was enough to heavily damage galaxies and shake the earth—and pierced through!
This moment!
Time seemed to break!
Radiance and void!
The roar of creation's embers and the sigh of the silent end!
Under the gaze of Kido Saori's deep violet eyes, which seemed to see through everything—they violently collided!
"BOOM!!!!!"
This was not a sound.
Or rather, mortal hearing had already been completely stripped away and crushed at the moment these powers collided. Replacing it was the ultimate wail of the spatial dimension itself! It was the silent roar emitted when the physical laws that form the foundation of the real world were forcibly distorted, torn, and reconstructed within a billionth of a second!
Athena Exclamation (AE)—the majestic torrent of power formed by the unified wills of three Gold Saints, enough to crush stars, carried a nature of pure destruction and turned into a river of blazing white light, as if forged from the cores of ten thousand stars.
It roared, and everywhere it passed, space shattered into pieces and collapsed, leaving behind pitch-black traces of absolute void. Light was swallowed, sound was erased, and even the sense of time was pulled and extremely distorted by this destructive power.
Yet what met it was not an explosion or impact of equal magnitude.
It was—Great Void Sword Qi - Divine Implication!
Collision!
In an instant, the world lost sound and color.
And then—
A point that could not be understood by human vision exploded at the intersection of the two attacks! It was the confrontation between the purest "existence" and the most fundamental "nothingness" at the ultimate level! A singularity, small to the limit, was born!
Expansion!
Its speed was indescribable! Beyond thought! Beyond the speed of light! That singularity instantly expanded into a black sphere that swallowed everything! It wasn't the suction of a black hole, but the manifestation of an absolute annihilation field! Inside the sphere of light:
The AE's brilliant and blazing torrent of Gold Cosmo, containing the majestic power to crush stars, began to decompose silently the moment it touched the annihilation field!
Like snowflakes thrown into a furnace, the magnificent bands of light broke and disintegrated inch by inch. The terrifying energy contained within was not canceled out or blown apart, but was directly stripped from the root of "existence" by a more fundamental power and returned to the most primitive stream of chaotic Reishi particles!
It was a terrifying sight of the energy level being "formatted"!
At the rapidly expanding edge of the annihilation field, the earth was erased by an invisible giant hand like a fragile sandcastle! Granite, concrete, steel, and even air molecules! Before absolute "negation," the right of matter to exist was stripped away.
Silently, everything at the contact boundary completely disappeared. What was left was not a pit, but an "absolute void zone" where even a vacuum would seem noisy!
Space itself was like a torn rag! With the collision core as the origin, spiderweb-like pitch-black cracks instantly filled every inch of the sky within sight! Those cracks were bottomless; they didn't lead to another dimension, but directly exposed the cold background radiation and endless darkness of the physical universe!
moonlight shattered and distorted within the cracks, and the stars reflected in them were left as only warped afterimages. The massive gravity distorted everything around, even pulling light into strange lines.
Although the annihilation field was frantically swallowing and neutralizing the AE's power, the AE's energy was simply too vast and majestic! The energy aftermath at the edges of the attack, which had not been completely neutralized by the core annihilation field, finally erupted like a raging tide breaking free from its shackles!
A blazing white shockwave ring, composed purely of Gold Cosmo and bright beyond all limits, frantically spread in a perfect circle in all directions—up, down, left, and right—in a violent manner far exceeding the speed of sound!
Everywhere the shockwave ring passed, the earth was turned over like it was by an invisible plow, and a circular trench dozens of meters deep was instantly formed!
The remaining buildings that had not yet been affected by the annihilation field completely disintegrated in a series of deafening explosions, turning into dust that filled the sky, like paper houses thrown into the center of a nuclear blast!
The massive shockwave was like billions of stampeding beasts, crushing every tangible thing in its path!
Countless chaotic streams of Reishi particles, scattered by the annihilation field and carrying broken spatial fragments and surface matter shaken into basic elements, formed a second wave of destructive storms atop the hurricane whipped up by the shockwave ring!
Gold, silver, earthy yellow, dark red... the chaotic energy flows were like dancing poisonous dragons, tearing through the air and lashing at the spatial cracks, emitting ear-piercingly sharp shrieks! The entire battlefield was completely submerged by this violent sea of energy!
The sky looked like an overturned inkwell.
Gold, white, crimson, purple, black... various colors twisted, mixed, exploded, and vanished frantically.
The moonlight torn by spatial cracks mixed with the light of the shockwave and the colors of the energy storm, dyeing the entire world into a dizzying hell of light and shadow that exceeded the limits of human endurance.
Ordinary sight had completely failed here.