"Athena, are you really going to fight your own brother?" On the battlefield of Sparta, unlike Athena—whose face was neither flushed nor strained, and who was barely even breathing hard—Ares, her opponent, was already panting like a dead dog.
As the original goddess of war, Athena's combat ability was already above Ares's to begin with, all the more so now that she had been carefully trained by Meruem.
Having traversed several worlds, Meruem had refined martial arts to an extreme. His understanding of power on the subtlest level had reached a downright terrifying realm.
How terrifying was the Athena personally taught by him? One only had to look at the battle before them. Unlike Ares, who fought like a berserk barbarian, flailing wildly, Athena used the least amount of strength to produce the greatest possible damage.
Ares already came up short against Athena in divine power, and with this kind of widening gap, his chances of victory only shrank the longer the fight went on.
That was how the current situation had come about, with Athena almost completely unscathed while Ares had already burned through most of his stamina.
Originally, Ares had been counting on Aphrodite to help him, but right now Aphrodite could barely protect herself under Meruem's hand.
Too bad for her—Meruem knew barrier and sealing techniques as well. What he used was the crystallized product of experience tempered across multiple worlds. Unless Aphrodite could surpass him in sheer power, she would never break that seal in this lifetime.
The battle on Athena's side was already nearing its end, and the same was true on the Saints vs. Berserkers front.
The Berserkers were indeed powerful, but as the scales of victory tilted toward Athena, their punches grew weaker and weaker. Unlike the Saints, whose power came from their own training, and the Specters, whose strength came from the growth of their souls, the Berserkers' power came from Ares.
Of the Four Great Legions, aside from the Terror Legion that had been wiped out on Death Queen Island, only the commander of the Flame Legion was still alive.
The Berserkers of the other two legions were practically all dead or wounded.
And right now, the barely surviving commander of the Flame Legion was facing the combined assault of three Gold Saints: Milo, Aiolos, and Aphrodite of Pisces.
Of the three Gold Saints, the one with the most terrifying record against the Berserkers was not the unpredictable Scarlet Needle, nor Aiolos's fierce Golden Arrow and original Lightning Plasma, but Aphrodite's tricolor roses.
Berserkers did not fear death, but neither were they immortal. With the poison of the Royal Demon Rose, Aphrodite could cull them by the dozen with ease.
With the Gold Saints' victory already all but assured, it was time to look in on the little toughs' side of the battlefield.
All of the little toughs had now awakened the Seventh Sense, putting them not far behind the senior officers of the Berserkers. Ikki's strength in particular far outstripped those officers, and so when Ares began to falter, the little toughs all exploded with astonishing Cosmo, quickly suppressing their opponents. Victory was not far off.
"You Berserkers have no chance left. Please surrender—I don't want to hurt you." The only battlefield still somewhat deadlocked was that between Shun and his opponent. Kind‑hearted by nature, Shun disliked killing. His true power, however, was beyond question; he was, after all, Hades's reincarnation.
His body, nurtured by divine power alone, was not something an ordinary person could hope to compare with.
And by coincidence, Shun's opponent was Chris, the very man who had massacred Andromeda Island.
Chris was tightly bound by Shun's Nebula Chain and unable to break free for the moment. His raw strength was immense, and although Shun had restrained him, for various reasons he still had not delivered a killing blow.
"Those damned chains again. Why do I always run into this kind of opponent?" As Ares was pushed back step by step, his Berserkers beneath him were growing anxious as well.
"Your name is Shun, right? What's your relationship with those Saints on that Andromeda Island I visited before?" Staring at the chains wrapped around his body, Chris suddenly felt a strange sense of familiarity. An idea flashed through his mind, and he questioned Shun.
At his words, Shun stiffened. "Andromeda Island! That's where I trained. My master was the island's lord. You've been there?" Shun, without suspicion, immediately answered with what he knew.
At that, Chris's lips curled into a cruel smile, revealing rows of gleaming white teeth. "Of course I've been there—because I'm the one who destroyed that island and killed every Saint on it."
Having lived through countless wars, Chris knew that a fighter with a personality like Shun's would never last long on the battlefield. There were too many openings, too much softness.
"What…" Shun's face went slack, his lips turning bloodless and pale. "Impossible… June, Master, senior brothers, everyone…"
The Nebula Chain in Shun's hand slipped loose without him even realizing it.
Seeing Shun's reaction, Chris only grew more smug. "Yeah, I crushed every one of their bones, one by one. Ahahahaha!"
He kept up the verbal assault, breaking down Shun's defenses from within.
"An opening!" Chris jerked hard. With Shun's grip slackened, the Nebula Chain could no longer hold his body.
"Go down there and join them! With my Explosive Flame Fist!" The instant he broke free of the chain, Chris charged straight at Shun, his flame‑wreathed fist driving toward Shun's head.
Chris appeared right in front of Shun, his right fist smashing down at Shun's skull. "Die!"
He had won—Chris could already see the light of victory.
Reality, however, slapped him hard in the face. Without him noticing when it had happened, Shun's seemingly untrained, slender arm had risen and now calmly blocked Chris's so‑called finishing blow.
Shun slowly lifted his head. When Chris met Shun's eyes, a nameless chill surged up in his heart.
Those were eyes that only someone who had seen through death and experienced countless brushes with it could possess—eyes that regarded all life with cold indifference.
There was something very wrong with this Andromeda Saint.
But Chris no longer had time to do anything else. That thought was the last in his life.
"Nebula Storm!"
A vast pink Cosmo engulfed Chris's body, grinding both his Berserker armor and his flesh to powder.
Chris's body shattered into countless fragments and vanished into the air.
"Hahahaha, Athena! To think you actually have him among your Saints."
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