"Your Holiness, who is the next Pope's successor?"
Saga, half‑kneeling ahead, asked.
Shion fell silent, then sighed after a moment: "You are not the next Pope's candidate."
"Though you possess the ability to become Pope, I have discovered a darkness in your heart."
"Therefore, you have no fate with the papal seat."
"The successor to the next Pope is Aiolos, the Sagittarius Gold Saint."
With that, Shion turned from the throne. "Withdraw, Saga."
"Another Dimension!"
Damian sensed a powerful spatial force surge around him.
In the next instant "he" cast Crystal Robe, layers of glassy crystal wrapping his whole body.
Space all around was immediately cut off.
The suction of Another Dimension disappeared as well.
"Saga… you!"
Damian felt a heavy blow to his back; his heart shattered in an instant.
When he turned, he saw Saga's crazed, sinister face and those reddened eyes. "I am the next Pope! No one will take it from me!"
So Saga had struck Shion's back with a lightspeed punch in the instant before Crystal Robe fully formed.
Damian's world reeled, his heart twisting with pain.
So this was how Saga assassinated Shion—and the beginning of the Saga upheaval.
Alas, old is old—reaction and perception were far worse than before.
One lightspeed punch ended Shion's life.
When the vision cleared again, he had learned Crystal Robe.
It was a defensive technique that used telekinesis and Cosmo to create countless crystals into an invisible, impassable protective film that cloaked the body. The Crystal Robe was transparent and unseen, and could briefly isolate the influence of time and space.
Though it lacked rebound, it could shut out spatial effects and was even sturdier defensively.
"Nice!"
Damian felt he'd struck gold.
It was just defense‑leaning.
Even without a Gold Cloth, he could tank like a blood bull now.
And Crystal Wall and Crystal Robe overlapped with his Muscle Cloth, letting him upgrade his Muscle Cloth.
It might surpass ordinary Cloths in defense.
After all, his Cosmo was immense—enough to sustain an upgraded Muscle Cloth.
A pity he had no Gold Cloth‑grade materials for a headstone.
Otherwise he could have rolled Shion's ultimate Stardust Revolution, and the hidden trump Sekishiki Tenryōha—maybe even space‑step techniques.
Where on earth was he supposed to find headstone material?
Go hunt Mariners and Specters and strip their Scales and Surplices?
Wait!
He'd brought back a black scroll.
Damian reached out, and the black scroll flew into his hand.
He broke the seal and peered closely. His eyes widened—the writing recorded the secrets of Another Dimension.
Another Dimension?
One of the Gemini Gold Saint's ultimate arts, and the highest spatial technique among Saints.
It compresses space with powerful Cosmo, warping time and space to create a passage to a different realm and banish the opponent to a world outside this universe. If the enemy cannot find the exit, they will drift trillions of light‑years away—damned forever—a spatial finisher that can remove an enemy from the battlefield with ease.
He hadn't expected this mystery to sit among the Pope's collected texts. Judging from the parchment, it likely didn't belong to this era at all, but to a previous Gemini Saint's notes.
Who knew if there were notes on Galaxian Explosion.
He'd find a chance to return to the papal archive anyway—he'd already found Pisces Temple's back door.
First things first—learn it.
Damian carefully read the secrets of Another Dimension.
Another Dimension wasn't a simple space trick. It was fundamentally complex, and it placed special demands on Cosmo strength.
Cosmo capable of compressing space had to be overwhelmingly strong; fine control was also critical.
Damian already had Sekishiki Meikaiha and Titan Nova—both space‑related. Sekishiki Meikaiha opened an Underworld gateway; Titan Nova compressed space with Cosmo.
So Another Dimension clicked at once for him.
"So that's it…"
After a moment's thought, Damian's mind cleared, and he grasped Another Dimension's workings fully.
He moved to an open stretch of cave and pointed ahead.
Cosmo compressed to the extreme, guided by mental force—and in a blink, the compressed Cosmo burst open a fissure.
A gale rushed; debris rose in a whirl.
A spacetime rift with tremendous suction yawned open.
It dragged at Damian's body, hauling him toward Another Dimension.
"Crystal Robe!"
Without another word, he used his freshly learned art.
Translucent crystal plates blossomed around him, encasing his flesh on all sides.
At once, the spatial pull vanished completely.
Only the rift remained, ravenously inhaling the surrounding air.
That mountain‑steadfast feeling was phenomenal!
Satisfied, Damian closed the rift to Another Dimension.
Crystal Robe did indeed isolate space. It was a Cosmo‑and‑mind technique that negated spatial disorder.
Now to change the form!
With Damian's will driving it—
The Crystal Robe on him began to reshape, glowing with a rising golden light. It fitted to his body like a semi‑transparent suit of Cloth armor, covering him from head to toe.
"Plasma Lightspeed Punch!"
He snapped a fist—and a golden net enveloped him. Fist‑force lashed out, impacts ringing ceaselessly.
All the golden punch‑light bounced away, dinging off Sanctuary's stone walls and shattering the stone all around.
His Muscle Cloth showed no sign of damage.
"Interesting. Has my Muscle Cloth reached mastery?"
Damian was very pleased.
Now, without any Cloth, his defense already exceeded ordinary Bronze and even Silver Cloths.
With the added Crystal Wall and Crystal Robe, his Muscle Cloth had become the ideal form in his mind.
Hardness, rebound, repair—even spatial isolation—were fused together.
Aside from not replacing a Gold Cloth and lacking some special functions of other Cloths, it was stronger than many Bronze Cloths.
As long as he had Cosmo, he could use the Muscle Cloth endlessly.
His defense and brawling rose to a whole new tier.
Damian slit his palm and slapped blood onto the badly cracked Pegasus Cloth.
With a flare of golden light, the Pegasus Cloth was as good as new.
"Shion's Cloth repair skill really is extraordinary—far better than the methods described on any scroll."
Damian nodded.
Legend had it Shion had been a formidable Cloth repairer—his craft was indeed superb.
A little blood was all it took to mend a Cloth. No more bleeding himself dry to fix one.
He now understood the bond between Cosmo and Cloth—his repair craft had reached the peak in an instant.
It was just a pity Shion's knowledge of Cloths didn't include forging.
Things like imbuing a Cloth with a constellation's power for special abilities, or how to temper metal into a constellation's Cloth—those were missing.
Donning the Pegasus Cloth atop the Muscle Cloth gave him double‑layered defense.
At the Cyclops's grave, Damian gazed with hot eyes.
For all that the Cyclops progenitor's power was trash, in life it was a true god‑tier artisan. Once he learned god‑tier forging, forging a Gold Cloth would be no problem.
Sadly, forging did him no good now—he lacked both materials and Athena's blood.
Ordinary Cloths meant nothing to him; the material for forging a Gold Cloth was still unknown.
Saori Kido hadn't awakened as Athena yet. Whether her blood would work was unknown—and he couldn't exactly trek out and cut her for a blood draw.
He'd have to shelve the forging plan for now.
Speaking of Gold Cloths, there is one lost outside—and the owner's corpse is out there too.
If he got the chance, he could try to retrieve it…
(End of Chapter)
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