Minos's fingers danced through the air, and countless invisible threads spun from the gravitational pull of the stars wound instantly around Ultraman's limbs and joints. The threads were so fine they were nearly imperceptible to the naked eye.
This was the power of domination. Once ensnared, the victim's life and death lay entirely in Minos's hands. Not even the mighty Gold Saints could break free of his binding.
In his eyes, the powerful being before him was nothing more than another puppet, soon to fall under his absolute control.
"You brainless fool, allow me to teach you a les... what?" Minos's expression twisted into one of utter disbelief.
Ultraman let out a cold laugh and began to exert his strength.
The Cosmic Marionation of Griffon Minos, Celestial Noble Star and one of the Three Judges of the Underworld, had indeed latched onto the being before him. But this creature was breaking free through sheer brute force alone.
Threads woven from Cosmo powerful enough to restrain even a Gold Saint snapped against his body like blades of dry grass.
"Those threads of yours are mildly interesting," Ultraman said, brushing himself off with casual indifference, "but they're still not enough. If you think something like that can hold me, you're sorely mistaken."
He was the opposite of whatever regular superman was.
His resistance to magic was extraordinarily high, and since Cosmo was similar in nature to magical energy, it had little effect on him.
"Wh-what? What manner of monster is this?"
"He broke free of Lord Minos's Cosmic Marionation like it was nothing!" The surrounding Specters stared in slack-jawed stupor.
This was a disastrous start.
They had assumed that all three Judges attacking together would make short work of this creature, but one after another, all three had been repelled.
"Incredible. Simply incredible, Sir Ultraman."
"He isn't even using Cosmo. He's doing all of this with his physical body alone."
"Ha! You worthless Specters aren't getting past the Temple of Leo!" The four Bronze Saints watched with undisguised excitement.
"Watch me!" Ultraman roared, and he charged the Three Judges like a humanoid beast of destruction.
His fighting style was crude and direct, yet every blow carried the force to shatter heaven and earth.
Sonic booms erupted in a chain behind him as his enormous fist, trailing the pressure of torn space, hammered down toward Rhadamanthys.
A supersonic attack was nothing remarkable to warriors who had awakened their Seventh Sense. They could track Ultraman's movements clearly and reacted in time.
Rhadamanthys bellowed and threw both fists forward, his dark Cosmo blazing to its absolute limit. "Greatest Caution!" A shockwave several times more powerful than before roared out to meet the charge head-on.
The collision was catastrophic. Visible rings of concussive force rippled outward, and the seemingly indestructible walls and pillars of the Leo Temple began to crack and splinter.
Rhadamanthys was hammered backward, his arms numb, fractures spreading across his Surplice like a web of veins.
Ultraman had not moved a single inch. He bared his teeth in a savage grin and lunged again. His body's sheer durability rendered the full force of the Greatest Caution completely irrelevant.
"The three of us will take him together. Minos, you handle diverting the others and push through the Leo Temple," said Aiacos of the Celestial Valiant Star.
"Understood. My lords, we move now."
"Prepare yourself, monster. Your opponents are the Three Judges of the Underworld."
At the same time, the Specter army surged forward like a black tide, flooding around the main battlefield and pouring toward the entrance of the Leo Temple, trying to smash through the Bronze Saints' defensive line and reach the temples beyond.
"You're not getting past us! Pegasus Meteor Fist!"
"Rozan Rising Dragon Fist!"
"Diamond Dust!"
"Nebula Chain!"
Seiya, Shiryu, Hyoga, and Shun erupted with the full force of their Cosmo, throwing themselves into the onrushing wave of Specters. Cloth clashed against Surplice. Flashes of radiant energy interwove with tendrils of deathly aura.
The four Bronze Saints were no longer ordinary Bronze-class warriors, nor even Silver-class. They were solidly at Gold-level strength.
Tempered by the trials of the Twelve Zodiac Temples, the battles against the Asgardian God Warriors, and the war in the Undersea Realm, the four of them could now elevate their Cosmo to the Seventh Sense in a sustained state, matching the output of a Gold Saint.
The damage their Bronze Cloths had sustained during the Undersea war limited them to roughly average Gold Saint performance, but even an average Gold Saint was far beyond anything a common Specter could withstand.
Meanwhile, a terrible Cosmo saturated with the aura of ruin and destruction was also racing toward the battlefield.
With four Gold-level Saints and one Kryptonian holding the line at the Leo Temple, the Specters had no hope of breaking through.
...
In the chamber of the Goddess.
The raging battle outside had not reached this place.
Athena's golden divine awareness operated like a cosmic loom, teasing apart the violent and disparate energies inside Axis's body thread by thread, guiding, reshaping, and reconstructing them.
The deep violet of the God of Destruction's power, the prismatic shimmer of otherworldly divine force, the vivid emerald of life energy: under the patient guidance of Athena's vast and wise golden Cosmo, these forces ceased their chaotic rebellion.
They began instead to obey an ancient, profound rhythm that seemed to have existed since the universe's birth: the pulse of a divine Cosmo.
Axis's consciousness was immersed in this unprecedented experience. He was no longer a passive vessel for power, but an active participant, a creator.
"Ah!" Axis grunted again, his body going rigid of its own accord. He could feel his divine power being remade.
The sensation was not pain, but an indescribable swelling, a searing heat, as if an entire universe were gestating and roaring inside him, yet could find no outlet for release.
The vast divine power inside Axis, forcibly suppressed and on the verge of detonation, had at last reached an inconceivable point of equilibrium under the precise guidance of Athena's divine Cosmo and the assimilation of cosmic law. It was a singularity where destruction turned to creation.
And in that instant,
A deep, resonant hum shook the air.
Axis's tightly shut eyes snapped open. His pupils were no longer human. They had become two rotating, fathomlessly deep miniature universes.
Nebulae swirled within them. Galaxies were born and died, as though they contained the primordial force of creation itself.
A deafening roar of thunder followed.
A wave of terror beyond description or imagination erupted outward with Axis at its center. It was not a physical shockwave, but a detonation of the purest energy and law drawn from the very origin of the cosmos.
A Big Bang in miniature.
The entire chamber of the Goddess, the entire Sanctuary, even the very fabric of Earth's metaphysical laws shuddered violently in that single moment.
Axis's body seemed to become an invisible singularity. The space around him warped, stretched, and tore apart. Countless points of light, brilliant beyond measure, burst into existence from nothing, like the first rays of illumination at the instant of the universe's birth.
These points of light expanded and dispersed with breathtaking speed, coalescing into swirling nebulae, blazing suns, and glittering galaxies.
A miniature cosmos, evolving at a furious pace, bloomed outward with Axis at its core and engulfed the entire Goddess chamber in a heartbeat.
The physical structure of the temple faded into the background of this newborn universe, growing hazy and indistinct. Even Athena's golden divine radiance seemed dim beside the light of this nascent creation.
A tidal wave of Axis's Cosmo surged outward: vast, primordial, brimming with the infinite cycle of creation and annihilation, a divine pressure as tangible as a physical tsunami.
This was not the divine pressure of Athena, rooted in wisdom, guardianship, and war. It was something far more ancient, far more chaotic, far closer to the origin of the universe itself.
The barrier surrounding the Sanctuary groaned under the strain. The ancient seals of the Earth Mother Gaia flickered violently, straining to suppress a power that defied all natural order.
Every Gold Cloth across the Twelve Zodiac Temples, whether worn or standing empty, erupted simultaneously in an unprecedented blaze of resonant golden light.
It was as if they were paying homage to this newly born and tremendously powerful divine Cosmo, even as they instinctively resisted its overwhelming pressure.
Far away at the Leo Temple, Ultraman, the Three Judges, and every Saint and Specter locked in combat froze for a single, involuntary instant. A tremor that reached into the depths of their very souls swept through every one of them.
It was as though the universe itself were announcing that a new deity, powerful and of unknown nature, had been born.
Every person on the battlefield began to tremble. This force was beyond anything they had imagined.
Even the great Hades, lord to whom they had sworn their fealty, seemed to pale before the sheer magnitude of this divine Cosmo.
"Lightning Plasma!" The true guardian of the Leo Temple, Aiolia, had returned.
His Gold Cloth blazed with golden divine radiance, resonating with some unseen force. Strange. The Gold Cloths were supposed to respond only to Athena. Why were they answering this unknown god?
The same phenomenon was occurring across the Sanctuary. The other surviving Gold Saints all felt it too. Axis's Cosmo struck them as deeply, inexplicably familiar, as though it were the Cosmo of the Goddess herself.
"What is happening?"
"Why does this divine Cosmo feel so closely tied to Lady Athena?"
"Damn it all, what is going on? Athena's Cosmo has merged with an unknown Cosmo." The faces of every Specter present had gone ashen.
After the prolonged battle, the Three Judges had utterly failed to bring Ultraman down. If anything, they had taken the worse beating. All three of their Surplices were shattered.
Aiacos of the Celestial Valiant Star had fared the worst. His skull had been caved in entirely. Rhadamanthys of the Celestial Fierce Star was not much better off.
One arm had been torn clean from his body, a gaping wound yawned across his chest, and he now lay face-down on the ground, breathing more out than in.
Minos of the Celestial Noble Star was the only one still standing, and even he was in dire condition. This creature was simply beyond anything they could handle. Only a true god could match him.
They had never imagined a mortal could be this powerful.
Under Hades's power, however, slain Specters would rapidly resurrect unless they were sealed away. The two who had been critically wounded recovered before long.
In the sixth temple, the Temple of Virgo, Shaka opened his eyes. He appeared to be weighing whether to go to the Leo Temple and help that powerful being seal the Specters.
Then that terrifying Cosmo washed over him.
"What is this? Why would Athena's Cosmo..." In the Elysion, Thanatos and Hypnos likewise sensed the overwhelming divine presence.
"This... this is..." Athena's hand, still pressed against Axis's forehead, was gently but irresistibly pushed away by a force that was soft yet utterly beyond resistance.
She stumbled back a step, her face white as paper, her golden divine radiance dimmer than it had ever been.
Guiding Axis through this near-impossible awakening had cost her a staggering amount of her divine essence.
She was now weakened to the point of collapse.
And yet her violet eyes brimmed with indescribable awe and a spark of excitement.
She had guided countless Saints through their Cosmo awakenings. She had witnessed countless miracles. But she had never seen anything like this. It did not resemble an "awakening" at all. It was closer to the birth of a Primordial God.
The sheer volume and tier of the alien divine power contained within Axis far exceeded her estimates.
The divine Cosmo he had awakened was destruction and creation intertwined. Axis could create planets. He could create entire star systems. This was a power that belonged only to certain Primordial Gods.
Axis rose slowly into the air, his feet leaving the ground, his body wreathed in that ceaselessly evolving miniature cosmos of light and shadow.
Countless stars were born, burned, and died around him. His black hair moved without wind, each strand seemingly threaded with the light of galaxies.
His body had undergone yet another evolution, its very composition now radiant with cosmic energy.
He lowered his gaze. In his palm, a swirl of chaotic light shifted and churned, collapsing into a devouring micro-singularity one moment, then blooming into a star-birthing nebular vortex the next.
He felt it. A sense of power unlike anything before. The God of Destruction's energy, divine power, the ki of the Dragon Ball universe: all of it had become the fuel and foundation of his divine Cosmo.
The gods of this world could only burn divine power to drive their Cosmo, but he could use ki and even the energy of destruction to amplify its force to an even greater degree.
"Divine Cosmo... Athena... thank you."
He clenched his fist softly. He was now at least several times more powerful than he had been before the awakening.
"You are most welcome, Axis. Our fates are bound together now. What harms one harms the other, and what strengthens one strengthens both. I am your Goddess now." Athena offered him a gentle smile.
Rather than investing everything in the Pegasus Saint, it was far wiser to place her faith directly in a Primordial God, or at the very least, a half-step Absolute God.
Axis's mouth twitched.
He had somehow acquired a Goddess for a partner, and he had no idea how he was going to explain that when he got home.
The heavens above the Sanctuary had shifted irrevocably. A new god had been born, and nothing would be the same again.
Before the Leo Temple, divine pressure descended like an inescapable prison.
A wave of irresistible terror, rooted in the deepest stratum of existence itself, slammed down upon every living soul before the temple like an invisible mountain of immeasurable weight.
One by one, like wheat before a scythe, they buckled. Ultraman, the four Bronze Saints, every Specter present, from the elite Celestial Stars to the lowest foot soldiers, without exception, their knees gave way and they collapsed heavily to the ground.
Their bodies might as well have been frozen. Not a single finger could move. From the very depths of their souls rose a tearing, primal terror.
This was the pressure of a god, and the pressure of a Primordial God dwarfed that of a first-tier Olympian by an incomprehensible margin.
Seiya, Shiryu, Hyoga, and Shun doubled over as though struck in the chest by an unseen hammer, each dropping to one knee. The light of their Cloths guttered out in an instant.
Their Cosmo, measured against this boundless divine presence, was as insignificant as a candle flame in a gale.
"Wh-what's happening?!" Rhadamanthys forced his head up and stared toward the Goddess chamber, his eyes filled with a horror and disbelief he had never known.
This pressure was more ancient than Lord Hades's divine aura of death. More vast. More fundamental. It was as though the will of the universe itself had descended.
"This... this is the power of that otherworldly god?!" Aiacos's great wings sagged uselessly, every trace of his former arrogance replaced by naked fear.
The strength he had prided himself on was laughably fragile before this divine presence.
"Fucks sake... he did it!" Ultraman felt the familiar yet alien pressure radiating outward, carrying the unmistakable aura of a cosmic detonation.
He had never learned to wield Cosmo, but he could feel the weight of that pressure all the same.
Grail's Omega Eyes blazed a deeper crimson than ever before. Her body shook faintly, held in a half-kneeling stance. As a demigod, she managed to resist, if only barely.
This power... this force that touched the very origin of the universe... it was more ancient, more pure, than even her father Darkseid's Omega Force. This was a being truly worthy of her allegiance.
After a brief, deathly silence:
The vast divine pressure, that cosmic will made manifest, receded like a tide, withdrawing swiftly back toward the Goddess chamber.
But the battlefield remained locked in silence. The Specters who had been driven to their knees could not rise. Their eyes were vacant, as though their very souls had been ripped away.
The Three Judges' faces were iron-hard. They exchanged glances, and in each other's eyes they saw uncertainty and the unmistakable glimmer of retreat.
Seiya and the others struggled to their feet, staring toward the Goddess chamber. What in the world had happened there?
In the Temple of Virgo, Shaka, the Gold Saint closest to godhood, understood. A new god, powerful and allied with them, had descended upon the Sanctuary.
The turning point of the Holy War had perhaps arrived at this very moment.
"Rest for now," Axis told Athena after a moment of thought. "Leave the rest to me."
He reached into his reserves and drew out the last Divine Fruit he possessed, pressing it into her hands. "This is for you. It is a Divine Fruit. It can elevate you to the level of a Primordial God."
The Goddess had spent too much of her power helping him. She was on the verge of falling into divine slumber, and given the bond they now shared, he saw no reason to hold anything back.
Athena looked up at the fruit in her hands. It blazed with an incomparable vitality and divine force. The power contained within it was beyond imagining.
After consuming it, her divine vessel would evolve, her divine power would transform, and she would break through the ceiling of a first-tier Olympian and ascend to the Primordial level.
Remarkable. Where had Axis obtained such a miraculous fruit? Had he used something similar to achieve his own godhood in another world?
"Then I will accept it gratefully, Axis." She smiled and took the Divine Fruit.
"I have something to attend to first. Once you have consumed the fruit, you should have enough power to revive those four." The Divine Fruit contained tremendous life energy.
After taking it, Athena would gain dominion over the power of life, allowing her to easily resurrect Saga and the others.