Words are light, light is a sword, and a sword is a weapon.
The myriad stars continuously glittered.
The golden light points surrounding Seiya, blossoming with golden radiance, began to continuously unfurl like the myriad stars in the sky.
"The first God to be born was Chaos, representing the emergence of the cosmos. Subsequently, Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros were born independently. After that, Chaos alone gave birth to Erebus and Nyx. Nyx and her brother Erebus represented the darker side of Chaos. She and Erebus gave birth to Aether, Hemera, and other Gods, and Nyx herself also bore many strange and peculiar children—most of whom were unpleasant evil Gods."
Every word Seiya uttered transformed into Kotodama, and these Kotodama turned into golden light.
The light transformed into a vast, sharp blade, capable of cleaving Thanatos' divine soul.
Thanatos' handsome face, due to his fury, no longer held that composed and leisurely demeanor from before.
At his fingertips, the abyss of dread lay beside him, closer to death than any rose, a host of Undead belonging entirely to him. Bearing the pain of millennia steeped in Hell, they howled as they rushed towards the Golden Warrior in the sky.
Seiya, however, slightly closed his eyes and pressed down the Golden Sword in his hand. Behind him, Swords of Light reflecting the sky met the Undead rising from the ground like a curtain of rain. Amidst their collision, the golden and black light and shadow erupted into dazzling fireworks in the space between man and God.
"Among her children, some joined the ranks of the Heavenly Gods, while others became Underworld Gods. Although Nyx's lineage could not stand as equals with the Heavenly Gods, Earth Deities, Sea Gods, or even the Page Gods, their influence was truly formidable. Among them, the most representative were the Twin Gods of the Underworld, Thanatos and Hypnos. And you—Thanatos is usually regarded as the embodiment of death. It is said that at the moment of a person's demise, Thanatos will appear; he will first snip a small lock of the deceased's hair, presenting it to Hades, and then guide the soul of the deceased into the Underworld."
"Sentimental! You could have avoided endless torment by simply kneeling and begging for death!"
Thanatos performed a series of rapid vertical and horizontal maneuvers in the air, purple pentagrams flashing in the void.
Though his true nature, as his brother Hypnos and Seiya described, was arrogant and dismissive of all, his divine combat instincts made him realize that as the opponent's words increased, the counteracting power targeting him also amplified exponentially.
The pitch-black concept of death sought to destroy everything before him, intending to directly erase Seiya's soul. As Thanatos, the God of Death, he naturally wielded the Authority to erase souls.
Yet, at the moment of approach, it dissolved like early spring ice and snow meeting sunlight.
"What kind of combat technique is this?" A rare trace of confusion arose in Thanatos' heart—a colossal longsword with a golden blade appeared in Seiya's hand. This was a supreme weapon forged to annihilate after multiple deaths, specifically crafted from the mythology targeting the God of Death.
This Golden Sword of Victory, capable of cleaving divinity through words, was determined by the degree of knowledge one possessed about the target God. Originally, Thanatos, who had no mythological changes in this world, wouldn't be subject to many special attacks. However, Seiya, as a Transcender, supplemented this by drawing upon Thanatos' life story after his birth.
Essentially, everything Thanatos had done since his birth was mythology.
"At the Holy War in the early 20th century, you rarely joined forces with your brother Hypnos, becoming the deciding factor in victory, securing triumph in that Holy War, and assisting Hades in ruling the Earth. Later, in the previous Holy War, you allowed your duties to overshadow your true nature, leading to dereliction of duty which caused Hades to suffer Pegasus' God-Slaying Power, gravely wounding his true body."
"Stop talking! My past is not for a lowly Human like you to describe!"
In fact, if Thanatos wished, he could still open the Path of Gods, utilizing the Another Dimension that links countless spacetime dimensions and distorts reality, and escape from Seiya's Warrior's Domain and the Solar Corona Furnace, returning to the Elysian Fields.
However, what he did was to fully unleash the remaining power within his soul.
Thanatos' strongest, fiercest, and most potent ultimate technique—the Terrifying Decree of Fate—was unleashed here!
He intended to use all his power to completely destroy Pegasus before him, as well as this Sea of Consciousness. He even discarded this physical body, utterly and completely annihilating everything about himself!
A purple wave of death energy, in the form of devastating all things, destroyed everything within sight.
Thanatos looked down at his chest, a golden sword covered in runes pierced out from his chest.
That Golden Sword, capable of cleaving divinity, now rapidly spread inward from the wound. Sharp blades, in a bizarre, branching manner, pierced through his soul-body from within. That Golden Sword of Victory, forged from his own mythology and specifically designed against him, rapidly sealed all the power and Authority he possessed.
"You, what's your name!?" Thanatos desperately tried to turn his head, reaching out to grasp Pegasus, who had pierced his chest from behind.
"It seems you're not so foolish after all; you finally realized the effect of the Strong Wind avatar." Seiya smiled, sweeping the sword, gritting his teeth as he slowly but firmly tore Thanatos' soul-body apart.
"You shouldn't have chosen to possess me, nor should you have continued fighting when you still had a chance to escape. Of course, the worst thing you did was stand against me."
To Seiya's triumphant pronouncement, Thanatos did only one thing—
—he released his gaze, closing it, and then defiantly raised his middle finger.
Seiya chuckled, "No more pointless struggles. Then I won't be polite; I'll take your power as armament to defend the Earth."
At this moment, in the Elysian Fields, within Hypnos' Temple.
Hypnos, who was leisurely teasing the miniature island in the cage, paused, then looked with utter disbelief at the nearby Thanatos' Divine Statue.
"How can this be!?"
He watched as Thanatos' nearby Divine Statue rapidly decayed, and the divine effigy supported at its center displayed numerous cracks, eventually crumbling into a pile of rubble on the ground.
He stepped swiftly to the deepest part of Thanatos' Temple, waved his hand to obliterate the Thanatos Guards, and looked at the silver-haired youth sitting on the Divine Throne, resting one hand on his chin. He slowly approached, then gently touched the youth's forehead.
There was no reaction, no response, not even a ripple of divine soul remaining.
Almost simultaneously, just seconds later, Alone, Pandora, and even Ker, the God of Fate, who had been lingering in the deepest reaches of the Elysian Fields, all appeared behind Hypnos.
"What happened to that arrogant oaf, Thanatos?" Ker asked.
Hypnos didn't know how to answer, or even how he should answer, how to describe his brother's current state.
After what felt like a century of silence, Hypnos softly spoke.
"He's asleep."
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