Chapter 272 - 137: The Battle Begins, Three-Pronged Advance! (Part 2)

Chapter 272: Chapter 137: The Battle Begins, Three-Pronged Advance! (Part 2)

"Please rest assured, Lady Athena. Everything is under control."

Athena said no more. She clasped her hands together, closed her eyes, and let her golden divine power flow around her, silently praying for the Saints fighting far away.

In the sky, streaks of black silhouettes were approaching at extreme speeds. The Specters sent to assassinate Athena were about to reach the perimeter of the Sacred Mountain...

Alex muttered to himself, "Once I wipe out this trash, the Twin Gods won’t be able to sit still anymore. They’ll have to take the field themselves!"

Inside the Death Forest Barrier, the miasma was as thick as unyielding ink, and the air reeked of blood.

Seiya, Shiryu, Hyoga, Shun, and Ikki stood back-to-back, forming a tight defensive circle. The glow of their Bronze Cloths grew increasingly dim under the continuous erosion of the deathly aura.

The ordinary Underworld soldiers had long since vanished, replaced by the Terrestrial-tier Specters who appeared and disappeared like ghosts.

The Terrestrial Hidden Star, Worm Raimi, moved silently through the rotting soil like a giant worm, leaving only a faint trail in the dirt.

In the next second, he suddenly burst out of the ground beneath Shun’s feet. Viscous tentacles instantly wrapped around Shun’s ankles, their sharp barbs piercing deep into his flesh.

"Nebula Storm!"

Shun gritted his teeth and groaned. He violently threw his arms wide open, and his Nebula Chain, acting like a living silver snake, swept away the surrounding miasma with a fierce gale, whipping viciously against Raimi’s body.

Crying out in pain, Raimi let out a bizarre shriek and drilled back underground. Leaving only a fleeting dark shadow on the surface, he continued to lurk, waiting for the next opportunity to ambush.

The Terrestrial Oddity Star, Frog Zelos, leaped among the dead branches with his diminutive figure. His movements were as fast as a phantom, and his ear-piercing, strange cackles echoed through the forest.

Taking advantage of the moment Hyoga was focused on dealing with other Specters, he suddenly lunged from a diagonal blind spot. His barbed claws slashed viciously across Hyoga’s calf.

With a tearing sound, blood instantly spurted out, mixing into the black mud beneath their feet and bubbling eerily.

"Diamond Dust!"

Enduring the agonizing pain radiating from his calf, Hyoga gathered his freezing Cosmo in his hands. Blue ice shards howled forth, instantly freezing the lower half of Zelos’s body.

However, bolstered by Hades’ barrier, Zelos merely let out a sinister cackle. Black energy erupted around him, shattering the ice with a crack, and he vanished back into the shadows completely unharmed.

Shiryu’s Rozan Sho Ryu Ha, carrying a fierce and powerful gale, blasted a Terrestrial Specter high into the air. Yet, suppressed by the barrier, his punching speed was a fraction of a second slower than usual.

Seizing the opening, another Specter’s poisoned blade sliced through his shoulder armor. A dark green toxin spread from the wound, and a numbing sensation instantly ran down his entire arm, making his movements even more sluggish.

He struggled to raise his Dragon Shield to block the incoming attacks from all directions. The surface of the shield was already covered in cracks. With every collision, it let out a groaning creak under the immense strain, looking as though it might shatter completely at any moment.

Seiya’s Pegasus Meteor Fist rained down relentlessly. The streaks of light from his punches pierced through the miasma, forcing back several encroaching Specters.

But his attack power was severely weakened within the barrier. When his punches landed on the Specters’ Surplices, they failed to deliver any lethal blows.

"Damn it! Too much of our power is being drained!" Seiya panted heavily. Sweat mixed with the blood on his forehead trickled down, dripping into the black mud where it was instantly swallowed up.

He could clearly feel the Cosmo energy within his body depleting at a rapid pace.

Only Ikki’s Phoenix flames could barely suppress the miasma.

"Phoenix’s Wings Rise!"

Blazing orange-red flames erupted around Ikki, like a phoenix spreading its wings while bathed in fire. Wherever the flames swept past, the miasma was scorched, emitting a sizzling sound and temporarily clearing a safe zone.

However, the Terrestrial Specters were like unkillable cockroaches. Even when heavily burned by the flames, they could quickly recover thanks to the barrier’s nourishment. They fell and stood right back up. Paired with the omnipresent miasma, they firmly bogged down the five Bronze Saints in this quagmire of death.

In the core area of the Hades Barrier, the air violently distorted from the collision of several massive Cosmos. Energy rippled outward like water waves, grinding the rocks on the ground into fine dust.

This was the eye of the power storm. The Gold Saints were plunged into an unprecedentedly bitter struggle. Their opponents were none other than the Three Judges of the Underworld.

....

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