The place was a trap designed by the gods: a precipice at the very edge of the Sanctuary, where Athena’s Mantle—an invisible barrier protecting the sacred domain—crushed the cosmos like a stone slab pressed against the chest. The air was dense and cold, burning the lungs with every breath. There, among shattered rocks and dust sharp as glass, Seiya, twelve years old, trained.

The wind at the borders of the Sanctuary did not blow—it howled, like a beast determined to tear flesh from bone. There, where Athena’s Mantle weighed heavier than the marble of the sacred columns, a twelve-year-old boy moved through the shadows. He had no name, only nicknames.

“Look, the Eastern Rat is crawling back again!” one of the guards mocked from the higher ridges, where the air was still breathable.

The men who watched the frontier wore bastard mantles—imitation armors forged from the remnants of dead Cosmos, alchemical relics recycled by the House of Aries for the expendable. They were soldiers with no future, but with more than enough power to make life unbearable for a child without lineage.

At first, they had treated him like vermin. They stole his food, set traps with sharpened stones, and called him “Rat” every time he coughed blood from the strain. But something changed after a year and many broken bones.

“That’s our pet!” the largest of them roared the day Seiya, lips split and bleeding, managed to remain standing beneath the Mantle for seventeen minutes.

They no longer spat on him. They hurled boulders for him to dodge, shouted “Run, damn you!” when the wind threatened to throw him into the abyss, and when the boy collapsed unconscious—which was always—they dragged him back to the House of Healing, feigning irritation.

“One more day and he won’t come back,” they muttered.

“You say that every time,” another replied, hiding a smile.

Aiolia watched from afar. He did not intervene. He knew those men had once been like Seiya: with nothing, starving for purpose. And now, without meaning to, they were teaching him the cruelest lesson of all: “If you want the wolves to respect you, you must first bleed like them.”

Winter at the Sanctuary’s edge knew no mercy. A cutting wind, heavy with frost and resentment, lashed the cliffs where Athena’s Mantle weighed like a divine curse. There, among the shadows of eroded columns, four figures moved in a dance of survival and strange camaraderie.

Seiya, now thirteen but with eyes far older, bled from his knuckles as he clung to the rough stone. Behind him, the three guards watched from their usual elevated position, where the air was less hostile.

“Come on, Eastern Rat! You’re not going to fall today, are you?” shouted Lico, the thinnest of them, as he hurled a stone that grazed past the boy’s ear.

Dario, the scarred giant, grunted.
“If he falls, it’s Nestor’s turn to carry him again. And we all know how that ends—with the pretty boy whining about his back.”

Nestor, handsome and meticulously adjusting his false mantle, replied calmly:
“I’d rather carry the brat than see your ugly face in the morning, Dario. At least he doesn’t stink of defeat like you do.”

The weeks passed in a whirlwind of sweat, blood, and harsh words that concealed something none of them dared to call affection. In the mornings, Lico taught Seiya the weak points of the rocks, the places where he could brace himself without slipping. In the afternoons, Nestor showed him how to move his feet to keep his balance, whispering advice about how to tell an Amazon apart by the tone of her voice.

“The one with darker hair will always look at you first,” he murmured with a roguish smile, “but the blonde is the one truly worth your time.”

And at night, when the others slept, Dario would approach the fire where Seiya warmed his battered hands.

“You have to learn how to take a hit,” he said once, without preamble. “You won’t always be able to dodge.”

Then he showed him how to tense his muscles, how to turn his body to absorb the impact. Harsh lessons, taught with fists and words equally rough, yet lessons the boy treasured in silence.

The real change came with spring.

Seiya, now more agile and marked by scars that were beginning to form a map of survival across his skin, faced Dario in a real fight for the first time. The giant relied on brute strength, but the boy endured, using everything he had learned. When Dario’s fist struck his side, everyone heard the crack of a rib. But Seiya did not fall. He straightened, spat blood, and smiled.

“Is that all an aspiring Cygnus has?”

The silence that followed was shattered by Lico’s laughter, sharp and genuine.

“Well said, little demon!”

Nestor stepped closer and slung an arm around Seiya’s shoulders, ignoring the boy’s hiss of pain.

“Now you’re starting to look like one of us. A true wolf of the precipice.”

But Dario, watching the child who no longer trembled, saw something else—something that reminded him why he had once dreamed of becoming a Saint.

“No,” he corrected, his voice softer than any of them had ever heard. “He’s not a wolf.”

Seiya lifted his gaze, defiant even through the pain.

“Then what am I?”

Dario tossed him a piece of hard bread, the way one throws a bone to a valuable beast.

“A damn lion. And that’s worse.”

That night, for the first time, they shared their meal without insults. And when Seiya fell asleep from exhaustion, none of the guards mentioned that Dario had covered the boy with his own mantle.

The Sanctuary remained a cruel place. But at the edge of the world, where the wind howled the loudest, something had changed.

Morning began with an uneasy silence.

Dario was the first to sense it. His hands, usually busy adjusting the straps of his imitation mantle, froze in midair. The muscles of his back tightened like drawn bowstrings.

“Something’s coming,” he murmured.

Seiya, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, felt the change before he understood it. The air—always heavy on the precipice—now vibrated with a hostility that did not come from the wind. Something—or someone—was watching them.

Then came the laughter.

A cold, razor-edged sound that echoed from the upper cliffs like ice cracking beneath a boot.

“How pathetic.”

Everyone looked up.

Above them, framed against the pale morning sky, a man leaned casually against the rocks with lethal nonchalance. His armor was nothing like the crude imitations worn by the guards, nor even like the Bronze Cloths Seiya had glimpsed elsewhere in the Sanctuary. These scales were a deep ocean blue, like the sea on a moonless night, and they shimmered with a glow that seemed to rise from within. Each plate moved with organic fluidity, as if it were breathing.

“Just look at you,” the stranger went on, baring teeth a little too sharp. “The rabble of the precipice, playing at warriors in their blood-soaked rags.”

Nestor, ever the quickest with his tongue, stepped forward.

“And who are you supposed to be, fish out of water?” he shot back. “Poseidon’s court jester?”

The man in blue scales did not flinch. His gaze swept over them with the same attention a cook gives ingredients before chopping them.

“I am Delo of the Mako Shark Scales,” he said, as though the name itself should make them tremble. “And you… well. You’re not even worth my time.”

A spike of anger shot through Seiya as he saw Dario—Dario, always unmovable—take a single step back.

“What do you want?” the giant growled.

Delo leapt down from the cliff, landing before them without a sound. Up close, his armor was even more intimidating. The scales on his shoulders ended in blade-like points, and his helmet—shaped like a shark’s gills—hid everything but his eyes, cold as the deepest waters.

“The Sanctuary is full of rats,” he said, staring straight at Seiya. “But today I came to hunt a lion.”

Lico, reckless as ever, spat at the intruder’s feet.

“All I see is a big fish flopping outside his tank.”

The air crackled as Delo’s expression sharpened.

“The Sanctuary is vulnerable,” the Marina said, sliding the words like a knife between ribs. “No Gold Saints on watch, a goddess in hiding, and a Grand Pope no one truly respects… Do you really think I’d leave without testing my luck?”

Dario did not hesitate. Years as a guard screamed the truth at him: this was more than a fight—it was an incursion.

“Nestor, get the boy out of here,” he ordered, never taking his eyes off the enemy. “Lico, run toward the—”

The attack came before the sentence could be finished.

“Thalassa’s Vortex!”

Delo raised one hand, and the air itself twisted into a maelstrom of oceanic force. But Lico—the quickest of them all—threw himself in the way.

“NO!” Dario roared.

The blow struck Lico square in the torso with the sound of shattering crystal. His cuirass—that mocked imitation of a Cloth they had all laughed at—disintegrated like soaked paper. The Marina’s blue scales tore through flesh and bone without resistance, leaving a clean, bleeding void where his heart had been.

Lico dropped to his knees, then pitched forward. His eyes, still open, found Seiya one last time.

“Run… idiot…” he whispered, before collapsing.

Something broke inside Seiya.

Without thought, without technique, he hurled himself at Delo.

His fists struck empty air where the Marina had been an instant before.

“Pathetic!” Delo laughed, sidestepping with the fluid grace of a shark. “Is that all you—?”

CRACK!

Delo’s kick slammed into Seiya’s jaw with enough force to lift the boy off the ground. The world spun, sound collapsed into silence, and then… darkness.

Dario’s final attack was a flash of doomed glory.

Through blurred vision and searing pain, Seiya barely caught the moment: Dario’s right arm glowing with a cold blue radiance, the air around it crystallizing into fractals of ice.

“Diamanti Kónis! (Diamond Dust!)”

The giant’s fist crashed into Delo’s chest, and for a heartbeat, the world froze.

Cold spread like a plague. Frost raced across the Marina’s scales, cracking under the weight of the attack. Then, with a sudden, violent motion, Delo smiled.

“Nice trick.”

He snapped his fingers, and the ice exploded into a thousand shards, revealing the scales beneath—untouched.

“But I’ve already been through the Swan’s hell.”

The counterattack came as a streak of blue lightning.

“Prion Odóntōn!”

Dario’s right arm was severed in an instant, torn clean from the shoulder. Scorched flesh hissed and smoked, but the giant did not scream. He only growled as he fell to his knees, blood soaking the ground.

Nestor—the last guard—stepped between Seiya and the Marina.

His imitation mantle hung in tatters, and his usually mocking face had hardened into a mask of silent fury.

“Don’t touch the boy,” he said, drawing a dagger he had always kept hidden in his boot.

Delo yawned.

“Another powerless hero. Boring.”

He raised his hand, charging another electric surge—

And then the universe held its breath.

A Cosmo unlike anything Seiya had ever felt wrapped around the precipice. It was not Aiolia’s brutal fire, nor the cold discipline of the Sanctuary’s masters. It was something ancient, like the first breath of creation itself.

Everyone—Delo included—turned toward its source.

At the top of the cliff stood the Grand Pope, wrapped in white robes worn thin by time, observing the scene.

His armor was a grotesque imitation: mismatched plates, dull and lifeless. But his helmet was different—a relic of Amazon design, its mask hiding everything but the eyes, two abysses of infinite knowledge.

“Enough.”

The word, spoken without effort, crushed the air like a hammer.

Delo stepped back, uncertain for the first time.

“You…? But you’re just a—”

The Pontiff raised a finger.

And the world exploded in golden light.

The Grand Pope’s gesture was as simple as tossing a stone into a lake.

A dimensional shockwave tore through the air.

Delo’s body buckled as if an entire planet had been dropped onto his shoulders. His knees slammed into the ground with such force that rock turned to powder. His prized scales—those that had mocked Dario’s attack moments before—began to fracture. Not with the clang of breaking metal, but with the wet, brittle sound of clay drying under the sun.

“W-What… are… you…?” Delo managed to choke out, blood filling his mouth.

The Pontiff did not bother to answer. He stepped closer, his robes moving in a wind that did not exist, until he stood inches from the Marina’s face.

“I will not kill you,” he said, his voice resonating in three tones at once, as if multiple beings spoke through him. “But you will carry a message.”

He clenched his fist.

Space itself twisted.

Delo screamed—truly screamed—as an unfathomable force crushed not his body, but his very existence, folding him along dimensions no human mind could perceive.

“Tell your lord,” the Pontiff continued as Delo’s armor shattered into nothing, “that humanity can defend itself. That we are not pawns. That we are not expendable flesh in his eternal game.”

One final motion of the hand.

The Marina vanished.

Not teleportation. Not speed.

He was erased from the place, as if a page had been torn cleanly from a book.

 

Prolog

 Athena stood upon the heights of Olympus wrapped in a divine mantle that seemed woven from the very breath of the heavens, its folds alive with a slow, solemn motion, as if the cosmos itself bowed to her passage. From her shoulders unfurled wings of light, not feathered but forged of will and purpose, radiant yet restrained, symbols not of escape but of vigilance. Her eyes, green and fulgurant, burned with a clarity that admitted neither illusion nor fear, mirrors of a wisdom tempered by endless war. Her hair fell like a river of deep purple shot through with golden glints, as though dusk and dawn had been bound together upon her brow, and every step she took echoed with the memory of battles fought not for dominion, but for balance. Before her stood Pallas, rigid and unyielding, the embodiment of cold stratagem and merciless order, her presence sharp as a drawn blade, her silence heavier than any spoken threat.

Around them rose the Olympian court, yet no faces were truly seen. The gods were reduced to presences alone, vast and distant, their forms dissolved into shadows and radiance, into the suggestion of thrones and the weight of eternity. Where eyes should have been, there were only hollow gleams—emptied of wonder, dulled by pleasure, eroded by an age of indulgence and self-satisfied detachment. They observed not as judges nor as kin, but as spectators grown weary of consequence, content to witness the clash of principles as one might watch the turning of stars, beautiful and meaningless. Above them all loomed Zeus, his authority felt rather than seen, a pressure upon the air itself, a reminder that power, once absolute, often mistakes stillness for peace.

Aphrodite was the first to draw near to Triton, one of the gods who had accepted incarnation, whose presence still carried the vastness of the sea and the slow, unyielding rhythm of the depths. She chose the form of a beautiful woman, a shape refined to the edge of perfection, as if desire itself had learned to stand and breathe. Triton laughed at the sight, a deep, rolling sound like waves breaking against submerged rock. “You do nothing more than copy the beauty of a mortal, goddess,” he said, his eyes glinting with amused contempt. “Is that truly all you can do?”

Aphrodite did not recoil, nor did her smile falter. She stepped closer, her voice soft and unhurried. “To go beyond it,” she replied, “I would have to incarnate in mortal flesh, my beautiful lord of the oceans.” As the words left her lips, she leaned in and sealed them with a kiss, brief yet deliberate, a touch as light and unsettling as sea foam upon bare skin. She withdrew just enough to meet his gaze again, her expression now threaded with knowing mischief. “But that,” she continued suggestively, “seems to be a pleasure enjoyed only by you… and by our beloved King of Kings.”

“And for our daughters,” Triton replied at last, his voice betraying a sudden unease. His gaze drifted upward, past Aphrodite, toward the distant presence of the God of Gods, seated upon his throne not as a figure of flesh, but as an overwhelming certainty pressed into the fabric of Olympus itself. Zeus did not move, yet his attention was unmistakable, a weight that bent thought and will alike. Triton knew well the habits of the King of Kings, for they were spoken of in whispers even among immortals: how he delighted in taking mortal form again and again, inhabiting fragile bodies for centuries at a time, living whole lifetimes beneath the sky of the lower world, only to abandon those shells fifty or a hundred mortal years before their natural end and claim another in their place.

Through this endless cycle of descent and return, Zeus tasted the terrestrial realm without consequence, moving freely through generations, indulging in the fleeting pleasures of innumerable women, untouched by age, regret, or restraint. To him, incarnation was not sacrifice but diversion, a door he could open and close at whim. Triton’s fingers tightened around his trident as the thought settled heavily upon him, for where desire ruled unchecked, lineage followed, and where lineage followed, fate took root. In that knowledge lay his fear—not for himself, nor even for Olympus, but for the daughters who would one day inherit the long shadows cast by the whims of gods.

Several centuries had passed since the Great Revolt, and its scars still lingered in the high places of the world. The Queen yet remained suspended among the clouds, bound by chains of golden gamanium, her divinity restrained not by weakness but by decree. Below her, upon the mortal plain, the high lords Apollo and Poseidon had already completed the raising of Troy’s immense walls, stone upon stone lifted by divine hands and set with a precision no human craft could rival. They surveyed their work with quiet satisfaction, as if the matter were settled, the debt paid, the order restored.

It was then that Triton arrived bearing a gift. He brought forth a metal unlike any known before, an alloy of orichalcum and gamanium, born of sea-forges and celestial fire alike. From it, weapons could be wrought—arms capable not merely of wounding flesh, but of sealing the soul of a god itself, binding divine essence for far longer ages if imbued with sufficient will. It was an offering meant not for glory or conquest, but for punishment: a restraint devised for irreverent gods who might one day forget their place.

Athena had laughed when she first beheld it. She was young then, her spirit still sharp-edged and willful, for the deeper wisdom of Metis and Zeus had not yet fully awakened within her. There was caprice in her mirth, a spark of defiance untouched by caution, and perhaps even a trace of pride. After all, she alone among those who had taken part in the revolt had escaped true punishment, receiving from the King of Kings nothing more than a gentle tug at the ear—a rebuke more affectionate than severe. In truth, she was the cherished daughter of an absolute ruler, indulged even when the heavens themselves had trembled, and the weight of consequence had yet to settle fully upon her shoulders.

It was then that Pallas spoke. She felt, with a cold and rising certainty, that the young goddess before her was being more vain than Lady Aphrodite herself, despite lacking her beauty; more arrogant than the Queen, despite holding neither her authority nor having borne arms in the war against Cronos. The imbalance offended her sense of order, and that offense sharpened into accusation. “The weapons of my father are a gift to the King,” she said, her voice precise and cutting, “and you dare mock them?”

Triton moved at once to placate her, raising a hand in measured restraint, for he understood what others did not. He knew that it was not truly Zeus’s daughter who spoke through Pallas in that moment, but something older and far less personal: the stern reflection of retribution itself. Somewhere beyond sight and form, Nemesis smiled, not with joy but with inevitability, pleased to find her echo taking shape among the assembled gods. Triton felt a chill pass through him, for when such a presence stirred, even Olympus was no longer merely a throne of power, but a stage upon which judgment rehearsed its coming descent.

“My will is this,” said Zeus, and at once the air of Olympus grew heavy, as though the sky itself had leaned closer to listen. “You shall forge two armors—mantles of protection fit for divine bodies. One shall be for Pallas, the other for my beloved daughter. They shall be regal in form and purpose, twin creations, each the reflection of the other, so that neither may claim precedence nor excuse.” His voice carried neither anger nor warmth, only the absolute certainty of command, the tone of one for whom decision and consequence were the same act.

“With them,” he continued, “you shall fashion weapons worthy of such bearers: long and keen spears, tempered not only in metal but in intent, capable of sending the soul of a god into sleep for no fewer than two hundred and fifty years, should the will behind the blow be strong enough. This is my mandate.” Silence followed his words, a silence unbroken even by the murmurs of the assembled gods, for none doubted that the decree would be fulfilled exactly as spoken.

“When the two armors are complete,” Zeus concluded, “they shall be tested in single combat. Let Pallas and my daughter meet in duel, and we shall see then whose arrogance is the greater, and whose shall be punished.” His presence withdrew no further than before, yet the judgment had already been cast, hanging over Olympus like a drawn blade. Fate had been given form, and pride, sharpened into steel, would soon be asked to answer for itself.

Zeus seized the moment to speak, and his voice rolled across Olympus like a slow, inevitable storm. He declared that from that day onward, all his subjects were condemned to bear mortal bodies, for to cling to their true divine forms was now to invite vulnerability before the new weapons forged in his name. Incarnation would no longer be a whim or a pleasure, but a necessity, a veil against annihilation. As he spoke, he smiled, surveying them all with cold satisfaction—gods and goddesses alike, none exempt from the decree. His gaze lingered even where forms were hidden: upon Poseidon, half-reclined with a cup of nectar in hand, feigning detachment; upon Hades, standing silent behind a column, shadows clinging to him as if they obeyed his will.

Then Zeus looked downward, beyond Olympus, toward the mortal world where fragments of the divine metals now lay scattered. “Something must be done with those materials,” he said, his tone almost idle, as though discussing a minor inconvenience. Yet even as the words left him, indulgence began to dull his focus, that familiar hunger for diversion and excess creeping back into his thoughts. It was Athena who answered him, stepping forward with composed resolve. She declared her desire to take charge of those dangerous remnants, to gather and guard them, lest their power fall into reckless hands. Poseidon spoke as well, his voice calm but firm, noting that many of the fragments had fallen into his realm, sinking into seas and trenches beyond mortal reach, and that he too would assume responsibility for what lay within his dominion.

Zeus listened, amused rather than moved, his expression unreadable. Authority had been asserted, fear had been sown, and the gods had been reminded—once again—that even their pride unfolded only within the narrow boundaries of his will. Below, unseen and unknowing, the world of men waited, already burdened with the consequences of a divine judgment that would one day shape its wars, its saints, and its fallen heroes.

Triton fell to his knees beside the fallen body of his daughter, the echo of the duel still trembling through the air. He gathered her head against his arm, feeling the unbearable weight of what had been lost. “My king,” he said, his voice strained yet restrained by centuries of obedience, “and my daughter?” He lifted his gaze toward Zeus, searching not for mercy, but for acknowledgment.

Zeus answered without hesitation, his tone calm, almost dismissive. “She dared to speak arrogantly to mine. That is her punishment.” He paused, then added with a faint, indulgent smile, “Besides, her spirit will return in two hundred and fifty years, will it not? That is nothing to us.” The words fell like cold iron. To Zeus, time was an abstraction, suffering a detail too small to trouble the eternal.

Something dark stirred within Triton then, a slow-burning fury fed by grief and humiliation. His grip tightened, his eyes lifting once more to the throne, and for the briefest instant the gods nearest him sensed it: the rise of rebellion, the ancient and dangerous spark that had once ignited the Great Revolt. Zeus felt it too. His gaze sharpened, kindling with wrath and the thrill of dominance, the unmistakable prelude to annihilation.

Athena did not wait.

Her spear moved as thought itself, swift and absolute, and its point pierced Triton’s throat before a single word of defiance could be given shape. Blood—dark as the deepest sea—spilled forth, and the god collapsed forward, his rebellion strangled at birth. Olympus remained silent, not in shock, but in recognition. Order had been preserved, not through justice, but through overwhelming force.

Athena stood unmoving, her expression unreadable, the weight of her action settling upon her like a second armor. Zeus watched with satisfaction, for the lesson had been made complete. In Olympus, grief did not excuse defiance, and love did not shield one from consequence. Thus ended Triton’s lineage for an age, and thus was the law of the heavens reaffirmed: that even gods must kneel before the will of the King of Kings, or be silenced forever.

Yet beneath her mighty crest, Athena’s gaze now harbored something far more dangerous than obedience. It was vengeance. She had not wished to strip Pallas of her immortality; never that. Pallas had been her closest companion, the mirror of her soul, the being she loved above all others in her universe. One day they would wound each other with cruel words, and the next they would be inseparable, bound by an intimacy too deep and too volatile to name. Had either of them been male, the gods would have already whispered that a new generation of immortals might have been born from such a bond. Now, that future lay shattered, and Athena stood utterly alone amid the ruins of Olympus.

Then came Nike’s whisper, soft as silk and sharp as poison. “It was your father’s order. Your father’s order.” The words repeated, coiling around Athena’s thoughts, absolving and condemning her all at once. A blinding light poured over everything—throne, blood, broken divinity—until form and sound dissolved into brilliance, and even memory began to lose its edges.

And so the strange dream ended.

Life resumed elsewhere, far below the heavens. A girl of about fifteen years stirred in her sleep, her brow damp, her breath uneven. Saori Kido awoke with a sudden gasp, her heart racing, the echo of unfamiliar grief still clinging to her like a shadow. She lay still for a moment, staring into the darkness, unable to explain why her chest ached as if something precious had been lost, nor why the name of a goddess she had never known seemed to tremble just beyond the reach of waking thought.