Cosmo

Cosmo is the main source of power in the Saint Seiya universe, but it's more than that. Cosmo is somehow described as a philosophycal concept and seems to take inspiration from both western and eastern philosophies. Cosmo is the source of life for any living being but also the cause of existence of all the matter in the universe. It seems that Cosmo may be related also to the atomic movements of any material, so it's clear that with an enough powerful Cosmo it's possible to alter the nature of anything, from destroying atoms to stopping them. The origin of Cosmo is Big Bang itself that gave birth to the whole universe and anytime the Cosmo is burned inside a body, it's some kind of smaller scale reproduction of the real Big Bang. Any human being has a Cosmo deep inside himself/herself but a few are aware of it and even fewer are able to burn it and increase it, until making it explode. Being able to burn Cosmo gives a person superhuman abilities like breaking rocks or hitting faster than sound, shooting up to 100 blows per second, but the more the Cosmo is increased, the more the powers become extraordinary and far from the skills of a normal human. Saints are those who are typically trained with the purpose of awakening their hidden Cosmo and thus being able to accomplish extraordinary feats. It doesn't matter how strong a warrior is, without the use of Cosmo he/she will never be able to stand a chance against even the weakest Saint that already overcomes the human limits. Among Saints, the Bronze Saints have a relatively superficial awareness of their Cosmo and while being out of reach for any normal humans, are just at the surface of Cosmo deepness. Silver Saints instead are significantly stronger and while they are not yet really aware of Cosmo, they have skills that greatly outclass a normal Bronze Saint. It's implied that not only Saints awake their Cosmo, but the same is for warriors of other Gods that are of the same rank as Bronze Saints and Silver Saints, although they often don't face the same harsh and deadly training a Saint does to awake his/her Cosmo. At any extent, Cosmo is heavily driven by emotions, so it happens that a great willpower or a desperate situation could allow a Saint to greatly surpass his usual limits, although without the right awareness, this happens to be a brief power up caused by the moment of particular involvement.

Seventh Sense
A Saint that is deeply aware of the nature of his/her Cosmo discovers that Cosmo is actually the seventh of human perceptive senses, after the five senses and the sixth that is considered intuition. With this awareness a Saint is able to draw out the true potential of his Cosmo and to acheive exceptionally extraordinary feats, far beyond those of even a normal Saint, like generating a power enough destructive to pulverize a star or to reach the speed of light, being able to shoot billions of hits per second. The Saints who are typically aware that Cosmo is actually Seventh Sense are the Gold Saints and this is the main factor that makes them the strongest among Saints. Although this, there are some talented Saints that even being of lower ranks, are able to awake the knowledge of Seventh Sense and this allow them to fight on the same league as Gold Saints and sometimes they are so skilled to overcome Gold Saints themselves. The most famous example are the 5 main protagonists Seiya, Shiryu, Hyoga, Shun and Ikki, that during the battle at the 12 Zodiac Temples awakened Seventh Sense and defeated some of the Gold Saints. Although never mentioned with the name of Seventh Sense, it's clear that also the high ranked warriors of orher deities' armies have a Cosmo that is equivalent to that of Seventh Sense, for exemples Poseidon's Marina Generals or most Hades' Celestial Star Specters, but also many other anime-only fighters like God Warriors of Asgard or movie characters. Generally it's evidence that all the elite class warriors of any army have this kind of Cosmo. Being aware of Seventh Sense is not a definite level of power, because the rule: "the power of a Saint relies on how much he burns his Cosmo" still applies to those aware of Seventh Sense, so two Gold Saint level warriors may be stronger or weaker the more they burn their Cosmo, so there can be a particulary skilled fighter or a naturally gifted genius of battle that is able to burn his Cosmo a lot above the average. The 5 main protagonists are again a good example because they managed to overcome Gold Saints themselves many times. There seems to be a level called "Supreme Seventh Sense" or "Extreme Seventh Sense" that appears to be the maximum extention of the human Cosmo, a level so high to generate a smaller scale Big Bang, and also an extention far above even the capacity of many Gold Saints. Seiya and the others reached this ultimate extent many times not only against the Gold Saints, but expecially during later battles against Marina Generals (and probably God Warriors in the anime-only Asgard saga) and in these occasions their Bronze Cloths reborn with the golden blood drawn out their true nature, shining of a golden light similar to Gold Cloths. By the fact that Cosmo is actually a human sense, it happens that with a loss of one or more of the other six senses, the seventh refines itself. This strategy is exploited deliberately by all the known Virgo Gold Saints: Shaka, Asmita and Shijima. This allow them to always have a superior than average Cosmo. It happened that other Saints exploited this effect but without having planned it. During the Myth Age any human being was aware of Seventh Sense and thus the distinction between humans and deities was less remarked. Being Seventh Sense the source of life, it's lost by the time a person dies, but Cosmo can go deeper than that.

Eighth Sense
If Seventh Sense is the Cosmo of natural life, there is a Cosmo of the soul and of supernatural life(dark matter, anti matter, vacuum etc.). At the same rate as any living being has Seventh Sense hidden deep inside, while not being aware of hit (beside a few people), the soul of a deceased person has not Seventh Sense anymore, because he/she has not any life left, but he/she has Eighth Sense instead. The Eighth Sense is called Arayashiki, a word from Buddhism that means "source", and it's the eighth level of human consciousness. Most people, also counting Saints and even Gold Saints, by the time of their death lose the Seventh Sense and become souls with only the Eighth Sense, but they are not aware of it, so they become like ghosts or zombies and are subjugated by the rules of the Underworld, being condamned to the pain of Hell. Those few enlightened that in the moment of death burn their Cosmo to the extreme limit overcoming the power of Seventh Sense, weak up at the Eighth Sense, a Cosmo superior to Seventh Sense and burning it they exceed death, being able to reach the Underword remaining alive and trascending the concepts of life and death, stopping this way the reincarnations circle and becoming close to the nature of the Gods. Shaka has been called "The closest man to the Gods" because he was one of the few aware of the Eighth Sense and he goes Nirvana at the Sala Trees. Being the Eighth Sense a trascendental concept, it's not easy to guess all its features and it's power stays definitely beyond the human limits. The path of awaking the Eighth Sense is to awake the circuit. A good example when Kanon is being punished by Milo, Milo feels great. And later, in Virgo Temple, the emotion between twin brothers drives the weak Saga to revenge Milo, attacks him offensively. Milo then feels lost. Saga even finally decides to use A.E. again. Reminding this and other entire chain of events can awake the circuit and Eighth Sense. Putting it into personal skills will wield this great power. Facing ones own demons that once feared. The strongest Saints appeared in the series, while in the need to, have shown to be able to wield Eighth Sense, Seiya and the others that many times have shown to be able to acheive even miracles, or Kanon, equal to his brother Saga and thus among the strongest for Cosmo and abilities, or the legendary Dohko, considered an invincible master even by the other Gold Saints. Eighth Sense power hasn't being used only to overcome death, but also during the battles against the most powerful Specters like the 3 Judges, for example Seiya against Rhadamanthys or Sisyphus to gain the upper hand against Aiacos. Eighth Sense has been also exploited by Virgo Asmita to create the rosary with 108 beads to trap the souls of Specters. He had to reach the same Cosmo as the Mokurenji tree that grows in the 7th Prison of Hell, the sole form of life in the whole Hell. Of course, during the time 12 Gold Saints breaking the Wailing Wall.

Big Will
This is the name as the divine Cosmo it is often refered. It's mentioned in the Hypermyth as the true essence of Cosmo, a source of power and existence without boundaries. Gods possess this full awareness of Cosmo, as they would be Cosmo itself. Powers granted by this knowledge are absolutely infinite, but only higher Gods are fully aware of this power, while minor Gods, although being hundred times stronger than even the strongest human warriors, are far from the absolute and unlimited power. With this infinite Cosmo, there is nothing impossible to acheive up to deeply alter the core rules of nature and universe. The real powers of this Cosmo are not yet fully explained in the series, but it is so far beyond human comprehension that may be not easy to fully understand it. Poseidon and Hades used this divine Cosmo to empower Mariners and Specters since they were normal people originally. Being the absolute power, things like blasing 5 Gold Cloths to pieces with a single blow like Thanatos did, or surpass the power of Absolute Zero like Hyoga probably did, can be still seen as insignificant feats. The only way a human could oppose this absolute Cosmo is called a miracle, the sole force that the supreme God granted to mankind and that still worries the Gods, a force that Seiya and the others or Tenma have shown to possess, as the destruction of the Poseidon's Pillar.