[setsuna86]

Originally Posted by Nihgthawk

Ok I have been working on a theory as to who the king of the end might be and how the king of the end will be defeated. Let me get everyone’s opinion on it.

Spoiler for contins information from vol 13 + it's long:

My theory is that the King of the end is the god Mars or at least his origins are related to him. Possible other names for the king of the end include Ares, Quirinus, Romulus and Remus. Here is my reasoning.

We know from spoilers that the goddess Godou fights in volume 13 is the goddess Circe and that before she dies she tells him to investigate the Argonauts for the origins to the king of the end. The Argonauts are lead by the hero Jason and most famous for their quest to steal the Golden Fleece. The Golden Fleece was kept in a sacred grove of the Greek war god Ares. This was the train of thought that lead me to originally guess that the king of the end was Ares, but as I investigated further I felt that Ares would not fit and thus his Roman counterpart, Mars, fit better.

My reasoning for the Mars to be the king of the end has a few points that would tie in well with the story of Campione. First there is the contrast between Ares and Athena. While both are considered gods of war Ares represents the physical and violent aspect of war while Athena represents the intelligence, strategy and leadership of war. Ares was also considered a dangerous force, insatiable in battle, destructive, and man-slaughtering in Greek mythos. Athena was often depicted level headed and with having the goddess Nike, goddess of victory, in her hands. This lead Ares to be feared more than revered in ancient Greek mythology. While in Roman mythology Mars was considered the most important god second only to Jupiter the king of the gods and one of the Archaic Triad. He was also the one who sired the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. While still viewed as destructive he was also viewed as a military power needed to secure peace. We know the king of the end is supposed to descend when the world has a large number of Campione’s present and Campione’s cause chaos and destruction and can lead the world to calamity. Thus Mars as the war god would appear and destroy them all to bring the world back to peace.

One of the other points that solidified my thoughts as to the king of the ends theory is that the “Arrowhead” mentioned in the epilogue of volume 12 could also be described as the tip of a spear. The symbol of both Ares and Mars is a spear. Also this spear could be powered by the golden disk with the three arrows on it. Similar to how the Holy Grail was powering the Divine Sword of Salvation.

Now from the standpoint of the Campione story line Athena has been revived not as a divine ancestor but as a goddess with the Holy Grail acting a medium for her revival and influencing her actions. I base this on the fact that the Holy Grail absorbed the divine power and essence of Athena at the end of volume 9 and that Guinevere infused the last of her power into Holy Grail at the end of volume 10 most likely using it like the Crown of Saturnalia to revive Athena. I also theorize that when Athena makes her eventual return she will not be calling herself Athena anymore but Minerva, her roman counterpart. One point to keep in mind is that Athena lost her war goddess status when she was changed into the goddess Minerva in roman mythos thou she kept her goddess of wisdom title. If that happened you could say that Athena has fallen even further from her original origins in Campione. This of course will greatly anger Godou and he will fight to bring Athena back to normal. Most likely he will somehow use the sword to cut the essence of Athena away from the Holy Grail, possibly in conjunction with the Ama no Murakumo no Tsurugi and his new authority he gained from Circe, resulting in her returning to her former self or into a divine ancestor of sorts. Then together with the help of Athena, the goddess who holds victory in her hands, Godou will be able to do what no other Campione could possibly do and kill the king of the end.

Hmm!! your theory makes sense. And you explained well. I might believe the same thing!