"I actually... was just passing by..."
Facing the two gods' increasingly cold gazes, Barry stammered out this sentence.
Persephone raised her palm, and an invisible divine power shockwave emanated from her palm, rushing towards Barry Allen.
But after she launched her attack, she only saw a sudden blur before her eyes, and amidst the intertwining lightning, the stranger had vanished without a trace.
Persephone quickly looked around and found that the boy was hiding in the corner of the room, looking terrified.
She was very surprised; his speed was too fast, probably even Hermes couldn't match it.
Oh, and by the way, Hermes was also one of her lovers… Barry was still in shock, and Little Flash, inside his suit, was speechless: "Just passing by? Are you serious?"
Barry whispered to it, "Shut up quickly, we can't beat them at all, they are two Gods."
"This unit believes you have great potential, but you underestimate yourself too much."
Hearing Little Flash say that, Barry was quite pleased, though he still didn't believe he could defeat two Gods as it suggested.
It would take some time to turn a student who had just gained superpowers into a qualified warrior.
Fortunately, there were other people around, giving Barry enough time to grow.
Persephone was about to try again when suddenly, four beams of light, identical to the previous ones, flashed in her room.
It was the four leaders of the Justice League arriving.
"Good evening, Lady ~" Dane smiled and politely greeted the Lady of the Underworld.
His handsome 187cm stature and upright posture caused Persephone to lose her focus for a moment.
But in that instant of her distraction, Dane moved!
Empowered by the divine might of Mercury and Horus, he unleashed astonishing speed, appearing before the God of War in the blink of an eye.
He grabbed Ares with his large hand and flew outwards, his speed so immense that he directly smashed through the city wall of Hades' palace.
Everyone was caught off guard, watching him disappear into the sky.
Ares reacted quickly; he had kept his battle axe in his hand the whole time, and seeing himself caught by Shazam, he raised his axe to strike.
But this time, Dane directly grabbed his battle axe and began to wrestle with him.
The muscles on Dane's arm, along with his veins, bulged, and his immense strength forced Ares to push back with even greater force.
Ares's eyes glowed like fire, and his hands also lit up with flames, while Cortana detected extremely high energy gathering.
In his hand, the battle axe also became sharper with the blessing of divine power, and merely where it touched the air, it created wind blades that Dane found excessively sharp.
What a good weapon!
This artifact is destined to be mine!
Ares, with the burst of divine power, generated an incredibly strong explosive force, which he used to push Dane away and break free from his control.
Immediately upon landing, Ares leaped instantly, a single jump reaching hundreds of meters high, and he arrived in a flash.
The battle axe in his hand, carrying an arrogant sharpness, slashed towards Dane.
This time, Dane did not want to test its power again; he tilted his head back, dodging the axe.
Then, as the God of War's move was spent, he punched him in the head.
To his surprise, Ares did not dodge, but instead directly collided with Dane's fist using his horned helmet.
Seeing his boldness, Dane immediately activated the full power of the lightning in his body, striking Ares's head with this massive lightning force.
In the past, when he hit metal objects, they felt as fragile as paper, but Ares's helmet made him recall the feel of steel once again.
His hand bones struck the helmet forged from Nth metal, producing a huge roar, and the recoil separated them, giving Dane a long-unfelt sensation of pain.
In the past, even when fighting Clark, he had never felt his hand hurt this much; this God of War's armor was truly astonishingly hard.
However, he did not know that Ares's surprise was no less than his; daring to face him, fully armored, with mere flesh and blood, only Zeus had done so in all these years.
But Zeus was also in his prime at that time, and he also had "Thunder" as a weapon, which was quite different from Shazam, who confronted him directly with his divine body.
Ares, brimming with fighting spirit, immediately wanted to charge again, but a sudden sharp pain in his brain almost made him lose his footing.
It was the recurrence of his soul injury; Dane and the others had pursued him too quickly, and he hadn't had time to heal his wounds at all.
Dane noticed his abnormality and decisively seized the opportunity, rushing forward at extreme speed.
Ares saw him approaching and was about to raise his battle axe, but the weapon was kicked away by Dane.
"This is unfair!"
Ares's head was throbbing, and although his strength was still increasing with the blessing of war power, he lacked the mental control over this power.
The stronger his divine power, the more profound the side effects of his soul's deficiency became.
Dane walked up to Ares, pinning him to the ground; his condition was so bad that he couldn't even retaliate against such an attack.
Ares, though defeated, refused to yield; he struggled to raise his head, glaring fiercely at Dane:
"You can't kill me; once I recover, I will definitely come for your World again!"
Dane, however, sneered at him: "I'm afraid you won't have that chance anymore." With that, he reached out and grabbed a Scepter from the void.
Ares, of course, recognized this item, and he suddenly felt a pang of panic.
"Wait, what do you want to do?"
Dane held the Scepter inverted, aiming the crystal at Ares, who was utterly unable to resist, giving Dane ample time to slowly seize his divine power.
A beam of light shot from the crystal, connecting to Ares's divine power; Dane extended his other hand into the crystal, linking his own divine power with Ares's.
In an instant, a surging, vigorous energy flowed into Dane's body along the beam of light—it was the divine power of the God of War.
"No—!"
Ares wailed in agony during this plunder of divine power, but he was powerless to stop his divine power from draining away.
Similarly, he could not prevent Dane from using the power of the God of Death to invade his soul.
After about fifteen minutes, Dane finally drained the immense divine power stored within Ares.
But after absorbing Ares's divine power, Dane did not stop; his identity shifted, the Shazam form receded, and the God of Death body returned.
He chanted an incomprehensible incantation, and an ancient book written on papyrus appeared in his hand.
Ares, stripped of his power, was still the God of War; his godhead had not been taken along with his divine power.
The Scepter cannot take away a God's godhead, unless it is a half-crippled God like Mictlantecuhtli, who is on the verge of death and has lost the power of faith.
But Ares was still a step away from that; he was one of the more well-known deities in the World.
Even with a damaged soul now, he could gradually recover with long-term care.
So his godhead was relatively stable and not easily seized.
Moreover, having too many godheads is useless.
A godhead like the God of War is destined to only increase its strength by causing trouble and instigating wars.
The advantage is that even if faith is lost, one can still maintain one's divine power through this method, and depending on the intensity of the war, the increase in divine power has almost no upper limit.
Zeus, back then, suffered a great loss of strength due to the decline of faith, and eventually had to fight an evenly matched battle with the God of War in the human realm, ultimately "sacrificing" himself.
This was merely the intensity of war in the cold weapon era.
If Ares himself were to instigate a multiverse war, his strength could instantly swell to a multiversal level.
Huh? Saying it like that makes Dane a little tempted.
However, he ultimately abandoned this idea, because once the intensity of the war decreased, this temporarily boosted strength would rapidly shrink.
What isn't truly one's own will never truly be one's own; it is unreliable.
However, it might be usable as a status buff; in the future, if he encounters some difficult enemies, he might be able to turn the tide using the characteristics of this godhead.
Thus, after weighing his options, Dane decided to use his God of Death abilities to seal Ares's soul.
This way, it was as if he carried a God of War godhead with him, which he could take out and use whenever needed.
Following the tradition of the Wizard Shazam, he fixed the divine power of the God of War to the Shazam Force; this divine power was very violent and initially unruly.
Fortunately, with the combined suppression of the equally violent divine power of Zeus and the power of the Sun God, and the mediation of the wisdom of Solomon and Thoth, the God of War's power was finally successfully integrated into the new Shazam Force.
He called this power Ares's Violence, representing Ares's explosive force.
The acquisition of divine power was naturally a cause for joy, but there was another thing even more worth celebrating.
Dane raised his right hand, opened it, and a "whoosh" sound emanated from the void as a double-edged half-axe flew into his hand.
Ares's Axe, obtained!
-------------------------------
I've already uploaded 70 chapters of this story on Patreon!
If you enjoy it, come check out the latest chapters in advance.
[patreon.com/TripleCrown07]
Thank you so much for your support!!!
"And If you're enjoying it, drop a Power Stone for me!"