On the battlefield, the priests of Delphi saw Apollo, the God of Light, sheltered by the nine Muses as he drew his bow and loosed arrow after arrow, striking down titans along his path…
The hunters of Calydon and the archers of Arcadia saw Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt, racing across the field with twenty battle nymphs, launching swift raids and precise, deadly strikes…
The divine-blooded warriors of Troezen and Thessaly saw Poseidon, God of the Sea, brandishing his trident as he summoned towering waves that swept away the massive deep-sea fleets…
The Pegasus Knights of Athens and the Academy's mage corps saw Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, riding her winged steed and hurling her spear forward, piercing through more than a dozen titans in succession…
"The gods are with us!"
"Glory is with us!"
"Victory is with us!"
Humans from every city-state surged forward with boiling blood and fervent expressions, shouting at the top of their lungs as they passed the gods themselves, like sharp wedges driving straight into the titans' rolling tide.
Brave humanity would never fall behind the gods, even if faith itself were stained.
As the battle grew more ferocious, silhouettes intertwined and overlapped, advancing side by side until it was no longer possible to tell where humanity ended and where the gods began.
Ares smashed his fist down, blasting the demon hound before him into fragments. But in the next instant, a sinister wind rose behind him. A titan's bloated, twisted body rapidly swelled, star patterns flashing violently. It was clearly about to self-destruct.
Boom!
At the critical moment, a red-black torrent of flame slammed straight into its core, brutally interrupting the detonation. The unleashed divine power tore the titan apart into scraps.
"Hmph. There was no need to interfere. I had it under control."
Ares turned to look behind him at his brother Hephaestus, who was limping forward, wrenching his forging hammer free from the titan's shattered chest. His expression froze slightly.
"But you'll need this. Take it."
Hephaestus, just as cold toward the brother who had slept with his wife, nonetheless reached into the rising magecraft array, grabbed an object, and tossed it over.
The God of War caught it instinctively. As the searing heat in his palm gradually cooled and the glow faded, he looked down at the long spear in his hand. Its crimson, prismatic spearhead looked as though it were woven from countless blood threads, while the shaft gleamed with a golden hue. His expression showed faint surprise.
"This is…"
"The Spear of Nation-Building. I rushed to ignite the forge beneath Mount Etna to make a new weapon for you. With this, you won't have to brawl barehanded and disgrace the gods of Olympus."
Hephaestus replied flatly, finishing with a pointed snort. Impatience flickered across his face as a thought crossed his mind.
A God of War without a proper weapon would only bring shame to him as the god of forging as well.
Just as Hephaestus briefly lost focus, Ares's expression suddenly turned cold. He thrust his spear forward, its chilling killing intent snapping the forging god back to awareness. His pupils shrank sharply.
Crack!
The blast of wind swept past, followed by the sharp sound of metal snapping from behind.
Hephaestus turned instinctively and saw two wide-area annihilation weapons gliding down from the sky. Before the crimson cores could finish charging their magic beams, they detonated in midair.
"This is a battlefield. Idiots who don't know how to fight should have some self-awareness and stay alert at all times. If you end up being the first chief god of Olympus to fall, I'd be ashamed to share the same blood as you."
Ares swept his spear back, cleanly slicing through hundreds of humanoid combat weapons charging in at an angle. The crimson blood threads spreading from the spearhead drained the remaining Ether from those monsters, feeding it back into the wielder.
Feeling the blood-linked resonance in his hands, along with the comfortable weight and properties perfectly suited to his authority, the God of War could not help but curl his lips upward, letting out a low, satisfied hum.
"Still, as a god of forging, you're more than qualified. I'll take this spear…"
The sudden praise coming from his own brother caught Hephaestus off guard, leaving him momentarily stunned.
"You idiot, did you already forget my warning? Keep up! Don't lag behind!"
Seeing Hephaestus, utterly lacking battlefield experience, drift off again, Ares felt the veins on his forehead throb. He roared back angrily, grabbed his brother, and dragged him forward as they charged side by side.
"Laaa!"
At the same time, as the situation on the Peloponnesus Peninsula once again exceeded projections, the three roaming Alien vanguards in the Storm Sea pulsed with star-pattern rhythms. The star rings and light wheels suspended in midair focused forward, firing off dozens of dazzling beams of light.
Both sides locked in close combat were thrown into chaos. Fighters were sent flying everywhere, and Zeus, charging at the very front in his war chariot, immediately became the primary target.
Under the dense barrage, compounded by the three Alien vanguards' rapidly surging power, the God King was caught off guard. The lesser god driving the chariot was sliced cleanly in half by a multicolored arc of light, and the terrified warhorses reared and bolted wildly.
"Stop it, you beasts!"
Seeing the chariot lose control and crash sideways, smashing through several aberrations, Zeus lunged forward, seized the reins, wrenched the frenzied horses under control, and leapt back onto the chariot.
"Heracles…"
Zeus murmured as he looked at the broad back before him. The man was towering and powerfully built, muscles coiled tight, familiar crimson divine markings etched across his skin.
"Please call me Alcides, Your Majesty…"
The mighty hero deftly worked the reins, steering the horses past the bombardment from the star rings and light wheels, replying in a calm, measured tone.
"It seems that, in your heart, I was never a qualified father…"
Zeus shook his head with a bitter smile. His sheepskin divine shield slammed aside a giant eagle diving toward him, and he raised his thunder scepter, summoning arcs of lightning that swept the air clear of lesser enemies within a thousand-meter radius.
Even so, the path ahead toward the Storm Sea remained hopelessly congested.
At once, the mighty hero let out a sharp whistle. Crimson-black blood mist billowed as hundreds of man-eating centaurs burst forth from both sides, charging alongside the chariot. With horns lowered, they tore and bit their way forward, carving open a blood-soaked corridor.
"I'll drive. You focus on dealing with those monsters. Whether you were a good father doesn't matter. Right now, you just need to be a competent God King."
The mighty hero rose atop the chariot and, mid-sentence, drew his nameless axe-sword. He hacked and smashed his way forward, unleashing savage shockwaves that tore open gaps among the titanic aberrations and split the ground with dense, spiderwebbed cracks.
Zeus laughed freely. At the instant the chariot broke through the titan ranks and leapt out over the sea, he raised the thunder scepter high and brought it crashing down.
Dark clouds rolled across the sky as lightning raced and converged across the firmament.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
In an instant, dozens of blue-white lightning pillars, each over a hundred meters wide, swept across the Storm Sea with ferocious force, drilling through and shattering the interlocking star rings.
I am the thunder that rends the stars!
As the star rings broke apart into countless points of light and scattered away, the three Alien vanguards swayed slightly, and the starry radiance above their heads flickered erratically.
"Triangulation obstructed. Stellar navigation guidance restarting. Estimated time until the Velber main body reaches the forward marker remains one-sixteenth of the host planet's rotation cycle…"
The hollow resonance echoing across the sea caused Samael's expression to tighten. Cold light flared in his eyes as he swung his cross-spear forward and roared through clenched teeth.
"They're summoning something even more terrifying! Don't let these three abominations continue! All units, target the Oceanus Sea!"
"Advance!"
"Advance!"
"Advance!"
Under the furious call of the other God King, his eyes bloodshot with rage, gods, humans, and monsters alike surged toward the region where catastrophe was taking shape.
However, the vast ocean posed a serious barrier, greatly limiting how much support could follow.
At the same time, outside the Athenian Acropolis, in the Aegean Gulf, the air twisted with an eerie distortion. Three hundred warships, their hulls carved with inscriptions, along with more than a thousand auxiliary vessels of various sizes, broke through shattered reefs and sailed toward the Oceanus Sea.
"Argo Expeditionary Force, raise sails! Set out!"
On the deck, the blond fleet commander solemnly drew his sword and brought it down, committing the last remaining fighting strength to the brutal battlefield, turning the fleet into the bridge carrying the entire military power of the Peloponnesus Peninsula.