After Perseus shouted those words, Heracles immediately cast aside his reservations. His attacks became even more ruthless, and soon Sea King Poseidon was so disoriented he didn't know which way was up.
However, as the Sea King, Poseidon still had some tricks up his sleeve; at least he wouldn't be as embarrassing as Notos, God of the South Wind. In fact, if he hadn't underestimated his opponents, Heracles and Perseus wouldn't have been able to beat him so badly.
Just then, even in his dazed state, he accurately located the only water source within Athena's Temple: the small fountain built in the central courtyard of Athena's Temple. Having pinpointed the key to his comeback, Poseidon deliberately took a heavy punch from Heracles. Struck by the blow, he flew backward and landed right beside the fountain.
Perseus noticed this and quickly shouted, "Stop him! He wants to get close to the water!"
Upon hearing this, Heracles's feet seemed to sprout wings, and he lunged towards Poseidon. However, even with the fastest speed in all of Greece, having just cracked the floor tiles from his furious sprint, he still couldn't match Poseidon's speed, who was already right beside the fountain.
In the brief moment Heracles lunged at him, the Sea King had already reached his hand into the fountain's water. As he did so, he let out a wild laugh:
"Didn't expect this, Zeus's son! You're still too green when it comes to scheming! This is my escape route!"
As he spoke, the Sea King's fingers plunged into the fountain's basin. Instantly, the water in the fountain transformed into pure water, caressing his entire body like a lover's hand. This water became his strength, healing his wounds, dispelling the potent poisons within him. Not only that, but the Sea King also used the fountain's water to pull out his golden trident, which symbolized his authority.
A fierce wind blasted forth. The moment Sea King Poseidon drew his trident, Heracles was already before him. Zeus's son's enraged fist, encased in the Nemean Lion gauntlet, shot directly towards Poseidon's face. As the fist moved, the air seemed to faintly hum with the sound of wind and thunder.
But Poseidon was no longer overconfident. Facing Heracles's iron fist, he also raised his golden trident, gathered all his strength, and met the challenge head-on without hesitation.
The gauntlet and the trident collided, instantly erupting in an ear-splitting boom. Visible blue divine power burst forth from Poseidon's body. Stimulated by this, Heracles, who had completely shed his mortal body with the help of Hera's milk, also unleashed a deep crimson lightning within himself that was in no way inferior to Poseidon's. As the divine powers of two major gods clashed, the entire plain where Athens was located began to shake. On the cliffs near the ocean, new underground water even burst forth in some places, like blades, splitting the cliffs into several sections.
And all the residents within Athens simultaneously witnessed the divine might erupting from Athena's Temple.
They were panicked, believing it was the goddess's wrath, yet they didn't know why they had angered Athena. Fortunately, at that moment, priests who had received Athena's oracle arrived to calm their emotions. At the same time, a golden radiance symbolizing Athena spread out from within the temple, stabilizing the bedrock beneath Athens, which was shaking from the earthquake.
Meanwhile, inside the temple, after blocking Heracles's attack, Poseidon rebuked him:
"Shameless mortal, I am Sea King Poseidon! How dare you offend my divine might? Retreat at once!"
"Sea King Poseidon?"
When Heracles heard this title, he suddenly paused for some reason. Then, feeling the force coming from the trident he was holding in a standoff, he couldn't help but mutter:
"One of the three great god-kings, and this is all you've got?"
Poseidon immediately became enraged and embarrassed. He forcefully pushed his trident, knocking Heracles away, and at the same time, he shouted, "Shameless mortal! I will let the sea crush your bones! Witness the power of the Sea God!"
"Don't listen to his nonsense! This is Athena's divine domain! He can't summon the sea here!"
No sooner had Poseidon finished speaking than Perseus, who was circling nearby, shouted:
"If he were truly so capable, he wouldn't have been driven down from Olympus by Zeus!"
"Mortal, you—"
"'You' what, 'you'? Why are you glaring at me? You scrub, can you even compare to our Athena?"
Perseus was glared at threateningly by Poseidon, but he remained unafraid. He jumped up and down, cursing:
"Someone driven into the ocean by Zeus, daring to act presumptuously within my Athena's divine domain? If I were you, I would have already committed suicide out of shame!"
"Aaaaaah! I'm going to kill you!"
Provoked to fury by Perseus, Poseidon swung his trident and charged in his direction. Perseus exchanged a few blows with him but began to feel overwhelmed. If his physical body had been specialized in close combat like Heracles's, he might have been able to withstand it. But for the sake of the act, Ares had instead made Perseus learn magic and deliberately suppressed Perseus's close-combat abilities, to prevent him from overshadowing Heracles in the future.
Therefore, although he wasn't in mortal danger facing Poseidon, he still couldn't defeat Poseidon in a direct fight.
However, smart friends know one thing: when a low-level character encounters an opponent they can't defeat, the simplest solution is to log into their main account to get revenge for the low-level one.
So Perseus directly circled behind Heracles, shouting to him:
"Help me hold him off! I'm going to cast a super spell and summon a powerful god. Let's all team up and beat this smelly idiot to Death!"
Upon hearing this, Heracles immediately moved in, fiercely engaging Poseidon. Although Heracles couldn't defeat him at this moment, holding him off was more than enough. And although Poseidon desperately wanted to kill Perseus, he found himself in a dilemma: Heracles blocked his way forward, and when he tried to retreat, he discovered that the temple's main gate had been sealed by a golden divine energy barrier. Needless to say, this was certainly the work of a certain Goddess of Wisdom who had not yet appeared.
Athena's divinity and divine power were similar to his, so even Poseidon couldn't instantly break through the barrier Athena had meticulously set up.
While Poseidon lunged left and right but still couldn't break through Heracles's defense, Perseus, standing behind him, had already drawn the ritual magic circle on the ground and laid out the offerings and magical materials.
After completing all of this, Perseus let out a wild laugh at Poseidon. He stood before the ritual array, striking a particularly strange pose: he raised his right arm, clenched into a fist, and held it across his chest, shouting loudly:
"The swinging spear shall cleave the sea, bringing suffering, destruction, and Death to the world! Turn my offerings into ritual flames, descend from the sky! Conqueror of the Sea! Great Foe of Poseidon!"
Accompanied by Perseus's powerful and righteous-sounding incantation, a massive burst of fire suddenly erupted from the ritual array drawn on the temple floor. Simultaneously, a deep crimson comet streaked across the sky above the temple, and a flaming spear landed precisely in the center of the array. Then, with a burst of wild laughter, a towering figure descended from the sky, directly smashing through the roof of Parthenon, shattering Athena's statue, and crashing into Athena's Temple.
The flames were parted by the spear, and Ares, wearing a billowing red cloak, appeared within the temple, asking his 'sub-account' nearby:
"Are you, then, my summoner?!"