Aphrodite's decision finally allowed Zeus to breathe a sigh of relief.
He had been genuinely worried about whether this goddess would make a choice that suited his intentions.
For as long as anyone could remember, Aphrodite had always carried herself with a nature that was soft on the surface but strong and unyielding within.
Though she was the goddess of love and beauty, roles deeply tied to femininity, she had her own will, and a remarkable resilience.
Her constant rejections of the advances from the male gods of Olympus alone were enough proof of that.
Such a goddess, if she were to grow truly stubborn and refuse to accept the condition placed before her, Zeus honestly wouldn't have known what to do.
Yet in truth, though Aphrodite was something of an outsider among the Olympians, she was not without friends.
At the very least, the three virgin goddesses, Athena, Hestia, and Artemis, were on good terms with her.
But when it came to Aphrodite choosing to side with Hecate, none of the three raised strong objections. Their strongest feeling was simply reluctance to part with her.
For Athena and Hestia, Hecate, the mortal-turned-goddess, and the mages who served her were not true enemies.
To them, magic was a power that humans had discovered for themselves.
The strength of the mages was the strength of humankind as a whole, and Hecate's ascension to godhood was nothing more than a symbol of humanity's power rising to new heights.
These two goddesses, apart from Prometheus, were among the deities most sympathetic to mankind.
When the first humans were created, Athena had taken part. When Zeus plotted to destroy humanity, Athena had tried to stop him.
Hestia had gone even further, she moved her very home down to the mortal realm.
As goddess of the hearth and of the household, her divinity was naturally closest to the lives of humans.
Now that Hecate and her mages had defeated the Olympians, what Athena and Hestia felt was not humiliation but rather a bittersweet mix of pride and loss, like parents realizing their children had finally grown up, and grown beyond them.
So Aphrodite joining Hecate's side was nothing bad in their eyes. If the choice had fallen upon them instead, they would have accepted it gladly.
As for Artemis… she was jealous of Aphrodite.
She had no idea about Aphrodite's connection to Alaric (had she known, she might have challenged Aphrodite to a divine war on the spot).
Even so, she secretly wished it had been her who was chosen, so that she could remain forever at Alaric's side.
Now she was left behind in the Olympian pantheon, while Aphrodite had gone to Alaric. That meant there were now two goddesses of stunning beauty at his side.
And if that man were ever to be seduced by them…
At that thought, Artemis's eyes burned red.
In the end, with the treaty of reconciliation signed, the divine war between Olympus and Hecate came to a close.
Mortals remained oblivious, but among gods great and small across Greece, the news spread like wildfire.
A mortal had ascended to godhood in a single stroke, rising straight to the ranks of the mightiest.
For both men and gods, this was an unprecedented, world-shaking miracle.
The most outrageous part was that this new god had gone to war with the Olympians who had come to demand his submission, and had utterly crushed them.
The Olympians had been forced to cede lands (and even divinities), pay compensation, and publicly apologize.
Not even the wildest tales dared to go that far.
But it had happened.
The details of the battle were unknown.
Witnesses said that Hecate had first exchanged blows with the Olympians, and then suddenly everyone had vanished, swallowed by a Reality Marble.
When they reappeared, all the Olympians were grievously wounded, while Hecate stood unharmed.
Rumor claimed it had all been the work of one of Hecate's chosen mages.
Thus, gods across Greece concluded that Hecate and her followers must possess some kind of weapon or secret method designed specifically to counter gods, that was the only way they could have defeated Olympus.
Curious, many deities tried to uncover what had truly happened. But neither side, neither the mages nor the Olympians, would say a word.
Only Zeus's public apology to Hecate confirmed that she had indeed won a direct victory over the Olympians.
In the end, nothing more could be uncovered.
But the impression of Hecate's unfathomable mystery and overwhelming might took deep root in the hearts of the gods of Greece.
Of course, there were also some old rivals of Zeus, those defeated by him in the past, who took this as a sign that Olympus was in decline.
They came forward to provoke them, only to suffer miserable fates.
Some were slain on the spot. Others were cast into the Underworld.
With uncompromising force, the Olympian pantheon once again demonstrated its power, quelling the opportunists.
At the same time, this only further proved the might of Hecate.
And the island of Colchis, her domain, was now established as another forbidden ground of the Greek divine realm, second only to Mount Olympus itself.
Yet the effects of this battle did not end there.
Among those who had become mages, most had never held faith in the gods at all. Faith was born from ignorance: mortals, not knowing why the gods were strong, revered them simply for their overwhelming power.
But to mages, the gods were not mysterious. Many even believed gods were nothing more than mortals who had grown strong. Hecate's ascension to godhood especially proved this point.
Still, for mages, Hecate was utterly different from all other deities.
As goddess of mages, goddess of magic, goddess of the Weave, the domains she ruled over were the very essence of what it meant to be a mage.
They felt her presence constantly. Their very lifelines were held in her hands. Naturally, they revered her.
And faith in Hecate was not without reward.
According to Alaric's design, once the leylines had been woven into the Weave, Hecate integrated an arcane information network within it.
Every spell cast through the Weave was automatically recorded.
If a mage created a new spell, or altered an old one, the Weave noted it, enriching its growing database.
And spells, after all, were the crystallization of mages' pursuit of arcane truth.
Now, all those achievements were being uploaded automatically, exposed entirely to Hecate's gaze.
Mages who worshipped Hecate found that when they cast spells recorded in the Weave, the system would grant them assistance, simplifying the casting process.
The deeper their faith, the greater their contribution, the higher their privileges became. The Weave might even reserve specific spells for them, ready for instant use each day.
And as Hecate's followers, the social status of mages across Greece began to soar.
Even priests of the Olympians hesitated to provoke them, after all, if Hecate could thrash their gods, what mortal priest would dare bully her believers?
Thus, under Hecate's protection and with the benefits of the Weave, more and more mages began to devote themselves to the Goddess of the Weave.
The mages, as a rising force within the Greek divine realm, had truly begun their ascent.