"Kill!! Ahhhh!"
A muscular man, nearly two meters tall,
holding two enormous hammers,
roared as he charged fiercely toward Aron and the others.
"Who is he?" Aron thought in that moment.
The hammer in Hercules' hand carried hundreds of tons of terrifying power, descending from above straight toward Aron's head.
"Hercules!"
"Don't!" Loki, who had been silenced until now, saw the scene and finally came to his senses, trying to stop him.
But it was too late.
Boom——!
The thunderous crash shook heaven and earth.
Hercules shot up into the air like a Cannon ball, piercing through the roof of the Golden Hall and continuing to soar higher.
But Aron did not give him the chance to escape.
Teleportation.
He appeared in front of Hercules and struck him back down with a single blow.
Boom——!
Hercules fell even faster, turning into a black shadow that crashed into the very center of the Golden Hall.
He shattered the lake of golden blood that had gathered on the ground.
Golden blood splashed like a thousand scattered petals, spilling across the entire floor.
"Dear, could you maybe watch your strikes a little next time?"
"I was almost splashed by blood…" Hela quickly reacted, pulling Loki in front of her and using him as a shield.
Rumble!
Aron landed on the ground.
"Alright, I'll be careful next time."
After saying just a few words, he walked toward Hercules.
Hela casually tossed Loki aside and followed him.
"???"
The thrown Loki rolled twice across the floor.
Now completely covered in divine blood,
with a dazed expression on his face, he looked exactly like he had when Hulk had beaten him.
Me?
Who did I provoke?
"Hey, wake up." Aron approached Hercules and lightly kicked him.
"Uhh!!" Hercules suddenly jerked awake and let out a thunderous roar.
Startled by the noise, Aron took a step back.
Why the hell are you yelling?
And right in my face, no less?
"God-slayer! I will fight you… Ah, Loki?"
Just as he was about to strike again, Hercules spotted Loki nearby.
The huge man, standing over two meters tall, suddenly calmed down.
"I'm sorry, it seems I misunderstood. You are not the god-slayers."
"???"
Aron was puzzled by this sudden change.
At first, he thought this guy was the same as Thor, an empty-headed mass of muscles.
But it seemed only Thor remained that way.
"Haha, a misunderstanding. Hercules is not like Thor." Loki stepped closer, wiping the blood from his face, with a naïve smile, as if to say: "See, if it weren't for me, you would've had to fight again."
"Shut up."
"Alright." Loki immediately fell silent.
"May I ask, who are the two of you?" Hercules looked at them in confusion.
He, Thor, and Loki were of the same generation.
But Hela and Aron he did not know.
"Hela, goddess of death in the underworld Hel, once the mistress of Hell." Hela's introduction was cold and precise, deliberately omitting any ties to Asgard.
Loki gave her a sideways glance.
He wasn't stupid, he realized Hela still carried deep resentment in her heart.
"Hm…"
Aron at first wanted to list all his titles - Satan, nightmare of the dimensional lords, the new Heavenly Father on Earth,
the Ancient One's disciple…
and many more.
But in the end he only said:
"Aron, the first Batman, the strongest king!"
That was enough.
"???"
Hercules didn't understand a word, but seeing Aron's serious face, he felt as if he were standing before a judge.
"Your Excellency, please forgive me for my earlier recklessness," Hercules said in a deep voice.
"…" Hela restrained a smile.
"It's fine, no problem."
"Hercules, what happened here?" Aron accepted the title as if it were his own and immediately asked.
"Your Excellency, as you can see, there was a massacre here, a massacre of gods."
"I was already on the edge when I arrived."
"The killer had left, leaving behind only a few cruel hounds, black as pitch." Hercules lifted the edge of his armor, revealing deep claw marks carved into his abdomen.
"I defeated them and saved a few gods."
"Just as I was about to evacuate them, I heard your movements."
"I thought the killer had returned, so…" Hercules looked a bit embarrassed. But more than anything, he felt bitterness and anger at himself. He always thought that if he had arrived earlier, he could have saved more lives.
"You said you defeated them, so where are their corpses?" Hela looked around. All around were only dead gods, but no bodies of those monsters.
"They disappeared."
"After I defeated them, they turned into black liquid and evaporated."
Hercules' voice echoed deep and heavy.
"All-Black the Necrosword." Aron knew exactly what it was, he had read about it in the comics.
"All-Black the Necrosword?" Hela repeated, raising an eyebrow in surprise. She had also heard of that name.
But the version she knew was Gorr's weapon in this universe, the Necrosword, not a variant from an invasion of parallel worlds.
"Don't forget, the Gorr we're searching for isn't from our world." Aron corrected her.
In the stories, the Necrosword was the All-Black sword, forged by the symbiote god Knull.
Not long after it was created, Knull used it to kill a Celestial.
Its blood served to further strengthen the sword and make it even deadlier.
The complete All-Black Necrosword had a unique trait: the more lives it took, the stronger it became.
In short… it was a weapon that fed on death.
"And what about Zeus? He shouldn't just die so easily, right?" Aron suddenly remembered a crucial question.
Zeus was the king of the gods, on the level of the Heavenly Fathers themselves. He couldn't just die so casually.
But Hercules was precisely Zeus' son.
His status was equal to Thor's, both sons of the kings of gods.
"You don't know?"
As soon as the words left Aron's mouth, Hercules was the first to show a puzzled expression.
"Thor came earlier to ask for help. My father agreed."
"He took my brothers, Ares and Apollo, and together with Thor, they left Olympus."
"But…" Hercules paused, and his face darkened.
"Obviously they failed to eliminate the god-slayer."
"If they had, the tragedy of the city of all-knowledge would never have happened."
The worry on his face was clear.
If even Zeus, king of the gods, could not win, then who could?
"If you wish to know more, come with me." Hercules said, taking a deep breath and pushing aside his worries.
He lifted the two enormous hammers that lay beside him and started forward, leading the way.
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