AN: No cliffhanger. Complete battle. And sorry about the delays. Caught a bad cold.
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Ares finished his threat with a satisfied smile, axe resting against his shoulder like punctuation.
John stared at him for a second.
Then he frowned.
"Why the fuck are you yapping like some B-grade movie villain?"
Ares blinked.
The world collapsed inward.
'Godspeed.'
John vanished with a burst of white lightning. Ares' instincts screamed, war-sense flaring at full intensity, but it was useless. There was no trajectory to track. No motion to predict. It was as if reality skipped a frame. One instant, John stood across the shattered ground, blood still evaporating from his shoulder. The next, space folded inward.
Ares did not even finish inhaling.
John was already in front of him.
Chakra condensed violently in his palm, spiraling so fast the air screamed. Blue-white energy howled, compressed into a spinning sphere dense enough to bend light.
"Rasengan."
John drove it straight into Ares' face.
War-energy and divine flesh were caught in a rotating vice of chakra, grinding bone, snapping armor, and tearing through Ares' head with surgical brutality. The force drove him backward, boots carving trenches through black stone as his body was hurled across the island like a cannonball.
Ares slammed into a cliff face hard enough to shatter it, rock collapsing around him in a cloud of dust and smoke.
John decided not to hold back anymore and use one hundred percent of his power. He understood that he could not afford restraint against a god who grew stronger with every second of conflict. The longer this battle dragged on, the more Ares would feed on it. By now, Harley and the others had reached Paradise Island, and battles were already being fought. Every clash there would only pour more fuel into the God of War.
That ended now.
John exhaled slowly.
The air around him changed.
Lightning that once danced lazily around his body collapsed inward, compressing into his veins, his muscles, his bones. Divine energy surged and obeyed, reshaping itself as chakra, nen, and ki all at once, layered and harmonized into something far beyond any single system.
His eyes sharpened.
"Kaioken."
Crimson energy exploded outward, wrapping around him like living fire. The ground beneath his feet shattered instantly, pulverized into powder as his power multiplied violently.
Ares burst from the rubble with a roar, blood streaking down his face, armor cracked but burning hotter than ever. His war aura erupted outward in response, crimson-gold energy rolling like a battlefield given form. Spectral images flickered around him: Endless armies clashing, spears breaking, cities burning. The echoes of every war humanity had ever fought bled into the air.
Ares used teleportation and reappeared directly in front of John, axe already in motion. The blade came down in a merciless arc, carrying the weight of a thousand battlefields. War-energy detonated outward, compressing air, light, and sound into a single catastrophic strike.
John shot behind with his insane speed.
The impact never touched his body.
It hit the island.
The world below them ceased to exist.
The entire island vaporized instantly, not shattered or broken but erased, reduced to incandescent dust and then to nothing at all. The sea below boiled as the shockwave punched downward, driving a circular wall of water outward for miles. The sky rumbled with thunder.
John shot upward, riding the force of the blast, as lightning and crimson energy flared around him, propelling him into the open sky.
Ares followed behind.
"You feel it, don't you?" He shouted as he closed the distance. "Every battle on your precious island. Every clash of blade and fist. They are all mine."
John stopped abruptly in midair.
The sudden halt caused the clouds behind him to implode inward.
Ares swung.
The axe screamed through space, cleaving a canyon through the sky itself.
John vanished with a burst of lightning.
Ares' eyes widened a fraction too late.
John reappeared behind him, already rotating.
A sphere of compressed chakra formed in his hand, but this time it was different. Wind howled violently around it, blades of invisible pressure screaming outward as nature energy and divine power layered together.
"Rasenshuriken."
John hurled it.
The attack crossed the distance instantly, a spinning mass of annihilation that shredded the air itself. Thousands of microscopic wind blades screamed toward Ares, each one capable of cutting at the cellular level.
Ares roared and brought his axe around in a brutal, instinctive counter.
The blade met the Rasenshuriken head-on.
For an instant, the world froze.
Then the explosion detonated.
Wind, lightning, and war-energy collided violently, creating a sphere of destruction that expanded outward like a newborn star. Clouds were erased. The sea below was flattened again, driven downward by sheer force.
Ares was hurled backward, armor cracking further as he tore through the sky. He stopped himself mid-flight, boots carving sparks through empty air as he stabilized.
"Hahahahaha! Show me more!"
Ares raised one hand, war-energy condensing around his fingers as multiple energy spears formed around him.
With a sweeping gesture, he hurled them.
They rained down like meteors.
John inhaled once.
His aura shifted.
Nen surged outward.
"Ken."
The spears struck.
They shattered on contact with his aura, disintegrating into sparks.
John blurred forward.
Kaioken flared brighter.
He closed the distance in an instant and drove his fist into Ares' gut.
The impact bent the God of War around his knuckles. Shockwaves erupted outward, thunder detonating as Ares was driven upward violently. John followed, knee slamming into Ares' jaw, then an elbow into his temple, then a palm strike to the chest that discharged raw ki point-blank.
"Kamehameha."
The blast erupted from his hands in a roaring column of blue-white energy, swallowing Ares completely and driving him through the sky like a comet. The beam punched through clouds, through atmosphere, and only stopped when it detonated high above the sea in a blinding explosion of light.
Silence followed.
Then laughter echoed through the sky.
Ares burst from the fading light, armor shattered and reforming, blood streaming freely now, his grin feral and ecstatic. His healing seems to have slowed down from before.
"Yes," he roared. "This is war."
A burst of white lightning appeared before him. "No," John's blurry face appeared before his eyes and his voice. Ares's confidence vanished as his right arm was severed before he could react. He heard John's voice again and saw another flash of lightning. "This is a fucking one-sided beatdown... Lightning blade!"
Ares screamed, not in pain, but in rage.
Blood and war-energy sprayed outward as his severed arm spun away into the clouds, dissolving into sparks before it could fall. His aura flared violently, the battlefield echoes around him swelling as if the concept of war itself protested the humiliation.
John noticed that Ares could tear through chakra, could endure ki blasts that would erase cities, and could even cut through techniques that shredded on a molecular level. Yet when war-energy met Nen reinforced by divine lightning, it broke.
So he adapted.
He stopped using chakra and Ki. But kept the Kaioken up for extra speed and Ken for defence.
"Time to end this," John said.
"You are nothing but a mortal using borrowed power!"
Ares roared and surged forward, war-energy tearing at the sky as he fought back with everything he had.
It did not matter.
He struck with super speed, teleporting mid-motion, reappearing behind John, above him, beneath him, attacking from angles that would have annihilated lesser gods. His axe slashed through space. His war-sense howled warnings with every heartbeat.
None of it reached John.
John was just too fast for him to keep up with at this point. Every attempt Ares made simply passed through afterimages or met an immovable defense.
Ares swung from behind.
John turned and severed his other arm with a lightning-wrapped strike that cleaved clean through divine bone and armor alike. The limb disintegrated into sparks before it could fall.
Ares staggered, shock flickering across his face for the first time.
But he did not fall.
War-energy surged violently from his shoulders, boiling outward as he screamed. The severed stumps flared crimson-gold, and new arms formed from condensed divine energy. They crackled with heat and electricity as fingers clenched and axes reformed within his grasp.
He lunged again.
It was useless.
John met him head-on.
A punch shattered Ares' ribs, divine armor collapsing inward with a sound like mountains breaking. A kick followed, snapping his spine midair and sending him tumbling end over end through the clouds. Before he could recover, John appeared above him and drove him downward with a knee that detonated thunder on impact.
Ares slammed into the sea, water erupting skyward as if struck by a falling star.
He burst back out instantly, healing struggling now, movements slower, rage beginning to edge toward desperation.
Ares screamed and unleashed everything.
The air ignited as thermokinesis flared, heat waves ripping outward hot enough to melt stone into vapor. John walked through it untouched. Invisible force slammed forward as telekinesis attempted to crush him, twist his bones, tear him apart from within. Hurricanes formed as aerokinesis tore the sky open, cyclones of screaming wind meant to flay gods to nothing. But John got super endurance and Ken.
Then illusions appeared.
John saw the end of the world. His friends and family were dying from a demon invasion. Everything around him was burning. There was an endless war with no end or meaning. The screams of millions filled his ears, with memories twisted and used as weapons.
John's eyes stayed the same.
"Illusion, emotion manipulation and mental tricks won't work on me," he said calmly. "Besides, my girls ain't that weak to die in the hands of some fucking demon."
The illusions shattered like glass.
Ares staggered back, blood pouring freely now, healing barely keeping pace with the damage. For the first time since his return, fear flickered behind his fury.
"God of War, you say?"
John took a step forward. The sky darkened instinctively.
"What a fucking joke..."
John mocked with a cold smile.
Blinded by rage, Ares threw his head back and roared, summoning lightning from the heavens themselves. Black clouds spiraled, churning violently as divine lightning tore downward in blinding pillars. The bolts converged on John, striking him head-on in a cataclysmic explosion meant to overwhelm him, to strip him of power, to force him back into his human form.
"I'LL ANNIHILATE YOU TO NOTHINGNESS!"
The world went white.
Then the lightning changed.
Instead of tearing John apart, it bent toward him. It wrapped around his body like a living thing, recognizing him, embracing him. The bolts did not burn. They fed him.
Power surged.
His aura expanded violently, Kaioken flaring brighter as divine lightning poured into him without resistance. The air screamed as Zeus' authority responded, ancient and absolute, choosing its bearer.
Ares froze.
"No," he whispered.
John opened his eyes.
They blazed with thunder.
"Yes," John said with a large grin.
The lightning obeyed him completely now, writhing and coiling around his form like a storm given shape. He raised one hand, and the sky itself seemed to hold its breath.
"SHAZAM!"
The word tore the sky open.
Living lightning shot toward John, magnified beyond measure, infused with the power of twelve gods and Zeus' unquestioned favor.
He redirected it toward Ares.
Ares screamed as the lightning engulfed him, divine armor disintegrating instantly, war-energy unraveling under overwhelming authority. His form burned away layer by layer, concept and flesh alike torn apart by power he could not resist.
There was no explosion.
No aftermath.
The God of War vanished, vaporized completely, his essence scattered so thoroughly that even the echo of his presence was gone.
The sky cleared.
The sea calmed.
John hovered alone above the water, lightning crackling around him. He could tell that he just gotten a massive upgrade. He looked up at the sky and said, "Thank you for the boost." He knew that somewhere in another dimension, Zeus was watching the battle and decided to lend a helping hand.
He turned east.
It was time to finish the rest.
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