When Athena and Prometheus finished their transaction and emerged from the cave, they saw Ares had already, on his own accord, divided the humans into two groups.
One group remained where they were, while the other group he separated into another pile, standing before him. The group that stayed looked somewhat frail, while all the people Ares selected were tall, strong, and powerfully built men.
Seeing his actions, both Athena and Prometheus were stunned. Prometheus asked,
"Ares, what are you doing?"
"I'm obviously choosing my elect!" Ares declared loudly, "Athena, just you watch, these elect who worship me in the future will surely beat your people until they're spitting teeth!"
"Whatever makes you happy." Athena was currently preoccupied with searching for the coordinates of "Hope" that Prometheus had told her. Hearing him, she rubbed her forehead and said, "I'm leaving. You can continue playing in the mud here."
"Wait! Stop!" Ares flung the mud from his hands, stood up, and angrily said, "Our business isn't finished yet."
"Ares, you're being a bit unreasonable." Prometheus also helped Athena by advising, "Athena is not like us; she has many things to busy herself with every day."
"Prometheus, shut up, this is between us." Ares glared at Prometheus, then said, "Don't forget, my 'gift' hasn't been given to your creation yet. If you keep nagging, I won't give it."
Prometheus immediately fell silent.
However, after staring at Ares for a moment, the Goddess of Wisdom Athena asked in a deep voice, "Ares, are you determined to oppose me, Athena, to the very end?"
"Ah? Why would you ask such a foolish question?" Ares laughed heartily and replied, "I've said it so many times; do you still think I'm lying?"
"Good, I understand." Athena nodded, smiling radiantly, and said, "Then let's have a race. We'll start here and run all the way to the end of Oceanus. If you win, I'll return the divine authority of victory and military strategy to you. If you lose, don't bother me for this period."
"Alright," Ares seemed to have no doubts and readily agreed.
The two gods quickly squatted at a starting line drawn by Ares's Flaming Sword, with Prometheus as their witness. After the God of Foresight gave the command, the figures of the Goddess of Wisdom and the God of War, propelled by a sudden burst of divine power, transformed into two shooting stars, streaking across the land.
This outcome also seemed to attract the attention of Zeus and the gods in the heavens. Their attention was drawn by Ares and Athena's race, and they all began to watch the show.
However, for both Athena and Ares, this outcome was actually a pretense. Athena wanted to use this opportunity to escape Zeus's attention, using it as a cover to advance towards the coordinates of "Hope." Ares, on the other hand, also wanted to delay Athena. After consideration, Hecate had already told him the location of "Hope." On the other side, he had also asked the Goddess Hecate to open a teleportation gate for him to the location of the "Hope" coordinates, and he had already dispatched a false body.
He wanted to reach the "Hope" power, capable of killing Zeus, before Athena and investigate its true nature.
The two gods moved like lightning, quickly sweeping across the land managed by the Greek Pantheon and arriving at the domain of Oceanus and Poseidon. Their speed left two enduring trails on the sea surface, and even the Ocean River God and the Sea God Poseidon, along with numerous sea nymphs and their offspring, surfaced to watch the two gods' race.
After managing her divine authority for some time, Athena's divine power became increasingly strong. In contrast, Ares's divine authority was not only reduced, but this was also merely a false body he had split off and infused with divine power and spirit. Therefore, the distance between Ares and Athena quickly widened. No matter how Ares burned the power of this clone, he could not catch up to Athena's retreating figure.
"Is this the most I can delay?"
Ares felt a little disappointed, but fortunately, there was still some time until the end of Oceanus, and his other false body had successfully reached the end of the world, the deepest part of the ocean, where Zeus's gaze could not reach.
According to Hecate's calculations, he submerged into the deepest ocean trench. Here, he could already visually perceive the end of this "world."
The ocean here seemed to be cut off. Although seawater could still flow, various sea beasts, fish schools, and sea monsters in the ocean could only stop before that invisible barrier. When submerging into the trench, Ares also deliberately moved closer and carefully observed that barrier.
This barrier was composed of powerful magic. Beyond the barrier, many chaotic whirlpools and various terrifying energy flows could be seen. According to the Moon Goddess, this was also the work of the Inhibitory Force.
Since the ancient gods had their divine essences shattered by the Youxing Vanguard, the scattered divine essences dispersed everywhere, forming the Second Divine Generation on Earth. These scattered divine essences also formed different pantheons in different regions and different spacetimes. At the same time, there could be several different pantheons on Earth. To prevent these pantheons from clashing with each other, erupting in divine wars, and ultimately leading to the fusion of divine essences, allowing the gods to return to the First Divine Generation, the Earth's Inhibitory Force spontaneously formed such barriers on the surface, isolating different pantheons into independent "worlds."
Even the King of Gods Zeus could not cross this barrier to reach the world on the other side, but strangely, the "Power of Hope" that Hecate had calculated was within the area inside this thick barrier.
Ares's false body continued to descend, following the route Hecate had calculated, until it reached the bottom of the trench. Here, light had completely disappeared. Ares felt that the will of Oceanus and Poseidon contained within the ocean had become incredibly weak, but strangely, in a certain area ahead, the "barrier" set by the Inhibitory Force seemed to have disappeared.
Ares's false body followed this void, swam into this barrier, and after swimming forward for another two minutes, a faint red light appeared before Ares's eyes.
He looked up and was astonished to find a colossal object silently resting at the bottom of the deep ocean ahead. This object was like an almond-shaped Rubik's Cube, with several gaps on its surface. Inside these gaps, there were straight pipelines emitting a luminous glow rich in magical power.
These glows formed a barely perceptible barrier, which even blocked the magical turbulence stirred up by the Inhibitory Force.
And on the surface of this Rubik's Cube, there was also a ship resembling a starship from a sci-fi movie. This ship was only half-present; the other half was unknown. It was like a sharp sword, piercing into this giant Rubik's Cube, which was about six hundred meters in diameter.
On the hull of this ship, there was also a line of special text, seemingly left by high-temperature scorching. Strangely, although Ares was certain he had never seen this text before, he unexpectedly understood its meaning.
He couldn't help but read it aloud: "This is a fragment of Wilpa, the Forbidden Harvest Star, one of the Youxing Vanguard that invaded star systems. Its designation is Wilpa...03?"