It was a new day on Olympus, and a clone of Ares was shirtless, wielding an iron hammer, and hammering away in his God of War Palace.
With Hephaestus's help, he had also lit a forge in the God of War Palace and was beginning to try and create some Noble Phantasms imbued with powerful strength.
When the age of Heroes arrived, whether he played the role of a Hero himself or sought to establish good relations with these demigod Heroes as the God of War, he would need a large number of handy weapons. Although Ares's God of War Palace had a considerable inventory, he couldn't drain the well dry; those reserves would eventually run out.
Therefore, Ares decided to leverage his advantages. He began to try combining the forging techniques he learned from Hephaestus with the magic he learned from Hecate to create powerful magical weapons.
Currently, on Ares's forge, undergoing the God of War's forging, was a sharp, barbed spear.
Ares intended to forge this spear into a Noble Phantasm capable of summoning lightning and entwining thunder.
After several failures, he had already inscribed the incredibly complex Magic Circuit onto the blade of this spear. Now, after the shaping and cooling steps were complete, he only needed to extract a wisp of lightning and inject it into the spear blade to activate the Magic Circuit within.
"Hiss—"
After dozens more rounds of forging, Ares, finally satisfied, placed the spear's blade into a nearby cooling pool. In the rising white mist, he watched the blade slowly lose its red glow, turning into cold iron shimmering with a chilling sharpness.
"Hmm, now I just need lightning."
For blacksmiths on the ground, obtaining Zeus's blessing was an extremely difficult matter, but for a chief god like Ares, acquiring lightning was very simple. As Zeus's child, he naturally had an innate affinity for lightning. Furthermore, Olympus's current height was far above the clouds. If he wanted lightning, he only needed to take this spear to the clouds, find a lightning-filled cloud, and stir it a bit.
However, after Ares walked around Olympus with the spear, he couldn't find even a single thundercloud.
He scratched his head in surprise; logically, this was not normal. So many gods on Olympus were connected to natural phenomena like lightning, and the God King was the embodiment of lightning. It was impossible for there to be no thunderclouds around Olympus.
Unable to find thunderclouds, Ares simply cast the magic Hecate had taught him, but whether he unleashed "Zeus's Thunder" or "Poseidon's Storm," he could not summon lightning.
There was only one explanation for this situation: God King Zeus had used his divine authority to withdraw the world's lightning.
So, he swaggered to the outside of the God King's Hall on Olympus and shouted loudly into the hall: "Landlord… oh no, Zeus, why is there no lightning?"
The God of War stood outside the God King's Hall, bellowing a few times with his rough voice, but it was Athena who walked out of the God King's Hall with a dark expression. Seeing Athena, Ares was utterly astonished and asked in confusion:
"Athena, why are you in the God King's Hall? Could it be—"
He said, eyes wide, and shouted:
"Someone! Protect the King! Someone is trying to assassinate Zeus—"
"Shut up!"
The Goddess of Wisdom interrupted Ares's shouting with a dark face, then tapped her scepter.
"I was called by Zeus to cover for him."
"Then where is Zeus?"
Ares clamored:
"Where did Zeus run off to?"
Athena said nothing, merely gestured vaguely with her scepter in the direction of Europa.
"Oh, so he ran off to find women again."
Ares showed disdain on his face:
"Forget it, we can't control him anyway, but where did he put the lightning? I need a bolt of lightning now, it's urgent."
"How would I know."
The Goddess of Wisdom shrugged:
"Perhaps he completely fell out with Hera last time and was afraid Hera would use his lightning to strike Europa dead, so he hid the divine lightning."
"Huh? He's already hidden the divine lightning?" Ares was stunned upon hearing this.
"Yes." Speaking of this, Athena also had a look of disgust: "He dragged me over to help him watch the God King's Hall, and I'm forced to watch him and that Europa flirt."
"Then wouldn't that mean…" Before Ares could finish his sentence, a scream from Helios, God of the Sun, reached his ears, followed by a violent tremor that shook the entire Olympus with a rumble.
"Damn it, what the hell is happening?"
This violent tremor nearly threw Ares and Athena to the ground. After regaining their balance, they immediately disregarded their mutual sarcasm and hurried to the edge of Olympus, looking down at the world to see what was happening.
Upon reaching the edge of Olympus and seeing the scene in the distant world, both Ares and Athena couldn't help but hold their breath.
They saw that in the vast sea of white clouds, two giant pillar-like arms suddenly extended from beneath the clouds. One of these arms propped up the sky, heavily smashing a fist onto the firmament, while the other hand grabbed Helios, God of the Sun's chariot, which was on its way to work. The unfortunate Sun God let out a cry of terror but could not resist. His chariot, burning with raging sun flames, was soon forcefully thrown by this hand, tumbling and falling below the clouds.
Then, from beneath the clouds, a hundred giant snakes broke through the clouds and ascended into the sky. They writhed their bodies wildly in the air, spewing poisonous mist and thick smoke in all directions, obscuring the formerly clear sky.
Seeing Helios's Sun Chariot "crash,"
Selene, the Moon Goddess, who was originally on standby, also took off in her moon chariot, wanting to avenge her brother who had been ambushed. However, she had just flown into the sky and only managed to cast a few moonlight rays at the giant snakes and giant hands above the clouds before being entangled by several giant snakes. Subsequently, she was also grabbed by that giant hand and casually thrown far below the clouds, following in her brother's footsteps.
This commotion quickly caused the stars in the sky to become chaotic and alarmed the other chief gods on Olympus. Soon, the place where Ares and Athena were attracted their attention, and they all left their temples and walked towards here, wanting to see what was happening.
"Ares! Athena."
Apollo and Hermes were the two fastest chief gods to arrive. They greeted Ares and Athena as they walked, and simultaneously asked: "What happened?"
Hearing their calls, Ares and Athena both turned their heads simultaneously, their expressions as dark as the bottom of a pot covered in soot. Ares spoke bluntly to Apollo and Hermes:
"Apollo, quickly tell the others to flee! Hermes, you, now, immediately, go and bring Zeus back!"
"What's the big deal?" Hearing Ares's words, Apollo and Hermes exchanged smiles, not stopping their steps. They continued walking and said: "This is Olympus, what could make a god flee—"
The two laughed as they reached the edge of Olympus and saw the four Wind Gods tied up by several giant snakes above the clouds, and then their smiles froze.
Then, the two chief gods, without hesitation, turned and ran towards the temples behind them.