"You're the one who turned my people into stone statues, aren't you!"
After dodging a barrage of attacks, Diana, facing Faust, who displayed immense magical power, flew forward, her eyes blazing, and swung her sword.
"That's right, it was me."
Shifting his position in mid-air to evade the attack, Faust regretfully touched the ancient bronze plaque on his chest, which had grown dim.
"It's a pity this treasure's power is limited. After turning so many Amazons into stone, I can't use it again for a while. Otherwise, capturing you would be effortless."
"I have the Silver Bracelets of Submission, given to me by my mother, to protect me. You'll never harm me with your evil magic."
Using the Lasso of Truth to lasso a tall tree, Diana pulled it out of the ground like a radish and hurled it at Faust.
The tree, hundreds of feet tall, slammed into Faust's magic shield, shattering into several pieces.
From between the broken tree segments, Diana surged forward, closing the distance to Faust. She fiercely split his magic shield with the Sword of Vulcan. Faust quickly retreated, narrowly avoiding a deadly sword strike that would have cut him in half.
"As expected, I can't underestimate you. You truly are the daughter of the King of Gods."
Faust's expression turned grim. He tossed out a few seeds, which grew rapidly in the wind, transforming into thick thorny vines. Their spikes gleamed with a strange, deadly blackness, and they attacked Diana like several giant pythons.
Diana swung her sword, parrying them.
Faust himself was adept at dark magic, and with the power bestowed upon him by Hades, even Diana, wielding divine artifacts, couldn't gain the upper hand for a while.
"Hey, monster, look at this!"
After dodging a wave of Faust's attacks, Clark saw a tall man suddenly appear, spewing hellfire and pursuing David. He flew up and punched Hades from behind.
Bang!
Hades' movement halted. He turned and swung his hand, sending Clark, who was charging at him, flying back effortlessly like a ball.
The sound was like muffled thunder. Clark flew backward at high speed, passed over the forest, shattered a corner of a cliff, and sent debris flying.
His head felt like it had been hit head-on by a supersonic fighter jet weighing tens of thousands of tons. He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth, his vision blurring.
"Is this the power of Hades, the King of the Underworld?"
Embedded in the mountainside, Clark stared in horror at the tall, armored figure.
With his own strength, he felt like a child facing an adult; they were not on the same level at all.
After sending Clark flying, Hades had just turned his head when an iron fist rapidly enlarged in his eyes.
Boom!
A terrifying shockwave exploded, causing the trees on the island to flatten like grass. Hades was sent flying back a considerable distance, his expression grim.
As a god, he had been hit in the face by a mortal.
"Do you know who you're facing? Kneel, mortal!"
The King of the Underworld's roar changed the colors of the sky. With a wave of his hand, immense divine power swept across the heavens. The mere aftershock caused the entire island to tremble.
"Someone once said something similar to me. He should be undergoing punishment on Mount Olympus by now."
Crossing his arms to block the surging divine power, David was pushed back a few meters. Immediately, lightning crackled around his body, and he fearlessly threw a punch at Hades.
"Since you dislike the Underworld so much and went to such lengths to come out, I'll grant your wish and send you to a place more beautiful than the mortal world."
Deities seemed to share a common trait: after enduring years of human worship and faith, they became arrogant and conceited. At least, Ares, whom he had encountered, and Hades today were like that.
A slight offense was enough to send them into a rage.
The more beautiful place David spoke of was Olympus.
Although Hades was the ruler of the Underworld, he was also one of the Olympian gods. Once he died, he would be reborn on Olympus.
"You're even more arrogant than my brother's most brainless son, Hercules."
Hades glared, his hands glowing with divine power. Wisps of sickly green smoke emerged, within which seemed to be hidden the distorted faces of countless evil spirits, letting out roars. The winds of the Underworld swept across the land, and the temperature plummeted.
"I will teach you what reverence is!"
The two battled fiercely, divine powers of thunder and death clashing and splashing.
Hades was shocked to discover that the mortal before him, in terms of physical strength, was steadily surpassing him. His fists, which he used to block attacks, felt numb from the impact. This was something he absolutely could not tolerate.
"How can a god be weaker than a mortal!"
Not in any aspect, not even one.
Unable to maintain his human form any longer, Hades revealed his true form as the God of the Underworld: wolf-like pointed ears, a beastly face, two bone-white horns on his head, and three tongue-like tentacles in his mouth, making him appear ferocious, sinister, and terrifying.
It was almost indescribable.
"This is my true power! Experience the might of a god!"
Bang!
David was blasted dozens of meters away by a punch from Hades. He shook his arm. Now, Hades' power had the upper hand. He immediately began to amplify his physique with the cosmic energy within him and charged forward again.
Hades' divine power easily overpowered the Zeus divine power attached to Shazam's power, but the ominous divine power of death, when it struck David's robust body, seemed to have no effect.
David felt only a chill and weakness, with no significant damage.
The feeling was instantly dispelled by the cosmic energy burning within him like a supernova.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
As the amplification increased, David's strength began to gradually overpower Hades. Each punch carried the force of overturning seas and rivers, forcing Hades to retreat continuously.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
"Cerberus, my hound."
Hades roared in anger.
The sky seemed to be dyed red with blood and fire. Accompanied by an eerie beast roar from underground, a massive, dark red beast emerged, carrying molten lava. It smashed through the ground, its three gaping maws lunging towards David.
"Tear him apart!"
David quickly retreated to dodge, getting a clear look at what had appeared.
It was a hellhound with three heads, its body as massive as an elephant. It growled, one head dripping with lava like saliva, another spewing the waters of the River Styx that could erode souls, and the third oozing a terrifying, black, viscous venom.
"The three-headed hellhound."
Along with the King of the Underworld, this mythical monster also manifested in the mortal world.
"David, leave this monster to me!"
The three-headed hellhound tried to help its master, pouncing at David from the air, but was intercepted by a figure that flashed through the sky. The figure grabbed its neck and slammed it into a distant mountain.
"Such immense strength!"
Clark felt that the monster he was holding was so powerful that he was almost struggling to keep up. He braced himself, swung the three-headed hellhound over his head, and smashed it hard into the ground.
With a pained yelp like a giant dog, the three-headed hellhound was embedded into the ground. Clark flipped over and rode it, grabbing the scruff of its neck and raising his fist to strike, but was blasted back by a tidal wave of lava spewed from Cerberus's mouth.
Casually shaking off the lava from his body, Clark raised his fist and charged again with lightning speed.
After their brief exchange, he felt he couldn't handle the King of the Underworld, but dealing with this three-headed hellhound shouldn't be a problem.
Man and monster wrestled on the ground, trees snapping, dust and smoke rising everywhere.
"Damn it!"
Hades's face was grim. His hound was being held back, and he had lost his support. Condensing divine power into his two-pronged staff, he thrust it at David.
"Mortal, do you think this is all I have!"
He unleashed his divine might, and the ominous divine power of death surged out like a tide.
One possessed a powerful physique, the other terrifying divine power, and for a time, neither could gain the upper hand.
...
"Finally, one of the enemies the League has to face is at sea!"
Cyborg, suspended in mid-air with flames erupting from his feet, fired his sonic cannon, blasting the undead soldiers on the sea into mummified husks. Green Lantern Hal Jordan's Lantern Ring glowed, forming a floating base on the sea, simulating a mounted Gatling gun.
He frantically pulled the trigger, unleashing thousands of bullets per second, savagely tearing apart the bodies of the undead soldiers.
But the most valiant was Arthur. Wielding his trident, he moved freely through the seawater like a deep-sea whale. A casual swing of his trident could create tidal waves powerful enough to capsize warships, smashing large numbers of undead soldiers to the seabed, their bones shattered.
As a half-Atlantean, he could unleash his full potential only when back in the water.
"Let me do something big."
Firestorm grinned and lowered his altitude, touching the sea surface with his hands. He activated his strongest ability, reorganizing the seawater into fuel oil.
Looking down from the sky, the blue rapidly receded, replaced by blackness that spread for over ten miles.
He raised his finger in a gun-like gesture, firing a ball of flame at the sea. A towering inferno immediately erupted, spreading for miles in moments, its flames reaching for the sky.
Cyborg and Green Lantern were startled and quickly retreated.
"Cough, cough, I regret it now."
Firestorm covered his nose, and even Batman inside his mech cockpit frowned and retreated.
The already foul smell of fuel oil, combined with the odor of burning corpses, filled the sea along with billows of black smoke.
The inferno was deadly to the undead soldiers and posed no problem for Arthur, but he no longer wished to surface.
"Cyborg, why are you coughing too?"
Green Lantern was so choked he felt like he was going to vomit. He quickly conjured a gas mask, which made him feel a little better.
"I still have one good lung." Even Cyborg, with his mostly mechanical body, couldn't stand it and summoned a steel mask.
Element Girl waved her hand, releasing pink gas and a large amount of air freshener into the air, but it was futile.
Hawkgirl, carrying her war hammer, flapped her wings and ascended high into the sky to avoid it, frowning.
Although Firestorm's actions were reckless, they also displayed astonishingly powerful abilities, almost changing the terrain with a wave of his hand. She couldn't help but think of the League's most powerful man again.
After the Despair Demon invaded the League last time, she had witnessed David's displayed power and began to doubt if Earth truly needed Thanagar's protection. She returned to her homeworld and reported her doubts to the ruler.
However, the ruler did not recall her mission, ordering her to continue lurking on Earth and find the Transcendent's weakness.
"Superman is Kryptonian, with the weakness of a red sun, and there's that special meteorite, but does the Transcendent really have an unknown weakness too?"
Hawkgirl looked suspiciously towards the depths of the sea, where the collision of grey-green divine power and lightning occupied nearly half the sky.
"Look quickly!"
Element Girl cried out in surprise.
The oil slick, stretching for over ten miles, had only slightly slowed the advance of the Underworld King's army. More undead soldiers surged from the sea like a tide, not even avoiding the burning water.
Like terrifying desert ants, they simply extinguished the flames with their bodies and continued their advance.
A heavy atmosphere settled over everyone.
"How many more are there?"
Green Lantern looked down at his Lantern Ring.
He had killed countless undead soldiers and consumed a significant amount of energy.
"Our stamina and power are finite, but these undead seem to be infinite," Cyborg said grimly.
"Flash, how are things on your end?"
Batman connected to the communication channel.
"Almost done. I've cleared out most of the mummies in this port," came the reply from Flash, the fastest among them. He had been assigned to deal with the undead army that had already landed in the city to prevent further casualties.
"We're leaving this to you. We need to go support Transcendent and Superman."
Batman glanced in the direction of Themyscira.
"What? I can't hold them off alone!"
On the street, after just a few quick punches that scattered the body of an undead soldier, Flash's face twisted in distress.
Despite his incredible speed, his body wasn't made of iron.
Batman and the others leaving meant he would be the sole defender against the tide of enemies.
"You have to hold on, even if you can't. The situation over there is more critical. We must cut off this tide of undead at its source."
Batman's expression was serious as he instructed everyone to prepare to move out, to bypass the army and support David and Clark.
He didn't understand magic or gods, and neither did the others. They lacked experience in such matters.
The previous ancient demon had stripped them of their powers with a single spell, causing the League to suffer greatly. If he and Green Lantern hadn't still had some strength to hold out, and if Transcendent and Superman hadn't arrived in time, everyone else would have died.
"This time it's the legendary Hades. It might be even more terrifying than last time."
But there was no other choice. Transcendent hadn't resolved the issue with Hades yet, indicating the situation was far from optimistic.
Batman and the others hurried towards Themyscira.
...
"What exactly are you?"
High above Themyscira, Hades, despite his immense power, did not possess infinite divine energy. After a prolonged battle, his strength began to wane.
David was in a similar state, his internal cosmic energy also finite. Hades, eager to quickly defeat the mortal he disdained and uphold his dignity as Lord of the Underworld, had launched a furious and relentless assault that was almost suffocating.
His efforts to counter it had accelerated his own energy depletion.
"Why, why aren't you dead yet?"
Hades exclaimed in disbelief. Another highly concentrated beam of death divine energy shot from his fingertip, striking David. However, David surprisingly punched through and dispersed the divine energy.
"The death divine energy I infused into your body was enough to turn this vast ocean into a dead zone, leaving not a single living creature. Yet, you're still alive.
Even my own brother couldn't ignore my divine power!"
Boom!
The next moment, Hades was sent flying hundreds of meters by David, who, with a punch, had charged through Hades' attack and slammed into him. Hades stumbled to regain his balance, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, and stared at David as if he were a monster.
Initially, David's power had surpassed his. While he felt a loss of divine dignity, he didn't consider it a major issue, as a god's greatest strength lay not in their physical body, but in their divine power.
His death divine energy, in particular, was the most destructive.
But the subsequent turn of events quickly exceeded his expectations!
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