Seeing her duplicate getting closer and closer to Ares, Thea reviewed her plan and decided it still wasn't safe enough. She sliced her palm open and used her blood to draw a reverse-teleportation sigil on the ground—an infernal spell recorded in the Constantine family's grimoires.
The sigil was absurdly complicated. Halfway through, her wound had already stopped bleeding, and she had to cut herself again. After checking the pattern twice to make sure nothing was wrong, she finally began her operation.
Meanwhile, the peaceful little village was now utterly ruined by Diana and Ares' clash. The more divine power they unleashed, the more devastation they caused—flat roads turned into craters and trenches.
Thea's duplicate darted through the broken terrain, weaving along ditches and debris, trying to get close to Ares.
"I've been watching you sneak around! Damn insect—you really think such petty tricks can deceive a god!?"
Ares suddenly burst forward with terrifying speed, shaking Diana off. He appeared in front of the duplicate, grabbed it by the collar, and wore a triumphant, predatory smile as he stared across the distance—straight toward Thea's real body.
But his triumphant grin lasted barely two seconds.
The moment his grip tightened, the duplicate vanished, replaced by Thea's true form. A delighted expression had just begun to surface on his lips when a force far beyond flesh—far beyond soul—pierced violently into his body.
"The one who's damned is YOU—!"
Thea dropped all restraint. Holding the God-Slaying Sword in both hands, she used every ounce of strength she had and drove it straight into Ares' open mouth.
She didn't even dare look at the result. Triggering the blood-activated teleportation sigil, she instantly warped far away.
"Huff…"
Thea checked herself—still intact. Good. Using Ares' arrogance and his hatred toward her, she had successfully played her trump card: swapping her location with her duplicate at the exact moment of his grab. In a surprise attack, the plan had worked beautifully.
Only now did she have the free mind to admire her handiwork.
"I can still fight… I will not… lose…"
The madness and cruelty in Ares' eyes had completely vanished, replaced by raw terror and confusion.
Clutching the wound on his mouth, divine power leaked uncontrollably from the gash, scattering into the air and drifting in all directions.
"I am… the God… of War…"
But divine power did not obey a god's will. No matter how he resisted, the leakage did not slow. Ares cast one final glance at Diana—who stared back with a faint trace of pity—before his towering figure collapsed with a heavy crash. His weapons, armor, and body dissolved rapidly into pure divinity and godly essence.
Thea looked over the scene and curled her lips.
As expected—this was just a fragment of Ares. Not a single drop of god-blood.
She waited another half minute, confirming that Ares' form had already dissipated by more than half. He definitely wasn't getting back up to trouble her again. Only then did she ride her flying board over.
Diana stared at her speechlessly. Earlier, Thea's duplicate-swap move had scared her half to death; by the time she reacted and rushed to help, Thea had already teleported away.
This escape speed… was a talent in itself.
"You're… not mad I killed Ares, right?" Thea asked quietly.
"How could I be? The God-Slaying Sword was entrusted to you. This is your destiny."
Diana looked completely puzzled as to why Thea would even ask.
…Huh?
Thea replayed everything mentally and understood Diana's thinking at once. Diana's worldview was painfully straightforward. She still firmly believed every story her mother had told her. In her mind, the God-Slaying Sword worked exactly like this, so of course Thea wielding it meant this outcome.
What was there to question?
Thea swallowed back the urge to explain the countless twists behind this. Especially now that she noticed that although Ares' divine power was dispersing into the wind, his godly war authority was being gathered by an unseen force—condensing, waiting.
All the gods were watching…
Better not say anything.
This water runs deep. Let Diana keep her good impression of Hippolyta.
The two women chatted casually while Thea quietly waited for the decision on how Ares' godhood would be distributed.
In the original timeline, Diana absorbed all of it.
But now that Thea had barged into the story, things were… different.
Although she was close with Diana, Thea genuinely did not think giving the war-authority to Diana was a good idea. Diana simply didn't need it. Her baseline divinity was over a thousand units; she was only using maybe two hundred of it. Raising her ceiling further would be pointless.
But if Thea received it?
Her own divine ceiling would jump from fifty to a hundred fifty—an enormous increase.
The problem was obvious:
She was an outsider.
Diana was "the real daughter."
There was no universe where Thea could step forward and argue, "I contributed more, give me more." That simply wasn't happening.
To subtly advocate for herself, she discreetly took out Zeus' lightning bolt—the command token given by the King of Olympus himself. Partly to check its charge, partly to show the observing gods:
Look, I'm holding the boss' token. We're on the same side, right? Maybe be a little generous here?
Whether the gods pitied her or the gesture actually worked, the suppressing force around Ares' godhood suddenly vanished. The divinity split cleanly in two and flew straight into the bodies of the two women.
Faint motes of light entered Thea. This was her first time truly absorbing divinity. Her previous attempts—absorbing what Unicorn magic accidentally siphoned, or the tiny trickle from god-blood—were tiny and indirect.
Ares, even as a fragment, was still a god. His quality was below Horus' true divine form, but in quantity he far surpassed him. Thea had just received half of that fragment's godhood—far more than she had ever touched before.
Images flooded before her eyes—warriors hunting, armies clashing, soldiers battling with blazing passion. Countless insights into combat manifested like scenes from a movie.
Thea had already been a competent fighter—near the bottom of the "combat masters," but still a legitimate martial artist. Now, with these firsthand experiences, her fighting skills skyrocketed.
In pure combat technique, she was confident she could defeat Batman—and might even be evenly matched with Lady Shiva.
But with her current ambitions, martial prowess no longer ranked high. She sought longevity. Eternity. The combat knowledge was merely a bonus.
What truly mattered was the transformation of her physical body. Strength, speed, endurance, intellect—every aspect improved. That was the true value of divinity.
As a mortal, her daily magic-capacity might have grown by one point.
Now, with divine reconstruction, her growth rate jumped to ten points per day.
Her power would skyrocket to a whole new level.