With the entire situation having collapsed to this extent, Athena had no choice but to appear personally. Things were already catastrophic—they couldn't get worse!
Hades never imagined his trump card would flush out Athena. Back when Hermes brought the mortal Miss Zola to the Underworld, Hades had seen nothing remarkable about the woman and dismissed her completely. Now reality had slapped him in the face again—the woman was Athena's incarnation. The problem suddenly became far more complicated.
This niece was hiding an even larger conspiracy behind her—you didn't need high intelligence to figure that out.
Hera, Apollo, Eris, Diana, and Thea—pretending ignorance—all those who'd participated in the battle for Zola on Paradise Island that day stared at Athena with confused expressions.
Enjoying the gods' various astonished looks, in the past Athena would have felt proud of her wisdom. Now she felt only bitterness.
"The war should end here," she said earnestly to Hera.
In the past, Hera's attention would typically focus on Zeus's illegitimate children—this was also why Athena had been so respectful.
But now, having tasted the sweetness of power and the sense of achievement from commanding armies and determining the world's course, Hera's former jealousy had faded. Even if she wanted to be jealous, she couldn't manage it—Zeus simply had too many bastards!
Half the Twelve Olympians were his, and the battlefield held plenty of demigods too. Like Diana, those ancient Greek heroes who'd defected, even Hades' side had the Queen of the Underworld and the three judges—every single beautiful demigod was basically Zeus's offspring...
She was now leading a bunch of her husband's illegitimate children to fight her own brother-in-law. Her old personality would have died of rage!
So Athena's respectful attitude pleased her immensely. She gave the baby in Athena's arms a peculiar look—perfectly ordinary, she sensed nothing unusual. But how was that possible? Zeus and Athena producing a normal human?
Athena definitely had some conspiracy—Hera was certain of that. But now wasn't the time to discuss it on the battlefield. Hera's gaze returned to Hades, her expression shifting from cold to dignified. "Fine. The divine war ends here!"
As she said this, she felt delighted inside. Could Zeus's era attack the Underworld? No, he couldn't. But this old woman could!
"God-Queen, what about us?" Her retreat would screw over the Death and Sleep God brothers. Even the normally aloof Sleep God Hypnos looked anxious. If you retreat and Hades settles scores, what happens to us?
Hera was indeed poor at grand strategy, but tripping people up to make them utterly uncomfortable—that was something she'd done for thousands of years with extensive experience.
She immediately offered kind reassurances to the brothers, once again using her authority as god-queen to guarantee their current interests wouldn't suffer.
The brothers were helpless and could only follow the gods back to the third layer.
Over the following days, Athena acted as mediator, constantly coordinating between both sides. Through tireless efforts, they finally hammered out a final agreement.
Even Athena felt speechless looking at this agreement she'd worked so hard to facilitate.
As the defeated party, Hades suffered the heaviest losses. Not only had his right- and left-hand men taken large numbers of elite troops, but now the brothers were openly opposing him. His proud personality meant he never asked the brothers why they'd robbed his treasury. The brothers were equally bewildered but had grown accustomed to playing it cool—even with countless questions in their hearts, their expressions betrayed nothing to outsiders.
Hera single-mindedly maintained the brothers' rivalry with Hades. The title "Twin Lords of the Underworld" Hades grudgingly acknowledged, but he wasn't willing to be outdone—he changed his title from Lord of the Underworld to Emperor of the Underworld.
Seeing his title change, Hera considered and changed her own from God-Queen to God-Empress, ranking alongside Sea Emperor Poseidon and Underworld Emperor Hades while subtly suppressing them.
The first three layers were territory the gods had conquered. Despite Hades' objections, through mediation by numerous neutral Underworld deities, they still fell to the brothers.
Having lost even the first three layers, jurisdiction over the River Styx had nothing to do with him. Hera and Poseidon decided its ownership without consulting him. Old Charon made a fortune and kept his job. Aside from being bitten twice by Cerberus when escaping the treasury, he suffered no other losses—quite satisfied indeed.
A shocking battle concluded. The Underworld now couldn't even dream of attacking Mount Olympus. Stabilizing internal chaos would take Hades decades. His main body had fought and been ganged up on multiple times, suffering injuries that required vast divine power to heal. Overall, despite constant twists and turns, the original objective was achieved.
The gods returned in great triumph. All of Mount Olympus radiated joy. Hera cheerfully held celebratory banquets on one hand while shutting the door to argue with Athena on the other. Various allied forces partied for three consecutive days before gradually dispersing.
Supergirl went back to school. Barry continued tracking Reverse-Flash. Thea sensed nothing abnormal about that baby. The final outcome—whether Zeus continued playing his backup role or had an intimate talk with his wife—was someone else's family business, nothing to do with her anymore.
She still needed to negotiate the issue of the Dead King's Scepter with the Sea Emperor. After setting a time, everyone went home.
Too many items needed examination. Mount Olympus and the Underworld, crowded with people—neither was a good place for inventory. They returned to Paradise Island, and with Thea's barriers deployed here, the two women finally had time to sort through their gains.
Various rare materials, precious accessories, countless treasures and curiosities, powerful equipment piled like mountains—weapons from famous warriors and artifacts from departed gods.
Thea, who now relied more on magic in combat, had low equipment needs.
The warrior maiden was so happy she almost forgot her own name. Thea helped her completely replace her original newbie village divine equipment.
Their greatest gain from the equipment was a set of Kronos's armor and shield. This father of Hades was Gaia's son, the second-generation god-king, born with the mighty power to control earth.
His armor was incredibly thick with numerous special properties—immunity to knockdown while on earth, immunity to various negative statuses, immunity to mental manipulation, enhanced strength and speed, and so on.
But he was a Titan with a massive build. No matter how long Diana's legs were or how tall she stood, she couldn't wear this armor.
Moreover, to avoid drawing attention, they definitely couldn't parade around in the original armor for exhibition. It needed complete reforging.
Diana's smithing skills were completely useless for this top-tier divine artifact armor. Neither could they let Hephaestus, the Greek smith god, know about it.
Fortunately, Thea was employed by the New Gods. Opening a Boom Tube, she went straight back to find the New Gods' forging deity, Himon.
He did precisely this work and started crafting without a word. He knew Diana's measurements very well.
Three days later, Thea returned to Earth loaded with packages.
"So many components!" The warrior maiden covered her little mouth in surprise and began examining them, trying them on. Breastplate, pauldrons, bracers, helmet, greaves—the armor's overall color scheme was deep red trimmed with gold edges. Wrapped in the large red cloak, it looked incredibly impressive.
Thea was very satisfied. As for Diana's previous armor, she packed it away directly—keep it as a memento, or give it to whoever wanted it later. Honestly, the young miss had never liked that armor, mainly because it was too revealing!
From below the neck all the way down to indescribable regions, it exposed large expanses of skin, even showing half her cleavage. The pants were even worse—basically triangle shorts with entire thighs exposed. Forget defensive effectiveness—the young miss had always been unhappy with that design. She just hadn't had the conditions to replace it in the outside world where divine artifacts were rare.
Look at Faora's armor—three layers inside and out, wrapped up tight. You couldn't even tell it was a woman without looking at the chest contours! Very worth learning from.