Inside the Watchtower, before everyone departed for Mount Olympus.
Shane walked behind Batman, hands shoved into his pockets, head lowered as though deep in thought.
Batman spoke first, his voice remaining deep and raspy without turning back.
"Five minutes until departure, say whatever you need to say right now."
Shane paused slightly, looking at Batman's back.
"Through various channels over this period, I've learned quite a bit about your operation logs; you have never abandoned a single comrade."
His tone was calm, yet carried a certain conviction.
"The League was founded only two years ago, yet this trust has been extended to every single comrade by you all."
Batman did not stop walking, continuing onward toward the direction of the landing pad.
Shane frowned slightly.
"The Greek gods specifically designated that I must enter alone."
Changing the subject, Shane flashed a rather playful smile.
"If Teacher Prince is safe and sound, trading an alien who just arrived here a few days ago for peace with the Divine Realm seems like a guaranteed profit for Earth."
The moment those words dropped, Batman finally came to a halt.
He slowly turned around, his eyes beneath the cowl sharp as an eagle's, gleaming coldly in the dim light and locking firmly onto Shane.
The air between them seemed to instantly freeze, leaving only the faint hum of the ventilation system.
Shane also raised his head, meeting Batman's gaze without the slightest avoidance.
In the plaza before the Temple of Zeus, Zeus's urging words carried divine might, as if trying to freeze the air.
Looking at the King of Gods who had left legends across multiple worlds, Shane suddenly let out a derisive laugh, his tone full of undisguised provocation.
"You want my body, but how can you prove your divine power and magic are worth placing on the other side of the trade scale?"
Diana's expression changed abruptly, instinctively wanting to step forward and dissuade him.
She knew Zeus's temper far too well; this legendary King of Gods least tolerated insolence from others.
And these words from Shane were not only a clear refusal, but an outright challenge to the majesty of the Divine Realm.
To Diana's surprise, Zeus did not grow angry; instead, he stroked his beard, a trace of amusement flashing in his eyes.
"Then how do you propose to prove it?"
Shane raised a hand, his fingertip pointing directly not far away at Ares, who could no longer contain himself, an aura of slaughter surging violently around his body.
"I know nothing of combat and conquest save how to wage them."
"Since you intend to set down seven trials, why not let me make the rules—find seven deities to take turns fighting me until one manages to beat me into submission."
Ares was momentarily stunned, then acted as though he had heard some cosmic joke.
"Ignorant mortal, you dare challenge me directly? You must know that even though the mortal world is relatively peaceful now and I cannot draw energy from actual warfare, my power is still beyond anything you can imagine!"
He took a step forward, the thorny armor across his body glowing with a scarlet light, a distorted yet overwhelming force sweeping outward until the flagstones in the plaza began to tremble slightly.
"The concept of war has never been confined to the battlefield; all forces related to warfare from antiquity to the present flow within my blood, including those nuclear deterrents designed to prevent war."
Ares's voice suddenly rose, carrying a suffocating pressure.
"Do you know how many nuclear weapons those self-destructive humans have manufactured to date? The absolute lower bound of the power contained within my body is the sum total of all nuclear weapons currently designed, deployed, and stored on Earth!"
Athena's expression shifted slightly, and she exchanged a glance with Hephaestus beside her.
Without unnecessary words, the goddess put away her spear, and the god of smithing hoisted his massive hammer, both retreating backward and vanishing instantly into the shadows of the temple.
Zeus had not uttered a sound since Shane's arrogant words, his face merely sinking like water, the thunder patterns on his gilded robe glowing faintly as he watched Ares crack his knuckles and stride toward Shane with a cold gaze, showing no intention of stopping him.
Shane's feet lifted slightly off the ground, his body slowly levitating as his indifferent eyes looked down upon the approaching Ares.
"You must also understand one concept: the total Earth military might you boast of is, in my species' terminology, merely a place suitable for a vacation and relaxation."
Ares's footsteps halted abruptly, disbelief flashing in his eyes.
"What species are you even from? A nobody dares to babble about racial glory!"
Before his voice faded, Ares's pupils suddenly constricted, his divine body shaking violently.
He had lost sight of Shane in a fraction of a second, that ultimate speed far exceeding the limits of his perception.
"Where?!"
Ares roared, power surging across his body as scarlet energy formed a huge barrier, enshrouding himself within it.
"Here."
A chilling voice came from behind Ares, and before he could react, a heavy blow landed solidly on his back.
Crack.
With a crisp snap, Ares's spine fractured instantly, his thorny armor caving in with the impact, and he sent flying like a kite with a broken string, crashing heavily into a stone pillar of the temple and shattering the thick marble pillar to pieces.
Shane dove at high speed, instantly catching up to the airborne Ares, grabbed him by the ankle, and swung him around with the force of a heavy object, spinning about to slam him fiercely into the ground.
Bang!
It sounded like the bursting of a firecracker amplified tens of thousands of times over, its shockwaves causing even Wonder Woman to cover her ears in pain.
Zeus watched it all in silence, his eyes remaining profound and completely unreadable as to what he was thinking.
Violent explosions rang out continuously, the flagstones across the plaza blasted to smithereens, and debris and dust filled the air.
Before the dust could settle, Shane grabbed Ares by the arm again, jerked him upward, and hurled him high into the sky.
Instantly teleporting, he caught up to him in mid-air once more, driving another heavy punch into his chest.
Ares was like a manipulated puppet, screams constantly tearing from his throat.
From the sky to the ground, and from the ground back up to the sky.
Terrifying detonations echoed endlessly.
Every single impact was accompanied by the sound of shattering bones and violent explosions, the plaza of the Divine Realm thoroughly wrecked beyond recognition, its ground pottmarked with craters of varying depths.
This time, Shane held nothing back, nor did he need to consider environmental damage; every punch carried unprecedented might, his face expressionless as he simply locked onto his target with absolute deadliness.
After a thorough and uninhibited beating, Shane seized Ares's helmet, his fingers exerting force to warp the hard thorny helmet out of shape.
Immediately afterward, channeling the power within his body, he shot fiercely toward the sky, arbitrarily picking a direction to begin accelerating without limit.
This was the mandatory lesson taught by the Viltrum Empire to every warrior—the Destruction Decree.
A target assigned the Destruction Decree required no consideration of consequences, sparing no effort even if it meant destroying the entire planetary structure.
The atoms inside Shane's body entered a semi-transition state, his surface flight speed multiplying exponentially, breaking Mach 45 within ten seconds and far surpassing his own limit of reflexive reaction.
The airflow and shockwaves generated by high-speed flight carried immense heat, continuously blasting apart the lands of the Divine Realm to form high-temperature red-orange plasmic lightballs, tearing huge cavities into the ground while rolling dust and heatwaves from afar swept across the entire temple district.
Ares, clutched in his grip, could no longer let out miserable shrieks.
Under the intense friction and high heat, the God of War's body and armor melted together, and within moments, only a skull resembling a pool of asphalt remained glued to Shane's palm.
Shane's expression tightened, and he casually flung away that clump of unidentified filth, gritting his teeth to withstand the tearing pressure amidst the still-accelerating flight, executing a massive curved U-turn to shoot straight toward Zeus like a bolt of black lightning.
Ares had perished, yet Zeus still had not made a move, which convinced Shane that the King of Gods was currently exerting all his might to suppress space and could not spare any further power.
Faced with Shane charging directly at him, Zeus let out a cold snort, his voice chilling.
"You are too arrogant; Ares was only the first."
Before you continue