*Chapter 246: Escaped? What a Shame! (Third Update)*

Hippolyta was a bit dazed. She gazed at the towering figure of Atreus beside her, feeling the storm howling relentlessly outside the sealed hall.

There was a time when she was young and reckless, full of ideals about love and justice. But the gods’ infighting and wars between nations had long worn her out. Over the millennia, the very definition of "justice" had grown increasingly vague to her.

Time had worn away her sharp edges, and even she didn’t know what she had been holding onto for so many thousands of years.

At this moment, she and the Amazon warriors saw a god, standing tall on the earth with a divine sword, fighting alongside them. Suddenly, it felt like a return to the mythic age.

That was the Amazon’s most glorious era—banners flying high, spears shining, swords dense as a forest, and the sound of horns echoing. It turns out the gods never truly left us!

Hippolyta, and the warriors around her, all felt their courage swell.

Facing alien invaders threatening the survival of the entire Earth, they could proudly stand tall and bravely face death!

Closer!

Even closer!

A sudden blue beam of light descended from the sky, with hexagonal blue grids swirling around it.

Atreus stared at the ever-changing beam and said, "There are two options now. One, I can cut off this space teleportation channel, which will temporarily stop the invasion..."

"We choose the second option!" To his surprise, Hippolyta, Penthesilea, and Diana all spoke in unison.

Atreus was slightly startled, then understood: time is a butcher's knife!

Thousands of years were enough to destroy any flourishing human empire dozens of times over. Only those with long lifespans, like the god-blooded, could carry the responsibility of protection for so long.

The Amazons knew not whether their Atlantean allies still existed, and the human allies from the ancient war had long been lost to history. The safest course was for them to shoulder the burden themselves.

Though some traveler knew Atlantis had recently produced an Aquaman who unified the remaining underwater kingdoms, as for reliability...

Heh!

"Then let's... give the enemy a good beating," Atreus eyes gleamed with golden divine light.

The blue light above flashed rapidly, and then a small portal opened.

In the next instant, a powerful shockwave spewed out from the portal.

It was just about to blow away the Amazons standing guard there.

But a great hand stopped it.

Atreus left hand crackled with purple-blue lightning, controlling the surrounding atmosphere and redirecting the foul alien airflow to the ceiling of the hall, expelling it outside.

This allowed the Amazons' line to hold perfectly.

"Prepare for three volleys, then fire at will!" Hippolyta shouted, brandishing her sword.

The first to charge out were humanoid alien creatures.

They had two pairs of dragonfly-like wings, a golden glow on their chests, and heads resembling a mix of orc and demon. They were not only physically strong but also clad in armor made of unknown alloys.

They carried bizarre laser guns and swarmed out of the portal.

Parademons!

These were beings abducted from various planets by the Apokolips army and transformed into bioweapons through their technology, so their numbers were endless. They had no thoughts or free will, obeying only Darkseid. They had conquered one planet and parallel universe after another for him, and in large enough numbers, they were as dangerous as Doomsday across the universe.

Neither Atreus nor the veteran Amazons who had fought in the ancient war were surprised by this enemy.

As soon as they appeared, the nearest line of Amazon archers released their bowstrings.

"Thwang Thwang Thwang!"

"Boom boom boom!"

Flashes of golden light exploded, and the massive parademons, over two meters tall on average, shattered upon contact with the arrows.

Enhanced by the power of the God of War, the Amazons' arrows were as devastating as 40mm field artillery.

The area around the 10-meter-wide portal became a scene of carnage.

Ordinary vanguard units would have been overwhelmed by such a head-on assault.

Not the parademons.

These war machines continued to charge through the portal, braving the rain of arrows, and scattered in four directions, their flight paths spiraling through the air. The humanoid bioweapons from Apokolips screamed as they dove toward each Amazon warrior in the hall.

At the forefront were the Amazon sword-and-shield warriors, but the queen's elite soldiers showed no fear toward these mass-produced demonic creatures. They were already stronger, and with the God of War's blessing, they transformed into powerful killing machines.

"Clang!"

After the simple sound of a shield block came the thrust of a spear.

The blessed golden spearhead unleashed destruction far beyond a laser gun, piercing through the parademons' alloy armor as if it were tissue paper, skewering them like roasted lamb.

Block!

Thrust!

Recover!

The pattern repeated.

Within moments, a half-meter-high pile of bodies formed in front of the sword-and-shield line.

Atreus paid no attention to the parademons. To him, they were nothing more than flies he could swat away with a wave. The Amazons took care of any that dared approach him.

His focus remained on the portal.

He could clearly sense a powerful presence waiting on the other side.

It was waiting.

Waiting for the portal to grow large enough to let its body through.

Thousands of years of waiting had made Steppenwolf impatient.

He longed to wipe away his past shame with an overwhelming victory.

Finally, the portal grew big enough.

A massive figure, at least four meters tall, shot through the portal in a flash of light, ready to emerge in less than a tenth of a second!

At that moment, Atreus, who had been still, suddenly raised his hand and lightly grasped the blue portal.

"Crack!"

It sounded like metal breaking. The mysterious armor that was part porcupine, part living entity, adorning Steppenwolf, shattered the moment it passed through the portal, without any warning.

Well, not completely without warning—Hippolyta and the other strong warriors saw with their sharp eyes that the once-expanding portal had suddenly shrunk. The result was a spatial barrier that matched the size of Steppenwolf's armor.

The barrier then shrank violently.

Unable to withstand the spatial compression, the armor's spikes broke, split into halves, then quarters, and kept breaking down until the entire thing turned into a cloud of gray metallic dust, dissipating into the unstable space.

The next instant, the massive figure seemed to leap onto a burning hot iron, bouncing back in a flash of light to the other side of the portal.

"Did he run away!?" Atreus looked surprised. "What a shame!"

(End of this chapter)