Chapter 209: The God of War, Atreus (First Update)

As a member of the Olympian gods, Diana knew exactly what that glowing energy was—it was the manifestation of Ares' divine power.

Gods can be killed.

But divine offices are immortal.

That energy contained the divine power of the *Law of War*.

This meant that if Atreus successfully absorbed that energy, he would instantly become the new *God of War*.

Diana shouted loudly, "No! Wait, Atreus! Mortals can’t easily absorb the laws of the divine realm! Also, the age of gods has ended. By recklessly taking up a divine office, you might conflict with the world's natural laws!"

Unfortunately, Atreus couldn’t hear anything.

He could only vaguely see Diana's fiery red lips moving, likely shouting something.

At that moment, he was entering an incredibly profound state.

System notifications flashed crazily across his vision.

*[Congratulations to the host for successfully killing Ares, the God of War! Purifying Ares' divine soul... Negative elements of the soul have been removed. The host’s body is being transformed into a divine body... Warning! Warning! The transformation process may cause extreme pain.]*

In the next second, the sudden and intense pain almost knocked Atreus out:

It felt like his skin was splitting apart inch by inch;

Each muscle stretched to the extreme, torn apart, then reformed by an unknown energy;

His heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys swelled uncontrollably, feeling as if they had become giant balloons;

His bones creaked under an unimaginable weight.

The biggest transformation, however, was in his soul. In the soul's vision, Atreus's soul was being rapidly purified, condensing into a radiant divine essence.

As Atreus’s body grew larger, his aura erupted uncontrollably.

He smiled bitterly at the two women beside him, trying to suppress the violent power within caused by the transformation of his soul, and managed to warn them with difficulty, "Get away from me!"

The last syllable of his sentence turned into a wild howl.

"Awooo—"

Atreus roared to the sky as his body rapidly expanded, growing to giant proportions within a few breaths.

Even he didn’t expect the armor he had taken from Achilles to grow along with him.

In the blink of an eye, a hundred-meter-tall giant Atreus stood towering over the ruins of the castle.

His figure loomed higher than the ancient trees at the far end of the castle, and his enormous weight made the already devastated castle grounds crumble beneath him. A mere movement from him caused the earth to tremble.

Diana and Penthesilea were stunned, their mouths hanging open in shock.

They had never imagined that Atreus, who possessed the *God-Slayer Seed*, would one day slay a god for real, seize Ares’ power, and become a true deity.

And Atreus, after letting out an earth-shaking roar to release the surging power inside him, looked at the system notifications with a mix of amusement and disbelief.

At this moment, all his base stats were skyrocketing, soaring to four digits in the blink of an eye.

As the price for this, he noticed something called *Divine Power* depleting rapidly.

Suddenly, he realized something: "So maintaining the Titan form consumes divine power like crazy!"

With that thought, he stopped trying to maintain the form.

The wild divine power fluctuations in his Titan body calmed down, and his exaggerated size quickly shrank.

In just a few breaths, he returned to his ‘ordinary’ height of 1.98 meters.

However, the strange phenomena surrounding him did not disappear.

In the sky above, countless phantom giants in armor wielded swords, spears, and halberds over ten meters long, demonstrating the essence of warfare. Their phantoms appeared and vanished in the clouds like bubbles surfacing on water.

Next came phantoms of World War I soldiers operating guns, tanks, and warships.

The images kept evolving, eventually displaying space battles, including those involving the Chitauri, in the sky.

The heavens were responding to the divine power Atreus had unconsciously released, projecting his memories as illusions to interpret the new War God's understanding of war.

Seeing Atreus’s smiling lips, the two women could no longer contain their joy and were about to rush to him.

But at that moment, they both suddenly stopped.

They both felt a familiar yet strange sensation in their hearts.

Instinctively, they looked around, and what entered their vision were four magnificent and unfamiliar temples.

The style of these Greek temples was something they were quite familiar with, but what shocked their souls was the sight at the front of the temples. At the doors of the four temples stood four towering figures. The air was filled with divine energy that they recognized, as if they were standing at the entrance of the Pantheon itself.

The four main Olympian gods' phantoms first glanced at the two women, then focused their deep gazes on Atreus in the center.

To the north was Hermes, the god of commerce, travelers, thieves, and shepherds, and the messenger of the gods.

To the east was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, war, and the arts.

To the south was Hephaestus, the god of fire, blacksmiths, stone masonry, and sculpture.

To the west was Poseidon

, the god of the sea and horses.

These four deities, members of the Twelve Olympian gods, shared a subtle sense of destiny with Atreus due to the divine artifacts he possessed.

Upon Atreus's ascension to the position of War God by slaying Ares, they were the first to sense the call of fate.

Their reactions to Atreus were complex and filled with contradictions.

Firstly, they were undoubtedly overjoyed by Ares' death. The violent god, who had wreaked havoc across Olympus, was finally gone, removing a great threat that had loomed over their heads. Ares had been a wild card, unpredictable and dangerous, with the potential to attack the Pantheon at any moment. Though Zeus might have survived such an attack, many of the other gods, including themselves, could have been wiped out.

Next came the issue of Atreus’s identity.

It was immediately clear to them that Atreus had no Olympian bloodline. He wasn’t even a descendant of the Greeks—he was a complete outsider, a mortal who had become a god.

If it had been Diana who killed Ares, the gods likely wouldn’t have waited for Zeus to approve; they would have thrown a party themselves.

But Atreus? His very existence was a source of discomfort for the gods.

Lastly, there was the matter of recognition.

No matter what they thought, this mortal had seized Ares' divine power and office in his own way. In essence, he had already become the legitimate God of War.

Since only Athena’s domain overlapped with war, the other three gods instinctively looked toward her.

Bathed in olive-green divine light, her face was obscured, but her smile was still visible.

She spoke, her voice filled with wisdom and grace, “Atreus Wayne! Do you wish to join the Olympian gods?”

(End of chapter)