Atlas's giant fist, clenched with the anger of the collapsing earth and the pain of a broken heart, shot recklessly towards Ares!
However, at this critical moment, the crimson aura on Ares's body exploded like a blast. Although it couldn't fully offset the terrifying blow, he sharply recoiled from this force, barely avoiding the deadly strike.
But Atlas's attack was like a storm; his massive avatar displayed speed disproportionate to its size, and the giant stone palm was again shrouded in a cage.
This time, Ares couldn't completely avoid it. He was violently grabbed by the giant hand holding the power of the earth, and the powerful grip instantly imprisoned his divine body, preventing him from moving.
Atlas lifted Ares to eye level, his lava eyes staring at the struggling War God in his hands.
Amazingly, hot, magma-like tears actually rolled down from the stone eye sockets and dripped onto Ares's armor, emitting a 'hissing' sound and leaving scorched marks.
"You..." Atlas's voice was no longer a roar, but a hoarse and choked voice, seeming suppressed, "What do you want to say?"
This was the anger of betrayal, the pain of being unable to ask for it, and the heart-wrenching jealousy after seeing the beloved's intimacy with another—all emotions finally turning into this painful question.
Týr held the hilt of Dáinsleif, bewildered by the unexpected event.
Ares stopped struggling. He looked at the giant god's avatar that was crying for him before him, his eyes complex.
There was reverence for the powerful force, a remnant of the 'captivation', but more importantly, a calmness, as if the dust had settled.
The deep and complex relationship with Týr seemed to have exhausted all his strong emotions, and at this moment, he only felt weary before this paranoid giant god.
He lowered his head, avoiding the hot, tearful gaze, and his voice was low and clear:
"I have nothing to say. Please, just get it over with quickly."
This submissive answer, like the coldest dagger, completely pierced the last glimmer of hope in Atlas.
He would have preferred Ares to angrily retort, cunningly make excuses, or even challenge him again!
Not like this... This kind of will-less neck-killing!
"The past," Atlas's avatar trembled slightly from the sharp mood swings, the stone joints creaking, almost weeping blood.
"Before the gates of Hades, at the foot of Olympus... I responded to every one of your provocations, endured every one of your attacks... Have you truly... forgotten?!"
These images flashed in his mind: Ares recklessly charging like a mad dog, being knocked back by him again and again, but returning again and again with even more twisted 'interest'...
Ares was silent.
He could not answer.
Silence... was deadlier than any word.
At this moment of suffocating despair and heartbreak, a frivolous voice with an undisguised smile sounded from the side, like a ghost:
"Tsk, tsk... What a pair of devoted mandarin ducks~"
Hermes had appeared at some point, leisurely leaning against a tree, playing with the double serpent staff in his hand, a bright smile on his face.
"The one who cannot love is the killer; the heart is like ashes, only seeking release. This is truly... touching, hahaha!"
His laughter was especially piercing in the solemn atmosphere.
Atlas was utterly enraged by this laughter and concentrated all his pain and resentment into the giant hand that had seized Ares.
Lava light wildly poured down his arm, and the destructive force began to compress—he wanted to use all the power this avatar could mobilize to completely annihilate the 'heartless one' in his hand!
"Die!" Atlas let out a final roar, the giant hand suddenly clenched, and a dazzling light flashed!
The alarmed Týr: "Stop!!"
However, at this moment of life and death,
the movement of Atlas's avatar suddenly stopped!
The energy condensed to its limit suddenly collapsed, like a punctured balloon!
His massive body began to flicker violently and become unstable; the earth and stones he was made of cracked in large areas, and the lava light rapidly dimmed.
"Ugh... connection..." Atlas looked in astonishment at his collapsing body, letting out an involuntary roar.
It was Hermes!
He had already calculated the time limit of this avatar from a different world, and at the most critical moment, he made an extremely subtle intervention.
It was like neatly cutting the last fuse that sustained the light, instantly exacerbating the energy depletion!
The avatar could no longer be sustained, and amidst Atlas's unwilling and painful roar, it collapsed into a lifeless pile of ordinary earth and cooled lava fragments.
Only a faint will, with infinite regret and anger, returned to the main body far away in Greece.
The deadly grip disappeared in an instant.
Ares fell from the air, landed on one knee, gasping heavily, looking at the pile of ruins before him, his eyes full of the daze of a life's aftermath and a hint of indescribable complexity.
Hermes slowly walked over to the pile of ruins, prodded a cooled piece of lava with his toe, and showed an extremely 'innocent' smile to the frightened Ares and the rapidly approaching Týr:
"Oh, what a danger! It seems maintaining an avatar across worlds is really unstable. Ares, are you alright? I was just so worried~"
In his voice was 'concern', as if he weren't the one who had stood by and might have just fueled the whole thing.
Ares looked at Hermes's hypocritical smile, then at the frowning Týr beside him, and finally said nothing, simply slowly straightened up.
Ares understood that he owed this trickster god again, although the way he 'saved' him made him feel as if he had swallowed a fly.
The crisis was temporarily averted, but the last look in Atlas's eyes, full of pain and hatred, remained in the hearts of every god present, like a brand.
This twisted fate was obviously far from over.
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