Boom!!
The flames of war were burning!
When Ares descended to the mortal world and led the warriors who believed in him to strike at the front lines of the Trojan War.
He didn't notify anyone, and so, a war broke out.
The savage and brutal Ares even ignored the fact that his own daughter Penthesilea led the Amazon army that was still helping Troy; instead, he launched a ruthless slaughter against Troy.
Ares had many children.
Though he treated his daughters reasonably well as a matter of normal circumstances.
But when it truly came to his own interests, the selfish and cold side of a god was revealed by him in full.
The powerful war god appearing on the battlefield immediately brought a crushing and decimating massacre.
Though no advance notice was given to the Greek side, the war god alone on the battlefield was already a natural disaster that mortals could not resist.
On the Trojan side, many heroes whose names were not particularly renowned died in this surprise attack.
As the ancestral spirit and spiritual faith of the future Thracians, the pinnacle of warriors who revered valor.
Even among the gods, he was the most famed for his bravery and skill in battle.
But Ares appearing on the battlefield was like a crimson storm.
Several nearby city-states that Troy had only just managed to reclaim through the strength of Hector and Penthesilea were quickly overrun.
Then came the massacre!!
Even Troy's famous archer, favored by Apollo and gifted with a divine bow, Pandarus, who would nearly shoot Diomedes in the future, was casually cut down by the war god in this sudden war.
Fast. Too fast.
The army led by Ares quickly overran all the city-states and drove the Trojans back into the high ground.
The final high walls.
But could the walls of Troy, which had held against mortal heroes and even brought Achilles to a standstill, hold against a true god?
Not even Hector dared to imagine the answer.
And Hector, who received the news and rushed urgently toward the battlefield, encountered his mother Hecuba in the palace corridor.
So he asked his mother to immediately take the women to the temple of the goddess Athena and seek her protection.
Only Athena would show them mercy, regardless of their status as the losing side, and, looking upon these helpless women, would stand against the war god's brilliance and protect them.
Because in the Greek world's divine order, as the defeated side, they were supposed to have no rights to speak of.
Among all the gods, only Athena showed the most compassion toward women and did not endorse the unspoken rule that the women of a defeated nation should become slaves of the victors.
At this moment, Hector was essentially putting his affairs in order.
He did not believe he could defeat the powerful war god.
How could a human possibly fight a god and win?
This was like dynamiting a fish pond.
The other side cheated.
Cheated in a way that left people so powerless, there was nothing but deep despair and no resistance at all.
And before Hector could even reach the front lines, the front lines were already unable to hold against the war god's assault.
Just as the war god was about to use his immense divine power to break through those sacred walls forcibly.
A radiant shadow suddenly flashed into appearance atop Troy's city walls.
It was the god of light, Apollo.
The moment he appeared, he fixed Ares with a cold and furious stare.
Then he drew his bow.
Whoosh!!
The world only knew Artemis as the hunting goddess with her powerful archery skill, and gradually forgot that Apollo, from childhood, was equally proficient with the bow and arrow, just as Artemis was.
In many myths, there were even stories of him descending to the mortal world in the guise of a powerful hunter.
He was even described in the story of the archer Pandarus as the god of the supreme long-range marksman.
When that divine radiance transformed into an arrow, scorching the earth and tearing through the air, suddenly shooting through the clouds like a thunderbolt.
Thud!!
Like a lash of light fired at the break of dawn, Ares, who was freely massacring the battlefield and mowing down everything in his path, was struck hard by this arrow.
Unable to dodge in time, his waist was shot through, and he let out a furious roar.
"Apollo!! You dare..."
"Foolish Ares! If anyone should be furious, it is I. How dare you kill Pandarus! When you saw the divine bow in his hands, could you not tell that he was a hero under my blessing and protection?!" Apollo seized the initiative and, with one line, turned the tables and suppressed Ares.
To be honest, he had no deep feelings for Pandarus either.
At this moment, he was only using him as an excuse to have a justification for openly helping Troy.
And Ares on his end was bewildered.
He really thought he had accidentally killed a hero deeply favored by Apollo.
But who could keep track of these things?
There were so many heroes across all of Greece under the blessing of their twelve chief gods.
Who could know that the one he happened to kill was your personal treasure?
If it were just a hero who received a single, simple blessing once, the gods generally would not take it too seriously or keep it in mind.
Only heroes like Odysseus, who received the protection and blessings of the gods on multiple occasions, would make other gods think twice when someone moved against them, wondering whether doing so would anger the god behind them.
Ares ate a loss.
But since the killing was already done, if it angered Apollo, then so be it!
Did anyone really think he was afraid of Apollo?
Just as the most thick-headed of all Greeks, the war god Ares, was about to continue his assault.
Crash!!
Because the sun god and war god revealed their divine might one after another in the mortal world, it even affected the weather changes on the Trojan side.
On one side, it was a battlefield of carnage like a living hell, and on the other, a brilliance of ten thousand meters, with even the city walls below responding to Apollo's divine power and emanating a fierce radiance.
After all, it was a city he and Poseidon built.
It was filled with both of their divine power.
When it was drawn upon now, even Ares found it difficult to break through.
Even considering the thoughts Greek gods had about spreading their mythological system to the Mediterranean region in the future.
It was not impossible that the original founding of Troy as a city-state was intended to build it as a forward outpost and defensive line for striking at the Hittite and Persian Empires, a vanguard for mythological expansion.
As a defensive line against the divine beings of other pantheons, leaving aside anything else, the defensive power was absolutely maxed out.
In terms of legendary fame, it was no less than the neighboring Camelot, that eternal city of white chalk.
What a shame that the foolish first king of Troy built the walls and refused to pay, angering the God-King Zeus and bringing about this war of destruction.
Since the dog would not listen, beat it to death and replace it with an obedient one.
And if those walls truly were part of Greek mythology's expansion and invasion into other regions, then what they guarded against was not mortals at all, but possibly the divine beings of other regional mythological systems.
That was why mortals were not used, and walls built by gods were needed instead.
Only walls built by gods would be sufficient to withstand the assault of gods.
At this moment the divine-radiance-expanded high walls actually completely kept the war god Ares shut out.
And before he could attempt to continue breaking through.
In the distant heavens, the God-King Zeus was furious and shocked.
He finally noticed the commotion on Earth.
After seeing the Trojan earth already running with rivers of blood through his divine sight,
The God-King was enraged!
He remembered what he said among the gods.
He warned them that they could not take sides with either faction!
Even the Greek allied forces, which he had secretly already predetermined to be the final victors!
Faced with everything his youngest son Ares had done, flagrantly treating his words as wind past the ears,
Zeus directly sent lightning down from Mount Olympus.
The thunderbolts crossed the vast distance and struck directly onto Ares's war chariot, splitting it apart completely.
Ares, startled by this sudden lightning assault: "..."
.
.
.
(End of the Chapter)