Ares's main target for this trip was indeed the Persian God of WarVeleslana, but his first target was not this War God, but another deity summoned by Veleslana, who longed for battle and victory, and appeared on this island.
Melqart, the God King of Canaanite mythology who defeated the Dragon King Yamu, and later demeaned by Christianity as the demon Beelzebub of hell—this was the being he intended to deal with first.
The reason for this was the different conditions of these two Gods. They fought each other and ended up with both sides suffering heavy losses. However, the situations of Veleslana and Melqart were different. The former was a God with ten incarnations, so the cost of injury was that his incarnations were shattered by Melqart and scattered everywhere, and his own memory became blurred and chaotic. The latter, however, was stabbed by the golden sword that could sever divinity. He had no incarnations, so he only suffered severe injuries, but his authorities were not diminished.
Even if Veleslana, who lacked his incarnations, was defeated by Ares, he would not be able to obtain all the authorities and incarnations, because when Veleslana's main body returned to the mythology of this world, his incarnations would also subside. But Melqart was different; Ares could obtain all of his divinity and authorities simply by slaying him.
As for the fact that he was killed by him while not in peak condition, which therefore doesn't count as a proper God Slayers, Ares wouldn't care at all. This was originally something Pandora fabricated to deceive the world. Whether one could become a God Slayers depended only on whether a God was defeated and whether Pandora was happy or not.
If someone could win Pandora's favor here, then even if the defeated God was not in a perfect state, they would still receive the opponent's authority as a reward.
As for Ares, he didn't need to consider these things at all. His ritual foundation was his own "Multiverse Intelligent Navigation System." What Pandora wanted or didn't want was none of his business.
Moreover, Kusanagi Godou's birth was originally a scheme concocted by several Disobedient Gods and a group of Magic Association members in Japan. Ares was naturally happy to incidentally disrupt the plans of these friends who were living quite well.
Unlike Veleslana, who had to run around Sardinia to retrieve his incarnations, Melqart stayed within the ruins of San Basilio on Sardinia during this period, using the spiritual energy of the place to recover from the injuries Veleslana had inflicted upon him.
Ares had already used the power of money yesterday to inquire about the location of this Nuragic ruin. It was in Oristano, western Sardinia. Therefore, he planned to go directly to the ruins today to block Melqart's door and deal with him first, taking advantage of the time before Veleslana was defeated by Kusanagi Godou.
After waiting for a moment longer, the Italian small train finally arrived late, allowing him to board.
In fact, Ares disliked this kind of small train that was both shaky and slow. In his previous life, he was born in a country with excellent infrastructure and was accustomed to the speed of high-speed rail. He was very unaccustomed to this "Italian speed." Moreover, Italians' daily habits were already very laid-back. Normally, a life with three meals on time, no overtime, and two or three hours at a bar every afternoon was indeed very leisurely. But when it came to important or urgent matters that needed to be completed, it would become very annoying.
Just like this small train, Ares dared to say that if he ran, he would definitely be more than three times faster than this train.
But there was no way around it. Ares was unfamiliar with Sardinia. The route he found was also a tourist route for ordinary humans. They couldn't possibly tell him, "Run three hundred kilometers in this direction, and you'll see the Nuragic ruins," could they?
The small train rumbled along, Ares swayed with the vibrations on the train, bored to the point of sleeping and waking, waking and sleeping. By evening, the small train finally brought Ares to his destination, Oristano in western Sardinia.
He got off the train in this small town, which was entirely Italian countryside, then immediately set off on foot, rushing quickly to the Nuragic ruins. In Cagliari, he had already clarified the route. From here to the ruins was only about an hour's drive. Now he only needed to use his own legs instead of a vehicle to quickly reach his destination.
As the surrounding scenery flashed by, Ares traversed the mountains and forests, walking through treacherous terrain as if on flat ground, and soon reached his destination, the San Basilio ruins on the edge of a vast forest.
When Ares arrived at these ruins, it was already completely dark. Although the ruins here were relatively well-preserved, there were usually no tourists visiting, and at night, it was completely empty with no lights whatsoever.
Fortunately, Ares's physical body did not require artificial lighting; he possessed night vision. He passed through the relatively well-preserved Nuragic and other settlement ruins in the forest and successfully arrived at the plaza within the forest.
From here, one could look up at the well-preserved stone tower in the distance, and here, Ares could already directly smell the almost overflowing spiritual energy from the earth's pulse. This spiritual energy transformed into magical power, flowing in the air and continuously gathering towards a certain place underground.
Guided by this sensation, he quickly found the entrance to the underground temple on the plaza. Hidden among a pile of collapsed stones and trees was the entrance to a roughly triangular cave, which contained stone steps leading all the way underground.
Ares leaned into the cave to look, then reached into his imaginary space and pulled out two items. He first loaded the thompson submachine gun, filled with hydra's blood bullets, and held it in his hand, then took out a can of spray.
The can contained the hydra's blood he had left over from making bullets yesterday. This poisonous blood had been vaporized by him using special magic, made into an insecticide-like spray, and stored in this can.
Because Ares remembered that when Melqart was recovering, he seemed to have set up protective authorities in the outer perimeter. When someone approached him, it would trigger Melqart's authority to command locusts, and countless Demonization locust armies would attack the visitor. This insecticide was Ares's means to deal with this authority.
Anyway, toxic mist has always been a powerful tool for killing insects.
After completing his preparations, Ares entered the underground temple in the dark. He walked openly, not at all worried about being discovered by others. However, not long after walking along the stone underground corridor, Ares suddenly encountered an unexpected person in this underground temple.
A silver-haired girl with a single ponytail, holding a silver-white long blade, wearing a blue cape and a black, fitted uniform vest, suddenly appeared in the corridor in front of Ares. It was Liliyana Kranjčar, the kind lady who had helped Ares in Cagliari.
Because the divine aura emanating from the God King Melqart was too strong, Ares hadn't even noticed the girl's presence.
Ares had no intention of hiding, so when Ares turned the corner and met the girl, Liliyana also noticed his presence. She turned her head and vigilantly pointed her long blade in Ares's direction. However, the moment she saw Ares, Liliyana immediately exclaimed in surprise:
"Is that you? Sir, how did you get here?"