Eron hovered above the churning Pacific, his form no longer merely flesh and bone. He had become a gravitational singularity, the air around him warping under the sheer density of the power he had stolen. The electric white of Zeus in his eyes was now marbled with the blood-red of Sin and the golden ichor of Hercules.
Diana drifted toward him, her Aphrodite-born aura flickering like a candle in a gale. She could feel that his gaze wasn't fixed on the flickering lights of Los Angeles or the dark abyss of the sea. He was looking beyond.
"You are distant, my King," Diana whispered, her hand brushing his arm, which now felt like forged, heated metal. "The world is at our feet. The Wizard's champion has fallen, and Olympus is silent. What could possibly pull your focus from this triumph?"
Eron did not turn. His voice didn't travel through the air; it vibrated directly into her mind, heavy with the weight of a fallen god.
"Triumph is an optical illusion, Diana," he resonated. "I have absorbed strength, sin, and will. My senses no longer stop at the atmosphere. I feel... vibrations."
He extended a hand toward the black void of space.
"There are beings, Diana. Entities that watch this world as if it were a grain of dust on a board. They saw Ares fall. They felt the death of Hercules. To them, Earth is just a feast that hasn't been served yet. They are far stronger than anything we've faced. Gods from other worlds, galactic tyrants, forces that move entire nebulae."
Diana felt a prickle of something she hadn't felt in eons: a slight hesitation. If Eron, with all the power he had gathered, spoke with such gravity, the threat was real.
"What can we do against such beings?" she asked, leaning in, seeking the brutal security of his presence. "If Olympus and the heroes of this world were no match for you, how do we face what comes from the stars?"
Eron finally looked at her. His smile wasn't one of fear, but of predatory, infinite ambition. He tightened his fist, and his Power Ring emitted a pulse that sent the ocean waves below retreating for miles.
"The answer is simple, my Queen," he said, as the sky above began to swirl into a vortex of black clouds and jagged lightning. "We must get stronger."
He looked toward the Trident of Neptune glowing in the deep, and then toward the stars above.
"I will not wait for them to arrive and judge us. I will devour every source of power in this solar system. I will rip the Trident from the floor of the sea; I will drain the sun itself if I must. When they arrive, they won't find a planet to conquer... they will find a monster that has already eaten all its idols."