Darius Supreme

Theseus frowned deeply at the responses of his compatriots. He turned to Pyrrha who simply shrugged, her way of telling him that she would take no side in this. 

This left Theseus in a dilemma. He could easily use his authority to override the wishes of the others, but using it on the first day at the first unexpected situation would just be a testimony to a poor grasp of leadership and control. 

Sometimes, it was best to make compromises in the grand scheme of things. This was how he had often come out on top against his foes and why he was praised by all as wise and visionary. 

Theseus looked down and saw that the strange machines were still pointing their muzzles at him and his group, yet none were firing. 

To Theseus, this was a telltale sign that whoever was controlling them or whatever they were could be reasoned with. Understanding its purpose here might very well be the crux of their Divine Odyssey. 

With that in mind, the Demi-God was determined to maintain peace with this faction for now.. 

Medea saw the contemplative light in Theseus' eye come to an end as he made a firm decision, and she could guess his train of thought based on his nature and history. 

It made her eyes narrow as she had come to the same conclusion, but she was still bitter about not having been chosen as the leader, so she wasn't going to make things easy for him. 

Medea retracted one of her hands into her sleeves and made a handsign imperceptibly. A small gust of wind entered the body of one of the Guard Androids below, and suddenly burst outward as it shattered the machine into pieces. 

It happened to be one that Achilles was pointing at with his spear, which left the fellow dumbfounded. Theseus' expression changed while Hercules grunted with excitement, punching both fists together as he jumped forward. 

Achilles himself was flabbergasted, not sure how his spear had suddenly turned into a ranged weapon that could destroy enemies just by pointing at them. Pyrrha glanced at Medea subtly, yet did not say anything, but her body lit up in flames since a battle was inescapable at this point. 

With this undeniable act of aggression, the base below them changed into full-on red alert, and the various machines got ready to retaliate. Many of them began charging up slowly, especially the large rail guns. 

All of them were aimed at the oncoming Hercules, who stretched a hand out to block his face. Soon, almost 20 strange bangs were heard as the same number of purple-blue beams of electric light were fired and instantly struck the body of the oncoming Demi-God. 

Hercules, who had expected to tank the attack with ease, was shocked to feel his body sting all over. Even more, his momentum had been halted and instead of falling forward, he had actually been blasted back upwards at a speed where he blew past his four compatriots and soon became a dot in the sky. 

The remaining four were left speechless and trembled inwardly. Hercules was like their group tank! He was known to be next to invincible after Achilles, so how could this happen? 

The other four didn't have time to think as the machines soon turned their aim towards them. Their faces became grim as they spread out to fight separately. Each of them had different fighting styles and they did not trust each other enough to cooperate. 

Competition between Demi-Gods had always been brutal as each of them vied for the favor of the Gods so that they could establish a faith and gain more Divine Energy. 

While they would all be reward with such things after this Divine Odyssey, their cut of that would depend on their performance. 

As one could imagine, a majority of it was already guaranteed to go to Theseus as the team leader, which was why Hercules had fought for the position and why Medea was absolutely not going to let him succeed easily. 

Achilles yelled and dove downward deftly, dodging all the shots that were fired upon him, spinning his lance to divert others away. He was a special type of Demi-God compared to the others. 

Because he had been bathed in the energy of the River Styx, his entire body was invulnerable and impenetrable. You could say that the rest of his body had infinite Defense points, except for his ankle where he had been held when dipped into the river. 

As such, he was a fearless type fighter, always charging into the fray directly and abusing his invulnerability to end his foes. He of course did not know about his ankle weakness, because the Gods had ordained to hide it from him. 

Even they, full-fledged Gods, could not override the powers of the River Styx. If Achilles knew that he had a weakness, he would do everything to patch it up, which would mean that should they want to get rid of him, they would not have a way. 

His martial prowess was great, as he landed in the base and began weaving through the various Guard Androids, destroying them one by one using his lance which could easily cut through their metal. 

Even though they were made of Holy Silver, his lance was imbued with Divine Energy. Otherwise, Miranda's troops would be the hardest to destroy in the world. 

It was the same for the other elemental users. Theseus water spears and water dragons that were launched into the base destroyed hundreds of Guard Androids with ease, while Pyrrha's flames seared them into ash, leaving nothing behind. 

Those with a Divine Spark could imbue their attacks with Divine Energy, which was what they had done. If they had tried to use any other means to fight, they would have been unable to make any headway. 

Theseus and Pyrrha kept their distance and avoided the shots fired at them and used their elements to form shields to block those they couldn't. However, their faces became dark when they saw that each shield was only capable of blocking one shot, forcing them to repeatedly create new ones. 

They began to wonder just what these things were and how their energy could even destroy Divine Energy with ease. If they knew about Source Energy, they would have never dared to fight Miranda's creations. 

While Source Energy was infinite and ever-renewing, Divine Energy was not. 

It was converted from Faith Energy using a Divine Spark and stored within them to increase their Divine Powers. Unlike Mana, Spirit Qi, and Chakra, Divine Energy did not automatically recover itself. 

For example, a mage of Fallon had 500 points of mana. Once he cast a spell that used 300 mana, he would be left with 200 mana. However, his body would automatically begin absorbing external prana and converting it into mana for himself. 

The energy obviously didn't come from thin air. The same went for Spirit Qi and other special energies of the different continents. They replenished themselves because they had an 'impure' form that was converted by the body passively. 

Divine Energy was from Faith Energy, and such an energy was not necessarily natural. It did not permeate the air, but had to be generated through belief and mental worship by sentient species towards a specific being. 

That energy then entered the Divine Fire and was purified into Divine Energy which the deity stores within themselves. Deities did not have an upper limit for Divine Energy in order to make up for the fact that they could not recover the energy spent. 

For those with a steady flow of Faith Energy from worshipers, this was not a problem. Like these five, they had their own churches that provided them Faith Energy, so they could afford to use a bit in each of their attacks, which was even why they could harm Miranda's troops. 

Of course, as beings who had lived for many millennia, they had huge stores of Divine Energy. It wasn't every day that they were fighting and Divine Odysseus were rare and highly sought after. 

Nevertheless, the simple fact remained, going against an enemy with infinite energy with your precious, powerful, and limited energy was always a foolish choice. 

Medea hung back a little and only contributed a bare minimum to the fight. She was the youngest Demi-God among them and had only been raised a few millennia ago after being killed by Theseus after trying to poison him to death. 

Her store of Divine Energy could not compare to the others, but she was the most magically attuned of them all, and as someone who had been born and raised on Fallon, it was only expected for her to be able to use mana. 

She had only used Divine Energy in her attack against that Guard Android to spark the fight as she could not afford failure. Not to mention that unlike those old farts who had lived for far too long, and stayed mostly on Elysium, she was more up to date. 

She knew these strange things were likely creations of Gravitas. Well, that much anyone could guess regardless of age. However, Medea knew that Gravitas was not to be underestimated which was why she took on a more observing role during the fight instead of wholeheartedly taking part. 

At this time, a loud roar sounded out above the four, making them raise their heads, only to see a humongous figure blasting through the atmosphere with fire covering his body as he hurtled towards the center of the machine base.