First came two spells to reduce his resistance, followed by earth-attribute gravity spells, wind-attribute slow spells, and a darkness-earth hybrid lethargy spell. After seven or eight exchanges, Thea's whip continuously maintained distance while spells flew out as if they cost nothing. Even with his high resistance, he was affected somewhat—his lightning-fast speed dropped by half a tier.
Without the special speed boost from divine status, the well-rounded Thea's own speed wasn't slow either. After all, attributes stacked from so much divine power weren't just for show.
With his speed reduced by half a tier, Makkari could no longer suppress Thea through velocity alone. He had to rely on his lightning spear to compete in martial skill.
His technique was simple yet deadly. Anyone who thought he only excelled at close combat would be sorely mistaken. This guy pretended to engage in melee for ages, then suddenly gathered lightning on his spear and fired a transparent white bolt that caught Thea completely off guard.
Fortunately, she reacted well. In the one-tenth of a second before he gathered lightning, she sensed it coming. At the cost of a large hole blown through her coin-woven cape, she dodged the strike.
Having held that back for so long, Makkari showed no disappointment and began mixing irregular ranged attacks into his powerful close combat.
Thea didn't retreat either. Her whip covered every opening like an impenetrable barrier at mid-range, occasionally adding energy attacks to the whip to return the favor.
The two clashed at high speed for over forty exchanges. Highfather hadn't been boasting when he said they could spar here—the floor and walls were harder than any metal in the universe Thea knew. The energy overflow from their battle hadn't damaged the chamber in the slightest.
"Bright enough for you?" Orion lowered the protective visor on his helmet, complaining to his friend Lightray. He preferred the fist-to-flesh style—fights where you punched someone's kidney out. He couldn't really appreciate this extremely dazzling combat style between Thea and Makkari.
Lightray, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed this kind of battle. Or rather, he enjoyed the various lights their combat generated. Whether Thea's wealth-light or Makkari's lightning, he could absorb both and convert them into his own divine power.
However, the mild-mannered Lightray didn't say anything strange to his friend. He relied on speed himself, and both fighters were crystal clear in his vision. He carefully explained to Orion the subtleties and intensity of their battle.
The remaining gods shared similar attitudes—they all supported having a powerful new ally.
The pressure from Darkseid was simply too great. Ordinary New Gods celebrated and enjoyed themselves, unable to sense any difference from before. This was because they relied on Highfather's protection—he bore Darkseid's weight, while the remaining pressure distributed among what had been the Council of Eight and was now the Council of Nine.
Mirroring this side's Council of Eight, Darkseid had similarly established an elite council named after himself. The battle between the Council of Eight and Darkseid's Elite had lasted countless years.
Beyond some honor, there weren't many benefits. The gods all welcomed new members joining their ranks to share the burden.
They didn't understand Thea's true capabilities, but could see that old comrade Makkari wasn't using his full strength. Psychologically, they were quite satisfied with this result.
As the battle lengthened, Thea gained some superficial understanding of her own divine position. She'd been pulled here by Metron immediately after ascending—her divine power application definitely couldn't match Makkari, who'd been a god for who knows how many years.
However, based on her previously diverse abilities, she developed some new ideas for divine power application.
The most basic understanding of wealth was money. Money's positive function, besides promoting exchange, was maintaining order. It had quite a few negative aspects too, and Thea immediately thought of one relevant to combat—confusion. As the saying goes, money talks—that was exactly the principle.
She hadn't used the Erasure Eyes gained from the particle explosion. After ascending, her application of this ability had become clearer. She sensed she could erase Makkari, but unlike erasing ordinary people, erasing a New God would carry an astronomically high price. This wasn't a death match at all—completely unnecessary to use such a mutually destructive method.
Thea infused her wealth divine power into her eyes, combining it with fear and pity emotions. Divine power as primary, emotional impact as secondary—when passing close by, she casually glanced at him.
Makkari, who'd been dancing his spear impenetrably, had his attention immediately drawn by her gaze. A New God who'd fought for billions of years naturally had no concept of money, but greed was unavoidable to some degree.
His unshakeable composure was stirred by greed, creating a tiny crack. Fear and pity seized the opportunity, rapidly eroding his mental defenses.
Fortunately, he wasn't Ra's al Ghul. His long life had given him rich combat experience. The moment his attention was pulled away, he knew he'd been caught.
Relying on iron will forged in mountains of corpses and seas of blood, he forcibly suppressed the discomfort. Ignoring whatever pity or fear, he made his heart ice-cold, using this ruthless attitude to nearly resist Thea's gaze assault.
"Nearly" because his movements were still affected. Thea caught the fleeting opening, coiling her whip around his ankle. Losing balance, he was flung into the air.
"Commander, watch out!" Thea extended her hand, using lightning to simulate a throwing spear and hurled it at the airborne Makkari.
Having regained control of his body, Makkari dodged the spear in mid-air. Unfortunately, one mistake led to more—their distance had widened considerably, and Thea began leveraging her advantage, raining massive amounts of magic down on him.
She unleashed flame storms, ice cones, and acid rain, periodically lowering Makkari's magic resistance and adding several curse spells.
Magic was one tier below divine power, and many deities actually knew how to use it. Knowing how was one thing; using it well was another. Like the difference between an ordinary person throwing punches and a martial arts grandmaster doing so—the gap was enormous.
Whether it was an illusion or not, Thea felt that many female deities excelled at magic. Among her acquaintances—current Greek acting God-King Hera, Egyptian God-Queen Isis—these goddesses were all renowned among the gods for their magic.
Thea naturally followed this path now. The days of rolling up her sleeves to trade sword blows were long gone. Her understanding of magic far exceeded these New Gods' conventional thinking.
Makkari wasn't simply being suppressed either. His judgment was precise, his combat instincts incredibly sharp. He truly hadn't seen many of these spells, but he could clearly distinguish which magic could be endured with his body and which required dodging.
After another twenty minutes of fighting, with the combat zone expanding and spectators running out of standing room, Highfather finally spoke.
"Enough. God of Lightning and Goddess of Trade and Wealth, you may cease."