With the resources of the entire New Genesis at her disposal, Thea naturally wouldn't skimp on expenses. Darkseid had conquered countless planets, and Highfather had "saved" just as many—their resource wealth far exceeded Thea's imagination.
She showed no courtesy whatsoever to the old man. Rare materials flowed like water into her projects, and she'd even dragged the forge god out of his workshop to labor for her. The premium version of the magic network was officially going online.
"Build a node here, bury a runestone there"—she had this guy, who looked more like a robot than a person, running in circles at her command.
With unlimited investment, in just ten days she'd constructed a magic network blanketing the entire Fourth World. Thea directly blocked Apokolips's login permissions at the source, earning herself a cheerful scolding from Highfather.
To punish her for this discriminatory treatment and disregard for fairness principles, Highfather gifted her another divine artifact—a short sword. His excuse? Her close combat skills were terrible and needed improvement.
The short sword was indeed a melee weapon of exceptional quality. After wounding an evil enemy, it would continue burning them with righteous fire for two hours. Unless someone had higher authority in the justice domain than Highfather himself, they could only endure it.
Accepting the divine artifact, Thea humbly received Highfather's criticism and promised to follow his teachings next time. As for this time? Neither mentioned it, both pretending to forget.
Her battle team expanded once again, recruiting eighty thousand more soldiers and bringing the total force to one hundred thousand. She now commanded what could properly be called a small legion.
The magic network's completion didn't help high-level deities much—they drew power directly from the Source and had no need to route it through her.
But for the general populace and elite legion soldiers, it proved incredibly useful.
The warriors of the three great legions represented the cream of the New God race. Many now gained spellcasting abilities through the magic network, increasing their combat effectiveness by ten to twenty percent. This kept the three legion commanders busy beyond measure, drilling their troops daily to integrate magic into normal combat.
Thea didn't restrict legion members from sharing her simplified magic learning manuals with ordinary citizens. However, she made one thing crystal clear: they could teach this knowledge, but there had to be a transaction involved—and it had to be the kind of fair, equivalent exchange that Highfather valued.
Massive numbers of transactions began taking place. The simple, honest New Gods had none of the duplicity of saying one thing and doing another. They followed Thea's rules scrupulously. While she harvested divine power from trade, the New God race's combat capability and morale began rapidly climbing.
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Six days later, in Highfather's council chamber, the Council of Nine assembled once more. The meeting had been called by Orion, the second-generation god, who passionately argued that they should attack Apokolips while morale ran high. If not Apokolips itself, they should at least seize several forward positions.
The three legion commanders and Thea, the quasi-commander, all remained silent, waiting for Highfather to make the decision.
Highfather was equally pleased with the current morale, but after long consideration, he decided against deploying forces.
Orion felt disappointed, yet he couldn't refuse Highfather's command and could only suppress his eagerness.
One day later, perhaps sensing their surging morale, Darkseid struck first.
"Your Majesty, Ankar Kalia is under heavy attack. Please allow me to return for its defense!" Uggha, who resembled a dwarf, was first to request battle. He was one of Highfather's favored commanders.
Having spent nearly a month here, Thea had learned quite a bit about personnel through various information exchanges—people traded intelligence for her simplified magic manuals.
Ankar Kalia was Uggha's home planet. His ascension to godhood resembled Thea's own situation, though it had happened eons ago. The planet wasn't in Thea's original universe but in another—a parallel universe.
Comics might talk about Earth-1, Earth-2, all the way to Earth-52, but the New Gods didn't use such classifications. Neither Highfather nor Darkseid cared which Earth it even was. They had their own method of distinguishing space-time coordinates using Mother Boxes.
Uggha's home planet had always been traditional New Genesis territory. Now that the enemy had attacked his doorstep, Highfather's expression turned grim. Thea realized her new boss wanted to counterattack.
These days, having power but not joining the action made you no different from dead weight. She immediately stepped forward to boost her reputation. "Your Majesty, I'm willing to lead the magic legion to assist Commander Uggha in battle."
Uggha nodded his thanks. Orion, who always charged into battle first, discovered he'd dropped to third place and refused to be outdone. He pulled his best friend Lightray along. "We also request to join the battle!"
Thea kept her head down and nearly laughed at the scene. Lightray was one of the rare peaceful personalities among the New Gods, but he'd made the unfortunate choice of befriending Orion. Now he constantly got dragged to the front lines. Only his incredible speed kept him from getting killed.
Seeing four volunteers, Highfather turned to Pallas, the assassination goddess responsible for intelligence gathering. "Which of them has deployed?"
The fierce warrior woman answered respectfully, "Darkseid's eldest son Kalibak, and possibly the Female Furies."
Highfather calculated the situation. The enemy couldn't have only deployed Kalibak—there were likely deities lying in ambush. But his side was sending four gods. Aside from Lightray being slightly weaker in combat, the others were all formidable.
He made his decision. Uggha would lead, Thea would assist, and they'd take their respective legions to Ankar Kalia. Orion and Lightray would serve as backup.
Unlike the loner duo of Orion and Lightray, Thea and Uggha immediately left the council chamber to assemble their subordinates.
Thea directly contacted all her mages through the magic network. Her legion had grown substantially, expanding to three hundred thousand members. Using teleportation spells, her troops assembled quickly. Uggha, as the number-one main combat legion, gathered his forces with equal speed. The two assembled their troops, grabbed the spectators Orion and Lightray, and opened a Boom Tube with great fanfare.
"BOOM!" With a deafening explosion, everyone emerged from the tunnel onto Uggha's home planet.
Complete chaos greeted them. Within Thea's line of sight, winged Parademons swarmed everywhere. Uggha's people resembled him—stocky builds, green beards, like oversized dwarves. Unfortunately, facing endless enemies, they could barely mount resistance.
"Charge! Leave none alive!" Riding a lion-like beast and wielding a massive hammer, Uggha roared loudly. His legion rode similar beasts, many imitating his style—everyone carried hammers and plunged into enemy ranks for brutal melee combat.
"We're going in too. Everyone, align targets with me!" Using her super-vision to scan the area, Thea found the magic network didn't reach here. However, she, Hiyal, and Metron had pulled three all-nighters to create a portable magic network perfect for off-world combat. Today would test its effectiveness.