Ares took the slate Hecate handed him and examined it carefully.
The Moon Goddess had written her analysis in divine script on this slate. Her notes were very clear, so Ares quickly finished reading the entire conclusion. Simply put, this potion consisted of two main ingredients: one was an exotic component Hecate had never seen before, which could directly alter a living being's form. Hecate speculated that this component might be a product Athena had researched from the substances extracted from the Youxing Vanguard. The other component was the blood of magical beasts.
This potion contained the blood of three fantasy species: a demonized lion, a demonized goat, and a demonized python. It was these three elements that formed the twisted Chimera.
Upon seeing this conclusion, Ares's expression immediately turned serious. He hadn't forgotten that Athena possessed not only the fresh blood of various magical beasts but also the blood of Hydra and a demonized Medusa.
If three ordinary magical beasts could combine to form a Chimera, a monster renowned throughout the Greek World, then what if the blood of creatures like Hydra, which essentially possessed the divine status of a Great God, and a demonized Medusa, a terrifying monster that could reach the pinnacle and wield the power of a mighty God, could also be made into similar potions by Athena? Wouldn't that mean the Goddess of Wisdom could directly transform humans into Hydra and Medusa if she wished?
Ares put down the slate and asked Hecate:
"Is there any way to counter this stuff?"
"Yes, there is."
Hecate shrugged her shoulders:
"Athena probably hasn't mass-produced this yet. You should seize this opportunity to break into the Goddess of Wisdom's temple and take her head directly. That would end it."
"Tsk, that's very difficult, and it's not dramatic enough."
Ares clicked his tongue and said.
"Dramatic effect?" Hecate retorted, "Then what do you want?"
"Can we develop a vaccine for this potion... For example, when Athena leads an army of a hundred thousand monsters to attack, we just sprinkle the vaccine, and her army immediately turns back into a bunch of naked men." Ares gestured as he described it.
"What are you thinking?"
Hecate glanced at him and said:
"Unless we can figure out what that component she extracted from the Youxing Vanguard is."
"Hmm... actually, it's not impossible."
Ares lowered his head and thought:
"Actually, Tartarus's analysis of the Wandering Star Starship core is almost complete."
"Oh? Really?"
Hecate immediately asked upon hearing this.
"How much longer?"
"The previous spirit particle supercomputer reported to me that it would be at most a month. I have a feeling it will be in the next couple of days."
Ares replied.
Hecate immediately lifted her skirt and turned to walk out of the workshop. Seeing this, Ares quickly asked, "Teacher, where are you going?"
"Tartarus!" Hecate answered decisively, "I'm going to wait for the results to come out."
...
Under Ares's kind persuasion, Hecate ultimately played it safe, keeping her main body in the Underworld and sending only a powerless Nymph clone to Tartarus to observe the analysis results.
The two waited for three days. Finally, accompanied by a peculiar rhythm, the cube emitting countless light patterns withdrew from its full-load state. Gentle light shone down, and Ares's mind received a notification from this wondrous facility:
"Analysis complete."
"It's out."
Hearing this prompt, Ares's spirits lifted, and he told Hecate, who was patting Ares's back and jumping up and down, urging him to quickly check the results.
"Display the results," Ares commanded Tartarus.
Upon his command as the highest-clearance authority, this spirit particle supercomputer immediately projected a light screen, displaying the analysis report of the item from the Wandering Star Starship before Ares and Hecate.
The two then carefully read it together.
After a while, Hecate let out a long sigh.
"So that's how it is."
She looked at Ares and said:
"It seems our luck is good. We got something even more crucial than what Athena took."
Ares hummed in agreement and then continued to meticulously read the analysis report again.
Perhaps it truly was good luck. The cube Ares had casually pilfered from the Wandering Star Starship, after being analyzed by Tartarus, was found to be the operational core of that Wandering Star Starship.
While this core did not store information about Wandering Star itself, it contained complete information about the Youxing Vanguard within that Wandering Star Starship.
The Youxing Vanguard projected by the predatory Wandering Star were actually modeled after various civilizations from the cosmos it preyed upon. The vanguard in this Wandering Star Starship was no exception. This Youxing Vanguard, codenamed "Velber 03," was modeled after a civilization that revered combat. This civilization had developed to a very high level, possessing advanced transportation and cutting-edge biotechnology, yet they still preferred to fight with cold weapons. They possessed an ability to continuously enhance their combat prowess by relying on rage.
When their rage swelled, their strength and various physical attributes would multiply. Of course, such an ability also had a threshold; once the increase in rage and strength surpassed this threshold, they would directly lose their lives due to a phenomenon they called "meltdown."
After Wandering Star preyed on this civilization and assimilated all its achievements, it used this race as a blueprint to create the invading vanguard "Velber 03" for the solar system after modifications. Under Wandering Star's manipulation, "Velber 03" gained the ability to infinitely enhance its power through rage. It had no threshold; instead, the increase in rage and power had to be sustained by continuously absorbing surrounding spirit particles.
If there were no spirit particles, Velber 03's power would not only weaken but it would also directly die. However, by that time, the entire civilization would generally have been almost completely devoured by the vanguard.
Moreover, this Youxing Vanguard also had strong compatibility with the abilities of other life forms. It could integrate the abilities of the life forms it devoured as spirit particles and reinforce them into its own body.
Ares found it hard to imagine how to deal with such a monster before its own strength reached planet-destroying levels. Fortunately, this Youxing Vanguard didn't even have time to get angry before it met with an accident on the way and perished prematurely.
After reading this monster report, Ares felt more confident about his future struggle with Athena, as he could roughly guess what Prometheus's prophecy and Athena's plan were all about.
There were plenty of plans to counter Athena's potion. Since Tartarus's computing power was idle, Ares simply had it continue calculating the feasibility of these plans.
However, Ares now had an even more important conjecture to verify.
Through Tartarus's deep underground, Ares's gaze fell directly upon a certain Titan God, suspended and suffering torment on the Caucasus Mountains.