The word echoes louder than any previous impact.
"Weak." It doesn't come laden with a scream. Nor with explicit anger. Vergil says it as a diagnosis… And that's what breaks Athena.
For a second, there is no storm, no pain, no tournament. Only the sound of her own blood pulsing in her ears. The word repeats itself within her mind, colliding with everything she has built since she came into existence as a goddess.
Weak.
Athena's jaw trembles. Her fingers close slowly, sinking into the mud like claws. Her entire body begins to vibrate, not in rhythm, not in control, but in rupture.
"No…" she murmurs first. Then louder. "No."
She rises at once. The ground explodes. Not metaphorically.
