Ares said with a gentle gaze, "Thank you, Mobius. I don't want to embarrass my mother."
"I never cared for it, did I?" Mobius caressed the twelve-leaf silver chain by his ear.
Ares clapped his hands, and twelve fiery warhorses trotted before him.
Bronze greaves crushing the flowing clouds, Ares, with a graceful demeanor, pulled Mobius's wrist and walked through the horses.
The twelve fiery warhorses neighed above their heads, and the sparks from their hooves ignited the fragments of shields suspended in the air. Mobius reached out and caught a burning piece of bronze, watching the fire of war solidify into the shape of a pomegranate seed in his palm.
They descended before a staircase forged from a thousand broken swords. The Temple of War, like a coiled steel beast, lay prostrate on the mountain peak. The temple's outer walls were countless shields embedded with wailing faces, each face repeating its last words before death.
Although Mobius had already seen Zeus's temple, he was still awestruck by the appearance of the Temple of War.
With obsidian as its bones and bronze as its veins, it stood on the precipice extending from Olympus, like a fallen star.
Twelve Prism pierced the clouds, each edge tempered with the frost of a thousand years of battle, reflecting the cold gleam of sharpened weapons as moonlight flowed over them.
This imposing grandeur made the curved dome of St. Paul's Cathedral seem like a cowering lamb.
While Gothic cathedrals filtered gentle heavenly light through colorful glass, the prism array of the temple's dome forged sunlight into golden weapons at noon. The entire main hall's floor was covered with weapon diagrams, and as the light blades moved, it was as if countless soldiers were arrayed and drilling on the jade slabs.
The stained glass depicted not saints holding lambs, but the War God tearing apart mountains, with liquid light flames flowing from wounds inlaid with crimson glass. Whenever an eclipse occurred, a blood waterfall would be cast upon the walls.
"It's truly magnificent!" Mobius couldn't help but exclaim, "I've never seen a temple that could awe a god like me."
"All the temple architecture in my mind is like the difference between sand and boulders compared to your temple," Mobius said softly.
"If you wish, the Temple of War can also be your temple, my dear Mobius. Healing and war are intertwined, aren't they?" Ares led Mobius into the temple.
"Then thank you, Your Highness Ares." Mobius felt as if something had heavily struck his heart, his fingertips trembling slightly, and he revealed a faint smile.
"No need to thank me!" Ares's gaze was serious, and his hand rested on Mobius's shoulder. "After all, you are my subordinate god! We are the closest beings to each other."
Mobius chuckled and said, "Alright, Your Highness Ares, then give me a room." Mobius replied.
Here, Mobius experienced the feeling of kinship for the first time. He was an orphan in his previous life, with few friends, and had never experienced such unreserved sharing.
This made Mobius feel not bad at all.
The bronze doors slowly closed at Mobius's smile, as the scent of cedar and rust drifted from afar.
Ares's cloak swept across the obsidian floor, trailing a lava-like gleam in the moonlight. They passed through the colonnade inscribed with the names of the fallen, their war boots crushing solidified blood amber.
"This isn't the way to the sleeping quarters." Mobius stopped, the twelve-leaf silver chain slowly falling by his ear.
Ares's finger traced the wall, and the wailing faces on the shields suddenly fell silent.
A hidden door appeared amidst the bloodstains, and the sound of weapons being quenched echoed from behind an archway entwined with rose vines. "The most precious thing in the Temple of War is not divine artifacts." The War God's eyes gleamed with molten gold. "It's the Snowmelt Garden, unknown even to Zeus."
Blood-red irises turned to ash upon touching Mobius's fingertips, revealing the boiling starry sky beyond the door.
Mobius gasped—tens of thousands of black iron irises were rooted among broken swords, liquid starlight flowing along their petal edges, each leaf inscribed with the last words of the fallen. Lava streams wound through the amethyst irises, and steam condensed into weeping statues under the cold moon.
"Mother always said war is a wasteland," Ares said, plucking an iris. Thorns pierced his palm, and blood beads bloomed into crimson water lilies as they fell into the stream. "But she forgot, the most vibrant flowers bloom on scorched earth."
Mobius's healing power instinctively surged, an emerald aura enveloping the War God's bleeding hand. Ares suddenly seized his wrist, his calloused thumb caressing Mobius's prominent wrist bone: "You see, my wounds always heal in your hands."
They walked beneath a canopy woven from crystal vines, stardust falling on Mobius's shimmering eyelashes.
Ares suddenly stopped, the clang of his armor startling a flock of resting flame butterflies. The moment Mobius bumped into his back, the War God turned and trapped him between a bronze tree and his chest.
"Do you know why these irises never wither?" Ares's breath brushed his ear. "Each one has drunk my divine blood."
Mobius's fingertips trembled; he saw tears within the irises.
Countless "Areses" were sealed within the tears—the moment the young War God broke his spear, the humiliation of being trampled by Helios, the sorrow in his heart when Zeus's lightning pierced his chest.
Mobius suddenly understood that this garden was the War God's never-healing scar.
"You are the first to see these..." Ares's lips were almost touching the carotid artery on his neck. "...living things."
A dark red sky suddenly unleashed a downpour, but it wasn't rain. Mobius reached out and caught the falling crystals; within those prisms were sealed Ares's painful tears.
Ares untied his hair, letting his silver hair flutter in the rain of tears: "Whenever someone sheds tears because of war, it rains here."
Mobius couldn't help but rub his eyes, seeing golden threads embroidering their intertwined figures, a prophetic poem chanting in the bloody wind:
"When war bows to healing, when scars become crowns,
A bronze heart beats in an emerald cage,
The torn divinity will finally become one,
The twilight of Olympus blossoms into a bloody dawn,
The divine power of prophecy shines beside Mobius.
Ares suddenly crushed the prophetic power swirling around Mobius, and the fragments transformed into fire butterflies that flew towards Mobius.
Mobius subconsciously raised his hand, only to find the fire butterflies gently resting on his fingertips. "You see," the War God's blood-stained finger caressed his lips, "even destruction submits before you."
"No, Your Highness, it's that you don't wish to wield the power of destruction," Mobius slowly sent the fire butterflies away.
The peaceful moon climbed the dark curtain, and twelve fiery warhorses trampled the tear-shedding irises.
Ares carried the sleeping Mobius towards the steel throne, behind which hung a broken spear.