Hebe is the goddess of youth, who also pours wine for the Olympus Gods at banquets. Like Ares, she is also the child of Hera and Zeus, making them siblings.
By the way, she was later married by Hera to the formidable Heracles, the strongest hero in Greece. This means that in the future, that rough and powerful Hercules will be both Ares's younger brother and his brother-in-law.
"Then quickly invite my sister in," Ares immediately ordered upon hearing the subordinate god's words.
After he gave the order, a moment later, two Nymphs belonging to the God of War led the beautiful goddess of youth, Hebe, into the God of War Palace. Ares did not put on airs; he directly descended from his divine throne and went to greet her.
"Hebe, my sister," he asked, "why have you come to me in such a hurry?"
"Ares," Hebe seemed relieved to see Ares approach. She asked, "My brother, what were you doing yesterday? You actually missed the banquet personally hosted by Zeus."
"Me?" Ares replied, "I wanted to train myself, so I went to the mortal world yesterday to find suitable monsters to practice with. What's wrong?"
Here, Ares lied to Hebe. In truth, he had been studying forging techniques with Hephaestus on Olympus all day yesterday and had not left Olympus.
Hebe carefully looked at his expression, then said, "It seems you weren't doing anything for our mother, Hera. That puts my mind at ease."
After speaking, he told Ares what had happened yesterday.
It turned out that just yesterday, one of Zeus's many wives, the goddess Leto, entered labor and was soon to give birth to Zeus's child. Because of this, the relationship between Zeus and Leto was exposed to Hera.
Ares and Hebe's extremely jealous mother, Hera, naturally resorted to her traditional art of persecuting mistresses. Furthermore, she had heard a prophecy from who-knows-where, stating that the children goddess Leto bore for Zeus would be even more outstanding than the ugly Hephaestus and the crude Ares, which fueled her jealousy.
She dispatched her monsters to persecute Leto, forbidding her from giving birth on land. Currently, those monsters are chasing Leto, and the purpose of Zeus's banquet yesterday was to ask other gods to help him persuade Hera. Unfortunately, Hera, who is currently enraged, will not listen to anyone.
Upon hearing the name Leto, Ares understood. This goddess is the future mother of the God of Light, Apollo, and the Moon Goddess, Artemis. As for these two children, it's hard to say who is more outstanding compared to Hephaestus, but in mythology, they are certainly more excellent than Ares.
For his own plans, Ares definitely needs to maintain good relations with the two great gods, Apollo and Artemis. Apollo can preside over important divine duties such as prophecy, healing, and music, and Artemis also has great insight into beast mastery and hunting. Once he establishes good relations with these two deities, Ares can learn a great deal from them.
Moreover, the Moon Goddess Artemis was a character who appeared in a mobile game from the world Ares was in during his previous life on Earth. If this goddess is born, Ares might be able to confirm whether this is the Type-Moon world based on her appearance.
After briefly weighing the pros and cons, Ares said to Hebe:
"I see. Then I'll go and try to persuade Hera."
"Persuade?" Hebe was stunned, then exclaimed in surprise, "Zeus can't even handle her right now, how will you persuade her? You know our mother goddess's temperament."
"Anyway, the fact that Goddess Leto is going to give birth is already a given. As Zeus's son, you wouldn't want us to ruin our relationship with our future brothers or sisters because of Mother, would you?" Ares shrugged. "As for Hera, as her most favored son, if I explain the severity of the situation, I think she should still listen."
Since it was on his way, Ares simply had his Nymphs retrieve the jewels stored in the God of War Palace, and then went to the Fire God's Hall to ask Hephaestus to forge a beautiful brooch for Hera on the spot as a gift.
After the brooch was completed, Ares took it and headed to Hera's temple.
Ever since learning about the prophecy of Kratos's destruction, Ares had been planning his survival strategy, and following the custom of his previous life, he had listed three plans: superior, medium, and inferior.
The superior plan was naturally to activate the black crystal's time-traveling ability and directly escape to another universe, making a clean getaway. However, this plan was temporarily infeasible due to technical reasons, so Ares currently had to focus his energy on the medium plan.
His medium plan was to first establish good relations with all the gods on Olympus, becoming a universally popular good guy, and find a way to ensure other gods would not perceive him as a threat. Then, in this state, he would research a magic that allowed him to feign death and escape, avoiding perishing with the Age of Gods.
As for the inferior plan... Ares felt he could imitate the savior Uchi's posture, offering his loyalty to Kratos when he ascended Olympus. However, this plan was not foolproof. While the old God of War in Norse mythology, who had cultivated himself for many years, might accept his allegiance, it was truly hard to say if that bald man, driven mad by the gods, would accept it.
Therefore, Ares's current task of persuading Hera was an effort to realize his medium plan, and establishing good relations with the siblings Artemis and Apollo was undoubtedly the best opportunity.
He arrived outside Hera's temple and asked the goddesses serving Hera to enter the temple and announce him. Soon, he received Hera's permission and entered the temple. Although Hera was currently seething with anger, she would not refuse to see her own son.
Upon entering the temple, Ares quickly saw his beautiful and charming "mother" on the magnificent golden throne. Hera's beauty and figure naturally needed no elaboration; if this golden-haired Heavenly Queen were not a rare beauty in the world, Zeus, that old lecher, would never have been willing to marry her as his Heavenly Queen at the cost of sharing his authority.
Hera's mood was clearly not very good at the moment. When Ares entered the temple, she was staring at a pool in the center of her temple. Ares subtly glanced at the pool and saw a gigantic venomous Python in it, riding the wind and waves across the ocean, chasing a certain figure.
That should be Python, the legendary giant serpent Hera sent to hunt down Leto and the siblings Apollo and Artemis.
However, Python's situation didn't look very good at the moment. It encountered an extremely strong storm and huge waves in the ocean. Although these weather phenomena were nothing to a monster capable of persecuting a god, they effectively slowed its pace.
This was Poseidon's doing. Seeing the goddess Leto being cruelly persecuted by the monster, the Sea King felt compassion and used his authority to block Python in the ocean. Of course, this was certainly the official explanation; there must have been instructions from Zeus behind Poseidon's actions, and the Sea King was just taking the blame.
But surprisingly, Poseidon truly could bear this blame. Heavenly Queen Hera on Olympus could at most vent her anger at fourth-generation gods like Ares, or her philandering husband Zeus. If she dared to get angry at Poseidon, the Sea King would undoubtedly show her a thing or two without a second thought.
Poseidon did not even fear Zeus, so how could he fear a woman who gained power by relying on Zeus?
That's why the Heavenly Queen was so furious now. Ares estimated that before his arrival, she had been watching Python here, shouting, "Move! Move!" while raging ineffectually.
Seeing Ares approach, Hera's expression finally seemed to soften. She asked indifferently:
"Ares, my child, have you come to make this shameless woman suffer and help your poor mother vent her anger?"
Ares hesitated, then directly knelt on one knee and looked up, saying:
"No, Mother, I have come to ask for your forgiveness for Leto."