Eron felt every blow from Hercules as if the planet itself were crashing against his face. The golden ichor of both of them mixed at the bottom of the crater, but in the middle of the agony, Eron smiled. He wasn't just being beaten; he was mapping the frequency of that force.
The ring on his finger, fueled by Eron's iron will and the excruciating pain, began to shine with an unstable white light. The emerald energy and the darkness of the Black Lantern fused into a point of singularity.
"That's enough… of being the punching bag… brother!" Eron snarled, grabbing Hercules' wrist with a force that made the metal of the ring groan.
Eron didn't fire a beam. He collapsed the magnetic field around himself and Hercules, creating an internal pressure so vast that matter itself began to come apart. The ring reached the limit of its capacity, channeling the divinity of Zeus and the power of Shazam into a Magnetic Supernova explosion.
The flash blinded all of Los Angeles. A column of white and blue energy tore through the sky, vaporizing the clouds and sending a shockwave that disintegrated what remained of the mansion and the surrounding hills.
Hercules, caught at the epicenter of the annihilation, was hurled into the stratosphere. He tried to grasp the air, but Eron's magnetism acted like invisible ropes, pulling him back toward the center of chaos while draining his essence.
Eron flew after him, breaking the sound barrier in a millisecond. He reached Hercules at the edge of space, where the sky turns black. The God of War grabbed the Greek hero by the neck, and the ring began to glow with an insatiable hunger.
"You gave me your blood," Eron said, his voice resonating through the vacuum by electrical vibration. "Now I'm going to take the rest of your myth."
Hercules' golden energy began to visibly flow into Eron. Eron's muscles expanded, his skin became as dense as the core of a star, and he felt Hercules' immortality merging with his own. He was no longer just a god; he was the physical apex of all Greek creation.
Down below, Diana watched the explosion in the night sky, which now looked like two suns fighting. She felt the moment the balance shifted. The power of Aphrodite within her vibrated in ecstasy as she sensed that Eron had finally broken the greatest hero of Olympus.
Hercules, weakened and losing his essence, looked at Eron with the last trace of dignity, but the light in his eye was fading. The dimensional transport of Olympus tried to activate, but Eron closed his fist, using the ring to seal the space around them.
At the edge of the atmosphere, where the blue of the world fades into the black of the vacuum, the silence was absolute, broken only by the electrical static emanating from Eron. He held Hercules by the neck, the demigod who once held up the sky now reduced to a shell of faded glory.
Eron didn't want only the energy; he wanted the core. The ring on his finger glowed with a black and golden light, pulsating with the rhythm of a predatory hunger.
"Olympus lives on legends, brother," Eron growled, his voice vibrating directly through Hercules' bones. "But I am the reality that devours them."
With a brutal motion devoid of hesitation, Eron drove the tips of his fingers into Hercules' chest. The metal of the ring and the electricity of Zeus acted like a plasma blade, tearing through divine muscle that no earthly metal could ever scratch. Golden ichor burst out, floating in shining spheres in the vacuum around them.
Hercules released a silent scream, eyes wide as he felt Eron's hand close around his physical essence. Eron plunged his arm up to the wrist into the hero's chest, searching for the source of all that legendary strength.
"This…" Eron felt the heavy rhythmic pulse "…belongs to a new king."
With a violent pull, Eron tore his hand back. Between his fingers, wrapped in golden flames and blue sparks, was the Heart of Hercules. It wasn't just an organ; it was the core of power that fueled the Twelve Labors, the engine of a strength that had never known limits.
The instant the heart was ripped out, Hercules' body turned gray and cold. The light in the hero's eyes vanished, and the weight that once shook mountains became nothing. Eron felt Hercules' final strength flow from the heart directly into his veins. His muscles expanded beneath his armor, his density becoming so vast that the space around him began to bend.
He was now the God of War, the Ring Bearer, and the Holder of Absolute Strength.
Down below, Diana felt the metaphysical impact. The concept of "Hero" had just died in the cosmos, replaced by something far darker and far more powerful.
Eron opened his hand, letting the empty body of Hercules fall toward Earth like a dim meteor. He looked at the beating heart in his hand for one last second before crushing it, absorbing the final drop of divinity.