It took Nick a while but he eventually managed to pass out a single believers mark to every person in his territory but finally he was ready to activate his tithe. His aura flared out in a golden red hue from his body before shrinking drastically to exactly one percent of it's original size. "Faithful Tithe: COLLECTION!" he shouted and his ability activated. Immediately the marks in the possession of those in his territory shattered and just under twenty two million streaks of rainbow light shot into the sky and flew towards Nicks island like a reverse meteor shower.-
These lights ignored the wards and directly slammed into Nicks chest like drops of water and immediately he began to absorb and refine this mana causing his stores to rapidly balloon. A single mark gave a miniscule amount of mana like a drop of water but twenty two million marks was a flood. This was the beauty of this ability , it only showed it's true value when used on a large group. Nicks mana stores rapidly grew to the halfway mark of tier six by the time his first tithe ended.-
He had to grab the balcony railing to stabilize himself afterwards however as a sense of weakness overcame him and he knew this was the backlash of using the ability. Nen was the life force of the body so by effectively spending ninety nine percent of it on his ability his body was drastically exhausted at the moment. He would recover in a few days after his body had time to adapt to the low level of energy it had in it at the moment. "Is it wise to weaken your strongest form like this when Zeus could appear at any time?" Hephaestus asked concerned as she let him lean on her for support.-
"Not to worry. I am not strong enough to win against him at the moment anyways so I don't intend to confront him with this form but my other instead." Nick said reassuringly. "I still don't like this plan of yours despite knowing that it won't actually be fatal to you." She said unhappily. Nick sighed "I would prefer not to do it either but we need time for my power to grow and this has the best shot of giving it to us." he said helplessly.-
Hephaestus herself had confirmed that while Zeus was sneaky when he was at a disadvantage employing underhanded and despicable methods to shake up his opponents he also was bold when he felt he was at an advantage. She had witnessed this during the period that the gods were fighting the titans in. This meant that they would be given no time to accumulate power once Zeus felt confident in being able to overpower them. That was where Nicks "human" bodies ability came in as at the moment of it's death all his mana and aura would shoot into Zeus and explode. -
This definitely wouldn't be enough to kill Zeus but it would be enough to make him cautious and unlikely to attack them openly again in case Nick could use the ability again. Nick couldn't of course , nobody could as that was one of the restrictions Nick placed on the ability. It could only be used once EVER. No one else could replicate it even if they knew every detail about it due to this restriction. It was for this reason that Nick named the ability {Taboo Calamity}. While placing ones death as a prerequisite for an ability gave it a great increase in power it wasn't enough to reach the level Nick wanted so this restriction was added as well.-
This historical level limitation was so powerful that the ability crossed well into the divine as a result. In a related note there was actually a person Nick had banned from learning Nen in fear of what they could accomplish with it , Hestia. The goddess held the sacrifice domain and as a result was likely the most uniquely suited to creating abilities with the power. She knew instinctively how potent a restriction would be and could undoubtedly get VERY creative with her restrictions to create terrifying abilities.-
Nick outright banned her from Nen as a result to the point he had locked all tomes and knowledge of it in his realm where she had no hope of ever seeing it. Even further those he unlocked the power in were sworn to secrecy and exclusivity via daedric contract so they couldn't pass it to anyone else without permission. Anyways Nick brought his now weakened body into the realm and switched over his focus to the "human" body as he waited for Zeus to pop up.