Zeus panted and leveled a baneful gaze at Nick but before he could take a breather Hephaestus came in with a heavy downswing of her hammer forcing him to block. She wasn't as strong as him in terms of pure power but her metal domain was nearly equal with his own lightning domain at this point and thus set them roughly equal. Hephaestus had explained how divine combat and killing worked and it was quite fascinating to Nick. Much like himself a gods physical form was merely a vessel for their soul and destroying it only caused superficial damage to them. -
To truly harm a god or kill them you had to destroy their soul itself which can be done in a few ways. The first was what Zeus and Hephaestus were doing which was covering their attacks in their domains as when a god was hit by another's domain it was a damaging thing for their soul. The second method was to directly attack their soul which is what Nicks soul domain allowed and why Zeus freaked out a bit when he was almost hit with the cero. The final method was to effectively starve the god to death by depleting the mana from the surroundings for an extended period of time.-
Gods exist in a pure energy state so when the surrounding mana gets too low their own energy begins to disperse to fill the void which after a certain point means death as their existence can't support itself anymore and thus collapses in on itself. Anyways Nick didn't just let Zeus and Hephaestus fight alone and jumped in with a fire domain and spiritual energy covered fist forcing Zeus on the absolute defensive. Nick couldn't stop the wide grin forming on his face as he jumped the god with Hephaestus.-
"FINE I'LL DEAL WITH YOU FIRST DOG!" Zeus roared and tanked Hephaestus's attack and stabbed at Nick with his lightning domain covered blade. Nick didn't even bother dodging as he looked at the god with a mocking expression as the blade created a massive hole in his chest. Hephaestus teleported away immediately and Zeus looked confused for a moment before Nicks body imploded into a blinding point of light and shot towards him. The gods instincts screamed at him to avoid this point of light but no matter what he did it hounded him relentlessly before eventually catching up to him and sinking into his chest.-
He was exhausted from burning his power to try and escape and screamed in rage as he realized why Nick had a mocking expression before he died , then it detonated. The entire world shook violently as a massive blast of pure destruction ripped out of Zeus and far into the distance around him. The blast wiped out everything in an area the size of the British isles leaving a massive molten crater behind. As Nick had expected Zeus wasn't killed by this blast but he had taken extremely serious damage and limped into hiding in his pure energy form.-
The rest of the world came to know what had transpired and effectively made a unanimous decision to not mess with Nick. There was now a British isle sized crater in the center of eastern Eurasia that stood as testament of how badly that could go for them. The earths own rotation and axis had been shifted from the explosion which caused some lasting issues as well such as the global temperature getting colder as they got a bit further away from the sun.-
Not wintry since the shift had been minor all things considered but a good ten degrees or so colder than before on average. For some in hot climate places this was great but for those in already slightly chilly or downright cold places it got worse. Even though Nick was the one behind the blast everyone blamed Zeus for it because it wouldn't have happened if the god had not come looking for trouble. It wasn't all bad though as Nick had managed to sneakily rescue the Zanpakuto spirit before his ability activated thanks to the blade being in the middle of his chest.-
Tengoku no saibankan or judge of heaven was the weapon spirits name and it was so powerful that it took it a month to be reborn as a daedra from the waters of the realm. Nick found it hilarious that Zeus of all people was the source of this spirit as the spirit itself was all about balance , patience and responsibility. Nick also learned something VERY useful from the spirit being reborn as a daedra , the realm actually grows larger and more powerful the more powerful the daedra bound to it were. He hadn't noticed that until now as the highest any of them was was tier four which was miniscule but this spirit was innately tier six as it was born from the imprinting of a divine soul.