The situation became clear.
Coming to Earth to stir up trouble offered no benefit to the Olympian Gods, for they were Elder Gods, not newly formed Evil Gods with shallow practices. In fact, they were already powerful enough without requiring any sacrifices or human worship.
Zeus, as the Divine King, didn't do particularly well: to him, Earth was like a massive brothel. Aside from establishing the Amazons, he rarely intervened in Earth's affairs and was pretty strict about the management of other gods, restricting main gods like the War God from coming to Earth easily.
This made many of Earth's powers not resent the Deity System of Olympus, with most people's complaints about the Olympus Gods revolving around Zeus's private life.
In this context, it was unnecessary for Poseidon to charge into the Atlantic and flaunt his power. Although sailors often called encountering storms at sea "the wrath of the Sea God," most were merely bad weather, and Poseidon cared little about the insignificant human sailors' fortunes, good or bad.
Yet, his recent move to attack Atlantis was quite intriguing.
Atlantis indeed did not worship Poseidon, and neither did he require their worship. Even if the purpose were just to chastise heretics, Atlantis had existed for many years; it was highly suspicious for him to choose this particular moment to act.
If viewed in isolation, this might not seem significant, but combined with the ongoing accidents on Mercury, it was easy to see someone was employing a diversionary strategy.
By hurting Atlantis's future queen, how could Arthur possibly stand idly by? For the sake of his rule's stability, he had to demand an explanation from Mount Olympus.
Although members of the Justice League had never confronted the Elder Gods directly, they wouldn't let Arthur face Poseidon alone and were sure to find him some support—hence, The Flash had come along with him.
Now, with Arthur severely injured and Mera needing to manage Atlantis's affairs to prevent anyone from taking advantage of Arthur's vulnerability, The Flash also had to remain in the deep sea, unable to leave easily; the Justice League suddenly lost two of its major figures.
Ares had died at the Teleportation Portal; had he successfully come to Earth with the same intent as Poseidon and made a spectacle of himself over Metropolis or Gotham, Bruce and Clark would definitely have intervened.
Then, the Justice League would have had to spread out its forces, dispatching at least another key member to confront the War God Ares.
And with gods like Poseidon and Ares behaving unusually on Mount Olympus, who knew how many more there were that if all came through the Teleportation Portal, attacking from one side and kicking from another, ten Supermen in the Justice League would still be overwhelmed.
Fundamentally, this was still the tactic of using the emperor to command the princes; ordinary humans were too fragile and almost powerless against these supernatural beings.
DC was too young, with many experts not yet on the historical stage or like Shazam, unseasoned and unreliable, and lacking a force like the Mutants who were unmatched throughout the cosmos. With the Olympian Gods setting the stage for this strategy, the Justice League's response would be clumsy and awkward.
If this scheming succeeded, the Justice League's strongest main forces would be diverted to Earth, and there would be significant trouble on Mercury.
The devices and even Mercury itself might be expendable, but the exceptional youth on Mercury were Earth's hope for the future, and their loss might set back various powers for a couple of generations.
The Young Avengers felt the pressure; their current adversary was unlike any they had faced before—cunning and formidable, and most crucially, skilled in concealment.
At present, only Witch Circe had appeared openly, but no one believed she orchestrated everything; the real behind-the-scenes manipulator was hidden deeper.
Then, Jason spoke up, "But to achieve the goal of diverting the Justice League's forces on Mercury, just sending Poseidon, or even both Poseidon and Ares together, wouldn't be enough. Now, although Poseidon has arrived successfully, Ares is dead, and other gods are unaccounted for, and there's been no major chaos on Earth; what's going on?"
Aisha understood. She said, "The Justice League and Professor Shearer are not to be trifled with, I guess they've already taken countermeasures."
"You're not suggesting the Justice League killed Ares, are you?"
Aisha began her reasoning from the beginning, saying, "The power of this behind-the-scenes manipulator is stronger than we thought, we've seen Poseidon's condition ourselves, he clearly wasn't normal."
Jason and Dick nodded, having been the ones who froze Poseidon. In theory, while the freezing generators could impose some limitations on the Sea God, it shouldn't have been so easy.
After all, an Elder God like Poseidon, who had survived to hold a high position and was no pushover, how could he possibly be immobilized with just a couple of freezing devices?
And his fighting with the Atlantis Warriors was also odd, using just two moves: throwing his Trident to strike the water surface, and swinging his arm to smash violently—just these few tricks for a grand Sea God?