New God of the forge.

31

Once he had been punched outside, Hephaestus floated up high in the air as he took a deep breath feeling the fresh air, this  was going to be his first official battle and  he had a lot of options when it came on how to fight. Incidentally in the future he does plan on training Aphrodite so  that she can fight independently should he not be around, this was a good time to see how he would fair in  an actual fight so that he can teach it. Only  those who have experienced battle can teach others on how to battle.

Once both of them where outside Hephaestus was the first to  speak.

"just so you know, that was a freebie, starting now you best fight like you really mean it."

He spoke with  a surprising amount of confidence. Perhaps it was him being conceited and  arrogant or perhaps it was just a fact but at this moment Hephaestus believed Ares was far beneath him in  strength.

"please, why would I go all out at the beginning? And  besides you and I both know I'm stronger than you"

Ares responded with an  equal  amount of confidence, he  could feel the power course through his veins, with the amount of power he  currently had he felt as if he could obliterate Olympus with but a single punch from his fist, handling Hephaestus shouldn't be difficult as such its best to hold back and play around, taunt him a bit let him know how out matched he was.

With that in mind Ares disappeared  and  immediately not  but a split second later he appeared behind  Hephaestus and struck him on the back of  the head or he should have but Hephaestus lean forward and delivered a powerful heel kick right between Ares's legs. Of  course unlike humans male god's genitals weren't  so  fragile as such Ares suffered little damage but   Hephaestus' kick  carried a great deal of force  and  managed to  send him flying upwards before his  leg was grabbed and  Ares was thrown back down and slammed on to the  clouds that  served as  the ground for Olympus.

Without giving his opponent a  chance, Hephaestus utilized his divinity of fire, a blue and  intense flame ignited from his fingertip, the  flame was  similar to that of a cigar lighter but he  focused and  increased it's heat to  such a degree that it  became similar to a  torch before pointing  it Ares much like one would a gun. The  beam like fire sprang forth from his tip  and  expanded as it descended, by  the time it  struck Ares it  was big enough and  hot enough to evaporate steel. The  beam  Struck Ares  pushing him  further down  and  burning a  whole  through the ground and sent Ares falling down to  the world below and  Hephaestus never stopped the beam, he continuously let its stream flow and  increased its heat by the second.

"obviously he  won't die from  this, but let's see how long it takes for him to–"

Before he  could finish his  sentence,  Ares had already flew through the his torch and  appeared before him with his fist reeled back and already moving forward for a punch,  with  a look of intense rage on his face, he  threw the punch but Hephaestus caught it with ease.

"get back down there"

He  threw his own punch and landed a clean hit on Ares's face, the amount of force he put behind the punch shook  the entirety of Olympus and sent  Ares  falling back down at supersonic speeds and crashing onto the earth with enough impact to be heard all the way up to Olympus.

"what else should I test?"

Perhaps it was arrogance on his part but he felt that he needed to test his skills rather than take this fight seriously, he didn't even consider the fact that Ares gets stronger the longer he fights or rather he believed he could handle it. When he was sparing with Kratos he had developed the skill [Ultra instinct] however said  skill  was un-mastered and unpolished never did he bother to think to  train the skill or any of his skills for that matter circumstances prevented him from thinking about such things.