New God of the forge.

The God king is Victorious

Hephaestus dropped to one knee and Zeus wasted no time and quickly appeared before him and kicked him on the chin sending him flying up, he then Grabbed his leg mid air slammed him on to the ground and then kicked him with all his strength sending Hephaestus flying and crashing on to the barrier before dropping face first on to the ground.

"that fool"

Athena commented as she watched the battle, it seemed like Hephaestus had the upper hand at first but the fact that he got close proved otherwise, he seemed confident about the whole thing but now he just practically gave Zeus the upper hand and guaranteed his loss.

"you're the fools for thinking he could win against the king"

Hermes responded to Athena, to him this fight was over before it began, Hephaestus had no hope of ever winning against Zeus, The king only entertained the idea purely for his own amusement nothing less nothing more.

Following up on Hermès' comment Hades seemed to concur and threw his own words into the room but more directly aiming them at Hera the one he had a wager with.

"looks like Zeus might be winning after all"

"indeed, He has rendered Hephaestus completely powerless at the moment"

However Demeter responded to his comment, inwardly she was hoping that Hephaestus had begun his assimilation with his concept, while Zeus's lightning bolt paralyzes concept once one assimilates with their concept the effects of the bolt are mitigated making it less effective. When the bolt hits it doesn't just paralyze but instead sort of blocks the power one receives from their concept but once you become a personification all the bolt does is weaken you Rather than paralyze. Hopefully he had assimilated it. 5 days was more than enough time to fully assimilate.

"hopefully he can still somewhat fight otherwise he might just die"

Hera found herself feeling a strange sense of regret, perhaps they shouldn't have pushed their situation into someone else, if they couldn't beat Zeus why did they think Hephaestus could or rather that whole duel was impromptu and only happened because Hephaestus seemed eager to save Athena so Demeter must have thought it was Better to have him fight Zeus , at the very least since he wanted to save Athena he must have been confident in his ability to face Zeus.

"looks like he can still fight, look"

Hearing Themis Hera turned toward the battle and the she saw Hephaestus get up, relatively unharmed, barely any scratches on him, he simply dusted himself off and cracked his neck.
Nike from high above cracked a smile as she saw what transpired, the fight was about to finally get serious.
…..

Hephaestus finished dusting himself off and rubbed his chin, either Zeus held back or he punches like a human, well to be fair, Hephaestus has been increasing his durability ever since he stepped foot onto this stadium. He increased his durability while also making sure not to compromise the density of his bones.

'honestly magic is just bs'

Previously he has been only using his magic blood as a sort of energy that enhances his stats, there were no magic spells involved, sort of like feeding gasoline to fire, by pouring the gasoline the fire increases in size and heat however by using spells he can have an increase in durability without the increased density, this way Zeus he won't feel the change and won't be able to tell if he's inflicting damage or not thus making him and arrogant.

"I had thought my son would be better, how did you even manage to kill Ares, no wait he's an idiot he would have fallen for that trick too. When he gets reborn again I'll have to be hands on, looks like Athena is the only child of mine worth being proud of"