Ares

Ares is the chairman of the Awakener Association during Neo Hargraves and Jack Hanma's Shadow Trial. A cautious institutional leader and Holy-affinity combatant, he opposes their attempt to rescue the Child of Mana because awakening Typhaon appears certain to destroy the surviving world. Different regressed histories then show him dying while defending the Association and during the Seven-Day War. Later chapters remember Ares as a dead Old God whose remains and weapon became objectives inside Tartarus. The supplied chapters do not narrate every transition among chairman, War God, and Old God, so those eras are connected without inventing missing ranks or events. (Chapters 147, 215–311, and 395–421)

Biography

The unknown man in Apollo's future

Apollo first brings Neo to Ares's attention through a Future Vision in which Neo holds the Child of Mana. Ares has already asked Gaia to read the stranger's Fate before committing a search party, but Gaia reports that no person named Neo Hargraves exists. Faced with incompatible evidence, Ares argues that the vision may be symbolic rather than literal. He suspends the search without dismissing Apollo's concern, making verification—not hostility to Neo—the basis of his first decision. (Chapters 215–216 and 219)

Ares redirects Apollo, Athena, and Emma toward Arzew and Spain, where an allegedly defeated Anomaly and a new Necromancer both require investigation. The assignment lets the Association test whether an Anomaly-killing Myth exists while containing a threat that recalls an earlier catastrophe. When Neo later becomes publicly known, Ares is also managing Zeus's unauthorized attacks in Titan territory and their diplomatic cost. The investigation that appears to delay Apollo therefore becomes the route by which Neo is found and brought to Ares's council. (Chapters 216, 237, and 239)

The Child of Mana decision and rebellion

The crisis changes when Professor Daniel Caelum reveals that his sister is captive in Typhaon's territory and may be converted into a Sovereign. Ares understands that her future knowledge could make Typhaon vastly more dangerous, yet he also knows an earlier containment attempt nearly woke the monster. He calls a council instead of making the decision alone. Neo and Jack claim the world will end unless they rescue her, but Neo cannot yet use Death and offers no proof that he can kill Typhaon before the world is destroyed. Ares therefore refuses the rescue as an immediate, unacceptable gamble. (Chapters 238 and 243–244)

Ares correctly anticipates that Neo will disobey. He gives Athena the Space-Time Cube and prepares the Association to stop him, turning a disagreement over risk into open rebellion. During repeated Cube loops, Ares drives his Holy Affinity to its maximum and stands between Athena and Neo. Learning that most Awakeners died across her failed attempts nearly breaks his composure, but he immediately asks for every prior strategy so they can fight again. When Athena instead spends the Cube's last power to remove Ares and Emma, Ares returns to an Association demanding her execution. He refuses to make anger his priority and calls Kronos, Gaia, and Zeus for help. (Chapters 245 and 247–252)

World-Time defenses and incompatible deaths

Later Shadow Trial histories place Ares inside the struggle to complete the World-Time Project. He urges Kronos to accelerate the work and fights the Five Emperors beside Athena while other defenders hold Typhaon. During an Outer God's attack on Association headquarters, Ares and Athena use their diminished Holy power to ease corruption in injured Awakeners. As the enemy's maggots approach, he orders Athena to keep healing and takes his greatsword toward the doors. The choice preserves the only healer while putting the chairman himself between the survivors and the assault. (Chapters 275–276 and 284)

Neo's independently acting Thanatos Intent clone seals the building and orders its occupants to remain inside, but Ares and Kronos leave when the clone begins to fail. Ares tries to heal it, only to learn that Holy and Life power cannot repair a nonliving Intent body. A surprise attack kills Kronos and then Ares before he can warn the others, a loss Neo later remembers while continuing alone. This death belongs to that failed history. The trial's regressions subsequently produce a different last stand in Chapter 311, so the two scenes are not successive deaths of one unchanged body or evidence of an unexplained resurrection. (Chapters 284–285 and 291)

Seven-Day War and the Old God's remains

In the history leading to the Seven-Day War, Typhaon has conquered most of the world while the surviving defenders assemble one final World-Time Spell. Ares and Apollo have remained hidden and gathered strength rather than died at headquarters. When the plan begins, Apollo burns his body as fuel for Sunshine while Ares holds all three of Typhaon's Sovereigns. Their attacks keep Typhaon's forces occupied for seven days, giving Zeus time to inscribe the world-scale spell. Charybdis's winds finally tear Ares apart and cast down his weapon, but the delay lasts long enough for the temporal plan to activate. (Chapters 310–311)

Much later, Percival tells Neo that the Sphinx located Ares's corpse in Tartarus and names Ares among the dead Old Gods. Percival's mission is to retrieve the corpse and God weapon if possible; Kane Williams says expedition records last placed a similar weapon in the Abyss of Nightmares's second floor. The supplied chapters do not show either object recovered, nor do they narrate how the Association chairman became the Old God who died there. The report is therefore preserved as later historical evidence, not used to overwrite the distinct Shadow Trial deaths. (Chapters 395, 399–400, and 421)

Appearance and personality

Ares is depicted as a broad, composed man who wears glasses and carries a greatsword. He removes or cleans the glasses when work, Zeus, or an unfolding catastrophe overwhelms his patience, making the gesture a recurring sign of strain beneath his controlled public manner. In battle his Holy power appears as golden light, while anger can raise red flame and a red aura around him. The historical account of War God Ares adds that his fire could burn Time itself, but supplies no more specific fixed costume or physical description. (Chapters 147, 216, 237, 249, and 251)

His defining trait is responsibility under uncertainty. Ares prefers councils, evidence, contingency plans, and negotiated coordination, yet he can decide firmly once delay becomes dangerous. That caution causes his central error with Neo: conventional standards cannot measure a Heavenbreaker whose growth invalidates the council's assumptions. Ares is not vindictive after defeat. He recognizes Athena's repeated efforts, asks stronger allies for assistance despite wounded pride, and repeatedly puts his body at the most dangerous defensive point. His later sacrifices show that fear of Typhaon never meant fear of personal death; it meant fear of choosing that death for everyone else. (Chapters 216, 238, 243–252, 284–285, and 310–311)

Powers and limitations

Holy affinity and healing

Ares can drive his Holy Affinity to maximum output, producing golden light strong enough to oppose Neo's attacks beside Emma. He and Athena can use Holy power to relieve wounds and corruption, and Ares expects Holy or Life elements to repair Thanatos until told an Intent clone is not a living body. The same episode establishes an important limit: Concepts still function when mana disappears, but the lack of mana drastically weakens them, leaving Ares unable to heal the headquarters effectively or injure the Outer God's maggots. (Chapters 249 and 284–285)

Fire, greatsword, and elemental mastery

In combat Ares uses a greatsword, manifests red flame and aura, and endures long enough to fight Neo through repeated temporal attempts. A historical lesson calls him the War God and says his high elemental mastery let him burn Time while Zeus outsped it. That feat does not provide a named mastery tier, Concept name, or numbered God stage. The later weapon sought in Tartarus is explicitly called Ares's God weapon, but its name, exact properties, and successful recovery are not stated in the supplied chapters. (Chapters 147, 249, 284, 311, 395, and 421)

Leadership and tactical limits

Ares's most persistent ability is organizational rather than supernatural. He coordinates the Association's intelligence, weighs Apollo's visions against Gaia's Fate reading, negotiates with Titans, assigns scarce specialists, and changes plans after learning what failed in previous Cube loops. His limitation is the same framework's dependence on reliable prediction. Neo has no readable Fate and grows far beyond his listed rank, so Ares repeatedly makes rational decisions from false ceilings. Against the Outer God, even independent courage cannot correct the absolute power gap; he dies before he can react. (Chapters 215–252 and 284–291)

Power progression

Relationships

Neo Hargraves

Ares begins by doubting the evidence for Neo's literal existence, then tries to recruit and finally stop him. Their conflict is not personal hatred: Ares believes Neo is gambling with the remaining world, while Neo believes Ares's refusal guarantees its destruction. Repeated defeat forces Ares to confront how badly formal classifications describe Neo, but it does not make him abandon the people under his command. In later histories, his willingness to die buying time parallels the sacrifices he once tried to prevent Neo from making. (Chapters 215–252 and 284–311)

Athena and Apollo

Athena is Ares's fellow Holy defender and the subordinate trusted with the Space-Time Cube. Her decision to aid Neo breaks Association discipline and leaves Ares managing demands for her death, yet he reads the fractured Cube as proof that she exhausted every attempt before choosing. Apollo challenges Ares more openly, first over the suspended search and later through his growing independence. The three ultimately cooperate in altered histories: Athena heals while Ares fights, and Apollo joins Ares in the Seven-Day War's fatal delay. (Chapters 215–216, 245–252, 284, and 310–311)

Gaia, Kronos, and Zeus

Ares depends on Gaia for Fate information, Kronos for spatial and temporal projects, and Zeus for overwhelming combat power. He also spends much of his office absorbing the consequences of their limits: Gaia cannot find Neo, Kronos's project is unfinished, and Zeus attacks political targets or demands to be called only after disasters. The relationships nevertheless remain functional under catastrophe. Ares asks each for help after the Association's defeat, joins Kronos outside the headquarters barrier, and later holds Typhaon's Sovereigns so Zeus can complete their shared spell. (Chapters 216, 237, 251–252, 275, 285, and 310–311)

Thanatos Intent clone

At headquarters Ares initially mistakes Thanatos for Neo, then learns it is an independently acting Intent clone following a fixed protective command. Ares offers to fight beside it despite its insistence that everyone remain sheltered. Its inability to receive Holy healing and its independent tactical decisions make the boundary explicit: Thanatos's summoned shadows, telepathy, injuries, and death are not Ares's or Neo's bodily actions, while Ares's decision to leave protection remains his own. (Chapters 284–285)