As the God of Ultimate Evil met his demise, Freyr muttered thoughtfully, "Right up to the last second… Angra Mainyu was still a damn bastard."
Arthur furrowed his brow. Eventually, he couldn't help but ask Thalos, "Your Majesty, there is something I don't understand."
"Go ahead," Thalos replied calmly.
"Why is it," Arthur said carefully, "that Angra Mainyu's schemes always feel… immature?"
Thalos didn't answer directly. Instead, he posed a question: "What is the most important factor for any scheme to succeed?"
The gods fell silent.
Not one of them could confidently answer.
Thalos didn't keep them waiting. "The answer is—time. Every scheme needs time to ferment. And for Angra, that's precisely what he lacked."
Understanding dawned on Freyr. "Your Majesty means… if we conquer the Fusang and Indian worlds quickly enough, then Angra Mainyu doesn't even get a chance to act?"
"Exactly."
Whether it's mortal minds or divine spirits, at the end of the day, they're just structures of thought, of order, of rules.
If you gave Angra enough time, he could corrupt and control every intelligent creature's mind and body in a world, turning both gods and mortals into clowns dancing on his stage.
But what happens when the most skilled playwright meets a brute who tears down the stage before the first act begins?
The play never starts.
And Thalos—was that brute who broke the set.
In a way, Angra died undeservedly. If only he'd had enough time to worm into the Ginnungagap, he might have pulled off something earth-shattering.
Too bad.
"I suspect Angra must be formally enshrined as a deity within a world—even nominally—to fully unleash his divine powers," Thalos said. "Without that connection, his ability to corrupt intelligent life drops significantly. According to my hypothesis, the laws of this star system dictate: only one divine pantheon can leave this stellar domain."
The assembled gods fell silent.
A divine civilization was, in essence, a cosmic elimination match.
And a battlefield where strength reigned and every blow drew blood was never going to be kind to a god whose only weapon was manipulation of metaphysical laws.
Whether Thalos' hypothesis was correct no longer mattered.
Fusang had fallen. And with its fall, the multi-pantheon war approached its inevitable conclusion.
Now that Fusang was settled, the minor pantheons that had once been subordinate to it found themselves both relieved and terrified.
Relieved—because they'd narrowly avoided being dragged into a hopeless war as cannon fodder. Fusang had been ground to dust, vividly demonstrating the Aesir's overwhelming might.
Terrified—because King Paulson's cruelty and ruthlessness were unmatched in the chaotic cosmos.
Angra Mainyu had wagered ten million Fusang mortals as a bargaining chip. No one expected the god-king to simply slaughter them on the spot.
That was millions of mortals—more than enough to empower ten high-tier faith gods.
But karma… karma is relative.
If Thalos had been a small-time god-king ruling a world with ten million mortals, this kind of action would've caused a karmic backlash of apocalyptic proportions.
But now? The Aesir pantheon ruled tens of millions—maybe even hundreds of millions—of mortals. No one, not even Thalos himself, knew the exact number.
In a semi-feudal, quasi-slavery society like Ginnungagap, population censuses were a joke. Ordinary mortals lacked the internal governance structure to carry them out. And even among faith-based gods, the number of followers was a mystery—often overlapping across minor pantheons.
All that could be said was: Ginnungagap was built different. Thick foundations, and not afraid to burn some of it.
As they looked at the devastated Fusang world, now drained of even its elemental essence, the former subordinate gods didn't dare make a sound. One careless word might bring divine wrath upon their own worlds.
Thalos lifted his gaze lazily. "A new batch of elemental cores has arrived. Once we finish conquering India, you may begin the restoration of the Slavic, Egyptian, and Akkadian worlds."
Immediately, Perun, Horus, and the Akkadian elder gods were elated.
Their homelands had been used as meat shields—a bitter but necessary reality. When Thalos had commandeered their worlds to block divine attacks, they had just recently joined the Aesir and had no grounds to protest.
Now, their loyalty proven, they naturally expected compensation.
Thalos delivered, right on time.
For the frigid Slavic world, he could carve off part of Hokkaido and offer it up.
The Egyptian world was simpler—just infuse it with water-elemental essence and it would revive.
Akkad was trickier—it required all four elements. No problem. They could start with a foundational shell and receive the rest over time.
All of that was future work.
True, it was generosity with other people's resources—but the fact that Thalos could seize them was its own form of power.
That said, the title of "Conqueror of All Realms" might soon be replaced with "Destroyer of All Realms"...
Soon, god-kings from all the small worlds knelt before Thalos' throne.
He didn't make things hard for them. "Come, all of you. Bear witness to the Twilight of the Indian Gods."
The old-school Aesir couldn't help but chuckle.
Twilight of the Gods… but just for India?
It had a comedic ring to it.
But only the veterans who had already survived one Twilight could laugh like this—as spectators now, watching the next pantheon crumble.
Meanwhile, the Indian gods were still pushing forward.
No… this could no longer be called a "breakthrough." It had become a deadlock.
Each Indian deity was suffering, body and soul.
At first, they hadn't noticed. But the longer the war dragged on, the more frightening it became.
Sure, it looked like the Aesir retreated a little after every push.
But that had nothing to do with winning or losing. It was purely to stretch the Indian pantheon's supply lines.
Yes—divine warfare also has logistics.
The divine energy transmitted from the Indian world might be invisible, but it traveled via elemental flows across space, supplying the Trimurti and their host of gods. That's what allowed them to unleash divine arts seemingly without limit, matching the Aesir blow for blow.
But the Aesir were fighting on home turf, on a massive world.
From the beginning, this battle was never fair.
If, in the early stages, Gilgamesh had been a clear weak point for the Aesir, that weakness had now all but vanished.
Brahma was on the verge of madness.
The golden-haired Aesir god in front of him possessed an astonishing gift for battle.
Perhaps Gil wasn't elite in close combat at first, but he was a fast learner.
Bit by bit, with his arsenal of World Swords, he had dragged Brahma into a dead-even match.
And the worst part?
Gilgamesh's divine energy pool was… bottomless.
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I Am Thalos, Odin's Older Brother (Chapter 471)
Reborn in America's Anti-Terror Unit (Chapter 677)
Solomon in Marvel (Chapter 1059)
Becoming the Wealthiest Tycoon on the Planet (Chapter 1418)
Surgical Fruit in the American Comics Universe (Chapter 1422)
American Detective: From TV Rookie to Seasoned Cop (Chapter 1452)
American TV Writer (Chapter 1504)
I Am Hades, The Supreme GOD of the Underworld!(Chapter 570)
Reborn as Humanity's Emperor Across the Multiverse (Chapter 703)
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