The battlefield's sudden silence was the most terrifying sound of all.
Because when a battlefield goes quiet, it can mean only one thing—the outcome has been decided.
And in this moment, the world was deathly still.
Beneath the silence, one could feel the Aesir's barely restrained ecstasy at their imminent victory—and the Indian pantheon's suffocating despair at their impending annihilation.
Even Shiva, usually the loudest in the heat of battle, merely mouthed a few words, unable to utter a single sound.
Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva—three gods, six heads, twelve arms—most of them now turned toward Thalos. Only a few fragments of their divine senses still locked onto Thor and the other Aesir they had been fighting.
Brahma spoke first: "Great King—His Majesty Thalos Paulson! Must the Indian pantheon and the Aesir truly be enemies? Is peaceful coexistence impossible?"
His voice, deep with wisdom, echoed across the battlefield, etching itself into the heart of every combatant present.
The Trimurti were truly a spectacle: when brute force was needed, Shiva charged in recklessly. When that failed, Vishnu took the hits. And when all else failed, Brahma stepped forward to speak.
Upon hearing Brahma's words, Thalos' lips curled faintly.
"I am the Guardian of All Order, the Conqueror of the Chaotic Cosmos! By rights, I should not reject a reasonable request from another world of Order." Here Thalos paused deliberately, then added, "But every nation, every pantheon, has the right to start a war—how that war ends, however, is no longer their choice."
"We could unite against the chaos of this universe," Brahma offered.
Thalos shook his head. "We will never ally ourselves with the avatars of Chaos. A god with four heads and four arms cannot claim to be Order."
The six faces of the Trimurti fell simultaneously.
In India, four arms were symbols of divine strength, ultimate authority, and transcendence.
But Thalos' words outright denied the very legitimacy of their divinity. The three gods' expressions darkened at once.
Shiva couldn't help but mutter an ancient Indian curse, which roughly translated to, "Do you not fear that we'll go down with you?"
Thalos raised his chin proudly and looked down at the trio of "grotesque little monsters" from the heights of his godhood. "If you can pull it off, go ahead and try."
There was nothing more to be said. When negotiations fail and pride is shattered, there is no need to endure any longer.
"Destroy the Aesir!" Shiva roared, launching the attack.
Immediately behind him came Vishnu, Brahma, Indra the King of Heaven, Agni the Fire God, Varuna the Water God, Yama the God of Death, Surya the Sun God, and many more of India's most renowned deities.
The Aesir met them head-on, unflinching. In addition to those who had already fought the Trimurti, gods like Ishtar the Goddess of Venus, Enki the God of the Sea, Skadi the Goddess of Death, and Baldr the God of Light all joined the front lines.
Against India's divine beasts, the Aesir unleashed their own—Kraken, Nidhogg, and other mythical soul-beasts joined the fray.
In terms of both numbers and quality, this Aesir strike team was unmatched. Not to mention that Thalos still had Arthur, Perun, Horus, and other god-king-class underlings who hadn't even entered the fight. And they wouldn't.
After all, the Fusang front was already wrapped up—it wouldn't be right to steal credit here too.
The only one truly intervening was Thalos himself.
Since the war began, the Indian world had been desperately sustaining its gods. Across two entire worlds, it had channeled divine energy through invisible conduits into the battlefield, keeping the Trimurti and their pantheon fueled.
Now, the sky was ablaze with blinding flashes and chaotic elemental surges. So many divine arts collided that the very fabric of this realm had become a storm of unstable energy.
Even gods fighting on home turf could no longer draw power from the surrounding environment. The only reliable energy source was the divine flow from their home world.
And just then, a formless, colossal hand of energy grasped that divine conduit—and crushed it.
The Trimurti were the first to feel it. Their divine pipeline, once as steady as a river, now cracked and dried up like a dying stream.
It wasn't an illusion—smoke actually rose from the energy beam, which was supposed to be invisible.
The protective barrier formed by the Trimurti's combined divine array shattered instantly, like porcelain flung from the heavens. The Sanskrit runes inscribed upon it hissed and vanished like water droplets on searing iron.
And in that next breath, the divine power from the Indian world fragmented into chaotic spatial turbulence, scattering across the battlefield and beyond.
The Indian gods turned back in horror, only to see the path behind them become a massive vortex.
Destruction was always easier than creation.
The divine transmission channel, painstakingly built by the core gods of India, had just been casually severed by the enemy god-king.
Immediately, panic erupted among the Indian pantheon.
On one side, their divine reserves were being burned up at an alarming rate. On the other, their divine inflow had nearly vanished.
It was as if their power pool had dried up in a blink.
"No—!"
"We have to do something!"
"Should we surrender?"
"Damn it! The Aesir don't accept surrender!"
Chaos reigned among the Indian gods.
The lesser gods—those relying solely on physical might—could manage for now. But the divine beings who relied on intricate spells were doomed. They had to ration their divine energy, or they'd be the first to die.
The tide turned instantly.
The Aesir continued to bombard the battlefield with reckless abandon, while the Indian gods were forced to "fight smart."
But in divine war, smart often loses to brute force.
The scent of failure spread like a plague among the Indian gods.
Only Shiva remained clear-headed.
"Charge! We must break through and return to our world—or we die here!"
He was right—but it was no longer possible.
Opposite him, Thor raised Mjolnir high and casually summoned thunder from sixteen realms.
With all the ease of breathing, a sea of thunder crashed down, covering a thousand miles.
Just the residual shockwaves turned swathes of Shiva's demon army to dust.
"I told you—I'm your opponent," Thor said seriously. "If you'd like, we can fight without divine powers. A fair duel."
Somehow… Shiva was a little touched.
Truthfully, for all his four arms and battle-readiness, it depended on who he fought. Against Thor—three times his size—he looked more like a crippled crab than a god of war.
And yet, Thor was probably the most fair-minded among the Aesir.
Just look around. Every other Aesir god was shamelessly using home-field advantage, drawing on infinite divine power to bombard the Indian gods nonstop.
Shiva laughed.
He laughed brightly, beautifully.
He raised his four arms and his cracked trident, and charged straight at Thor.
As the sun dipped behind the horizon, golden light bathed Shiva's figure, casting a long shadow behind him.
This was Ragnarök.
But only for India.
(End of Chapter)
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