Some begged for mercy. Some cried. Others cursed. In the end, not a single Indian god escaped the Aesir's siege and annihilation.
They may once have stood lofty and supreme. They may still have left behind avatars in their home world, hoping for resurrection. But everyone knew—it was meaningless.
When it came to genocide and conquest, the Aesir were professionals.
They had destroyed an entire world—Fusang—just to eliminate Angra Mainyu.
What chance did the remaining Indian gods have of escaping?
Anyone with even a passing understanding of divine warfare could tell from this scene alone: the Indian pantheon was finished.
Its reputation of sweeping through the so-called Three Thousand Worlds, its once-glorious achievements—all gone, erased in this minor world.
It wasn't just the famed Trimurti—even an ordinary high god with a cadre of subordinates, dropped into a minor world, could typically slaughter a dozen lesser deities with ease.
But this powerful Indian pantheon was completely helpless before the Aesir—beaten from start to finish without so much as a ripple of resistance, never finding even a sliver of opportunity.
Four heads and four arms? They were nothing but dancing clowns in the hands of Thalos, the Aesir God-King.
And this wasn't just a show for the Aesir.
Thalos had graciously invited the Sun Goddess Amaterasu and the surrendered sub-pantheons of Fusang to watch. Through psychic projection, he also broadcast the entire battle to the affiliated Indian sub-pantheons.
Oh, and just to really drive it home, Thalos played the psychic recording of Fusang's destruction for all to see.
Silence.
Utter, deathly silence.
This wasn't just annihilation. This was public execution, the corpse dragged out for display, nailed to the pillar of shame for all pantheons to witness.
A tale of past and present.
Even if all the gods of India and Fusang were miraculously resurrected at full strength, no lesser world would dare ally with them again.
It wasn't just god-slaying—it was soul-crushing.
Terrifying beyond reason—
After a short lull, countless main deities of India's affiliated worlds began transmitting divine messages—or even personally arriving—to surrender.
They feared that if they were even a moment late, Thalos would turn his wrath on them and wipe out their races and destroy their worlds.
To these fence-sitters, Thalos held no anger.
Same principle as always: some must be left alive. If every enemy was crushed absolutely, no god would ever surrender again. They'd all fight to the death instead.
The Aesir God-King, shining in his blinding golden armor, descended slowly. Seeing the sea of groveling lesser kings from minor worlds below, he raised an eyebrow.
"Do you realize your mistakes?"
"Yes! Yes, we were utterly wrong! We never should have submitted to the traitor XXXX…" the lesser gods rushed to denounce their former overlords.
Thalos glanced at Loki.
Loki instantly understood. He stepped forward and bellowed, "You bastards deserve extinction! The first two who attacked Ginnungagap—cut off your arms as atonement!"
The petty kings flinched.
One clever one immediately severed his own arm without hesitation.
Even among mortals, breaking a bone was a 100-day ordeal. For gods, the more powerful the divine body, the harder it was to heal. Reattaching a severed arm was no small feat.
Another, less quick-witted one hesitated for just a moment—only for Thalos to intervene with mock compassion.
"Sigh… How could this be? They've already pledged allegiance to the Aesir. As long as they prove their loyalty, they will become true Aesir gods. Loki, do not insult them further."
"My apologies, Your Majesty. I accept any punishment."
"Forget it. You were defending the dignity of our kin. Just don't repeat it."
That half-second of hesitation was all it took. The slower deity had already been marked.
Anyone with half a brain could see this was a warning.
Half-hearted allegiance was no allegiance at all.
Prove your loyalty? You hesitated to cut off a limb—how can we trust you not to betray us?
The rules were Thalos' to make—and he wasn't about to break them. He wouldn't demand 104% taxes one day and 125% the next. But if you tried to test him, he'd wipe out your entire race without batting an eye.
Such was the nature of a God-King raised in Tianchao—ruthless, volatile, decisive.
The message was clear.
The rest of the petty kings got the memo.
They kowtowed feverishly. The smarter ones even renounced their titles of "king," begging only for a place as a lesser deity within the Aesir. Their humility knew no bounds.
Only then did Thalos relent.
Next came the great cleansing of the Indian world.
Odin had spared the third caste, the Vaishya, for ease of governance.
Thalos? He went even further. With a single, offhand remark—"Purge the top three castes"—he left only the lowest caste: the Shudras, or indigenous slave class.
And so, Thalos—by accident or design—became a true liberator in their eyes.
"Praise the God-King Thalos Borson!"
"Long live His Majesty, ten thousand years!"
When Thalos' herald Hermod announced that the old scripts were abolished and everyone was to adopt Runes, millions of Shudras erupted in ecstatic cheers.
"He's going to teach us to read! The God-King is so merciful!"
Thalos felt awkward at first, unsure how to react.
Then it dawned on him: what abolishing the written language actually meant.
The Shudras were all illiterate. They couldn't even write their own names. They were blank slates. Previously banned from education, they now saw the runic system as divine revelation.
And with the oppressors eliminated, the caste-based slavery abolished, they were now free men—safe from arbitrary execution and no longer forced to suffer.
What seemed like a few minor reforms had, in fact, won Thalos total control over the people's hearts.
And as for converting them?
Whoever gave them a good life, they would believe in.
The transition was so smooth, the Aesir priests—veterans of missionary campaigns—were stunned.
It was a mix of Shudra submissiveness and a pragmatic, flip-flopping instinct.
"Whoever gives us a better life, that's our god."
Either way, 3 million square kilometers of fertile land and tens of millions of devout new followers were very real, very tangible assets.
Of course, fanatics of the old gods still remained.
But in this brutal age, persuasion was rare.
"Physical disappearance," or hanging from a tree branch, was the more common solution.
There was no shortage of eager mortals ready to tear down temples.
As vast reserves of gold and silver were unearthed from ruined shrines, as young women were freed from confinement, the roots of the old gods were being ripped out completely.
It was over. All of it.
This war, spanning three major pantheons, had ended with the undisputed total victory of the Aesir.
As for the integration and redistribution of the defeated worlds' elemental cores—Fusang's, to strengthen the Akkadian, Egyptian, and Slavic realms—that would be a slow and meticulous process for another time.
(End of Chapter)
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