Thalos never expected to win a divine war by suborning enemies.
If a pantheon would collapse just because one of its gods defected, it only meant that pantheon was rotten to the core.
Lately, Thalos continued adjusting the spatial structure of the entire Ginnungagap world.
From creation to now, the world's grand architecture had already been altered many times.
From the initial air barrier that simply resisted chaotic energy, to the dual barrier of rock and air obtained after crushing the Sumerian world, to the triple elemental defense of rock, air, and seawater before, and finally to the newest version—
In the end, Thalos couldn't hold back and started building "barbicans" inside the world.
Anyone who has ever toyed with world-smashing scenarios knows: the simplest way to wipe out mortals isn't meteor storms, and it isn't earthquakes either. The truly efficient method is to destroy the other world's atmosphere and let the air bleed away.
As a God-King who, before crossing over, had "played" with Neutron Extermination and World-Destroying simulations, he knew this was one of the most efficient ways to annihilate a vast human civilization.
Ginnungagap had fewer natural elements in total than the Greek world; its advantage lay instead in population.
So long as Zeus had a brain and discovered this weakness of Ginnungagap, he could make a major play out of it.
As the Sky God, Thalos first had to call upon vast divine power to recut the skies of Ginnungagap's 27 realms, separating them into 27 independent atmospheres. Honestly, even if you swapped in another world's sky god, this would be a tall order.
After all, the 27 realms needed to exchange people and goods; you couldn't tap the Rainbow Bridge every single time.
Under normal circumstances, the pressure differences between distinct atmospheres could silently kill mortals.
Each small world possessed different amounts of earth, water, fire, and wind, inevitably causing pressure differences. Even with Thalos's efforts to adjust them, once separated, some pressure differential was guaranteed.
This didn't trouble "space-knowledge-rich" Thalos.
He set up god-forged airlocks at the mouths of all passages made from World Tree branches. Those passing through would enter the airlock and, under the control of priests appointed by Thalos, undergo decompression or pressurization to acclimate to the target world's pressure.
Beyond segregating the air, Thalos also summoned vast quantities of earth, water, fire, and wind to separate the upper, middle, and lower strata of Ginnungagap by elements.
The entire world became like a modern Earth ship with watertight compartments: even if a "compartment" suffered severe damage, sealing that compartment could prevent the damage from spreading to the others (the small worlds).
And the god-kings he had enfeoffed ahead of time now had new duties—if, in the worst-case scenario, a given small world, or a cluster of them under their command, was forced to detach from Ginnungagap, they would at least be able to govern that world or cluster and keep the mortals inside operating independently for a short while without the World Tree's support.
Rumble rumble rumble rumble!
In these days, the world's mutations were visible to every mortal.
They were moved, and they were thoughtful.
Moved, because the God-Emperor was sparing no cost for their survival. Every grand restructuring of the world consumed astronomical divine power.
Thoughtful, because the God-Emperor treated them as people, whereas most of the Olympians didn't treat humans as people at all—only as livestock to discard at will.
Someone might ask, what about the Indian and Mayan warriors who died over in the Greek world?
Some felt they were cannon fodder, but more believed this was the price of advancement.
"A general's glory is built on ten thousand bones."
Without military merit, no one in the Æsir system had any right to climb higher.
If you wanted to break out of your current class, you had to seize the opportunity of a world war to fight and kill, to capture slaves, to prove your valor and loyalty to the Æsir with the enemy's severed heads.
At this very moment, on the fertile black earth of South America, Agamemnon—dressed like an old farmer—showed almost no trace of a king.
He leaned his hoe against the ground, looked up at the shrinking sky, and muttered, "What happened?"
A close attendant, also reduced to slavery, sidled up and said, "Your Majesty, I heard God-Emperor Thalos Borson is creating isolation spaces for each small world to prepare for a possible Greek invasion. I don't know exactly what that means."
Agamemnon didn't really understand spatial mechanics, but he understood war.
"Win after win, and still this cautious. God-Emperor Thalos… remarkable."
"Your Majesty, why praise this false emperor?" The attendant was puzzled.
"See those Greek captives? Which batch are we, and how many batches have come since?"
"We're the second batch. Two more came after us."
"My old friends—aside from Achilles and those who were killed, the rest are all here. That means every Greek city-state except Athens has fallen."
"We haven't seen any Trojans."
Agamemnon glanced toward a few Amazon warriors serving as "guards" in the distance and said bleakly, "So what? Even Lady Artemis has gone over to the enemy—then are they still 'bandits'? Perhaps it's time to address Thalos Borson as His Majesty the God-Emperor."
It wasn't just that divine attendant—every general within earshot fell into deathly silence.
This was the collapse of faith!
This was a change of creed!
Often, gods don't fear mortals dying, because in life they're your believers, and in death they're your spirits; after another turn on the wheel, they're still in your pot.
But converts…
Ahem, that's precisely why, to gods and god-brokers, a convert is more hateful than a heretic.
If Agamemnon and the captured Greeks had such thoughts, that was one thing. The magical scene was simultaneously unfolding in the Greek world, too.
"What? You would pledge allegiance to me?" Odin had inadvertently stumbled upon a powerful and intriguing soul.
"Yes! Since the Olympians have abandoned the Trojans, it's only natural for Trojans to make their own choice." The stalwart heroic spirit bore a resounding name—Hector!
As the mighty Trojan hero who, in the old tales, fought Achilles for three hundred rounds before losing and dying, he had every reason to be proud.
Unfortunately, in this life he died at the hands of Gawain.
Dueling to the death on the battlefield was nothing—but what Hector couldn't accept was that his soul didn't even qualify to remain in the Underworld. He was tossed straight into Tartarus by Rhadamanthys, one of the Three Judges.
In truth, that was a mistake.
With the Underworld jam-packed, Rhadamanthys would naturally prioritize giving Greeks the better treatment.
And so Hector met a tragic end!
Odin examined Hector's soul and found the man truly had talent. With his extraordinarily condensed spiritual strength, as long as divine power was infused, he would become a textbook death-aspected demigod.
"I'll take you in, then!"
"Much obliged!"
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