Odin didn't care about Hector's life or death; he also didn't mind having a few more pieces of cannon fodder on hand.
With a native like Hector, he could better stir up those unlucky exiles dumped into Tartarus.
He didn't need these wronged souls to obey him—he only needed them to be easier to absorb.
Before long, Odin had reached the point where everything was ready, and all that was missing was a favorable wind.
The influx of resentful souls severely interfered with the Hundred-Handed Giants' line of sight, and Odin noticed that of the three giants who used to be posted at all times inside the triple rune-engraved bronze walls, there was now only one left.
Cronus urged Odin more than once: "Has that 'signal' still not arrived?"
"You've been imprisoned this long; what's a little more waiting?" With that, Odin glanced toward Cronus's prison.
That colossal cell, mountainous in size, had bronze pillars so thick that even the slimmest one would take more than a dozen people to encircle. In the past, if Cronus so much as touched the Titan-targeting runes on those pillars, he would be struck by lightning, writhing in agony. After erosion by Thalos's law-forged steel pillars, now roughly eighty percent of them were just for show.
At the base of these bronze pillars, a complete cross-section had been eaten away. Only a thin shell near the outer side of the prison still connected them. They looked intact, but in reality, one slap from Cronus and every pillar would snap in an instant.
Once enough pillars were severed, the former God-King would be able to escape to freedom.
A schemer like Odin would never knock them all out in one go.
Outwardly he said they should wait for the next batch of law-forged steel pillars, but in truth, he had hidden a stash—stringing Cronus along.
Even if Cronus guessed it, there was nothing he could do.
Thalos's law-forged steel pillars could indeed dissolve the prison's law-bronze columns, but they were consumables. Roughly two steel pillars were needed to erode and destroy a single bronze pillar of the cage.
Cronus had personally witnessed these steel pillars of law randomly piercing the firmament of Tartarus and falling into hell. With him unable to leave and Odin's movement limited, it was impossible to say how many Odin could realistically pick up.
Conversely, one could say Cronus's forced patience—his not flying into a rage—was entirely due to Odin, this outer-realm God-King, suppressing him.
Clearly, Cronus's temper wouldn't stay bottled up much longer.
Odin knew this well. Unfortunately, both his and Cronus's fates were in Thalos's hands…
At the same time, in the Golden Palace of Asgard.
Thalos convened a grand assembly of the gods—this time, a super-conclave attended by every single deity of the greater Æsir pantheon.
Even though the Golden Palace had originally been designed to giant scale, squeezing in more than a thousand gods great and small still made it feel cramped. Only the God-Kings, Major Gods, and true gods had thrones; the lesser gods had to stand behind their respective superiors.
That didn't matter. Rumor had it that once they defeated the Greek world, the Golden Palace would be torn down and rebuilt into a true Pantheon!
Without exception, the gods grew excited at the mere mention of the Greek world.
Not because Ginnungagap wasn't good, nor because it lacked spare territory to grant to the gods, but because its political resources were already saturated.
In Ginnungagap, the old Æsir of giant stock occupied the best divine offices.
Those of mortal stature were generally called "new gods." Unless one bore the God-Emperor's bloodline as a second-generation new god, no one should even dream of becoming a God-King.
For new gods to climb upward meant bashing their heads bloody against the ceiling.
After running into the Greek world, everything was different.
A vast world whose total stock of the four natural elements exceeded Ginnungagap's—what did that mean?
Every Æsir new god understood: it meant more divine seats!
Not every deity had the ability of God-Emperor Thalos to handle an expanded divine portfolio with ease.
For example:
In the Fusang world of old, Izanami cursed her husband, saying that Yomi no Hirasaka would claim a thousand souls a day. For the extremely underdeveloped Fusang at that time, that was already many deaths.
Dropped into Ginnungagap's current population—over a hundred million?
Laughable. Even without war, Ginnungagap's annual natural deaths were counted in the millions.
The direct result—there weren't enough deities related to death.
In the past, when people died in Ginnungagap, their souls would be judged by Anubis with his scales.
But with tens of thousands dying on some days, how could Anubis possibly judge them alone?
The poor jackal-headed brother had already strained to split into thirty avatars, judging every newly deceased unluckster at once—and he still couldn't keep up.
The population boom and surge in deaths most benefited those death-related deities who had previously been idle.
Imsety, son of Horus—once the Egyptian guardian of the liver of the dead—was now, like the rest of Horus's four sons, reassigned under Hel to serve as a divine temp-worker dispatching the dead.
And that was only the death domain; other domains likewise needed more hands (and gods) as the world expanded.
In short, world expansion meant more thrones.
This leap in political standing was something no Æsir god could refuse.
Their gazes burned as they looked up at the supreme golden figure on the dais, waiting for his proclamation.
Thalos swept the hall with deep, penetrating eyes.
Wherever his divine gaze fell, the gods saluted. It felt like a "divine wave"—wherever it rolled, a swathe dropped to their knees with a rustle.
Thalos spoke slowly, his god-voice echoing through the vast golden hall.
"Thanks to Ishtar's intelligence—what comes next is full-scale war with the Greek world."
As his words faded, a three-story-tall psychic projection blossomed in midair at the center of the hall. Using Ishtar's intel matched with Thalos's visualization, it showed the marching paths of the clustered worlds.
Through this translucent three-dimensional map, the gods could clearly see two enormous worlds beginning to advance slowly in parallel, separated by a trench-like corridor of traversable space.
This traversable zone looked like a massive straight line.
Only… that "line" was a bit thick.
Any deity with experience in inter-world divine warfare knew what that implied: beyond direct world-on-world slugfests, God-King-level power could be deployed freely.
In other words, aside from the fact that Ginnungagap's World Tree couldn't be moved, every deity could join the battle.
Yes—God-Emperors included.
For a God-Emperor could project avatars to alter the battlefield directly.
If this had been before their clashes with Olympus, the Æsir might have felt uneasy.
Now?
Heh. Didn't they see Artemis, sitting primly like a little bride on a divine seat not far from Thalos?
At the sight of this schematic, a wave of fervent requests to fight filled the great hall.
"Your Majesty! XXX requests to serve as vanguard!"
______
(≧◡≦) ♡ Support me and read 20 chapters ahead – patreon.com/Mutter
For every 50 Power Stones, one extra chapter will be released on Saturday.