novelraw Chapter 503: Turn His Own World Back on Him
Chapter 503: Turn His Own World Back on Him
If Thalos had wanted to needle Zeus, he could have live-broadcast Odin's situation via mind-projection.
That shameless, foolish little brother of his would certainly not mind giving Zeus a show of what "all-out revenge under fire" looked like.
Thalos didn't do it.
Too low.
Deliberately insulting the opponent would only drag this once-in-an-eon duel of God-Emperors down to a lower grade.
Disrupting the enemy or playing at assassination—those were the tricks of base inferiors to the "gods."
This wasn't a desperate do-or-die; why would Thalos stoop to that?
Thalos merely crooked his right forefinger at Zeus, said one simple word: "Come!"
"Hmph!" Zeus snorted coldly.
Slightly against Thalos's expectations, what unfolded before him wasn't the straight-ahead brute force of a Titan, nor Zeus's vaunted raging thunder, but—
Worlds!
Though the Greek earth lay in ruins…
Though two of Atlantis's seven seas were gone…
Though Tartarus had been cleared out…
Though the sky above Mount Olympus was fouled…
Still…
Zeus was Zeus!
The singular master of the Greek world!
The first god-king Uranus shielded him!
The second god-king Kronos was his stepping-stone!
Countless Olympians threw themselves into the flames for him!
When he stilled his mind and fought with all his heart, even the multiple Ginnungagap world-barriers couldn't stop him from drawing divine power from the Greek world.
Was this \\[Sky]?
It was \\[Space]!
That was an upset.
Thalos truly hadn't expected this era's Zeus to have such a card hidden.
Then again, gods who held the sky as their office did have a sharper sensitivity to space than others.
To develop a personal trump over the long ages—nothing too wild or rare.
Feeling the vast surge of god-force streaming across the void into the body of the white-haired, muscle-bound Zeus, Thalos half-squinted and offered heartfelt praise: "Even with the god-kings around you all down a tier for losing their foundations, your strength hasn't dipped at all, Zeus!"
Thalos meant that by annexing other Greek domains, Zeus had kept his total divine power up.
Zeus shook his head. "No, I have declined. I can still put you down."
He meant the Greek world's total elements had dropped, lowering his theoretical upper limit.
Also the plain truth.
Thalos smiled faintly.
His long-still heart finally rippled with a thread of excitement.
Since ascending as God-Emperor, he'd rarely charged at the front. It was true that leading the charge usually rallied morale—but do it too often and climbers beneath you start grumbling that their lord is stealing their glory.
Only opponents of similar station were worth Thalos's personal hand.
Zeus was different!
He was the only God-Emperor–class powerhouse Thalos could meet in this chaotic cosmos.
Even if Zeus had grown decadent, had spent his days chasing conquests of a different sort, his god-force and combat craft were the real thing.
Only Zeus was worthy to be the stepping-stone for Thalos's ascent to the supreme seat of the cosmos.
Without Zeus, Thalos's supreme title would lack luster.
Thalos was genuinely happy.
Come then, Zeus! I'll show you with strength who the true God-Emperor is!
…
Behind Zeus's "Thousand-Armed Giant," countless phantasms of the Greek world filled the sky.
By design, Thalos let this scene be projected in full to the Golden Palace.
The Aesir goddesses watched with taut nerves.
Athena, Artemis, and Hestia—those three from Olympus—tilted their heads up, their divine hearts pounding, ripples spreading across their inner lakes, lingering without end.
Here, Zeus made his move. Amid a strange humming spread through the realm, those visions suddenly took on brilliant starlight.
The instant phantoms turned to substance, the clouds in this space boiled with golden fringes, and the air thickened with light like honey…
Thalos narrowed his eyes. This wasn't just \\[Space] delivering power anymore—Zeus had broken out a very rare office of his: \\[All Things]!
Yes—as God-Emperor, everything in the Greek world owed Zeus its power.
With a wave of his hand, first the phantom of the Dolomiti Mountains from Syracuse came crashing down on Thalos; then Greece's Mount Pelion, Egypt's Mount Catherine… one mountain range after another, all over two thousand meters high, turned into "boulders" hurled by the Thousand-Armed Giant, filling this realm with ease.
As the ludicrously vast shockwaves swept in with a world-collision roar, Thalos even had an instant's illusion that the World Tree's boughs couldn't brace against the impact.
"Good!"
The corner of Thalos's mouth lifted. He cast three World-Swords: \\[Lanka], \\[Fusang], and \\[India].
Zeus's face changed.
He had only thrown in the least lethal pieces of \\[All Things]. Thalos—just opens with \\[World]?
How was Zeus supposed to play through that difference in realm?
The colossal mountain phantoms split with thousand-mile gashes under the roar; in the face of swords that embodied three worlds, they crumbled into waves with ease, the earth-force within smashed in an instant, a surreal sense of "mountain ranges dissolving into air."
Sensing the breath of the myriad things in those small worlds rolling back, carrying the loam of three mountain chains, Zeus had to strike again.
This time with his surest hand—thunder.
After a heaven-shaking peal, the shattered stony phantoms of the three ranges curled into burning paper balls in a thousand-mile sea of purple-black lightning.
And from that lightning canopy, twelve immensely thick trails of lightning, surging with god-force, cleaved at Thalos once more.
"Heh." Thalos chuckled again. Without moving his body, more World-Swords hovering behind him stirred, streaking past him as streams of light, flitting toward Zeus.
Sensing those swords, Zeus felt as if he'd swallowed half a fly.
How could he not recognize where those five clearly newly forged World-Swords came from?
They were exactly the vassal worlds Odin had made off with that once belonged to Greece!
In the span of a glance, the former god-kings of those worlds had coordinated with their world-wills and sold their entire realms to Thalos.
The elements of those small worlds became shells battering the Greek world; their essence came here, willing to be World-Swords at Thalos's command.
Being beaten with what had originally been his made Zeus sick to his stomach!
"Ptooey—"
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