novelraw Chapter 507 507: My Foolish Brother Odin
Chapter 507 507: My Foolish Brother Odin
"No!"
"Sorry!"
"My apologies—please display the dignity and mettle befitting a deity!"
As countless Aesir voiced similar lines, that cold refusal shattered who knew how many Olympians' hearts.
Wait—what? We Olympians don't even qualify to surrender?
What enraged them even more—the Aesir had granted only some major gods the authority to accept surrenders. Clearly there were quotas or an unwritten red line of preferences they wouldn't explain.
For example, in one pocket sealed off by World Tree roots, Arthur, god of knights, declared bluntly: "I have only three slots to accept surrender. Decide among yourselves. You have a quarter hour. If you can't decide, then I will."
Arthur was indeed fair, yet in such a moment it landed like an execution of gods and a crushing of hearts.
No deity wants to fall; Arthur granted hope and pronounced despair in the same breath.
Grace? Courtesy? Doesn't exist.
Right in front of Arthur, several Olympians who knew they couldn't beat the Aesir started squabbling on the spot.
"Let me be the one to yield!"
"Like hell! That slot is mine."
"Can't you just give way to me?"
Don't project human ugliness onto gods?
What a joke! Even Zeus the God-Emperor took the throne by patricide. Where were virtue and order ever found in Olympus?
For the sake of survival, those primly robed, high-and-mighty "deities" were driven into looking like fiends.
Gods and goddesses alike set on each other without shame.
Divine light flashed, blades and swords gleamed—a farce that made the corner of Arthur's eye twitch.
He suddenly realized that letting such shameless sorts into the Aesir would be the greatest profanation of all.
The lone consolation: those few were neither too strong nor too weak, and in a quarter hour none could overcome the others.
Arthur drew his Sword of Promised Victory again and sighed. "As expected, you cannot decide. Then please—fall."
"No—"
"Fraud!"
"How can you—?!"
"Lord Arthur, I'm the one who truly surrenders!"
Arthur and his sub-gods fell upon the Greek deities again.
This time the battle was different—utterly one-sided.
No surprise.
Before, at least they covered one another and faced outward as one. Once Arthur had—unintentionally—succeeded in goading them into infighting, the fragile alliance collapsed. Some even tried to sell out their teammates to be one of the last three to yield.
Too bad—Arthur had said "decide within the time limit." Since they couldn't, none would.
In the end Arthur butchered those shameless ones to the last.
Scenes like this played out across the isolated combat zones.
Some of the shrewder Aesir used the ploy to incite Olympian infighting; others didn't care and simply kept the goddesses, slaying all the males.
All reports converged on Zeus as a single message: the gods he relied on to rule Greece were falling in droves.
The lower the rank, the faster they died. Poseidon's "three thousand" sea nymphs were like moths to flame—double digits of sea goddesses died every second.
Destruction and death spread swiftly among the Olympians like fuses racing across the pantheon, climbing step by step toward the god-king tier.
Among Olympians bearing the god-king title, the first to die this round was Ares.
For all his bloodthirst and will to fight, Ginnungagap's suppression of his power—and his inability to replenish the force of war on this away field—brought his quick defeat.
Under a blood-soaked firmament, Tyr's war-greatsword rent space. Each of his charges crushed vast slabs of bedrock. Facing that fierce assault, Ares could only meet it with the black-iron greatsword Hephaestus forged, fighting at bay.
With every clash of blades, a portion of the war-force that took ten thousand battlefields to gather was scattered from Ares.
Tyr's edge, fed by a ceaseless current of war's divinity, finally snapped Ares's iron blade. When the point pierced his left chest, beads of blood were drawn from his divine body and sank into the runes carved upon Tyr's sword.
Ares tried to struggle in vain—only to realize the godhood of "War" inscribed in his breast had already been absorbed.
Tyr turned his blade and stirred. In the span of a few breaths, the Greek war god Ares became red ash on the wind.
War brings only death and ruin.
A slain war god earns no headstone.
Ashes to dust, soul to sky—that is the fate of a defeated war god.
Nearly the same played out a hundred miles away on the death-field. Hades, whose death-force had waned, could no longer summon the Styx to swallow heaven and earth.
Had it been a proper duel of death-gods, perhaps Hades could have held longer.
Too bad Skaha had Gungnir!
That rule-breaking God-King spear ignored space and distance, slipping easily into Hades's heart at the critical instant of his clash with Hela.
The might of \\[Space] wantonly wrecked Hades's divine body and even shredded the phantom of the Styx behind him.
When that strike pierced Hades's divine-soul core, every god on the battlefield heard a muffled groan that nearly shattered their composure.
"Unn…"
No matter how stoic Hades was, no matter how he wished his fall wouldn't sway the other Olympians—that was impossible.
The fall of the Lord of the Underworld is one of the most world-shaking events there is.
Without him, the souls of the dead—and of fallen gods—would never return to their own world.
Once slain, even their divine souls would be claimed by the other world's underrealm.
That was the deepest, most terrifying crux!
"Ah! Hades has fallen?!"
"What? Impossible!"
"No—"
"What do we do?"
Fight to the death? No. Surrender? No door.
The panic spread, and the Olympians lost the will to fight:
some launched futile charges, then fell from the void, their souls nailed into Helheim.
Some offered themselves up as sacrifices on the wheel of fate, dropping to their knees, casting down their weapons, stretching their necks for the blade.
Some knelt and kowtowed again and again to the Aesir opposite, begging for mercy.
Either way, Hades's fall had struck up the prelude to an end that erased cause and effect.
One after another, Olympians perished in that hopeless god-war—their bodies to dust, their souls dragged into Helheim.
No one knew how long after, but the duel between Thor and Poseidon also reached its end.
Across borders like this, oceanic power was simply too inefficient. Facing Thor's near-endless storm of thunder, the tsunamis Poseidon summoned were choked full of writhing lightning-serpents.
Another god-bolt fit to obliterate a small world.
Thor had thought Poseidon could take a few more—only to see a desolate face.
After the deafening peal, the waves vanished like phantom mist, leaving only a broken half of a golden trident haloed in lightning, hanging in a space like a god's tomb.
Poseidon… had fallen!
With each fallen Greek deity, Zeus felt his \\[All Things] office grow thinner.
\\[All Things] let him borrow power from every domain in the Greek world.
But if the deity of that domain fell, Zeus's efficiency in borrowing plunged.
And in a duel against Thalos's "World Sword Array," every passing second burned a sea of god-force.
As the phantoms behind Zeus dwindled, the all-domain duel swiftly neared its endgame.
"Ares, Hades, Poseidon…" The fierce echoes in his soul-bond told Zeus exactly what had happened.
He knew this feeling.
He had already tasted the awful sting of a child's death when Hermes fell.
But this time the lost were too many.
Only the closest could drive Zeus to deeper, more hopeless grief.
"Ahhhhh—Thalos Borson—"
Zeus held nothing back and turned all the god-force he could gather into a chaotic elemental deluge, slamming it down on Thalos.
Never mind the potency—by volume alone, it could have razed all Asgard.
So outrageous was the surge that even the spatial conduit Zeus had built with \\[Space] threatened to collapse.
"Rrrrrrummmmble!"
It was a world-ending flood.
A mere touch withered World Tree roots on the spot.
That single blow even shattered the root-wall that had separated Zeus from his vassals.
To answer it, Thalos, unusually, moved twelve World-Swords at once.
"The Sword of Muspelheim," "Jotunheim," "Sumer," "Egypt," "Fusang," "India"…
Each blade was a world.
When those World-Swords, trailed by the shadows of worlds, met that flood, a terror-roar nearly deafened every corner of Ginnungagap.
"Vnnnn!"
So loud was it that, despite all the spatial buffering around the war zone, the vibration carried far, briefly deafening hundreds of millions of mortals.
People shouted, seeing the terror on each other's faces, yet hearing nothing at all.
Some in the lower realms had their eardrums burst on the spot and bled from their ears.
That was almost Zeus's last card.
When he could no longer launch wide-area killing arts, Thalos opened Valhalla—tens of thousands of einherjar poured out of a gate in the void. Shouting slogans like "Long live His Majesty God-Emperor Thalos!" they became a silver soul-flood and crashed against the Thousand-Armed Giant beneath Zeus.
That mutant giant, soaked in chaotic energy, was vicious.
Any of the half-torsos clinging to it—if loosed—were demigods.
The only issue: they had brute force but, by chaos's nature, lacked coordination.
That let einherjar—drilled for years with day-and-night sorties and iron teamwork—find their moment. They swarmed and cut down the ugly "half-men" one by one.
Zeus looked down from on high. No matter how he twisted the giant to shake them off, he couldn't stop those elite souls from inflicting irreversible harm on the body.
Shake off two—five leap on!
Scatter three—ten more arrive!
This was the century-deep foundation Thalos had banked with the Ginnungagap's hundred million!
As individuals, the einherjar wouldn't shame themselves among Greek heroes. Maybe a lone one couldn't best Agamemnon or Achilles—but there were so many of them!
Quantity quickly became quality.
To his shock, Zeus saw that, under the einherjar's cover, Thalos's World-Swords had begun slicing the Thousand-Armed Giant apart.
"Shk—whoosh—ssk—" Chunk after chunk of flesh, each weighing over a ton, sloughed off the massive frame. Once the chaos-fed slabs lost their supply of death-force, they were just larger hunks of carrion.
Against World-Swords brimming with elemental power, they became charred husks, sodden gore, or…
To the naked eye, the hundreds-of-meters colossus was coming apart.
"No! No! It shouldn't be like this!" Zeus could no longer remain within; he had to leap from the cut in the giant's neck.
He bet everything, became a lance of lightning, and charged full force at Thalos.
Zeus was gambling—on his titan bloodline, hoping his tougher divine body could trade for Thalos's fall.
He was brave; even now, his actions did not shame the title of God-Emperor.
"Sadly, in this chaotic cosmos, there can be only one victor." Thalos's sigh was a doom's decree.
With the root-wall gone, many Olympians—and the goddesses in Asgard's Golden Palace—saw the last scene.
Zeus's muscles swelled, his hair and beard bristled, his bloodshot eyes glared wide with the ferocity of a beast about to tear a man apart.
It didn't matter.
For all his motion—and his divine soul—had been utterly arrested by the great power called \\[Time].
In that instant, Zeus was a lifelike statue.
Noble. Great. Stirring.
You could heap most words of praise upon him.
Only one was missing—the most vital: "dangerous."
Ridiculous?
The supreme God-Emperor of a vast world who had conquered so many small realms possessed everything—except force.
It was valor—and for the Olympians, the ultimate sorrow.
Zeus spent everything and still could not win.
He couldn't even roll his eyes, only pour his last sliver of god-force into fighting the \\[Time] Thalos held, watching himself advance toward the end.
Thalos walked toward him in midair, step by step.
One, two, three…
He stopped before Zeus and, with something like a pre-duel salute, drew the single, radiant divine blade from the scabbard at his waist.
"Zeus, do you know whose soul is the sword-soul of this 'Sword of Asgard,' symbol of Ginnungagap's supreme godly authority?"
"…Who?" Zeus forced every ounce of will to squeeze out a single word from his soul.
"Hard to believe, perhaps. When my foolish brother Odin cast himself into chaos and rebelled against all Ginnungagap, I slew him and sealed his principal divine soul into this blade as the sword-soul."
Zeus reeled.
Fate truly is a boomerang.
How Zeus treated Odin—Odin now returned to Zeus.
The irony of fate spiked to its peak.
Watching Zeus's constipated look, Thalos leaned in and, with agonizing slowness, pressed the gleaming edge into Zeus's bared chest.
Bit by bit. Inch by inch.
Until the point passed through the divine body and burst from Zeus's back in a bloody tip.
Purple god-blood—the hue of sky and thunder—spurted from the vivid wound, but did not fly far. A phantom World-Sword took it captive. The God-Emperor Zeus, with his august blood, was forging the soul of the final World-Sword for the victor.
From Uranus to Kronos to Zeus… the three-generation reign of Olympus ended with a cruel period.
Zeus's expression went from confusion to fury to grief, and within a few breaths, his twisted snarl settled into calm.
Zeus died.
It was a death ordained.
Fate had raised him to half an emperor of the chaotic cosmos—only to shove him from the last step to the throne, using his soul and his seat to cast the most splendid, weighty stepping stone for the true final sovereign.
He toppled his father's rule and slew him, only to hand the profit to an outsider.
What an irony.
As if to show the mercy of a cosmic sovereign, Thalos loosened the \\[Time] binding on Zeus just a hair.
With a divine voice all on both sides could hear, Thalos said: "Zeus, I permit you to speak last words."
He was ready for the worst—if Zeus incited the Olympians to fight to the end, he wouldn't mind slaughtering ninety-nine percent of them.
The Aesir already had enough factions; they didn't need a vast pantheon able to counterbalance the old-guard Aesir.
At that moment when a million gods held their breath, in the temple of the Lanka world, Hera—long since pressed beneath Odin—lifted her head and stared, taut with nerves, at Zeus in the mind-projection.
How she wished her consort would name her at the last!
If he did, perhaps her jealous heart would go still forever.
Only… only…
Not Thalos nor any god expected Zeus's last words to be—
"Thalos, tell me honestly—how were Athena, Artemis, and Hestia?"
The question was so outrageous—not just absurd, but so wildly tangential—that even Thalos didn't know how to answer.
Come on! In front of every god!
You're dying and this is what you care about?
In an instant, the three former virgin goddesses still in the Golden Palace were mortified, wishing a hole would open in the floor.
For a heartbeat, Thalos didn't want to answer the lecher.
But seeing Zeus's body begin to come apart, meeting those eyes brimming with curiosity—almost pleading—
Thalos answered, against his better judgment: "Great."
An outrageous question.
An outrageous answer.
But very Zeus.
Predictably, that exchange would become a divine secret—eternally forbidden to reach mortal ears.
In front of the pantheon, Zeus passed in peace.
Once certain, Thor, elated, raised the Hammer of Thunder, Mjölnir, and bellowed: "We have won! Long live the Aesir!"
"Long live the Aesir!"
"Long live the Aesir!"
"Long live the Aesir!"
Aesir, attendants, angels, demigods—even the newly surrendered Olympians—shouted in a single voice.
Victory!
An undisputed triumph!
With Olympus felled, the Aesir became unopposed masters of the chaotic cosmos.
Almost the moment Zeus died, a vast, three-dimensional star map barged into Thalos's mind.
This chaotic cosmos was vast—and not as vast as he'd imagined.
Markers showed many outlying small worlds where new life and new gods were budding.
Only they were too late—still forming between chaos and order—and had missed the war that decided the cosmos's heir.
Fall behind, get beaten—that, too, is a fate hard to escape.
After a month of ritualized frenzy in celebration, Thalos ordered the six god-kings to pacify the new worlds in all directions.
At the same time, Thalos announced he would pass the throne to Thor.
"Father, will you really not reconsider?" That morning, Thor, as always, came to the rear hall of the Silver Palace, banging the great doors like drums.
Thalos, reluctant, dragged himself out from a tangle of divine limbs to deal with his fine eldest.
"Thor, you bastard! I wish I'd never had you!"
"If you'll stay, I can scram," Thor grinned.
"No. I have to go."
"Why?"
"I'm tired."
"…"
A powerful reason.
As when Thalos had once said, "The universe is big, I want to go see it."
After seven days of fruitless cajoling, Thor gave in. "Father, when will you be back?"
"Don't know. A year, a hundred years. Asgard is my home now; I'll always come back. But before that, I want to visit another 'home.'"
"…"
Where loved ones are—there is home.
Thalos didn't know whether Earth's flow of time matched that of this chaotic cosmos.
The longer the years, the stronger the pull to return.
Even if Earth lay in ruins, he would not rest easy without seeing it once more.
Seeing the resolve in his father's eyes, Thor sighed long. "While you're away, I'll watch over Ginnungagap."
"Good."
"But Father—what will you do about Uncle Odin?"
Odin—there was the big problem.
Left alone, Odin was too clever—and too strong.
In raw force, Thor didn't fear him. In wits—Thor admitted he couldn't win.
Luckily, Thalos had decided already.
In Jotunheim, kingdom of the frost giants, in Odin's old palace, Odin had taken revenge on Zeus who knew how many times these days. Hera, for her part, looked every inch the bullied little wife now.
At Thalos's arrival with the core gods, Odin wasn't surprised.
"My great God-Emperor brother, have you decided what to do with your humble little sibling?"
"Nothing special. You can take a small world with you—no larger than Midgard, and no more than fifty deities."
Thalos was generous enough—letting Odin go independent, to frolic behind his own closed doors.
Odin glanced at Thor, then drew his gaze back.
"Brother, for a very long time I wasn't convinced by you."
"What do you want?"
"Zeus had grudges he couldn't unravel, even in death. I have mine."
"Speak."
Meeting Thalos's eyes, Odin's face was grave. He shouted, "All my life—the best of everything has been yours. I got nothing. Treasures, lands, goddesses—everything! I won't accept it! I goddamn won't!"
"Watch your tongue!" Gilgamesh stepped out and barked.
Odin ignored him and stared hard at Thalos. "Did you ever love me as a brother?"
Thalos said coolly, "I did."
"Prove it."
"Tell me how. I might not."
Thalos's chilly answer made Odin's bile rise all the more.
"I want just one proof—give me the most gorgeous goddess in the world, Aphrodite!"
"That's it?"
"That's it!" Odin swore like iron. "Give me Aphrodite, and I swear I'll be the Aesir's dutiful god-king for all my days. Anyone who threatens the Aesir—I'll crush them! Do you dare, or not?"
"Hoo!" Thalos let out a long breath. "All right."
"If you won't, just say so—wait. What? You agree?" Odin's eyes went wide, pupils quaking.
"Why wouldn't I? You're my brother. And you swear to be the Aesir's god-king." Thalos's matter-of-fact tone wrong-footed him completely.
Silence fell.
At some point a tear slid from the corner of Odin's eye.
He had a thousand things to say; but when his eyes passed the gods and fell on his gray-haired mother Bestla, standing back at a distance, Odin lost control.
"Brother, I'm not your equal!" he cried—and then dismissed them.
Three days later, the Lanka world—its four elements reforged—became the first to detach.
Watching Lanka drift from Ginnungagap, Thalos stood on the Golden Palace terrace, met Athena's eyes, and murmured, "Did anyone tell Odin that Aphrodite is Uranus's dick?"
"Pfft!" This time, the gods truly lost it—no more maintaining gravity—bursting into laughter.
"Hahahaha! Wahahahaha!"
"The most beautiful goddess," was it?
That was too ridiculous!
Gazing into the distance, Thalos felt a mix of flavors in his heart.
"Sigh. My foolish brother."
______
(≧◡≦) ♡ Support me and read 20 chapters ahead – patreon.com/Mutter
For every 50 Power Stones, one extra chapter will be released on Saturday.