It was simple.
A god's divine power comes from their own world.
Ginnungagap was the larger, more complete world. In contrast, Sumer had already lost its world barrier. Chaotic forces were flooding in, rapidly corroding Sumer's celestial realm.
If Enlil were still in control, his storms might've been enough to push back the advancing chaos.
But now, anyone with eyes could see that the wind Enlil once commanded had spiraled into disarray—completely out of control. As a result, chaotic energy began eating away at every god's temple in the heavenly realm.
Perhaps Enlil wasn't dead yet, but when even distant gods could see how relaxed their enemy's god-king was, it was clear to every Anunnaki that their own was at best… getting thoroughly thrashed.
Utter despair.
Right then, many Sumerian gods began secretly cursing Enlil: That bastard. How could he launch an invasion before even understanding what Ginnungagap was?
They completely forgot that they themselves had voted in favor of war when Enlil announced it.
Now look at them. They weren't the ones consuming the sun; they were the ones being devoured.
The more arrogant they'd been at the start, the deeper their despair became.
In the thick of battle, quite a few Sumerian gods began exchanging uneasy glances. They reached out to one another through divine whispers, quietly discussing how to surrender with dignity.
The more observant among them had already noticed that the Aesir seemed to have three different factions:
— The strongest were the towering, divine-energy-wielding Aesir themselves, each three times the height of a mortal.
— Next came the Danu gods, roughly human-sized but still wielding divine power.
— Finally, there were the towering giants—massive in form, but lacking divine essence.
From the Sumerians' point of view, these weren't even one unified race.
Which meant… the Aesir accepted foreign gods.
They didn't necessarily annihilate those they defeated.
That alone was enough to make a number of cowardly Sumerian gods feel a flicker of hope.
Don't think the Sumerian pantheon was ever truly unified.
Back when Enlil defiled the Sacred River, a council of 7 major gods and 50 minor gods removed him from the throne.
With nothing better to do, Enlil ended up running off to the underworld, roleplaying with the goddess queen and making babies in a dozen ridiculous forms.
For a time, he'd played ferryman of the Styx, then guardian of the gates to the underworld—it was practically a comedy routine.
All those antics stemmed from the humiliation of being stripped of his god-king status.
If you think Enlil held no grudges against his "brethren," think again.
And those same gods feared the day Enlil might come after them in retaliation.
To them, a god-king must be powerful—who the god-king was didn't matter.
That mindset led to a growing number of Sumerian gods holding back, focused on self-preservation. Which was effectively… betraying their own side.
Had they all fought with their full strength—purely based on numbers—they might've overwhelmed the Aesir and given Enlil a real chance at survival.
But everything unraveled the moment they began considering defection.
Even more absurd—none of them wanted to be the first to surrender.
Everyone knew that even if all of them eventually gave up, the first to bow would be remembered as a traitor.
Same thing happened among the Vanir. Back when Gullveig was the first to surrender, the Vanir gods had whispered curses behind her back for years. If she hadn't remained Thalos's favored concubine all this time, her life would've been a nightmare.
So the battlefield reached a ridiculous impasse:
Many Sumerian gods wanted to surrender, maybe even call Thalos 'dad,' but no one wanted to go first.
To the Aesir, however—especially the Danu gods eager for merit and the glory-hungry pureblood Aesir—this just looked like stubborn bravery.
"Look how proudly they fight to the bitter end! True warriors! We must honor them!"
Fueled by that misconception, the Aesir went wild. They fought like men possessed, pushing every duel to the brink. Many situations that might've ended in a draw became brutal trades of injury for injury, death for death.
This only made things worse for the Sumerians.
The Aesir were hardier.
In an even trade, the Aesir walked away with bruises.
The Sumerians… were dead.
The more afraid the Sumerians became, the more they hesitated.
And the more hesitant they were, the worse the battle turned.
"Ahhhh!"
"Do you even know who I am?! I'm—!"
"You dare kill me?!"
A longer lifebar meant more chances to screw up.
The poor little Sumerians couldn't afford any.
With every minute that passed, another Sumerian god fell.
The only thing keeping them from a total rout was the Aesir's strict battlefield ethics: once someone defeated their opponent, they didn't jump into someone else's fight.
Of course, it wasn't a clean sweep for the Aesir.
A few pureblood Aesir did get caught off guard and killed.
But those rare victors among the Sumerians didn't even have time to breathe before the next challenger came charging at them.
In the sky above, Thalos watched everything through his divine eye.
Honestly, the Sumerian gods were mostly cruel tyrants who treated humanity like dirt.
Enlil had exterminated humankind three times.
Apart from Enki, few among the Sumerian pantheon could be called decent.
For Thalos—once human himself, now ascended—he found these gods deeply detestable.
Worse yet, they still clung to their council-style politics.
That was something a centralized ruler like Thalos could never tolerate.
Now, seeing none of them willing to surrender? Perfect.
Had even one of those cowards knelt before him, crying "I've wandered half my life with no worthy king to serve...", Thalos might've cracked a smile.
But no. This was much better.
He smirked. His booming voice echoed across the skies:
"Very well! We Aesir honor valor above all. Since the gods of Sumer have shown such bravery and backbone—we shall not fall behind! Aesir, hear my command: Fight to the death, no retreat!"
Pfft.
On the other side, the Sumerians nearly coughed up blood.
"Fight to the death?! What the hell?! You're the ones crushing us!"
They wanted to argue—but feared it'd make them look weak.
The Aesir clearly prized valor. Wouldn't surrendering now just prove them unworthy of respect?
They were utterly torn.
They didn't realize that the Aesir had plenty of hot-blooded lunatics too.
A bunch of musclebound morons immediately shouted back, "FIGHT TO THE DEATH!" and raised weapons so massive they could crush hills—bringing them down on Sumerian skulls with terrifying force.
Thalos kept sneering inwardly: This world doesn't let you surrender just because you want to.
Back before he conquered the Celtic realm, the Aesir had a clear weakness in magic.
But after absorbing the Danu pantheon and recruiting new gods like Arthur, their divine roster was nearly complete.
Only a few positions still sat vacant.
They didn't need to swallow up any more pantheons wholesale.
Thalos whispered coldly to himself:
"Then don't blame me for being selective."
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