What had happened so far wasn't an isolated incident.
Had it not been for the battle with the Fusang pantheon and Angra's "divine assist," these exhausted gods, lacking divine power support, might have at least held out for a day or two.
For an Indian high god like Agni to fall without lasting a single round—that was another kind of tragedy.
"Hela, over here—" Skadi's call snapped Hela out of her focus. She had sensed her target.
"Jörmungandr!"
With a sharp command, her long-suffering mount—her second brother—immediately responded, "On my way."
The World Serpent was powerful, terrifying, and yet also vulnerable.
No one knew better than Jörmungandr himself how many weak spots existed within his immense body. But the presence of his sister Hela served as the perfect shield for those fatal flaws.
As Ginnungagap continued to expand, Jörmungandr's body had returned to its peak size—over ten kilometers in length.
This wasn't bloated by chaotic energy, but a solid, divine body imbued with order.
And ever since God-King Thalos introduced the "Animal Deity" class of divine domains, the domain of "Serpent" was naturally bestowed upon him. He had finally ascended to the divine throne. He now even had subordinate gods under him, like the cobra goddess. At this point, Jörmungandr had reached a level where, as long as his soul remained, he could be reborn from preserved serpent eggs.
Though his entire strength was bound to his serpentine body, and resurrection would still severely drain him, it was far better than the previous reality—where death was final.
Hela leapt onto Jörmungandr's serpent head. The sibling duo now assembled, the massive serpent writhed its terrifying body and charged toward the center of the battlefield.
There, Thor had already clashed with Shiva, the Indian god of destruction.
Boom!
Thunder tore open the sky. Clad in silver helm and armor, the thunder god swung his hammer, Mjolnir, smashing through the chaos-corrupted firmament.
The moment the void was shattered, the hammer—wrapped in a cataclysmic thunderstorm—slammed against the crimson lotus of karmic fire cupped in the four arms of the opposing god.
The resulting ten-thousand-meter burst of violet lightning in the murky sky reduced a thousand-meter mountain to powder just from the shockwave.
"Who are you?"
"Who are you?"
"Thor of the Aesir!"
"Shiva, God of Destruction of India!"
Truth be told, Thor hadn't really caught the name. Shiva had recited his title in Sanskrit, and though it could be comprehended via divine thought, to Thor it just sounded like some weird "-va."
Isn't that a woman's name?
Why is a man called "-va"?
Thor's mental process was simple: If he couldn't understand it, he wouldn't bother.
He drew on the limitless thunder power his world was feeding him, and Mjolnir rapidly completed its second charge.
Seeing this arrogant, brute-force tactic that relied purely on his own world's might, Shiva's expression darkened—an unusually rare sight.
Bastard! Just because your world is big, you think you can do whatever you want?!
Unfortunately, Thor's actions clearly told him—yes. A vast, powerful world really can do whatever it wants.
The next lightning strike was over a kilometer in diameter, formed from tens of thousands of thunder serpents converging behind Thor. The sight alone nearly drove Shiva mad.
Shiva's four arms danced in fury, forming 81 destruction flames in rapid mudras. Jet-black lotus roots pierced through shattered spatial rifts.
He didn't retreat but advanced—barefoot atop wheels of fire that burned the heavens, soaring upward to drive his trident into the apocalyptic thunder column's core.
He succeeded—and failed.
His destructive divine power managed to deflect the massive lightning strike's trajectory, causing it to crash onto a distant plain to his right.
The price, however, was that Soma, one of the eight guardian deities and the god of wine, was completely annihilated—wiped from existence by just a fraction of the thunderbolt's energy.
Shiva didn't escape unscathed either. The residual lightning refracted from his trident scorched a clear, blackened line across his ash-covered, bare shoulder.
To make it worse, the highly concentrated thunder plasma burst swallowed the cobra coiled around his body.
"You…" Shiva was so furious he could barely speak.
In close combat, Shiva believed he had a seventy-percent chance of defeating this thunder brute. Sure, Thor was bigger, but Shiva had other incarnations at his disposal.
The real issue was the seemingly infinite divine power Thor was drawing upon.
This tactic of anchoring his home world directly into the current battlefield and swiftly taking control of the environment—this was pure cheating.
Using your own world to batter the enemy's.
Worst of all, Shiva had no effective counter to this "crush everything" strategy.
Mjolnir, crackling with lightning, came swinging again. One hundred thousand azure-violet thunder serpents surged from Thor's rear world. With no other choice, Shiva's third eye snapped open, and a beam of blood light shattered the incoming lightning net.
Another raw divine power clash. Shiva clearly felt the growing emptiness within his body.
In theory, any act of destruction could empower him—if this were the Indian world, or at least somewhere within his sphere of divine influence.
His third eye scanned the land—lush and verdant everywhere.
The Ginnungagap World Tree, furiously injecting world essence and rapidly taking root in this realm, was the perfect counter to Shiva's Destruction.
In other words, Shiva wasn't fighting just Thor—he was an ant trying to shake the might of the sixteen-world Ginnungagap.
This kind of struggle, where finite faced off against near-infinite, was the true source of Shiva's despair.
Glancing around, Shiva saw Vishnu locked in combat with a female death goddess. Brahma, who had retreated to the Indian side in advance, was forced to fight a dazzling, flamboyant golden god to keep the space portal open.
Everywhere he looked, Indian gods were being beaten—there wasn't a single skirmish where they held the advantage.
"Retreat! We must retreat!" Shiva barked the command to his sons, Ganesha and Skanda.
Retreat?
Both the Indian and Fusang pantheons wanted to.
The problem was—they couldn't retreat!
Shiva had hoped the Fusang pantheon, his old rivals, would take the brunt of the assault and be the scapegoats. But to his shock, the massive Aesir had enough strength to assign powerful gods to every single point on the front.
Were they here to mediate?
No! They were here to harvest!
For the first time in his life, Shiva felt fear.
Sure, Thor was one of their main gods—but based on everything happening, it seemed like there was an even more terrifying god-king behind the scenes.
Who would be the unlucky one to face that?
The answer was… the Goddess Amaterasu!
Amaterasu trembled from head to toe.
The moment that golden-armored giant god appeared, the heavens and stars dimmed as one.
Floating around him were sixteen world-class divine swords—each blade housed a soul no weaker than her own.
Those deep, dark eyes gave her a surreal sense of being completely seen through.
Her elaborate outer robe adorned with crane and pine patterns, the bright scarlet hakama beneath that resembled a skirt, even the sacred undergarment of divine silk beneath her white robes—each imbued with potent divine power—seemed unable to block his gaze.
"Who… are you?" the Goddess Amaterasu asked, her voice trembling.
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Fairy Tail: Igneel's Eldest Son (Chapter 256)
I Am Thalos, Odin's Older Brother (Chapter 336)
Reborn in America's Anti-Terror Unit (Chapter 542)
Solomon in Marvel (Chapter 924)
Becoming the Wealthiest Tycoon on the Planet (Chapter 1284)
Surgical Fruit in the American Comics Universe (Chapter 1289)
American Detective: From TV Rookie to Seasoned Cop (Chapter 1316)
American TV Writer (Chapter 1402)
I Am Hades, The Supreme GOD of the Underworld! (Chapter 570)
Reborn as Humanity's Emperor Across the Multiverse (Chapter 660)
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