I am Thalos, Odin's older brother

Before long, the first root of the World Tree conquered a thousand kilometers and pierced into the rocky barrier of the opposing world.

The divine power-saturated, ultra-hard rocky "armor" barely resisted for a few seconds before finally giving in.

It was obvious: the destructive power of the World Tree's roots was superior. These thick root tendrils began puncturing through the rock shell and reached into the interior. At that moment, under the resistance of the opposing world's laws and the "Sky God," some roots started to burn, while others were struck by violent storms. Razor-sharp edges emerged from tornadoes, slicing into the roots.

Yet more roots continued their relentless spread over the enemy's massive stone outer shell.

"Crack, crack, crack!"

The force of plant roots was terrifying. With their tenacious vitality, they could grow through any rock layer, slowly widening the gaps within.

To Ginnungagap, this sound was heavenly music. To the other side, it was a funeral bell.

"What's going on? Anu! Anu, what's happening to you?" the opposing God-King finally showed visible panic.

The [Sky God] Anu rumbled back with a booming voice: "It's the [World]! The enemy is a highly active world—it's invading my body with these monstrous roots!"

In truth, both worlds were equally shocked by each other's appearance.

One side wondered: Why is the enemy world wrapped in a giant bubble enclosing a tree?

The other wondered: Why is that thing wrapped in solid stone around a sky?

Undeniably, what was happening was a massive elemental exchange between two colossal worlds!

Before long, it was clear the opposing side couldn't keep up.

The roots extending from Ginnungagap felt endless. Once the stone shell of the enemy world was cracked, it became nearly impossible to repair.

Under Thalos's manipulation, Ginnungagap patiently played a slow game of stripping—peeling away chunks of dark green-black Luludanitum stone, flinging the fragments into the surrounding chaotic void.

Through the vibrations transmitted from the roots, Thalos clearly heard the enemy Sky God's screams.

"Aaaargh!"

The massive, agonized cries echoed across the enemy's world.

Such a single-attribute god could never resist the full might of Ginnungagap.

Soon, the opposing Sky God called for backup.

Thalos hesitated to even call these things gods. Though massive in theoretical scale, they lacked individual form. It was like two different types of divine-infused mud or sludge forcibly mashed together.

From the depths of the opposing world surged torrents of godly, muddy matter—divine slurry—spewing over the world's barrier in an attempt to patch the breaches.

An impressive elastic defense!

But it was completely ineffective against Ginnungagap!

Ginnungagap was a unique tree-type world. One could say that the World Tree was its true body.

While the World Tree might fear being flooded with chaotic energy, this divinely charged slurry—rich with powerful order energy—was, in some ways, the most delicious nourishment possible.

Without even needing Thalos's command, the roots began greedily absorbing the order energy within the mud.

This order energy had long since escaped primordial chaos. It now held rudimentary concepts of heaven and earth, and basic spatial directions like up and down. In other words, this kind of half-formed but unfixed order energy was exactly what Ginnungagap loved most.

"Ahhh! Kishar!"

"No! Anshar!"

…

The divine wails echoing from the other side nearly broke Thalos's composure.

Back in the Silver Palace, the waiting Thor couldn't help asking, "Anshar? Who's that?"

Thalos couldn't answer—for how would he explain how a "native" God-King of Ginnungagap knew so much about other worlds?

If he remembered correctly, the enemies were likely the male god of the celestial axis, Anshar, and the female goddess of the earth's edge, Kishar.

Those two… were third-generation gods of the Sumerian pantheon!

Thalos facepalmed.

He truly hadn't expected Ginnungagap to run into the Sumerian pantheon of all things.

Sumerian mythology originated from the Mesopotamian plain, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Roughly the area around Persia.

On Earth, it was considered by Western scholars to be the world's earliest known civilization.

Of course, the Chinese didn't accept that claim.

From Earth's geographical perspective, Thalos had assumed he'd encounter the Roman or Greek pantheon first—or maybe even the Slavic gods.

But somehow, it felt like he'd taken a massive detour just to slam headlong into the Sumerians.

If there were a single word to describe the Sumerian gods, it would be—inhuman.

In their myths, the Sumerian God-King Enlil, the god of wind, was outrageously brutal. Just because humans were too noisy and disturbed his sleep, he destroyed humanity three times for that trivial reason!

Among all pantheons, the god with the worst temper upon waking was, without question, Enlil.

Next to him, even Chaos seemed endearing.

To the Sumerian gods, humanity was nothing more than labor created by the water god Enki—slaves meant to feed them, clothe them, and provide endless pleasures.

They summoned humans with a snap, and killed them just as casually.

To Thalos, a god who was once a human himself, this was absolutely intolerable.

And now, he finally understood why the brutal, domineering Sumerian gods had attacked Ginnungagap without a second thought.

Hilarious!

The Aesir gods—famed as protectors of Viking barbarians—turned out to be a hundred times more civilized than the Sumerians.

At this moment, Thor was growing impatient. "Father? When do we strike?"

Thalos looked over his sons, each with the character [Brawl] practically engraved on their chests, and sighed. "What's the rush? Isn't it better to let them charge forward and fall under the suppression of our world's laws?"

"But letting them reach Asgard and wreak havoc isn't great either, right?"

"They won't hit Asgard first, idiot. The first place they'll run into is Niflheim. I've already told Jörmungandr and Hela to prepare over there."

The land of mist—Niflheim—a godforsaken corner of Ginnungagap that no native would miss even if it got flattened.

"…"

Thalos chided his son. "As a leader, you must understand the right time, place, and alignment of forces. Luring the enemy into our chosen battlefield—that's the optimal strategy."

And Thalos wasn't wrong. On the level of world structures, Ginnungagap held a definitive advantage.

Its world-will was the perfect fusion of two prior world-wills. By contrast, the Sumerian world didn't even have a unified world-will. Its authority had been fractured and divided among a few primordial gods.

As the World Tree's roots spread, intense tremors and booming echoes shook the entire Sumerian heavens. The Sumerian gods were in complete disarray. Some even fell over from the tremors.

Sumerian God-King Enlil could take it no longer!

"Full mobilization! Destroy that world—completely!"

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