After returning to their homeland from the \[Sky] divine realm, the Tuatha Dé Danann had never imagined that their fate in the lower realm would be so miserable. In order to demonstrate their determination to defend their homeland, they even destroyed all their flying ships upon arriving at the Emerald Isle, as a sign of their resolve to live and die with their land.
To put it bluntly, this was a move by Nuada at the time to cut off any path of retreat for the opposition, forcing them to align with him.
But at their core, these cowards could never become true warriors.
With Nuada's death, even without the retreat horn being blown, most of the Tuatha Dé Danann gods immediately lost their will to fight and fled with their own divine guards.
A few with some backbone gathered their direct subordinates and used hills or segments of the wall to desperately resist the tidal wave of chaos giants.
But within a few rounds, they were completely overwhelmed by the giants.
Any observer with a bit of common sense, seeing this scene, would immediately understand that the backbone of this divine army had been shattered.
Unless a new leader could one day slay the chieftain of the Fomorian giants and cleanse the shame of this army, reestablishing its prestige—
Otherwise, its glory would forever be buried on this land.
By this point, Thor had lost all interest and stood up to bow to Thalos. "Father, do we still need to keep watching? I'd like to go train now!"
"Sit down, Thor. Until the final moment of war arrives, it's not over yet." Thalos's firm tone piqued the curiosity of the other gods.
Their curiosity reached its peak with what happened next.
By all logic, the Tuatha Dé Danann were already utterly defeated. They had retreated at least thirty kilometers, barely halting their collapse by hiding in a mountain settlement.
There, the remaining major gods of the Tuatha Dé Danann regrouped. Clearly, having once again lost their leader Nuada, morale was extremely low.
At that moment, a young and handsome new god—the God of Light, Lugh—stepped forward.
"We can't give up here! We have nowhere else to retreat! The Emerald Isle is only so big; sooner or later, Bress and his giant army will find and destroy us."
"What do you propose?" asked the All-Father Dagda, realizing Lugh spoke the truth.
"We strike first! Let's launch a surprise attack on the giants—right now!"
"Right now?"
"They ambushed us while we were celebrating. We can turn the same tactic against the Fomorian giants!"
Just then, Siegfried stepped forward. "Lord Lugh is right. Our people heard that the giants are holding a feast in their camp. They're drinking the wine we left behind and celebrating wildly. They even forged Nuada's head and silver arm into a goblet for drinking."
The brutal actions of the chaos giant chieftain Balor enraged the Tuatha Dé Danann. They quickly organized a surprise attack to be launched at dawn.
And they succeeded.
The state of the chaos giants was even worse than the Tuatha Dé Danann after their own three-day celebration.
Most of the giants were dead drunk. They couldn't react to battle cries, or even to the horn calls from their chieftain—they remained fast asleep.
As a result, these poor wretches had their heads lopped off in their sleep by the divine guards of the Tuatha Dé Danann.
The new leader, Lugh, personally challenged Balor.
Balor was severely intoxicated and far too old. Without attendants to help pull up his enormous eyelid, he couldn't even open his eye to unleash his world-destroying evil eye beam.
Lugh summoned the power of the rainbow and the Milky Way to create a radiant sling, which hurled a massive light orb that pierced through Balor's demonic eye. Then, using the divine spear Brionac, he slew Balor!
At this point, the Aesir gods and giants were merely surprised.
"What? They actually turned it around?"
"So now our opponent is the Tuatha Dé Danann?"
"This enemy might be worth our time."
A song composed of blood and courage resonates most easily. Even if they looked down on the Tuatha Dé Danann's previous cowardice and stupidity, this much earned their respect.
Having watched for so long, the Aesir gods and giants were starting to feel hungry and were about to leave, when Thalos spoke again to stop them: "Everyone, don't leave yet. Be patient a little longer."
"Hm?" Thor and the others were genuinely stunned.
Only Thalos, seated on the God-King's throne, revealed an expression filled with profound meaning.
As expected, just when the Tuatha Dé Danann turned the tide and began chasing the remaining giants through the mountains and down to the seashore, a sudden turn of events occurred.
"Crashhh!"
Countless sounds of rushing water exploded as one after another, towering and grotesquely mutated chaos giants surged out from the sea.
Lined up in formation, their numbers—by any estimation—matched the earlier chaos army in full.
Such a terrifying number of chaos giants, even if they weren't attacking the Emerald Isle, could have completely wiped out any of the neighboring small kingdoms if just one-tenth of them were deployed.
Never mind mortals—this left no room for the Tuatha Dé Danann at all!
Lugh knew very well that his kin had fought a brutal battle the previous day, had not rested properly, and had launched a night raid on Balor's giant clan. They were already spent.
Now they had chased all the way to the coast, completely exhausted.
Facing an entirely new Fomorian clan, most Tuatha warriors couldn't even dream of fighting back—many couldn't even run.
Lugh had no choice. He knew his only hope was to slay the enemy's chieftain.
What puzzled him was that the enemy seemed to have a new leader. Elatha stood like a servant, head lowered, beside a much larger and unfamiliar giant.
At that moment, Bress—now a prisoner of the Tuatha Dé Danann—was utterly terrified, because he saw his greatest backer—his cheap old man—hand the symbolic chieftain's fang necklace to the new giant.
And when he got a good look at the chaos giant's face, Bress was dumbstruck. He suddenly screamed, "Auston? You're Auston? How did you become the chieftain of the Elatha clan?!"
"Elatha clan?" Odin, once again transformed into a chaos giant, grinned widely. "Heh! That deep-sea giant clan has been renamed to the First Giant Legion of the Kingdom of Odin!"
Kingdom of Odin?
What the hell?
The Tuatha Dé Danann gods were momentarily stunned.
But it didn't matter—these giants were still their enemies.
All they awaited was a single command from their new leader Lugh.
Whether to fight, make peace, or flee—it all hung on Lugh's word.
Lugh shouted, "You call yourself Odin, right? Do you dare face me—Lugh, new chieftain of the Tuatha Dé Danann—in single combat?"
Odin smirked and glanced at the deep-sea giants around him, their eyes filled with fear. He had absorbed chaotic power, returning his body size to that of an Aesir god—but it was only size.
He no longer had divine power, relying solely on chaos energy.
To obtain even greater power, devouring a native deity might be a good idea.
And Odin needed the merit of a foreign war to further prove himself.
He laughed. "Single combat? Fine! But if you lose, every member of the Tuatha Dé Danann becomes my slave!"
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