It was a real headache that their own deities weren't of one mind and bore deep grudges against each other.
And Zeus couldn't fix it.
Although the first-generation Sky God and God-King Uranus had no direct feud with Zeus, and even liked seeing Zeus topple his favorite son Cronus's divine authority, that didn't mean he cared to help Cronus's brat.
Uranus had been unmanned and wanted nothing, but that didn't mean he was going to lend Zeus a hand.
Gaia, the Earth Mother, hated Zeus even more. Remember, to support Cronus she had deliberately birthed the mighty monster Typhon to fight Zeus head-on. She just lost. Zeus also couldn't really deal with her.
What could he do? One was the sky itself, the other the earth itself. If you off those two, the Greek world is destroyed.
Predictably, the twin gods of heaven and earth—absolutely unwilling to cooperate with Zeus—would lay huge snares for him in the struggle over world laws.
"Sigh! If all they did was trip him up, that'd be something," Athena thought, then felt an even greater worry rising.
She feared those core gods of the Greek world might collude with Thalos and move together to besiege Zeus—that would be a true, super-sized disaster!
Uranus and the Old Gods who'd had their authorities stripped… Cronus and the Titans… in peacetime, Zeus could still sit on them. But if they coordinated with the Aesir for an inside-outside pincer, either faction alone could blow the Greek world to pieces.
The more Athena understood, the more her heart trembled.
The seemingly mighty Mount Olympus felt like a sandcastle built on quicksand—terrifying, isn't it?
The rolling divine war continued.
Given the communications of this era, confirming which deity had run into trouble within half a day was already impressive.
Real-time reports were rare; delayed information was the norm.
Unless it was a deity whose state was tightly bound to the world itself—like the sun god Helios—Olympus usually couldn't learn at once if a lesser god fell.
Nymph goddesses, divine attendants, and angels sent in battle reports one after another, and Athena's face grew steadily darker…
By contrast, in Asgard's Golden Palace, Thalos read the incoming battle reports calmly, but Thor couldn't sit still.
"Father, when is it our turn to strike?"
"You're not a child. Can't you keep your cool?"
"Uh…" Thor sat down helplessly and scratched his big beard.
Just because the spatial corridor was open wide enough for Major Gods to attack didn't mean they had to send Major Gods.
A Major God lost was a major blow to any pantheon.
That logic applied to the Aesir as well.
True, Thalos had led the Aesir to conquer pantheons great and small.
He could field a whole platoon of gods qualified to be sun gods, and at least two dozen who could serve as death gods.
Core divine domains aren't handed out casually.
Loyalty, bloodline, whether they command respect, their relationships with other gods—all of it had to be considered.
Handle it poorly, and help turns into hindrance. Not fun.
Old Aesir had no four cornerstone elemental gods of earth, water, fire, and wind; until defeating the Fuso and Indian pantheons, Thalos tightly held wind and water, and he likewise controlled the core domains of fire and earth.
As God-Emperor, he simply didn't wear the fire and earth titles, leaving the day-to-day to workers like Geb.
Nor did he answer prayers from believers in those four areas. When too many prayers to Thalos himself piled up, he'd just "one-click delete."
That approach prevented the world from collapsing if a Major God fell.
As for Thalos falling—give me a break. If he's done, who cares if the world floods to the heavens?
With core Major Gods like Hela, Arthur, and Freyr never going to be deployed, the intensity of this divine war was inherently limited.
That's not to say Arjuna and the others didn't matter.
Quantitative change can easily trigger qualitative change.
Arjuna and Ramses II first brought back trophies—the soul cores of two sea goddesses.
Next came reports from a bunch of former South Asian subordinate gods… and, well.
They underperformed exactly as expected.
After watching those who had ascended from mortals fight their way through and then looking at the battle footage of those subordinate gods of the Ripol line—man, it was eye-searing.
Worse yet was the other side.
Those slave-gods of the Greek pantheon were doing literally anything to survive.
"I am XXXX. I have no desire to fight! But the wicked Olympian god-kings forced me onto the battlefield. If possible, we can spar a bit, waste an hour, and then I'll go. If the exalted god will spare me, I will richly repay you!" That line had practically become the standard script for the slave-gods.
They had to show up for the war.
If they didn't, the divine supervisory squads might kill them.
But a divine battle could be private.
They'd cross into Ginnungagap and, on the preset Fuso battlefield, flare their divine power to veil the surroundings, then open with a bow and plea—you believe this?
That "ultimate move" left the Aesir across from them completely baffled.
Killing a Greek slave-god already earned little merit.
If the other guy had no will to fight and only came to complain and phone it in, sure, you could still kill him—but you'd very likely trigger God-Emperor Thalos's suspicion.
This was under the God-Emperor's very nose!
Which of the former South Asian minor gods dared to openly court death?
Most of them exchanged polite words and then fought a fixed match.
You blow up a mountaintop; I blast a big crater in the ground.
With time to kill anyway, these lower-tier new Aesir even started pumping the others for intel.
Those slave-gods didn't hold back—they spilled everything: the names and traits of Greek principal deities, who was entangled with whom, which mortal offspring might be some god's soft spot…
They dumped it all, and complained like mad while doing it.
Short of switching sides immediately due to divine geas, they did everything else—slacking off, sabotaging, you name it.
A small number of Aesir did try to attack them. But the others had prepped stacked armor and shields in advance.
Say nothing—just dump all divine power into defense and turn yourself into a god-tier turtle shell.
When a god abandons everything to focus on defense, he's really not easy to kill.
And once the clock ran out, they greased their heels and ran every which way.
What's that?
You could really crack their turtle shell?
That only proved the two sides weren't in the same league.
If you weren't Major God level, who could casually crush these slave-gods?
So this was the result: after a whole round, those South Asian descended gods had nothing worth bragging about—while the former mortal heroes who had invaded the Greek world were the ones to make real kills.
(End of Chapter)
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