Thalos's avatar remained outside the Greek world, feeding him moves like a master training a pupil, exchanging one technique after another, unhurriedly going at Uranus, the Greek sky god.
At first, Thalos used extremely violent asteroid impacts, draining Uranus's divine power to the maximum.
As the fight went on, Uranus was obviously "out of breath."
The sky itself, of course, can't suffocate; what this meant was that Thalos had pushed the sky of the Greek world into a state of extreme damage and confusion. Seen from outside the world, this was no longer an "ozone hole" problem.
There were so many "holes" punched through that places that still had anything like a stratosphere or troposphere had become the minority.
Maliciously, Thalos entertained the thought of whether he could make the spatial barrier of the Greek world like a smashed eggshell—once broken, never to be repaired.
If the entire Greek world entered a vacuum state and all living beings died as the price to win this super divine war, Thalos could consider it.
Though that was a bit too ruthless and would incur the utmost hatred and loathing of the will of the Greek world...
But the Greek world didn't truly have an independent world will; its will had naturally been partitioned into ultra-massive individuals like Uranus, Gaia, and Tartarus. Offending those Greek elder gods didn't seem like such a big deal.
Ginnungagap would devour the Greek world sooner or later; their fundamental interests were irreconcilable to begin with, so Thalos had no reason to curry favor with Uranus and Gaia.
Cut the crap!
Beating him within an inch of his life was the right call.
From the standpoint of world energy expenditure, Thalos's current approach was a bit of a loss.
Thalos didn't care; if he couldn't win in the sky domain but won big in the others, that worked too.
Thalos could clearly see the waters of the Seven Seas being siphoned off continuously into other worlds that had originally belonged to the Greeks. On that point alone, Thalos judged the strategic objective achieved.
As for further gains, those would count as pleasant extras.
"Reporting to Your Majesty! High God Enki sent me to report—the waters of the Seven Seas have now been siphoned off by about two-sevenths, but Poseidon has returned to hold the Seven Seas, so large-scale drain is no longer possible. High God Enki and the others have begun to withdraw."
"Report—High God Hela has broken through the Wall of Sighs of the Greek underworld and captured Macaria, daughter of Hades, the 'Goddess of Rest'!"
"...His Majesty Gilgamesh has successfully detached the New Carthage continent (east coast of Spain)!"
"...The other five Majesties have successfully suppressed five subsidiary worlds of Olympus."
"...Prince Thor has slain Hermes, the Olympian god-king."
"...Prince Tyr has captured the goddess-king Hestia."
"...High God Arthur has slain Dionysus, the Olympian god of wine."
...
"Heh!" Hearing so many little surprises, Thalos's lips quirked; he waved a hand and "took his leave" of Uranus.
"You..." Uranus was livid.
He had achieved his original aim of holding the Greek world. So why did he feel no joy at all?
On Thalos's side, the surprises kept rolling in; if anything was outside his expectations, it was that this guy Odin had actually swiped yet another small world.
Huh? Why the need to stress the word "another"?
Huh, huh, huh? Since when does the phrase "strong whiff of theft" link up with Odin?
For some reason, whenever Thalos thought of Odin now, he couldn't help but think of that "southern twin-ponytailed cutie" from before he transmigrated—a flying cockroach.
Just then, Hermod, the son of Brynhild, ran over to Thalos: "Father, I—I ran into Odin. He said—he hopes Father can, for the sake of his stirring up Kronos's rebellion, return the Rilanka world to him."
"Oh?" Thalos realized at once this was Odin's probe.
Odin was afraid, too. If Thalos turned his face and refused to acknowledge him, continuing to brand Odin the great traitor of the Aesir, Odin and his lot would be in for it. If it came to that, Odin breaking out of Tartarus would be purely to spite Zeus in a mutual-destruction play.
Odin was betting on Thalos's wisdom and mercy, hoping he was still the good big brother who doted on his little brother.
In fact, Odin was overthinking it.
Thalos's fraternal affection for Odin was close to zero, true, but how could he push a helper over to Zeus at a time like this?
If you really corner Odin—never mind that he isn't a rabbit—even a rabbit bites when desperate.
Thalos smiled faintly and said offhand, "Give it to him."
And just like that, an independent small world that an ordinary deity could only dream of was parceled out. Even though at this moment a small world couldn't pass wholesale through the crevice of the Mutant Star Region to the other side, once ownership was transferred, whether Odin broke the Rilanka world into pieces to move it over, or brought the newly seized small world back to Rilanka—that would be his business.
Of course, Thalos wasn't going to let his "foolish little brother" off that easily.
Letting Odin take his bow and exit like that—wouldn't that be a bit too cozy?
"Hela caught that so-and-so. Send her to Odin."
"Huh? Yes—" Hermod froze for a beat, then agreed at once.
...
In the newly occupied Dogon world, Amma watched Odin sitting on the divine throne that had originally been his in his own temple, wearing an awkward, ingratiating smile.
How could Amma not be embarrassed?
This band of bandit-like outsider gods had just stormed in and suppressed his little pantheon.
Odin claimed he was the younger brother of the Aesir God-Emperor and that the Aesir had flipped the Olympian pantheon on its back, but as for what had actually changed in the Greek world, Amma had no idea.
For someone like Amma, who had been a slave-god for so long, switching masters wasn't a big deal; what he feared most was pledging to this side only for the original master to come storming back. In that case, he wouldn't even be a slave-god anymore—he'd probably be demoted to a slave-beast.
After subduing the Dogon pantheon, Odin also saw the panic in the eyes of Ah Puch and the others.
In truth, their mindset wasn't much better than Amma's.
They were told they'd turned things around and taken charge, and Odin boasted that he and his big brother were working inside-out in concert. Whether that was real, only Odin knew. If Odin was just blowing smoke, the wrath of the Olympians or the Aesir would soon pour down on them. How could a tiny Dogon world possibly stand up to that?
Ah Puch and his cohort were jittery as well.
Unexpectedly, Odin soon ran into an Aesir he said was his nephew. Less than half a day after they met, a spatial corridor had been established.
"Hello, Second Uncle. I'm Yekaterina, the goddess-king of Dominion who was born after you left. I've brought Father God Thalos's regards, and a small gift for you, Second Uncle." The seemingly well-behaved niece, by the strength of the divine radiance on her alone, pressed Odin down a notch.
Any way you looked at it, Odin didn't resemble a god-king; he looked more like a flunky.
But Yekaterina's courtesy was impeccable, and that was hard to gainsay.
This time, Thalos not only returned to Odin control over the entire Rilanka world, he even threw in a bonus: Macaria, daughter of Hades, delivered in a tortoise-shell binding.
Odin's whole godly being went bad.
______
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