I am Thalos, Odin's older brother

"What? What the hell did they just do?!" Feeling the violent tremors shaking the world, Sumerian God-King Enlil was utterly aghast. He didn't even understand what had just happened.

Different worlds operated on different rules. Strictly speaking, the Sumerian world didn't possess a proper world will. Its capacity for motion was controlled jointly by a handful of elder gods.

For example, the primitive and sludge-like deity of Sweet Waters, Abzu, who was more like cosmic clay—note, clay, not soil. He was a dense, sticky mass of conscious matter. In contrast, the opposing force was the infamous goddess of chaos, Tiamat.

Next came the second-generation gods: the more solidified Lahmu and Lahamu.

Following them were the third-generation gods who could lock spatial coordinates—Anshar, god of the celestial axis, and Kishar, goddess of the earth's extremities.

These first three generations were all primordial gods, formed from chaos. Their combined effort—alongside the most manifest of the fourth generation, Sky God Anu—was what powered the Sumerian world's mobility.

Enlil, being a fifth-generation deity, was never meant to carry this burden alone.

So when the Ginnungagap world, under Thalos's command, struck directly and lashed out, it was essentially a blow that struck all four elder generations at once. How could Enlil not panic?

\[That world is full of tricks, and it's unusually lively too. Some damn vine just lashed me,] groaned Anu, still reeling from the pain as he explained what happened to his "good son," the god-king.

This strike itself hadn't caused serious damage—

In human terms, the wound was superficial.

But what was truly terrifying wasn't the injury—it was the fact that the chaotic cosmic energy had poured through the breach in the world barrier and flooded into the Sumerian world.

If left unchecked, this chaos might even reawaken the chaotic leader who once ravaged their world—Tiamat!

Enlil's face turned ashen. He roared a single name:

"Marduk! To the breach—now!"

"Yes, my lord," came the immediate response, as a tall, imposing god stepped out from the line of divine thrones and took flight.

Marduk, god of storms and war, was no ordinary figure.

In Babylonian creation myths, Marduk had fought off Tiamat with unshakable bravery. But only after demanding that the gods grant him supreme authority. When he tore open Tiamat's belly with a storm, the gods were so grateful, they bestowed 50 titles upon him. Marduk became the perfect embodiment of divine power—"king of all gods, king of all kings."

Of course, at this point in the story, Marduk was still just one of Enlil's most capable subordinates.

He flew off to aid Anu in repairing the sky and sealing the breach, keeping the chaos at bay.

But now, the scale of this war had reached a whole new level.

This was no longer just a proxy war between two worlds, using gods as representatives.

This had escalated into full-on world vs. world conflict.

—

Back on the other side, Ginnungagap, under Thalos's control, had just used the World Tree's roots to smack the charging Sumerian world. Now, it was practically buzzing with excitement.

\[Thalos Paulson! Magnificent strike! I never imagined I could even make that kind of attack!]

Thalos raised an eyebrow. Was it just him, or had the world will learned to suck up a little?

He gave a faint smile. "Our interests are perfectly aligned, aren't they?"

\[Crush that insolent thing! With him gone, our power will surge even higher!]

"Don't rush. If we go all-in, you'll suffer too."

\[Then we follow your plan!]

Ginnungagap's world will was genuinely spooked. If the Sumerian world really did ram into it, even if it survived, it'd be left a cripple.

But now, things were different.

Using Thalos's command, the manifested World Tree had turned into a master whip wielder.

Every time the Sumerian world tried to get close, a root-lash would hit it perfectly, sabotaging its momentum.

Sumer was now like a bull in the arena, charging mindlessly. But Ginnungagap—the matador—was bleeding it dry, strike by precision strike.

Its rock-based world barrier was already riddled with wounds.

Tens of massive fissures over 10 kilometers long had appeared, and hundred-kilometer-wide breaches were becoming common.

Sumer's vaunted Luludanitu rock shell, once impervious to chaos, was now so badly compromised that the heavenly realm, where Enlil and the other high gods resided, was being directly impacted.

It was an apocalyptic sight.

The stone sky began to collapse.

With the stench of chaos, broken chunks of heaven rained down like crumbs from some divine giant's feast. But these weren't crumbs to mortals—these "crumbs" were catastrophic.

Massive slabs of celestial stone punched through the domes of glorious temples, shattering the foundations and causing entire divine palaces to plummet from the heavens.

The wailing wind of the falling palaces sounded eerily like the cries of ancient beasts, filled with sorrow and despair.

And it wasn't just one or two palaces—all of Sumer's celestial realm had turned into a giant colander, through which temples revered for centuries were crashing down like hailstones.

—

"WOOOO—"

A shriek of destruction echoed across the Sumerian world.

Mortals stepped out of their homes to stare at the tragic sky in silence.

The skies, now filled with the dim, corrupt glow of chaos and ruin, cast a bleak pallor on every human face.

"BOOM!"

A whole human city-state was annihilated.

Their god had already fallen in the assault on Ginnungagap.

Naturally, no other deity stepped in to protect their abandoned worshippers.

Fragments of the sky temples, now deadly meteors, crashed down under the pull of gravity and obliterated the city.

No house survived the terrifying bombardment.

Horses, terrified beyond reason, bolted across the cracked plains, ignoring their masters.

The heavens were pouring down an endless rain of fire, meteors and rubble.

The homeless mortals clutched each other, moving numbly through the chaos and heat.

Their prayers met only silence.

"O great God-King Enlil! Are you going to \\destroy humanity again?!"

In temple after temple, bloodied high priests beat their heads against the floor, crying for mercy—yet no voice answered.

Their gods had abandoned them again.

But this time, unlike before, there was no wise Enki to offer secret guidance, no hidden escape, no light in the dark.

And just then—at that very moment—a group of mysterious figures appeared among the waves of refugees across the major city-states.

One of them asked quietly:

"Do you know\... which world we are truly fighting?"

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