I am Thalos, Odin's older brother

"That depends on who wins this great divine war."

"You really think you can beat me?" Hel asked with open hostility.

"No," Eresh shook her head slowly. "This is your underworld, your domain. Unless our two worlds merge and my realm, Kur, gains the upper hand, I can't beat you."

"Then why are you here?" Hel put her hands on her hips, pressing the question.

"By the command of His Majesty, God-King Enlil," Eresh answered plainly.

"Oh? Then are you prepared to fall alongside your dear God-King?" As Hel spoke, the aura of death in the underworld began to surge violently. Countless wailing souls unified into a single voice, chanting a death hymn Eresh could not comprehend.

Hel was, as ever, deceptively docile on the surface, yet innately ferocious—she never lacked aggression. No one could keep her in check, except for Thalos.

"I'll do my best," Eresh replied calmly, and suddenly, seven gates formed in front of her, each wrought of bone and shaped in the style of her underworld. These were the gates of Kur.

A strange, foreign deathly aura began to spread across the desolate plains of Helheim.

It was the beginning of a battle of laws—two different worlds' concepts of death vying for supremacy in a single domain.

Eresh should not have been weak.

But the battle quickly turned one-sided.

The reason? Hel had under her command one of Ginnungagap's last remaining divine beasts—Garm, the hellhound.

Its very presence was a violation of fairness.

Whether Eresh summoned a swarm of vicious wraiths or used skeletal sorcery to launch physical attacks, Garm took it all without hesitation, like a wall of raw muscle and magic.

This was its home turf—and even more so, Hel's.

Each time Eresh managed to injure Garm, Hel would simply call upon the dead to restore its flesh in an instant.

To top it off, the fresh influx of Sumerian god souls into Helheim had supercharged Hel's power. This was her peak. Within just ten minutes, the fight had become a brutal suppression.

Eresh's techniques amounted to nothing more than desperate flailing.

Elsewhere, Freyr and Thor had begun pushing back their own opponents thanks to home-field advantage.

Meanwhile, Thalos projected his divine sight across the void, calmly observing the tattered and war-weary Sumerian world. "Alright, Enlil. Two poisoned chalices sit before you—one kills instantly, the other in a while. Which do you choose?"

Escape? That was off the table.

They couldn't run, couldn't push forward.

The entire Sumerian world was now like that bullheaded goddess—a toy in Thalos's palm.

Even if Ginnungagap ceased all attacks, the onrushing tide of Chaos would soon drown Sumer completely.

But if Enlil pushed forward? No home-field advantage.

No matter what choice he made—it spelled death.

To be safe, Thalos released more reconnaissance beast-souls, scouting fifty thousand kilometers out.

He detected no sign of a third world interfering in the battle.

Good. That meant Enlil's hesitations had been fully revealed to Thalos.

"Classic," Thalos chuckled. "A one-track mind becomes blocked at both ends."

He even had time to lounge, legs crossed, sipping Queen Medb's fine wine while leisurely watching the three battlefields unfold.

Somewhat unexpectedly—but not entirely so—the first definitive outcome came from the Death Duel.

Had this battle taken place in the mortal realm, it would have been catastrophic.

In this enhanced Helheim, Eresh's power was inherently disadvantaged.

Thalos had also distributed large amounts of Order Slates to his gods beforehand, which severely diminished the effectiveness of Sumer's Destiny Slates.

And the pairing of Hel and Garm was a textbook case of synergy greater than the sum of its parts.

Under relentless physical and magical assault, Eresh finally slipped—one of her protective shields deployed just a fraction too late. Garm lunged, sinking its jaws into her right leg.

Eresh let out a pained scream. Before she could break free, Hel was upon her.

The Sword of Helheim came crashing down.

CRACK—the skeletal necklace that embodied Eresh's death authority snapped clean in two.

The fracture of her divine domain sent her power into rapid collapse.

At Hel's command, Garm shook its head fiercely and tossed the battered goddess through the air.

Eresh, graceful golden hair and all, shot like a missile into a massive crypt, slamming hard enough to blast a gigantic crater into the burial mound.

She tried to summon power from her own realm, but Kur was too far away, and Ginnungagap's world barrier too intact.

She lay in the pit, lips dry, gasping for air like a fish out of water.

Hel stood proudly atop Garm's broad back, one hand on her hip, towering over her opponent.

"Ereshkigal, Queen of Sumer's Underworld," Hel declared. "I respect your bravery. But this battle is over. Surrender or perish—choose."

A serene expression crossed Eresh's finely carved face. "As for me… I don't really care what happens."

"Oh?"

"May I ask one question?"

"You can ask," Hel smirked. "I might not answer."

"My idiot sister... she got it into her head to charge your god-king directly. What became of her?"

Hel shrugged. "Obviously, she was captured by His Majesty, King Borson."

"Then I surrender," Eresh said flatly.

"Oh?" Hel arched a brow. "How touching. Sisterly love?"

Eresh said nothing further. She raised her arms obediently, allowing Hel to bind her with godly restraints and suppression runes.

The battle in Asgard had ended so swiftly that the outside world couldn't detect it.

But the duel in Helheim was different.

The clash of two death goddesses had shaken the entire underworld.

With Eresh now a prisoner and Hel's victory proclaimed, millions of souls in the realm of the dead erupted into cheers.

The surge of spiritual energy was so massive that even Ginnungagap's world barrier rippled with feedback.

Still hiding in Sumer's divine realm, God-King Enlil could no longer remain calm.

Utu had fallen. Ishtar vanished after her reckless charge into the enemy capital. Now their death goddess was captured too. Sumer had just lost three core gods in rapid succession.

As a god of wind, Enlil was never known for his temper.

To Thalos, Enlil's caution looked like cowardice—but in truth, it had taken multiple founding gods of Sumer to hold him back.

Now, with three major gods down, Enlil finally snapped.

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