I am Thalos, Odin's older brother

On the highest divine throne of Asgard's Silver Palace, Thalos had been quietly chuckling—he had heard this kind of thing before.

With such a massive world, acceleration made turning extremely difficult.

Forget a floating world in the cosmic sea—even a fifty-thousand-ton battleship realizing it's about to collide with an aircraft carrier can't just turn on a dime.

Watching the enemy think they had scored a perfect ambush, only to step right into a carefully laid trap… the satisfaction was indescribable.

When the roots of the World Tree suddenly extended from Ginnungagap's spatial barrier and thrust straight toward the enemy, causing the opposing world to panic and decelerate instantly, the Silver Palace erupted in thunderous laughter.

"Hahahahaha!"

"Stunned, aren't you? Idiots! You fell into His Majesty's trap!"

"Wash yourselves clean and wait to die, you Aztec morons!"

The blow to the enemy's pride delivered a tremendous morale boost to the Aesir side.

The gods' expressions of delight reminded Thalos of a tale from this very lifetime—one that had, amusingly, been distorted. Thor's hammer Mjölnir had been stolen by the giant Thrym, who demanded Freyja's hand in marriage in exchange. Hela had helped Thor disguise himself as Freyja. When Thrym tried to consummate his lust, he was scared limp by the ghastly bride.

This story felt quite apt at the moment.

Imagine it: the Aztec gods had seen Ginnungagap as a helpless beauty cornered in an alleyway—only to charge in, pants down, and find out the "beauty" was either a ghost or Thor in drag with a full beard…

How delightful!

Sure enough, the enemy was dumbfounded.

Rumble-rumble-RUMBLE!

The Feathered Serpent God and the hundreds of thousands of Aztec warriors under his command had expected a one-sided slaughter. Once the spatial barrier broke, they'd simply charge across to the enemy's lands and massacre everyone in their path.

Who would've thought that what greeted them were enormous green roots bursting through their world's screen like soap bubbles and preemptively penetrating deep into their own world?

Accompanied by deafening roars that sounded like heaven and earth collapsing, the wild roots stabbed directly into the dense Aztec lands.

Faced with such violent intrusion, the earth let out a long, dreadful wail.

The ground quaked violently. Within moments, vast web-like fissures appeared across the land.

The roots didn't just pierce the surface—they scraped across it like massive plows, raking the landscape back and forth.

The rugged Aztec terrain was torn to shreds. The malicious roots behaved like monstrous plows, furrowing the soil without mercy.

All buildings—brick, stone, or wood—were instantly obliterated.

Man-made constructions were blown away, smashed into rubble, and then flattened back into the dirt. At a glance, it was as though nothing had ever been there but freshly turned soil.

Utter devastation.

Was this the might of a world-level entity?

Could such a vibrant and active world truly exist in this universe?

The famously brutal Aztec gods were finally the ones getting their minds blown.

It was the first time they had encountered a world centered around a World Tree.

And the greeting? An instant, crushing show of force.

"No! How could you do this to my world!?" A massive serpent the size of an aircraft carrier soared into the sky, its resplendent wings shaking the heavens.

This was the Feathered Serpent God.

Clearly, he had lost it.

He launched an attack on the roots without a second thought.

Spreading his multicolored wings, he summoned a tempest powerful enough to flatten an entire city. Within the storm, torrential rains fell like god-sized arrows.

Truth be told, his divine might wasn't weak.

Thalos took one look and estimated that each raindrop carried the force of a heavy ballista bolt—enough to tear a mortal into bloody chunks.

But to the roots of the World Tree, this was child's play.

The World Tree was the embodiment of Ginnungagap.

And this Ginnungagap was not just larger than the one in myth, but had absorbed the Celtic and Sumerian worlds and even integrated a portion of the Slavic world's earth element.

With such an enhanced world core, the World Tree allowed the Forest God Vidar to synchronize his mind with it and micro-control parts of the roots.

This level of power was far beyond what a mere Feathered Serpent God could handle.

In Thalos' eyes, this proud god seemed no different than the Ten Great Beasts of Ginnungagap that he had once personally slain. They looked fierce, but couldn't last long.

And to its credit, the Aztec world was bold—realizing it had walked into a trap, it still charged forward without slowing down.

However, because of its earlier deceleration, it couldn't strike with full force. And with thousands of World Tree roots entangling it like shock absorbers, the impact was more of a "docking" than a "collision."

Without hesitation, other Aztec gods abandoned their clashes with the roots and rushed toward the Ginnungagap world.

They knew very well—dueling the roots was futile. It would be using their limited divine power to fight an entire world's core essence.

They wouldn't last even a few exchanges before perishing.

Only by trying to destroy the enemy's core world could they hope to win this war.

Lightning flashed. Thunder roared. Hurricane winds, infernos, and divine light burst through the sky.

The trajectories of the Aztec gods were so precise, it seemed as though no storm could knock them off course.

Their radiant afterglow streaked across the sky from south to north, searing itself into the eyes of every surviving Aztec warrior below.

To those mortals, those divine trails brought courage.

Yes! Our gods haven't lost!

And our deaths as mortals are merely the necessary sacrifices of a Flower War.

The Aztecs were a truly pathological civilization.

To both their gods and mortals, the sun was paramount. They believed the world had been created and destroyed four times already. Each creation birthed a new sun, which lit up the world. To keep the sun shining, regular sacrifices of blood and hearts were required.

Thus, constant warfare was essential to secure sacrificial captives. In the absence of external enemies, city-states would fight among themselves. These wars were known as Flower Wars.

Once enough captives had been secured, truces would be agreed upon.

Until then, from the gods down to the common soldiers, they were the most fanatical of warriors.

Unfortunately, this time they had slammed into a wall of another kind.

Led by the Feathered Serpent God, one Aztec deity after another plunged through the world barrier and into the opposing world.

They looked like rising miniature suns, illuminating the Ginnungagap barrier in dazzling, chaotic hues.

And then—they realized…

They had just flown straight into the gaping maw of a cosmic octopus.

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