I am Thalos, Odin's older brother

"World? War?" The clueless Sumerians were stunned.

"That's news handed down to me by my ancestor, who once served as a divine attendant in the heavens," said a brawny-looking man with a mysterious smile. "God-King Enlil has lost it again. After the chaos invasion, to make up for his world's losses, he declared war on the passing Ginnungagap world. But this time, he slammed straight into a brick wall. The enemy's god-king is obviously far stronger…"

Naturally, those spreading such information were the heroic spirits sent by Thalos.

Though calling them heroic spirits wasn't quite accurate. At best, these individuals were powerful mortal souls.

In fact, even across all the mythologies of the world, those qualified to become true heroic spirits were extremely rare—so rare their numbers were even fewer than the gods themselves.

In the vast expanse of Ginnungagap, only Beowulf and Siegfried could be considered legitimate heroic spirits.

To Thalos, the rest—even if forcibly glorified—couldn't compare to the knights of King Arthur's court.

Rather than spending vast resources disrupting the natural cycle of life and death just to manufacture a batch of so-called heroic spirits, he saw more value in recruiting strong, sharp-minded souls—ideal for espionage.

And there were plenty of souls who had died with unwilling hearts. To them, Thalos offered just one thing: a "second life." That was enough to make them pledge their undying loyalty.

For the truly exceptional, Thalos even promised positions as divine attendants.

Of course, that all depended on whether these expendable agents—scattered like seeds into enemy territory—could successfully possess hosts, build influence, and achieve Thalos's strategic goals.

Thalos wasn't even concerned about them leaking intelligence. They barely knew anything sensitive. Plus, with Siegfried and Beowulf serving as examples of successful promotion, all of them were burning with ambition, diving into danger with wild enthusiasm.

And it worked. They'd successfully disrupted the rule of the Sumerian gods.

One such agent, who had possessed a nobleman who died of fright, advised his panicked king:

"Your Majesty, the gods in the sky can't even save themselves. Why would they care about us mortals? Don't forget, Enlil once tried to wipe out humanity three times just because we were too noisy. Now? He won't save us. He'll just take our food."

The king was dumbstruck. Looking around, he saw his most trusted officials nodding in agreement.

"Then… what should I do?" he asked.

"Your Majesty, open the granaries immediately. Let the people flee at will. Have the army divide and hide the food supplies. If the gods descend asking for grain, give them only a little. The rest—hide it. Also, Your Majesty, take the queen and royal children and go into hiding."

"But—what if divine envoys come down?"

"Let me speak on your behalf, Your Majesty!"

This display of loyalty and courage moved the king to tears—and he actually did it.

This was a classic case of "every man for himself when disaster strikes."

In peacetime, no mortal dared oppose the Sumerian gods, especially not under the crushing authority of Enlil.

But now, during war? To hell with those gods who'd kill them without blinking.

The mortal rulers, selfishly hoarding their food supplies, didn't realize they'd just hit the Sumerian gods' most fatal weakness.

Among the Sumerian gods, generations one through five were mostly elemental beings. They didn't need to eat. But from the fifth generation onward, newer gods had human-like physiology, only enhanced and imbued with divine power.

And these gods, who made up the majority, would get just as hungry as humans after three days without food.

Worse still, the gods had never stored food. For generations, they simply plundered it from mortals whenever they were hungry.

The mortal grain stores had always been their own by default.

They never expected humanity to revolt.

Once the two worlds pulled apart and the world barrier, Luludanitu, stopped being battered, and the heavens settled slightly—the gods realized they were starving.

They scoured every corner of the heavens for food—but found nothing.

Then they remembered: go to the mortals.

Too late. The mortals had fled. There wasn't even a handful left in the cities, let alone stocked granaries.

Scattered like ants across the land, these fugitives carried little to no food—nowhere near enough to feed the big-stomached Sumerian gods and their servants.

Mass famine.

That death-scented phrase sent shockwaves through the divine court.

Some gods panicked and dispatched more attendants to collect food; others, with no way out, agreed to join Enlil's interdimensional invasion army.

Sumer fell into utter chaos.

Meanwhile, no matter how hard they pushed, the Sumerian world still couldn't catch up to Ginnungagap. Every time it got close, the roots of the World Tree would whip it back like a spinning top.

Each time, the whole world would hear Anu's anguished scream, as yet another giant strike rocked the heavens. No one, not even the dumbest mortal, could miss it.

This "kite flying" tactic was driving them mad.

World movement was inherently slow. Gods, by comparison, moved faster—but in Thalos's eyes? Still slow. World speed was a snail, while godly invasions were at best turtle-paced.

The World Tree's roots were too slow to intercept these agile gods. Sending out the Aesir gods one by one would just stretch them thin.

Though the Aesir had expanded greatly over time, they were still limited. It wasn't just Thalos and his family anymore, but even so, there were only about 30 core gods with significant divine records.

Add the eight Wave Goddesses, the pureblood Aesir, the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Knights of Arthur, and some newly ascended ones, and the total count barely reached 80.

Even among those, the gods beyond the core 30 were not exactly strong.

And while the Sumerian pantheon also had a wide range of power, they were considered the origin point of Western myth. The number of important Sumerian gods exceeded 100, and including the sixth- and seventh-generation nobodies, their numbers neared a thousand!

Faced with that kind of sheer scale, Ginnungagap would be overwhelmed in a direct brawl.

So Thalos came up with a clever solution:

"Land and get 100 pulls free!"

Any Sumerian god who managed to slip past the World Tree roots and breach the world barrier would find themselves facing a second round of strikes.

Vidar, god of the forest, was a master of plant-based control.

Though he lacked the power and mental capacity to control world-sized roots, for localized defense, he was king.

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