"Shameless Zeus! He doesn't give a damn that I birthed and raised him. All for the throne of God-King, he incited those little bastards to ambush me! Not only that, he even bribed my brothers—yes, the ones you saw outside, the Hundred-Handed Giants. Don't be fooled by their many heads; they're actually pretty simple-minded. Under Zeus's manipulation, they rose in revolt against me and my siblings!"
Cronus was recounting the great Titanomachy—the war that determined the fate of the Greek world—from his perspective.
Odin, outwardly respectful, listened humbly, but inwardly, he didn't believe a damn word. Not a single punctuation mark.
Betrayal, lies, slander—Odin had seen too much of it.
But that didn't matter.
What mattered was this: Cronus clearly, deeply, viscerally hated Zeus.
In this universe, hatred is the strongest emotion.
How long had Cronus been imprisoned here? Once the mighty King of the Gods, now reduced to a forgotten prisoner.
Every single day he spent locked away in this hellhole had festered into a burning hatred for his son.
Odin wasn't naïve. He didn't expect Cronus to come up with any brilliant new tactics or battle plans. That wasn't the point.
The point was simple: the enemy of my enemy may not be my friend—but they're still the enemy of my enemy.
If freeing Cronus could make Zeus suffer, that was good enough for Odin.
Even if it didn't help him personally reclaim his honor, he'd happily throw a wrench in Zeus's gears.
And deep down, he knew his big brother Thalos would be delighted too.
Of course, freeing Cronus came with massive risks—he could easily turn traitor the second he got out.
Luckily, Odin had a trump card: his big bro, Thalos, the Aesir God-Emperor.
That kind of deterrence was enough to make Cronus think twice.
Odin silently watched the towering mountain-sized form of the ancient Titan rant and rave. Once the show was over, Odin calmly said:
"Your long-held dream of revenge against Zeus will come true. But for now, we both need to be patient. Zeus's minions are on high alert, and to secretly melt these cursed bronze cells, we'll need time. If we rush, the Hundred-Handed Monster will slaughter your brothers and sisters."
"Oh, yes, yes, of course. Discretion. Yes, we have time…" Cronus's two palace-sized eyes flickered with a mix of hatred, restraint, and excitement.
Odin bowed slightly.
"Then I'll begin contacting your siblings. Make ready to break out. And when the signal comes from my brother—the God-Emperor Thalos Paulsen—we'll strike from inside and out. In one move, we'll obliterate Mount Olympus and its fake gods!"
"Yes! That's the plan! I'll be waiting!" Cronus nervously tucked the steel rod Odin gave him deep into the vast abyssal cage.
Due to their size difference, the steel rod Odin had carried—barely the size of a human forearm—looked like a grain of rice in Cronus's hand.
But it was exactly the right size to slip past the Hundred-Handed Warden's watchful eyes.
With his visit concluded, Odin began his journey through hell.
He now had to sneak around under the noses of the Hundred-Handed Ones, navigating the maze of cursed bronze walls, to collect the scattered \[Fate Steel Plates] and smuggle them into each of the Titans' prison cells.
Only when every Titan's cage was primed for destruction would they meet the bare minimum condition for an uprising.
The funny thing?
Thalos had no idea his idiot little brother was down in Greek hell playing a trash-collection game.
His focus remained entirely on the massive divine war unfolding before him.
Because between great worlds, there's no such thing as a swift victory.
If the enemy had even a shred of will to resist—if there was no "nobody defeats me until I surrender" nonsense—then it was going to be a grind.
You had to bleed them dry. Every last drop.
Only once they were utterly crushed, only once the final man had fallen, would they accept defeat.
History on Earth had shown this many times.
A city sends an army. It's annihilated. The city sends another. Wiped out. Then a third.
Only when the enemy occupies the city—or when every able-bodied man is dead—does surrender come.
Thalos's "little tricks" might help. But he never counted on them alone.
This wasn't some "one battle to decide the world" strategy.
That was the dream of poor, desperate empires—not a colossal civilization like Ginnungagap.
At this moment, the attacking Aesir gods were already facing a massive number of seemingly random Greek deities.
Once they crossed the void and breached the passage to the Greek world, they were met with an alien undersea battlefield.
The pitch-black depths were a nightmare for those who had ascended from mortal origins. Only native-born gods or elemental deities could hold their footing.
The sea pulsed ominously around them.
Dark waters murmured.
Chilling auras loomed from every direction.
Arjuna, surrounded by a sphere of displaced seawater, felt the pressure mount.
He had once been an ambitious man. Now, elevated to godhood, he still bore the hopes of millions of Indian mortals.
Restoring the old Indian pantheon? He no longer dreamed of that.
God-Emperor Thalos would never allow beings with more than two arms or more than one head to join the Aesir ranks.
Still, Arjuna felt it was his duty to protect his people.
Even though those who'd fled the old Indian world had now cast off their slave status and become "free citizens"…
Not all free citizens were equal.
In Ginnungagap, the only way to elevate your race's status… was military merit.
That's why Arjuna fought so fiercely.
This time, he'd even brought his old rival—still mortal—Karna.
And now?
He felt like he had kicked another iron wall.
The deep sea wasn't his domain.
And of course, their arrival had already drawn the attention of a sea god.
A figure like a mermaid, but radiating immense oceanic divinity, hovered just beyond the watery barrier he'd conjured.
Even though Arjuna had displaced the seawater in a 100-meter radius, it didn't matter.
Beyond the curtain of water, the sea goddess swam effortlessly, gracefully.
She was singing.
But it wasn't just song—it was a summoning.
With his divine senses, Arjuna could clearly feel them:
dozens, hundreds of monstrous lobster-like sea creatures, each the size of a chariot, rushing in from all directions.
And worse—
The entire ocean seemed to be alive.
A single entity.
A vast, ancient, terrible sea monster.
And it was raising its limbs to smash the invaders to pieces.
(End of Chapter)
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