Strategically, one must look down on the opponent; tactically, one must take the opponent seriously.
Thalos would never forget the Chairman's old maxim.
He also wouldn't forget that the Greek world still had a whole bunch of primordial gods like the Night Goddess and the rest. They weren't favored by Zeus, and they didn't favor Zeus either.
The problem was, once the Aesir displayed enough power to destroy the Greek world, those Greek elder gods might change their stance—shifting from noncooperation to merging with Zeus.
Thalos would certainly factor those old gods in.
Unaware that Odin was stirring trouble in Tartarus, Thalos even prepared for the worst: that Zeus might reconcile with his father Kronos, and the once-mighty Twelve Titans would lead the Titan legions to formally join Olympus's order of battle.
Those big fellows were classic maxed-out physical defense with rotten resistance to divine arts.
Whatever the case, their sheer mass was right there; as meat shields, they'd be excellent.
"Estimate the enemy from the widest margin"—that's a fine tradition of the Celestial Nation.
Now what he needed to do was give his subordinates enough confidence, to the point that he didn't mind playing the god-emperor who saves the dying and heals the wounded.
Ahem—how the dying and wounded came to be, don't worry about it!
This was probably the last large-scale god-war in this chaotic universe.
After toppling the Greek gods, Thalos himself didn't know if there would be any so-called stronger challenge.
It was very possible that once this war ended, the universe would reach its endgame.
And after this war, when the two world-clusters combined into a new world, that enormous cake wouldn't be sliced by witty talk.
Want power and status?
Fight for it with your own hands!
As for those who overestimated themselves or had bad luck and fell halfway—well, that too was fate.
It had been nearly two centuries since he came to this world; though all mythical events seemed to have accelerated, after enjoying all wealth and splendor, Thalos had long since grown extremely detached.
Perhaps only conquering other worlds and subduing new goddesses could still give his nerves a jolt of freshness.
Unnoticed, Artemis on the stage finished her dance. With a strong sense of shame, she gracefully descended the steps and then bowed before Thalos.
"Your Majesty… please don't separate the nymph goddesses who served me."
She could, of course, sense those greedy gazes from the seats below. Not directed at her, but at her subordinates.
In Greek myth, nymphs were secondary goddesses—also seen as sprites and fairies—haunting mountains and forests, meadows, springs, and the seas. They were the spirits born of nature, generally taking the form of beautiful maidens who loved song and dance. They would not wither or fall ill, though they would die. If they coupled with the high gods, they could bear immortal divine offspring.
Truth be told, these foreign secondary sub-goddesses were quite "appealing" to the Aesir.
Among the oldest Aesir, the original batch of elder gods had far more males than females.
That was the inevitable result of natural selection.
In the various god-wars, only powerful individuals survived.
Hadn't even the first-god-king Bor back at the dawn of Ginnungagap had to run off and seize a giantess?
The result was, when the old-line Aesir conquered new pantheons, they often snatched the goddesses; and those hard-up descended gods could only set their sights on the women of the newly conquered pantheons.
In the Aesir's merit-only society, that wasn't easy.
After many rounds of churning, those whose hearts were higher than the sky but lives thinner than paper had all fallen; those who remained either lay flat to muddle along, or truly had some merit to their names and could dare to hope.
Facing Artemis's plea, Thalos of course… refused.
Sensing Thalos's thoughts, Freyja stepped forward and barked, "Recognize thy station!"
Spoils of war had no right to ask the god-emperor for anything.
Especially a spoil that didn't listen very well.
Artemis's eyes widened; soon she once more realized her situation—she was no longer the god-king exalted by her father, cherished by all and sundry, high above.
She worked hard at managing her expression, hoping to look a bit more presentable.
At this moment, Amaterasu revealed a professional knack for dragging proper ladies into the water, and began instructing Artemis on how to please Thalos.
The model Maiden of Fusang had yet another side; Thalos was a little surprised.
Forget it—unimportant.
One of the three virgin goddesses was gone; Thalos began to look ahead to the remaining two…
The consequences of a captured god-king were greater than either side's god-emperor had imagined.
Aside from the spatial corridor Thor had smashed, the other five corridors did not see further god-king duels for the moment. Instead, the slave gods of the Greek vassal worlds were driven to attack.
This time, they no longer held back, no longer "put every talent point into defense for fear of getting hurt," but rather seemed to "dump everything into offense just to die."
A pack of slave gods went mad, each fighting for their lives, and for a time their momentum even pressed down the Aesir's sub-gods.
Most of the enemy were at true-god tier at best; many weren't even up to sub-god.
The drop in the war's tier actually gave the mortal heroes of Ginnungagap a chance.
When one enemy god after another abandoned defense and attacked like mad, those mortal heroes who were one step from ascension really did have a shot.
Many truly fought for their lives to set foot on the ladder to the divine realm.
The slave gods, with no way out, were also fighting for their lives.
For a time, the intensity of the god-war rose instead of falling.
Almost every hour, Thalos heard reports of fallen deities on both sides. At the peak, five gods an hour could be struck from the rolls.
At this level of combat, Thalos's mood was instead calm.
Most of the mortal heroes he'd stockpiled had already ascended. Those who became gods as mortals were absolutely the ceiling within the sub-god tier. Their original will to fight and skill already far surpassed these decadent old sub-gods; through continuous battle, once they reached sub-god level in divine arts, they were truly unstoppable.
News kept coming from the likes of Gawain and Beowulf—enemy gods cut down one after another.
It felt like quite a few of them had a shot at becoming true gods after the final war.
Thalos left them to it.
Lately, his greatest pleasure was watching Artemis's unwilling yet forced-to-perform little face. This phase of "training" had the most flavor.
He didn't know that what he was doing was causing fallout that even reached the Greek Tartarus.
…
"Huh? That hundred-handed monster left?" The former god-king Kronos, imprisoned in the divine gaol, keenly sensed his nemesis's movements.
To say he couldn't notice was a lie.
The Hundred-Handed Giant was a super mountain of meat. His brief absence was far too conspicuous.
Just then, Odin's smug voice wafted into the cell: "Heh heh! My big brother just captured Olympus's goddess-king Artemis. Zeus couldn't sit still and sent Hermes to borrow the Hundred-Handed Giant's strength!"
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