Ginnungagap, Asgard, the Silver Palace.
Thalos and Athena were playing Go.
Athena was curious: "Your Majesty, why are you so at ease leaving Odin on the far side of the Mutant Star Region? Aren't you afraid…"
Thalos gave a wicked smile. "No one knows my hateful yet highly capable little brother better than I do. Think about it—since Odin is a god-king who craves power but shirks responsibility, when he's in a situation where the gains in territory don't end up in his pocket, and if anything goes wrong it's his fortune on the line, how do you think he'll handle it?"
"…" Matters of an imperial house are not for outsiders to intrude upon—whether in the mortal realm or among the gods.
Athena chose silence.
"I may not trust Odin's loyalty, but I won't deny his brains. He can still tell the heavier from the lighter." Laughing, Thalos placed another stone. "Were you about to say that there are always those who refuse to be pieces and want to be players?"
"I wouldn't dare." Athena lowered her eyes and head, nearly burying her chin in the gap of her front armor's plates.
Thalos sounded like he was asking and answering himself: "There are always some who won't be pieces and lack the skill to be players—so they can only be standard-bearers. Mm, the kind that raises the flag. It could be a white flag, a black flag, a red flag. But in the end, under the pressure of survival, he'll be a good piece."
Athena half understood and half didn't, but did her best to answer: "Taking the universe as the board and the gods as the pieces—Your Majesty's vision is vast!"
"Heh." Thalos neither confirmed nor denied.
His godly sight seemed to pierce space and arrive on the other side of the Mutant Star Region.
He truly was curious what Zeus would do—and whether Zeus had the courage to burn his boats.
"If Your Majesty were Zeus, what would you do? You don't have to answer—I'm just curious." In a sense, Amaterasu had trained Athena well; even her forms of address were carefully chosen.
Hearing this, Thalos paused. In his view, Zeus was far from a dead end.
Thalos asked himself honestly: standing where Zeus stood now, the situation might be grim, but it was salvageable—though a price had to be paid…
He didn't answer directly; instead, he asked Athena, "If you were Zeus, what would you do?"
Athena did not hesitate, giving the answer she'd had ready all along: "I would first ally with Grandfather Uranus and temporarily hand the Greek world over to Kronos, then muster all combat power to take Odin's head and seize back the subordinate worlds. Finally, I'd use the elemental resources of those worlds as bargaining chips to placate Uranus, unify other neutral first-generation deities like the powerful Nyx, and—before the Aesir host arrives—kill every opponent."
It was an answer dripping with killing intent.
The goddess of wisdom and war revealed her decisiveness in that moment.
Should one say "worthy of Athena"?
Thalos had never underestimated her. Compared with the straightforward Artemis and the soft-yet-steel Hestia whose divine office kept her from fully exercising her strength, Athena was the toughest of the three maidens to handle.
Fortunately, those two fools Zeus and Hera had actually driven Athena into Thalos's hands.
The irony of fate drew a wry smile from Thalos.
"Your Majesty, what do you think of my answer?" Athena asked, probing.
Thalos knew she was displaying her ambition and capability in measured fashion.
She had never been, and would never be satisfied being, some divine vase.
If Thalos's calculations were right, Athena was thinking along these lines: "Since I can't stay in the Olympian pantheon, I'll defect to Thalos, bear a divine child and rise in status as a mother, and eventually carve out a faction within the Aesir—perhaps let my child become a god-king."
That hypothesis required one premise: that there were still more, stronger pantheons in this chaotic universe awaiting conquest.
Sadly, as the Aesir gradually gained the upper hand, a quiver of fate grew ever clearer in Thalos's heart—the Olympian pantheon might well be the last pantheon in this unit-universe that needed conquering.
Thalos didn't know if he would have a chance to leave this unit-universe and return to the multiverse to continue his campaign.
If this chaotic, primeval universe had only this much to offer, then this was the end.
Athena's talents would have no field left to play.
Well then—when Thalos prepared to carry out his plan of "the universe is so big; I want to go out and see it," he would certainly take Athena along, and take Odin's primary soul along as well.
Without his primary soul, Odin's ceiling would be locked at god-king, with no chance of ever reaching God-Emperor in his life.
Before him, the bright-eyed Athena did not yet know her fate.
Thalos didn't mind giving her a little hope.
"You have some ideas, though they're not fully mature. But I know your ambition. In a universe of ceaseless war, there should be a place for you."
That promise rested on "ceaseless war."
It was enough to delight Athena, and she did not look away. "May I ask how Your Majesty would do it?"
"You may not." Thalos's hard tone made Athena start. She realized this God-Emperor was a peerless man of ambition. How could he share true strategy with a newly surrendered goddess?
A god easily swayed by a goddess's charms had no right to have come this far.
"I overstepped. I'm sorry." Athena backed down decisively.
Thalos put on a deep, inscrutable look. "To be fair, your plan isn't bad. But even if Zeus followed it, he would still fail. Because you don't understand Odin."
The reason Odin had ended up in such straits was because the one contesting him for Ginnungagap was Thalos, god of transmigration.
Don't be fooled by Odin's habit of making empty promises and breaking his word—so unreliable at first glance. That was because his own ability was insufficient; he couldn't craft a better situation.
Once you don't require Odin to fulfill his promises, and a stronger existence underwrites the boasts he makes, his "empty promises" become a killing instrument.
Thalos did indeed understand his "foolish little brother."
For at that very moment, this was how Odin was rallying his new gods for war.
"Zeus may come, or he may not. But we must prepare for the worst—that Zeus will come."
The newly surrendered deities of the small worlds stirred. A former god-king stepped forward and bowed. "Then we…"
"Proceed as planned. Blow every small world to pieces and slam them into the Greek world. Then we'll all head to Alexandria in the Greek world and temporarily throw in under Kronos and the Titans."
"Ah?!" The gods were all shocked.
"What are you afraid of?" Odin suddenly raised his voice. "The small worlds you lose today—one month from now, my big brother Thalos will compensate you at double."
Since he wasn't the one paying, and to spur these new gods—who had little room to retreat to begin with—into fighting hard, Odin had no qualms about tossing out his big brother's name.
All blame to God-Emperor Thalos Borson!
All glory to God-Emperor Thalos Borson!