I am Thalos, Odin's older brother

Flip the table?

Like hell he could flip the table!

Odin felt that if he even tried, if his hands so much as grazed the edge of that table, a massive nail would come down from the heavens and skewer them in place.

Thalos would show, with absolute force, that—no, you may not flip the table.

"My foolish little brother…"

Somehow, that damned voice echoed in Odin's ears again.

He began to tremble all over.

"Odin! If you've got anything left, now's the time! Wait much longer and you won't get the chance!" That descending godform of Thor might not be as powerful as the real one, but Odin's current underlings were nowhere near the caliber of the Ten Great Beasts.

At least creatures like Nidhogg could trade a few blows with Thor's true form.

But who did Odin have now?

Over there, Erata had already begun her one-sided beatdown at Thor's hands.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

High above, Thalos watched through passive, refracted light being filtered into his divine vision. And for some reason, his mind echoed with a strange chant—"80! 80!"

Back in the Silver Palace, Loki stood up and bowed. "Your Majesty, does Odin still have a trump card?"

"A trump card? Of course he does. If he didn't, he wouldn't be Odin." Thalos smiled gently, as if explaining why he'd forbidden Thor and the other Aesir to descend in their true forms and clean Odin up directly.

What else would you expect from a brother of decades?

Thalos knew Odin all too well.

If there's a dirty trick to be played, Odin would never face you head-on.

And just as the Fomorian giants and chaos stone giants were being thoroughly routed, Odin finally dropped the act.

He burst into wild laughter. "Hahahahaha! Big Brother always said I was foolish! Maybe so! Turns out every escape, every rebellion—was just another illusion you planted for me! Oh, Brother! You must be so pleased with yourself—winning a new world without getting your own hands dirty! What joy!"

Odin's maniacal laughter and words were broadcast via projection and divine sound, reaching the White Silver Palace.

Nearly all the Aesir gods and remaining giants were outraged, cursing Odin for his shamelessness—how dare he slander their wise and mighty God-King!

Only Loki, Hela, and their family looked on with troubled hearts: Odin was, after all, Thalos' brother—he knew Thalos all too well. In truth, they knew Thalos had indeed orchestrated Loki's earlier "escape" for the sake of presenting the Aesir as liberators and securing Celtic.

But they would never speak of it.

Those who do dirty work for the top must consider themselves blessed if they aren't purged afterward.

Loki, once Odin's trusted subordinate, had now earned the God-King's confidence by precisely such means. That, in itself, was a divine favor.

…

As for Odin's ranting, 99% of the Aesir gods and giants didn't take it seriously.

Thor crushed Erata with one final hammer blow, then pointed his blood-smeared projection of Mjölnir at Odin from afar. "Odin! Your madness ends here! You who brought ruin to two worlds—it's time you faced judgment!"

"There is no one who can judge me—I am Odin, King of Chaos!" Odin cackled, raising both arms to the sky.

Thor watched in horror as Odin's muscles writhed. It was as if hundreds of serpents were wriggling beneath his skin. Disgusting!

A vast, murky aura surged from Odin's form. In an instant, the atmosphere itself seemed tainted.

All around him, grass and trees withered, every living creature—bug or bird—dropped dead.

Now Thor, Frey, and Tyr finally understood why Thalos had only permitted god-descended avatars.

If they had come in person, this apocalyptic chaos might have actually injured them.

And because Odin thought he was only fighting avatars, he didn't even look at them—his eyes were fixed skyward.

"Thalos! You bastard of a brother! I know you're watching! You think you can use me to annex a new world? I'll tell you right now—you'll never—"

Odin's paranoia reached its peak.

Just like in the Edda, where he had created Vali, a god of vengeance, to kill his other son Hodr for Baldur's death—Odin had always gone to extremes.

That sort of thinking… never once failed to disappoint Thalos.

Crack!

A shattering sound echoed from above.

Everyone not engaged in combat instinctively looked up.

And saw something that filled them with dread.

The sky had broken.

The barrier that had kept the chaotic universe at bay from the Celtic world had finally cracked—ripped open by Odin, who had targeted its most corrupted section with his chaos power.

A gaping void now loomed above.

A hole so massive it filled the entire field of vision.

From the left corner of the eye… to the right.

For the first time in their lives, the Celtic people saw the truth beyond their clear skies—a swirling, chaotic void.

And worse, this void was now descending with violent, cracking sounds.

The world had become like an egg with its shell smashed open, utterly exposed to external attacks.

"No—!" Queen Medb paled. Spoiled noblewoman that she was, she couldn't handle such apocalyptic horror. "Lord Thalos, save me—you promised to protect me!"

Scathach, not far from her, glanced coldly over but said nothing and kept fighting.

It wasn't that she didn't care—she simply had a hunch. The God-King still had something up his sleeve.

And she was right.

From the sky came a deep, ancient sigh.

"My foolish little brother…"

That voice—again.

Odin broke down—again.

This had long since passed the realm of humiliation. He knew the moment his damned brother uttered those words, it always meant—

There was a trump card.

And that's what crushed Odin the most.

No! I've already flipped the table! I've broken the sky! And you still have a backup plan?!

Odin wasn't wrong.

Thalos did have a backup plan.

Even though there was still a great distance between Ginnungagap and the Celtic world—

That didn't stop the two worlds, after negotiation, from initiating a world-level transaction long in advance.

On the battlefield, the mortals looked up and saw the most surreal sight of their lives:

Hundreds, even thousands, of giant green tendrils extended from the chaos above.

They were the roots of the World Tree.

Each one—so massive that even the thinnest would need a hundred men to encircle with linked arms.

These colossal roots pierced the heavens, broke through the upper atmosphere, and descended into the sea surrounding the Emerald Isle.

RUMBLE!

The earth began to quake subtly.

Then, just as quickly, the tremor evened out—not because it stopped, but because the entire Celtic world had been uniformly accelerated to a pace gentle enough for mortals to endure.

And soon, millions of Celtic inhabitants witnessed the greatest marvel of their era—

A second sky began to emerge.

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