I am Thalos, Odin's older brother

Just thinking about his two beloved younger brothers—one now a sleeping beauty, the other lost on the far side of the chaotic cosmos—left Thalos feeling stuffy and frustrated. He shouted into his private, silent chamber with theatrical flair:

"Odin! You are my eyes! You are my lamp in the darkness! As long as you're around, doing the opposite is always the right move! Odin, you dumb—no, my dearest brother… Where are you? Your big brother misses you—so, so much—"

No one else was allowed into this palace. And yet the God-King himself was reciting poetry to empty air like a man possessed.

Truth was, whether gods or mortals, solitude had a way of fraying the mind.

There exists a bond in the world, one called karmic entanglement.

When the person is around, you want them dead.

When they're gone, you desperately want them back.

Perhaps this is the twisted fate that ties them together.

Though Thalos was clearly "missing" his idiot brother with great passion, he didn't let sentiment distract him from his kingly duties. After ordering Ginnungagap to fully consume the remnants of the Slavic world, he had the world continue drifting at a steady pace.

Then, something unexpected happened deep in the lowest layers of the Slavic world's integration process.

Krrr-kk-kkk—

Massive green tendrils—each large enough to lift an entire city by mortal standards—stirred and swirled like the limbs of an octopus.

They acted like massive claws, scooping up mountain-sized clumps of soil, churning them, and flinging away heavily corroded pieces of hardened dirt. Only the darker, still-pure earth was retained and lifted into higher purification chambers.

Smaller tendrils at the next stage broke down these clumps again, tossing them into enormous seawater filtration pools. After several cycles, the clean earth would be funneled into the world tree's substructure to reinforce the Ginnungagap landmass itself.

Meanwhile, in this chaotic, corrupted zone…

"Gilgamesh, don't come here. The chaos aura is way too strong." Enkidu tried to dissuade his younger brother.

"What's there to be scared of? Big Brother Vidar's watching over us, right?" 'Golden Sparkle' Gilgamesh scoffed, turning toward a floating divine eye made of water element. "Aren't you, big bro?"

The distant divine eye blinked once, and then a nearby green root tendril gave a cheeky little 'OK' hand gesture.

Enkidu was speechless.

"Come on, Enkidu!" Gilgamesh, radiant in golden armor, dashed effortlessly through the weaving root network. Enkidu, with no real choice, followed close behind.

Even though Enkidu had technically been born an hour earlier and should've been the older brother, it was always Gilgamesh leading the way and dragging him around by the nose.

Soon, they reached a purified piece of earth—large enough to house 300 Valhalla palaces.

Gilgamesh raised his hand. From the void, a strange divine sword appeared—its blade was forged from a deep crimson unknown material, with golden trims and onyx patterns carved into the guard.

"What is that…?" Enkidu asked.

"I took a not-so-important branch from the World Tree and used it as a medium. Then, I poured my divine power into it and shaped it into this sword."

"Seriously?" Enkidu examined the craftsmanship on the sword's hilt. He wasn't buying it.

"Fine! I got the dwarves to forge it. They didn't say no!"

"Really? Or did they just see your face and decide to send the bill to Auntie Ishtar?" Enkidu shot back.

Gilgamesh glared, clearly implying: If you've got nothing nice to say, then shut up.

Enkidu got the message. Most likely, the dwarven artisans had passively allowed the theft, knowing full well that one of Gilgamesh's parents—probably Thalos—would settle the tab behind the scenes.

After a moment, Gilgamesh continued: "Father's [World Sword Array] is so powerful because each sword draws from the energy of an entire world. They unleash an entire realm's power in every strike. But I don't have that luxury."

"Obviously," Enkidu nodded. Thor was the crown prince, after all. Until their other older brothers like Tyr, Vidar, or Balder were crowned kings, there was no way Thalos would entrust them with ruling entire worlds.

"So I had to find another path—create a stronger sword without relying on the existing Eleven Realms or their power."

"How would that even work?" Enkidu laughed bitterly.

"No! Father creates and reshapes worlds—that's the path of a king. But if I only focus on destruction, using the concept of a world's obliteration as my sword's core intent, then it becomes much simpler."

Realizing his younger brother was about to pull something reckless, Enkidu panicked. "Wait—wait! Gilgamesh, what are you doing?! If you mess this up, even Mother and I won't be able to protect you!"

"Relax. I'm not an idiot. Mother and Father have been kind to me—I won't make things harder for them."

"Then what are you—?"

"Since every world contains remnants of its [World Will], I plan to forge my sword by destroying the residual echoes of the Slavic world's will. Step by step, I'll shape a sword that belongs to me and no one else."

"…Uh." Enkidu didn't know how to respond.

They were supposed to break down the Slavic realm anyway, and mining its earth element was an official directive from their father. In a way, Gilgamesh was just speeding up the process. Technically, he wasn't wrong.

But using the lingering fragments of another world's willpower—its soul, in a sense—as sword fuel? That was... ethically questionable at best.

Before Enkidu could say anything more, Gilgamesh raised the scarlet sword embryo high and began pouring immense divine power into it.

"AAAHHHHHHH—!"

With a primal roar, he swung the blood-red sword in a wide arc toward the distant end of the massive landmass.

A blinding crimson beam tore through the murky underworld.

That slash formed a razor-thin red line across the land's edge, which rapidly extended backward across the entire territory. A series of faint cracking sounds followed, echoing through the void as the ground itself split neatly down the middle.

Crack—

The entire floating landmass split in two.

Suddenly, Enkidu heard something—not quite sound, but a soul-level tremor, a vibration born from divine energy on a world scale. It was like hearing a glass marble being cleaved in half.

In the distance, one half of the land began to rise, sluggishly, like a sliced cake being lifted in slow motion. Despite the weak gravity, the effect was unmistakable.

If this hadn't been the corpse of a dead world, there was no doubt—this strike would've gone down in divine history.

"Hahaha! I did it! I knew it! I knew I was right, Enkidu!" Gilgamesh whooped with uncontainable joy.

"What… what did you just say?"

"My vision! I'm going to forge a divine weapon capable of cutting through worlds! This sword is beginning to form its own consciousness from absorbing the remnant soul of the Slavic realm!"

Gilgamesh waved the half-finished sword embryo triumphantly, drunk on success.

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