Over twenty true gods—excluding the administrative ones—still left Lau with nearly ten battle-ready divine warriors. It wasn't a complete pantheon, but it was a usable framework. At the very least, he wouldn't have to micromanage everything, and there was still room for growth.

Back in the day, Thalos would never have tolerated Odin—then called Lau—taking away such a capable team.

After all, the Aesir pantheon's core bloodline once had just a little over thirty gods closely related to Thalos by blood. Most of them were warriors, with a severe shortage of civil gods. Including all pure-blooded Aesir, the count barely exceeded seventy.

But times had changed.

Through multiple expansions, the Aesir had annexed and assimilated the Vanir, Celtic, Sumerian, and Slavic pantheons, either through conquest, rescue, or diplomacy. Thalos also employed the simplest clan tactic of all—reproduction and god-promotion—to bind all these pantheons to the Aesir through marriage, birth, and allegiance.

With more gods came a vast expansion of territory.

And with each god receiving more divine power, internal conflict naturally dwindled.

In this strong-core, weak-periphery model, and with the potential absorption of the Egyptian pantheon looming, Thalos's forces would soon boast over two hundred true gods, capable of managing every aspect of a great world's divine cycle.

In this scenario, Odin taking a handful of South American gods was a non-issue.

Different cosmologies made it ten times harder for South American gods to rise in foreign worlds. This wasn't letting the tiger return to the mountains—this was tossing a tiger into the ocean.

But there was one thing Thalos absolutely couldn't let Odin take.

The Crystal Skull.

"Thor, Freyr, Gilgamesh—go!" Thalos summoned three of his most powerful warriors.

He didn't send Hela—because she was already holding off Pachacamac, the Incan Creator God, a powerful opponent in his own right. And the fact that Hela, who hadn't even been crowned a true god-king, could stand toe-to-toe with him was insane.

That shouldn't be possible under normal circumstances.

But right now, with death rampant, Hela was absorbing the power of every passing soul. Combined with the World Tree's incursion and Jörmungandr willingly acting as her mount, Hela had received massive buffs. With all that support, Thalos had essentially sent a non-king god to face a full-fledged divine king—and was still winning.

This fact shocked even the Incan gods.

Meanwhile, Skyel was held back by Tyr, god of war, who had the advantage in size, strength, and divine domain. That fight wasn't an issue either.

Which meant that when Thalos manifested his true body and launched a surprise assault, no one on the enemy side could stop him.

As Thalos's true form descended, dozens of opposing gods experienced a brief moment of stunned clarity—they didn't know Thalos well. They didn't realize this Aesir King had founded his pantheon on the strength of his sword. They didn't know the scale of his conquests. Their instincts just told them: with victory nearly secured, he shouldn't be here.

But in a storm of explosive pressure and howling wind, Thalos descended, flanked by over twenty Valkyries riding white-winged pegasi.

The Maya and Inca gods couldn't react fast enough.

Then, the full weight of Thalos's divine presence crashed down—overwhelming, suffocating, absolute.

This being was on a whole different level.

Never mind the subtle dimensional suppression from his laws—the sheer mass of his divine energy shattered their morale.

Until now, they had only seen shadows of his World Swords.

Now, multiple World Swords surged across the sky like divine beams, and they finally understood: this god-king wasn't just strong—he was unstoppable.

Thalos's party ignored the battle lines completely, charging straight toward Kumú's old temple. Many Maya gods knew Kumú was done for—but the Inca gods didn't. Skyel and the rest feared the collapse of their last ally.

But they couldn't just let Thalos stroll through unchallenged.

The Maya Nine-Linked Gods looked at each other. Finally, the God of Suicide, Ixtab, stepped forward.

"You dare defile Lord Kamempus's sacred temple?" he shouted, attacking not Thalos—but one of the Valkyries beside him.

Because of course he wouldn't dare touch Thalos directly.

Everyone expected a battle to break out—until the Sword of Muspelheim suddenly erupted like a massive flaming spear and pierced straight through Ixtab's chest.

Ignoring all his subtle divine tricks, this sword, infused with the soul of the Primordial Fire Giant Surtr, radiated an immaculate, pure fire. When it struck, the sky itself burned bright, and the temperature surged by hundreds of degrees.

The moment Ixtab saw that flaming divine sword, he was overwhelmed by a fear unlike anything he'd ever felt.

I'll die. If I don't do something now—I really will die!

He wanted to resist. But the "enemy" was Thalos.

Unless he was an idiot, there was no way he believed he could make a god-king kill himself.

And Thalos had no other viable targets for his suicide magic.

This hesitation sealed Ixtab's fate.

In battle between elites, hesitation is the deadliest mistake. No matter what you're thinking—act.

A moment's pause, and he was impaled.

As the Sword of Muspelheim plunged into his chest, a searing, volcanic heat flooded Ixtab's soul. His divine body trembled violently as the flames incinerated him from within.

He tried to pull the sword out, but the flames climbed his arms and spread to every corner of his divine body, unleashing unbearable pain.

He summoned all his power to extinguish the flames—but was horrified to find himself using a trickle of divine energy to fight the will of an entire flame world.

"How can you fight the infinite with the finite…?"

Those were Ixtab's final words.

One of the Nine-Linked Gods—gone in a single strike.

His divine body collapsed into ashes and disappeared without a trace.

The Maya gods were stunned.

Was the difference in power really that vast?

A Nine-Linked God couldn't even withstand one hit?

While the remaining Nine-Linked Gods hesitated, Thalos and his warriors burst through the battlefield like a meteor shower, arriving at Kumú's ruined temple.

Silence.

The kind of silence that creeps up your spine.

The once heavily-guarded temple now stood like an ancient ruin, long abandoned.

No one could imagine that this was, moments ago, a god-king's sanctum.

Thalos's gaze pierced space and fell upon the newly formed, blood-soaked Crystal Skull at the center of the silent temple.

He smiled.

"This thing—I could leave it behind. But I can't let you have it, my foolish little brother."

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Becoming the Wealthiest Tycoon on the Planet (Chapter 1284)

Surgical Fruit in the American Comics Universe (Chapter 1289)

American Detective: From TV Rookie to Seasoned Cop (Chapter 1316)

American TV Writer (Chapter 1402)

I Am Hades, The Supreme GOD of the Underworld! (Chapter 570)

Reborn as Humanity's Emperor Across the Multiverse (Chapter 660)

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