The moment time resumed its flow, any remaining will to fight vanished from the hearts of Zeus and Odin, replaced by a primal, raw terror.
They had to flee. They had to get out of here!
In a desperate instant, the two God-Kings ignited their primordial divine essence.
Zeus erupted in billions of blinding golden lightning bolts, attempting to use his divine authority to forcibly tear through space and open a gateway back to Olympus. Beside him, countless arcane Runes flickered and died within Odin's single eye, trying to construct a phantom image of the World Tree's branch leading back to Asgard.
However, the moment their divine power surged, it was like a stone dropped into a bottomless ocean—vanishing without a trace.
The lightning sputtered out. The runes shattered.
They realized with horror that the spatial laws of this realm had been completely rewritten by a force far beyond their comprehension, a power on an entirely different level.
This place was an impenetrable fortress. Here, their divine authority was nothing more than a joke.
It was then that Odin, the God of Wisdom, caught a glimmer of hope amidst the suffocating despair. This locked realm wasn't entirely airtight. There was a flaw—a channel as thin as a strand of silk that still connected to the outside world.
It wasn't an oversight; it looked intentional.
Odin and Zeus locked eyes, seeing the same shock and resolve mirrored in each other's pupils. It was a trap, but it was their only way out.
Without further hesitation, the two God-Kings poured their divine sense and will frantically into that solitary channel. Their consciousness crossed dimensions, sending the most urgent, most desperate summons to their respective divine kingdoms.
"All gods, assemble!"
"Descend upon Great Xia!"
"Bathe this world in blood, or our divine sovereignty shall fall!"
The divine decree exhausted the last remnants of their strength. Zeus gasped for air, but a flicker of his characteristic arrogance returned to his face. Using every ounce of his remaining will, he projected his consciousness toward the two towering figures before them, issuing one final threat.
"Our divine armies are gathering! They will trample the land you protect into dust!"
"Let us go, or all of Great Xia will be buried as a sacrifice to your arrogance!"
The expressions of Ian and his companions shifted slightly. On the monitors of the Night Watch base, the needles representing energy readings slammed past their limits, screaming under the pressure.
Beyond the vast borders of Great Xia, massive, distorted spatial rifts were being brutally forced open one after another. From behind these rifts seeped the terrifying auras of the legions from Olympus, Asgard, and other divine realms. The pressure hit like a tsunami, a storm of divine power that threatened to overwhelm everything.
Almost all of Great Xia's top experts were tied down in Cangnan. Faced with such force, the border defenses were perilously fragile.
Every eye instinctively turned toward the two figures on the screen—the two beings who held the fate of the world in their hands.
The Emperor remained as motionless as a mountain. Ian, meanwhile, let out an exaggerated yawn, as if this were all merely a tedious parlor trick.
"Oh? They called for backup?"
"Perfect. Saves me the trouble of hunting them down one by one."
"Now I can just sweep them all up in one go."
The moment the words left his lips, the invisible barriers over the borders of Great Xia were torn asunder.
On one side, a golden solar chariot crushed through the clouds, followed by an endless swarm of griffon riders and bronze giants. On the other, the Einherjar legions, mounted on eight-legged divine horses and led by the God of War, formed a devastating charging formation.
The offspring of the great wolf Fenrir roared, Chimeras spat torrents of flame, and countless mythical creatures flooded into Great Xia like a bursting dam. The intertwining divine pressures formed a storm of annihilation, leaving the waiting border guards gasping for air.
Just as the divine legions were about to launch their final charge, the sky over the entire planet went dark.
It wasn't clouds obscuring the sun. A golden ship, so colossal it defied description, slowly emerged from the ripples of space, blotting out the sun entirely.
It was several times larger than the planet beneath their feet, casting a shadow that engulfed the entire battlefield. It was a mobile super-fortress of war, a flying holy cathedral.
It was the Super-Emperor Class Battleship—the *Indomitable Truth*.
From beneath the giant ship, billions of brilliant golden streaks poured down like a torrential rain of light. These weren't energy beams.
They were giants clad in heavy golden power armor, wielding power halberds. They were the Emperor's Custodes, the guardians of human civilization. Each one of them possessed a terrifying combat prowess capable of challenging a god in single combat.
The Custodes slammed into the divine legions like falling meteors. There were no roars, no commands—only efficient, cold, and unstoppable slaughter.
Yet, killing was not their ultimate objective.
Their goal was capture.
Specially designed energy-field nets shot from their weapons, binding powerful giants and stripping them of all strength. Field generators deployed across the ground, instantly suppressing a roaring Hydra, leaving it unable to move. They treated the gods like rare and dangerous experimental specimens, conducting high-efficiency live captures.
At the vanguard of the legion, several figures even more imposing, radiating endless light and heat, descended.
These were the Emperor's greatest creations—the Primarchs.
One figure, possessing pure white wings and a face as beautiful as an angel's, swung a blood-red spear. With an elegant arc through the sky, he pierced through the wings of the divine messenger Hermes, pinning him to the earth.
Elsewhere, a wild giant roared, his voice drowning out all the noise of the battlefield. With his bare fists, he smashed the helmet of Ares, the God of War, shattering his divine spark and will in a single blow.
Their power far transcended that of these so-called foreign deities.
In the center of the battlefield, Zeus and Odin were forced to watch this hopeless scene through their divine link with their subordinates. The invincible armies they took such pride in were as fragile as sandcastles before this golden host. Their strongest subordinates were being dismantled with an ease that bordered on humiliation.
What froze their very souls, however, were the cold commands they overheard from the Primarchs.
"Target 'Ares.' Divine structure is unique with high research value. Ensure a complete capture."
"Target 'Athena.' Her divine authority over wisdom and strategic calculation is worth analyzing. Prioritize her."
In that moment, the two God-Kings finally understood.
The channel for reinforcements the enemy had left behind was indeed bait. It was designed specifically to lure them into bringing every last resource they owned... only to be wiped out in a single net.
This wasn't a war for faith or land.
This was a premeditated, systematic purge of the species known as "Gods."
But who were these people? Why had they never heard of them? Where had a force this powerful, possessing so many god-level combatants, possibly come from?
---------------
Want more chapters? 50+ extra chapters are available on my Patreon:
patreon.com/Hard_Worker