Chapter 179

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Chapter 179: The Beginning of the Air Raid (1)

When I was first told to monitor Okeanos, I thought I only needed to keep an eye on Olympus.

I assumed Olympus was the only one who knew the route.

But the results I just got were far from what I expected.

“Ten locations……”

At least ten locations.

There was movement detected on a large scale in ten different places.

The divine realms weren't specifically named—it just said “minor divine realms,” yet movements were showing up there.

“They’re moving to adjacent divine realms……”

Minor divine realms are moving to other minor divine realms.

How should I interpret this movement?

If it was just a visit, they could have asked the divine realms to open a gate.

But the route of Okeanos is a hidden one.

It’s a path created by Zeus, with help from Poseidon and Cthulhu—only Olympus knows about it.

And yet large groups of gods are using this path……

It has to be connected to Olympus.

“Judging by the speed of movement, we still have a few days…….”

They aren’t moving that fast.

Even though they’re gods, it seems like the route through Okeanos doesn’t allow for instantaneous travel.

Thankfully, it looks like we have some time to prepare.

I immediately connect to Loki.

“Loki. Here’s the situation……”

[Movement from ten places, you say?]

Loki, who had heard from Asura and me about Okeanos’s existence, instantly hardened his expression when I mentioned that movement was detected from divine realms.

[They’re suddenly going all out. Zeus…… Are we unable to identify which minor divine realms?]

“They’re all just marked as minor divine realms. No specifics.”

[Ugh… It would’ve been nice to know the names. I’ll start sending warnings to every divine realm we can reach.]

“Right.”

Loki fell into deep thought for a moment.

Then, with a grim face, he spoke.

[Hmm. Michael, Asura, and I will try to contact each of the minor divine realms one by one. You keep watching their movements—if you notice anything suspicious about the army, report it immediately.]

“Why?”

[Because it’s possible that some of these minor divine realms might be colluding with the enemy. If we send them messages and the army starts acting strangely, then we’ll know those divine realms are suspicious.]

“You think there are traitors among the minor divine realms, working with Zeus?”

[We have to consider every possibility.]

“Doesn’t seem like the alliances between divine realms are all that solid, huh?”

[Well… they’ve been fighting over earthly interests for a long time. The minor divine realms have always resented the major ones for taking all the worshippers. Your apostles were gods who fled because they were about to be sealed.]

Right.

My first apostle gods had come to me after being on the brink of being sealed.

“I thought after the Black Thunder incident with Zeus, the major divine realms might start treating the minor ones better—but I guess not?”

[Even if the major realms dominate worship in the human world, the bigger they are, the more SP they need. We don’t have the luxury either. It’s natural to take care of your own first. Humans are the same, aren’t they? Even though there are many countries, they always prioritize national interest over humanity as a whole.]

“You guys are gods, though.”

[Gods or humans—it’s all the same when it comes to survival and self-interest.]

Loki said with a cynical smirk, shrugging his shoulders.

[Anyway, it wouldn’t be surprising if there were collaborators among the minor divine realms. We need to carefully observe those moving from one minor realm to another.]

“Alright. Go ahead and reach out to them.”

[Got it. I’ll notify them that the invasion has begun.]

The call with Loki ended.

I contacted Michael and Asura as well, and they said similar things.

So it really wouldn’t be strange if the minor divine realms were in collusion?

“Maybe I should call my apostle gods.”

The ones who nearly got sealed due to lack of SP, but then became my apostles and have been doing well since.

One of them stands out—a god named "Kuuga."

This god didn’t even have a name originally……

“Summon Kuuga.”

Thud.

When I summoned Kuuga, his enormous divine form filled the room.

He looked almost twice as big as me.

If the house weren’t this spacious, he probably would’ve smashed through the ceiling.

He looked like a fusion of a black man and a bear.

His body was covered in fur, with only his face appearing human.

“You summoned me, Soul God!”

As soon as I summoned him, Kuuga immediately knelt down in deep reverence.

Whoa—what’s with the over-the-top loyalty?

“I just had something to ask……”

“Please command me anytime!”

Kuuga replied with sparkling eyes, his voice booming with devotion.

Seriously, this guy looked like he’d hand over his liver and guts for me.

“……So, here’s the situation. The high gods suspect there might be traitors among the minor divine realms. What do you think?”

“I was merely a low-ranking god, not even affiliated with a minor realm, but I believe their suspicion is quite reasonable. There was a time when many unaligned or low-ranking gods gathered together, and the atmosphere was very grim.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The major realms talk about cooperation, but they take all the worshippers. The situation got especially bad when Olympus and Asgard started alternating control over the gods.”

Kuuga frowned as he continued.

“I’m a god from the Congo region in Africa, and my faith was taken away by lower gods from Olympus and Asgard in turns. Even after the world returned to normal, Asgard's lower gods still wouldn’t let go of control over the Congolese tribes.”

“Even trying to snatch the faith of the Congo tribes… That’s like stealing from the poor.”

“That is a perfect analogy, my lord! I was in utter despair, thinking I’d vanish at this rate—when suddenly, they introduced us to you, our great Soul God. The majesty you showed the first time we met! At first, I hesitated about becoming an apostle god, but now I pledge every day to follow only you, without a shred of doubt.”

Kuuga praised me so much it was almost embarrassing.

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With that fierce-looking face and bear-like body acting so devoted, it somehow made it even more awkward.

“Oh my, what a loyal god.”

“Whoa. When did you get here, Artemis?”

Artemis darted in from the window.

She acts like my house is hers.

Popping in whenever she wants.

“I heard the temple construction is almost finished, so I dropped by to check. But why is that god here?”

“The minor god pantheon has been acting strange lately. I called him over to hear about his experiences.”

“What? How strange?”

Did I not tell Artemis?

I gave her a brief rundown of my encounter with Poseidon, and Artemis's eyes widened.

“Uncle Poseidon was fused with the monsters of Dreamland too?”

“Yeah. He’s been consumed now, though.”

“Uncle is pretty powerful... One by one, Olympus’s wings are being clipped.”

Artemis looked at me in admiration.

Well, we ganged up on him and took him down fast, but no need to mention that in detail.

“Okeanos… To think he was up to something like that. Just how much has happened while I was in the dark?”

Artemis grumbled as she turned her gaze to Kuuga.

“You’re not a god affiliated with any pantheon, right?”

“Th-That’s correct.”

“Then he wouldn’t fully understand the treatment the minor pantheon receives. Gods not belonging to any pantheon aren’t really seen as threats. From what I heard earlier, even his small tribe’s faith was taken from him, though.”

“Huh? Threatened? Why would they keep the minor pantheon in check?”

“You think any of us started off as major gods, Kim Jiho? You know what Zeus regretted the most?”

“What?”

“Not crushing Christianity back when it was just a minor pantheon.”

Christianity.

After the death of Jesus Christ, it spread quietly in Rome, gradually gaining followers, and eventually became the state religion.

Come to think of it, they completely took over what Olympus used to dominate.

And then they became a world religion, based out of Rome...

“There were many religions in Rome, but we were the top. The founder of Rome even claimed to be a descendant of Ares—Mars, in their language.”

“Ares, the war god?”

“Yep. Naturally, Zeus, Ares’s father, held his position as the supreme god firmly, and Olympus was a dominant major pantheon. Of course, there were other major pantheons at the time, but they were too far away. In the Mediterranean world, we reigned supreme.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, the myths are literally called Greek-Roman mythology.”

“Exactly… Those were the days. We got arrogant and stopped caring whether minor pantheons grew or not. Even when Christianity started expanding, we thought it’d just get a bit big and then fade away. But we were wrong.”

Even I, not that well-versed in history, know this part.

“In the end, Christianity took over, and the Olympus myth fell into decline, right?”

“Right… Zeus paid dearly for letting his guard down. We were utterly defeated by Christianity and had to surrender the Mediterranean world. It got even worse during the Middle Ages.”

“But even so, you managed to survive and Olympus is running wild on its own now.”

“That’s only because of Zeus’s current plan, but we almost perished.”

That thuggish Olympus?

Almost gone?

“After losing sovereignty to Christianity, SP stopped flowing in to maintain the major pantheon. Olympus also had internal issues. We were reckless with SP when we were doing well.”

“Still, would that lead to destruction? If you lose your major status, can’t you just become a minor pantheon?”

“There were simply too many deities in Olympus. If we were demoted, some would have to vanish. But… Zeus said he couldn’t allow that. He said he’d negotiate with Christianity himself and went to Heaven. And then…”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know the details… but that day, Zeus returned to Olympus with his body torn apart and a humiliated expression. He said the negotiations went well.”

Artemis’s eyes softened, as if reminiscing about that day.

Zeus…

That’s unexpected.

“After that, Zeus sealed himself away, and we just barely maintained our status as a major pantheon. When he was unsealed, he claimed he had a grand plan and made everyone in Olympus swear an oath.”

“About this whole mess?”

“He said he’d overturn Heaven and Earth and become the Creator, and asked us to trust and follow him.”

“Hm…”

“We all swore to follow him, after witnessing his sacrifice. That’s when this all started. Even I was offered up as a sacrifice to something like K'aai…”

So there was that kind of backstory to Zeus flipping the world upside down.

Christianity should’ve just crushed him when they had the chance.

Tsk tsk.

Never leave behind loose ends.

“Well, that was in the Mediterranean. But there have been other instances where major pantheons were overtaken by minor ones. Buddhism in the East also started small but grew immensely strong. If you get complacent with a minor pantheon, it might suddenly rise up and flip the table.”

“So what you’re saying is…”

“No matter how threatening Zeus is, there will always be tension between major and minor pantheons. The majors want to suppress the minors, and the minors want to take the major's place. So true cooperation? That’s a fantasy.”

So even though an overwhelming external threat has come, there's a deep-rooted reason why cooperation is so hard.

Plus, most gods were recently unsealed and have little SP...

Now I understand why they couldn’t work together even after the Black Thunder incident.

“What a pain. I thought once we freed the sealed gods, they’d all join forces to oppose Zeus…”

“Coalitions are like that. Everyone prioritizes their own group’s interests.”

“The minor pantheons are going to be fighting to survive. I saw on TV that gods are advertising like crazy. Apparently, religious groups are the biggest advertisers these days.”

She said she was building a temple—how did she find that out?

“What do they see in Zeus to side with him?”

“Even a mere promise to let them survive is enough. They’re probably on the brink of soul starvation.”

“Immortal gods fear being sealed the most. If Zeus, now a Creator, promises them life, many will join his side. They’ve already lost their apostles to the major pantheons and are on the verge of extinction.”

Makes sense.

The minor pantheons really are in a tight spot now.

It all comes down to the lack of SP due to the loss of followers.

Just then, I noticed a slight change on the screen I had displayed to the side.

The screen showing the movements of ten groups—

Four of them had stopped moving.

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