The changes within the Celestial Court Dinsion did not escape Heimdall's notice.
Unfortunately, Drex Valen's divine radiance was simply too overwhelming.
Even Heimdall could only tell that sothing significant had happened to the Celestial Court. The details remained hidden behind a brilliance he couldn't penetrate.
So he reported the anomaly to Odin.
The All-Father considered the matter carefully. Given the Celestial Court's strength, he found it difficult to imagine anything catastrophic occurring there. Most likely, it was so internal dispute or minor disturbance.
Neither of them imagined that Drex's first target would be Asgard.
The decision had been deliberate.
Heimdall's sight and the Bifrost represented the greatest intelligence and mobility advantage among the pantheons. If Drex intended to wage war against the gods, eliminating those advantages early would make everything that followed much easier.
There was only one concern.
"If I rember correctly, this universe should have Rune King Thor sowhere."
Drex considered the possibility.
"Whether he's appeared yet is another matter."
Still, the war had to begin.
The first sign of disaster appeared above Asgard.
Before Heimdall could fully understand what he was seeing, Drex used divine power to transport Heaven's armies directly into the realm.
War banners unfurled.
Drums thundered.
Hundreds of thousands of celestial soldiers erged from the skies.
Their ranks stretched endlessly across the horizon.
The heavens darkened beneath their numbers.
The sight resembled a living storm front swallowing the world.
Celestial generals marched at the forefront.
Star Lords.
Divine Commanders.
The Lords of Wind and Rain.
The God of Thunder and the Goddess of Lightning.
Countless heavenly warriors filled the skies.
Lightning flashed.
Thunder roared.
Tempest winds howled through Asgard.
Torrential rain crashed across the golden realm.
The very foundations of the world trembled.
Anyone familiar with divine warfare imdiately understood what this ant.
The armies of Heaven had mobilized.
And armies of this size did not march rely to make a statent.
They marched to conquer.
Shock rippled throughout Asgard.
"The Celestial Court is attacking us?"
Thor looked excited rather than concerned.
He had wanted to test himself against foreign pantheons for years.
Especially their war gods and thunder gods.
Judging by the scale of the invasion, the Celestial Court had co prepared for a genuine war.
Odin, however, saw things differently.
The situation felt wrong.
There had been no warning.
No declaration.
No obvious cause.
Surely there had to be so misunderstanding.
Seeking answers, he dispatched several Asgardian envoys.
The envoys never returned.
Their heads did.
The severed heads were thrown back into Asgard.
That ended any possibility of negotiation.
Asgard had fought the Celestial Court before.
In their minds, Heaven wasn't particularly terrifying.
They had no reason to fear it now.
What they didn't realize was that Heaven had changed.
The original Celestial Court had been destroyed.
Drex had rebuilt it according to the standards of the ancient Heavenly Empire.
Not the weakened court of later eras.
Not the compromised bureaucracy of the Jade Emperor.
This was the Celestial Court at its mythical peak.
The unconquered Heaven of legend.
When the entirety of Heaven appeared above Asgard, even Thor's expression grew serious.
The enemy hadn't rely sent an army.
They had brought their holand with them.
This wasn't a war.
It was an extermination campaign.
"What happened? Why is Heaven making such a massive move?"
The heavens trembled.
The Thirty-Three Heavens stood above clouds and storms alike, occupying the highest reaches of existence.
Yet now dark winds swept across the celestial skies.
Endless clouds gathered.
The light vanished.
Purple lightning churned within the darkness.
Crimson flas rolled through the storm.
The pressure radiating from them was so overwhelming that weaker beings struggled to breathe.
At first glance, they appeared to be thunder and fire.
Thor knew better.
As the God of Thunder, he could feel their true nature.
The lightning wasn't truly lightning.
The fire wasn't truly fire.
Those were rely the forms they had assud.
Beneath those appearances lurked sothing far stranger.
Sothing beyond simple elental power.
It was Drex's divine authority.
For the first ti, he was actively experinting with the power of Destruction and Ruin.
And he found it surprisingly entertaining.
Divine power was extraordinarily flexible.
It could beco energy.
Matter.
Weapons.
Storms.
Virtually anything.
Even more fascinating was its nature.
Its apparent mass was zero.
Its true mass was infinite.
The concepts of destruction and ruin that ford Drex's divine authority originated from the essence of black holes themselves.
Doomsday possessed so claim to those concepts as well.
But compared to a black hole, even Doomsday's destructive potential felt crude and limited.
As a result, Drex's divine power represented a transcendent expression of annihilation itself.
A higher state of destruction.
"taphysics really doesn't care about logic, does it?"
The realization amused him.
Even so, he had no intention of using this power to erase Asgard imdiately.
That would reveal too much.
If he appeared utterly invincible, the remaining pantheons would panic and retreat into hiding.
That would complicate his plans.
A prolonged war.
A difficult victory.
Those would create the perfect conditions for future campaigns.
For that reason, the gods and immortals he recreated were stronger than their originals.
But not overwhelmingly so.
Strong enough to win.
Weak enough to struggle.
At the forefront of Heaven's army stood Erlang Shen.
His three-pointed, double-edged spear glead beneath the storm-darkened sky.
Behind him marched hundreds of thousands of celestial soldiers.
The mont Thor entered the battlefield, Erlang Shen attacked.
The spear descended like a falling star.
Fast.
Precise.
Unstoppable.
Divine power surged through the strike.
BOOM!
Thor raised Mjolnir and t it head-on.
The collision shook the battlefield.
Both warriors specialized in overwhelming physical strength.
Neither yielded.
Neither gained an advantage.
The original Celestial Court Drex had destroyed never possessed Erlang Shen.
Drex had created him personally.
Which ant Thor had never encountered him before.
And the realization surprised him.
Very few beings could match him physically.
Even fewer could stand toe-to-toe against him.
Yet this three-eyed warrior was doing exactly that.
Where was Nezha?
Where was the Celestial Marshal?
Thor didn't know.
All he knew was that this newcor was dangerous.
The battle raged on.
Hundreds of exchanges followed.
Still no victor erged.
Then Erlang Shen's spear finally slipped past Thor's guard.
The blade cut across the Asgardian's divine body.
For the first ti in a long while, Thor was wounded.
His eyes widened.
"What are you?"
Erlang Shen rested his spear across one shoulder.
Pride radiated from him.
"I am Erlang Shen."
"The Judicial God of Heaven."
Thor frowned.
"The Judicial God?"
The title ant absolutely nothing to him.
Other pantheons always had impossibly complicated titles.
Judge?
Lawkeeper?
Executioner?
Sothing along those lines.
Whatever the title ant, one fact remained undeniable.
He was being pushed back by Heaven's divine lawman.
That was humiliating.
Fortunately for Asgard, Thor wasn't fighting alone.
Many universes treated Thor as Asgard's primary powerhouse.
This universe was different.
The Gods Universe lacked no warriors.
Tyr, God of War.
Balder, God of Light.
The Valkyrie Legions.
The warriors of Valhalla.
Powerful gods erged from every corner of the realm.
They joined the battle one after another.
Soon, Heaven and Asgard collided in a conflict that shook entire dinsions.
Thunder battled heavenly storms.
Divine weapons shattered mountains.
Gods clashed with immortals.
The battlefield descended into complete chaos.
And thus, the War of the Gods officially began.
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