At last, Odin entered the battlefield.
Clad in the Destroyer Armor, the King of Asgard descended like a living star.
The mont he arrived, he intended to accomplish one thing:
Break the montum of Heaven's army.
And to do that, he chose Erlang Shen as his target.
Without warning, Gungnir, the Eternal Spear, flashed through space.
The weapon carried an absolute law.
It would strike.
It would pierce.
Before Erlang Shen could react, the spear tore through his divine body.
A heartbeat later, it returned to Odin's hand.
The battlefield fell silent.
Many celestial soldiers and heavenly gods stared in shock.
"The King of Asgard..."
This was no ordinary god.
This was a being regarded as the equal of a Heavenly Emperor.
Far above the battlefield, Drex Valen watched with his chin resting against one hand.
Interesting.
This Odin was incomparably stronger than the version from the films.
The sheer volu of divine power boiling within him seed capable of crushing space itself beneath its weight.
If the cinematic Odin possessed even a fraction of this strength, he would have long surpassed the ordinary Skyfather tier.
Drex could also see another truth.
Odin's power had beco so imnse that his own body struggled to contain it.
Countless hidden injuries riddled his divine form.
Ordinarily, he would have spent centuries recovering.
Unfortunately, Heaven had co knocking at his front door.
There was no ti left for rest.
Erlang Shen looked down at the wound in his chest.
The power of the Judicial God flowed through him.
The injury closed almost imdiately.
Even so, his brow furrowed.
The divine energy left behind by Odin continued burning inside the wound.
It felt like molten iron embedded in his flesh.
The Judicial God's authority was steadily erasing it, but the process would take ti.
Odin's power was not sothing that could be dismissed casually.
The King of Asgard raised his gaze toward Heaven.
"Why has the Celestial Court invaded Asgard?"
His voice echoed throughout the battlefield.
The question wasn't his alone.
Every pantheon observing the war wanted the sa answer.
The Celestial Court had always been regarded as cautious.
Its forr ruler was infamous for avoiding unnecessary conflict.
Yet now Heaven had launched a full-scale invasion against the Norse pantheon, arguably the most aggressive of all the divine realms.
The contradiction made no sense.
"Where is the Jade Emperor?"
Odin took a step forward.
Imdiately, Erlang Shen moved to block his path.
"The Jade Emperor is dead."
His voice rang across the battlefield.
"The Heavenly Emperor now commands Heaven."
Silence followed.
Then disbelief.
Every watching pantheon was stunned.
The Jade Emperor was dead?
There was a new Heavenly Emperor?
How had sothing this significant happened without anyone noticing?
In truth, signs had existed.
The problem was that no one had interpreted them correctly.
At that mont, a streak of divine light shot forth from Heaven.
A sword.
The weapon flew directly into Erlang Shen's hand.
The instant his fingers wrapped around the hilt, limitless divine power surged into him.
An understanding appeared within his mind.
The Immortal-Slaying Sword.
One of four supre divine blades forged from the essence of the Celestial Court Dinsion itself.
After consuming the Celestial Court, Drex had used the power of the Black Hole Dinsion to recreate many of the legendary treasures he rembered.
This sword was one of them.
Erlang Shen tightened his grip.
Fear vanished.
Confidence remained.
He raised the blade and pointed it directly at Odin.
The King of Asgard's expression darkened.
He was Odin.
Ruler of Asgard.
Yet the new Heavenly Emperor had not bothered to face him personally.
Instead, he had sent a single subordinate.
A judge.
The insult was impossible to ignore.
Was Heaven truly so confident?
Or simply arrogant?
Odin abandoned all restraint.
Gungnir rose.
The spear's tip aligned with Erlang Shen's throat.
The Eternal Spear embodied a fundantal truth.
Its strike was inevitable.
Its judgnt unavoidable.
Even mighty gods such as Ra, the Sun God, or Yahweh himself would regard its power with caution.
Then Erlang Shen swung.
The Immortal-Slaying Sword descended.
Reality split.
The heavens shuddered.
For an instant, it seed as though the world itself might be cut in half.
The brilliant radiance of Gungnir froze.
Its certainty halted.
Its absolute law faltered.
The sword severed the chain of causality itself.
Drex had recreated the legendary qualities attributed to the Immortal-Slaying Sword and pushed them to their logical extre.
If its defining trait was sharpness, then it would cut anything.
Matter.
Energy.
Space.
Ti.
Cause and effect.
Nothing was beyond its edge.
The blade's power exploded outward.
Even Odin's Destroyer Armor split open beneath the strike.
A wound opened across the All-Father's body.
Deep.
Brutal.
Severe enough to expose flesh beneath divine tal.
"Father!"
Thor's voice rang across the battlefield.
Shock filled his face.
The man he had always viewed as invincible had just been wounded.
And not by a king.
Not by a war god.
By Heaven's judge.
Was that sword truly superior to Gungnir itself?
Odin grunted in pain.
He had never expected the new ruler of Heaven to possess such terrifying strength.
The man hadn't even appeared personally.
A single weapon had been enough to injure him.
Worse still, the divine power left behind by the sword continued eating away at him.
Like poison embedded in bone.
His imnse divine power could suppress countless things.
It could not suppress this.
Fortunately, Erlang Shen was rely wielding the sword.
He was not its true owner.
Otherwise, Odin suspected the strike might have killed him outright.
The difference in quality between their powers was simply too great.
The reason was simple.
Within the New Celestial Court, the position of Judicial God held extraordinary authority.
Drex intended to establish two things above all else.
His own supremacy.
And Heaven's laws.
The old Celestial Court had beco corrupt.
Its authority had weakened.
Its mission to judge and punish had beco little more than a joke.
Drex had no intention of allowing that to happen again.
If Heaven claid legitimacy over the cosmos, then its laws needed to be absolute.
Legislation could be flexible.
Enforcent could not.
The mont enforcent weakened, corruption followed.
History repeated that lesson endlessly.
Kingdoms did not collapse overnight.
They rotted from within.
Lax laws.
Corrupt officials.
Unchecked abuses.
The old Celestial Court had suffered from the sa disease.
For more than two thousand years, the previous regi had accumulated countless flaws.
Drex barely needed to investigate.
A casual inquiry revealed gods abusing authority, exploiting their positions, and ignoring the laws they were supposed to uphold.
He despised that kind of hypocrisy.
Which was why the office of Judicial God stood just beneath the Heavenly Emperor himself.
One god below.
All other gods above.
That was the status Drex had granted Erlang Shen.
Ard with the authority of the Judicial God and the Immortal-Slaying Sword, Erlang Shen fought Odin on equal footing.
The battle shook the heavens.
Had Odin not been wearing the Destroyer Armor, a relic blessed by countless gods and forged by the dwarves to oppose the Celestials themselves, he might not have lasted this long.
And as the battle continued, Erlang Shen grew stronger.
He beca more familiar with both his divine office and the sword.
Gradually.
Relentlessly.
He began forcing Odin backward.
Divine power poured from him like an endless sea.
To the Asgardians, his presence felt like a living furnace pressed directly against their faces.
Their divine energy boiled.
The godhood within their bloodlines felt scorched.
Every breath beca painful.
Every mont beca suffering.
And the pressure only continued to grow.
...
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