Stupid Odin

Hela was willing to go to such lengths for Thanos because, in this life, Thanos had shown her a kindness akin to rebirth.

Hela repaid his kindness by willingly shouldering this backlash for Thanos.

One should know that in the "Edda" saga, when Odin hoped Hela would not take the soul of the slain Baldr, Hela, already at odds with Odin, coldly made an impossible demand: that if all living beings in the world shed tears for Baldr, she would release him.

In the end, a giant who had never seen the light refused to weep for Baldr, and Baldr's soul returned to the underworld.

This time, Hela readily agreed; if Thanos did nothing, it would be tantamount to him personally squandering most of their relationship.

How could Thanos be so unwise?!

He rarely placed his hands on Hela's shoulders, an intimate gesture that made Hela tremble slightly.

"Hela, is this not that noble soul from your dreams?"

Hela paused slightly, then shook her head: "No."

"That's good. The matter of Vili is something our family owes you, and I will take responsibility for repaying you with a powerful soul of equal standing as compensation."

The King of Gods' promise secretly relieved Hela.

Sending the soul of a king from a realm not on the list of the dead into the underworld could minimize the world's backlash against Hela.

Hela smiled radiantly: "Your Majesty, I believe you."

"And I believe you!"

Over here, Bestla finally revealed a long-lost smile, thinking her younger sister Laufey's granddaughter was far too wonderful. She went up and gave her a big hug.

Hela, whose figure was closer to that of an Aesir god, naturally felt a sense of breathlessness from the embrace of the giantess.

However, this familial embrace gave Hela a long-lost sense of warmth from a relative.

"We are all family, aren't we?"

"Yes! Family!" Bor and Bestla choked out in unison.

Before long, news spread from the Golden Palace that Hela, the Goddess of Death, had agreed to King Thanos' request and would not accept Vili's soul into the underworld. At the same time, His Majesty the King of Gods would personally conduct a strange ritual called 'surgery' for Vili.

Frankly, Thanos was using his supreme power to prevent his brother's death.

As for the surgery, Thanos cut open Vili's abdomen. Anyway, his foolish brother wouldn't die, so Thanos simply cut away all the damaged internal organs affected by Jormungandr's venom and then sewed up the wound.

Finally, Vili was sent to a magical bed similar to the mythical 'Odin's Sleep'.

In this special magical artifact, enchanted by both Frey and Njord, the current and former Gods of Abundance, and enhanced by Thanos' 'Water of Life' divine spell, Vili's body would theoretically recover slowly.

As for how long this process would take, only the heavens knew.

After this, Thanos rarely issued an edict: Vili would remain the King of Vanaheim, with all miscellaneous affairs handled by Njord.

One should know that in the past few years, Vili had been a mascot. All matters, large and small, were handled by Njord.

On the surface, this situation was no different from before.

On a political level, however, this was a powerful statement from Thanos: even if my brother is a mascot, even if he is half-dead, the glory that belongs to him, I will absolutely not deprive him of it in any form!

This is [Kingship]!

Subsequently, Thanos swore an oath in public beside the Well of Urd: "I will make that bastard who poisoned him suffer a hundred times the pain of Vili!"

This was no longer a simple oath from the King of Gods!

What kind of place was the Well of Urd?

It was the residence of the Norns, the goddesses of fate. This meant that Thanos was swearing revenge with his own destiny!

At once, no one dared to doubt 'whether Thanos had orchestrated this himself'.

If it was truly orchestrated by Thanos himself, he would be destined to bear this hundredfold backlash.

Thanos decisively and quickly dealt with all of this, and although he could not completely make up for all the damage caused by this incident, his methods continued to demonstrate the majesty befitting a King of Gods!

The unrest within the Aesir tribe was quickly quelled.

But things were far from over!

The very next morning after Thanos swore his oath, he made a sudden, solo visit to Odin's Pseudo-Golden Palace.

When the light of the Rainbow Bridge shone directly on the front gate of the Pseudo-Golden Palace without the slightest bit of courtesy, Odin's subordinates were stunned.

Who?

Who was being so presumptuous?

When they saw, to their surprise, that it was King Thanos who had come, they were immediately at a loss.

Thanos had come riding the divine horse [Asgard], who was also Loki's child.

Thanos yanked on the reins, and the divine horse immediately reared up, raising its two front hooves high and kicking heavily against the gate of the Pseudo-Golden Palace.

"Dong—" The huge sound, like a great bell, and the two large hoof prints left on the gold-inlaid doors, stunned Odin, Hoder, Bragi, and Vali.

"B-Big... Brother... What are you doing here?" Odin looked at Thanos, who was surrounded by nine swords and exuding murderous intent, and couldn't help but feel a burst of nervousness.

Thanos rode his horse into the hall, which was undoubtedly a great humiliation.

Odin didn't expect Thanos to have no intention of dismounting at all, and he rode his horse right up to his throne.

This divine horse was so tall that Thanos, sitting on its back, was even higher than Odin on the steps.

Thanos looked down at Odin with contempt, and sneered: "My foolish brother! Do you really not know why I've come?"

Odin panicked even more, and he instinctively wanted to grab [Gungnir], which was placed next to the throne. But for some reason, he had a premonition that if Thanos wanted to, the nine swords would pierce his body before he could even get his hands on his divine spear.

Dare to move?

He really didn't dare to move at all!

Odin's scalp went numb.

"I, I don't know," Odin said, even more flustered.

The domineering aura in Thanos' voice grew even stronger: "Foolish brother! In the past, when I said you were foolish, it was more out of disappointment. Now it seems that you really are stupid!"

Faced with such humiliation, Odin wasn't really a coward, and he still had some anger!

"Shut up! Big Brother! Even you can't insult me at will!"

"Shut up? You secretly did a bunch of disgusting things, and you won't even let me talk about it?"

"Don't talk nonsense. The three of us were almost poisoned to death!"

"Pfft! Did I say anything about a poisoning assassination?" Thanos' eyes were full of mockery.

Odin's heart skipped a beat, and he had finally been tricked into speaking.

The shadow of being beaten by his older brother for eating, sleeping, and bullying him since he was a child resurfaced, and he instinctively panicked even more: "No, I, that..."

At this time, Thanos glanced at Hoder, the God of Darkness, and Vali, the God of Vengeance, who were quietly approaching him, and suddenly sneered: "Odin! Look, even your sons have more guts than you. From childhood to adulthood, the thing I despised most about you was this virtue. You always want all the good things, but you're afraid to take responsibility when something happens. With this virtue of yours, how dare you even think about the throne of the King of Gods?"