Chapter 1978: Stubborn

"..." The supreme gods were in complete shock.

"How the hell did this happen?" Zeus gasped.

"What happened?" Vishnu asked.

Shiva, covered in wounds, let out a long sigh. "It was a trap. There was a being much stronger than any of us here."

"!!!" The other supreme gods couldn’t help but hear it as well.

Considering Shiva was on such a high level, they could trust his words.

Shiva explained, "We got the momentum at first, but then more aliens came through portals. Those aliens weren’t a big deal. They were strong, but it wasn’t something that was capable of massacring us.

"However, there was one being who had yet to show its true appearance but managed to kill some of us. He was responsible for the deaths of Erlang Shen, Athena, and Horus. After that, the rest of them started surrounding us.

"I managed to break through, but not many were still alive." Shiva was exhausted. He never thought he would have to face a being as terrifying as Yog-Sothoth.

Loki was observing everything from a distance without saying anything. He had a lot of thoughts in his mind, but this setback was something they couldn’t ignore.

The other supreme gods also realized it. If there were indeed aliens stronger than them, this wasn’t a joking matter anymore. They needed to treat it seriously.

The Jade Emperor asked, "I’d like to request that we fall back and surrender this place to them. We need to set up another defense line and fight them there. This time, we need a central command for our own sake.

"If there are beings stronger than us, we should safely assume that there are more than one. So, we should treat it as if they’re the ones far stronger than us.

"It’s fine if I’m just being paranoid. Anyway, we need to immediately reorganize our armies and start bringing our own people to join the fight. Without them, we won’t be able to defeat these aliens."

Without the massacre, they would have complained since they didn’t want to follow the Jade Emperor’s words.

They truly needed to retreat this time. Charging blindly would just increase the casualties needlessly.

So Odin nodded. "I agree with him. Let’s retreat."

No one objected to the suggestion. They immediately retreated. The defeat was shameful, but there was nothing they could do.

Loki let out a long sigh. "This is what happened on the first battlefield. The battle didn’t even last for 10 hours. You would never think that an army composed of gods would be defeated like that."

Nathan’s expression turned grim. "That’s definitely something possible. When you are a local thug suddenly getting attacked by a world-class mafia, you will think you are good, only to get defeated miserably."

"A good analogy." Loki snapped his fingers. "That was basically what happened in our first battle. There was no smaller skirmish because it was hard to mobilize everything at the same time. If we weren’t so divided, it would have been much easier to somehow stall the enemy until we could find a solution."

Nathan crossed his arms. "Let me guess. They couldn’t accept their defeat. To wash away that shame, they decided to launch another massive attack, which brought so many high-level gods to participate.

"They attacked them hard, but the aliens were simply stronger. In the end, they were crushed again.

"The second defeat baffled them and completely crushed their morale. As a result, they chose to attack them desperately, only to fail again. You couldn’t change their nature, so to avoid getting defeated without putting up a fight, you chose to kill them all."

"I guess you can say it that way." Loki shrugged.

"What? How could you do that?" Sera gasped. She understood why Nathan was wary of Loki the whole time.

Nathan sighed. "If it were me, I wouldn’t have underestimated them during the first war. Still, being the local thug facing an unknown enemy, it would be fine to be a little arrogant. We could advance, but we needed to be extra careful. At least, it should reduce the casualties to a third or a fourth of the original casualties that they suffered.

"After learning about the strength of the enemy, I would have used the Fabian strategy."

"Fabian strategy?" Noelle tilted her head in confusion.

"Yeah. To put it simply, if the enemy approached us, we’d... run away!"

Loki snapped his fingers. "That’s genius."

"What?"

Nathan sighed. "Yeah. By doing so, we could minimize our casualties. At the same time, we could poke them to either weaken them or study them.

"Once we figured out their strength, we would then hit them hard. We might still lose in the process, but the information we could get on the second war would be unimaginable. That might even lead us to the chance of victory. We could probably find aliens who hadn’t been brainwashed yet.

"The gods wouldn’t end this battle in just three battles. They would last for thousands of years. In fact, Earth would have remained around this place. Just like Catalith and the others, there would still be a lot of gods. The never-ending battle would give us time to wait and train the promised people."

Nathan scratched the back of his head.

"That’s exactly why you are not the one in charge." Loki shrugged. "You wouldn’t be able to make those stubborn idiots listen unless they’re desperate enough for an opinion. They will continue to think that they still have the chance when they’re not."

Nathan narrowed his eyes. "Was that why you took the matter into your own hands?"

Loki smiled. "I think I’m going to cut the story here. I’m not going to tell you the rest."

"..." Nathan’s expression darkened.

Loki hurriedly said, "You can’t punish me for this. I’m not harming you if I don’t do anything."

"You are harming me because you are saying nothing. I know you don’t want to tell me about it because that will surprise me, and that’s the source of your enjoyment."

"How did you know?" Loki gasped. His reaction was so over the top that it felt fake.

And that was what made him feel like smacking him.