Solitude.
If there was one word to describe Gilgamesh's life, it would be this.
When his memories began to pass through me, it wasn't just them.
It was his experience, memory, and feelings.
All his pain, sadness, hatred, anger, joy, everything.
Gilgamesh was born the son of the King of Uruk, Lulabanga, and the Sumerian Goddess Rimatsu-Ninsun.
He was a supreme and transcendent being, so divine that he was two-thirds god and one-third human, and no other in the world could equal him. He was a despot who possessed high divinity and believed himself invincible.
Born with a body of the highest degree by mortal standards and with knowledge that reached the truth, Gilgamesh was born, designated as king and the Wedge of Heaven to connect the rising humans and the fading gods.
He was sent to ensure humanity's survival and to anchor the earth as it slowly left the Age of the Gods. He was a being who embodied both forms of life, with the blood of those who ruled and the blood of those who would rule henceforth.
He was meant to be the last neutral entity capable of discerning their respective flaws, judging from their respective positions.
There was no flaw in the young King. During his early years of reign, he was praised as a kind and gentle King, always lauded by his people. His only fault was that he never submitted to the gods.
However, as he transcended into adulthood, he began to change. The once gentle King became a tyrant, practicing absolutism, oppression, coercion, taxation, and the utmost decadence of self-interest. The people of the kingdom lamented the change, and even the gods were perplexed by the extent of the expected transformation.
The reason was simply that he had been born with his conclusion already drawn, existing independently as a being neither fully divine nor human.
He acquired the characteristics of both, such that his field of vision reached beyond what the gods were capable of comprehending.
His overwhelming power led to overwhelming isolation, but his strength of self prevented him from abandoning his royalty or fleeing from the mission imposed upon him. Out of reverence for the gods and love for humanity, he decided to follow the path to his conclusion, deposing the gods and hating humanity.
The gods, foreseeing this, created a being in Gilgamesh's childhood to stop him.
**Enkidu.**
Created from clay by the King of the Gods, Anu, and the Goddess of Creation, Aruru.
Enkidu was neither man nor woman, merely a being crafted from clay with the purpose of being the chains that would return the cornerstone, Gilgamesh, to the control of the Gods.
Gilgamesh met Enkidu for the first time outside the temple of Uruk, where Enkidu immediately declared that he would reprimand the king and rectify his arrogance.
They entered a battle that lasted several days, and Gilgamesh was forced to use all his strength to match his transformative opponent. He was irritated or surprised to have found his equal for the first time, insulting Enkidu as a lump of clay. He was forced to draw his carefully guarded treasures, marking the first use of the [Gate of Babylon] as a weapon, and though it was initially a reluctant and forced humiliation, he eventually began to appreciate them and brought them forth without regret.
He ended up emptying the vault, and Enkidu was left with only a tenth of his clay. Instead of continuing, Gilgamesh let himself fall back, bursting into laughter, followed by Enkidu. He observed that there would only be one chance for each to strike, and without any means of defense, it would leave only two foolish corpses. Enkidu was never able to discern whether this meant it was a draw or if Gilgamesh intended to make it so there would be only one corpse.
Enkidu asked, "Do you not regret the treasures you spent?"
To which he replied with a bright voice, "Well, if it's someone I must use them on, it's not unthinkable to do them the favor."
Gilgamesh and Enkidu became close friends afterward, marking the only story of eternally unchanging value in the entire world.
He became the greatest and wealthiest king on Earth, who eventually acquired all the world's treasures.
Uruk became unprecedentedly prosperous, and Gilgamesh was considered so powerful that even the gods could not ignore his existence. A goddess, Ishtar, the goddess of fertility, even fell in love with Gilgamesh and proposed marriage to the perfect king.
He rejected her immediately because he knew she was an unfaithful, cruel witch and the corrupter of all men. She was furious, feeling he had insulted her, and went to her father, the god Anu, to seek revenge. She begged him to release the Bull of Heaven.
The unquestionable beast of the gods caused seven years of famine and destruction on the land. Working together, Gilgamesh and Enkidu defeated it after binding it with the [Chains of Heaven], causing the dark clouds covering the world to fade and saving the land from the flood. Ishtar's reputation was crushed once again, and her fury did not abate. She demanded they be killed for the sin of slaying a beast of the gods with a human body.
Her request was granted, and Enkidu, created by the gods, was unable to defy the decree.
He slowly weakened and returned to clay, while Gilgamesh desperately held the crumbling lump in his arms.
He was enraged by this, believing he alone deserved retribution if it was necessary. Enkidu tried to calm him, telling Gilgamesh that he was just one of the many treasures in Gilgamesh's collection and that he would find countless others greater than him in time.
Gilgamesh declared, "You have value. Only you have this value. I declare: In all this world, only one shall be my friend. Thus—not for all eternity will your value ever change."
Enkidu returned to his original state afterward, leaving only the piercing wail of Gilgamesh behind.
Until that moment, Gilgamesh had lived by his own standards, collecting riches, bedding women, fighting with his friend, and purging the land of prohibitions.
Enkidu's return to dust, meeting death, greatly changed his perspective. Death had never inspired sorrow or fear in him until that moment and had never been on his mind, though he knew it awaited all.
Seeing someone who possessed power equal to his perish before his eyes, he registered the true reality of death for the first time.
The despair Gilgamesh felt was because he saw death as an escape from his duty as the observer of humanity; to fulfill his mission completely, he had to observe the path of humanity until its end.
Falling into depression and without vigor, he sought the herb of immortality, a spiritual herb of perpetual youth and eternal life.
Gilgamesh hated and feared the death that took his friend, leaving him afraid of his own life for the first time since birth. He embarked on his journey, which he later called a farce, that lasted as long as he had lived up to that moment.
He wandered the wilderness for decades, as described in the epic "crawling pathetically," thinking of nothing but not wanting to die.
He had the same motive as all humans, for even a son of the gods was no different when confronted with death.
With "foolishness exceeding that of humans," he continued to try to overcome death, casting aside the pride, authority, and power of a king, without knowing a purpose for doing so or someone for whom to do it.
His fear of death was one of the reasons for his actions, but he also detested death because he could not forgive himself for abandoning his role of observing the future.
He finally reached the kingdom of the dead and discovered, upon meeting Utnapishtim, that his form of immortality was not at all special.
Utnapishtim gained longevity by joining the ranks of the gods, becoming a plant in the process.
Gilgamesh rejected such immortality because he had to be immortal with the desires of a human still intact, rather than simply living eternally in a body without appetite.
He simply planned to leave the underworld and return to Uruk to complete his vault, but Utnapishtim, having become doubtful of having his mode of existence rejected or possibly wanting to condemn someone who had denied the immortality of the gods to the same existence, told Gilgamesh a secret.
He told Gilgamesh a method of becoming immortal without seeking the mercy of the gods, the root of a herb that grew in the depths.
Although he himself did not consume it, as it would only turn him into a plant, he collected it as a rare treasure to decorate his vault. Stopping in the depths, he retrieved the herb and returned above ground.
Unable to put words to his state of mind at the time, there was a part of him that was hopeful, though he declared there was no need for immortality modeled on the gods. He smiled at his realization upon returning to the surface, believing he could defeat death and avenge his friend.
With the ability to overcome the "death" that had taken Enkidu, the voices and cheers of the people of Uruk would have reached an unprecedented level upon his return with immortality.
Describing himself as being in the "recklessness of youth," vanity soon followed, and he became bothered by his unkempt state, to which he had spared no thought until that moment.
He wished to purify himself before returning to Uruk to test the fruits of his labor in perfect condition, so he rested at a nearby spring to recover from the exhaustion accumulated over decades of searching.
He experienced a certain feeling at that moment that he believed was his first true feeling of joy.
As the water healed him, he felt a tranquility as if freed from a prolonged malaise in body and mind.
It was the first time he was so elated with any of his achievements because the act of gathering treasures was like an instinct akin to breathing that brought him no joy.
The act of obtaining immortality was the first time he felt grateful for being born into the world because, despite claiming to have the perspective of humans, he believed he was not human until that moment. He felt free from everything, without doubts, fears, fixations, or duties.
Overwhelmed by the sensation of omnipotence, he describes the feeling as élan vital, the reward of his own desire and the belief that he could do whatever he wanted with that joy for all eternity.
It was then that his carelessness caused it to be snatched from him, taken by the desires, the simple appetite of "hunger," of a serpent crawling in the jungle.
The snake with an empty stomach was drawn by the scent of the herb, and though a panicked Gilgamesh emerged from the spring, it was too late.
The snake gained the property of shedding, having been the restoration of youth rather than immortality, and all that remained was its shed skin. He then burst into laughter at the event, the absurdity of the conclusion in everything he had hoped to gain and everything he prided himself on being "nothing." He laughed at his own foolishness until his sides ached.
Though he was not incapable of obtaining something, he understood that his only reward was that nothing would remain for him.
The satisfaction in life and the joy he obtained for the first time vanished instantly, making him realize that it was the nature of the human world.
Realizing that immortality was unnecessary to his duty, he was born as a human at that moment and died as a human after learning joy. Although he was "complete from birth," he also had his times of inexperience.
Taking nearly his entire life to complete his development, he reached physical maturity in time with Enkidu and mental maturity at that moment, marking the end of his youth.
Having laughed at the theft, the sun had risen, and smiling at the fleeting moment of human joy, he returned to Uruk.
Marking the end of his adventures, he ruled Uruk as the ruler of heroes and completed it. Later, he also returned to the depths to retrieve the herb once more, simply to complete his collection and, by chance, he would be in a situation that he would only tolerate as a child.
Though still stern, he ruled Uruk quietly, entrusting it to the next king before going to eternal rest without revealing the whereabouts of the herb. He became humanity's oldest hero and the illustrious king who was the first in this world to "become a story."
**With MC after waking up.**
Truly the Greatest King in the World.
Someone who started well, got lost, and then found himself.
I never in my life imagined seeing and experiencing this.
In my life before this, I was an ordinary person, a Brazilian named Diogo, someone who had his own ups and downs, but nothing noteworthy.
To think that someone lived and experienced all this.
Truly, the world is vast.
Just like this one I live in now.
It's no longer a normal world.
In this world, there are gods and beings with the power to destroy it.
I must strengthen myself to prepare for this world.
After all, I want to prevent many things from happening.
In this world, various beings are plotting for evil, things I want to avoid.
For example:
Has Rizevim already allied with the Vampires to free Trihexa?
Is Hades already planning the extermination of [Longinus] users and the leaders of each mythology?
Is Nyx already planning to use Ingvild Leviathan to control Great Red and Ophis?
There are many things to happen in this world that I want to prevent.
After all, the Goddesses brought me here to change history.
And with my powers and my future adventures, I will change the world.
After all, this is my New Life.