I told you not to come here...
Quetzalcoatl glanced at her best friend hanging beside her and couldn't help but twitch the corner of her mouth.
Long-range assaults came endlessly from the Mandate of Heaven's divine words, and close defense was sealed by the inescapable threads of fate—an almost unbeatable combination, flawless in every way. The King of Kings… it wasn't an empty boast after all.
Kukulkan furrowed her brow, divine power surging through her body as she pulled with all her might. With a series of tooth-aching tremors, the earth split apart and the sky shuddered.
Marduk, who moments ago had appeared effortlessly composed, instinctively gripped the Tablet of Destinies, the golden light upon it pulsing violently.
Bang!
Quetzalcoatl crashed down from midair, slamming into the ground and blasting out a cone-shaped crater dozens of meters deep. It was as if a mountain had been dropped on her—she couldn't move an inch.
"His power of destiny… has limits!"
The Maya goddess, her clothes in tatters and muscles trembling, spat out a mouthful of blood. Clenching her teeth, she shouted her discovery to her teammates.
"Damn it, don't underestimate a feline…"
The Jaguar Warrior's fur bristled instantly, flailing wildly in midair.
At the same time, Ana, barely on her feet, unleashed a purple-red beam of mana; Leonidas charged forward with his spear; Merlin raised his staff and launched a barrage of spells. Even Enkidu, Ereshkigal, and Ishtar, drawing on the last of their mana, gritted their teeth and counterattacked.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Yet in the next instant, the poor feline was slammed into the ground headfirst. The others, already at their limits, collapsed one after another. No matter how they struggled, they couldn't break free.
A massive net woven from strands of fate bound them tightly, leaving them unable to even stand with dignity.
"So what? Crushing you ants is more than enough!"
Marduk frowned, letting out a cold snort, his posture brimming with arrogance. He crooked a finger, tracing across the Tablet of Destinies, his expression ice-cold.
"Besides… you really think you have a chance?!"
In an instant, golden flames of fate composed of countless wedge-shaped divine symbols rose from the tablet, drifting toward the most threatening Kukulkan and Jaguar Warrior. This time, however, they were slower, their forms flickering and unstable.
"Out of my way, mongrels!"
Just then, Gilgamesh raised his royal seal, identical golden light patterns blooming to block the incoming flames of destiny. As the King of Heroes' face grew pale, the light in front of him flickered unsteadily, nearly spent.
Hiss!
Blood trickled from his lower lip, veins bulging on his forehead as he gripped the royal seal tightly, crimson spurting from torn wounds across his body.
At last, blood-soaked and unyielding, he stood firm under the crushing weight of the Mandate's authority. He leveled Ea at the King of Kings and roared coldly:
"By royal decree, I strip Marduk of his godhood and his authority! From this moment forth—you are banished!"
"Enuma Elish!"
Ea spun, stirring a storm of red and black ether that surged toward Marduk. But the instant it touched the golden wall of divine words, the raging current began to unravel and collapse, until all returned to stillness and void.
Crack!
A sharp sound rang out—the royal seal in Gilgamesh's hand split apart, flaking into golden fragments that quickly dulled.
Marduk looked down in contempt, a cold laugh escaping his lips.
"Condemn divine power with royal authority? Arrogant fool!"
"Don't forget—everything you have was given by me!"
"A hunting dog tasked with herding my sheep… daring to bare its fangs at its master!"
In truth, the Heavenly Wedge was nothing more than an anchor keeping divine will wrapped around the earth. The Chains of Heaven, in turn, were the lines anchoring the Age of Gods within the World Egg.
Those sinners born from Kingu's filthy blood were nothing but lambs raised by the gods—providing meat and milk to please the world's true rulers. To manage his pasture more tightly, he had drawn on the Tablet of Destinies' power to grant kingship, creating the so-called King of Heroes.
Divine will was the Mandate of Heaven; kingship was its projection. Thus, by the Mandate's reckoning, the gods ruled the heavens, and the kings ruled the earth.
But the hound chosen to guard the flock had grown ungrateful—repeatedly defying divine orders, treating all of earth's beings as his private property. This drove a wedge between gods and mortals, causing the Age of Gods to peel away from the World Egg.
Even sending the Chains of Heaven changed nothing. In the end, the very weapon meant to restrain the Heavenly Wedge had gained emotion—turning into his ally and joining the rebellion.
Now, with a new era begun, a wedge whose spikes point toward its master has no reason to exist.
Wind and thunder roared down. The exhausted Gilgamesh groaned as he crashed to the ground, but with no time to tend his wounds, he turned his head and bellowed in a cold, sinister voice.
"Goddess Tiamat!"
"Aaaa!!!!"
A high, ringing chant resounded as the last few threads of fate clinging to the Mother of Origins snapped apart. Gray-white light patterns surged forward, crashing toward Marduk.
Power—Nega-Genesis!
Yet even as danger loomed, Marduk's expression stayed cold and unmoved. He pressed his lips together, a chilling smile curling into a savage grin.
In the next moment, the King of Kings, grinning fiercely, traced a series of strokes across the Tablet of Destinies and began to chant.
"The waters shall be divided into upper and lower, and the earth and sea shall be separated!"
Golden light patterns flared and spread. The Sea of Life that had welled up at the feet of the Mother Goddess Tiamat instantly boiled away and dried, revealing a barren layer of earth beneath.
"Heaven and earth are opened, and all things are reborn!"
"Power—Genesis!"
Golden light clashed head-on with the gray-white barrier. Under the solemn, resonant pulse of its power, the collapsing, reforming world solidified once more. Stars wheeled backward, streams rushed forth, green shoots broke through the soil, and the calls of insects and birds rose in chorus. The dull, gray world bloomed again with vibrant color.
The Mother of Origins' movements were completely suppressed. Even the Mother Goddess Tiamat was no match for him.
The others stared at her towering form as she staggered backward under the flood of golden radiance, their faces draining of color. Breath caught in their throats, hearts plummeting to the depths.
"Gilgamesh, do you know why I didn't stop you from freeing this beast of calamity?"
Marduk's gaze was cold and imperious, a sinister glint lurking in his eyes.
"Because I want you rebels to see…
What true terror is. What true despair is!"
The King of Kings slowly lifted his battle axe and swung it toward the abdomen of the Mother of Genesis.
Bastard!
They forced themselves upright, but after so many grueling battles, their strength was all but gone—none of them had even thirty percent of their peak left. And now they faced Marduk, the mad tyrant who held the Tablet of Destinies and could command the fate of all things.
No matter how they struggled, they could not break free of the threads of fate.
"Mother Goddess!"
At the last possible instant, a towering black serpent—several meters long, fused with the Spirit Origin of the seven-headed serpent Mušmaḫḫū—lunged in from the side, slamming into the path of Marduk's axe.
Boom!
The strike veered just enough to miss, skimming past the gray-white barrier and cleaving into the ground instead.
Puff!
Through the cloud of dust, Samael felt searing pain, a sudden coldness in his lower body, and a spray of blood. The spinning axe blade had sliced his body in two.
The ancient serpent let out a muffled groan, abandoning half its form as it dragged itself free from beneath Marduk's axe. Pulling a long, bloody trail behind it, it crawled toward the Mother Goddess Tiamat.
Its scales, once black and gleaming, had dulled to lifeless gray. Flesh shriveled as its vitality drained away. At last, it collapsed just three steps short of the Mother Goddess, unmoving.
At that moment, all who had defied the Mandate of Heaven—goddesses, Heroic Spirits, and Magical Beasts alike—were finished.
They had fought with everything they had.
And they had been utterly defeated.
...
(50 Chapters Ahead)
[email protected]/PinkSnake