A snake!
Marduk looked down in horror to see a long black serpent coiled around his arm, its fangs buried deep in the flesh of his palm.
From the front came the sound of gnawing, and the golden flames enveloping the Tablet of Destinies trembled violently.
"Get off!"
Assailed from both sides, the King of Kings immediately recalled the divine power he had scattered among opponents like Kukulkan and the Jaguar Warriors. Ether roared as it surged outward.
Ziusudra and Samael were blasted away, crashing to the ground in a storm of dust.
"All of you will die! All of you!"
"Flames of Destiny!"
Marduk's rage boiled over, twisting his features into a mask of fury as he raised the Tablet high.
Pfft…
But the golden flames birthed from the Tablet wavered violently—then suddenly shattered, fragments of light even clinging to Marduk's own body.
Crack!
At the same time, a strange, crisp sound came from his left hand.
As the divine fire died, the King of Kings turned in disbelief. Spiderweb cracks now spread across the Tablet of Destinies, a full third of its lower right corner missing entirely.
Creak… creak…
Gulp…
The air froze. Every disbelieving gaze turned toward the black-haired figure rising from the ground, cheeks puffed out, the sound of teeth grinding and swallowing audible from his mouth.
"Burp!"
The long, full-bodied belch made everyone's hearts jolt and the corners of their mouths twitch violently.
"You beast! Look at what you've done!"
Marduk's bloodshot eyes bulged, his voice warping with rage.
"I curse you to be lower than all livestock and beasts! I curse you to crawl on your belly for the rest of your life, feeding only on the filth of the earth!"
Samael stroked his slightly bulging stomach with a strange look and replied almost helpfully.
"Well, snakes already crawl on the ground, and what I just ate was dirt, so your curse doesn't change much."
"I say, why not face reality?"
"Oh, and if you don't want the other half, give it to me. It doesn't taste great, but it's filling."
Gilgamesh burst into delighted laughter, clutching his stomach.
"Hahaha! Your most trusted treasure, the Tablet of Destinies, destroyed by a snake—how utterly laughable!
Looks like adding something beyond control to the fate's script really did give me the most entertaining performance!"
Beyond control… a Fate-defier.
No wonder the snake could pass through the Flames of Destiny. No wonder it could destroy the Tablet.
Golden fire rippled violently across Marduk's body, smoke seeping from his seven orifices.
Normally, even if such a Fate-defier managed to survive to adulthood, it would never get close enough to harm the Tablet of Destinies—let alone him, the King of Kings.
But the interference of the Fate-defier had thrown the script into chaos again and again.
And when all his power had been devoted to suppressing strong foes, his guard dropped to its lowest… and an unforeseen crisis struck.
An assassin mingled in the crowd, a feint to draw his attention. Then the snake slipped in to seize the chance and destroy the Tablet.
Marduk's gaze slid to the Mother of Origins, Tiamat, beside him—the half serpent body with a massive hole in its back, its form shriveled to a thin husk. The sight nearly made him vomit blood.
Shameless. Shameless beyond compare.
Mother of Genesis. Flesh-and-blood armor. Shedding skin and regenerating.
The snake had never died at all. It knew he would move against Tiamat, so it lay in wait on the only path he could take, disguised and ready.
Marduk turned his head, fixing a murderous glare on the old man standing with his sword in hand, robes fluttering in the wind, fury boiling in his eyes.
"Ziusudra! I granted you longevity and cleansed you of your sins, yet you dare betray me!"
The old man lifted his head slightly, revealing the ancient features beneath his hood. His voice was hoarse and cold.
"Granted? You fell into corruption long ago. Out of fear for humanity's growth, you repeatedly brought about calamities to wipe out the world, placing the Fate of All Things into your own hands!"
"As long as gods remain, great thieves will never end!"
"If you truly followed the mandate of the heavens, you should sink into the Inner Sea of the Planet, sleeping for eternity, never again meddling in the workings of heaven and earth!"
"But you are seduced by power, abusing the world. The fall of gods becomes the birth of demons!"
"When the time comes and the evening bell tolls, it will mark the death of you sinners!"
As for pardoning sins and granting longevity?
Hmph! You only need a docile example to keep the flock obedient! Where is the mercy in that?
Ziusudra's gaze was ice-cold, his expression filled with disdain. He had long seen through the ugliness of the Babylonian gods.
They were nothing more than parasites feeding off the World Egg!
Marduk's breath grew heavy, his roar grinding through clenched teeth.
"You cur! All of you are ungrateful curs!"
"How dare you try to judge me! You pitiful remnants—what can you possibly use to oppose me?!"
"Even with only half the Tablet of Destinies, I remain the King of Kings, the God of Gods!"
His thunderous glare drained the air from the surroundings.
"I say, Marduk-sama… your hand seems to be shaking."
The quiet voice drifted through the tension. The irritable god reflexively began to look down, but midway through the motion, Marduk froze.
"Tsk, tsk… So even with the Tablet of Destinies, you still can't feel secure?"
"After stealing divine authority and usurping the Mandate of Heaven, living in constant fear must be exhausting, King of Kings Marduk."
Samael stepped past his battle-worn allies, rubbing his chin as he gazed up at the towering golden figure, a strange smile curling at his lips.
"Or perhaps… I should call you something else."
"Father of Creation—Apsu!"
What?!
The scene froze in eerie silence. Faces turned in shock, while the proud and majestic Divine Spirit's golden flames flickered wildly, the muscles in his face twitching uncontrollably.
"The script you first wrote wasn't to destroy humanity."
"It was to use humanity to destroy the true owner of the Tablet of Destinies—Tiamat, the daughter of destiny!"
"But you didn't foresee my appearance. Fate slipped from your grasp, and the Mother Goddess, through her compassion, resisted both your trap and the instinct to battle her own children!"
Samael's expression darkened as he tossed a broken clay tablet—marked with the location of Apsu's seal—before Marduk's feet.
After the earth god Ea schemed to slay the Father of Creation, he sealed Apsu's bones beneath the earth and built the Temple of Ea over them.
But on the back of the tablet was a record left by Kukulkan.
Legend says that shortly after Apsu's death, the enraged Mother of Origins, Tiamat, led the Eleven Offspring to chastise the gods.
At that same time, Ea's wife gave birth to Marduk inside the temple.
And that well—leading straight to the abyss and linked to Apsu's divine core—was the very place where the god-child was baptized.
Even more coincidentally, once grown, Marduk joined the war of creation with a clear goal: to seize the Tablet of Destinies from Kingu's neck and stamp it with his own seal.
Before the war even began, Marduk forged weapons and a bow capable of rending the seas, wielding the divine powers of storm and thunder.
The Mother Goddess Tiamat, feared even by the Three Pillar Gods, fell to the hands of a newborn god.
Too many coincidences, wouldn't you say?
So after Apsu's original form, the second-stage boss… this is Marduk's true identity.
But even this… is not the whole truth!