Chapter 52: Heaven's Decree Blade, Sun God's Betrayal
The gods fell silent.
After hearing Rowe's explanation, rage was inevitable. Fury, even more so. Yet beneath those emotions born from human faith, something else surfaced, unwillingly. Admiration. The kind you hate yourself for feeling.
A moment later, the Sky God Anu opened his eyes again.
"Sage," he said, voice vast as the firmament itself. "When we first bestowed the Key of Heaven upon you, it was because we believed you might be capable of guiding Gilgamesh toward the path we desired."
His gaze sharpened like a blade.
"But we were wrong."
"Not only did you fail to guide him where we wished, you drove him to yet another extreme."
Anu lifted his chin, the weight of the Celestial Realm behind every word.
"Still, O deviser of schemes, we gods have no choice but to acknowledge you."
"We recognize your name as Sage."
The certification of the gods.
Rowe paused. He did not bow, and he did not speak. He simply listened, calm as ever, as if being praised by the rulers of heaven was no more interesting than hearing a merchant haggle over copper.
"It is just that you still underestimated us," Anu continued, his tone turning colder. "We are gods who rule this land. Eternal, unchanging. Past, present, or future, even if the world perishes, all things will remain in our hands."
In the Heavens, Anu's true body slowly raised the scepter that commanded the sky gods.
It was like hauling on an anchor.
The Heavens, that domain drifting within the Imaginary Number Space, began to sway like a massive ship caught in a storm. Then it moved.
The essence of the gods was illusory.
The essence of the Heavens was illusory.
An illusion could drift freely through an equally illusory Imaginary Number Space. The gods had only remained directly above the Mesopotamian Plain to preserve their rule.
But they could leave.
And now they were doing exactly that.
The power of Gilgamesh, Rowe, and Enkidu was at its limit. Even with the support of their layered conceptual worlds, they had only barely managed to touch the dwelling of the gods.
If the Heavens moved even a little farther away, their contact would snap.
And if contact snapped, reliance would never complete.
This was the gods' final escape route.
Leave whenever they wished.
Return whenever they wished.
Then a low voice rang out, echoing cleanly through Heaven, Earth, and Man.
"Without death, there is no life. With life, there is death."
The gods froze.
Gilgamesh and Enkidu both looked up at once.
Rowe, however, smiled.
Finally.
His hidden trump card had stepped onto the board.
"What you call eternity is only the illusion of eternity," the voice continued. "Not the life of eternity."
On the highest mountain of Mesopotamia, a tall figure stood beneath a clear sky. A dark cloak hid dark armor, and eerie blue fire clung to him like the hush of a grave.
Dong, dong, dong.
A bell chimed, vast and solemn.
Ziusudra, the one who listened to destiny and delivered inevitable death to all who reached their end, stood atop that peak.
He heard the bell of fate in the distance.
When it rang, the end had arrived.
He saw the illusion of the gods.
He perceived their destiny.
Ziusudra raised the dark, broad sword in his hand.
A strike that revealed destiny.
A bell that revealed the end of destiny.
Heaven abruptly stopped drifting away.
That single cut severed the life of Heaven, sliced through its illusory wandering nature, and blocked its retreat.
To cut off its life was to sever its destiny.
"What is this?"
"Why did it stop?"
"Great King Anu, Father, what happened?"
"Ziusudra… that man who saw destiny!"
Panic rippled through the Celestial Realm.
Anu's rage finally broke free of its leash. Thunder shook the Heavens.
"Ziusudra, how dare you betray the gods!"
In ancient myth, Ziusudra had survived the flood and spoken with the gods.
But now, behind the cold bone armor mask, his eyes burned with ghost blue fire.
"What I follow has always been the primordial destiny inscribed in all things," the old man replied. "Betrayal does not apply."
Crack, crack, crack.
In the same instant, the Chains of Heaven tightened once more, binding the distant sky.
Rowe raised his eyes.
"Gods, do you still want to run?"
He smiled faintly.
"The fallback I left for you is pretty nice, isn't it?"
"AHAHAHAHA!" Gilgamesh's arrogance flared brighter than the sun. "Fleeing like frightened dogs, and you call yourselves gods? Ugly, foolish mongrels!"
Enkidu only watched, smiling softly, as if amused by children throwing stones at lightning.
"These guys are really crazy." Ishtar Rin sat cross legged atop the projection of Venus hanging in the sky, scratching her head while grinning like someone who had smelled profit on the wind.
She remembered Rowe's deal perfectly.
Not just a mountain of treasure to hire her.
He had promised the wealth of the gods themselves, including the collections of their true bodies.
Without that, she would never have turned her spear toward the heavens.
"Rowe, you can do it!"
Deep in the Underworld, Ereshkigal clenched her fists and pumped them twice, fierce enough to make even the dead blush.
And it was not only them.
On the colossal walls of Uruk, soldiers and citizens looked up as well.
They did not understand every detail of what their Kings were doing, but they felt it in their bones.
The catastrophe had been halted.
The King was fighting.
And somehow, so were they.
Fire roared in countless chests.
Faith and courage poured out without restraint.
Someone shouted first.
"King!"
Then another.
"King!"
"King!"
A great wind swept across the plain. Human voices thundered like surf against a cliff, and that earth shaking momentum became a single torrent.
Humanity, with one heart.
Even now, in an era where one strong person could stand against ten thousand, the people still had a limit.
But their courage did not.
The gods felt it.
Anu drew a long breath and forced his fear down.
Heaven could no longer retreat.
"In the name of Anu, King of the Gods, Lord of the Sky, I command the gods."
"In the name of us gods, rise and support the sky!"
If this were the flourishing Age of Gods, being dragged into the present world would be tolerable. Aether had been thick then, and the gods often walked the earth in their true bodies.
But this era was thinner.
Reality could not support full manifestation.
If forced to enter, divine essence would be defiled. Their high dimensional selves would be shaken.
A god would cease to be a god.
That was why they descended only through humans.
They would never allow this forced reliance to finish.
So Anu tried to gather the power of the pantheon and resist the present world's encroachment.
Yet the instant he raised his scepter, on the far side of Heaven, a brilliant stream of light erupted.
It spread without limit, blocking the channels through which countless gods were about to pour their strength into Anu.
Infinite light.
Infinite heat.
Sunlight blazing like judgment itself.
"Our Father of all gods, great Anu," a grand voice said from within that descending sun.
"Please give up. The fate of the gods was sealed five thousand years ago, wasn't it?"
Anu's beard quivered. His whole being shook.
"Sun God Shamash," he thundered. "Are you going to stop me?"
From inside the burning sun, a low voice answered, calm as a knife sliding between ribs.
"After all, I received some benefits…"
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