"Run! Run for your lives!"
"We've faced beasts before, but never anything like this!"
"There's no escape—we're not even as big as one strand of his hair!"
Panic swept through the Bugape tribe. Countless figures stumbled and fell as they fled, voices breaking with terror. Yet amid the chaos, one young Bugape remained rooted in place.
He lifted his head.
Above him loomed a colossal shadow that blotted out the sky. His eyes burned—not with fear, but defiance.
"Have you come to devour us too, giant beast?" he shouted hoarsely. "Your kind already took my father… my mother… my brother. Why are we so weak?"
High above, Felix tilted his head.
He hadn't expected this.
Among creatures smaller than dust, one had chosen to stand.
A faint spark of amusement—perhaps curiosity—passed through his calm expression.
Then it's decided.
I choose you.
With divine composure, Felix extended his hand and gently placed the young Bugape upon his palm.
The world vanished.
The Bugape's mind went blank. Beneath his feet stretched an endless land—the titan's palm vast as a continent. Slowly, trembling, he looked up.
He met the eyes of a god.
Two blazing furnaces burned within Felix's gaze, radiating an indescribable brilliance. His face, shrouded in soft white light by the Mother Hive, was sacred… unknowable.
"I name you Gilgamesh," Felix said.
His voice rolled across the heavens like thunder.
"Do you wish to change everything?"
Gilgamesh froze.
"You… you can speak?" His voice shook. "A titan ten-thousand feet tall… with intelligence? What are you?"
"And… you gave me a name?"
"Names," Felix replied evenly, "are a mark of wisdom."
He raised Gilgamesh closer to his gaze.
"We share intelligence. That makes us kin of thought. But answer me—if that is so, why should I save you? Why not the birds? The beasts? Why not every life beneath the sky?"
Gilgamesh clenched his fists, trembling with fury and grief.
"Because we suffer!" he cried. "Because we need saving!"
Felix's expression did not change.
"No one will save you," he said calmly. "Never believe salvation comes from another's hand."
Then his voice deepened.
"But I offer you something greater than pity."
"The means to save yourselves."
He turned and began to walk.
Mountains crumbled beneath his steps. Rivers split apart. Forests bowed and shattered as the world trembled.
"Look well upon your world, Gilgamesh," Felix said. "Before me, all life is equal. You are no more special than the deer or the bird."
"What separates you is not suffering…"
"…but potential."
Gilgamesh swallowed.
"What," he whispered, "is civilization?"
For the first time, Felix paused.
"Civilization," he said slowly, "is fire. It is knowledge. It is order. It is the ultimate weapon of the intelligent."
"It is how one rises above survival."
"It is how ants become kings."
Back at the canyon, Felix placed Gilgamesh upon his shoulder. From his pack, he withdrew a miniature juniper and planted it into the earth.
The tree was ancient and twisted—only sixty centimeters tall.
Yet in the world of the Bugapes, it rose like a pillar to the heavens.
Its bark spiraled with age. Its leaves shimmered with divine light.
To the Bugapes, it was a ladder to the sky.
"If you desire the power of civilization," Felix declared, "then climb this Divine Tree."
"Prove your courage. Your wisdom. Your will."
Upon the highest branch, he placed three objects:
A silver greatsword, custom-forged.
A burning match, soaked in kerosene.
A capsule of termite body fluid—deadly to most, transformative to the worthy.
"These are the Three Treasures of Civilization."
"The Sword of Damocles—power to defend your kin. Only intelligent beings wield tools."
"The Torch—fire, the first gift of knowledge. Light that drives back the dark."
"And the Blood of the Conqueror—poison to the weak, but strength beyond measure to the strong."
"If you wish to change your fate," Felix said, "climb the tree and claim them—before the flame dies."
He set Gilgamesh gently upon the ground.
Then, without another word, he turned and strode away.
Each step shook the world.
Behind him, destiny burned.
Outside the sandbox, Felix spoke softly:
"Mother Hive—accelerate cell division one hundredfold."
The world surged to life.
Plants bloomed and withered in moments. Creatures aged and died in heartbeats. Time roared like a flooding river.
The match—thirty seconds in the real world—burned like an eternal flame to the Bugapes, lasting days.
Felix chuckled quietly.
"When courting a beautiful girl, an hour feels like a second," he muttered. "When sitting on a hot stove, a second feels like an hour."
"That's relativity."
Through his binoculars, he watched.
Gilgamesh rallied his kin. Together, they climbed.
In real time, they were nothing but flickering shadows—falling, rising, pressing on. In less than ten seconds, they reached the summit.
But Felix knew.
For them, it had been an age of blood and will.
At the peak, Gilgamesh stood tall.
Sword in hand. Hair whipping in the wind.
Felix leaned forward slightly.
"What did he say?" he asked the Hive.
A playback unfolded.
Gilgamesh raised the blade high, voice ringing with power:
"To think a being such as the Great Beast of Wisdom exists! A titan ten-thousand feet tall!"
"But we, too, possess wisdom!"
"One day, we shall stand as equals! I will lead my people to the summit! The fire of civilization will burn across the earth!"
Thus, the myth began.
Thousands of years later, among the ruins of a forgotten empire, archaeologists would uncover a sacred text—the Epic of Genesis, relic of the ancient Sumerian dynasty.
Its opening verse read:
The Great Beast of Wisdom stood ten-thousand feet tall, radiant with divine light.
It trampled mountains and split the earth.
And in its mercy, it planted the Divine Tree,
granting the Trial of Civilization to the hero Gilgamesh—
bestowing upon him the Sword, the Torch,
and the Blood of the Conqueror.