It began with light.
A single, piercing ray that split the heavens, crimson, vile, shimmering like molten blood. It was not divine. It was wrath incarnate.
"You must stop! You can't do this!"
The voice was thunderous, trembling with ancient power, but it cracked beneath its desperation. the sovereign of the Mesopotamian gods, ruler of Uruk's heavens, stood paralyzed. Before him, the sky burned red. And within that light, a figure of gold emerged — regal, resplendent, merciless.
The king had returned.
"Are you done whining, old fool?"
The voice dripped with scorn, the words spat with royal fury. Gilgamesh, the Hero King, hovered amidst the cataclysmic radiance. His figure gleamed with divine arrogance, every inch exuding the disdain of a god-slayer. But his beauty was twisted, a mask of fury carved across once-noble features.
In his grip, a weapon unlike any other — not a sword forged by mortals, but a construct of cursed energy, divine resentment, and sheer force of will. Its blade pulsed with enough power to fracture realms.
Before him rose the temples of the gods, monuments of hubris, arrogance sculpted in marble and blood. He would erase them all.
He would bury the divine in the rubble of their own pride.
Around him, the once-majestic city had already begun to collapse. Statues toppled. Shrines crumbled. The divine bloodline ran like oil down cracked streets, and panic clung to the air like smoke.
Progeny of gods, demi-humans, priestesses, oracles — all of them ran. But there was nowhere to hide.
Treasures from the Gate of Babylon poured down like judgment. Each weapon, a memory of ancient war. Each strike, an echo of vengeance.
Even the celestial warriors, avatars born of divine energy and mythological contracts, fell one by one, shredded by ancient armaments that defied their era.
"Gilgamesh, you'll pay for this blasphemy!"
Utu, the Sun God, fled from his sanctum, light trailing behind him like a dying comet. But before he could break the sky, chains of gold erupted from the ether — divine restraints now turned against their creators.
Heaven's Chain. Once a divine gift. Now, the executioner's rope.
"You bark like a dying dog, Utu," Gilgamesh spat, his voice cold. "Let these chains remind you of your place."
Around the ruins, chains slithered like golden serpents, coiling around necks, torsos, limbs. Gods struggled, but their strength was meaningless now. Even Anu, the All-Father, was bound.
Gilgamesh's eyes narrowed.
"You stand above mortals and call yourselves righteous. Yet your empire is built on manipulation and cowardice. You feared me, tried to cage me. Now... burn with your cowardice."
Anu trembled. Not from fear, but sorrow. He had sealed Gilgamesh's fate with his own hands, trusting Ishtar's lies, condemning Enkidu to death. And with that single act, he had ignited the wrath of the one being who could destroy them all.
Gilgamesh's lips curled into a monstrous grin.
"Have you all finished begging?"
Dozens of gods trembled. Immortal though they were, they understood. This was no mortal vengeance. This was extinction.
"Good. Then perish."
His arm swung.
The scarlet weapon in his hand surged. It shattered the skies. And in that moment, the Mesopotamian pantheon ended.
The earth split open. Light consumed stone and bone. The gods screamed as the crimson beam cascaded down upon their temples, shattering marble sanctums and celestial bones alike. Blood like liquid fire rained from the heavens.
The fall of divinity.
The rebellion of a king.
And then, silence.
Days passed.
The land, soaked in divine ichor, grew lush. Crops flourished unnaturally. But the people of Uruk didn't rejoice. They wept.
Their king — their radiant, terrifying king — had vanished.
He who had stood between man and god. He who had slaughtered the divine for their sake. Gone.
From the nobles in silk to the beggars in alleyways, all bowed their heads. The Hero King, the golden tyrant, had become legend.
But elsewhere, far from the ruins and mourning, a man stood at a hidden spring, its waters glimmering with eerie clarity. He looked into its surface, not for reflection, but for memory.
Gilgamesh. King. Tyrant. God-Slayer.
But once… something else.
He was not born into this world.
He had arrived — pulled through the currents of the Root, twisted by the madness of a dying multiverse. He had not always been Gilgamesh. Once, he was a mere traveler of worlds, a soul caught between eras and identities.
And yet, here in Uruk, under the crushing weight of decades, something in him changed. Time washed away the old self. What remained was not a puppet or impostor.
He was Gilgamesh. Truly. Completely.
The same pride. The same rage. The same boundless arrogance. Not borrowed — reborn.
He stared into the spring — the one said to bloom from the Fruit of Immortality. But it held no salvation. Only silence.
He knew too much.
He knew the mechanics of this world. The cold machinery behind Gaia and Alaya. The destiny that turned heroes into ghosts, shackled to the Throne of Heroes, forced to dance eternally at humanity's whim.
He would not allow that.
Not even in death.
Let others become tools, summoned and discarded. Let others sell their glory for another war.
But not him.
He was the King of Heroes. And he would not be caged.
Not by gods. Not by humans. Not even by time.
***
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