Chapter 45: The Three Gather Again
Rowe moved.
He did not head toward Uruk's great wall, nor did he even take a step forward. He only stood at the very rear of the demonic beast torrent and released the power of the Key of Heaven he had fully mastered.
A massive key took shape above him, hazy yet unmistakable, hung against the sky like a sacred outline waiting to be filled.
A soft hum followed, like a distant bell. It did not boom through the air so much as sink into the bones. The sound resonated in every soldier's chest.
On the wall, men who had been bracing their spears suddenly looked up, faces tense with instinctive awe.
What is that…
That is…
The Sage, Rowe.
They saw the Key of Heaven blazing above the battlefield, and beneath it they saw Rowe himself, linen robe fluttering, standing as calmly as if he were in a palace courtyard.
"Rowe… I have been waiting for you for a long time." Enkidu's low chuckle carried across the distance. She did not raise his voice, yet it reached Rowe clearly. The three of them all shared that simple skill of letting magic carry meaning farther than sound.
Gilgamesh, on the other side, laughed like thunder.
"Hmph haha. As expected, this King was not mistaken. Anyone daring to bark at this great King would never miss a place like this."
Rowe let his arms hang loose, wind tugging at his sleeves.
"Alright, Gil. If you want to bicker, now is not the time."
His tone was casual, but his gaze never left the beast tide.
"Drive these mongrels away first. Then you can say whatever you like."
"Hmph. Just as this King wishes." Gilgamesh lifted his chin, then looked toward Enkidu. "How prepared are you?"
"Anytime," Enkidu replied, gentle as ever.
"Then let us begin," Rowe said, smiling.
Enkidu bent and pressed his palms to the earth.
Gilgamesh slowly spread his hands, crimson eyes narrowing into that sharp, serpentine glint that meant the treasury had already opened inside his mind.
The Gate of Babylon behind him rippled. Its light deepened, brightened, blades within vibrating wildly until their edges almost fused into a single endless field.
Under Enkidu's palms, the earth flowed. Soil turned supple. Plants erupted. Green burst across the battlefield in one breath, lush and violent like a world remembering how to live.
Above them, the Key of Heaven hung high.
Streams of brilliance descended from Rowe's position, linked to Gilgamesh's ocean of gold, caught the living surge beneath Enkidu's hands, and then shot straight upward into the sky.
Owooo…
The galloping demonic beasts froze.
A vast and nameless terror sank into their primitive minds. They raised their heads, howling, not in challenge but in instinctive dread.
They saw what was forming overhead.
Crimson light, like fire spilling across the firmament.
A golden line thrusting upward as if it meant to pierce the heavens themselves.
Red and gold drowned the world, stirring a memory of an ancient era when the elements were unstable, when the authority of Ea split chaos and gave shape to a sky that could endure.
It was only similar.
The essence was different. The scale was incomparable to the primordial age. Yet the wonder was real, born from perfect coordination between Rowe, Gilgamesh, and Enkidu.
Compared to their battle in the Demonic Beast Forest, all three had grown.
Gilgamesh's treasury answered him faster and deeper.
Enkidu's earth authority flowed with greater freedom.
And Rowe…
Though it was not what he wished for, the life and death struggle he had endured had refined him. His grasp of his own power was cleaner. His concepts had settled into his bones. He no longer lagged behind those two prodigies.
Together, their combined force became something natural, pure, and undeniable.
Even in the flourishing Age of Gods, such power would be called mighty.
For a heartbeat, the world went still.
On Uruk's wall, people stared upward, mouths open, caught between shock and worship.
The demonic beasts could not move under that pressure. Their bodies trembled like insects pinned under a blade.
Then, after that fleeting stillness…
The gold, braided with crimson fire, fell.
It plunged straight down into the center of the beast horde.
Silence bloomed first, like a flower opening in water.
Then the light hit.
A torrent of golden brilliance divided heaven and earth. The instant it touched the ground, it spread like a flood. The demonic beasts wailed as they were torn apart.
There was no spray of blood. No butcher's mess.
It was like a painter erasing a drawing.
Color vanished.
Surface dissolved.
Lines broke apart.
Even the last dots were wiped clean until nothing remained.
Ten thousand miles of dust and smoke thinned away. The sky stayed clear.
Rowe lowered his hand, staring at the empty plain that had been a black tide a moment ago. He wiped sweat from his brow.
Hundreds of thousands of demonic beasts, erased in a single strike.
The cost was immense, yet the power of the three in concert was enough to make any existence tremble.
It felt like a force that could remake heaven and earth.
The field fell silent.
Then Gilgamesh's laughter burst through it.
"Hmph haha. Such power is intoxicating. As expected of this King, and as expected of the friends this King acknowledges."
He descended with that joyous arrogance, leaping from the starlit boat that carried his throne and landing firmly on the earth. His battle skirt swayed as he strode toward the center.
"Rowe, Gil…"
Enkidu smiled, brushing dust from her white robe. Green hair fell softly around her face as she walked over.
Rowe came down from the sky as well, moving to meet them.
The three gathered.
The King, the Divine Construct, and the Sage.
In name and in truth, the three who ruled Uruk stood together beneath the gaze of all.
And what they had just done was more than a victory.
It was a declaration.
At this moment, their preparations were complete. There was no need to keep pretending.
The Sage guided the power of King Gilgamesh and the Divine Construct Enkidu, converging it through himself.
He made the sky run crimson and gold.
A light fell that cleaved the world.
An ancient aura played, silent and vast, like the breath of creation before words existed.
People marveled.
Even the gods above trembled.
The Epic of Gilgamesh.
High in the heavens, the gods no longer maintained constant surveillance. Their eyes in the human world had nearly been destroyed by Rowe before. Yet the power the three had displayed shook the celestial domain itself, rippling upward into a realm that sat above the present world.
They could not ignore it.
"The power of those three has grown stronger," Anu said, voice grim.
The King of the Gods looked down with hawk sharp eyes.
"If this is allowed to develop, even the Celestial Realm where we stand may not be spared."
"It seems Gilgamesh was deceiving us from the very beginning."
"His prayers, his claim that he would voluntarily give up one of them, were only a way to buy time."
"We can no longer allow this."
The gods were not shocked by the deception. They had never truly trusted Gilgamesh. Hope had existed, but it had always been thin.
Now that Gilgamesh had shown his hand, there was only one path left.
"We too must decide the final punishment."
Anu raised the scepter that governed the Celestial Realm. His command rolled through the heavens like a verdict already written.
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