Felix gazed down at the fallen king, a trace of rueful admiration in his eyes.
Gilgamesh had lost.
Yet from beginning to end, he had never shown fear—not even when facing an overwhelming, divine existence.
He was a contradiction made flesh. Regal yet brutal. Wise yet tyrannical. Charismatic, radiant… and deeply flawed. His fall stirred something unfamiliar in Felix's chest. Perhaps pity.
But pity could not rewrite fate.
His time had run out.
He had failed to ascend. He could not integrate a third gene. The limits of mortality remained absolute. In the end, he would die the same way all mortals did—by time itself.
Felix had only come to witness that ending.
He hadn't expected Gilgamesh to challenge him.
Nearby, Ishtar coughed violently, blood staining her lips.
Her chest rose and fell unevenly, yet her eyes remained steady—fearless, unbowed. Death had never frightened a true Sumerian warrior.
She let out a hoarse, bitter laugh.
"So… this is the gap between us," she rasped. "What kind of being did we dare to wage war against?"
Felix's golden radiance bathed the shattered city in divine light. His towering form loomed above them like a god forgotten by myth—distant, inscrutable, eternal.
"Do you regret it?" he asked softly.
Gilgamesh laughed through bloody coughs.
"Regret? We made our choice."
The Sumerian civilization had fallen.
Completely. Utterly.
Before the Great Beast of Wisdom.
They had known the price of defying a god. This was no mere defeat. This was the end of an era.
Felix looked upon the chaos below.
Soldiers fled in every direction. Some screamed. Some laughed hysterically. Others collapsed to their knees in despair. When extinction loomed, all masks were stripped away.
"I never intended to interfere with the fate of a people," Felix murmured.
"Nor decide the rise and fall of a civilization."
His gaze returned to the aging king.
He remembered the savage Bugapes who once shouted "Baldy! Baldy!" at their bewildered creator. He had joked then that they were a selfish, brutal species.
He hadn't expected to be so right.
"Is this the end of us?" Gilgamesh rasped. Despite shattered bones, he forced himself upright and laughed, hollow and weary. "Just like we slaughtered the ancient beasts… will you slaughter us too? Will you avenge them?"
The fearless Bugape from long ago had never changed. Even now, on the brink of death, the Hero King refused to kneel.
Pride was the last thing he would surrender.
Felix answered after a long pause.
"You ignored my warnings. I have no alternative." His voice was calm, resolute.
"You destroyed the balance of this world. You exterminated entire species without restraint. I cannot allow your kind to continue unchecked."
Gilgamesh smiled bitterly.
"You once answered my questions about civilization," he said. "Before the end… answer my final ones."
Silence fell.
The battlefield grew still.
Felix remained motionless. His divine radiance pierced the clouds, painting the sky a deathly white. Then his voice rang out—deep, resonant, like a sacred bell.
"You may ask."
The world stopped.
Armor clattered to the ground. Soldiers froze mid-step. All eyes turned upward.
Ishtar lay bleeding, her blood soaking into the soil. Yet she smiled faintly, eyes fixed on the being above.
"You'll answer us again…" Gilgamesh murmured.
Then he asked:
"First question. How will you destroy us?"
Felix considered.
Their kind was everywhere—countless as locusts. But the answer had already been decided.
"I will use water," he said evenly.
"A great flood will cleanse this land. Your civilization will leave no trace behind."
Deathly silence followed.
This world had grown too filthy—saturated with cruelty and sin.
Would the Beast of Wisdom truly drown it all?
That was no longer the power of a beast.
That was—
Divine.
Terror spread across every face.
Gilgamesh swallowed hard, then forced himself to speak again.
"Second question," he said hoarsely.
"Why could I never find any trace of you in this world?"
"Where did you come from? What are you, truly? You gave us civilization… yet forbade us from dominating others. You said all were equal before you—plants, beasts, and men. Then tell me…"
"What is this land to you?"
Felix looked down and answered plainly.
"This land is a world I created with my own hands. All life within it—plants, beasts, and men—are my subjects. Before me, there is no distinction."
Silence.
Gilgamesh froze.
Then he laughed.
At first, softly.
Then louder.
Then uncontrollably—until his laughter echoed across the ruins of Uruk like thunder.
"Hahahaha! How absurd! How utterly absurd!" he choked.
"So the Great Beast of Wisdom isn't merely a beast…"
"He is the Creator Himself!"
That day, amid fallen idols and shattered cities, the first true idea of God was born.
"I once named my writings Genesis," Gilgamesh gasped between laughter.
"I thought I was the creator of civilization. But it was you. It was always you."
"All things beneath the heavens…"
"…were already yours."
He laughed until blood spilled from his lips.
Until nothing remained but laughter—and the ruins of a dead world.
Felix watched in silence.
Even now, he tolerated the Hero King's final defiance.
At last, Gilgamesh's laughter faded into a whisper.
"One last question," he said.
"How many days did it take you to create this world?"
Felix thought back.
To the weak man kneeling in a backyard garden.
Hoe in hand.
Body ravaged by chemotherapy.
Barely strong enough to stand.
"Seven days," he answered.
"It took me seven days to create this land."
And so—
The old world ended.
And a new myth was born.