[Silent Garden Where Souls Reside]
In the end, in the battle against the Bull of Heaven and Ishtar, Gilgamesh and Kingu suffered a humiliating defeat.
Even two consecutive shots of Ea from Gilgamesh couldn't change that result. Goddess Ishtar, fully stocked with Gems and filled to the brim with Magical Energy, combined with the Bull of Heaven backed by Xia Yu, a virtually infinite Magical Energy supplier, was simply far too authoritative.
Even having two copies of Enkidu: Chains of Heaven in their hands couldn't reverse their decline.
"Ohohohoho!" Ishtar laughed with extreme arrogance. "Gilgamesh, so this day has come for you too!"
"Quick! Hand over your Gem treasury! You dare renege on a debt to a goddess?"
She took out that problematic contract and said through gritted teeth, "You've really got guts. Weren't you afraid I'd find out?"
"Hmph, This King determined that an arrogant fool like you would never discover it," Gilgamesh's eye twitched when he heard this. "You're the type who'd never read any extra text. How could you possibly discover the trap This King carefully set up!"
"Someone definitely helped you, right?"
"Ahem," hearing this, Xia Yu gave a light cough. "Actually, as a modern person, being cautious about important contracts and agreements is instinct, you know?"
"Don't underestimate the Age of Gods," Gilgamesh sneered when he heard this. "The contracts and agreements you speak of can only rely on fragile laws and order to maintain them, but contracts in the Age of Gods have true power to uphold them!"
"No one would sign an unfamiliar contract without checking it at all, except for a certain foolish goddess!"
That was true. In Mesopotamia of the Age of Gods, Ishtar was the biggest menace around. She was usually the only one who tricked others, so who would dare use a problematic contract to fool her?
And so she had fallen straight into the pit Gilgamesh had tailor-made for her.
"Cut the crap!" Ishtar's face reddened slightly, and the strange weapon in her hand that symbolized the Divine Authority of war pointed straight at Gilgamesh's head as she said, "Hand over the Gems!"
"...Why don't you ask her for them?" Hearing this, Gilgamesh turned his head to look at Xia Yu. His fingers twitched, as if he wanted to draw Ea, but in the end, he endured it. "Doesn't she have the key to my treasury in her hands!"
Every word was practically squeezed through gritted teeth.
It was only because Enkidu: Chains of Heaven hadn't fallen into her hands too. Otherwise, Gilgamesh really would have fought for his life.
"What I seized is mine," Xia Yu drew Blazing Hope and rested it on her shoulder. "If you've got the ability, take it back!"
"...This King will not do something so tasteless," Gilgamesh took a deep breath when he heard this and said, "Consider it a reward for preserving the last Urukians."
The moment his words fell, Xia Yu felt the ore-type treasures inside the Gate of Babylon she had seized rapidly increase.
Heh, he can't bring himself to give them to Ishtar, this nemesis of his, so he's dumping them all on me?
"Ignore this pauper," thinking this, Xia Yu reached out and put an arm around Ishtar's shoulder. "His treasures are all mine now. I'll give you as much as you want."
"Really?" Hearing this, Ishtar's eyes instantly turned Gem-shaped.
"Would I lie to you?" Xia Yu raised a hand, and countless Gems fell from the sky. "Here, they're all yours!"
"...Forget it. Take them back," Ishtar struggled for a few seconds, but in the end, she sighed.
"I don't want them. In the end, I'm going back to the Throne of Heroes anyway, so having these Gems or not makes no difference. And you're still going to keep traveling after this, right?"
She forced her gaze away from the pile of Gems. "Just consider it a blessing from me!"
"Wow, Ishtar, you..." Hearing this, Xia Yu was genuinely surprised. Ishtar, who loved wealth as much as her own life, was actually willing to leave the Gems to her...
"From now on, no matter when we meet, you can borrow my Gugalanna!"
"What do you mean, yours? Gugalanna should clearly be mine!" Ishtar got annoyed when she heard this. "Aaaah! My Gugalanna, where the hell did you go!"
"Perhaps it really couldn't stand having you as its master anymore," just then, Ereshkigal and King Hassan, who had entered garbage time off to the side, saw that everyone else had stopped fighting and tacitly stopped their meaningless battle as well.
"Now, can we continue our plan?" She lifted her head and looked at Xia Yu expectantly.
"Of course." Xia Yu gave her a thumbs up. Then the power of the Mother Goddess of Creation surged through her body like a tide, and boundless Magical Energy began sweeping through the entire Underworld!
As the Creation God of Mesopotamia, Tiamat's power was the key, while The Third Magic, Materialization of the Soul, which had once been obtained in Fuyuki, provided nearly infinite Magical Energy as fuel, beginning to engrave the laws of the Underworld into the world anew!
[Authority—Sea of Life]
The Authority that had once given birth to countless horrifying Lahmu now began to transform this world in another way!
In an instant, the gloomy and cold Underworld rang out with cracking sounds. Something was being quietly changed!
"Merlin!" Seeing this, Xia Yu shouted loudly.
"I'll help you!" Merlin's eyes lit up. Knowing the time had come, he tapped his staff against the ground. The projection of the tower of Avalon began to emerge, and countless seeds from Avalon fell into the Underworld.
"Quetzalcoatl!"
"My turn?" The passionate and unrestrained older sister completely liberated the divinity within her that belonged to the feathered serpent Kukulkan. As the sun god of the Americas, she also presided over the rainy season and possessed legends of sowing, harvest, and abundant grains. The richness of her Divine Authority was simply astonishing.
Under the effect of the Sea of Life, those seeds sprouted, broke through their shells, and grew fervently beneath the radiance of the sun god's Divine Authority.
In just a few breaths, the Underworld, which had still been cold and dim moments ago, bloomed into a boundless sea of flowers.
"So these are... flowers..." Ereshkigal gently brushed a plain lily. "So soft... This is the first time I've touched a flower with my own hands..."
Touching them with Ishtar's body didn't count!
"Next is rewriting the world!" Xia Yu pushed her Creation Divine Authority to its limit. "Grow, bloom!"
"This is the right I grant you as the Goddess of Creation!"
"[Silent Garden Where Souls Reside]!"
A brand-new Divine Authority was born in her hands. Xia Yu gently wrapped an arm around Ereshkigal's waist, then reached out and pressed the light that symbolized Divine Authority into her chest.
"From now on, your Underworld will no longer be cold and dark."
She said softly, "It will have flowers blooming, sunlight shining down, and souls residing within it, tending the eternal flower garden for you."
"Kiana..." Ereshkigal pressed both hands to her chest, and an indescribable emotion submerged her entire being.
Just then, the white-haired young girl across from her suddenly faltered, finally unable to maintain her restraint over Tiamat's Creation Divine Authority.
This was the drawback of becoming a god by donning armor. Obtaining Divine Authority through this method meant that from then on, you had to forever wear that heavy mask and forever become 'Her.'
Walk Her path, uphold Her oath, and not deviate by even the slightest bit.
Of course, this drawback wasn't impossible to resolve, but it required a long period of time, bit by bit changing the image of the armored deity in the eyes of the people into your own.
During this period, whether you were assimilated by that mask first, or persevered, completely digested everything of Hers, and became yourself again, depended on the caster's ability.
And Xia Yu hadn't considered any of that at all. There were basically few living people left in Uruk now, and the remaining Urukians were all at the Northern Wall, sunk into eternal sleep. The only ones who could be counted as intelligent life were the few people in the city.
Among these people, who didn't know how this layer of Divine Authority had come about?
So Xia Yu was also about to be unable to maintain it, but that was normal. After all, she had never intended to maintain it for long.
"Child..." Little Tiamat, who had been watching from the side for a long time, saw that her child had finally finished doing what she wanted to do and pattered over to her. "It's time to rest~~~"
"Mm." Xia Yu nodded when she heard this and released her restrictions over the Divine Authority. The Goddess of Creation's Divine Authority turned into points of light and drifted away from her body bit by bit, gathering once more around Tiamat.
That originally tiny figure slowly grew under the illumination of the light, until she reached a height Xia Yu had to look up at.
"Not enough!" That figure filled with motherhood reached out and hugged Xia Yu, Tiamat's eyes full of confusion. "There is still..."
"You mean this?" Xia Yu looked at the remaining identity of the Beast of Regression on her body and forcefully kept it behind with the Usurper of the Celestial Wind.
"This can count as my spoils of war. That's not too much, right?"
"No!" Hearing this, Tiamat shook her head firmly. "No! That's not a good thing!"
As she spoke, she fiercely patted Xia Yu's back, as if doing so could make her spit out the Beast's Authority. "Hurry and give it back to me! You can't eat this!"
"Now you really do seem a little like my mom." Seeing this, Xia Yu smiled, opened her arms, and gave her a big hug. "But there always has to be a Beast of Regression, so why can't it be me?"
"But... a Beast really isn't anything good," Ishtar said worriedly from the side as well.
"A Beast's Authority," Ereshkigal held her hand. "It inherently represents calamity..."
"Human Order has already acknowledged it," just then, King Hassan suddenly spoke. "Thou art free to come and go. Regression... is a matter simpler than any other."
In other words, Human Order had no way to deal with it either. If you wanted to take it, then take it.
After all, whether or not you had this Beast's Authority, It couldn't stop you from entering and exiting the world anyway. It had given up. It didn't matter!
"Exactly, see? Even Human Order said it doesn't matter." Xia Yu smiled at Tiamat. "Besides, this really is useful to me."
She put on a serious face and bluffed, "You all know I've always been drifting between Nihility. With this Authority, to me, it's like having an extra guidepost. At least in the future, I won't have to drift around aimlessly anymore."
"Maybe when I get tired one day, I'll follow this guidepost back to find everyone."
"And calamity..." She looked at Ereshkigal. "I'm a Herrscher, you know. If we're talking about that, I already have too many debts to worry about, and too many lice to itch."
The Herrscher of the Void and Herrscher of Flamescion on Kiana were no weaker than a Beast in terms of calamity attributes. They were even more cruel.
After all, Beasts were still within the scope of civilization. They were concepts granted by civilization, and there were also mature countermeasures such as the Throne of Heroes and Grand Class Heroic Spirits.
But look at Herrschers. What kind of bizarre thing was that Cocoon lord? It beat one civilization after another until they cried for their fathers and mothers...
Xia Yu even suspected whether the Irontomb could connect to Earth's internet when it destroyed the world. After all, even Nous itself didn't seem able to connect.
And just then, the eternal garden of the Underworld began to grow lively.
The souls of those whose bodies had been preserved at the Northern Wall began to be guided by the Underworld into this silent flower garden. Pairs of eyes opened in confusion, and Uruk awakened within the Underworld.
"King!" Siduri easily found the most dazzling person in the crowd. His entire body was golden, so it was hard not to find him. "This is... Did the plan really succeed?"
"Mm, this is the Underworld." Gilgamesh's tone became rarely gentle. He looked toward his anxious people. "From now on, you are the subjects of the Mistress of the Underworld, Ereshkigal."
"But Uruk is still Uruk! Mesopotamia is destined to perish, but Uruk will endure forever!"
"As long as you still exist, Uruk will always be here!"
The Urukians knelt in circles around their king. They had all come into contact with Heroic Spirits, so naturally, they could tell how the king before them differed from the one before.
For the sake of Uruk, the king had already given everything, including his life.
"Senpai..." Seeing this, Mash thought back to those Singularities they had experienced in the past, and the people they had spent time with.
"All those people we once experienced..."
"Mm, there's no way to preserve them," Fujimaru Ritsuka nodded heavily. "Singularities are erroneous Human History. After they are corrected... to everyone else, they become stories that never happened."
"Those people... Now only we still remember them."
"But Uruk is an exception," just then, Doctor's voice came from the bracelet. "This truly is a genius idea. Through the power of the Mother Goddess of Creation, they rewrote the creations she had once created, using high-level authority to forcibly write the 'Silent Garden of the Underworld' into Human History!"
"From now on, they will exist forever, just like the Underworld of Sumer. This is simply a miracle. It's a wonder Human Order can tolerate this kind of operation."
Hearing this, Da Vinci glanced at him from the side.
Could it be possible, and I'm only saying possible, that it's not that Human Order can tolerate it, but that Human Order has no choice but to tolerate it?
She was truly curious now. If all seven Grand Class came out, could they beat Kiana at full power?
Or rather, after defeating Kiana, could they beat her second phase, Firefly?
Even if they got past Firefly, who could be certain she had no other trump cards?
It was obvious that Human Order had chickened out, so It could only tacitly accept this operation.
Try swapping her with someone else. If they dared to tamper with Pan-Human History like this, having a Grand Class ride right into their face would be standard procedure.
Only... Her brows furrowed slightly.
The King of Mages' operation was more than just tampering with Pan-Human History. It was practically pressing Human Order to the ground and rubbing It against the floor...
But Human Order's reaction was very strange. To say It had lain flat, it wasn't as if It hadn't resisted. To say It had resisted, the force behind that resistance felt very subtle... After experiencing so many Singularities, Da Vinci already had some bad guesses in her heart.
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