Back in the God-Kings' war, gods below the third generation didn't even qualify to watch.
If they so much as dared to set their gaze upon the battlefield, what awaited them was a fate far worse than any mortal staring at the gods—instant, total annihilation.
With a mere gesture, creation and destruction walked hand in hand.
No matter how foolish, ignorant, or arrogant a being might be, before His Majesty the God-King, all were as dust—small and pitiful.
That His Majesty was still willing to treat the whole cosmos with mercy and magnanimity
was already the greatest fortune of all living things.
Yet Prometheus had dared to deceive and humiliate the God-King?!
Unfathomable. Truly unfathomable.
Absu Naya shook her head lightly, stirring another surge of turbulent currents along the sea floor.
She gave up thinking about it.
What cannot be understood is not worth thinking about; she never wrestled with herself.
Only, since things were this way, she might as well take a look for herself.
If, with nothing but a few lowly mortals, she could grant her children wisdom—make them calm and quiet—
that truly would be a good thing.
Once they had wisdom, they would think; once they thought, they would grow quiet.
Quiet was peace.
And peace… was the very Way of the deep-sea's calm.
The shut-in goddess only grew more excited the more she thought on it.
Her vast, indescribable body trembled faintly with this "perfect" plan.
And those Olympian gods, high above, might hesitate to personally move against petty mortals for the sake of "face."
But a "small god" like herself…
she did not care.
On the beautiful half of her face a strange, eerily lovely smile rose, mixing hunger with political opportunism.
His Majesty the God-King was enraged at the deception of that fool Prometheus!
The whole cosmos knew His Majesty now detested humankind!
If, at a time like this, Absu Naya took the initiative to wipe out these stains that had shamed His Majesty…
would that not be the same as venting His Majesty's anger for Him?!
If it earned His honor's favor, that would be a boon for the entire inner-sea pantheon.
As for whether any other gods still cared for humankind…
well, that could be tested.
In any case, the God-Net announcements were pinned for all to see.
There was law to rely on—nothing to fear!
Under the God-King's Holy Just Order, so long as one stayed within the law, there was nothing to fear!
And with His Majesty's support—with His favor—nothing could be a problem.
Chances to win the God-King's delight were rare. They must be seized.
The cautious deep-sea recluse grew more convinced this matter was full of promise the more she considered it.
She could no longer restrain herself; with a sudden lash of her vast tentacles
she ordered her two dutiful children to lead the way, and prepared to personally go up to the earth.
In the deep inner sea, an unprecedented dark current rose.
It was not water.
It was the will of the abyss—
a projection of Absu Naya's divinity.
Black, viscous god-water, reeking of stillness and distortion, heaved up the riverbeds in a roaring backflow.
Absu Naya, with tens of thousands of Abyssal Whelps at her back, surged out of the trench and toward the land.
Where she passed, calm blue waters became vast marsh and flood; rivers burst their banks, and the currents ceased to be "river" and became the domain of the abyssal sea.
Not only did the black divine water reverse the river's flow, it drowned the banks and assimilated and devoured all life it touched.
Within the river and along its shores, all mortal beings either warped or died.
Marsh spread and overflowed.
Stillness and twisted assimilation reigned.
The scattered river nymphs and water sprites could only watch, not daring to interfere; they pretended they had seen nothing.
For water-gods like them, finding human tribes was the easiest thing in the world.
Mortals cannot live without water.
The greater the tribe, the more and better water it needed.
Follow the great rivers and you will find them.
Sure enough,
before long they caught the scent of wisdom.
At that scent's source lay a great tribe—
a settlement of nearly ten thousand souls.
It was one of humankind's largest and most prosperous tribes.
They no longer lived only in caves.
After the bone-cold of the day fire was lost, they had learned to build crude wooden shelters, warmer and more convenient.
They had also formed simple but more complete internal structures of organization.
Crude, yet full of hope.
Rough, yet heralding dawn.
Division of labor was clearer and more comprehensive.
All the knowledge once taught by the gods had been forced into bloom by the strain of survival—
transformed into civilization's internal driving force.
In ceaseless crisis and suffering, human civilization was growing at an astonishing pace.
Then the air changed.
The busy tribespeople soon sensed something wrong.
A heaviness like the hush before a storm pressed down upon them.
The once-gentle air's moisture now thickened unnaturally, nearly beading into droplets at one's fingertips.
And within the vapor there wafted a strong, pungent, out-of-place tang of salt and blood.
Heavy, smothering, cloying—almost enough to make one retch.
On the far horizon—no, from the river's direction—a vast, obscure darkness drifted in, blanketing the sky and bearing down on the tribe.
That shadow was neither cloud nor mist, but like a whole slab of black "sea" hanging upside-down, slowly lowering itself upon the land.
A tightness seized every heart.
Some fear that defied reason rose from the depths of their blood.
Invisible pressure and terror made mortal instincts cry out at an indescribable threat, enough to freeze the soul.
It was as if an icy hand had clenched their hearts; even breathing grew heavy and hard.
Several chieftains who had stayed behind—bravest, wisest, most sensitive of their generation—lifted their heads as one.
They could not see, nor hear, what approached.
They did not know what it was.
But they knew with terrible certainty that it was a doom no one could resist.
"It's—something in the water!"
"Quick!"
In a heartbeat, the chieftains met each other's eyes and, without a moment's hesitation, made a single, unified decision.
"Sound the alarm!"
"Tell everyone!"
"At once! All of you—abandon this place!"
"Take nothing!"
"Scatter!"
To abandon the home they had worked so hard to build, strong enough to hold back cold and beasts; to abandon the life-saving food they had scraped together—
this was a crushing choice.
But in only a few words, they made the right one.
For in these months of blood and tears, such choices had grown grimly familiar.
In the face of unknown, irresistible danger, any lack of decisive action
would only harvest unbearable pain.
There had been too many, far too many bloody lessons.
Too many tribes had paid unimaginable prices for a moment's hesitation or reluctance.
The news of that wiped-out midsize tribe of six thousand—now a drowned forbidden zone—
had already spread through most clans.
Humankind knew all too well
that there were far too many horrors in this world they could not withstand.
Against some beings, even "having the chance to run" was a luxury.
Their tribe's lives hung on their shoulders.
They could not allow themselves a single thought of comfort.
They could not allow themselves the slightest hint of wishful thinking.
All things external were only that—external.
If lost, they might be made again.
But if the people were gone, then truly nothing was left.
Alive, there is a future.
Alive, there is hope.
Suffering and cruelty in themselves are never worthy of praise.
Yet the sad fact is, every civilization only advances fastest when pressed by suffering and cruelty.
For there is no way back.
But…
they were already too late.
When mortals can sense a god's danger, it already means…
they are fully wrapped in divine pressure; the danger has already covered all.
Escape was no longer realistic.
In the depths, Absu Naya could let her divine body and aura run free.
On land, however, she visibly reined herself in.
She did not truly grasp His Majesty's Holy Just Order.
Nor did she fully understand why He wished to restrain the gods and forbid them from casually destroying mortal things.
Were mortals not made for gods?
But she understood His Majesty's thunder perfectly.
And she understood all too well the fate that befell those who broke His Order.
The fate of the Iapetus house was known to every god.
So she shrank her boundless, mountain-range-sized body down to a mere hill.
She also drew tight the invasive power of her aura,
to avoid leaving too much mutation and stillness in her wake.
All the destruction thus far was the result of considerable restraint.
She had come to please the God-King, not to anger Him.
His Majesty was undoubtedly displeased now; if she became the lightning rod for His anger, that would be a terrible bargain.
She, the wise Absu Naya, would never make such a foolish mistake.
Even so, by the time her gaze fell upon this tribe, humankind had already lost all chance of resistance, or even of flight.
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