Chapter 43: Seven Days of Change
Seven days was not long.
But in a land already trembling on the edge of upheaval, seven days was enough to redraw the world in quiet, ruthless strokes.
Rowe did not yet know where the changes had spread. Only when he turned back toward Uruk did he see it.
The plains that had been scorched and dead were now drowning in life. Green rolled across the earth again, tender shoots carpeting the fields. Villages dotted the landscape like scattered stones in a riverbed.
And yet between those villages there were no people.
Of course, the refugees who had waited for his resurrection could not have remained in that same spot for seven straight days. They had to return home, to family, to whatever fragments of life they still had.
But it was not just them.
Every settlement along the way was empty. Large villages, small hamlets, roadside stops. Even livestock were gone. Homes stood open, untouched by war or flame. There were no signs of slaughter. No broken gates. No burnt roofs.
Only footprints.
Only wheel tracks.
The kind left behind when an entire population abandoned the wilderness at once.
It looked less like panic and more like an organized migration.
Rowe slowed his steps, letting his eyes read the ground the way a mage reads a crest.
If this was spontaneous, it made no sense. People did not uproot their lives on this scale without a reason stronger than hunger or rumor.
Which meant there was only one real possibility.
Gilgamesh had ordered it.
And the young King of Uruk, who had long since stopped ruling as a pampered tyrant and was now showing the full weight of a sagacious monarch, did nothing without intent.
"Scorched earth policy…" Rowe murmured, gaze narrowing.
"Full scale confrontation."
Empty the plains, pull all civilians behind the walls, gather every resource into one iron fist, and wait for the enemy to crash against it.
Yet neither the Bull of Heaven nor Humbaba had completed their final manifestation. Especially the Bull of Heaven, still pinned and sealed, its descent strangled to a crawl.
Rowe had not sensed their full arrival.
So why the urgency?
The answer came quickly.
Still in the wilderness, between rolling plains and low hills, shapes moved. Massive ones.
They resembled beasts, yet not entirely. Even ignoring their absurd size, the gleam of scales and armor gave them away. Wings spread wide enough to carve gales through the air. Their roars dragged fire and thunder across the land.
These were not ordinary animals.
They were like the creatures of the Demonic Beast Forest to the west. Things born under the lingering influence of the Age of Gods and its thick Aether, the kind that once supported divine descent and formed the backbone of mythic eras.
Only in the Age of Gods had such hordes existed in numbers like this.
And now they had returned.
Rowe drew on the Key of Heaven, folding his presence inward until the world forgot he was there. From a high ridge, he watched the beasts for a breath, then turned to the eastern coast of the Euphrates.
Above that horizon, the sky was clear. The Bull of Heaven remained half swallowed by the aura of the Underworld, reduced to a mere wisp.
Its body had scattered, but its essence was still gathering. Day by day, it condensed more. As it did, the side effects bloomed. The plain recovered. Aether thickened.
Life returned.
And in that returning Aether, demonic beasts were being born.
The same was likely happening in the west with Humbaba.
Just then, the beasts roaming the plains seemed to sense something. One after another, they lifted their heads toward the east, toward the wisp of the Bull of Heaven, and began to howl.
Not like a pack of wolves.
Like wolves saluting a moon.
The ground trembled.
Dust spun up. Stones jittered. Shadows shifted across the hills as the horde began to gather, faster and faster, as if pulled by an invisible tide.
The direction they surged toward was obvious.
Uruk.
They were going to strike the human stronghold.
If they were not, Gilgamesh would never have needed to evacuate the wilderness so thoroughly.
"So that is it," Rowe thought, already moving.
Even if he stood still, this beast tide could not kill him. Not in any reliable way. So he had no expectation of dying here. He needed to return, to rendezvous with Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and to complete the strategy they had decided earlier.
To complete the death wish he had spent so long planning, polishing, and guarding like a treasure.
He followed behind the tide, cutting through the eastern plains.
Before he even reached Uruk itself, he saw it.
A wall.
Dozens of meters high, rising from the earth like a cliff face carved by gods. A fortress line that could withstand any flood of flesh and fang. Uruk's soldiers stood on its crest in rigid formation, bracing for impact.
Giant cannons were mounted along the parapets, their maws aimed downward at the incoming horde.
The sight was so familiar that Rowe froze for half a heartbeat.
This was almost identical to the Demonic Beast Frontline.
The Seventh Singularity.
The Uruk he had once seen in Type Moon's records, where a colossal wall had been raised to stop the beasts.
No.
That could not be right.
A Singularity was a warped, fictional history destined to be corrected. Anything achieved there would never be truly recorded, and those who forged miracles within it could not ascend to the Throne.
Rowe was certain that his former self, within the Root, would not choose such a place as a crossing point.
So this had to be coincidence.
Or history bending because he was here.
Either way, the wall existed now. Raised in a mere seven days.
And Rowe, as one of Uruk's leaders standing equal to Gilgamesh in authority, could not pretend this was none of his concern.
Nor did their earlier strategy allow him to watch from a hill.
"Fine," he said softly.
"First we drive out these demonic beasts."
"Then we find out exactly what kind of earth shattering changes seven days have carved into this land."
He lifted his hand.
Behind him, golden ripples spread open.
Countless swords burst forth in a storm of cold light, dense as a forest, sharp enough to make the air itself flinch.
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