Chapter 44: Demonic Beast Frontline
Rowe stood on a ridge overlooking Uruk. Behind him, the Gate of Babylon unfurled in a shimmer of gold.
He did not strike right away.
Before the demonic beasts closed in, before the first civilian bled, he wanted to see for himself how far King Gilgamesh had pushed the machinery of human civilization. How well this era could assemble its own strength when the Age of Gods came knocking with fangs bared.
The answer arrived with a roar.
A thunderous bellow rolled between heaven and earth. The pounding of countless hooves and claws shook the plains so hard it felt like the world had turned upside down. Cloud vortices churned overhead. Dust burst upward in thick curtains, and the black tide surged forward like a living flood.
Uruk's soldiers reacted without hesitation.
Spears rose in tightly clenched hands. Cannon muzzles, dark and rotating, swung down toward the oncoming horde.
Boom.
Throwing spears fell first, dense as rain. Then the cannons spoke. Explosions bloomed in layered bursts, black smoke and fire splashing outward like flowers that opened and died in a heartbeat.
There was no gunpowder in this age. The shells did not rely on crude chemistry. They were packed with magic power instead. Their detonation was cleaner, sharper, more violent than anything later generations would call "ordinary artillery."
The spears were no different. In another era, weapons like these would be classified as enchanted Mystic Codes. Rare, expensive, and terrifyingly effective.
The first wave hit.
The demonic beast tide buckled. Corpses of massive creatures crashed into the dirt, piling up in grotesque heaps.
But the horde did not thin.
A second wave rushed forward to fill every gap. Then a third. Bones and blood paved the path, and still the black tide advanced.
Boom, boom, boom.
Roars did not stop. The cannons did not rest. The spears kept coming, but the enemy was endless. Driven by raw instinct, swollen by rage and an unseen command, the beasts pressed on. Step by step, they endured the barrage and crept closer, like a sea chewing through stone.
Humanity's power was real.
Yet against an invasion of this scale, it still looked fragile.
Even so, Rowe felt a quiet surprise. This was already beyond what he had expected from an era that had not yet reached the heroic age where a single human could eclipse an army.
He raised his hand. The golden ripples behind him deepened.
It was time to move.
Then a laugh split the battlefield.
"Hmph hahaha. You mongrels. How dare you trample my garden without this King's permission?"
Rowe's gesture stalled mid air. He lifted his gaze toward the sound, already knowing who it was.
A celestial boat wreathed in ethereal blue starlight slid across the sky. At its prow stood a figure with arms spread wide, arrogant as a god who never learned humility.
Scarlet, serpentine eyes gleamed with freezing contempt. The moment he arrived, the air itself felt heavier, as if the world had taken a sharp breath and forgotten how to exhale.
Vast magic power poured from the demigod hero like an invisible tide. It pressed down on every demonic beast at once. Their charge faltered. Their claws dug uselessly into the earth. The surge was strangled mid stride.
On Uruk's wall, morale exploded.
"The King. King Gilgamesh has arrived!"
"Those damned beasts are finished now!"
"King!"
Spears lifted higher. Cannon fires burned hotter.
This was what it meant to be a King.
Not merely to command, but to steady hearts. To become the pillar that held up the sky, so that everyone below could find the courage to face death without flinching.
The Gilgamesh of today no longer wore the mask of absurd tyranny. The arrogance remained, but it had been honed into something colder, sharper, and far more fitting of a ruler standing at the end of an age.
Rowe watched the scene.
A faint sense of accomplishment stirred in him despite himself. Maybe he really had changed something here.
Then Gilgamesh's laughter rang again.
"I am the King of all creation. All under heaven and earth are my possessions. To trample them without my permission is a sin of disrespect. A crime worthy of ten thousand deaths."
Never mind. I do not want this accomplishment anymore.
Rowe glanced aside, deadpan.
Behind the King, golden ripples spread across the sky. They linked together, piece by piece, until the heavens looked like a boundless ocean of gold.
In an instant, a thousand gates opened. They hung like countless muzzles aimed downward.
Only the true owner could draw out the Gate of Babylon to this extent. Compared to before, Gilgamesh had climbed another step.
The beasts roared back.
Pressed by the weight of magic, they still broke free in snarling waves. They were weak compared to Gilgamesh, but they were vast. Countless. And the will of the Bull of Heaven and Humbaba drove them from behind like a lash.
They did not retreat.
If anything, the tide thickened under pressure. Farther away, more demonic beasts poured in, sweeping toward a section of the wall beyond Gilgamesh's immediate fireline.
Even beasts had instinct.
They sought advantage and avoided death. Finding the weak spot was inevitable.
A voice answered them from that direction.
Not Gilgamesh's arrogance, but a gentle, girlish laugh, clear as a bell in morning air.
"Ah, sorry. You cannot pass here. Otherwise Rowe and Gil would be very troubled."
What followed was the earth itself rising in defense.
Mud sculpted swords erupted from the ground like a forest of stakes. The charging demonic beasts were impaled from below, nailed in place before their momentum could carry them into the wall.
On the parapet above stood a girl with green hair, a plain white robe fluttering around her slender frame. She watched the tide with tranquil eyes and a serene smile.
"It is the King's friend, the divine weapon, Lord Enkidu!"
"The one who can share the throne with the King!"
"There will be no problems!"
Morale surged again. This battlefield belonged to Uruk.
Yet amid the cheers, other voices slipped through.
"Both King Gilgamesh and Enkidu are here. Will that lord come too?"
"You mean that wise lord who suppressed the Demonic Beast Forest, destroyed a nation overnight, deterred the north, and returned from death after defeating the Bull of Heaven?"
"Lord Rowe will definitely be here!"
Wise lord.
So that is what they call me now?
Rowe blinked, caught off guard. He knew his name had spread, but hearing it praised like this, in the mouths of ordinary soldiers, still felt strangely embarrassing. And, annoyingly, a little satisfying.
He exhaled once, then waved his hand.
The King and his friend had taken the field, but there was still one position missing between them.
"In that case," Rowe said softly, "I will fill the remaining gap."
He smiled.
With a flick of his wrist, he closed the Gate of Babylon. The golden ripples vanished into the air.
Then he closed his eyes and opened them again.
A shimmering, flowing key ignited inside his pupils.
The power of the Key of Heaven surged outward.
Rowe looked to Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Their offensives were fierce, but their rhythms did not match. They could suppress the horde, yes, yet without coordination they could not crush it cleanly unless they burned their full output.
They were not doing that.
They were waiting.
Through the Keys he had created and distributed earlier, through that shared resonance, they had sensed Rowe's arrival. That was why they had appeared together. That was why they held back.
They were waiting for him.
For the final piece of their formation.
The Key of Heaven had always been the core. The hinge between the Wedge of Heaven and the Chains of Heaven. The lockpick that opened their restraint and let their powers overlap without conflict.
And that was exactly what Rowe intended to do now.
Above them, the vast sky burned beneath the blazing sun.
Flames of mystery flowed.
As the Key manifested, the restriction lock snapped open in a single breath.
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