Our Age of Decline

More than two hundred years had passed, and the Great Flood had spanned several generations.

The people of the Babylon Tribe no longer needed thick natural fur to keep warm, since they wore animal hides and clothing. Their dense black body hair gradually thinned, their sparse outer carapaces vanished, their bodies became more upright, and pale white skin slowly emerged.

They had begun to evolve from heavily furred apes into a demi-human race with sparse hair. In build, they increasingly resembled the rugged, strong, well-built people of the West.

They had once possessed a glorious civilized tribe and established the City-State Era, yet they still had not recovered. They remained a primitive farming tribe, without even the means to rebuild a city-state.

All their former glory had been built upon the great Hero King, Gilgamesh.

That great Hero King possessed the strongest power in the world. With his strength alone, he had suppressed countless Giant Beast Species across the land, allowing their Sumerian race to stand at the top of the food chain—but without the Hero King, they would have nothing.

They could not develop into the Bronze Age or Iron Age. How could they fight the towering giant beasts again with nothing but crude Stone Spears and clubs? The sole sacred sword of civilization, the metal weapon Damocles Sword, had been permanently buried with the Hero King Gilgamesh in the world-destroying Great Flood, sinking into the endless deep sea.

Even now, they did not have the ability to rebuild city walls.

Uruk Royal City was a city Gilgamesh had built by himself. He had personally carried massive boulders comparable to mountains and arranged them around it, finishing in just one month.

But for ordinary people, the labor needed to build a giant city was as difficult as ancient Egypt's construction of the pyramids. It would take more than a decade. In such a freezing, starving environment, where could they find so much manpower and resources? At this moment—

Medea, the daughter of the Babylon Tribe's chieftain, sighed.

"Sumerian was truly splendid. It was an epic age belonging to one man—the great Hero King Gilgamesh. No wonder people of that time sang his praises, wrote epics for him, and recorded his glory."

Vast epics, glorious civilization.

Merchants, shops, arenas, slavery.

The exquisite and splendid Uruk Royal Palace, and the great Hero King seated upon the throne, his eyes deep and boundless, leaning on the Damocles Sword as he gazed down upon all living beings.

"Our era has fallen into decline. We are heading toward decay and extinction. If the god-given sword of civilization had not been lost, then even without the mighty power of the Blood of Power, we would not necessarily be living in such hardship."

"Is the heavens determined to destroy our Babylon Tribe?"

"Civilization is the power that protects us intelligent races. I, Medea, want to know the path forward for our civilization! How are we supposed to survive?!"

Medea remained calm. She was the bravest and wisest person in the tribe. Though she was not as strong as the men, her killing skills allowed her to defeat most of the tribe's warriors.

She looked toward several burly hunting party members dressed in animal hides, returning to reality. "How has the exploration of this area gone?"

They stood amid a swamp, thick with rotting filth. One warrior replied, "This is a vast muddy marsh. It was likely formed from pools of water accumulating after the Great Flood. The species within are abundant, and there are many delicious fruits."

This was the fertile marshland Xu Zhi had created by laying down chicken droppings and cow dung, where natural plants grew even more luxuriantly.

"The Great Flood?"

Medea took a deep breath and gazed at the vast black mire before her.

It was difficult to imagine the disaster from more than two hundred years ago—the immense Great Flood that had submerged the entire world.

God possessed power mortals could scarcely imagine. With a mere gesture, God could destroy their entire world.

"Then food is abundant here. This can become our tribe's next gathering site." Her eyes swept around the area before she suddenly sensed something was wrong. "Wait. Where are Jia Erkai and Bo Luonijiasi?"

Everyone looked at one another, only then realizing that two people had vanished.

That had never happened before.

The savage species in this land were not particularly intelligent, nor would they ambush weak humans. The people armed with crude Stone Spears and stone axes could not pierce the scales of giant beasts anyway. They could only let the beasts slaughter them as food.

"Something is wrong. This seemingly quiet and peaceful swamp hides something strange—some terrifying creature we do not know about." Medea's expression changed. "The massive bodies of giant beasts cannot enter a swamp; they would only sink here. There are no traces of giant beasts, so only small swamp creatures could be secretly attacking us."

"Move!"

Medea made an immediate decision and led more than twenty people away.

But then, a disgusting and bizarre gray-black tentacled creature suddenly appeared from the swamp. Its body was covered in tendrils like gray seaweed, and its tentacles encircled a huge crimson eyeball filled with bloodshot veins.

Its body was grotesquely disproportionate.

That bloodshot giant eyeball alone occupied two-thirds of its body.

"So beautiful."

"How could this world have such a lovely girl!"

Several burly men in animal hides suddenly met the Evil Eye creature's alluring bloodshot gaze. Unable to resist, they walked toward it fervently, as if they had seen a peerless beauty. No one could hold them back in their excitement.

"What are you doing?!"

"Don't go over there!"

The Babylon Tribe warriors around them could not help but panic.

Such a strange and bizarre sight had already overturned everything they knew.

As the smartest person in the Babylon Tribe, Medea instantly realized something. "What kind of terrifying creature lives in this mud? Those strange, evil giant eyes can actually bewitch prey into walking over on their own. Jia Erkai and Bo Luonijiasi, who disappeared, must have walked straight into their deaths!"

"Run!"

She made the decision at once, leading everyone away. She abandoned the few who had been bewitched and were slowly walking toward it, fleeing quickly.

But then, she suddenly stopped. Her eyes burned with fervor. "What an extraordinary creature. It is weaker than us—a feeble, soft tentacle body and a foolish giant eyeball—yet it possesses an unimaginable power, one capable of destroying creatures stronger than itself."

"Aren't we weak too? Why are they the only ones who possess such a unique power?" Medea's blazing eyes seemed to hold a nameless Torch burning within them, and a terrifying thought awakened in her heart:

I will seize its power and revive the tribe!!

"Kill it, then we run!" Medea suddenly shouted.

"What?"

The tribe's warriors were all shocked.

She turned back and raised her white Stone Spear high.

A ray of light fell from the sky onto her stunningly beautiful yet icy face. She looked like a war goddess from Norse mythology. "Kill it with me. I will bring its corpse back to the tribe!"