Multiverse: Ragnarok's Beginning - The Hero King's Path

Already a flickering candle in the wind, about to be snuffed out, and still, still glaring!!!

"Heh heh heh, feel free to try. This King will exact repayment a billionfold when the time comes."

The King of Uruk rose to his feet, speaking with a light laugh.

Though his voice was not loud, it rang through heaven and earth as if it could overturn the very skies, brimming with a spirit that could shake the world.

In that moment, even the churning dark clouds seemed to be cowed into stillness by that overwhelming presence.

Such a bearing was clearly that of a man of unyielding will—even if his subjects were brutally slaughtered before his very eyes, he would never bow or compromise.

He would only fix his Ruby Eyes, like a baleful star piercing the darkness, upon the scene, and if the chance arose, he would, as he said, exact repayment a billionfold.

This very demeanor made the Main God Marduk furrow his brow. Did those words mean the King of Uruk could still revive?

Impossible. He clearly sensed the King of Uruk's soul burning away, turning into cosmic dust.

It was a universal truth that even gods could not defy. He refused to believe that Gilgamesh, a mere human, could come back to life.

'Entering the next role. Countdown: 5...'

This system notification made the King of Uruk—Gilgamesh (Bai Yue)—sit back down on his throne.

He also checked the progress bar, still stuck at 99.9%. So, had he failed?

Not quite. The final 0.1 percent would only be filled after the modern millennium, when it was confirmed whether his deeds had been passed down—whether they had reached a level of legend.

If, during that time, his deeds were erased, would that mean failure?

That was hard to say. If he could continue to play his role along the timeline, he would have plenty of room to maneuver—he could spread the fragmented history anew like a legend.

Hey, don't let the countdown get stuck on the number 1 either. His soul was truly about to burn out.

The next second, the countdown hit zero, and he felt himself being pulled away, just like when he had died before.

So, what would the next set role be? He looked forward to it.

He had a feeling that something interesting was about to find him.

Chapter 014: The Reason for Historical Discrepancies, Summoning About to Begin...

The figure on the altar throne vanished, becoming cosmic dust.

Then, the throne turned to dust and disappeared, and the altar itself crumbled with a passing breeze.

Was that the end of King Gilgamesh's human life?

"Wait, something's wrong."

"Huh? What's wrong, Sister Brunhilde?"

"According to the history everyone knows, Gilgamesh lived to old age. Now that he's dead, the later history will be wildly different."

Brunhilde, rubbing her chin, spoke as she fast-forwarded through the scene.

What was going on?

As the scene fast-forwarded, Brunhilde was slightly taken aback. So that was it.

The Babylonian Pantheon created a human named Enkidu, first fabricating him as Gilgamesh's friend, then having him replace Gilgamesh to rule Uruk, gradually and subtly altering the correct history.

Why didn't the gods simply modify human memories directly?

The reason was that such large-scale memory modification would be a severe interference with human history, alerting gods from other pantheons visiting to observe humanity's progress to the anomaly.

Moreover, under the original predictions, Gilgamesh had a great influence on Uruk and the surrounding city-states. Humans in other pantheon's territories had also heard of such a king.

Wouldn't his sudden death seem suspicious?

So, the Babylonian Pantheon created Enkidu to replace Gilgamesh, arranging for him to take over after Gilgamesh vanished due to Divine Punishment.

Thus, from the perspective of the people of Uruk, Gilgamesh had merely suffered a certain degree of Divine Punishment and had not died.

Then, decades later, when other pantheons came to observe, under Enkidu's rule, the story of the original god-killing incident had become a fallacy. The people, subtly influenced by ideological suggestion, almost no longer believed such a thing had happened.

Therefore, the other pantheons never learned that a Main God of the Babylonian Pantheon had been killed by a human in the Earthly World.

It was a disgrace that brought utter shame, and of course, they didn't want other pantheons to know, lest they be mocked and lose face.

Afterward, Enkidu, having completed his task, was welcomed by the gods into the Heavenly Realm, becoming what was called a half-human, half-god.

So, this fake Gilgamesh—the reason she had never seen him in the Heavenly Realm was probably because he had been confined to the territory of the Babylonian Pantheon all along.

It was to prevent him from interacting too much with gods from other pantheons and having the anomaly discovered.

"Then, how exactly did King Gilgamesh manage to kill the Sky God Anu?"

Rubbing her temples, Brunhilde muttered with a headache.

The Babylonian Pantheon had also traveled through time, yet they still couldn't find anything wrong.

In truth, if other gods had been by the Sky God's side at the time and had touched Gilgamesh's Chains of Heaven and Spear in that first moment, they would have noticed the problem.

However, having arrived a step too late, the one-time effect of the Noble Phantasm had already passed, and they had become ordinary weapons.

Even if they traveled through time and space to touch them, they were still just ordinary weapons.

"How did he do it?"

Brunhilde bit her thumb in frustration. If only she could know the method for killing gods.

To know it, she would have to ask King Gilgamesh himself.

Unfortunately, King Gilgamesh had already become cosmic dust, impossible to summon.

Even if she returned to the era when Gilgamesh was alive, she couldn't speak with him—the real Gilgamesh was dead, and what existed there was merely a historical image.

"No!"

Something was wrong!

Brunhilde felt she had overlooked something, something extremely important.

"Sister Brunhilde, do you intend to go back to the past again? Even if we could speak with King Gilgamesh, it's already fixed history for us. No matter how we interfere, the world's power will converge everything back to its proper course. Besides, King Gilgamesh is too perceptive—he could sense us spying on him across time and space. If we show ourselves, he might kill us without a word, so—"

At this, Goll flinched, because Brunhilde suddenly lunged over and grabbed her by the shoulders.

"What did you just say, Goll?!"

"Huh? That—that King Gilgamesh might attack us?"

"Not that part. What did you say just before that?"

Brunhilde felt she was about to grasp that wrongness, and the answer was right in Goll's words.

"Huh? Before that? That King Gilgamesh is too perceptive, that he could sense us spying on him across time and space?"

Goll shrank back. The Sister Brunhilde before her was terrifying, and her grip on her shoulders was too hard, a little painful.

"Yes, yes, that's it—'could sense us spying on him across time and space,' hehehe!!!"

Finally understanding what the wrongness was, Brunhilde laughed, laughed with such delight.

Those gods hadn't noticed this anomaly at all. Should she call them too arrogant, too careless, too sloppy, or just too stupid?

"What's wrong, Elder Sister Brunhilde?"

Seeing her elder sister laugh so eerily, Goll couldn't help but worry.

Was her sister under too much pressure to resist the gods, her mind starting to slip?

"Mmm, excellent, Goll. You made me realize something fortunate."

"Huh? Fortunate?"

Goll tilted her head, utterly confused.

"Yes, and that is—!"

As she spoke, Brunhilde's eyes seemed to gleam.

"That is?"

"King Gilgamesh hasn't truly become cosmic dust."

"Huh? Cosmic dust? Goll doesn't understand."

"Like the Sky God Anu—after death, no resurrection method works on him."

Her youngest sister clearly hadn't yet realized the true power of that Divine Punishment, how it could completely erase a person.

Goll still naively thought they could warn Gilgamesh or summon him.

Well, actually, now that she'd realized what the wrongness was, summoning might still be possible.

So what was the wrongness? It was that Gilgamesh could sense them spying on him across time and space.

Logically, after being struck by Divine Punishment, Gilgamesh should have become cosmic dust entirely. So the Gilgamesh in the past images they spied on should have been a pure image.

If it was a pure image, then it shouldn't have been able to sense them spying on him.

Since it could, that meant one thing: Gilgamesh hadn't completely become cosmic dust.

His body had been destroyed, turned to cosmic dust, but his soul definitely still existed in this universe—his soul hadn't turned to ash.

"Hehehe!"

As long as the soul still existed, he could be summoned.

She also checked the time. She hadn't expected choosing the first person to take this long.

If everyone took this long before the Ragnarok battle, she'd probably only find two or three more before the match had to start.

But for now, she'd try to summon Gilgamesh.

Then, let's begin!

Chapter 015: This King Also Wants to Vote for Humanity's Destruction

Fists clenched against her chest, Goll watched Sister Brunhilde nervously.

Her sister opened the Summoning System, preparing to begin the summoning of the first of the thirteen who would fight against the gods.

The first was determined to be a king of the Early Dynastic Period of Sumer, the King of Uruk—Gilgamesh.

A man who killed the Bull of Heaven and cooked it, a human who defied the gods. A man who even slew the Sky God Anu of the Babylonian Pantheon.

This was a man who, without a word, casually killed gods. Goll was terrified that the moment he was summoned, he might slaughter them on the spot because they were part of the divine system.

To prevent the end of humanity, Elder Sister Brunhilde was also risking her life to summon King Gilgamesh.

At this moment, Brunhilde, who was likewise somewhat worried that Gilgamesh might suddenly erupt and kill, instructed Goll to stand by the doorway.

If any abnormal situation occurred, she was to immediately leave the room.

And the one who had been suddenly summoned, without special permission, could not make contact with the outside of the room.

"Whoosh~~~!"

Standing before the Summoning System, Brunhilde took a slight deep breath and exhaled.

From all the signs, Gilgamesh was a fierce hater of gods, so Goll's concern might very well become reality.

Good, the space-time coordinates were adjusted and locked in. Looking at the Image Panel that had popped up in front of her, Brunhilde reached out with a hand, spreading her five fingers.

Confirm summon!

At that moment, the Image Panel blazed with light. When the brightness reached a certain upper limit, a kingly aura that made one involuntarily want to submit filled the entire room.

Under this aura, Brunhilde couldn't help but tense her body and take a few steps back.

She stared fixedly, needing to be wary of a sudden fling of the Chains of Heaven, careful not to be bound.

After all, those were chains that could even imprison a Main God. As merely a Valkyrie, a demigod, she didn't think she could resist once bound.

The next second, with a brilliant flash of light, a figure appeared before her eyes.

A young man with golden hair and crimson eyes, revealing a somewhat lazy demeanor, yet giving off a very haughty impression.

He was slightly taken aback by the sudden change in his surroundings, then observed with interest.

When his gaze fell upon her, Brunhilde grew even more tense.

Those crimson eyes, like a baleful star that would illuminate the night sky, seemed to release a tangible, weighty killing intent.