The Butcher Knife Raised Against the Gods

Evening.

A bright full moon quietly climbed over the withered yellow treetops.

The dry night wind blew, as though it contained not a trace of moisture.

Yet Uruk City was still decorated with lanterns and colorful banners. Citizens whose eyes were noticeably larger than those of humans in the outside world emerged from their homes.

They gathered around the mountain-like Tower of Babel in one corner of the city and the magnificent Hanging Gardens atop it.

As they looked upon this artificial structure that rose from the earth like a divine miracle, boundless pride surged in every pair of eyes that seemed to have endured countless hardships.

Although alternating floods and droughts had ravaged the land for two cycles already, the vast majority of the nation's taxes, tributes, and countless rare treasures were still concentrated here.

The Hanging Gardens were planted with the rarest and most beautiful flowers and grasses, as well as the most precious water source during the great drought.

There was only one purpose behind all of this.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Over a hundred strongmen beat enormous oxhide drums with all their might.

Toot!

Fifty priests wearing golden crowns and arranged in two rows blew the horns in their hands.

Barefoot and dressed in solemn ceremonial robes, Nebuchadnezzar wore a crown of thorns and climbed the spiral stairs winding around the towering structure step by step, like a sinner begging for redemption, toward the Hanging Gardens at its summit.

Behind him followed Paracelsus, the Crown Wizard who had been appointed the kingdom's sage thanks to his miraculous Potionology and bizarre sorcery.

Apart from them and a group of priests in white robes, there was no one else on the entire Tower of Babel.

Gold and silver, precious stones, colorful garments, treasures from mountains and deep seas, mature