What was Humbaba now?
Neither Annanu nor Enkidu had any way to answer that question.
They could not find that girl. The monster before them had become nothing more than a creature that unleashed disaster.
That girl had forgotten them and gone forever.
All that remained was this shell, forever howling in grief.
So Annanu and Enkidu brought forth their power—even though they knew that, even if they returned to their original forms, they would still be no match for the current Humbaba.
This was sheer, absolute strength.
"Your... friend—!?" Gilgamesh did not know what to say. He did not even know what he was thinking anymore; he only wanted to know what he should do next.
Ea's blade was still rotating.
Humbaba was changing. Annanu and Enkidu had already brought out the Key of Heaven and the Chains of Heaven.
"So... we fight?" Gilgamesh's eyes were bloodshot as he looked ahead at Humbaba, whose size was visibly shrinking.
"She can no longer return." Annanu accepted that fact.
He drove the key in his hand into his chest, into his heart.
"And she who cannot return is merely a monster that unleashes disaster." Enkidu had accepted it as well.
Countless chains were already floating around him.
The vortex vanished.
Humbaba now took the form of a creature with limbs and a head, with a pair of antlers growing from atop its skull.
The form Annanu and Enkidu had once imitated.
Humbaba's body was white—the white portions nearly flawless in their purity, covered in ink-dark lines just like those once seen on Annanu and Enkidu.
But Humbaba was larger overall. Even after shrinking so much, she still looked like a small mountain to the three of them.
"You two, buy time for this king. This king—" Gilgamesh had already aimed Ea