Human Race Selection Plan

Several months later, the aftermath of the battle had long since subsided.

Within the city-state of Uruk, mortals had built a magnificent hall of the gods.

The Sun God's statue stood second only to that of the God King Mar. Young and handsome, he stood proudly with a sword in hand, gazing into the distance with peerless majesty!

Under the divine priests' direction, countless Golden Humans came to worship, prostrating themselves and bathing in the gods' radiance.

Among the crowd, Mar and Jiang Yang stood watching the enormous temple.

The days when the glory of the gods had nearly been trampled beneath a mortal's feet had finally ended.

Jiang Yang could sense Mar's happiness beside him. He seemed to revel in the pleasure of being worshipped by mortals.

He truly regarded himself as a god.

Now that a mortal as powerful as Gilgamesh had finally died, the gods of Sumer once again maintained their transcendent standing as deities.

But Jiang Yang could say nothing. Over these thousand years, the remaining people of the previous civilization had probably long since lost their sense of having once been human.

After all, even counting the decades of the apocalypse, their time as humans had been far less than a tenth of the thousand years they had spent worshipped as gods by the Golden Humans.

Gods were indeed created by humans.

"We owe you a great deal this time, Jiang Yang. Without you, the Sumer shelter might have suffered the tragedy of falling under mortal control. Even if we eventually succeeded in subduing Gilgamesh, those other fellows would have laughed at us."

Mar turned to Jiang Yang and thanked him sincerely.

"It's nothing. As a fellow member of the former human civilization, I couldn't shirk my duty. Besides, Mar, we're comrades-in-arms."

Jiang Yang gave a hearty laugh, put aside his thoughts, and answered warmly.

"Hahaha, that's right. Still, the potential of the Golden Humans is terrifying. Even with hybrids of 'gods' and humans, there's no guarantee another figure like him won't appear."

Mar laughed at first, then suddenly spoke with some concern.

"What does that matter? We just need to keep growing stronger."

Jiang Yang offered him reassurance. Clearly, this incident had dealt Mar a blow.

Who could have imagined that a single Gilgamesh could grow to such a terrifying degree?

"Such confidence, such an air of invincibility. Just what I'd expect from you, Jiang Yang."

Mar raised his thumb, unstinting in his praise.

"Still, I've heard that over on Odin's side, the research department responsible for breeding new humans recently discovered new humans without vertical pupils-mortals with the same normal eyes as ours."

Watching the people coming and going, the two slowly made their way out of the city.

"Although they have little talent and their constitutions are somewhat frail, these new humans are the direction of the future. The Golden Humans may be extremely well adapted to the present world, but they aren't what we want."

"Oh? Odin is conducting research like that?"

Jiang Yang asked curiously as he walked.

"Indeed. This was a policy Leader Chen Ping'an left behind before his death-the human race selection plan.

"It involves gathering mortals with traits close to ours from among the Golden Humans across the world and sending them all to one place to live and reproduce. They would continue breeding generation after generation until they became a race closer to ours, eventually replacing the present Golden Humans."

Mar answered.

"We were also looking for such mortals in the Sumer region before, but after Gilgamesh rose to power, he no longer allowed us to interfere in mortal affairs."

"The human selection plan, huh."

After leaving the city gates, Jiang Yang stood on the sunlit grass, looked up at the sun in the sky, and spoke softly.

He did not ask what would become of this new generation of humans in the future, but a little thought made the outcome clear.

"By the way, Jiang Yang, you're leaving, aren't you?"

"Yes. I'm planning to travel around the world and see what it's like now. After all, I've been asleep for a thousand years."

"Hahahaha, that's true. I went out on a journey a few centuries ago myself. A world without monsters, a world that isn't an apocalypse, is truly wonderful. You really should travel and see this newborn world."

"Yes, a newborn world. It really is something to look forward to."

On the grassy hillside, Jiang Yang looked back once more at the city-state of Uruk behind him and sighed with feeling.

A few days later.

Jiang Yang walked across the untamed land, feeling the sunshine of the new era fall upon him.

Not far away, countless animals lived and played in the woods, on the grasslands, and beside the rivers.

He sat on a hillside and closed his eyes, sensing the teeming vitality and freedom of all things vying to grow, and thought to himself.

A new era, a beautiful newborn world. I will never allow it to be destroyed again. I have to become stronger.

Although he had won his battle with Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh's strength at the second step of the emperor had still given him tremendous inspiration.

He opened his eyes, found a stone slab nearby, and began tracing lines across it with his finger.

With slight movements of his fingertip, stone chips pattered to the ground, and the image of a magnificent golden dragon appeared on the slab.

"Gilgamesh transformed into a golden dragon a hundred meters long. Indeed, the human body really can't withstand greater energy. A stronger body is needed to evolve."

Jiang Yang could feel that the energy his human body could hold was no longer enough to propel him into the next stage.

"Moreover, Gilgamesh's power was unquestionably above emperor-rank strength. Perhaps the path he forged was correct."

"A golden dragon was the manifestation best suited to Gilgamesh. What about me, then? What manifestation suits me best?"

Frowning miserably, Jiang Yang tipped backward onto the grass, at a complete loss for ideas for the moment.

"Forget it. I'll take it one step at a time. The video of my battle with Gilgamesh has already been uploaded to all the major shelters. I'll see later how those two fellows, Odin and Zeus, make their breakthroughs."

Those two had once been the first to blaze the path of kings.

"Well, in that case, I'll go take a look around the Olympus shelter region first."