Chapter 15: The Great Flood of Destruction

“In seven days, God created all things, just seven days!”

Gilgamesh stared in disbelief, then collapsed into hysterical laughter, tears streaming down his face.

In that instant, he felt something shatter inside him.

It was the sound of his heart breaking, his arrogance and defiance utterly crushed just before his demise.

There is no greater sorrow than a heart that has died.

“Seven days...” Amidst his laughter, his consciousness blurred completely. The three questions before him brought him to a daze, as if recalling the very first question he had posed to this giant when, as a child, he stood in the giant’s palm.

“What is civilization?”

“Civilization is a spark, civilization is knowledge, civilization is order. Civilization is also the strongest power intelligent beings use to protect themselves.”

“So, civilization is the power *we* intelligent beings use to protect ourselves?”

Hahahahaha!!

He laughed, his voice growing louder and louder. His laughter carried through the gentle breeze and over hills, across steep mountains and rushing rivers, reaching distant emerald forests swaying in the wind, lush rice paddies, and endless, vast grasslands.

A stir went through the land!

In the grassland tribes, within the royal city, and among the people in the mountain forests, all silently raised their heads.

In a daze, they gazed at the sky with complex emotions, as if sensing the twilight of their Sumerian king. Countless individuals wept, wailed, and began to sing unknown Sumerian dirges and folk songs, lamenting the fall of their great monarch.

On this day, at the edge of the royal city of Uruk, Gilgamesh, the great epic hero-king of an era, met his end, becoming but dust in history.

Duan Youliang sighed, watching the hero-king depart. “I never intended to contend for anything,” he said. “Everything you desired, every question you asked, I answered truthfully. But I truly possess no artifact that could grant you immortality; I myself am nearing my end. Why must you persist in this folly?”

“The King is dead!”

“Our King, Gilgamesh, the strongest hero-king in history, drew his sword against the God of Creation and died!!”

“We are defeated!”

Countless troops wailed and fled in a frenzy.

Xu Zhi chose not to pursue them. After all, where could they possibly flee? To the ends of the world?

“Unbelievable! Unbelievable...” The historian Akkad stood atop the majestic walls of Uruk, witnessing his great hero-king’s defeat and death. Hearing such a terrifying truth, he broke out in a cold sweat. “I must... I must, before I die, record everything. I must leave the truth about this world for future generations.”

The historian trembled uncontrollably, his arms drenched in a profuse sweat.

He had just finished recording Gilgamesh’s challenge to the wise beast. Immediately after, with trembling hands, he quickly turned to a new page and began to chronicle the next chapter.

Genesis, The Fall of Sumer, records:

The sky trembled.

The ground wailed.

In the royal city of Uruk, people across the land screamed in terror. Some, overwhelmed by despair, finally erupted into mad laughter, transforming into fervent devotees who knelt on the ground, praying in silent reverence.

“God said, all humanity is sinful!”

“Repent!!! God will lay sin upon our arms, crushing our very spines!”

“The Great Flood will destroy our world!”

Amidst the anxious atmosphere, people were restless, trembling with fear, consumed by panic, and boiling with agitation.

At this moment, a young man, carrying a blood-soaked package and wearing a black headscarf, approached Xu Zhi. He knelt at Xu Zhi’s feet, opened the package, and revealed a severed head, saying, “Great wise beast, Enkidu, King of the Forest, seeks atonement.”

Xu Zhi was slightly taken aback.

He had previously wondered why only two of the three kings had appeared, with the Forest King conspicuously absent.

Utnapishtim knelt and pleaded, prostrating himself firmly on the ground. He spoke with a trembling voice, “We Sumerians are not merely barbaric. Our mentor, Enkidu, has already proven this with his death, choosing to defy orders rather than draw his sword against the benefactor who granted us civilization. We are not entirely wicked. Please, when you unleash your divine judgment, grant the Sumerian people a final glimmer of hope.”

Xu Zhi sighed. In truth, he had never anticipated Gilgamesh would act with such madness.

He had never intended to exterminate them; they had simply been too audacious and presumptuous. However, such a frenzied challenge, combined with their insolence, tyranny, and barbarism, would ultimately demand a price for their actions.

“Take your people and construct a Noah’s Ark from the giant sacred tree. Bring aboard at least one pair of every creature and seed in the world. Use the remaining space for the righteous inhabitants of Enkidu’s great forest city. I shall then immediately unleash a great flood to cleanse the world.”

Xu Zhi turned and departed.

All around him, there were trembling, excited voices.

“We are defeated, but it is not the destruction of our nation or our kind. A spark of hope still remains.”

“Thanks be to the Creator’s mercy.”

“This is all thanks to Enkidu, King of the Forest, who demonstrated our goodwill to the Lord. We are not barbaric; there is still redemption for us.”

“Praise Enkidu!”

“Praise the great King of the Forest!”

Akkad, too, wept tears of joy, growing excited as he watched the giant’s retreating form. He wielded his pen and ink, and in “Genesis, The Fall of Sumer,” it was recorded:

Xu Zhi returned to his yard and made preparations.

He sought out the high-pressure water gun he and the young girl, Chen Xi, had recently bought while shopping, which was stored in a corner of the garden. He hadn’t imagined it would be put to use so soon.

In the mere ten minutes Xu Zhi spent preparing the water gun, 120 days had already elapsed within the sandbox. Countless figures, moving like accelerated blurs, felled the large banyan bonsai tree that had been preserved there and constructed a massive ark.

They then gathered seeds of all creatures, books, and the young of various colossal beasts—everything, in fact, representing all the species of the entire world, condensed within the vast Noah’s Ark.

“The cleansing begins,” he stated, raising the water gun.

A pure white, high-pressure stream of water sprayed down onto the sandbox in the orchard.

*Thump-thump-thump!*

Large swaths of trees toppled, the colossal city instantly collapsed, and countless creatures fled from the forest, attempting to outrun the surging white flood behind them, only to be ultimately engulfed by the deluge.

Heaven and earth seemed to transform in an instant.

Pure white, vast and boundless.

“God saw that the wickedness of humanity on earth was great, so a great flood descended from heaven, and God destroyed all living beings.”

Utnapishtim, leading his people aboard the ark, watched in awe as the sky above presented a terrifying spectacle. It was as if the springs of the great deep had burst forth, and the floodgates of heaven had opened.

Countless torrents of pure white water surged down from the white clouds in the sky, washing over the entire land.

With the exception of the ark, which remained afloat on the surging waters, the entire world was now submerged beneath a vast expanse of white spray.