Conquest of the Underworld
Sunya himself lived so frugally that he adapted to the Underworld with surprising ease — far more readily than Ereshkigal or Namtar had ever anticipated.
"Well, no harm in a good thing."
Ereshkigal was, for the moment, reasonably satisfied with the changes Sunya had brought. The mere fact that the madness of the dead could be slowed or diminished had dramatically improved her quality of life as queen of the Underworld. People might exalt her as the mistress of the realm, but that lofty status had nothing to do with the sheer volume of hellish work she actually had to handle.
"Still, don't let your guard down. The fact that he's married to that trashy little bitch is reason enough to stay vigilant — no amount of caution is ever enough."
"Yes, my queen."
"…Though I will admit he's proven somewhat useful."
Ereshkigal's gaze softened, if only slightly. With fewer incidents to manage than before, it was only natural — and it spoke to how diligently she applied herself.
"My queen, once the period he mentioned has passed… do you intend to let him go?"
"No."
Ereshkigal shook her head with absolute finality. There was an iron will behind the word.
"Why would I release someone who's actually useful? I'll keep him chained here for the rest of his life and work him to the bone. And if it torments Inanna in the process, that's two birds with one stone, isn't it?"
"As expected of Your Majesty!"
Mistress and attendant of the Underworld cackled together, each egging the other on with gleeful malice.
It was then that Ninazu arrived, shattering the mood.
"My queen!"
"Speak."
"We have observed an omen near the western reaches."
At the word omen, both Ereshkigal's and Namtar's faces hardened.
"…How much time do we have?"
"Two days, by our estimate."
"Then begin preparations at once. The Underworld's whims have a habit of outrunning our predictions."
"Yes, my queen!"
"Very well. You may g—"
Ereshkigal paused mid-sentence as Sunya suddenly crossed her mind.
"Come to think of it, we might as well have that one join the subjugation."
"That one…?"
"Take Sunya with you. He already subdued your soldiers and commanders once — he'll no doubt prove useful in suppressing those things."
"Ah. You mean that man."
"Go now."
"I receive your command."
With permission granted, Ninazu departed.
"And here I thought things had finally gone quiet…"
Ereshkigal let out a long, weary sigh.
Despite the abrupt summons, Sunya complied without a word of complaint. Whether out of a measure of newfound respect, Ninazu allowed him to walk alongside rather than among the common soldiers. He even offered to lend Sunya a steed of the Underworld — an offer Sunya declined, saying he preferred to walk.
"Do you know why the Underworld has seven walls of such immense scale?"
With a bit of breathing room on the journey, Ninazu opened the conversation.
"I couldn't say for certain. Though if I had to guess, it would be to guard against invasion from without."
"Correct. You know well. The walls are tall and vast in part to keep the dead from escaping — but more than that, they exist to repel assaults from the outside."
"That 'outside' isn't the Underworld proper, or Dilmun, I take it?"
"I mean simply beyond the gates. That region is still, strictly speaking, part of the Underworld."
Ninazu paused a beat, then continued.
"In truth, the Underworld's very structure ensures that mindless dead and monsters will keep spawning without end."
The creatures that appeared from time to time — things far removed from anything human — were born when residual grudges and lingering regrets of the dead accumulated, tangled together, and finally took physical form.
"Negative emotions congealing into monsters with actual bodies is hardly rare."
"Even so, the cycle here in the Underworld is far too rapid."
Ninazu's explanation ran as follows.
Tiamat, once called the Primordial Sea, had been defeated in war against the Anunnaki. Her limbs were severed and became the foundation of the world itself. Yet though Tiamat's mind had died, her flesh still lived. The Underworld, lying closest to Tiamat's origin, suffered the most direct influence. The vast life force of that origin transformed the mindless dead — and was potent enough to grant bodies even to mere scraps of residual thought.
"And occasionally, at irregular intervals, the monsters surge in overwhelming numbers. When that happens, they form ranks like ants and march to destroy our cities — as if by some unspoken pact."
"…I see."
It was a story Sunya had never heard before. The Mesopotamian myths he had encountered in the future contained nothing of the sort.
Then again, myths are never entirely accurate.
Passed down orally across ages, mythology was riddled with contradictions. Even ordinary rumors rarely survived intact from the first telling — so the distortion or outright loss of history was only natural.
"…We've arrived."
Ninazu need not have said it. Even from a great distance, a malevolent aura was pouring forth. For now the creatures appeared only as countless pinpricks of darkness, but it was plain they would reach this position soon enough.
Sunya focused his eyes, and their forms resolved with sharper clarity than before.
The monsters possessed not even the barest symmetry. They looked like great slabs of flesh with eyes, noses, mouths, and limbs slapped on as an afterthought. Any ordinary person would have felt an instinctive revulsion at those grotesque shapes. They seemed rather different from the Underworld monsters Inanna had once described.
"When their numbers explode like this, for some reason the majority don't even manage a proper form. We suspect it's a kind of side effect."
"Ah."
"Taken individually, they're not particularly threatening — hard to kill, yes, but little more. At those numbers, though… they become a genuine threat."
"Indeed."
Even a rough count put them well past several hundred thousand. And among them, a few appeared to possess special abilities.
"As for tactics, as I explained earlier—"
"Forgive me, but I believe I can handle that much on my own."
Ninazu's expression turned faintly complicated. He did not dismiss Sunya's attitude as mere bravado — he still remembered the overwhelming divinity this man had once unleashed.
"…Do you have some special method in mind?"
"Not so much a method as… stating the obvious, I suppose."
Sunya quietly opened his eyes. Pupils gleaming like blue jewels reflected the true nature of the advancing horde.
They had neither souls nor selves. They were something less than even walking corpses.
"I'm not ordinarily fond of mass slaughter, but…"
Sunya extended a hand toward the monster army. Above it, something took shape in empty air.
"What in the—?!"
It was a colossal hand of light — so vast that words failed. The other soldiers and commanders reacted much the same as Ninazu.
Come to think of it, they said he created countless hands when he rebuilt the city.
Was fashioning hands this man's power? The scale was far too immense to dismiss lightly.
"The ground will shake — brace yourselves in advance."
"Pardon? Ah — understood."
Ninazu relayed the order to his commanders, who in turn ordered the soldiers to lower their stances. Once everyone was ready, Sunya swept his arm from high to low.
The hand of light hanging in the air came crashing down.
The original Tathagata Palm — a giant hand of pure light, descending to crush all before it.
KUUUUUUUUUUUNG—
In that moment, Ninazu learned for the first time that thunder could be heard even in the Underworld. The sound was so enormous his eardrums felt ready to split. The earth heaved violently; a gale tore through the ranks. Had the Underworld's horses been ordinary living beasts of the surface world, they would have gone mad with terror.
"Ghk—!!"
Ninazu fought desperately to keep his footing. Several commanders and soldiers, despite bracing themselves, had already toppled and were rolling ignominiously across the ground.
When the shock finally subsided and the dust settled, the sight that greeted them left everyone but Sunya himself stunned into silence.
A colossal handprint was carved into the earth. Within it, a horde of hundreds of thousands of monsters had been reduced to an unrecognizable pulp. A scant few had somehow survived — but so few that the soldiers present could finish them off with ease.
"What… what on earth…"
While they struggled to form words, Sunya spoke.
"You could call it the original Yoreh Shinjang, I suppose? Not that the name would mean anything to you. Haha…"
Sunya scratched the back of his head and offered his characteristic sheepish smile.