The God of Humanity
With so many of the Anunnaki's most renowned warrior-gods already fallen, the only one left who could possibly stop Sunya was Enlil himself.
He should have unleashed his Word of Command at once — yet crushed beneath Sunya's overwhelming presence, he could do nothing at all.
"Son-in-law…"
Nanna called out as Sunya passed, her eyes clouded with conflicted emotion.
Sunya did not so much as glance her way.
Even Nanna herself could not bring herself to actively restrain him.
"That's far enough."
To everyone's surprise, it was Enki who stepped forward this time. The other gods looked on in open astonishment at his unexpected intervention.
Enki may have possessed a divine rank equal to the King of Gods, but he was first and foremost a god of magic and wisdom — frontal confrontation was hardly his domain. That he would still place himself in Sunya's path spoke volumes about how desperate the situation had become. No matter how little fondness he held for Enlil, Enki was a god who knew how to separate the personal from the public.
"Cool your head. You know as well as I do that you're running on pure emotion right now."
"…"
"If you keep this up, I'll have no choice but to use my power too, you know?"
Enki spoke as if he were merely joking around. In truth, of course, he wasn't joking at all — he was simply saying whatever came to mind, buying time. Sunya knew it too, and so he ignored every word, intending to walk straight past him.
"Ah, come on. You're really going to force my hand?"
Enki scattered something across the floor. Massive giants of earth rose up in response.
"So it has to come to blood after all, does it?"
Enki kept talking, but Sunya still gave no answer. He simply drove his fist forward in silence, and the giants shattered into dust.
But that had been a feint. What Enki had truly aimed for was beneath Sunya's feet. The jaws of an enormous turtle erupted from the ground, ready to swallow him whole. Sunya leaned back just enough to evade, then set a hand against the creature's neck and hurled it away — flinging something of that size as casually as one might skip a pebble. It sailed off into the far distance.
Next, a serpent of water lunged from the side. The moment it tried to coil around Sunya's body, he gave a slight flick of his hand, and the serpent burst apart into spray.
"What are you doing, Enlil?! Run! If something happens to you, the world itself will fall into chaos!"
Enki shouted as Sunya drew steadily closer. Whatever their reasons, everyone was putting themselves on the line for Enlil's sake — it was the obvious thing to say.
Run, he says?
Even so, Enlil hesitated. A King of Gods fleeing because he feared his opponent? Filthy. Humiliating. The other gods would surely look down on him for it. That thought kept snagging at his heels.
That he could still care so much about how others saw him even with his life hanging by a thread was only possible because Enlil had never once in his existence truly felt the threat of death. As a god whose life bordered on eternal immortality — and one who wielded the Word of Command, a power of overwhelming force — he had never genuinely experienced a situation in which he might die. The closest he had ever come was in his youth, when his clumsy control of his power had nearly trapped him in the underworld. And even that had been little more than a brief "confinement," for the laws of the underworld had not yet been properly established in those days.
While Enlil dithered, Sunya's footsteps never slowed. Enki turned the floor into a swamp to seize his ankles, sent schools of fanged fish flying to cloud his vision, dropped the temperature of the moisture clinging to Sunya's body to freeze him solid — and still could not stop him for even a moment.
In the end, Enki too crumpled beneath Sunya's fist, and the path to Enlil lay completely open.
Enlil finally unleashed his Word of Command — far too late. Sunya kept coming as if nothing had happened at all.
What?
Enlil activated the Word again, genuinely shaken. Still nothing changed.
Why? Why isn't the Word working?!
An indescribable chaos tore through Enlil's mind. For the first time in his life, his power had been rendered utterly useless, and he could not think straight.
The reason Sunya could ignore the Word of Command was simple: it was one of the authorities he himself possessed. Humanity was a race that adapted to the fate and circumstances given to it — and yet always sought to overcome them. The rejection of forced obedience, of blind or conditional immortality, of fixed destiny itself — that was another of Sunya's powers.
To subdue him, one would have to crush him head-on with raw force, or take a hostage and threaten him with something that simple. Not knowing one's opponent at all — that had been Enlil's fundamental, fatal mistake.
"Ghk—!"
The throne toppled backward. Sunya, having finally reached Enlil, seized him by the throat and slammed him into the wall behind.
"You should have run while you had the chance."
"Khh — you bastard…!"
"You stayed put for the sake of your dignity? What a pathetic pride. Almost pitiable, really."
"Khh-ghh-ghk…"
"You already knew, didn't you? You have no quality of a king. Your own power proves it."
His neck bones felt ready to snap. Enlil wanted to speak, but no words would come. All he could do was endure the venom Sunya poured over him without mercy.
"Power is the manifestation of the unconscious. You know full well that your words carry no weight of their own. You know that unless you force obedience, no one will ever listen to you."
"…"
"When you ruled the earth, the Igigi suffered under crushing labor and rose in rebellion. Swayed by the eyes of others, you lay with a woman you did not love and sired a powerful heir. You grieved the one you truly loved and tormented even your own son. And this time, you slaughtered countless of those who served you without a shred of mercy. All you ever do is wound others."
Every word struck at Enlil's weakest points. Each one was true; he could not deny a single one.
"The only good you've ever done for anyone was handing humanity a pickaxe — and yet you swagger about as if you're something. Is there even any value in you remaining alive?"
The question mark hung at the end of the sentence, but Sunya had no intention of waiting for an answer. With the hand that was not around Enlil's throat, he drove his fist into the god-king's face.
— CRACK.
A hideous sound. The sound of a face caving in, of facial bones being crushed to pulp. When Sunya swung his fist a second time, an eyeball burst, and blood and brain matter sprayed outward.
Even so, Enlil was not yet dead. The vitality of a high god was that tenacious. But even that would not last much longer. One more punch from Sunya, and Enlil would die — a hollow end utterly unworthy of the title of King of Gods.
"No!!"
While everyone else stood frozen, watching, only one goddess threw herself at Sunya and clung to him. It was Ninlil, Enlil's wife.
"Please, stop."
She clung to him, tears and snot streaming down her face. Considering that even the most formidable gods had been no match for Sunya, Ninlil's actions were meaningless. One sweep of his arm would send her flying. And yet, in the end, Ninlil stopped him.
"I know he's done terrible things. I know the slaughter can never be undone. But if you kill him, the world will fall into chaos."
The gods governed the domains of the world. Living things had not yet achieved true independence, and so the absence of a god who governed a domain brought chaos. Just as in the original myths, when Inanna died, every species with male and female ceased to mate; when Ninhursag died, no new life was conceived in the earth; when Nergal was compromised, living things could no longer die. The very order of things would collapse.
Enlil's death would cause the same. The order of humanity would crumble. Great collectives like cities would become impossible, and the advancement of civilization would naturally cease. In effect, it would reduce humanity to clever beasts. Of course, this could be prevented by seizing or transferring the domain — but that was not something just anyone could do with ease.
"Even setting that aside — he is the person I love more than anyone in this world. Please. Don't take from me the one who is as dear as my own life."
"…"
In the end, Ninlil's words were an emotional appeal. They sounded rational at a glance, but it wasn't as though there were no countermeasures available. And yet Sunya hesitated over nothing more than her plea. His fist trembled, but he could not bring himself to drive it forward.
"Please…"
Still, rage burned in his chest. A flame of killing intent that would not go out kept tormenting him.
"No!!!"
At last, Sunya threw his punch. Ninlil's scream filled the palace. The other gods turned their faces away from the sight that was about to unfold. Only Inanna never took her eyes off Sunya.
— BOOM!
Sunya's fist struck the wall beside Enlil's face instead. The force of it shook the palace and brought part of it crashing down — but one way or another, Enlil lived.
Sunya released him. The King of Gods' body slumped bonelessly to the floor.
"Ahh…"
Ninlil gathered her husband into her arms as if she had been waiting for this moment. Tears of pure relief streamed endlessly from her eyes.
Sunya stared blankly at the two of them. Anger still lingered in his gaze, but the killing intent was gone. He had given up on killing Enlil.
The surrounding gods decided the situation had, for the moment, been resolved. The aftermath would be a problem, but since no god had actually died, they figured things would work out somehow.
That was before a strange peal of laughter shook the heavens.
Far off in the distance — more precisely, from the direction of Enki's palace — a colossal waterspout had risen. With Enlil's palace half-destroyed, every god present could see it clearly.
"Wh-what is that?"
"An absurd divine rank…"
At the appearance of yet another overwhelming presence, the gods fell into disarray. Moments later, a vast storm opened its maw like a great dragon and swept through Enlil's palace.
"So it's you, is it? The one I'm supposed to put down?"
In an instant, a strange god came flying toward Sunya. A strikingly handsome man with bold features, black hair like a lion's mane, and four eyes. He seized Sunya by the face and rocketed away with him.
"Sunya!!"
Inanna cried out, but the storm that followed swallowed her voice whole. A violent tempest erupted along the trail Marduk left behind.
The God-Slayer Marduk had awakened from his long imprisonment.