Divine Manifestation
The collision of two mighty divinities shook the world.
The surrounding skies seethed with thunderclouds swollen with lightning, white light bursting through the gaps as storms howled between them. With every clash and separation of those two distant points, thunder cracked loud enough to make the ears ring.
"……"
Even a god, watching such a spectacle, might have felt reverence — or terror. But Enki, observing from afar, felt only a complicated tangle of emotions.
It was late to admit it, but Enki did not particularly dislike Sunya. The man himself seemed largely indifferent to such things, yet he had endured the stigma of a lesser god, concealing his true divinity and keeping himself deliberately humble. Contrary to the wariness Enki had first felt toward him, Sunya's nature was remarkably gentle. He helped others without a second thought, and when someone was struggling, he never withheld sincere counsel. One could not claim he was entirely free of ulterior motives — but even so, Enki saw him as a good man.
In truth, Sunya's present fury was entirely understandable. And still, Enki had awakened Marduk and set him against Sunya for the sake of a greater cause: to prevent the far larger chaos that would follow if Enlil were killed. Things had simply twisted themselves into this mess along the way.
"Was Father always that strong?"
Ashur asked Inanna. The other siblings present said nothing, but the same question had settled in each of their minds. Of course they knew their father was skilled in martial arts. But they had always regarded that skill as an extension of his delicate craftsmanship — a craftsman's hands, nothing more. In the society of the gods, the true measure of power was authority. Being good with one's limbs hardly left an impression of genuine strength. And since Sunya had never been one to boast, his children had known him only as a mild, gentle father — the opposite of their fierce mother.
That was why the man he had become today felt so utterly foreign. The overwhelming divinity, the exalted godhood that put even theirs to shame — those were strange enough. But more than anything, the sight of a man who used polite speech even with his own children looking down upon the King of Gods and spitting merciless invective… that was someone else entirely.
"I don't know exactly how strong Sunya is either. In all our sparring, he never once went all out. But if I tell you that even when I used my full authority, I never beat him a single time — does that help?"
"…Mother never won even once?"
"Isn't that just because Mom was always pregnant?"
Nanaya raised the objection, and Inanna lightly smacked her forehead with the edge of her hand.
"Is this really the time for that? Hmm?"
"Tch…"
"Anyway — looking at how aggressively your dad is using his authority, that Marduk kid must be pretty strong."
Inanna turned her gaze toward Enki.
"How the hell did you keep him hidden all this time? No — why did you hide him?"
"…Marduk was too strong. My father believed he would become a threat to the other gods. And Marduk himself was never particularly good at listening to anyone, so I couldn't say the concern was wrong. So we kept him locked deep inside the palace until now."
At this point, Enki felt he owed them some measure of the truth. He had, after all, made the situation worse — and keeping silent now would have been thoroughly irresponsible.
"You locked up your own son because he was dangerous? I didn't take you for that kind of guy, Grandpa Enki. Turns out you're more irresponsible than I thought."
Even under Inanna's sarcasm, Enki could only smile bitterly and say nothing. Revealing his shameful past left him embarrassed — and, somehow, relieved.
"Well, there's nothing we can do right now. You'd better hope my husband wins, Grandpa Enki."
"…Because if he doesn't, you won't sit still?"
"Yeah. That's right. If anything happens that puts Sunya's life at risk, even I don't know what I'll do."
"……"
Inanna meant every word. Looking at that chillingly expressionless face, Enki swallowed dryly. The other gods nearby quietly watched her for cues, careful not to draw her attention.
Marduk was the god of storms and order. His divinity contained elements of both destruction and regeneration, making him as paradoxical and multifaceted as Sunya or Inanna. Because of this, no matter how grievous the wound, he would not die easily — and he could recover in an instant.
As his epithet suggested, Marduk's authority was dominion over the wind. The winds he commanded came in seven kinds:
The cutting wind.
The shielding wind.
The pushing wind.
The pulling wind.
The scorching wind.
The freezing wind.
And the whirling wind.
By combining each of these, Marduk could unleash disasters of devastating force.
No longer content with three or four measured swings of his wind-blades, Marduk now sprayed them wildly toward Sunya in a relentless barrage. Invisible blades of wind came in swarms, yet Sunya calmly swept his arms and struck down only those that would truly reach him. Then massive tornadoes rose from every direction — and Sunya slipped through the gaps between them with the sinuous precision of an eel.
The moment Sunya closed the distance, Marduk retreated, maintaining the gap while continuing to fire wind-blades. Even for Sunya, there were limits to how much he could dodge or deflect when an opponent who had awakened the Mind's Eye was spraying blades at point-blank range. Cuts began to open across his body.
Shallow. He's too hard.
Blades that had once casually carved most gods and monsters to pieces barely left a mark on Sunya.
Then — a white meteor came screaming from behind Marduk. He threw up a barrier of wind to deflect it, but the residual force of a mere graze was enough to hurl him backward. And in the space where Marduk had been thrown, Sunya was already standing.
Marduk hurriedly crossed both arms and wrapped himself in a wind-barrier, but the heavy fist punched straight through the wind and crushed his forearm. The impact sent him flying again, against his will. And in that tumbling vision, he saw hundreds of pure-white hands of light blooming into existence around Sunya.
Hands that fly through empty air…
That was the true form of the white meteor that had struck him from behind. It had to be Sunya's authority. And these were no mere hands to be dismissed. Other gods had understood Sunya's hands as a power for increasing workload or labor — but Marduk, having been hit by them, knew better. Those hands were not for grasping or crafting. They were hands made for striking.
Like a meteor shower, Sunya's hands rained down upon Marduk. Continuous explosions followed, punching vast holes through the thunderclouds nearby. Somehow regenerating his torn and scattered body, Marduk barely escaped the bombardment's range — only for Sunya to appear above him and drive a leg downward. Marduk managed to raise an arm to block, and of course the forearm snapped. But he had blocked it, which meant he could counter.
A savage cold radiated outward from Marduk. It was a chill fierce enough to freeze even the clouds and the dew — yet, as expected, Sunya showed no sign of freezing. Still, he moved to put distance between them. Then Marduk injected a heat-blast capable of melting stone into the frigid, condensed air — and a vast explosion erupted. A white sphere bloomed, driving back the thunderclouds and punching a momentary hole through the sky.
"Kyaaaaah?!"
"What in the world…"
The blast's aftershock reached even the gods watching from a distance. Aside from Inanna, her children, and high-ranking deities like Enki, most of the gods were swept away by the storm's residual force.
"Guh…"
Even Marduk, who had triggered the explosion, took a hit severe enough to tear away half his body. But it seemed the blast had not dealt Sunya nearly as much damage as hoped. Before Marduk's eyes, a vast, thick wall had risen — a palm so enormous that his current field of vision could not contain it all.
Marduk regenerated his body at once and swung a wind-blade far larger than any before. The giant palm split in two and vanished — and through the gap, hundreds of fists of light poured down. Marduk answered by forging hundreds of wind-blades to cancel them out. Through the chain of explosions that followed, Sunya closed the distance in an instant and was already swinging his fist.
Boom. Crack. Crunch.
Sunya's flurry of blows continued. Smoke rose from his body, still scorched by the earlier blast. Marduk refused to yield and plunged into a brawl, generating wind-blades at precisely the right moments to carve into Sunya. As time passed, the wounds on Sunya's body multiplied. And yet his momentum did not diminish in the slightest. He still crushed Marduk's skull, tore free his limbs, and punched holes through his chest.
He's strong.
Even as death drew nearer, Marduk felt pure admiration. He had never, in all his life, been struck by fists this powerful. Each blow transmitted itself into the very core of his existence. And that hardened body showed no sign of breaking — no matter how savagely it was carved, it endured with stubborn resolve. The authority was simple, and devastating. Utterly impenetrable.
To think he could be this strong…
Born powerful from the start, Marduk had always regarded even his own kin as fragile clumps of earth — things that would crumble if he applied even a little force. How could he form attachments, or treat them as equals, knowing that? Tiamat had been the only true adversary he had known, but to Marduk she was less a person than an incomprehensible monster — a beast. And so, within the bounds of what he recognized as a person, Sunya was the being closest to himself.
To fight such an opponent halfheartedly would be a failure of principle.
Marduk caught Sunya's fist. Sunya was not surprised. Through the Mind's Eye, he had already sensed what state Marduk was in.
"I'll admit it. You're an opponent worth my full power."
Marduk's eyes blazed. With a strength incomparable to anything before, he clenched Sunya's fist and hurled him the opposite way. Sunya flew a distance, then stopped midair and settled into a stance. Marduk was still simply watching him.
"Consider it an honor. The only ones who've made me draw this out are you and Tiamat."
Marduk exhaled a long, deep breath and spoke in a low voice.
As he spoke, two pairs of wings bloomed from Marduk's back. Wings, yes — but not the kind birds used for flight. Fashioned of blue light, they were beautiful, yet closer to a phenomenon than a physical form, and served no practical function. In truth, they were little more than ornamentation. Of course, no one who saw them would dare dismiss them as mere decoration.
"…This time, I am a little surprised."
Sunya understood. Marduk's wings were a transcendent divinity given visual form — a kind of empowered state. The drain on his energy would be severe, putting him at a disadvantage in a prolonged fight, but…
"I suppose that won't matter…"
Countless storm-blades surged forth and began to tear Sunya apart.