Countless points of ghostly blue light converged into a massive river of light, crashing open the gates leading to the Land of the Dead, pouring down towards the Netherworld.
Souls! Tens of thousands of souls!
And most of them are humans!
Seeing the faces in the river of light, some in pain, some twisted, some confused, some indignant, the Three Goddesses sprang up in shock, hastily activating their Authority to communicate with the departed souls to learn the cause of their deaths.
Soon, from the mouths of these departed souls, they learned the truth of the matter.
——Uruk City has been annihilated!
And the one who did it was Enlil, the Lord of Spirit and Air, one of the Three Pillar Gods.
At the same time, he is also the Guardian God of Uruk City and the father of the Moon God Sin.
He was the first to make a move? And he chose Uruk City?
Truly, as the legend goes, not behaving like a human at all.
In a corner unnoticed by the Three Goddesses, Luo En smirked and shook his head, his eyes full of mockery.
According to ancient records, the moon-worshiping trend once thrived in the Two River Basin, especially in the Uruk City area. The Moon God Sin therefore became the most revered Great God locally, and the Guardian God in the Uruk City state.
Bloodwise, Enlil, one of the Three Pillar Gods, is his biological father.
However, the birth of the Moon God Sin was not honorable; his mother Ningal was walking by the Styx, was first violated by Enlil, and then abandoned by him before giving birth to him.
Because the deed was so atrocious, Enlil was criticized and punished by the gods and served time in the Netherworld.
Already narrow-minded, he held a grudge and despised his son, the Moon God Sin, greatly.
The Moon God Sin knew he was not favored, so he maintained a low-profile style, not fond of flaunting, living like a moon obscured by layers of clouds.
But as the tree wishes to remain still, the wind does not cease; the Moon God Sin did not wish to conflict with Enlil, but he had many believers, and Uruk City was close to Nippur City, making conflict of beliefs inevitable.
Now Nippur has declined, and Uruk City has risen, making Enlil feel threatened, as if his superior position was being challenged. Thus, he enacted divine punishment, brutally destroying the city-state of Uruk protected by the Moon God Sin and his believers.
This is the beginning and end of the matter, and it is one of the major events clearly recorded in Babylonian Mythology.
Even if Enlil had restrained himself, the Heavenly God Anu, Earth God Enki, and Divine King Marduk—among other Babylonian Old Gods with their shaken status—might not have been able to hold back.
Because Babylonian Mythology possesses a feature unmatched by other mythologies: the cruelty and indifference of deities towards humans.
In the Two River Basin, the original sin theory prevails; humans were merely created as slaves to replace the deities of lower status. Since the beginning of creation, it was preordained that humans could only possess limited and short-lived lives. Simply put, to the deities of Babylon, humans were just tools or laborers.
According to records, Enlil, one of the Three Pillar Gods, in the early days, for a simple reason—humans were too noisy—ordered the extermination of all mankind by a great flood. Fortunately, the Earth God Enki, mercifully helped a family of mortals named "Zusudra," teaching them to make an ark, narrowly escaping this catastrophe.
But even having barely survived, Zusudra’s family did not dare to return to the surface and challenge Enlil’s wrath.
Instead, Aile took pity, concealing the existence of this family, allowing them to live at the edge of the still waters of the Netherworld, and bestowed upon them the ability to resist death.
When Gilgamesh descended to the Netherworld, it was from Zusudra, the long-lived one, that he learned of the existence of the Immortal Spirit Grass.
After the great flood, humans repopulated and, to make it easier for deities to descend to earth, and for humans to reach the heavens, they began building a giant tower—"Dingir La Tower." The Babylonian Gods misunderstood this as a human rebellion attempt, thus they destroyed the giant tower, causing innumerable deaths and injuries.
Even when the truth was known after the fact, no deity stood up to take responsibility for it.
This shows that in the eyes of the Sumerians, the deities were not only cold but fundamentally untrusting of any human action.
Being ruled by such tormentors, humans truly experienced generations of bad luck, living in deep waters and scorching fire every day.
Even without actual blasphemy or disrespect, just walking on the road and encountering a deity in a bad mood could lead to being treated as a roadside ant, casually kicked twice, or crushed to death directly.
Unfortunately, Uruk City became a living example this time.
Regarding this result, Luo En was not surprised, he had anticipated it.
Under his intentional maneuvering, Babylon, guarded by the Divine King Marduk, shifted towards the Sun God Utu, Uruk, guarded by the Heavenly God Anu, grew estranged, Elie, under the Earth God Enki, progressively declined, and Nippur City, favored by the Lord of Spirit and Air Enlil, fell from grace, nothing more than a speck.
Conversely, Uruk City of the Moon God Sin, the Nineveh City of Ishtar, and Kuza guarded by Aile were gradually rising, with a tendency to unite and sweep through the city-states of the entire Two River Basin.
Common critters crawling by their feet, full of disdain and aversion from the gods.
But now, as they depart one by one, setting up new establishments, how could the proud Babylonian Pantheon of Gods tolerate this?
So, a divine punishment to assert authority was bound to occur.
The only question is where it would land, and when.
This was Luo En’s plan, to prepare the way for the enemy’s inevitable demise.
He only needed to maintain a human-like moral standard and gently guide the development of Babylon. Then, he wouldn’t need to do anything as the Babylonian Old Gods, used to oppression and control, would make mistakes of their own and split from within.
Where there is oppression, there is resistance.
Where there is comparison, there is competition.
When humans and the reforming Babylonian deities are smashed by the conservative faction’s iron fist, they will miss their abandoned "old mother"—Tiamat.
At least, during the time of this old mother’s existence, they could somewhat live without being constantly beaten up.
After all, there is a difference between the non-human and the human-like.
Indeed, overestimating their integrity, they couldn’t sit still in just a few months, directly laying a hand on mortals.
But, this is also beneficial.
Next, it’s time to welcome the return of the most merciful and benevolent Great Mother Goddess Tiamat, to rebuild her divine body, and to set things right again!
Luo En tried hard to suppress the corners of his mouth, which were harder to control than an AK, displaying a heartbroken expression to the Three Goddesses:
"As fellow offspring of the Mother Gods, how could they do this? The world should not be !"
"Exactly! Too outrageous!"
The Three Goddesses, filled with righteous indignation, slammed the table in unison, directing their fiery gazes towards the divine realm looming in the sky.