They no longer even dared hope for more shelter and blessing.
They only begged that the great God-King would once more send that warm, sacred fire down into the mortal world.
But all of it was in vain.
Crying and pleading are useless on the cruel road of civilization's advance.
And at the edge of ruin, clarity is born. Many understood this deeply.
It was not that they did not wish to pin their hopes on the gods.
But they knew even better that, if all they did was kneel here and wail, no god would deign to turn a pitying gaze toward humankind, not even for an instant.
Everything is weighed by deeds, not words.
If humankind wished to win back the gods' favor, they could only prove by their own actions that they were still worthy of divine love.
And Epimetheus had been right.
No matter what one leans on, or whom one leans on, nothing compares to leaning on oneself.
Only oneself will never abandon oneself.
And only if one does not first abandon oneself can one, in the end, win another's help.
Heaven helps those who help themselves.
Under the leadership of those who had truly become the backbone, all humans—willing or not—were mobilized.
Regardless of age or sex, everyone had to do what lay within their power.
Whether building tribal defenses, risking their lives to gather food, or teaching survival skills within the tribe…
no one could be idle, and even collapse was not allowed.
Everyone had to act!
For the survival and growth of all, everyone had to unite and squeeze out the last drop of strength to resist every visible and unseen danger and hardship!
Anyone who clashed with this highest goal, whoever they were and for whatever reason, would be dealt with by the tribal leaders in the harshest ways.
On the road of growth, there are always hard "choices"—for individuals and for civilizations alike.
Often they can only choose the option that, in truth, leaves them no real choice at all.
Thus, amid blood and tears and suffering, humankind began, stumbling, its first true "mortal" growth.
Suffering in itself is never worth praising.
But the courage and tenacity that overcome suffering, the wisdom and steel that master it, are worthy of praise forever.
Civilization's survival and progress can never be separated from that resilience rooted deep in the blood and that great courage that faces hardship head-on.
Every hymn of civilization is a hymn to courage; every glory of civilization is the glory of endurance; every radiance of civilization is the radiance of wisdom.
Along that path of growth, sacrifice and loss and pain and sweat are inevitable—and detours as well.
But so long as they keep walking, so long as every hardship standing before civilization is overcome,
the road ahead can only grow broader and smoother; the sky of tomorrow can only grow brighter and brighter.
Those who come later, the newly born, will walk more easily and more smoothly.
Because in this cold, silent night, their forebears have already lit civilization's road with their lives.
Ancestors were not always right; ancient ways are not always good. Yet the spirit of hacking through thorns, of toughness and self-strength, is forever worthy of respect and inheritance.
The days slipped by, one after another.
The weeping had once grown so loud it seemed it would drown the sky.
Yet, quietly, the time spent weeping grew shorter.
Despairing howls slowly gave way to stifled sobs; and powerless sobbing was, in the end, replaced by a silent, teeth-clenched resolve.
The power of habit is terrifying—terrifying enough that even "death" itself can become something one slowly gets used to.
And the resilience of a truly intelligent civilization is likewise formidable—formidable enough that not even the ultimate fear, "death," can truly defeat it.
Humankind did not disappoint Zeus.
Those many small tribes whose people had survived the "day the fire was lost" could no longer live alone under the threat of greater predators.
They began merging, forming far larger clans than anything before.
They now clearly understood: small tribes simply could not survive in this brutal world.
Only by uniting more people, only by gathering all strength into a single rope, could they even hope to face this wild land riddled with lurking dangers.
With time, after paying a price in blood and tears beyond imagining, humankind finally learned how to face this "real" world.
At last they learned how to meet that bone-stabbing cold.
They began strengthening their caves and storing more hides.
At last they learned how to meet the endless dark.
They began relying on moonlight and starlight, and started taming animals that could give warnings at night.
At last they learned how to meet the madness of hunger.
They began consciously storing food, designing more complex traps, weaving tighter nets, and crafting stronger tools.
They finally learned to meet the beasts' attacks with more cunning and caution, and to face strange and terrifying new dangers with more watchful composure…
Behind everything they had learned lay a terrible price.
The accumulated deaths and sacrifices could not be counted and soaked every step of civilization's faltering beginning.
Yet in the forge of blood and fire, under the gaze of the gods, humankind at last, for the first time, raised the spine of "self-reliance" that belonged to them alone.
By their own actions they proved that even without the shelter of divine fire, they could still live independently in this world.
By that same tenacity they strove to show the gods above that they were still a people worthy of divine care and love.
But in the third month after losing the warm holy fire, a crisis humankind truly could not withstand arrived.
From the deep sea, the offspring of Pontus—his son, the Sea's Storming Fury, Phorcys, and his daughter, the sea-monster goddess Ceto—
these two gods embodying the sea's unspeakable terror and chaos—
their child, the Deep-Sea Wight (also called "Abyssal Chanter")—Absu Naya—
this was a unique daughter born at the place where the mantle of the sea-bed and the primordial waters met, a goddess symbolizing the deformations of the deep.
She was the "boundary between sea's calm and terror": when the sea is calm to the extreme, she is the first awakened, lurking horror, the symbol of "the abyssal will hidden beneath the tranquil surface."
She took the form of a "maiden."
Her upper body was that of a holy young girl, with long hair like the flowing glow of the deep ocean, the tips sprinkled with faint blue phosphorescent motes.
And… perhaps in keeping with the deep sea family's "fine" tradition, she, too, wore not a thread.
Only, by her "specs"… let it be said, even small can be very cute.
Her lower body, however, was something indescribable and unspeakable—an uncanny phantom of water, neither quite whale-tail, nor fish-tail, nor tentacles.
That phantom had no fixed shape—sometimes becoming countless tangled black tentacles, sometimes a huge tail fin marked with eerie star-patterns.
With the slightest motion, she could raise a "reversed tide," forcing the sea to part to either side and baring the fearsome deep-sea abyss below.
Half her face was a beauty to intoxicate the world; the other half was a monstrous visage of terror.
Fangs jutted from jaws rimmed with dark violet scales, her mouth splitting all the way to her ears.
Her eyes had no pupils, only the eternal whorl of reflected tides.
Her skin was covered in fine dark-violet scales, each inlaid with flecks of black starlight that brightened and dimmed with every breath.
From her shoulders grew two pairs of savage bone-wings.
Their membranes were a translucent ink-black, shot through with eerie lines like glowing blood vessels.
Whenever she spread them, "abyssal ichor" would drip down and, upon mingling with the water, become countless "small" and extremely aggressive deepwater monsters.
She was the sort of goddess who would make Poseidon's eyes shine the moment he saw her.
As for His Majesty the God-King… He would, at best, look only at her upper half—and only at one side of that face.
The ones bringing disaster to humankind, of course, were not Absu Naya herself.
Though she was just a "little calamity," to humankind as they were now, she was still something they absolutely could not afford to offend.
If she wanted to destroy them, it would take no more than a casual slap of her tail (or tentacles).
Moreover, though she was the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto, she was not bloodthirsty.
She merely liked absolute stillness—and wished, in passing, to bring that eternal "abyssal calm" to other living things.
Most of the time, she preferred to curl up at home, asleep on the sea floor.
This time, the first to bring humankind disaster were the "little ones" born from the dripping ichor on her bone-wings.
They might be counted as her children.
These little ones came in many shapes, growing with wild creativity, perfectly suited to the deep sea's chaotic fecundity.
They were collectively known as the "Abyssal Whelps."
This swarm of creatures, though not true gods and not very wise, were still divine beings—one type of divine monster.
In water they were exceptionally dangerous, usually roaming in groups of three and five throughout rivers, lakes, and seas.
And not a single human tribe could exist far from rivers and streams.
"Water" is an indispensable element of mortal life, not to be missed for even a single day.
Once, within the reach of the holy fire's glow, these little monsters had never appeared anywhere near human dwellings.
Now they very much wanted to taste the flesh of these "intelligent beings."
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