Countless nobles and merchants waved their purses, frantically placing orders with him.
Faced with their questioning, Una made no effort to hide it and credited everything to that new god outside the city.
"It was Lord Seiji Fujiwara! He granted me the technique of a god!"
"Offer him a price, and you too can have everything you want!"
His words were highly inflammatory.
A living, breathing example of overnight riches stood right before their eyes, far more convincing than the empty, ethereal "blessings of the gods" that the priests spoke of.
More and more people, those driven to a dead end or those harboring greed, began to slip out to the black pyramid outside the city.
A dying patient traded half his own soul for a healthy body.
A low-ranking noble hungry for power traded his family's loyalty for a piece of secret intelligence that would bring down a political rival.
A prostitute traded all the children she would ever bear in the future for beauty that could topple kingdoms.
In the span of a few short days, Seiji's "Temple of Equivalent Exchange" gnawed at Uruk's existing system of faith like a malignant tumor.
This finally roused the panic and fury of the priests of the old gods.
Inside Uruk's great temple, several dozen priests of exalted rank gathered together, led by the high priest of the sky god Anu, an old man whose face was covered in wrinkles.
"We can no longer let that false god run free!"
"He is stealing the faith that belongs to the gods! He is corrupting the king's people with the bargains of a devil!"
"He must be subjected to divine punishment! Let him learn who the true master of this land is!"
The high priest's face was grim. He turned to the captain of the temple guard, a burly warrior seasoned by countless battles.
"Bashum, take your men and tear down that black tower built by sorcery! Drag that liar who calls himself a god back here to face the judgment of the sky god Anu!"
"As you command, High Priest!"
The captain named Bashum, his eyes brimming with fanatical devotion to the gods, immediately mustered three hundred fully armed temple guards and set out toward the city's edge in a menacing column.
The movement of this force instantly drew the eyes of the whole city.
Everyone wanted to see who would win the first head-on clash between the old god and the new.
Before the black pyramid.
Bashum looked at the magnificent structure giving off its ominous aura, and a flicker of wariness crossed his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by fanatical faith.
"You inside, listen!" He raised his battle-axe high and bellowed. "You blasphemous heretics! Come out and die at once! Otherwise, we will raze this place to the ground!"
The temple's great door slid open without a sound.
But the one who walked out was not Seiji Fujiwara. It was Jeanne Alter, clad in a black gothic gown, the banner of hatred in her hand.
Her golden dragon eyes swept coldly over the three hundred guards before her, as if looking at a heap of... garbage.
"You ants think you have the right to disrespect my Master?"
Her voice was not loud, yet it carried a bone-piercing chill and a presence that made men tremble.
A single glance from her left Bashum's skin crawling, but he steeled himself and roared, "Who are you? Tell that liar named Seiji Fujiwara to get out here!"
"Liar?" Jeanne Alter let out a scornful snort, as if she had heard the funniest joke in the world. "The existence of my Master is not something mortals like you are fit to discuss."
"Enough talk! At her! Kill this witch!"
Bashum gave an enraged roar and was the first to charge, axe raised. The three hundred guards charged after him.
Faced with this elite force, one that could trample any house in Uruk flat, Jeanne Alter didn't even bother to move.
She merely... gently planted the banner in her hand into the ground.
"...La Grondement Du Haine!"
A roar split the air.
Black flames surged like a tide from hell, sweeping across the entire battlefield in an instant with the banner at their center.
These flames did not scorch flesh. They ignited the deepest depths of the soldiers' hearts directly: hatred, fear, rage, and every other negative emotion.
"Aaaaaah!"
Bashum, at the very front of the charge, felt his eyes go bloodred in an instant. Every humiliating scene of being betrayed by comrades, of being crushed by superiors, flashed through his mind, those emotions magnified a thousandfold.
"Die! All of you, die!"
He spun around and split the skull of the adjutant beside him, the one he was closest to, clean in two with a single swing.
Tragedy played out across the entire army.
The soldiers went mad, turning on one another, hacking with blades and stabbing with spears, treating their dearest comrades as mortal enemies.
There were no screams, only crazed howls and the sound of weapons sinking into flesh.
The whole battlefield became a living hell of mutual slaughter.
The citizens and priests of Uruk watching from the walls were all struck dumb with terror.
What had they just seen?
That woman had merely planted a banner in the ground, and three hundred elite soldiers... had slaughtered each other to the last man?
What kind of eerie, terrifying power was this?
A few minutes later, only Bashum remained on the battlefield, drenched in blood and gasping for breath.
He stared blankly at the corpses littering the ground, the madness in his eyes slowly fading, replaced by endless fear.
Jeanne Alter walked slowly up to him and looked down on him from above.
"Go back and tell your master."
"Next time you want to play with my Master, send some toys worth the trouble."
"Otherwise, I won't mind... burning that great temple of yours down too."
With that, she turned and walked back into the temple, and the huge black door closed once more.
It left Bashum alone, shaking like a sieve amid the mountain of his comrades' corpses.
The old gods' first probe ended in utter defeat, in the most brutal and humiliating way possible.
Three hundred temple guards had killed one another before the black pyramid, the entire force wiped out.
This news shook all of Uruk to its core, like an earthquake of the highest magnitude.
The great temple priests who had been clamoring to judge the "false god" fell silent as cicadas in the cold, their faces ashen, every last one of them.
They finally realized that the power held by this Seiji Fujiwara, and by that "witch" under his command, was something they could not begin to understand, let alone resist.
Panic began to spread through Uruk's upper ranks.
Yet Uruk's king, Gilgamesh, was calmer than anyone.
At the summit of the Ziggurat.
He heard out the high priestess Siduri's report on the carnage outside the city and only gave a flat grunt of acknowledgment.
"My King, that false god's power is too eerie. We..." Siduri's face was full of worry.
"Eerie?" Gilgamesh gave a light snort, and instead a flicker of interest showed at the corner of his mouth. "In this king's view, I would call it efficient."
"To make an army destroy itself without spending a single soldier. That technique is far more interesting than those foolish gods who can only send down floods and plagues."
Siduri was taken aback. She hadn't expected the king to assess it this way.
"But my King, his doctrine of equivalent exchange is shaking the very foundation of your rule, the very foundation of Uruk!"
"Foundation?" Gilgamesh rose from his throne, walked to the edge of the Ziggurat, and looked down on his kingdom. "Siduri, understand this. Uruk's foundation is not the gods high in the heavens. It is the humans living upon this land, and it is this king!"
"That man is indeed a tremendous threat. But he has shown tremendous value as well."
"The creative power to build a pyramid in a single night, knowledge never before heard of, and that power to manipulate the hearts of men... if it could be turned to my use, it would be a great aid against the destiny that is coming."
Gilgamesh turned, his golden pupils sharp as an eagle's.
"Siduri."
"Yes, my King."
"You will go in this king's place to meet that false god."
"Carry this king's sincerity, and this king's majesty as well. This king wants to see whether he is a kindred spirit worth working with, or a virus that must be eradicated as soon as possible."
"I understand, my King."
Siduri bowed and accepted the command.
Half an hour later, a small but extremely ceremonious envoy set out from the palace toward the black pyramid outside the city.
At its head was Gilgamesh's most trusted high priestess, Siduri.
Her arrival came as a mild surprise to Seiji within the temple.
"Gilgamesh's envoy? He really can keep his composure." Seiji sat on his throne, regarding the intelligent, capable woman below with keen interest.
Siduri offered a bow, neither servile nor haughty.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Lord Seiji Fujiwara. I come by order of Uruk's king, the King of Heroes Gilgamesh, to call upon you."
Her gaze swept quickly across the great hall, and when it landed on the few Servants of terrifying presence standing at Seiji's side, her heart clenched.
She could feel that any one of them here was likely no weaker than Uruk's strongest warrior.
"Oh? The King of Heroes, supreme above heaven and earth, has finally deigned to set aside that ridiculous arrogance of his?" Seiji's tone was flippant.
Siduri's brow furrowed slightly, but she kept to her manners. "My King holds great admiration for your power and wisdom. The King believes that, in opposing a threat common to all humanity, there may be a possibility of cooperation between us."
"Cooperation?" Seiji smiled. "Sounds fine. But cooperation is built on a foundation of equal standing between two parties. Your king doesn't seem to grasp the situation yet."
"Does he think he's still the only king on this Mesopotamian plain?"
Arrogant!
Arrogant beyond measure!
Siduri drew a deep breath and pressed down her displeasure.
"Then, Lord Seiji, what would it take for you to believe in our sincerity?"
"Very simple."
Seiji snapped his fingers.
In the air before him, a crystal-clear moving image suddenly appeared.
In the image was a bustling modern metropolis, beasts of steel (automobiles) speeding along smooth roads, the nighttime city bright as day, people dressed in all manner of clothing she had never seen before...
Siduri's pupils contracted sharply!
What magic was this? It could conjure such a real illusion out of thin air?
No... this was no illusion! She could feel that the image held within it the true and undeniable rules of a world!
"What is this... place?" Her voice came out a little dry.
"My homeland. A world with no gods, one humanity built through its own wisdom," Seiji said flatly.
"Do you see? This is the true future of humanity. And you... your age, including the king you take such pride in, and that crowd of gods up in the heavens, are nothing but the past, about to be cast aside by history."
"Gilgamesh wants to work with me? Fine."
Seiji stood, looking down on the utterly shaken Siduri, and said each word with deliberate weight:
"Let him lead all of Uruk in swearing allegiance to me."
"Honor me as the one and only god."
"That is my condition."
Honor him as the one and only god?
Make the King of Heroes Gilgamesh swear allegiance to him?
Siduri felt her mind go blank.
Never in her life had she heard words so arrogant, so monstrously treasonous!
But for some reason, looking at the cold, confident eyes of the man on the throne, and recalling that soul-shaking image of the "future," she found she could not refute him on the spot.
Because what the other side had shown her was already entirely beyond the dimension of her understanding.
This was an attack from a higher dimension.
"...I will convey your condition to my King exactly as stated."
It was a long while before Siduri forced these words out of her throat. She knew this meeting had no further point. What the other side had thrown down was not a negotiable condition at all. It was an ultimatum.
"Good. I'll await his reply."
Seiji waved a hand, signaling that she could leave.
Watching Siduri lead the envoy away, soul-stricken, the smile at the corner of Seiji's mouth deepened.
Of course he knew Gilgamesh couldn't possibly agree.
The reason he had put forward this condition was to slam the door on any "peaceful negotiation" for good, to lay the conflict between the two sides out in the open.
He didn't need a partner.
What he wanted was complete and total ownership of this world!
...