Far to the north, in Uruk, King Kur saw the waters not as a cataclysm, but as the ultimate engineering problem. He stood on his ziggurat, the highest point in his world, and commanded Lagnun to reinforce the walls, to build the dikes higher.
"The water is a force like any other!" Kur roared over the storm. "It can be measured! It can be controlled!"
Lagnun, the Builder, ran the calculations on his wax tablet, his fingers frantic. The numbers spiraled into impossibility. "The force… the volume… it is not a river, my king. It is the ocean itself come to land. The model… it does not hold! The city is a lost cause! We must abandon the experiment!"
Kur's face, for a moment, was a mask of pure, incandescent fury. To abandon his masterpiece was a physical agony. But then, the fury cooled, replaced by a glacial, pragmatic calm. The King looked from his crumbling walls to the desperate, loyal core of his architects and soldiers. The data was clear. The experiment had failed. It was time to preserve the primary asset: his own vision.
"A strategic withdrawal," Kur stated, his voice cutting through the storm. "Gather the core schematics. We are not fleeing. We are relocating the hypothesis."
The last thing Enki's witnessing gaze perceived from the distant city was the terrifying, illogical sight of Uruk's perfect walls cracking from within. From his hilltop miles away, it was the final, shuddering death of a titan. He saw no frantic escape, only the mountain of brick succumbing, and he knew, with a witness's certainty, that the King and his Builder must be entombed within. The Hand That Shapes the Mountain had been buried. Or so the Witness believed.