Nurturing Humanity

Chapter 15

The Great Flood that Destroyed the World

“Seven days. God made all of this in just seven days!”

Gilgamesh was dumbfounded. Then he fell on the ground laughing. He laughed so hard that tears started to fall. He laughed hysterically.

At one point, it was as if he heard something within him shatter.

It was the sound of his heart breaking. In the final moments of his life, his arrogance and fractiousness were completely shattered.

There was simply no sorrow greater than the death of one’s heart.

“Seven days…” His hysterical laughter seemed to completely cloud his consciousness. The three questions now pulled him into a trance where he seemingly recalled the very first question that he had asked this giant when he stood on his palm as a youth.

“What is civilization?”

...

“Civilization is fire, civilization is knowledge, civilization is order, civilization is also the strongest power that intelligent species use to protect themselves.”

...

“Civilization is a power that intelligent species like us use to protect ourselves?”

...

Hahahaha!!

He started to laugh again, and the more he laughed, the louder he became. His laughter was carried on the breeze and traversed hills, passed steep mountains and gushing rivers, and was carried over to the verdant forests that swayed with the wind in the distance. His laughter could be heard over the lush rice fields and the endless, vast plains.

Wow!

The people of the savanna tribes, in the royal city and the mountains and forests, all looked up in silence.

In a trance, they all looked up at the sky with complex emotions in their hearts. It was as if they all heard the laughter of this dying Sumerian King. Countless people wept, wailed, and sang unknown Sumerian elegies to mourn the passing of the great king.

On this day, on the borders of the Uruk Kingdom, the Hero King of a great epic, Gilgamesh, had reached the end of his life. He would now become the dust of history.

Xu Zhi sighed as he watched the passing of this Hero King. “I’ve never wanted to fight you for anything. Whatever you wanted, all the questions you wanted to ask, I have always answered them all truthfully. I really don’t have any treasures that could enable you to live for eternity. Even I am on the verge of death. Did you really have to put yourself through such agony?

“The King is dead!”

“Our king, the greatest Hero King in history, Gilgamesh, who swung his sword at God, the creator of all things, has died!!”

“We have lost the war!”

Countless troops wailed as they frantically fled.

Xu Zhi chose not to give chase. After all, where could they possibly escape to? The borders of their world?

“Unbelievable! Unbelievable…”

Akkad, the historian, stood on the towering walls of Uruk City. He watched the great Hero King collapse and die and broke out in a cold sweat as he learned the horrible truth. “I must… I must record and document everything before I die and leave the truth about this world for our future generations.”

The historian was trembling all over. He was covered in cold sweat.

He had recorded the event of Gilgamesh’s challenge against the Great Beast of Wisdom. And now, with trembling hands, he flipped to the next page and quickly started recording a new chapter.

Recorded in The Genesis, chapter on The Fall of the Sumer Dynasty:

[The Great Beast of Wisdom was in fact, the true Creator of all things. In his old age, the arrogant and egoistic Gilgamesh wielded his sword at the Creator, albeit in vain. He wanted to attain immortality by consuming the blood of God. This eventually angered God, who saw how greatly the people on earth had sinned and thus made the decisive call to destroy the Sumerian civilization by sending a great flood that destroyed the world and put an end to all life.]

The sky was trembling.

All on earth was wailing.

In Uruk Kingdom, people were shrieking and weeping miserably. Those who couldn’t take it any longer began laughing hysterically. They transformed into devoted fanatics, fell to their knees, and began to pray in silence.

“God says that all men have sinned!”

“Repent!!! God will condemn us by dropping the sins into our arms, and the weight of it will crush down on our spines!”

“A great flood will destroy our world!”

In the anxious atmosphere, people were on tenterhooks. They were trembling and panicking. Emotions ran high, and the people were restless and fretful.

At this time, a young man wearing a black headband and carrying a blood-soaked package arrived at Xu Zhi’s feet. He opened the package and took out the severed head. “Great Beast of Wisdom, the King of the Forest, Enkidu, seeks your forgiveness.”

Xu Zhi was slightly taken aback.

Earlier on, he had wondered why only two of the three kings had come, while the King of the Forest had not made an appearance.

Utnapishtim knelt down and pleaded with him. He went down on all fours and said in a trembling voice, “We Sumerians are not purely barbaric. Our beloved teacher, Enkidu, has used his death to prove this point. He’d rather defy the decree than wield his sword at the benefactor who gave us our civilization. Not all of us are complete sinners. God, I beg you to show us mercy when meting out your divine punishment. Please allow the Sumerians a final chance for survival.”

Xu Zhi sighed when he heard about the chivalrous deed that the King of the Forest had carried out. In truth, he had never thought that Gilgamesh would be that crazy.

Nor had he ever intended to exterminate them. It was just that they were simply too reckless and presumptuous… But now, with such a challenge and unbridled insolence, with the tyrannical and barbaric behavior, they would have to pay the price for their own actions.

“Lead your men and build a Noah’s Ark with the giant Holy Tree. Leave behind a pair of seeds for every living species you can find in this world. Take all the living creatures you can find with you. Save the remaining space on board for the righteous people of the Great Forest City of Enkidu. When you are done, I will bring about a great flood that will immediately destroy this entire world.”

Xu Zhi turned and walked away.

The people were all trembling as their voices choked with emotion.

“We might have been defeated, but we are not going to become a lost nation, nor will we be completely exterminated. There is still a flame of hope left behind.”

“Thank you for showing mercy on us, our creator.”

“It is all thanks to Enkidu, King of the Forest. He had shown God that we do have goodness in us, that we are not entirely barbaric. There is still hope for salvation for us.”

“All hail Enkidu!”

“All hail the great King of the Forest!”

Akkad also wept with joy. At the sight of the giant’s departing back, he started to feel excited. With his pen in hand, he started writing.

Recorded in The Genesis, chapter on The Fall of the Sumer Dynasty:

[The benevolence of King of the Forest, Enkidu, had moved God, who was preparing to destroy the world. Thus, God decided to leave a glimmer of hope for the Sumerians, who had recklessly tried to go against him. God commanded Utnapishtim to build a Noah’s Ark to escape the great flood that would destroy the world.]

...

Xu Zhi returned to the courtyard and tidied things up.

He brought out the high-pressure water jet that was placed in a corner of the farmyard, the one that he had bought when he was out shopping with Chen Xi a while ago. It had never occurred to him that it would come in handy now.

At this very moment, in the mere ten minutes that Xu Zhi took to prepare the water jet, a hundred and twenty days had passed in the sandbox. Countless people were beginning to become accelerated afterimages as they moved rapidly to cut down the potted banyan tree to build a huge ark.

Then, they gathered the seeds of all living creatures, books, cubs of various great beasts, everything and anything that they could find. All of the species found in the entire world were being gathered and condensed into this huge Noah’s Ark that they had constructed.

“Fortunately, there aren’t too many places. Places with lives are quite concentrated. It’s time to start cleaning up.” He walked into the sandbox, and then stood at a distance of more than ten meters away, raised the high-pressure water jet, and sprayed it at everything in the way.

Boom!

Snow-white streams of water, subjected to high pressure, spurted towards the city-state where civilization was to be found.

Tap, tap, tap!!

Huge swathes of trees fell, while the giant city collapsed within an instant. Countless beasts were fleeing out of the forest, trying in vain to outrun the monstrous white flood that was closing in on them from behind. Yet they were eventually drowned by the great flood.

Heaven and Earth seemed to change color.

Everything was snow-white and so vast.

“When God saw how greatly man has sinned on the earth, he sent down a great flood from heaven and destroyed all living things.”

Utnapishtim led the people on board the Ark and looked up at the sky in shock. That was an incomparably horrifying scene. It was as if the windows of heaven were open and water was pouring out from a great abyss that had been cracked open.

Countless streams of snow-white water poured down from the white clouds in the sky and washed over the entire land.

Other than the Ark that remained suspended above the vast seawater, the entire world had been immersed in the white foaming currents.