Chapter 218: Chapter 217: The Law Of Death Part 2

As Nergal finished talking to Carl in absentia, he started speaking the ancient language again, though much slower than Carl had been able to do with his various parts working together.

Gradually the gates played out the same pattern in reverse, the six at the back splaying out to form a circle around the speaker, then tightening to form a complete circle and then sinking into the ground one-by-one.

When the final one disappeared into the ground, it revealed the last face Nergal wanted to see, that of Gilgamesh.

“Gilgamesh, leave. Things will get messy if you stay.”

“True, even one-armed, you are too much for me. I simply felt a strange power of familiar origin and came to investigate the source. How much death could have possibly happened on this already dead rock to bring you here and make you open all your gates.”

“I believe around a trillion over the years between all sentient species…”

“A trillion…” Gilgamesh echoed the number with a whistle. “…That’s a big number. How many are about to die, between all the sentient species?”

“Roughly three point nine septillion.”

Gilgamesh almost choked on the number, he had intended to laugh it off and mock Nergal with whatever he said, but the defeated look and unmistakable ring of absolute honesty made him falter.

“Why do I get the feeling that’s every sentient life in existence?”

“It is. You should go hold those you hold dear, I have to go notify Carl’s family of his passing.”

Gilgamesh choked on Nergal’s words yet again. “That human died? How?”

Nergal burst into another fit of laughter, though it was far more than half-crazed this time round.

“I guess you could say suicide? Or was it filicide? or simply the erasure of a mistake?”

Gilgamesh was twitching with a rage he had not felt since learning the truth of his origins. “What the hell do you mean by “suicide” and “filicide”? There is no way that half-blood spawn of Lillim, nor the frail descendent of Faylorna could ever kill that boy, nor I think would they even try.”

“You truly are a fool Gilgamesh, did you already forget that the boy is an orphan? Have you forgotten the simple truth that there are far too many souls in existence for one to know every other?”

“So you know his origins? Don’t tell me he is some distant spawn of yours.”

“Leave here in ignorance Gilgamesh, before I bring the full weight of Death to Gaia’s territory.”

Gilgamesh continued to twitch with impotent rage, then disappeared, leaving Nergal alone once again. It was that sudden silence however that reminded him of how Carl once mentioned never knowing peace because of his pets talking to him.

Nergal cast his eyes towards Carl’s old settlement where one of them resided and the next instant he was there. “Apologies, creation of Carl, I need you to send a message to your kin.”

“You are unknown to me, but I saw you were with the creator. Where is he?”

Nergal gritted his teeth. “Sorry, I don’t have time to explain, tell them I need to speak to them all as soon as possible.”

A short while later, a portal opened and he jumped through and forced it closed with his aura.

“Nergal? What happened to your arm? Where is Carl and what the hell was that?” Kyubi was already starting to cry, as was Klaire, the pair of them able to figure out what was going on from his state.

“I should start at the beginning, you need to know this story in its totality to hope to understand the current situation.

—Origins Of Nergal—

In the days when both Nothingness and Thingness were still infantile, Death knew that Life needed to end and that those blessed with both infinite power and infinite life, had the potential to destroy one another.

To that end, Death decided that those things of both infinite power and infinite life, would require somewhere else to exist in the state of conceptual paradox. This led to the creation of a realm that was fit for purpose and in turn a guardian to watch over it.

“Your name will be, Nergal. You exist to be my agent, to watch over the eighth gate and keep it hidden at all costs. You may use whatever means you see fit, but no one can know of the gate’s existence or how to call on it.”

“You made me knowing that if anything ever left that gate, the resulting release of paradoxical force would bring both Nothingness and Thingness to an end as we know it. Even made by your hand, I have limits, why not watch over it yourself?”

“Because if all things cease to exist as they currently do, it simply shows that it never should have. Now, I have made you a member of the Mesopotamian pantheon, you should go and introduce yourself.”

Those were the first and last words ever spoken between Nergal and his creator, his true father. He spoke words he was created with knowledge of and the one true gate was broken into seven and each one fell into non-existence, ready to be called. Then Nergal went to do as instructed.

Nergal didn’t see the point in any of it, if their existence ultimately served no purpose, then it was ultimately meaningless. From the instant of his creation, Nergal was the sole being that knew it was all just fiction and uncertainty.

He introduced himself and was welcomed with respect and familial love, but it only served to fuel his rage at the pointless pantomime.

“You seem distracted, are you not happy?”

“No, this is all pointless.”

“I don’t know if you remember, but I’m Ishtar. Though I guess you don’t care if you think it’s all pointless.” Ishtar burst into laughter.

“I appreciate the attempt at least, I think I’m going to create a realm and leave, I must have somewhere ready for the dead to go.”

Nergal proceeded to, in Ishtar’s opinion, make his clumsy attempt to create a realm. “Oh, you are not good at that. Try putting a bit more love into your creation, it will respond much better, effort is the nourishment of achievement.”

“Why bother putting effort into something without meaning, I’m making a realm for the dead when nothing dies.”

Ishtar sighed. “So do it selfishly…” she paused and shrugged. “…You think all this is meaningless, so you want to doom your creation to the same fate. Why do the same when you could do better?

Even if you make its meaning self-serving, like a place you can feel comfortable and feel like you belong, would it not be giving your creation a meaningful existence and doing better than your own creator did?”

Nergal stopped his fumbling and took her advice to heart, then groaned and followed it. As he worked with an image in his mind, he noticed his sister’s face light up, then she started cheering him on and making her own little suggestions.

“You like creating, don’t you?”

“Yep, it’s the only thing I like to be honest. Primordial Chaos says that Nothingness exists to become Thingness, I want to make Thingness full of things that give meaning to the meaningless and make existence worthwhile for everything and everyone.”

“I suppose you can always just destroy a creation if it doesn’t fit into that perfect vision of yours.” His words were greeted by unbridled rage and she struck him everything she could.

“Don’t you dare talk about destroying my creations, I would never destroy one of them and I’ll destroy any one or thing that does.”

“Of course you don’t understand how meaningless they all are, enjoy your perfect fantasy, I’ll be back to claim my victory when the first creations you regret pass through.”

With that, Nergal left for the new realm he had created, arriving at the city of black. As he observed his creation, he couldn’t deny that Ishtar’s advice had helped shape it into something he couldn’t have sculpted on his own.

“I’ll call it the black city of, Kur.” After that he explored every square inch of it, deciding that he might as well get to know it since it was a redundant place he only made to get away from the meaningless bonds that had been forced onto him.

When he had seen every square inch of his domain and returned to the front gate, he was in shock to see souls waiting patiently for entry.

“What is this? How are there dead at these gates? Even if anyone did die, they should have…” Nergal wondered if perhaps his sister, or someone else had got bored of their creations. “…What are these creatures? Their pointy ears and annoying fair features are nothing like the others in the Mesopotamian pantheon.”

Nergal improvised a welcome, then opened the gate of Kur, which was one of the seven parts to the true gate hidden in plain sight.

The souls wandered in wordlessly, but quickly dissipated as more and more began to file in. Nergal observed the cycle for a while, the souls arrived and quickly evaporated, the sight only cementing his belief that it was all pointless in the end.

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