The great flood descended from the heavens like a white curtain of death, a cascading waterfall that drowned mountains, rivers, and the very breath of the earth beneath its roaring tide.
"What terrifying might…"
"To drown the world in a single moment…"
On the ark's deck, nobles, merchants, paupers, and slaves alike stood side by side, awe-struck. They were the most virtuous and peaceful of the Sumerians, or so they believed. Surely, the flood was God's judgment—cleansing the land of savagery, cruelty, and sin. The wicked would be swept away, while the righteous would inherit what remained.
The Great Flood marked the day of Armageddon. On this final day, Utnapishtim and his people—the last sons of Sumer—weathered the deluge upon the ark.
In a quiet corner of the vessel, a historian sat frozen, quill limp in his hand, eyes wide with the horror of what he had witnessed. He dropped to the deck, knees weak, overwhelmed.
"God created all under heaven and earth... Such terrifying power…"
His name was Akkad. His hands trembled, old eyes brimming with tears. Slowly, he dipped his quill into ink once more and began to write. The Sumerian Epic of Genesis would end with what he believed to be a divine revelation—God's seven days of creation:
On the first day, God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. He separated light from darkness, calling the light Day and the darkness Night.
On the second day, God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters," and so Heaven was formed.
On the third day, He said, "Let the waters be gathered, and let dry land appear." And it was so. He named the land Earth, and the gathered waters Seas.
On the fourth day, God placed lights in the heavens—the sun and moon—to divide day from night, each ruling for fifty years in turn.
The fifth day...
The sixth day...
And on the seventh day, when the heavens and the earth were complete, God rested and blessed His work.
In the centuries to come, Akkad's writings would be revered as sacred scripture. It was believed that God had spoken directly to mankind in the final moments of the flood, revealing how He had shaped the world.
But did God truly lower Himself to explain creation to mortals?
People believe what they wish to believe.
Thus, the seventh day became a holy day—a tradition born from a myth, or perhaps a moment of desperate hope.
…
The flood raged on.
Temples and towers crumbled like brittle sandcastles. The once-glorious Sumerian civilization was erased, its legacy swept into the abyssal sea.
Far above, in a simple wooden shed, Xu Zhi calmly shut off the high-pressure water gun. He placed it back on the shelf, the whirring echo of the deluge still fresh in his ears.
"It's a clean slate now."
The Bugapes had nearly driven the ecosystem to collapse. Xu Zhi had preserved a pair from each species, enough to restart the cycle. The world would recover. It always did.
"Perhaps now, after nearly wiping themselves out, they'll learn restraint."
The Hive Mind stirred.
"Even if you hadn't intervened, they would have self-destructed eventually. They were already consuming all other species and breaking the balance. This was the right decision."
Xu Zhi let out a long breath. "I'm not as soft as you think. I don't need your comfort."
"As the Tyranis Queen, this cycle of death and rebirth is something you must grow accustomed to."
"I'm a man. Not a Tyranis Queen," Xu Zhi muttered irritably.
"Yet all life in this sandbox is born from your spores," the Hive Mind retorted.
"Enough! Family planning is important, okay?" Xu Zhi cut it off mid-sentence. He sat down at the yard's edge, peeling an orange, biting into it slowly, and flicking the seeds onto the grass.
"I should head into town tomorrow. Buy a couple pounds of fruit."
He reached for the black notebook he hadn't used in a while and flipped past its worn pages.
"This marks the age of the great beasts. I was going to call it the Behemoth Age, akin to Earth's Cretaceous period. But since the Sumerians named it the Age of Genesis… I'll go with that."
On Earth, the Cretaceous ended with a falling star.
Here, the flood was the divine eraser.
He turned to the fourth page, past the Dark Age, Radiant Age, and Revival Age, and carefully wrote:
Age of Genesis
Then, he summarized the era:
In the Age of Genesis, the first intelligent species emerged. The Bugapes established city-states, overthrew the beasts, and became rulers of the age. But they were cruel and violent. To end their tyranny, the heavens sent a flood. Thus came the third extinction event, wiping out ninety-nine percent of all life.
Finished, Xu Zhi set the notebook aside and went to bed.
The next morning, as he washed his face, something felt... different. An unfamiliar energy stirred in his limbs.
"This feeling…"
He stared at his reflection in the mirror.
He had grown taller—now 1.83 meters—and his features had refined into a sharp, enigmatic beauty. His body had transformed, lean and elegant in clothes, yet solid and sculpted like a Greek statue beneath.
"Muscular when undressed, slim when dressed."
Xu Zhi smirked.
He was comparable now, he thought, to Gilgamesh in his prime—no longer just a fragile observer.
"My gains this time are several times greater than the previous two. I feel like a world-class athlete…"
He clenched his fist. Power surged through him—raw and explosive.
"My physical condition… it's on an entirely new level."