This good news also gave a bit more hope to those humans who feared death.
But after all, no one had ever seen it, and the gods had not said exactly how one might enter Heaven.
Still, it was easy to imagine it wouldn't be so simple.
Some even asked the gods: What is the God-King's sacred and righteous order?
After pondering long, the gods only said softly: compassion, mercy, kindness, love, tolerance, respect, courage, and a discerning mind.
What you do with such a true heart is good, and accords with the God-King's sacred and righteous order.
The opposite is evil.
Humans were still rather hazy about this.
So they held to a most simple thought: if you can avoid death, it's better not to die.
At the very least, live this stretch of life well, and do more good.
Humans slowly began to learn to act more carefully and prudently, to face death more soberly.
They also treated life with greater care, both cherishing what they treasured and possessed and pursuing what they desired, yet without casually breaking or harming.
Because after death, that new beginning would open in utterly different ways.
Death was not entirely bad either. Those beings who, in various accidents, injuries, and illnesses, had been tormented without relief and had no way to start over, could now at last find an ending and begin anew in another world.
Only now did Prometheus, in the truest sense, begin to witness his creations dying one by one.
He, too, had to begin learning to part.
A true parting.
Before this, though many had suffered terribly for all kinds of accidental reasons,
under his protection nothing irrevocable happened—no one truly died.
Even if half a body had rotted, so long as the soul still dwelt in the flesh, if only he arrived, he could always bring them back.
But now, with the boundary between life and death clear, many things no longer left him enough time to arrive.
For the first time he had to truly face the "passing" of his creations.
A truly eternal farewell.
Even gods must face this.
Compared with this change of mixed blessing, whose overall gain or loss was hard to weigh, another change was truly precious.
In that other change, the benefits far outweighed the downsides.
That was the stabilization and perfection of the law of sleep.
Whether bodily or mental fatigue, now it could be soothed and restored by orderly rest.
No need to endure the inborn toil that accompanies wakefulness and cannot be shed.
It was a most tender "mercy" beloved even by the gods.
No matter how heavy the burdens borne while awake, how rending the pains experienced,
no matter the weariness, toil, or grinding torment…
once you sleep, all suffering is temporarily kept outside.
Perhaps your waking life cannot truly belong to you.
But at least a third of life's time can be truly light, can truly be yours.
In that absolutely tranquil, private domain, every being is truly themselves, belonging only to themselves.
In peaceful sleep, the self can return to itself and briefly and truly say: "This moment is mine."
Prometheus now saw "death" for the first time.
He faced for the first time a farewell that could never be taken back, never be seen again.
Even when his father and elder brother were cast into Tartarus, they still "lived."
Gods are deathless and undying; the flame of divinity is hard to extinguish.
So long as spirituality is not annihilated, no matter what befalls, no matter how long the separation, it is only temporary.
Time, for gods, is their friend.
Though the parting be long, so long as life remains, there is always hope.
But mortals are different.
Once mortals die, it is irreversible.
This is the unalterable iron law set by the God-King.
Though their souls can still go to the Underworld and continue to "live,"
so long as they cannot enter that supreme Heaven, their ultimate end is already fixed.
Yes, he could enter the Underworld and see those dead beings once more.
But only that—no more.
Unless the God-King or the Underworld King personally gave permission,
no mortal who enters the Underworld is ever allowed to leave it.
The divine realm, the mortal realm, and the underworld—three realms in three domains, with clear barriers—each has absolute bounds that may not be crossed at will.
Prometheus also understood that this rule of order was not wrong—it was a restraint, and a protection.
For even gods, when descending to the lower world, must rein in their might and are forbidden to harm or destroy things at will. This is strictly set by the God-King's sacred Twelve Laws.
At this moment Prometheus stood in a human tribe, witnessing the first true death of a human.
A group of people surrounded him.
A group of pitiable folk whose eyes were full of awe and fear, prostrate, not daring to lift their heads.
They all lay prone, not daring to speak.
What they revered was the god; what they feared was the tiny life before the god that made no sound at all.
Because of a brief drowning, he now had no breath, no movement, no voice at all…
A little boy.
Many had nearly drowned before, some many times over, spending even longer underwater, having tasted the terror of suffocating and choking.
But never like today—hauled from the water and never waking again.
The child was only four or five, his teeth not yet steady.
He had a head of soft chestnut short hair and a pair of brown eyes that should have been as lively as a fawn's in the woods.
He was an extremely adorable child.
But those once lively eyes now held no trace of life, only a hollow void.
That supple, clever body had grown cold and stiff.
On the little face that had once spoken and laughed, cried and fussed, no light of life remained.
Dampness still clung to his small body.
Like a dream not yet dry.
Confronting for the first time the eternal parting of "death," facing her motionless child, the mother had lost all reaction.
No crying, no wailing, not even a sound.
She only knelt there, dumb as wood and stone, beside the small body.
As if her life had vanished along with the child's.
As if her soul had been pulled from its shell, she only stared blankly at that small chest that would never rise again.
This was not only this mother's first time facing death—it was the first time all humans truly faced the passing of one of their own.
Before this, whatever befell them, so long as they could wait for Prometheus to arrive, they would never truly bear the pain of this eternal farewell.
So long as Prometheus came, people could believe there was always a remedy, always a way to make it right.
Whether flesh torn in two, or burned, or drowned or poisoned—so long as a god's hand reached out, none of it was a problem.
Humans were not ignorant of the concept of "death."
Though none of their companions had died, they were long accustomed to the deaths of other beings of the earth.
Many such deaths were even dealt by their own hands.
Prometheus had also told them of "death" and the "Underworld."
But when a companion's death truly arrived before their eyes—when the object of death changed from "the other" to "one of us"—a vast terror still shrouded all at the first instant.
It was a fear of the unknown; even more, a fear of loss.
Once, humans thought themselves different from other mortals.
They were the gods' favorites; the gods stayed by their side, taught them everything, and cared for them lovingly.
They had never faced death.
They were beings created by the gods to rule the earth; they were different from common mortals!
They believed this firmly.
But now, the facts told them they might be no different at all from other mortals.
Death would descend upon them equally; perhaps everything was so.
Everyone's eyes were full of expectation and dread.
They looked to Prometheus and hoped.
As before, they hoped this great god, their co-creator, protector, and teacher, could once more, with effortless ease, sweep away pain and calamity with a wave.
That he could make the child move again.
But Prometheus remained silent.
He could not.
In the world unseen by mortals, a god stood quietly before him.
A newborn god—the God of Death, Thanatos.
This deity who embodied the law of "Death" and perfected it at last.
In the unseen field of the Underworld, the God of Death had already cradled the child's soul gently in his arms.
This god whose outward bearing was stern and cold now moved with an unimaginably tender grace.
He was unwilling to let this unknowing child bear the pain of parting.
Nor did he wish this pitiful little one to see with his own eyes his mother's utter collapse and despair.
So he let this small soul drift, for the moment, into sleep.
Prometheus had already learned from the proclamations of the Heavenly Order and the divine web of the cosmos's newest change.
He looked at this stern-faced god whose eyes held a gentleness, and in the world unseen by mortals, he spoke in a hoarse, almost helpless voice.
"Honored Lord of Death, Prometheus pays you homage."
There was no blame in his tone, only steady understanding and a reverent litany: "I understand your sacred duty. Thank you for bringing a new change to this universe and making the world more complete."
"And thank you, above all, for bringing final release and peace to all beings suffering endless pain."
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