Chapter 125: Foresight, The Spark of the Masses is Me
Prometheus had been waiting for Rowe.
Waiting for him to reach this absurdly high, distant mountain, where even the clouds looked like something left behind.
He had believed, without a shred of doubt, that Rowe would come.
After all.
"My clay tablets," Rowe said, reaching out with no courtesy whatsoever. "It is time for them to return to their rightful owner."
He had never met the fire stealer before, but from the few things Heracles had let slip, Rowe had already sketched the general shape of Prometheus's temperament.
Rowe's purpose here was also painfully clear.
Reclaiming one's black history was not a preference. It was a duty.
"Clay tablets?" Prometheus tilted his head, feigning innocence with a laugh rumbling like distant thunder. "Which ones are you talking about? The ones I gave to Heracles? Or the ones I gave to other heroes? Such as…"
Rowe fell silent.
It was one thing to have black history.
It was another thing to distribute it like festival flyers.
Are you some sort of Gilgamesh?
"Hahahaha." Prometheus laughed so hard the chains around his Titan body rattled, the sound echoing through the peaks until the mountain itself seemed to tremble. "Just kidding. Objects that store wisdom must be treasured carefully. How could I possibly hand them out everywhere?"
He paused, then added with bright amusement.
"Even you cannot take them back."
"And you did not come for that, did you?"
No. I came for that too.
Rowe narrowed his eyes, then laughed as well.
Retrieving the clay tablets was one of his goals. Just not the most important one.
Prometheus shifted, the chains binding his gigantic body scraping against stone.
"You came to end the rule of the God King."
He spoke as if describing the weather.
He was, in fact, very clear about it.
After the new city state that outsiders called Uruk City was built, Rowe stayed inside. Just as the enraged Zeus had heard, kings and nobles from far and wide came to the city to borrow wisdom.
But it was more than that.
Because there were also shadows of the gods inside that city.
Goddesses like Athena, Artemis, and Hestia had appeared during the city's construction. That was obvious.
After them, Apollo, Hephaestus, Queen Hera, Poseidon, and other gods also frequented the city.
They came seeking wisdom too.
The original wisdom, the kind that built civilization's glory, drove gods away, and then used its power to defeat Cronus and Tartarus, was a temptation even gods could not easily resist.
Thus, Uruk City had become another gathering holy land for the gods.
"You used this to divide god from god," Prometheus said.
"Whoever came to the city, you made a covenant with them. The gods loosened their restraints on humans. Humans gained deeper wisdom, strength, and even more devout faith."
Prometheus's smile widened.
"But what the gods did not know was this."
"In that faith, there was no King of the Gods, Zeus."
"Hahahaha… should I say you truly are a sage? Scheming, far sighted, you are damn good at it."
Prometheus recounted Rowe's deeds with suspicious fluency.
These were things Rowe had never told anyone.
Not even Enkidu. Not even Gilgamesh.
Of course, Prometheus was also mistaken.
He believed Rowe's objective was to overthrow Zeus.
He did not realize Rowe's true focus was simpler, uglier, and far more personal.
Enrage Zeus.
Make Zeus kill him.
Still, being able to see this much already made Prometheus frightening.
"Is this the foresight you command?" Rowe asked.
Prometheus's eyes flickered. In them, complex information rose and sank like tides.
"I was once the computational backup fleet computer of the Atlantis Titan fleet. My machine body has long since been lost, but that essence still exists in my mind."
He spoke calmly, as though stating a fact carved into the world.
"The Foresight I command evolved from the concept of human evolution. It allows me to observe all changes in the world."
He had not pierced Rowe himself.
He simply watched the present world and read its shifts.
That was why he still confined himself here.
This was the highest mountain in Greece. It was still in the present world, yet from here, one could see every corner of it clearly.
As long as he remained here, what he could see would be broader and farther than what even Zeus could see from his lofty seat.
So he refused Heracles's rescue.
Refused an escape that had existed for decades.
Or perhaps, precisely because of that refusal, Heracles failed to obtain the golden apple.
Thus, a chain of changes was triggered.
A series of mythological shifts.
Rowe lifted his hand again.
"So are you returning my clay tablets or not?"
Prometheus hesitated.
He opened his mouth.
Then hesitated again, as if his mind finally caught up to his ears.
Did I just say all that, and you are still thinking about clay tablets?
Rowe smiled, then let the moment pass.
"However," he said, gaze sharpening, "I think I understand the kind of foresight you possess."
He turned his eyes to the sky, where thunder churned like a living thing.
"That is the Brain Body from the Atlantis fleet reserves, isn't it?"
Prometheus froze for a breath, then grinned, unabashedly pleased.
"Yes. The Brain Body. The existence you will certainly need if you intend to confront Zeus, the God of All Machines, who seized my grandfather's machine body."
He sounded extremely confident.
Rowe did not answer immediately.
He simply stood at the peak, looking at the storm in the distance, and at the gradually forming shadow of God King Zeus.
Just as Prometheus said.
From here, one could see all of Greece.
From Athens to Sparta.
From Troy to Uruk City.
When Rowe left Uruk City, the divine radiance of the gods there had shone in every direction.
Now, the gods had all departed.
Enkidu stood in the city that mirrored the Uruk city state, on the highest steps of the royal palace at its center.
In Athens, Athena stood solemnly within her temple, while the Gorgon Sisters watched with trepidation as divine light poured from the Goddess of Wisdom and War, and she placed the crown of the gods upon herself.
In Sparta, Apollo sighed. He looked helpless, yet could only manifest his divine radiance all the same.
Queen Hera scattered colorful mist and radiant light from the heavens. The God of Fire drew flames up from the earth's depths.
All the gods were uneasy beneath the God King's wrath.
Apollo, Hera, and the others had also learned of Rowe's strategy. Fear did not save them. Helplessness did not absolve them.
Zeus had always been stubborn.
Or rather, arrogant.
He cared for no god but himself.
He had decided they betrayed him.
So, in his eyes, they had betrayed him.
And if they were already condemned, they might as well stand where survival was possible.
Together with Uruk.
Together against the wrath of the God King.
Birds and beasts fled.
Human hearts were soaked in fear.
Prometheus spoke again, voice low, almost gentle.
"Zeus has already displayed his power, but he still exists in a dimension so high that only he can reach it. The primordial world. The boundary of the origin. From there he will cast world destroying thunder."
He smiled.
"So you need me."
"With me, the Brain Body of the Titan divine race, you can integrate the power of the Greek gods, just as Zeus once integrated forces when facing the Star Hunter."
"Only then can you touch his essence, drag him into the mortal world, and make him bleed where people can see it."
Rowe drew his gaze back from the storm and looked at Prometheus.
Bound to a giant rock.
Suppressed by Zeus's lingering divine power.
Yet Prometheus showed no sign of decay.
He looked vibrant.
He looked happy.
Even though he knew he would die.
Because the need Prometheus spoke of meant this.
Rowe would shatter him.
Extract the core of a Titan god.
Embed it into the machine body taken from Cronus.
Cronus was a machina god among the Titans, the flagship and main force of an interstellar fleet.
But a fleet did not reach its full power through a single entity alone.
The flagship existed for command and integration.
And that command required computational support, the kind that could carry logistics, calculation, and coordination without collapse.
That was the relationship between a king and a herald.
Only Cronus combined with Prometheus's logistical calculation mechanism could barely compensate for the flaws in Rowe's physical existence.
Only then could Rowe barely touch Zeus.
Barely pull him down from that height.
Barely give him the beating he wanted.
Then arrange his own death.
Rowe's pursuit of death had always been grand, extravagant, and spectacular.
That had not changed.
But before that, Prometheus would die first.
"You will utterly perish," Rowe said, robe snapping in the wind. "Leaving nothing. Absolutely nothing."
Prometheus's grin widened.
"But I will leave behind the name Prometheus," he said. "Not a fire stealer. A Prometheus who defied fate."
"I do not fear death. I fear being trapped in endless fate, sage of Uruk."
His voice sharpened, as if the storm itself leaned closer to listen.
"I think you understand that better than I do."
"My companion. My guide."
He laughed again. Hard. Bright. Almost savage.
Greek prophecy was like fate.
It could not be changed.
Just as Cronus overthrew Uranus and took the authority of the sky.
Just as Cronus was replaced by Zeus and imprisoned in Tartarus.
And after Athena's birth, Zeus would become the eternal King of the Greek gods.
That was fate.
Because the future King of the Gods had already been strangled in his cage.
It was just that Prometheus refused to kneel.
He had watched the King of the Gods rise through fate.
Watched the Titan race fade.
Yet he still wanted to challenge fate.
Because he had gained courage from Rowe.
"Before hearing your story," Prometheus said, voice hoarse, "I lived in fear of fate."
"But now, I want to resist."
"You have already done it," Rowe replied.
Prometheus's eyes burned.
"Sage of Uruk. My guide. Can you take me…"
His voice rose into a roar, carried by wind above the clouds.
"To witness this time?"
Thunder answered him.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Layer upon layer, the sky exploded.
Within the roaring vortex, the King of the Gods still did not reveal his form.
He simply cast down spears of lightning from high above, each one a declaration of destruction.
All things trembled.
The gods were terrified.
Rowe raised his hand.
He did not answer Prometheus's question.
He only revealed a glimmer of light in his open palm.
Within the dim world beneath the storm, it became the only clear light.
Prometheus froze, staring at that light.
Rowe spoke softly.
"Some things you guessed correctly."
"And some things you guessed wrong."
Rowe turned, the outline of his profile carved by the glow in his palm, and smiled.
"I came here to drag Zeus into the mortal world."
"But not to get your help."
"The so called Brain Body."
"I already had it."
Prometheus stared.
Because he saw it too.
Not only did light exist in Rowe's hand, but across the world, across the Aegean Sea shaken by Zeus's lightning, lights began to appear.
Not one.
Not two.
Countless.
Prometheus, even with his Foresight, became bewildered.
Because from this height, he could see those tiny lights emerging.
They were people.
In Athens, an old man with white hair and beard held a scroll. A philosophical text he had copied from Uruk City after traveling thousands of miles.
He was glowing.
Outside Sparta, a taciturn general with a grim face commanded his army. They advanced and retreated with strict order, arrayed not by miracle, but by formation, maximizing human strength.
He was glowing too.
In the countryside, an old farmer looked up at the turning waterwheel.
In a small room, an artisan patted the intricate mechanism he had made, satisfied.
They were glowing.
But they were mortals.
How could mortals glow?
The light was faint, as dim as fireflies.
Yet as those scattered sparks converged in Prometheus's eyes, they became a vast, surging galaxy.
Rowe's voice was calm.
"The strength of one person is not enough to rely on."
"The wisdom of one person is not enough to depend on."
"How can a single mind compare to the wisdom of the myriad?"
Prometheus went still.
The fervor in his chest faltered, not from fear, but from awe.
Could humans possess such power?
And this power, this concept, he, the Titan of Foresight who presided over evolution, had never truly considered?
Rowe stepped closer.
"After persevering for a thousand years, you have fulfilled your duty."
A rising airflow swept past Prometheus.
The chains snapped.
They crumbled.
Rowe placed a hand on Prometheus's weathered shoulder.
"Prometheus, you are the conceptual manifestation of humanity's birth."
"The enlightener of human culture."
"An existence like the father of humanity."
"You have done enough."
He looked past Prometheus and out into the storm.
"But next, it is my duty."
"We're duty."
We.
Meaning humanity.
Prometheus did not move.
He only stared, as if seeing humanity stumble through the dawn of civilization, then stand straighter with every step, walking toward a bright future.
My children… have grown up.
Prometheus smiled.
Tears streamed down his face.
He laughed anyway.
Rowe walked to the cliff's edge and faced the vast world.
The Aegean Sea still rose and fell. The waves still broke.
Rowe spoke. He asked.
"People of the world, are you willing to die for no reason, just because you do not believe in that god?"
"Are you willing to live in ignorance, to become slaves raised by that god from now on?"
"I enlightened your wisdom. I taught you how to walk."
"Now tell me your answer."
"Are you willing to die and live like this?"
In Athens, the old man snapped the pen in his hand.
Outside Sparta, the general hurled his spear at the sky, and the warriors answered with motion, not words.
In the fields, the farmer trampled weeds and spat.
In the workshop, the artisan struck his hammer and scoffed.
Willing?
Unwilling.
Who is willing to die?
Who is willing to live ignorant?
No one.
Rowe smiled, and his voice rose.
"Then lend me your wisdom."
He laughed, loud and wild, until the laughter fused into a single roaring engine, like a furnace igniting.
A machina god appeared beneath the storm.
Iron wings vibrated, stirring a crimson storm around its frame.
The machina god that Rowe became soared into the sky, with thousands upon thousands of sparks beneath his feet.
He collided head on with the lightning spears falling from above.
With his own strength.
And yet, he also drew on the sparks spread across the world.
Because at this moment.
"Thousands of sparks, all are me."
Rowe raised his fist toward the heavens, pulling those countless lights into a single tide.
"Come, Zeus."
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