Chapter 150 – Side Story) Pharaoh, Carmina Narmer (1)
Give your life.
And pray.
Send me faith and make me greater.
Fear me, for I am your death.
The master of ninety-nine beasts.
Master of Death.
Praise me, ‘the beast of death that sings of sorrow’!
Born as pharaohs, we have been slaves to the ‘beast of death that sings of sorrow’ for generations.
Pharaoh and master of all his subjects.
And, eternal slave of God.
That was the essence of our royal family… No, of all life in this world.
Predetermined fate.
Innate destiny.
God, the master of death who preys on us, told us so.
You sang, “You were made for me to eat, you died, you sacrificed your soul to become my food, and that is the only joy.”
We accepted it.
No, I had to accept it.
There was no way he could refuse the word of the god that he would make all his subjects his prey if he did not offer sacrifices.
And, such a thing, God, could not help it because the power of the ‘Beast of Death Singing Lament’ was clearly capable of such a thing.
On the other hand, if one offered the sacrifice obediently, it would be okay to not have to accept such a death.
The ‘beast of death singing sorrow’ wants only a few hundred lives a year.
The cost of saving the lives of tens of millions of subjects is only a few hundred lives.
It was truly a very cheap price, my father said… All the pharaohs of all time had no choice but to accept it that way.
But.
Was it because it was like that?
『My master, the one who receives my praise, the ‘beast of death that sings of sorrow’, wishes, so the next offering is one hundred thousand lives. And, the next tribute is a million lives. Also… You, king of slaves, offer your blood to the next tribute as well.』
One day, suddenly, the amount of sacrifices that had been offered increased exponentially.
So, when one hundred thousand of his subjects suddenly lost their lives and were put to death, he was told to offer one million more subjects as the next sacrifice.
And, when I, who was still young, was chosen as one of the sacrifices.
I was sick of my father’s pale complexion.
It was only then that my father realized.
No, I didn’t realize it…
What he was pretending not to know, what he was trying to pretend not to know.
It was only when it was his turn that he realized it.
No matter what words we wrap it in, no matter how much we praise it or hope for mercy.
That the God who dwells above, in the glorious heavens, sees us as nothing more than food to be eaten, raised in hedgerows.
And, this wasn’t just ours.
In all the kingdoms of the Saba world.
It happened all over the world at the same time.
Therefore, many kings arose.
Those who were slaves of the gods rose up.
Whether it was because they were outraged by the deaths of their people, or because they felt death descending on them.
The hundred and twenty-five kingdoms of the Saba world all rebelled against the master of the world.
Many kings died.
A courageous person.
One who is stronger than anyone else.
A person who is revered by all people.
Wise man.
Many heroes died.
A person who attacked even in the face of death.
The one who walked into the jaws of the beast commanded by God and plunged his sword into it.
A person who gives his all and constantly uses magic.
To live.
Heroes who gave everything have fallen.
To survive.
Those who even killed themselves continued to die.
Only.
Those who raised their swords towards God died in countless numbers.
And, we got them back on their feet.
The gods who rule over death, and the heroes who rejected death, died once again.
Stand up, die.
Standing up, dying again.
Kings and heroes continued to move toward God.
Ten, twenty years passed, and the war with God did not end.
And, my father died.
The Pharaoh, the greatest necromancer and greatest in the Kingdom of Narmer, who was the first to raise the banner of rebellion against the gods, ultimately sacrificed himself in the fiercest battle, raised up the heroes, and killed the last beast of the gods.
Therefore, I followed in my father’s footsteps and wore the crown.
As many kings did.
Like the kings and heroes who refused to die and swore to continue their war, I too wore a crown and turned to God as a king and as a pharaoh.
“Stand up!”
Raising up countless kings and heroes who had died.
“Those who refused death! Kings of the Saba world! Heroes! “Stand up!”
Dead kings and dead heroes marched towards God with newly crowned kings and heroes.
Wearing golden armor.
Oaths and beliefs.
Holding in his hand the weapon engraved with his prayers and an oath to kill God.
Moving forward, moving forward.
Ten years.
Another ten years.
The more we died, ironically, the stronger we became.
It was natural that heroes and kings who never tire or die raised their swords and spears and threw themselves into the fiercest battlefield.
Unlike us, the ‘beast of death singing sorrow’, which could no longer take death away from us, grew weaker as time passed.
With the sacrifices cut off, the god who was unable to eat the life that was offered to us starved and became weak.
And another ten years.
Finally.
“You foolish mortals, you will never know what you are doing! You have no idea how foolish it is to try to kill God! Go back! And make an offering! If so, please forgive me for what happened this time!』
To those of us who finally reached heaven, the ‘Beast of Death Singing Lament’ said that.
All kings and heroes categorically rejected the words of such a god.
And finally.
We slaughtered God.
God of our world.
As many kings and heroes of the Saba world were dying, they were killed without any hesitation.
『I will curse you! Be cursed! You foolish mortals! You will never know! Killing God means killing the world. Watch the destruction you brought upon yourself at the risk of your own demise!』
Thinking that this was our final struggle, we cut off the head and tore the limbs of the god who cursed us.
And the corpse of the ‘beast of death that sings of sorrow’ was shared among the different kings.
As proof that it is true that we have killed God.
As an oath of eternal alliance.
We swallowed a part of the god we killed.
The end came to those of us who thought we had finally escaped death.
“Pharaoh…”
I sat on the throne and looked down at the person who was calling me and pleading with me.
“Pharaoh… Please… Please, save this child. “This child… This child is the last remaining child in this country.”
“…”
All the men died.
Even heroes who killed gods could never escape death if they were men.
Even the greatest hero, the greatest warrior in the kingdom, ended up dying not long after his child was born.
God’s curse, the curse that took root in this world as a last struggle, was excessively vicious.
According to the name of the dead god.
A curse that plunges the whole world into sorrow.
That curse eventually took the life of the last male child in the kingdom.
Grinding and gritting my teeth.
Spoke to a subject of Yeo and the mother of a child, asking Yeo to bring back her child.
“…It’s impossible. Even if you revive it, it is useless because those who have already lost their lives can never sow seeds.”
“Ah…”
Yeo’s subject returned in tears, holding her dead young son in her arms.
To her, she couldn’t even say any words of comfort.
She knew how much she loved that child and how hard she tried to save that child.
In the end, I couldn’t say a word to her as she cried, holding the corpse of her child, who had been taken away by her curse.
It was at dawn the next day that the child’s mother learned that she had taken her own life.
She was a hero
She was one of the countless gods-killing heroes who survived to witness the death of a god. When she saw the death of the last of her flesh and blood left behind by the one she loved, she ripped out her own intestines and decapitated him. Hanged to death
Her child was lying there as if asleep at her feet, having hung herself with her own intestines.
The disaster did not end there.
The world was dying.
Perhaps because God died, all the earth dried up and rivers and seas rotted away.
All the men have already died, and the disaster that has come upon us as we wait for the end is eating away at the living and those left behind, day by day.
Days of accepting countless refugees from the dead land, accepting those who came over to live in a ruined country, trying to somehow revive the land that is continuously shrinking, but to no avail, just holding funerals for the dead.
When all the kingdoms in this world finally collapsed except for the kingdom of Narmer.
Even though it was too late, she was able to strengthen her resolve.
“If the world is going to be destroyed anyway, I would rather sacrifice myself for the rest.”
Although we can never avoid the already-ordained end, we could somehow avoid the world dying.
If there is no God and that is why the world is dying.
Then…
All you have to do is create a god.
“So, help her. “Kings, heroes.”
The heroes who were resting were raised again and the road to heaven was opened.
