"They've broken through!"

  "They've broken through!"

  The solemn Holy Knights of the Church, having finally defeated the National Defense Force and breached the city walls, stormed into the Royal City.

  The Royal Army crumbled like a house of cards, and the Church's knightly forces swiftly led their followers to seize control of the entire capital.

  "To the Tower of Babel! Emperor Atabia is there! Hang him!" the Cardinal roared.

  They rushed to the colossal Tower of Babel, its twenty-sixth level newly completed. Emperor Atabia sat atop the spire, watching the Holy Knights below prepare to scale the tower.

  His voice calm, Emperor Atabia gazed down at them with a mixture of pity and sorrow. "I've always felt that the Outer Gods unleashed the Third Great Civilization Extinction Event upon us not long ago."

  "Absurd!" a Holy Knight bellowed. "After the Great Flood and the Purple Firmament's World-Destroying Camity, God, in his mercy, vowed never again to destroy humanity! We've maintained peace ever since! What 'third event' are you babbling about?"

  "Some live, but they are already dead," Emperor Atabia replied, looking down at the rebellious traitors before him. "This Extinction Event is different. It doesn't annihite our bodies, but our wills."

  "You should all know that each Extinction Event wipes out seventy percent of all life. What you may not realize is that seventy percent of those currently following the Church have already had their spirits extinguished."

  The crowd gasped. The coincidence was unsettling. Did this mean they were already among the seventy percent who had spiritually perished?

  "Faith gives us strength!" A Cardinal roared from below, pointing at the Tyrant towering above. "Heretic! You're corrupting their minds! You—"

  Spt.

  In an instant, the Tower of Babel seemed to come alive, transforming into a grotesque living organism. A massive, curved rib bone, extending from a window on the first level, crushed the Cardinal to death.

  "What...?" The Holy Knights stared in horror. Was the Tower of Babel not a mere structure, but the exoskeleton of some colossal creature?

  "You truly are a pathetic bunch, swayed by such weak deceptions," Emperor Atabia muttered, lowering his head. The revered sage of civilization seemed to be speaking to himself.

  "I've been pondering this endlessly... This Extinction Event is far more terrifying than the previous two cataclysms. It seeks to annihite not flesh and blood, but the very human spirit."

  "I witnessed the Great Flood engulf the world with my own eyes."

  "I watched helplessly as their screams faded into violet light, their bodies rotting before me. Yet neither of those past agonies could compare to the pain of this new desotion."

  His face remained impassive as he suddenly decred, "Because this very moment marks the Third Great Civilization Extinction Event, the most devastating era yet."

  "This Third Extinction Event... the Outer Gods demand that I personally sughter seventy percent of the Atabian popution."

  His gaze drifted skyward, as if he could see the Gods beyond the Heavens. Their eyes were cold and distant, regarding humanity as mere pawns, not only crushing the spirits of the masses but also stifling his own will to resist.

  Emperor Atabia chuckled bitterly. "The vile Outer Gods in the Heavens have cursed this Human Emperor with a cruel fate. They seek to transform me into a true tyrant, forcing me to butcher seventy percent of my own people... Fratricide—this is the punishment for the Atabians, and the destiny the Gods have forged for me, the mortal king who dared to defy them."

  The crowd trembled. Were the Gods truly so malevolent? Had they preordained this future for the Atabians, driving this God-defying race to self-destruction? Would they even turn the people against their own king, forever branding this mortal leader who dared to defy them with eternal shame?

  "Tyrant! Cease your seditious lies!" A Holy Knight stepped forward, his voice ringing with righteous fury. "You seek to annihite our entire civilization! Seventy percent of our people—it's an unthinkable number! Forsaken by all, and no God yourself..."

  "Could such an all-encompassing, earth-shattering, world-destroying power truly exist?" The fanatical high-ranking members of the Church remained unmoved.

  "Indeed, indeed... there's no reasoning with you anymore..." Emperor Atabia muttered from atop the Tower of Babel, his hands gripping the armrests of his imperial throne.

  "Then there's no need for further words." Seated on his throne, a faint smile crept across his face, as if maniputing a complex control panel.

  Click.

  Click.

  Massive, muscur tendrils erupted from the windows of the towering tower, reaching out like an octopus's filing arms. They crushed the encircling Red-Robed Priests, Holy Knights, and Church forces, their blood gradually seeping into the ground.

  "Let us begin!"

  Having cleared the surrounding Church forces, Emperor Atabia decred, "My people, there's no need for sorrow. Flesh and blood have built civilizations, and the Church is not our true enemy. Our true enemy lies in the higher heavens."

  "Initiate the Godsying Project!"

  "Decre war on the Outer Gods!"

  "Agreed!"

  With all despair and hesitation purged, resolute voices echoed from within the Tower of Babel.

  On the twenty-six levels of the tower, the Wise Ones swiftly moved to their designated positions, each fulfilling their duties to activate this colossal living construct.

  Click!

  The cloud-piercing spire of the Tower of Babel suddenly stirred.

  A spinal column formed at the core.

  Ribs emerged from the tower windows.

  A skull materialized at the tower's peak.

  A pelvis appeared at its base.

  A colossal giant of pure white bone slowly took shape, its growth resembling a time-pse of a hormone-fed pig's frenzied development.

  Boom!

  The earth trembled violently.

  The entire underwater kingdom beneath Atabia colpsed like a child's hastily built block tower.

  "What is that?!"

  The Holy See Imperial Guard, still mopping up remnants of the battle, suddenly froze, staring upward in awe. "Its size rivals that of a Giant God!"

  "No, it's not just rivaling," someone shouted. "It is another... God!"

  The Tower of Babel rose to its full height, its skeletal frame gradually covered by nascent tendons and vast masses of flesh that churned and swirled at breakneck speed. The terrifying, overwhelming scale of the creature suffocated all those below.

  Crack!

  The earth shuddered violently.

  A mythical giant wreathed in clouds was being born!

  The twenty-six tiers of the towering white Tower of Babel represented the twenty-six vertebrae of humanity's central spine.

  Everyone stared transfixed at the sky, at the Tower of Babel, a realization dawning in their hearts:

  So, the Tower of Babel isn't just a symbol of human ambition—it's a collective creation, forged by the united will of all those on earth. It has astonished and enraged the Gods, for it has truly opened a staircase to the divine realm.

  In the distance, the Pope, having anticipated this camity, had prudently remained outside the Royal City.

  From his command post outside the city, the Pope witnessed this inconceivable spectacle and roared in furious disbelief: "Emperor Atabia! That madman, that insane engineer! How dare he desecrate the Deity! Civilization has barely taken root, and he's already trying to become... a God himself!"

  "Impossible!"

  "Unforgivable!"

  "Just as I suspected—a tyrant with boundless ambition! That madman will destroy us all! God will unleash his wrath upon the entire earth, ushering in the Final Judgment Day!"

  A chorus of indignant voices erupted.

  Across the nd, the Holy Knights of the Church stood stunned. Gazing skyward, a profound sense of dread and awe settled upon their hearts.

  The Tower of Babel.

  This would surpass all mythological tales, eclipse all epic legends—a miracle forged from the convergence of countless destinies and coincidences.

  Above the clouds, Emperor Atabia sat upon his Skull Throne, gazing down at the surging sea below. His mood seemed buoyant as he chanted:

  "The Extinction Event—truly a grand romance. It sends waves of life crashing forth, shattering the arrogance and injustice of nature."

  His Skull Pace, a realm akin to heaven itself, loomed high above the mist-shrouded clouds. Seated upon his neural throne at the center of the neuronal complex, he stretched out his hand, slowly clenching his fist in the empty air toward the Crystal Wall, and grinned.

  "Kingdoms surge like the tides."

  "The wave of single-celled organisms that crashed ashore had yet to recede into oblivion when it transformed into the towering Tower of Babel, a colossal husk roaring its defiance at the heavens."

  An endless white light enveloped the surroundings.

  There stood the Emperor who ruled the entire world, a figure embodying the pinnacle of civilization's wisdom. His transparent form revealed strands of genes glowing with a faint silvery light.

  "Initiate mobilization of the muscuture."

  Crack!

  The Giant's body swayed as it slowly raised its head. Its massive skeletal frame, still devoid of flesh, wobbled as it rose to its feet.

  This moment would be forever etched in history.

  Like the first hominid emerging from the mists of prehistory, standing atop a colossal rock and unleashing a silent roar of defiance!

  Within the plum blossom-shaped mark on the Giant's forehead, the ant-sized man controlling the Giant from the Plum Blossom Throne slowly rose. The sage of this civilization gazed beyond the Crystal Wall at the colossal Outer God.

  The Emperor spread his arms wide, as if embracing the entire world, and smiled. "Enemies," he decred, "have never been the people of Atabia. Today marks the formal commencement of the war of all against all."

  "The true enemy is you, Outer God."

  In the primordial era, the Emperor of a great Empire had summoned the people of the earth to build the Tower of Babel. His Godsying Project had begun.