Road to Babylon (255)

The Black Sea of Tiamat churned restlessly, its waves heaving up and down slowly, and yet still bellying a terrifying strength, as if the primordial goddess herself were seething. Whether in frustration or impatience, none could tell. The warriors of humanity, the last remnants stationed upon the walls guarding the final fragment of their world, had gathered once more. 

Though being ready for the onslaught of monsters was routine for them, this breach of pattern unsettled even the most hardened soldiers. Tiamat had always unleashed her monstrous hordes at predictable intervals; now, the disruption of that rhythm, coupled with King Gilgamesh’s withdrawal of all the Servants from the walls, left the defenders uneasy, stripped of their greatest shields.

Yet, even as the soldiers understood their fate, they still clung to their duty – no matter what abomination surged from the Sea, they would fight for humanity until their last breath. After all, no wall stood stronger than the one King Gilgamesh had forged from humanity’s greatest remaining treasure, the souls who willingly followed him into this final struggle.

Or so Merlin believed that’s what the soldiers were thinking as he observed said soldiers on the walls from the safety of Gilgamesh’s palace.

Though how ‘safe’ he truly was, could be debated.

None deluded themselves that battling Tiamat would be anything but futile – ‘Hopeless’ might have been a more accurate term instead. Tiamat was not an enemy to conquer but a force of nature incarnate, defying her was less a war and more an exercise in futility, akin to blasphemy, a mortal’s hubris challenging the divine. 

Slaughtering her spawns, unleashing many a Noble Phantasms towards her creations, slaying Kingu, even rallying miracles… All amounted to nothing more than stalling the inevitable. 

Whether bolstered by Servants or not, Humanity could never halt Tiamat.

The Servants might wield power beyond mortal comprehension, commanding mysteries that rewrote reality itself, but what were such parlor tricks against Tiamat, the embodiment of divine genesis? The strongest of shields crumbles before her, the holiest of blades shatters, the most genius of stratagems would unravel. 

She need not even strike the enemies or walls in her way, a casual ripple of her power would sunder walls, castles, and every monument to mankind’s arrogance. She was pure, unadulterated force.

Merlin knew this fact better than any. 

His own magic, vast as it was, had failed against far lesser adversaries. Vivian, his apprentice, lover, and jailer, possessed but a sliver of Tiamat’s might, yet she had bound him eternally to his tower, a prisoner in a utopian cell where he could only watch the world wither. 

He could bless any Servant with Avalon’s protection, play the hero, yet all such efforts would be for chasing shadows, grasping at a summit forever beyond reach when faced with the likes of Tiamat.

Even if he stripped Tiamat of her mystic nature, turned her created monsters to his side, rewound time so that the whole of Camelot’s stood behind him… What advantage would that give him? 

King Arthur? Excalibur? The world’s greatest mages? They would still only be able to face Tiamat’s children, as they themselves are still Tiamat’s children. Powerful, yes, brimming with purpose, but children all the same – even Merlin, for all his distance from humanity, remained her scion. 

Tiamat was the wellspring of all life… save one.

Ainz Ooal Gown, now the only hope for Humanity – and Merlin didn’t know how to feel about that.

Fear? Perhaps it could be called that.

Merlin was not human, he did not experience emotions the way humans did. Yet, he was not entirely born of humanity’s dreams and slumber, either. His lineage still traced back to two parents, one of whom belonged to the descendants of Adam. 

In that sense, one might say he could feel fear, just not as humans do.

When humans feel fear, they often twist it into rage, lashing out at its source with all their might. At times, they let fear fester until it births monsters they battle their entire lives, seeking refuge in numbers, sharing their burdens. Sometimes they find enlightenment, purging their fear entirely… Other times, fear conquers them. 

The monsters of fear merge with their humanity, turning them into rabid beasts. Dangerous to themselves and others as they lash out at those who try to save them, tearing apart every helping hand. 

They become the very monsters they fought.

Yet even such monsters may find a happy ending. Occasionally, all they need is another monster to hold them back, for even monsters crave kin, believing loneliness to be the cruelest punishment of all.

Merlin was no monster. 

He could dissect fear as an observer, analyze its intricacies, but he did not feel human fear… nor human loneliness. Even trapped alone in Avalon’s distant tower, his ‘prison’ was no cage. It was his eternal utopia, where he lived endlessly alone, captivated as humanity grew, climbing higher and higher.

Devoid of human emotion, Merlin lacked the one thing humanity prized above all else—more than magic, technology, glory, victory, pleasure, or joy. And so he watched them, spellbound, from his remote tower.

He lacked the ability to yearn for something.

To fight. To evolve. Or even the desire to leave behind legacies and monuments, a desire to live, to press onward each day, no matter how meaningless the path. Merlin lacks such things.

Born half-human, half-dream entity, Merlin lived eternally yet felt no true yearning. The fiery drive that burned in Humanity? The force that urged them to act, to push forward? He was enchanted by it, obsessed. Immortal, unchanging, a fixed concept of the world, how could he share humanity’s hunger?

He acted, of course, half his existence was still Human, even if his dreamlike nature had absorbed their essence. Yet, even if once a genuine spark of ambition had ever flickered within him, it did not scorch away his ephemeral origin. 

Instead, it dwindled, leaving only a breeze to nudge him from one chaotic desire to the next. His emotions, anger, or even joy, never spurred growth or purpose. They scattered like dust as they passed the moment he felt them, dissolving back into formless concepts he could never grasp.

Many had sought to ‘fix’ him, believing they could somehow save him. As if they just needed to be slightly better, as if they could exorcize some inner demon lurking within him, as if their understanding of his nature would ignite a true flame in his soul. But to Merlin himself, this was nothing more than a tragedy of self-sacrifice meant to soothe their own guilt.

Merlin was neither ill nor lonely, he was no recluse who’d erected an impenetrable barrier around himself to hide the ‘real’ Merlin beneath. He was not entombed alive within a grand mausoleum of his own making, locked away out of a desire to rule as a king controlling everything. He didn’t push people away deliberately to worsen their lives, nor did he shut others out due to his magic or some imagined ‘curse’. 

Merlin couldn’t grasp why people viewed his existence as ‘cursed’, nor did he see human life as some pure existence he ought to chase. He found human emotions and ambitions fascinating, but he knew well that humans rejoiced at the sunrise yet refused to reach for it, content with their mundane lives. 

Just as moths drawn to flames too readily burn themselves to ash.

Merlin simply lived as he always had. One might argue he had built walls around himself, but not as some psychological defense mechanism. He hadn’t retreated into eternal night like a moth, hiding where none could notice or approach him, deluding himself that isolation would make him stronger, shield him from pain, or transform him into a ‘better’ person. 

No. He was as he was because that was his nature. 

It was a fact of existence, not a tendency toward destruction or self sabotage. 

That he acted unlike any human and was capable of such deeds didn’t inherently make him a monster. He might’ve preferred to display the bleeding wounds of his mind, pour out his soul in dialogue, or bear the secret pain tracing back to his birth. Yet Merlin simply did not understand why others insisted on projecting such narratives onto him.

He didn’t suffer. He didn’t crave change. He wasn’t a monster, nor was he scarred by trauma, clawing to heal his soul or battling inner demons. He hadn’t plunged into an impenetrable black abyss of despair, crushed by the weight of irreversible wounds. 

No — he merely lived.

He observed the Humans striving for more than fate had allotted them, pushing forward, kindling their own flames of ambition, even if it proved futile in the end. He adored watching them press on in hopeless situations, facing apocalyptic threats, unbeatable monsters, unending horror, or the end of time itself. 

Even when the world seemed set against them, chaining them in place, they moved.

That was why he adored, nay, loved, both Heroes and Villains.

Wasn’t that humanity’s essence? To march onward despite all odds, through victories and defeats, weathering failures and forgetting triumphs, until they finally met their end, destined or not? So that someday, someone peering across centuries and nations might skim the story of their lives and wonder: What were they truly like?

Merlin may not have been the ideal observer, the perfect record keeper, yet he was someone who would never judge Heroes or Villains for their actions — his own life could paint him as the former and the latter after all. 

He had sacrificed people for the greater good, then sacrificed the greater good for a singular person. Camelot was his creation far more than Artoria’s, and Camelot’s fall was more his doing than Mordred’s. After all, he crafted Artoria as King Arthur knowing the consequences, and watched Mordred’s actions unfold, aware of where they would lead and did nothing. 

The reason for his passivity wasn’t a desire to better the world or a villainous love for tragedy, but simply the understanding that certain things had to happen. A remnant of his human nature that compelled him to persist, living day by day without truly needing to.

Yet, perhaps there was more to him than passive observation. No one assigned him a sacred mission to forge the vessel of the Perfect Sheath or demanded he retrieve the Holy Grail and return it to Heaven, those acts were his own choice, even if he ultimately regretted both.

Still, these were mere footnotes in his story. 

Deeds done partly out of fleeting emotion, partly for the world’s sake, and partly for humanity. None were his true aspiration. His only desire was to keep observing humanity, every minor tale etched into the grand tapestry of history as each second passes.

And so, perhaps, it was precisely when facing Tiamat, before the world’s end, that Merlin acted on his own will for the first time.

If all he desired was to keep witnessing humanity’s story, then Tiamat, who sought to erase that story, had become his enemy. The first in all of his existence.

Or maybe the second, as the self-proclaimed Grand Caster, the root cause of Tiamat’s rise and humanity’s annihilation, was the first. For the first time, Merlin felt a searing ambition, to crush this foe, so that he could return to observing humanity once more.

Perhaps this is how Ainz felt?

Merlin couldn’t fully perceive Chaldea, and Ainz and some of his Servants were veiled from his sight, but even so, he’d gleaned enough. Though Fou, Cath Palug, had severed the connection between them, Merlin had pieced together enough fragments of Chaldea, to come to the truth. In a strange way, he understood Ainz, perhaps more than the Servants or humans at his side. 

Because the Ainz that had first come to it, was different from the Ainz that had stood before him not that long ago.

Maybe Merlin understood him because he, too, had found a new purpose—a first in his eternal life, sparked by the Singularities’ crisis.

Even if Merlin didn’t suffer as he ‘should’, even if he merely existed as his nature dictated, even if Ainz stood as an alien force of absolute evil to this world… Merlin had understood his essence. They stood now on the same side, not just in battle, but in existence itself. Both were recluses forever trapped within utopian walls, who found meaning only by stepping beyond them.

Could this be considered an evolution, Merlin's own growth, a new level of existence? 

Would Merlin, when looking into a mirror and stare into his own eyes now, would he be petrified from the sheer scale of his internal contradictions and the realization of what kind of person he truly was now? But there was no mirror within Merlin’s reach, and he would not be looking for one right now, or ever… He preferred not to torment himself further, conjuring more inner demons or chastising himself over his history and monstrous past. 

Still, even if it turned out he was nothing like the person he always believed himself to be, it would hardly leave a permanent wound on his psyche, something he’d futilely try to mend for the rest of his life. Merlin had accepted himself as he was long ago, becoming one with his own existence.

It could even be said that he had reached enlightenment, though no one would ever agree with his self-evaluation, of course. But that was fine as well.

Instead, Merlin watched as the people around him prepared for yet another battle against monsters, as if they could hold their ground and halt Tiamat so easily. As if she were merely another monster, albeit slightly stronger than the rest, that only required a hero to slip past her defenses, wound her with a blade, and deliver a fatal strike that could destroy her.

It might even have been amusing, though terribly anticlimactic, to ‘simply’ breach Tiamat’s defenses, ‘simply’ wound her, and of course, ‘simply’ land the final blow with some catastrophic ability that would leave no trace of her. An attack that would scatter her ashes to the wind, erasing her from reality, and leaving behind only a brief historical record.

Then, the entire situation could be viewed as just another adventure, dangerous, harrowing, but ultimately transient. 

The kind that legends are made from, always ending well. Of course, it wouldn’t be a fairy-tale ending, as legends are forged through pain, suffering, death, and loss, and in the end, both heroes and villains would meet their demise. If not within the legend itself, then long after their adventures, the final footnote to any story, left unspoken in tales of their battles and triumphs. 

After all, if someone could still hear their legend years later… wasn’t that a good ending in itself?

But Beast II could not be destroyed so easily, as if a Hero, or even many of them, could just slay the monster and call the legend complete. No, Beast II was a far greater calamity than any monster or deity, a mere hero was utterly insufficient to halt its apocalyptic might. 

Such a being could not be killed by a hero wielding a famed blade, nor by an assassin radiating the aura of Death itself. Beast II could not be destroyed through the power of ‘merely’ one individual, even a Servant or even a Grand Servant. 

To achieve such a feat required standing far above all other heroes and casting Beast II down from its pedestal, a throne where killing such a force was inherently impossible. After all, to ‘kill’ something, that thing must first be ‘alive’ in the first place. 

But Beast II was not alive, just as natural forces and material concepts lack life, one cannot toll a funeral bell for that which was never born.

Even if Beast II were ‘alive’, for the attribute of ‘Death’ to be added to such a being, who could kill it? Perhaps a Servant might be able to, but then such a ‘Death’ would not be final, Tiamat would only return. 

Even stripping away every conceivable power, ability, or weakness from it, Beast II, regardless of its state as an unliving life, was immortal. Destroying such an entity demanded more than a fight against a monster or god, it required a battle against immortality itself. 

As Beast II is the most immortal of all beings, the living Mother of all Creation.

Of course Ainz could do it, Merlin had no doubt that Ainz had a spell or ability specifically for such an occasion, perhaps even ten of them, each with different conditions and effects, simply because one fit the occasion best. 

But should Ainz proceed with it? Should Merlin agree to it? And what to do with this fact afterward?

Though Merlin considered himself somewhat close to Ainz in a certain sense, that didn’t make them more than situational allies at this moment. Ainz was pure evil, not in the human definition of the word, of someone reveling in sadism or breaking laws for petty gains or to prove they could. 

No, as strange as it sounded under these circumstances, Merlin was fully prepared to believe that, from humanity’s perspective, Ainz might even qualify as True Good. He genuinely wanted to save the world, resolve the Singularities, and care for Chaldea. What else could that be called but ‘Good’?

Of course, Merlin might be wrong on all counts, his perception of Ainz was flawed, obscured by his own nature, or perhaps there was a massive more sinister reason lurking behind every seemingly benevolent, even ‘kind’ aspect of Ainz’s persona. 

Even so, Merlin himself was ready to believe Ainz was a positive force in this scenario. The problem was that ‘in this scenario’ didn’t mean Ainz would never alter his role in this legend.

He himself, as Merlin, would be a good example for that.

Merlin was who he was, he could act for humanity’s sake or against it at different points in his existence, never fully embodying one side or the other. Yet he was comfortable in his role, unburdened by existential reflections. 

Who could say that Ainz himself wouldn’t act unpredictably in the future?

Even if Ainz didn’t inherently desire the world’s destruction, who could guarantee that he wouldn’t end it himself later? Perhaps by accident, or by a convergence of factors in the future, who could say he wouldn’t reshape the world beyond recognition, rendering the old one effectively destroyed?

If Ainz were an ordinary human, the issue would be trivial. Once the Singularities ended, the Clock Tower would restore the status quo, and a human lifespan is finite. Sure, the world would bear scars, and there would be scholars dedicated to studying the anomalies. But, balance would return in the end, rendering the world the same as before, as if nothing had happened, and history would march along familiar tracks.

But not even the foolish would assume such restoration to be possible now, with Ainz’s presence looming over Chaldea. Having already summoned so many Servants and forged a web of personal and hierarchical ties there, there would be no removing Ainz. 

The question now wasn’t whether his motives were pure or wicked, nor whether his actions would improve or worsen the world. It was about the death of the old world and the birth of a new one. 

In other words, while Beast II, Tiamat, unleashed an apocalypse of raw power, devouring the world to rebirth humanity, Ainz’s presence alone would mean that the world would change. In saving the world, he would be its ‘destruction’. And this paradox made him the truest, purest evil.

Not because he aspired to be one, but because he was one.

His nature as an undead, or a mage wielding not merely potent magic, but magic that defied the very foundations of the arcane, from curses and necromancy to immortality and resurrection… Merlin didn’t even want to imagine the full scope of abilities Ainz had yet to reveal. Such things rendered him as something utterly unnatural to this world. 

He might have no desire to influence the world and strive toward the most benevolent outcomes, but his mere presence warped reality, twisting it into something ‘other’ than what it had been before. 

Thus, he was absolute evil, not by intent, but by existence. 

His presence alone had already altered the world beyond recognition, and he would continue to distort it further. And there was no true way to stop him.

In a sense, Ainz himself was a Beast, or at least resembled one, blurred at the edges of definition, inverted in nature. While Beasts were emanations of Humanity, born from its collective consciousness and fears, Ainz was a foreign entity grafted into its fabric. 

The Beasts were rejected by Humanity to preserve its existence, while Ainz was embraced by Humanity to protect itself. 

The Beasts fought humanity in solitude, while Ainz fought for Humanity alongside countless allies. 

The Beasts created calamities; Ainz resolved them.

But in the end, both sought the world’s end. Ainz simply chose a more… efficient method.

The most terrifying part? Ainz wasn’t even aware of it. 

He might not notice, or care, of how his actions rippled through the world as he moved forward. He did not reshape reality through overt acts, he birthed cascading changes that spread autonomously with his every action, like waves eroding cliffs. Moments piled upon moments, minute actions by minute actions, the waves build. 

In Chaldea, already whispers of a new magical system are arising, a stark change of the world’s paradigm. Though, Merlin dared not pry too deeply into Ainz's domain, lest he draw the gaze of the Overlord or his ever-watchful subordinates. Already, a Demon was turning his eyes to Mars, and Merlin shuddered to imagine the fallout if they discovered what, or who, resided there. 

All that Merlin knows for sure was that, while Ainz wielded power sufficient to annihilate the world in an instant, he had no desire to use it, of course. But the mere possibility provoked anxiety in any observer.

Yet, what could Merlin do? He was no slouch in his own capability as the self-proclaimed ‘Grand Caster’, who didn’t possess the title simply because there was already one before he could. Even destroying the world wasn’t beyond him given preparation, he was not the ‘Antichrist’ for no reason after all. Even the ‘Grand Caster’, Solomon, could not destroy the world, destroy Humanity, without the Singularities, and his Demon King proxies, plus meticulous planning… 

But Ainz? Ainz required none of that. The world crumbled simply by his proximity, dying and reborn as he passed.

How could Merlin not deem him absolute evil?

“You’ve been staring at the horizon for too long,” A voice pierced through Merlin’s thoughts, forcing him to plaster on a foolish grin and immediately bow obsequiously as Gilgamesh materialized beside him.

“I’m merely savoring the beauty of the dawn sky, Your Majesty,” Merlin replied in his usual, slightly mocking tone, so familiar in its defiance of the heavens and majesty. 

“I fear it will be quite some time before I see it again. I must admit, sunrises don’t look nearly as splendid from my tower’s window as they do standing upon the soil of your kingdom, Your Majesty.”

“Spare me your groveling,” Gilgamesh waved a hand dismissively, as though swatting away an annoying gnat, for that was clearly how he viewed Merlin’s words. 

“Tiamat has awakened, has she not?”

Merlin shifted his gaze to the soldiers lining the walls, already rallying into emergency battle formations as they stared at the Black Sea, which is now long past churning and now seething violently, and nodded. “Only seconds remain before she wakes.”

“Hmph.” Gilgamesh met the apocalyptic news with a single grunt before grinning. For a fleeting moment, the visage of the King of Heroes, the great tyrant of the past immortalized in his Epic, flickered across his face. 

“Good. Then it is time to remind that overreaching mother how truly her children have grown.”

A moment later, Tiamat’s Black Sea, until then churning with waves, suddenly stilled into absolute stillness. 

Then the Black Sea abruptly surged upward, spawning a mountain from nothingness that seemed to have reached the heavens, and across all the land of Humanity, what’s left of it, echoed the roar of the deranged Mother of All Life.

The Battle for all Life has begun.