CHAPTER 5: THE BEAST OF URUK

*Year: 4415 BC*

*Location: Sumer – The City of Uruk*

Uruk had grown wide and proud, its brick walls stretching like the arms of a drunk god. The sky above was a fiery sheet of dust and smoke; the streets below throbbed with markets, drums, and the breath of thousands. To the eyes of men, this was the crown of civilization.

To Pluto, it was a city diseased.

He entered beneath a new face, the sixth since Babylon. His system projected subtle alterations: sharper cheekbones, darker skin, longer hair. His name in this form was *Amun-Kar*, a tradesman with no origin, no homeland. Only silent eyes and perfect posture.

Uruk smelled of blood and incense. Behind the walls, kings were crowned by priests whose mouths whispered in languages not of man. Temples shone with gold stolen from corpses. And at the heart of it all, the great *Ziggurat of Amar-Utu* loomed like a throne for a beast.

Because there was a beast.

Pluto could *feel* it.

The same corrupt signature he'd tracked through burnt villages, broken rivers, and entire extinct tribes. It pulsed beneath the ziggurat like a second heartbeat for the city.

His system confirmed it.

*[SIGNATURE MATCHED: ZHAL-MAR, CLASS 4 DEVIANT]*

*Function: Genetic Sculptor / Lineage Breeder*

*Status: Local God / High Priest of Uruk*

*Threat: Expanding – Third Mutation Stage Detected*

It had been here for decades.

***

Pluto walked the streets for three days. Watching. Listening.

The stories came from mothers, drunk soldiers, dying slaves. They spoke of the "Star-Blooded One," a priest whose voice made pregnant women faint and whose eyes never blinked. No child born beneath his temple came out normal—some too large, others without bones, a few with flickering skin.

He heard of one boy born with three shadows, and another who burned from the inside after a single breath.

And yet they *worshipped* him.

Pluto's eyes darkened.

The Deviant wasn't feeding on fear—it was feeding on *hope*. Manipulating the idea of divinity through generations. It had turned itself into a god not by force, but by belief.

And that made it more dangerous than most.

He needed a trigger.

It came in the form of a funeral.

A child, age six, died screaming during a "blessing." Her body twisted in her final hours, joints reversing, spine splitting. Her father, broken by grief, tried to attack the temple.

He was executed in the market square.

That night, Pluto entered the ziggurat alone.

***

Inside, the walls were covered in living scripture—veins of Deviant script that pulsed with light. The air was thick with spores that would have disoriented a lesser being. Priests knelt, mindless and humming. Their skin was translucent.

At the peak chamber, Zhal-Mar sat upon a throne of black stone, clothed in silk and flesh. Its face had no eyes, only an endless grin. Its hands were six-fingered. Its chest shifted as if things lived beneath it.

"You enter the temple of the first god born on Earth," the thing said, voice rich and echoing. "You kneel, or you are *unmade*."

Pluto pulled down his hood.

Silver eyes met eyeless face.

"I kneel for no failed experiment."

Zhal-Mar stood slowly. The air warped. The walls screamed. Reality *bent*.

It attacked.

***

The room collapsed into chaos. Psychic waves surged. Tentacles of light and genetic matter coiled like serpents. Zhal-Mar struck first, vomiting sequences of corrupted DNA—designed to rewrite Pluto's flesh.

They failed.

He adapted mid-strike.

He leapt, striking with no wasted motion. His bones hummed, skin flexed, mind sharpened. Each hit from the Deviant taught him more—its rhythm, its intention, its design.

Zhal-Mar shifted into its second form—a tower of spines and tongues—but Pluto was already within its guard.

He grabbed its throat with one hand.

"You taught children to pray to poison."

His arm glowed with raw energy.

He *tore* through its core.

Zhal-Mar shrieked, its form unraveling—spilling into runes and rot.

It died in disbelief.

And with it, the ziggurat *screamed* as its foundation cracked.

Pluto walked out as the temple burned behind him, carrying the child's name in his mind.

***

In the desert beyond the city, a lone man waited for him.

Older, scarred, armed with a blade chipped by wars. His eyes held a warrior's burden.

"I know what you did," he said. "The temple fell in fire, and the priests are howling in the streets. They think a god came down."

Pluto didn't speak.

The man smirked.

"My name is *Ilias*. I was once a commander, now only a man. But I saw you fight. You are not a god… but they will remember you as one."

"I don't want worship."

"Then take command. Be more than a shadow."

Pluto paused.

"I don't lead," he said.

"Not yet," Ilias answered.

He offered a respectful nod.

And walked into the dark, unaware that this meeting would shape the future of nations.

Pluto stood alone beneath the stars.

The world was watching now.