Second chapter as promised.
...
Gilgamesh was brought back to reality by Cassie's sharp scream.
Turning swiftly, he saw the blind girl walking off her bed towards the edge of the platform with a hysterical and horrified look on her face.
Not waiting for her to walk off the edge, he dashed forward and caught her while she was still quivering, horrified.
"Calm down, Cassie, it's me. You're going to be safe, alright?"
That seemed to magically calm her down as her shaking slowed. Gently kissing her forehead, he placed her on the center of the platform.
Both Sunny and Nephis had gotten up at the sound of the commotion, looking alarmed.
They came up to him with worried looks on their faces.
"What happened?" Nephis asked with a worried look on her usually calm face.
Gilgamesh moved away from Cassie after saying a few more calming words to her and turned towards them both.
"Don't know. I would have noticed if something was attacking, physically or using a different form of attack. I think she might have gotten a vision or something."
Nephis didn't respond, just looking at the sea for a while, as if searching for something. Instead, Sunny asked the next question with a concerned look on her face.
"Is she going to be alright?"
Gilgamesh looked at Cassie, who was sitting with her legs brought near her chest. Her shaking had stopped for the most part, yet she trembled from time to time.
"I think so. She's a lot stronger than she looks."
They took turns trying to make her calm down and ask what had happened, but she refused to say anything, opting instead to remain quiet and look at the ground. Since it wasn't working, they decided to give her some time to rest and backed off.
...
While sitting on the floor, Gilgamesh stared at the forms of the two girls as Nephis taught Sunny how to use her blade.
Turning away from them, he instead looked at the mass gathering of Carapace Scavengers munching on the dead body of the Corrupted Devil.
From what he could tell, there were still at least around six to seven hundred of them gathered around it.
There was still a lot of meat left on the shark-looking Nightmare Creature's body for them to feast on.
While looking at them without having anything to do, out of sheer boredom, a good idea appeared in his mind.
A portal appeared beside him, and a stone shot out of it. It traveled through the air letting out a sonic boom.
Nearing them, the stone gaining immense speed looked akin to a small meteorite, went through the brains of multiple Carapace Scavengers simultaneously.
[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[You have gained an Echo.]
[Your treasury grows deeper.]
The creatures screeched, trying to find the perpetrator, thinking that they were being attacked by their partner, they started killing their kin beside themselves. The situation snowballed from there with multiple Carapace Scavengers attacking each other, ganging up and eliminating competition.
Snickering at the discord he had caused among them, he dropped [Sword of Rupture] out of his portal. As it fell into his hands, Gilgamesh couldn't help but appreciate the time difference between summoning it normally and summoning it with [Gate of Babylon].
He held the sword in one hand as he brought it towards his lap. Dismissing his gauntlet, Gilgamesh ran his hands over the main part of its body.
Even though it could cut reality itself, it wasn't sharp at all; instead, it felt like he was touching a polished stone.
Ea hummed slightly as he caressed it with his hands.
"Where did you get this sword?"
Nephis's voice came from beside him as she sat down, marveling at Ea. Her eyes traced its entire length and breadth, appreciating it.
"From my First Nightmare."
Nephis nodded her head slowly and stared at his face contemplatively before moving closer to him.
They stayed like that for a while in comfortable silence.
...
Cassie was finally going to speak. Although she still looked pale and had a distant look in her eyes, she was no longer shaking.
"Do you feel better, Cassie?"
The blind girl nodded, trying her best to smile at his words.
At the same time, Sunny finished her one thousand slashes and walked up to them, her hands falling sorely by her sides.
Walking closer to him, she whispered whether he could give her water, not wanting to disturb Cassie.
Nodding at her, he dropped a water bottle on the ground beside her. Thanking him, she started drinking. Once she was done, she handed it to Cassie, telling her to drink too.
"Everything seems to be fine now. Uh... did you dream of another vision? You can tell us, if you want."
Sunny looked nervous, hoping that Cassie wouldn't react badly to her words.
"I... don't know. Maybe it was just a nightmare."
They all knew that it was impossible to dream in the Dream Realm. If, of course, couldn't just be a normal nightmare.
Although Gilgamesh already knew what she was going to say, he wasn't sure how his presence would affect the prophecy.
Either two things could happen: the prophecy would be told by her exactly as the original, failing to account for his presence, or there would be some changes.
He was not entirely sure what would happen, but he was leaning more towards the 'Nothing changing in the prophecy' side, considering that he was already absent from Cassie's ability to see Attributes and also from her prophecies.
"I don't really remember. It's all in fragments."
Gilgamesh encouraged her to speak up without pressuring her.
"At first, I saw a... a boundless darkness locked behind seven seals. Something vast was churning in the darkness. I felt like if I directly saw it, I would lose my mind. As I watched, terrified, the seals broke one after another, until only one remained. And then that seal broke, too."
Pretty much the same for now.
"After that... I don't know. It was as though my mind shattered into a thousand shards, each shard reflecting its own image. Most of them were dark and scary. Some I have already forgotten. The other..."
Cassie fell silent, as if remembering something.
"I saw the human castle again. Only this time, it was at night. There was a lonely star burning in the black skies, and under its light, the castle was suddenly consumed by fire, with rivers of blood flowing down its halls. I saw a corpse in golden armor sitting on a throne; a woman with a bronze spear drowning in a tide of monsters; an archer trying to pierce the falling sky with his arrows."
Gilgamesh lost interest rather quickly. If he wasn't wrong, then this was the same prophecy as the original.
The [Anomaly] Attribute made a lot more sense now, however. It basically erased him from prophetic abilities.
Since he simply was not going to let a lot of things mentioned in the prophecy happen. He turned his attention back to Cassie. Perhaps she might say something different.
"In the end, I saw a colossal, terrifying crimson spire. At its base, seven severed heads were guarding seven locks. And at the top, a...a dying angel was being consumed by hungry shadows."
Was Weaver retarded?
Couldn't he have sent her a different vision?
Like, come on, it's not that hard to be original for once.
Gilgamesh seriously doubted that the original battle between Sunny and Nephis would even happen, he had already changed a lot of things.
He wouldn't be letting Sunny or Nephis stay behind in the Dream Realm either. Nor was he planning on sacrificing himself and staying behind. He was planning on sacrificing Caster, after all.
"That's...that's all I remember."
Cassie fell silent. Gilgamesh patted her on the back.
"Maybe it was just a dream because of your Aspect."
...
After a while, when everything calmed down, they were discussing what their next move would be.
Since Cassie had recovered and was relaxed, they decided to leave the statue today itself.
The fight that Gilgamesh had caused out of boredom had unexpectedly reduced the number of the Carapace Scavengers a lot then he was expecting originally.
Turning towards them Gilgamesh estimated that their feast would now last at least another two days.
"The Sun is still high up in the air, the creatures are distracted. Now is probably the best time to cover as much distance as we can."
None of them argued against it.
While talking, they decided to walk in the same formation as yesterday while trying to reach the cliffs before the sunset.
...
Without wasting any more time, Gilgamesh teleported all of them down to the ground, they took a moment to gather their thoughts and to get in the formation while helping Cassie get on the Echo.
Whistling with his hands behind his back, Gilgamesh stared at the gray sky, appreciating its beauty.
Even back on the original Earth, he had liked to enjoy the beauty of nature. Watching the various shades of blues, purples, and oranges mix seamlessly in the sky during sunset was one of his favorite pastimes.
Even though Forgotten Shore was a lot more dreary and dull, surrounded only by the various shades of gray, black, and red, it still had a unique charm to it.
Perhaps it was the feeling of novelty it gave off that made him interested in it. He might be the first and last person from the original Earth to witness something like this.
"Gil, what's the first thing you'll do when we return?"
Hearing Cassie's voice, Gilgamesh was brought back to reality. It took a few seconds before he actually understood what she had said.
To be honest, even Gilgamesh wasn't sure what he would be doing when he returned.
While starting his own Clan was definitely up there, he wasn't sure what procedures he might need to go through to actually establish one.
Putting that aside, he also wanted to enjoy his time on this Earth. He wasn't sure what people in this world did for fun in their time after everything that had happened.
Cassie's question made him realize that there wasn't really anything fun he was planning on doing.
Gilgamesh had multiple hobbies that he had enjoyed doing before the apocalyptic situation he had found himself forcefully shoved into. Being on the run, gathering the survivors, and the fighting had made him forget about doing anything he actually enjoyed.
"I...don't really know what I'll be doing, to be completely honest with you, Cassie. Perhaps we could go on a date?"
Gilgamesh couldn't help but laugh as she nodded her head frantically while blushing.
"But what about you, Cassie, what will you do after we return?"
A brilliant smile appeared on her face at his question.
"I'd probably spend my time with my parents. They were really worried when I got infected by the Spell, even more when they learned about my flaw. They probably think that I'm dead already."
The bright smile on her face dimmed as she went on.
"We'll make it back to the real world."
"I know! As long as you're there, I have nothing to worry about."
Gilgamesh smiled at her response.
Falling back, he started thinking what he was about to do when he reached the dark city.
Unlike Nephis, he was not going to spend time collecting followers and getting information. He already knew everything about the bright lord and his subordinates.
Gilgamesh was planning on cracking the Bright Lord's armor with his bare fists. After all, there could only be one King, and that would be him.
After that, most of the things would fall into place; he'd try to decrease the time that it took to return to the real world as quickly as he could.
Taken out of his thoughts due to noticing something, Gilgamesh zoomed in with his eyes while at the same time Sunny shouted at them to stop.
Were those Carapace Centurions? These were much larger, towering above the surroundings at more than three meters in height. Their carapace seemed to be thicker. It was colored in deep black and scarlet, like ancient armor drenched in blood. Here and there, vicious-looking spikes were growing out of the carapace, making their every move much more dangerous.
Gilgamesh was fairly certain that they were indeed Carapace Centurions.
He furrowed his brow in thought. Gilgamesh had thought that they wouldn't appear for at least a few more days, considering that they were ahead of schedule.
All of them stopped as Sunny described their physical characteristics to them with an anxious tone.
"What do we do?"
Both Nephis and Gilgamesh responded at the same time.
"We take a different route / We run through them."
For a moment, both of them stared at each other because of their conflicting opinions. At the same time, the dark clouds suddenly started to roll in, rumbling while beginning to cover the Sun.
All of them looked up into the air, staring at the dark storm clouds.
'I guess [Fated] won over [Golden Rule] this time,' Gilgamesh thought jokingly.
He was fairly certain that this was not supposed to happen for at least a day or two.
Immediately, the ground beneath their feet started to rumble, not only at the sound of the Carapace Centurions running back towards the cliffs but also because of the dark water starting to roll in.
"Run."
Not needing any more confirmation, they all—even his Echo—made a mad dash towards the cliffs.
See, there was one problem: Gilgamesh could have teleported them all in an instant if he wanted to.
He didn't.
Perhaps it was his flaw acting up, or perhaps it was just his normal self; he couldn't really tell. But at that time, he wanted to do nothing except test himself against the Centurions.
Perhaps it was because Gilgamesh was sure that he could defeat them quickly without slowing them down.
At that point, however, none of these thoughts were on his mind.
Running past everyone at insane speeds, Gilgamesh made a mad dash towards the Carapace Centurions with an excited grin on his face.
With Ea already taken out of [Gate of Babylon] and humming in his hand, Gilgamesh spotted the two of them running back towards the security of the cliffs.
It was kind of comedic watching these hulking monstrosities of creatures running for their lives.
The dust beneath his feet was kicked up as he jumped at them.
Before they could even realize it, he was already standing in front of them with his sword raised, ready to slash.
The Carapace Centurions tried to cut him down from their path with their scythe-like hands rushing towards his body, preparing to cleave himmapart.
It never even reached near him, though. With lightning flashing behind his back, both of the Awakened Monsters fell down, sliced in half.
Standing there with a blank expression on his face, as the black water reached his ankles, with Ea slowing down its rotation, Gilgamesh sighed.
Opening a portal beneath each member of the cohort, he teleported all of them to the top of the cliff.
...
"Don't you have a tent or something?"
Sunny looked up, scowling as the rain fell on her.
She did look rather cute with her hair sticking to her head.
"I could teleport you inside of [Gate of Babylon]."
The black-haired girl contemplated for a few seconds, threw a dark look at the sky, and shrugged.
"Sure, it's much better than being out here in the rain."
Gilgamesh turned towards the other two girls, still feeling rather empty at how weak those filthy creatures were.
"Does anyone else wanna go inside?"
Cassie immediately nodded her head.
"What about you, Neph?"
Nephis looked unsure before looking at him.
"I'll only go in if you come inside too."
When he nodded his head, she agreed immediately.
Opening a portal, all of them jumped in one after the other.
...
Sunny laid beside Gilgamesh, while both of them stared at the designs on the ceiling which told the story of Uruk and it's king.
"You know, after experiencing my First Nightmare, I never thought that I'd be able to relax safely on a clean bed with good food and water in the Dream Realm."
Gilgamesh turned his head towards her.
"Impossible doesn't seem to apply to me, does it?"
Sunny nodded her head. At first she had caught that he was just weird handsome guy with stupid aspirations of being a King. But he had proved her wrong again and again.
With him by her side, nothing seemed truly impossible.
The lights of the [Gate of Babylon] went out one by one, making the room engulfed in dark.
...
After having to read the original Shadow Slave to revise my memory, I couldn't help but appreciate just how good GuiltyThree's writing is.
The way he easily mixes different kinds of words to create an imaginative atmosphere is genuinely masterful.
I was comparing our writings and damn I am near his foot when it comes to that. Maybe it's because that's his job, maybe because I'm a cringe teenager but holy shit his writing is good.
I was reading the lord of the rings and his other works and I have to say that his books are even better.
If G3 is A tier then Tolkien has to be SS tier or something.
Anyways, thanks for reading. I am so glad that we managed to reached 200 powers stones in just the first week.
Word Count: 2950.