...
Gilgamesh was woken by Cassie knocking on his door. Annoyed, he peered out his slightly parted window and saw that the sun was nowhere to be seen.
Why would she wake him at this hour? Perhaps it was an emergency?
Getting up, he tossed the sheets aside and walked toward the door.
"Cassie, what's up?"
Gilgamesh spoke before opening the door, then pulled it inward.
Staring blearily at Cassie's blue eyes, he let her inside and locked the door behind her.
His feet automatically guided him toward the comfort of his bed. He sat down on it and yawned while looking at the ceiling.
"So… why did you wake me up at midnight?"
Shifting back, Gilgamesh rested his head against the headboard and stared at her curiously. Why was she wearing a bedsheet? He blinked in confusion.
An uncertain look appeared on Cassie's face, which then turned into a blush as she slowly took off the bedsheet she was wearing.
Gilgamesh raised an eyebrow as the bedsheet fell away, revealing she wore nothing underneath.
He sighed while looking at the ceiling.
"Gil… I don't know how to say it, but I wanted to thank you for protecting me, leading me to safety, providing me with Memories, Echoes, and Soul Shards, even though I did nothing to deserve such good treatment. Please… use my body… for whatever you need, for everything you've done."
At the ending sentence, she was whispering lightly and stuttering so much that Gilgamesh had to use his enhanced senses to hear everything.
He sighed again.
Cassie was already on her knees, crawling toward him, her soft breasts hanging down, her blue eyes looking unseeingly in his direction with embarassment and lust.
"Cassie, even though I'd love to pounce on you right now, I don't want our first time to happen because of the guilt that you're feeling."
Gilgamesh moved across the bed and pushed her back against it. With her wide, glistening eyes and blonde hair spread across the bed, framing a halo around her head, he couldn't resist and claimed her lips immediately.
At first, Cassie didn't react, confused by the sudden movement, but after a few seconds she started reacting and deepening the kiss.
His lips moved gently against hers, stealing her breath. After a moment, Gilgamesh pulled away, with only a string of saliva connecting them, looking at her red face and wide eyes.
Moving to the other side of the bed, he lay down with his hands beneath his head.
"It will be a lot better if I take you out on a date first, in the real world. For now, you should relax and sleep."
The blind girl merely nodded, touching her lips, still stunned by what had just happened.
Not getting a verbal response, Gilgamesh shrugged and pulled the blanket over both of them.
[Sleeper Cassie has been conquered.]
...
Floating in the air, Gilgamesh looked down at the Nightmare Creature below him.
Launching a sword at it, he waited until the worm-like creature reacted, looking up at him, before launching another sword, killing it instantly.
While the chime of the spell continued to ring in his head, Gilgamesh automatically dumped the memory into [Gate of Babylon].
The sound of displaced air alerted him to the presence of something rushing toward him.
Without looking, he opened a portal, and a sword shot out, killing it immediately.
"Even the air isn't safe in this shitty place."
It was the truth; in a place like Forgotten Shore, the sea, the land, and even the air weren't safe, especially the air, because most of the creatures up here had no natural predators unlike the ones of the ground and sea.
Just a second later, another filth rushed at him in the air but was shot down before it could even get close.
"If Forgotten Shore is this bad, I wonder how the Sleepers who got dumped on the opposite side of the Dream Realm are faring."
The Dream Realm truly was an interesting place with all its mysteries.
Sometimes he felt that the Spell wasn't actually fair. He couldn't complain though, he had gotten the better end of the stick afterall.
Letting those thoughts go, Gilgamesh opened his Runes and stared at the screen before him.
Class: Monster.
Golden Cores: [2/7]
Golden Fragments: [1996/2000]
After almost two weeks of grinding repeatedly, day in and day out, he had almost reached his goal.
The only thing that needed to be done was to put the Awakened memory he had just gained inside of [Gate of Babylon].
Without wasting time, he rushed toward the Castle.
On the way he couldn't help but think how it would feel to form another Soul Core.
While Gilgamesh didn't know just how painful it would be to gain another Core, he doubted that he would be screaming while it formed.
After a few minutes, Gilgamesh was near the castle. Looking down he saw that the people below him barely reacted to seeing him fly; it had become a normal occurrence for them.
Dismissing [Wings of Anu], Gilgamesh landed inside the open window of his room and sat down on the bed.
"Let's see how this goes."
Gilgamesh couldn't help but feel anticipation at the thought of forming a new Core.
Licking his lips, he summoned the Memory, which looked like the talons of a bird, and dumped it inside the portal that had opened up.
He clenched his fist, waiting for the pain to come.
[Your treasury is overflowing with treasures.]
Gilgamesh felt a strange, scorching, and unbearable heat well up inside his Soul. He gritted his teeth and gripped the area where his heart was.
[Your treasury is expanding.]
He instantly teleported himself outside the castle, into an empty area around the edges of the wall.
Gilgamesh screamed as he fell to his knees. His soul felt as if someone was ripping it apart slowly and cruelly.
He clutched the ground around him with his gauntleted hands and ripped everything apart in pain while groaning.
"Argh, fuck."
Gilgamesh repeatedly beat his hands against the ground, cracking the whole area around himself, as tears escaped from his eyes.
[Your treasury is reformed.]
Released from the paralyzing pain, Gilgamesh took mouthfuls of air as he fell to the ground and shut his eyes.
"Argh, shit, I didn't know that… it would be this bad. That's probably the most painful thing I have ever felt."
Remaining on the ground for a few more moments, he breathed in deeply.
Finally, after a few more minutes of just laying on ground, he opened his Runes.
Name: Gilgamesh.
True Name: Wedge of Heaven.
Rank: Dreamer.
Class: Demon.
Golden Cores: [3/7].
Golden Fragments: [0/3000].
A sigh of relief escaped Gilgamesh's lips as he sat up on the ground, staring at the runes before a grin spread across his face.
"A Demon as a Dreamer, not bad."
Still grinning, he stood up shakily and laughed into the air.
"Not bad at all."
Stretching his limbs, Gilgamesh unleashed his strength, getting a feel for his increased power.
While jumping on his toes, he threw some lightning quick jabs and smirked.
"Watch out, Crimson Spire, you're getting fucked tomorrow."
After a few more minutes of shadow boxing, he was feeling perfectly normal.
Now, it was time to check whether his hypothesis about [Gate of Babylon] was correct or not.
"First up, the range of my portals."
Previously, it was only around ten kilometers. If he was correct, then the range should have either increased by another ten kilometers, become one hundred kilometers, or would not have changed at all.
Equipping [Wings of Anu] and flying into the air, Gilgamesh opened a portal at his previous limit with anticipation running through his eyes.
Next, he attempted to open a portal around twenty kilometers from his current location.
"Moment of truth."
It worked; he could open a portal at twenty kilometers. That meant that [Gate of Babylon] scaled with the Class and not the Rank.
But he could feel that this was not the limit.
So, Gilgamesh opened another one at thirty kilometers. Then another one at fifty, and then another one at directly one hundred.
After a few more attempts he realised that he couldn't open a portal more far away than that.
One hundred kilometers was the limit.
"This… changes things."
Gilgamesh had suspected that the range might jump from ten to one hundred, but he wasn't entirely sure about it until now.
Then what would be the limit when he reached the Class of Titan? One million?
That was absurd, even more so considering that it wouldn't really take all that time for him to reach Titan.
Gilgamesh laughed again. He was going to get so overpowered.
A sudden thought sprang up in his mind.
"Could I cross the Hollow Mountains now?"
He was not sure what the width of the mountain range was. Still, it was good to know that even if he got stuck here, he could teleport across it in one go.
The next thing he wanted to test was how many portals he could open.
For that, Gilgamesh needed to get a bit further away from the city, so that the people inside it wouldn't panic.
A portal opened beneath him, teleporting him away from the city, into a relatively flat area.
Not waiting, he immediately opened one hundred fifty portals at once, then five hundred, and then directly one thousand.
When Gilgamesh reached one thousand, he couldn't open any more portals.
The limit for the amount of portals he could open was one thousand.
"So, the upper limit for the amount of portals that I can open is ten million?"
A frown appeared on his face.
He hadn't realised it before, but the fact that his progress would be stopped at ten million for the amount of portals and one million kilometers for the range did not sit well with him.
It might seem good in the short term, but he didn't like the fact that his progress would be capped after a certain point.
"Surely there would be a way to surpass this limit?"
Could Sunny in the original novel make more shadows for himself like Gloomy once he reached Titan?
The original Gods might have been able to surpass this limit, since they had created the concept of such things themselves, but other Divine Ranked people? Could they do it too? Could they surpass this limit?
Gilgamesh pursed his lips in thought.
"I'll find a way to surpass these pesky limits put on me."
He clenched his fist in determination, his face set in stone.
Gilgamesh still had one other thing he wanted to test: how much did the speed of his projectiles increase?
Opening a portal, he shot a dagger toward the open space in front of him at the fastest speed he could manage.
The dagger whizzed through the air, traveling at such a pace that even his eyes couldn't keep up with it.
An impressed look appeared on his face.
"It's pretty impressive, considering that I could keep up with the object before becoming a Demon."
Nodding his head, Gilgamesh whistled into the air with a satisfied look on his face. This was enough testing for now. It was time to announce that they would be laying a seige against the Crimson Spire tomorrow.
...
Gilgamesh sat on the throne, leaning against it comfortably as his lieutenants discussed how they should proceed with the siege tomorrow.
Cassie sat to his left, Nephis toward the other end of the table, and Sunny to his right.
Seishan, weirdly enough, had insisted on sitting beside him, but of course, he had refused. Sunny, Cassie, and Nephis came before her in anything.
The other people at the table included Gunlaug with his previous lieutenants.
"I think we should dedicate all our time to making as many siege weapons as possible."
"There isn't enough time for that; the battle is tomorrow."
"We should distribute all the Memories in the castle to the people."
"There are far too few Memories and far too many people that's just impossible."
Gilgamesh stared into boredom at their chatter. Why were they worried so much?
'Right, I forgot, not everyone is as strong as me.'
He was getting even more bored at all these useless debates. There were so many other things they could do instead of just wasting their time here.
"Enough."
Gilgamesh didn't have to shout, nor did he have to move. Just the sound of his voice was enough to shut all of them up.
"Your lack of faith in me is rather disturbing."
All the people assembled there, except for the trio of girls, stilled nervously.
"I… alone am enough."
With that, he got up, Cassie, Nephis, and Sunny following in his footsteps as he walked out of the room.
Of course, Gilgamesh had only said that so he could aura farm as much as possible.
'Man, I really am so cool.'
...
Word Count: 2169.