Chapter 4723: It Is Not Enough II

For a long moment, Gilgamesh simply stared at her.

Then he sighed.

It was a heavy sound, filled with something that might have been disappointment or might have been respect or might have been both intertwined so thoroughly that even he couldn’t separate them.

"Very well."

He raised his hand, and the weapons around him began to spin faster.

Lumivara responded with everything she had left.

"MY TAILS ARE THE SHARPEST IN EXISTENCE, AND THEY SHALL PIERCE EVERYTHING BEFORE ME!"

BOOM!

The Declaration erupted from her with force that cracked the ground beneath her feet. Her seven remaining tails blazed with light so intense that the Wastes themselves recoiled, and then they transformed. No longer flowing extensions of her form, they became blades of concentrated radiance, each one carrying the full weight of her Way behind it.

They surged toward Gilgamesh like the wrath of dying Folds.

The very Wastes were torn by their passage. Space itself split where they traveled, unable to contain the sharpness she had declared into existence. Ash and flame and corrupted matter all fell away before her assault, annihilated by light that refused to acknowledge any obstacle.

Gilgamesh watched them come.

His eyes shone with immensity, with the weight of eons, with the accumulated authority of a being who had stood at the pinnacle of existence since before most entities learned to crawl.

And with pity.

"ALL THAT IS DIVIDED SHALL BE UNIFIED. ALL THAT IS MANY SHALL BECOME ONE. ALL THAT OPPOSES ME SHALL JOIN ME OR CEASE."

BOOM!

His Declaration unfolded with force that made Lumivara’s seem like a whisper against a hurricane.

The Way of Unity, backed by the full weight of THE First Leader’s existence, crashed against her bladed tails with absolute authority. It did not deflect them. It did not block them. It unified them!

What had been seven became one.

What had been sharp became dull.

What had been an attack became... nothing.

SNAP!

Her tails, all seven of them, were bisected simultaneously as Gilgamesh’s Declaration cut through her own like a blade through silk. The sharpness she had declared was unified into a single point that collapsed under its own conceptual weight. The light she had summoned was unified into a darkness that could not illuminate anything.

And Gilgamesh himself moved forward.

His hand grasped the blood-stained spear with casual ease, and he crossed the distance between them in a single step that seemed to last forever.

The spear thrust toward Lumivara’s heart- towards her Heart of Light.

She roared with defiance even as the blood from her bisected tails ran down her form in crimson gold rivers. Even as her remaining tails, now stumps that wept luminescence, thrashed uselessly behind her. Even as every part of her existence screamed that this was the end!

Crimson gold tears leaked from her eyes, mixing with the blood she had painted across her face.

And in that moment, she did not think of escape. She did not think of survival. She did not think of the battle or the enemy or the pain that consumed her existence.

She thought of her master.

Of the entity who had given her Mana when she had only Light. Who had elevated her from a minor thing in The Infinite Unfurling to someone who could eventually stand against Fundamental Depth entities. Who had held her like the little fox she had been, stroking her fur.

She just wanted to see him again.

To be held by him one more time.

To hear his voice telling her that she had done well.

The spear came closer, its point gleaming with inevitability.

And Gilgamesh’s voice rang out from all around, heavy with the weight of a king who had witnessed too many endings.

"Sometimes... we try and try our best. And sometimes, it is not enough."

His words carried no mockery or satisfaction. Only ancient understanding.

"It is not to say you were lacking. Your Way is brilliant. Your determination is admirable. Your loyalty to your master is something I can respect."

The spear reached within inches of her chest.

"Sometimes, Existence is just really unfair."

His eyes met hers one final time.

"Rest, little fox. I will find your master another way."

...!

At such a time!

At such a pivotal moment where it looked like Lumivara’s fate was sealed!

A voice boomed across the Wastes of THE Fallout.

"Yes, sometimes, Existence is unfair..."

Gilgamesh’s eyes widened.

His spear, inches from Lumivara’s heart, stopped.

And it was not because he chose to stop it, but because something stopped it for him!

BOOM!

Boundless waves of obsidian gold hair descended from above like a curtain of judgment. Each strand carried weight that made Gilgamesh’s weapons tremble. Each fiber blazed with Mana so dense and pure that the corrupted Wastes themselves seemed to recoil from its presence.

The hair crashed against Gilgamesh’s crimson gold weapons, and those treasures that had conquered civilizations shattered like glass against stone!

An impenetrable wall formed between Gilgamesh and his prey.

Hair woven so densely that light itself could not pass through. Hair that thrummed with Declarations of its own, Declarations that made both Lumivara’s and Gilgamesh’s seem modest by comparison.

And beside that vibrant obsidian gold wall, a figure appeared next to Lumivara.

He was covered entirely in hair.

Obsidian gold strands flowed from every inch of his form, cascading around him like a living cloak that responded to his will. The hair moved with purpose, with intention, with the casual authority of someone who had long since stopped needing to prove anything to anyone. Where it touched the corrupted ground of the Wastes, the corruption fled.

Waves of obsidian Undifferentiated Mana surrounded him like an endless sea, so dense and pure that it seemed less like energy and more like liquid existence given form. The air itself bent around his presence, not in fear but in acknowledgment. Reality recognized this being and treated him with the deference reserved for those who had transcended normal hierarchies.

His face could not be seen beneath the curtain of hair.

But somehow, somehow, one could almost envision him smiling at this moment.

Lumivara looked toward this hairy figure with a tear-stricken face.

Shock and then recognition bloomed in her eyes. Disbelief. Hope. And then something that might have been called joy if joy could be mixed with relief so profound that it bordered on collapse!

She lunged toward him.

Her wounded form, bleeding from a dozen injuries, missing two tails entirely, carved with the Way of Unity that rejected her healing, threw itself at this figure with abandon that spoke of absolute trust.

She embraced him!

Her arms wrapped around his hairy form, and her face pressed against his chest as sobs wracked her body!

The hairy entity stood there for a moment, accepting her embrace as he sighed!

After all, the two of them had been in THE Belly of Existence for a long, long time.

His hairy hand rose and stroked the head of the little fox with gentleness that seemed impossible for someone radiating such immense power.

"There, there."

His voice was warm and comforting, holding the weight of someone who had arrived exactly when he was needed and knew it.

"It’s okay."

He continued to stroke her hair as she cried against him, her tears mixing with the blood that covered her form as he let her have this moment.

Then he turned toward Gilgamesh.

The hairy figure regarded THE First Leader with what might have been curiosity or might have been contempt or might have been simple assessment, his face remaining hidden beneath that curtain of obsidian gold while the weight of his attention pressed down upon the ancient king with unmistakable authority.

"Why would a Leader be bullying a child?"

The words carried across the devastated plain with casual authority that made the air itself tremble.

And then...

BOOM!

An unbelievably immense force shining obsidian gold smashed into Gilgamesh with violence that defied comprehension!

It was not an attack in any conventional sense but simply pressure, the weight of existence itself deciding that Gilgamesh should not be standing where he was standing.

Gilgamesh’s massive and unbeatable figure was flung backward like a leaf caught in a hurricane!

He who had conquered civilizations, he who had stood against armies, he who had made Lumivara seem like a child before his authority despite her being a Fundamental Depth entity saturated with Mana, was sent careening through the corrupted air of the Wastes with no ability to resist or slow his trajectory!

When he finally stopped, cratering into the corrupted Wastes with force that sent shockwaves rippling outward for miles, one could see his forehead.

It was cracked.

A single fissure ran from his hairline to his brow, splitting the perfect features that had worn crowns as crimson gold Unity flowed from the wound like blood from a mortal injury, the essence of his Way leaking from him in steady streams that spoke of damage far deeper than the physical.

And it did not heal.

The crack remained stubborn and impossible, refusing to close despite the immense regenerative capabilities that someone of his Depth should possess, a testament to the power that had inflicted it!

His gaze turned heavy and somber as he rose from the crater of Wastes, his ancient eyes focusing on the hairy figure standing beside Lumivara with an intensity of reassessment and recalculation.

He looked at that impossible entity, and understanding dawned in his ancient eyes.

From the light that had smashed into him, from the pressure that had flung him backward, from the wound that refused to close despite everything his Way of Unity demanded...

He could sense a glimmer of Absolute.

It was not fully Absolute, not the complete and total authority of someone who had reached the true peak of existence, but it was a glimmer, a taste, a promise of what lay within that hairy form that could not be ignored or dismissed!

And this...

This was heavy.

Truly, truly heavy!

For the first time since the battle began, for the first time since he had cornered Lumivara and demanded she call upon her master, for the first time since he had declared his intention to find Noah Osmont through any means necessary...

Gilgamesh looked upon an enemy and felt uncertainty.

At this moment, Ul’moreth, THE Primeval Titan, had arrived.

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