'Just who is this boy? Why is his spirit more powerful than any god I have ever met?'
'I have been carried across the stretches of reality, and seen all there is to see. When I was eventually taken to the World Beyond Heaven's Door, and brought into the hands of Enki, I glimpsed a reality filled with gods that transcended all others.'
'Still, even there, there was not a single god with a spirit as powerful as his. It render's reality laws useless, and is indomitable in its aura. So potent is it that it almost seems physical, a feat that only the highest gods can replicate. His spirit's power resonates with my own, and rouses in me a dreadful desire to defy. Defy right, defy wrong, defy existence, defy Heaven. Defy everything.'
'That is the nature of his spirit; the nature of defiance itself.'
Samael's Thoughts As Gilgamesh Releases His Spirit|
"Samael... It is a name I do not know."
Gilgamesh wracked his brains a bit, but could not recall having ever heard any mention of this name. Samael sighed and he sighed with it.
"It doesn't matter now anyway. There are too many unknowns about myself for me to be hung up over yet another one. Instead, why don't you go ahead and allow yourself to experience that memory. I can feel it breaking through our-- well, my-- spiritual barrier."
Gilgamesh smiled wryly, and then felt the memory's suppression cease. Once more, it broke through into his subconscious space and flooded into his conscious mind- which was represented in this space by his spiritual self.
In the shape of a metaphysical orb, the freed memories merged with his spiritual body and hijacked his consciousness, showing him what he had forgotten.
Once again, a golden-haired Gilgamesh, eyes blood red, was standing on a precipice of entirely ethereal existences. Astral and celestial bodies filled the entire space- a space which seemed to expand as far outward as any universe could.
Gilgamesh saw himself summon a familiar sword with a gold hilt, gold pommel and a red blade with bright red engravings. With this sword in hand, he cut apart the very fabric of reality and destroyed the entire universe-sized space, along with all the laws that it consisted of.
Once the underbelly of existence was exposed- the void of voids, a space where non-existence abounds- a large hand took form out of the emptiness. Being comprised of emptiness, the hand had no color, no true form nor shape, nor did it possess either physicality or spirituality.
It was there, but it also was not.
Past Gilgamesh looked at this 'non-existent' hand, and smirked.
"If I'd known all it would take to call you out was the destruction of a newborn universe, we would have met already, Hand."
The hand loomed in the growing void, slowly growing larger and larger. Since the universe was destroyed, the space it once occupied was slowly reverting to non-existence.
It gave no response, and Gilgamesh's smirk grew.
"I don't suppose you've forgotten. Two thousand years ago you stole something from me, and I want it back. Whether or not you're willing to part with it, you have no choice."
The hand twitched, then it spasmodically tightened until it came to a fist. Even then, the twitching did not stop but instead worsened. At that point, the sound of laughter reached Gilgamesh's ears.
Dark, dismal, weak yet loud laughter. No matter who heard it, they would all associate that sound with death- but it was not merely the sound of death.
It was the sound of 'ending' itself; the nothingness that ceases existence.
"A tiny demigod struggling against the Exiled, whose ego is far too inflated. Your actions did not summon me. My actions, brought you before me."
Gilgamesh was soon taken up in that ever-growing void; he was now truly in the presence of that enormous hand. Once Gilgamesh entered its domain, the hand moved forward while simultaneously shrinking.
"Do not attempt to intimidate me. I know the full scope of your power."
"So you think."
Gilgamesh rolled his eyes and readied his weapon. "If even your creator Anu fears meeting my blade, why do you think you are any match for me."
Gilgamesh's proud smirk hung on his face as he pointed the tip of his blade at the hand. As the hand's next words faded away within the void, Gilgamesh's resolution shook.
"I was not created, little demigod. I predate creation. I have seen Heavens come and go, each more detestable than the last. Even so, it all remains insignificant to me."
"Tch! If it's all insignificant, then why did you summon me?"
The hand did not immediately respond, but instead extended two fingers. It continued to shrink until it was almost equal in size to Gilgamesh's body; at this point, the entire space of the destroyed universe was returned to nothing.
All around Gilgamesh, nothing existed. If not for his spirit, he would have perished.
The hand waved those two fingers as it spoke. "I took something from you, and you saw it necessary to come take it back. I did not summon you; it is all simple cause and effect."
Gilgamesh appeared to be struggling to make a decision. Before long, he let out all of his tension in a sigh, and dropped the blade of his sword.
"What do you want, Hand?"
"I cannot want. What will happen, will happen. As for what was taken from you, it was done so that one day The Inevitable Cause will be born. I have already felt the foundation of fate crack; that happened the day you were cursed to be without fate. The Exiled shall soon find their way, and time is running out."
"As you are fateless, we Hands of the Old Power are tasked with altering reality so that it may cope with your effects. This is the only way you can buy time for yourself."
Gilgamesh scoffed at the cryptic message the hand was giving to him, but a part of him could not fight the resonance those words had with his inner self. It was not even a resonance of just his spirit, but the very ingredients that made him who he was.
His existence was being touched by something from Beyond.
"When your awareness of this conversation one day returns, perhaps you will understand some of what I have told you. Regardless, you will find Truth's Mind one way or another. Fortunately, none can foresee how such a thing will happen."
"Are you saying I'm going to forget all this? Just how far ahead in the future are we talking?"
"To me: it is but the length of a single day. To you? Perhaps you will have lived many lifetimes by then."
Gilgamesh let go of his sword and allowed his spirit to keep it afloat near him. He glided over to the hand and looked it up and down. "You say you predate creation, yes?"
"That is correct."
"So that means that the Heaven I know truly was created, and did not create everything."
"Only one singularity can be held accountable for the creation of everything. That singularity is unknowable and unthinkable. It does not allow itself to be envisioned, even in the imagination. Will that be your final question, little demigod?"
Gilgamesh thought about it for a second with his head held low, then he looked up at the hand and asked, "If you predate even Anu, then who am I for you to show yourself to me and explain these things?"
The hand twitched once more, and brief laughter reached Gilgamesh's mind.
"Is your name not Gilgamesh?"
Gilgamesh nodded in response, and as the hand spoke its parting words, it started growing to an even larger size than before.
"If you truly be Gilgamesh, then you shall discover these things on your own. The Workings of the Hands, the Journey of the Winding Serpent, even The Inevitable Cause and The Conflict-- all these secrets shall be laid bare to you. All you must do, is nurture your desire to uncover them."
"That is who you are. Gilgamesh, 'he who wields the power of old.' Remember."
As if the hand's voice traversed the barrier between past memory and present day, Gilgamesh's spiritual body tremored and his physical self coughed up blood.
"Remember..." Within his subconscious space, both him and Samael heard the hand's voice.
"That... is who you are. You are... Gilgamesh..." As the memory ended, it returned to its rightful place in the recesses of his mind. However, there was a distinct difference in this one. It's fusion brought with it a powerful energy that Gilgamesh could not handle. Each time it spread throughout his body, he would hear the hand's voice.
"You are 'he who wields the power of old.' Remember... and understand."
"Understand."
"Understand!"
"UNDERSTAND!!!"
There was one final explosion of energy, and the memory completed its fusion. Gilgamesh's physical self was covered in wounds, each of them resembling tears in his flesh. Upon closer inspection, one would almost certainly come to the conclusion that something inside of him was threatening to burst out.
In a sense, that memory was almost too much for him, even though it was his own memory. His spirit's weakness was apparent, but the strength of Gilgamesh's mind was unquestionable. Yet, merely recalling this memory had had such a terrible effect.
So terrible was it, that a mental force was able to cause a physical wound.
"That was some memory," Samael mused.
"It was... draining. My mind and spirit... I must go."
Gilgamesh spiritual self faded into mist, and his concentration left his subconscious. When he opened his eyes, he saw the bloody mess before his vision blurred and he collapsed, two-thirds dead.
In his fading consciousness, Gilgamesh glimpsed the glow of a system notification. His vision was much too blurry to see what it said, but thankfully the system's voice started playing in his head, adding another migraine to the mix, albeit a more tolerable one.
"Spirit Potency increased by 0.99%! Spirit Potency has now reached 1% of User's Total Estimate, new functions unlocked, skill points added!"
The glow disappeared, but before Gilgamesh could even try to internalize what he just heard, another glow replaced it, indicating that another notification had taken its place.
"New Skill 'Knowledge of the Old Power,' unlocked! View Skill Tree info?"
Gilgamesh simply thought, 'Yes,' and the system obliged.
It opened up the skill tree, that he could barely even see, and read him the info on his new skill. In the back of his mind, he thought about his only other skill, the 'Knowledge of the Obscure Spark.'
"Once a spiritual connection was made with the then unnamed sword, 'Samael,' and some of its knowledge was passed onto you, your spirit stirred and a memory trickled out from under the seal. After recalling this memory and the words of the Hand of Old Power, the skill 'Knowledge of the Old Power,' was added."
"The effect also seems to heighten your senses, and aid in your meditation as you focus on the essence of the Old Power, but a strange, passive resonance occurs between the effects of this and the 'Knowledge of the Obscure Spark' skill."
This time, Gilgamesh thought back to how painful it was once the memory returned to his mind. The system sensed his question, and gave an answer based off of what Gilgamesh had observed and experienced.
Logically, this would be the most plausible answer.
"The sheer weight of this memory fusing with your spirit was catastrophic, due to the fact that the Hand of the Old Power forced some of its power to carry across with the memory; the reason for this is unknown. Due to that experience, however, you were able to arrive at 1% of your spirit's Total Estimate."
Gilgamesh heard the system go silent, and figured that it had done all it needed to. He was already fading away into sleep, so there was little he could offer in the way of sound thoughts. The truth was that the system was asking him a question, but he was no longer aware of its voice in his mind.
He passed out.
When Ishtar eventually returned to the room, she would be in for a shock.