It was a strange thing for a battle to ensue in complete and utter silence, but this was exactly what was taking place.
In total stealth, the mirelings approached, with nothing to give them away but the fact that they existed, and could still be perceived by those with powerful and acute senses.
The first wave of the monsters advanced, and soldiers shrieked as they were attacked. Blood splattered and spurted into the air as armor was broken and bodies were torn- ripped apart by pulsating, green claws.
The mirelings only came into view when they attacked, and then faded the next instant. If you blinked, it would be impossible to see them.
Seeing this, the Wyrm Lords and other soldiers began to understand just how much of a threat they faced.
"Tch!" Crimson leapt into the air, and Verdant immediately followed. Gilgamesh looked up at them and smiled, then picked a direction and ran off with Samael in hand.
Violet started to aim concentrated blasts of poison into the distance, but she could not be sure that she would hit anything. Even so, she shot off half a dozen poisonous attacks in an instant.
Azure commanded her power and created almost a hundred spikes of ice in the same time that it took her sister to attack. Those spikes rose into the air and fell like rain, and there was only more where that came from.
Gold and Silver ran off in the direction of their own men, and joined the battle on the frontlines.
Marshall refused to leave Sylvia's side, while she stayed from where she was and aimed her attacked into the distance. With each arrow she shot there was an explosion of sound followed by an explosion of flame. Her Ember Aspect was no joke.
Ishtar attacked with powerful blasts of spiritual energy, while also using her spirit to grab hold of any mirelings she could see with her eyes, and snap their necks.
Once Crimson and Verdant flew far enough away from the camp, they dropped onto the land and exploded with fire, each flame indicative of its master. Giant red flames consumed the mirelings, forcing them out of their stealth and revealing their pitiful selves, writhing under the intense heat.
As for Verdant's flame, its aspect was stranger. It did not seem to affect the mirelings physical bodies, and therefore they were not forced out of their invisibility. However, it lingered on their bodies and burned their spirits, and once the fire was extinguished, it meant that their lives were extinguished.
It was most dreadful.
Black and her soldiers seemed to almost teleport across the battlefield. Wherever a mireling showed itself, Black would appear out of thin air, and strike in the same moment. She was almost like an ever-present shadow, but she, of course, could not be everywhere at once.
Her attacks fell swift, and her soldiers attacked similarly, though they were much slower. Among the armies present, though, hers saw the least casualties so far.
Gold and Silver were leading their soldiers against the invisible menace, attacking blindly most of the time. When the mirelings struck and came into view, Gold would quickly strike with his gauntlet, blasting the creatures to bits.
"Lord Gold is mighty!"
"Lord Gold is truly Lord Gold!"
His army followed behind him and mimicked his tactics, and they slowly pushed back the mirelings on their side. Even so, Gold's army was suffering casualties. The soldiers were not as elite as Black's, nor were they as heavily armed as Silver's.
Silver's army was much better off in comparison. They were all blessed by the power of Silver's energy, which latched onto their armor and provided a powerful boon.
Whatever attack they received would have half its energy absorbed by Silver. She then combined all that absorbed energy into an attack with her sword, and sent an arc of silver fire outward, slashing apart dozens of mirelings before it faded.
This strategy could continue for as long as Silver's spiritual energy lasted, but by the look of her, it did not seem like that would be much longer. This worried her soliders, as the battle had only just begun.
Crimson and Verdant attacked explosively killing many mirelings in a short time. Unfortunately, there was no shortage of the monsters, and they kept coming. Battles erupted everywhere the eye and could see; Gilgamesh himself was engulfed in battle and bathed in green blood.
Samael pulsed with life and emitted tiny black strands of aura, indicating that its power was also at work. Together, they cut into the spirits of mirelings in every direction, reaping life wherever Gilgamesh willed.
He swung the sword around with one hand, and with the other he prepared to test his magic on actual opponents.
"Death!"
With more of his power behind the spell now, it burst and engulfed all nearby mirelings in black miasma. As soon as it touched them, their stealth failed and they fell dead on the floor, unmoving.
As soon as they were killed, thoughts surfaced in Gilgamesh's mind. By now, he was used to the sensation, and knew that it was his subconscious providing him with ways to use the knowledge he already possessed.
He tapped into that knowledge, and learned one way of utilizing the Knowledge of the Endless Cycle.
Spirals of black emerged in his eyes, spinning in the irises around his pupils. With a thought, the dead mirelings rose up and came to his side, standing beside him.
The other mirelings seemed confused by this, and faltered in their advance.
"Heh! Hahaha! What fun!"
Gilgamesh continued his onslaught, but relied on Samael a lot less. He exhausted spiritual power in a barrage of 'Death' spells, and then used the Knowledge of the Endless Cycle to bring them back as his underlings.
Soon, he possessed a small army of the beasts, and finally gave them their command.
"Kill."
The mirelings standing with him instantly moved, and rushed to attack their former brethren. The regular mirelings hesitated to attack them, and were thus cut down mercilessly. Gilgamesh's mirelings were devoid of any such thoughts, and lived only to serve their Master's will.
Then, as they killed more and more, he brought the dead back and turned them into his slaves as well. He could feel a sudden drain on his spirit, and though the Obscure Spark replenished the lost energy, it did little to alleviate the drain caused by using the Endless Cycle.
Even so, he did not stop turning more mirelings into slaves.
As he continued to do this, he sensed a change in the atmosphere.
The others all seemed to feel it, except Marshall, who was tearing apart mirelings with no regard for his safety. With reckless abandon, he rushed into the mirelings like a beast gone mad, slashing, kicking and biting into them.
His body was riddled with cuts, and though Sylvia tried to assist him, she simply did not have to. She drew her own sword and rushed to his side, but there was nothing for her to do. Thus, she returned to firing explosive shots with her bow, and only kept an eye on her brother.
He was quite literally frothing at the mouth due to how savagely he was going about it. He did not care for breathing or for proper posture; he cared only to attack and kill.
Whatever turmoil was breaking out in his mind, drove him to this.
"They're retreating!"
"They retreat! Quick, after them!"
"NO!" Crimson's voice quelled the desire to give chase, and all were still as the mirelings turned tail and ran. They chose to make themselves visible as they did it, and so all could see that they were running away, back into the trees.
What shocked them in that moment was the group of almost two hundred mirelings around Gilgamesh, all motionless.
"Don't worry, they're mine now," Gilgamesh smirked, and took a cloth out of his inventory to wipe himself.
The soldiers that survived fell to the floor and finally relaxed, while the Wyrm Lords slowly made their way back to the center of the camp. Ishtar was a bit pale and winded, but she was completely fine. Her contribution had saved many soldiers, and there were many shows of gratitude coming her way.
Gilgamesh stared into the distance, as Marshall was still doing. The boy had exhausted himself, though, and soon fell on his back; his sister rushed to his side.
"Keep your eyes open," Gilgamesh called over to the Wyrm Lords, and the soldiers also tensed.
"What?"
"It's over, isn't it?"
"Don't tell me there's more..."
Crimson saw where Gilgamesh was looking, and noticed that he also felt a weird sensation when he looked in that direction.
Verdant approached him and softly inquired, "You feel it too?"
Crimson nodded, but he could sense Verdant was uneasy. "What is your nature telling you, Verdant."
Verdant took a breath and locked eyes with his brother before sighing.
"Something is watching us. Something powerful. I can just barely feel its nature, but it feels familiar."
Crimson nodded. "You mean it feels like your own, don't you."
Verdant froze and could not instantly respond.
"I could feel something too. I couldn't be sure, but it felt like those Truth Spores of yours."
They both looked in that direction, just the same way Gilgamesh did, and waited for whatever was watching them to make its move.
Azure, Gold, Silver, Black and Violet came up on the center of the camp and met Verdant and Crimson, but spoke no words. They simply stared off into the same direction, feeling the same thing that they were all feeling.
They felt a nature quite similar to Verdant's nature coming from that direction.
After about a minute of more silence, a voice spoke from the trees- no- from the land itself.
"We meet again, arrogant fleshling."
That voice stunned the Wyrm Lords and their soldiers, Ishtar too; Sylvia expected as much. She had felt a similar sensation before, when this being had last spoken to them.
"Still grasping onto that illusion of control? You sure are stubborn." Gilgamesh chuckled.
The Wyrm Lords had seen the memory of Gilgamesh's first interaction with the master of the mirelings, but they were still mesmerized. This being felt like something else entirely.
How was it that Gilgamesh seemed entirely unaffected by its nature?
"Insolent fleshling. I did not think you would have been able to acquire such a profound nature. You actually stole my children from me. Even so, that nature of yours will not be enough."
"I understand now, though, that with you here I cannot rely on my mirelings to slaughter the descendants of the First Kings. It seems I must put a premature end to my slumber and do it myself. Sigh."
"That is most annoying."
Gilgamesh scoffed, amused.
"Why don't you tell me where you are, then? I'll save you the trouble and come kill you instead. Wouldn't you rather die peacefully while you slumber?"
Clearly he was not taking this being seriously, and the spectators were all amazed. Some of them secretly wished they could emulate that kind of character, but they knew their limits.
"It would save me the trouble, that's true. Heh! Alright then, come find me."
''Quest (Beginning a Search) has been updated! New Task: Go to the marker on your map, and confront the Slumbering Beast.'
When Gilgamesh saw the update from the system, he instantly put two and two together.
Crimson had said that Game Masters could manipulate the system at will, and now that the Beast had revealed its location his quest to find a Game Master had been updated.
This had to mean that the 'Slumbering Beast,' master of the mirelings, was one of those legendary Game Masters.