"I see," the man called 'Lord Cloud,' nodded. "The Master of Forests is away, no? That must be why he has neglected to come see me himself, and instead sent you, Hunter."
The man from the sect, Hunter, folded his arms, "My master would not need to come out even if he was here. I am a Guardian of the Forest-Gate; I alone am enough."
Lord Cloud smiled coldly, but he said nothing more on the matter. His eyes swept over Gilgamesh one more time, and he said, "Regardless, he has triggered an oddity of a tribulation."
Hunter nodded slowly, "So this wasn't your doing?"
"Of course not. I would never mobilize such a force against a weakling like him. That is why I called it an oddity."
As they spoke, the disciples below listened in silence. When they saw Hunter, a number of their eyes flashed with recognition and awe, but they were forced to keep their mouths shut.
Gilgamesh was particularly silent, but his mind was at work trying to discern something from their conversation.
Apparently his appearance had triggered the storm, but how? Why? He couldn't figure it out.
"It doesn't matter who did it. It is a heavenly tribulation, so he must face it. Alone."
Hunter sighed and waved his hand dismissively, "Yeah, yeah. Just get out of here, will you? Your stink is subduing the atmosphere."
Lord Cloud chuckled and bowed his head slightly in Hunter's direction. With that, he gave a parting glance at Gilgamesh before flying back up into the storm. With another flash of light, he was gone.
Just like that, life and sound returned to the world. The disciples finally began to breathe easy again, and Gilgamesh felt a crushing weight slowly begin to lift from his shoulders. It was not entirely gone, but it was reduced significantly.
A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky with blinding speed and ferocity, a crisp crack immediately shattering the sound barrier as a number of disciples covered their ears.
The sound reminded Gilgamesh of the gravity of his situation, and he unconsciously looked to Hunter with a hint of helplessness.
"This tribulation should not be outside the bounds of what you can handle; no tribulation ever is. Pour out all of your willpower, and you may just live."
Hunter waved his sleeve and a wave of invisible true energy captured the disciples before bringing them up into the air with him.
"Let's not disturb him," he said as he prepared to leave.
"If you survive, you should come see me at the Hall of Guardians."
Gilgamesh nodded his head as a show of thanks, then focused on the terrible storm above him. By now, it was far larger than it should be. The eye alone seemed like it could swallow an entire island and still have room for more.
Hunter gave him a final look, and a hint of a smile played across his lips.
Dozens of lightning bolts raced about within the clouds, some piercing the veil and exposing themselves. Gilgamesh finally started to feel the negative effects of the world subsiding, and so he was better able to think about how he was going to survive this tribulation.
"That being said... I don't even know what a tribulation is. I wish I could learn more, but I can't rely on the Omniscient Author or Truth's Mind anymore..."
Standing there alone, the melancholy figure of a powerless young man stood in the face of a dreadful lightning storm, unmoving.
"That man said that this is an oddity... so I'm guessing the Divine Ones had something to do with this. If that's the case, then I'm not too worried."
"There's no way I can allow myself to lose to them."
Finally finding the strength to smirk again, Gilgamesh looked up at the tribulation clouds with renewed vigor and confidence. He suddenly felt himself wanting to laugh, so he let out a hearty roar of a laugh.
As he did so, he saw flashes of his life up to that point, and everything he had done to ensure his victory in the end. He remembered how he had suffered and grown, and wondered how he had ever allowed himself to be overcome with fear earlier.
"Alright then. What are you waiting for, huh!? Come on!"
Strangely enough, as soon as Gilgamesh said this, the storm swelled and exploded, releasing a torrent of thunderforce the likes of which Gilgamesh had never seen in all his life.
Thousands of lightning bolts coalesced, forming a mass of pure tribulation lightning that raced toward Gilgamesh. Before he could blink, or take a moment to regret challenging the tribulation, his body was struck by an insane amount of power.
Gilgamesh grit his teeth and clenched his fists; he couldn't cry out if he wanted to. His eyes were wide open, and as the moisture in them evaporated, they started to turn red.
His outer disciple robes were instantly reduced to ash, and his bare body was charred completely black. His hair, surprisingly, wasn't burned but stood tall and straight.
Lesions already appeared on his skin, spreading out all over his body. Not a single ounce of lightning missed his body; all of it wrought havoc on and in his body.
Gilgamesh could feel his consciousness slipping, and felt himself come closer and closer to dying. Every time he was about to slip, he would receive a burst of strength from somewhere unknowable, and it would give him the strength he needed to go on.
After a few minutes, the totality of the lightning was gone. Gilgamesh was no different than a burnt corpse. He was covered in burns and smoking, it was incredibly difficult for him to breathe and his eyes and nose soon started bleeding.
However, he was still alive. He had survived.
A sense of victory soon started to set in, and he looked up at the sky with a trace of ridicule in his eyes. The storm seemed to be about to subside, and the flashes of light within the clouds were already beginning to lessen.
"Is that all? Ha! Come on now, surely you Divine Ones can do better than that!"
As he lay there, he laughed to himself and rejoiced that he had somehow survived. However, as he celebrated his victory in the face of the fading tribulation, he heard a peal of thunder far louder than anything he had heard before.
It actually parted the old storm cloud, and an entirely new tribulation started to form, and at an alarming rate. Immediately, Gilgamesh started cold sweating and felt his body begin to shake.
'Why... Why is there another one!?'
He knew for a fact that the tribulation was about to subside, so why the hell did it suddenly spark up and decide to come at him again? Was it because he annoyed it with his comments?
What kind of pettiness was this!?
"NO!" Gilgamesh tried to get up, but his body was far too damaged, and he was in way too much pain. Even trying to move was too much for him in his current state.
"I take it back! The first one was plenty- it was, I promise!"
The storm was still worsening. Bolts of lighting started to appear, this time lingering in the air as more and more of their sparking brethren gathered.
Desperation began to set in.
"No more!!! I can't take any more!!!" Gilgamesh shut his eyes and turned his face away from the sky. He awaited his death.
It did not come.
When he opened his eyes again, the sky was clear and full of stars. Not a single cloud could be seen. He looked around, fearing that he was hallucinating, but the tribulation had indeed gone away.
All he could see was the infinite sky of stars, the large, bright blood moon and two smaller moons near it. He felt the wind, and heard the trees rustling, and suddenly he discovered that he could feel the sensation of his bare back on the dusty stone tiles beneath him.
"Oh. I'm naked..."
Laying there all alone, Gilgamesh shut his eyes and slowly breathed. Just then, he noticed that something had changed within him. The most notable difference now was that he could actually sense some true energy within his body. It was by no means a large amount, but it was far from nothing.
Looking within himself, he saw a tiny spring of water in the desert that was once his sea of energy. Atop that spring of water, five tiny objects floated in the air, devoid of any kind of life or energy.
These objects represented the five natures of true energy that lay dormant within him.
Besides those objects, he saw Samael stabbed into the earth, looking the same as it always did.
When Gilgamesh saw that, he tried to communicate with the sword, and instantly felt a strain on his true energy. However, he was able to re-establish a connection with the sword the minute he tried.
"Samael? Can you hear me?"
Silence.
"Strange..."
He looked over at the spring of true energy and found the image of the Hand of the Old Power. It was devoid of life, so he theorized that perhaps he needed to supply it with enough energy before Samael came out of its dormant state as well.
"Well, assuming that I acquired some true energy because I survived the tribulation, I should have officially stepped onto the path of cultivation. That's a relief."
Gilgamesh opened his eyes and looked into the sky. It was calming.
With nothing else to do, he decided to circulate his true energy and try to recuperate. As he did so, he felt warmth spreading through his body, accompanied by a slight itching sensation.
'The quality of this true energy... It's amazing!'
While he was marveling at the effects of simply circulating his energy, Gilgamesh heard a loud gasp. He turned his head and saw a familiar little girl with pale skin, dirty brown hair and tattered clothes.
She dropped the bucket in her hands when she saw him, and tears instantly welled up in her eyes. Gilgamesh was smiling from the moment he saw her.
"I'm home, Little Feather."
The little girl did not bother to pick up her bucket or wipe her eyes. She ran over and was about to jump onto Gilgamesh when she looked down and stopped abruptly, causing her feet to drag across the ground.
"Big Brother... Your clothes..."