"Gilgamesh!" Law called out upon seeing Gilgamesh take that soul-attack.
Gilgamesh was now standing there in a daze with bright purple eyes, wobbling slightly.
The entire room was filled with the white light coming from the Holy Shaman's body, making it easier for them to see what was happening.
"Wake up! Gilgamesh!" Wyg tried shaking Gilgamesh's body, but it changed nothing.
The Holy Shaman's eyes that were once filled with white light were now shining a bright purple, matching Gilgamesh's eyes.
Aerial Guardian nodded and let out a breath, relaxing.
"It's already begun. Now that she has grasped Gilgamesh's soul, she can begin the enchantment process. There is no way out for him now."
Suddenly, one of Aerial Guardian's wings unfurled, "Neither is there a way out for the two of you."
Wyg and Law were instantly on guard, and quickly increased the distance between themselves and Aerial.
While they were doing that, their void rings flashed and they withdrew their weapons, while also summoning the full might of their true energy.
Aerial Guardian shook his head when he saw this. "Two Establishment stage rookies think they can act arrogant in my presence?"
"Gilgamesh is only at the Peak of the Condensation Stage, and look how he acted in your presence!" Wyg shouted, brandishing a longsword with an odd blade.
With every movement he made, along with the addition of his true energy, the blade seemed to produce the image of clouds.
"..." Aerial Guardian growled as his aura was released.
With the flap of a single wing, his body breached the very fabric of space, and he appeared at Wyg's back, already grabbing his neck.
"ATA!"
Law swung his arm with the full might of his body, and a gold-plated nunchuck slammed into Aerial Guardian's palm, knocking it aside.
Wyg took advantage of the opportunity to get away, and him and Law once again increased the distance between them and Aerial.
"Thanks," Wyg breathed.
"Keep your guard up. He's most likely at the Embryonic Soul stage." Law said as he spun his nunchucks, then assumed a battle-ready stance.
Aerial Guardian looked down at the arm Law had swatted away and made a fist a few times. He seemed perplexed by something.
Then, he flapped a single wing and disappeared, but this time both Wyg and Law were prepared.
Though his speed was miles above them, they were lucky enough to be in such a small room.
Once he appeared, they saw him and reacted instantly.
However, the gulf between them was too great for them to bridge with such simple means.
Aerial slapped away Wyg's sword and grabbed hold of one of Law's nunchucks, assessing something as he did so.
"Ah," he finally said, "This is an immortal tool of an exceptionally high rank. Where on earth did you get such a thing? You can't even dream of using it properly."
Aerial Guardian summoned his first bit of true energy and tried to forcefully eradicate Law's connection to the nunchucks, but Wyg was already upon him again.
Aerial was just about to slap Wyg's sword away when he saw Law's foot coming toward him, and he shifted his head at the same time.
Law flashed a smile upon seeing this, and as his foot flew past Aerial's head, his leg bent and hooked around his neck instead.
At the same time, he took advantage of Aerial dealing with Wyg's attack to pull his nunchucks with all his might, managing to free it from Aerial's grasp.
Wyg's sword was about to be slapped away, but at the last moment, Aerial's hand went off course and he missed.
Rip!
Wyg's sword cut across Aerial's chest, damaging his robe but barely scratching his skin.
As for Law, he had swung his nunchucks down into Aerial's face, causing a loud thump.
They both retreated immediately, looking to Aerial with worried gazes.
The Guardian stood tall and proud, with a cut robe and a bit of blood running down his nose.
Besides that, he was unbothered.
"Nice moves. That spirit tool you have isn't bad either," Aerial said as he glanced at Wyg's sword.
"Now then. Let's finish this."
This time, Aerial Guardian held nothing back. His energy spiked and his aura suddenly grew by a huge amount.
Law and Wyg gulped simultaneously, finding it hard to breathe. They had never gone up against anything like this.
They were in trouble. However, they weren't the only ones in trouble...
Within Gilgamesh's sea of energy, his suspended consciousness was confined. He looked around and saw everything as it usually was, but could not leave his sea of energy.
The Omniscient Author turned itself toward him, and he knew that it understood what was happening to him.
Unfortunately, he could not tap into his true energy or the nature he had acquired from the Omniscient Author, therefore he was unable to figure out what he could do from here.
Even so, Gilgamesh did not truly experience panic. He was worried, and he felt as though he had made a genuine mistake, but he did not panic.
Beneath it all, he felt an underlying sense of calm and confidence that made it impossible for him to truly feel afraid.
So what did he feel instead...
'I...'
'I don't know what I feel...'
Like a wave of energy, realization settled and he realized something.
However, just then, a narrow purple slit appeared at the space within his sea of energy was torn open.
From within that purple breach, the image of the Holy Shaman's consciousness appeared.
She looked around at Gilgamesh's sea of energy, and took a moment to marvel at the amount of true energy he had, as well as the Omniscient Author and Samael.
"What an interesting sea of energy..."
Gilgamesh tried to rush toward her, but a simple action from her created a purple chain that bound his consciousness completely.
No longer paying attention to him, she descended to the desert just outside of the lake of energy, and knelt in the sand.
The Holy Shaman took her hand and dug into the sand, then shut her eyes and focused.
"Your soul fluctuations are... so ancient."
She shuddered, and almost pulled her hand out. "...too ancient... far older than the Old Bastard himself."
Her eyes opened and she turned a confounded gaze upon Gilgamesh.
"Your soul is more than a million years old. How can that be? How has your source not faded?"
Gilgamesh heard the question, but he did not know the answer- nor would he have answered if he did know. He chose to maintain a level expression and watch.
As for the Omniscient Author, it was glad that someone else was coming to appreciate Gilgamesh for the anomaly that he was, and so it did absolutely nothing.
"I must have this soul of yours. If you do not become my slave, then you will die."
The Holy Shaman came up to Gilgamesh's consciousness, still bound in the purple chains, and placed her hand on his head.
"Don't bother trying to resist. Your soul has already been ensnared by my Grasp."
The Holy Shaman's hand shifted into a mass of purple energy, and it sunk into Gilgamesh's consciousness like a knife through butter.
As it did so, he was no longer able to function normally. Not only was the act itself incredibly debilitating, but the pain was so immense that Gilgamesh could do nothing but stand there with his mouth slightly open.
He did not even have the ability to think. It was impossible for him to even be aware of the fact that he existed.
All he knew was pain. It was his entire universe. Pain.
The Holy Shaman suddenly laughed when she saw Gilgamesh become a vegetable, and her arm sunk deeper.
"Your soul may be ancient, but you lack soul power. A pity you couldn't acquire a proper soul strengthening method." She mocked as she reached further and further into Gilgamesh's consciousness.
She reached in and grasped at the very core of Gilgamesh's being- the very essence of who he was-- the ingredients that altogether create Gilgamesh.
And when she did so, she felt herself touch something that made her gasp.
"Incredible! What a marvelous soul! How rich! How perfect! How proud!"
It was as if the Holy Shaman had forgotten her task; even the purple light on her body seemed to regress just a little, before it came back stronger than before.
Some clarity soon returned to her, "Wow. His soul was almost able to ensnare me without even employing a technique. I must hurry."
She shut her eyes as more and more power flowed from her external body to her consciousness, and a formless pressure began to build in Gilgamesh sea of energy.
The unresponsive Gilgamesh felt even more pain than before as the Holy Shaman's inherent nature begun to act, and the damage to his consciousness started to become irreversible.
If this continued, his consciousness would start to be erased, and his soul would then begin to suffer next.
"Maximal Soul Snare- Perfect Enchantment!"
As soon as the Holy Shaman activated her soul-enchantment technique, something shifted in Gilgamesh's sea of energy.
No.
Something shifted throughout Gilgamesh's entire body, coming from the depths of his consciousness--
Coming from his soul itself.
The Holy Shaman felt this change before she noticed that her technique had failed. All of her energy dissipated, much to her shock and dismay.
"No... Impossible! No!"
She immediately attempted to pull her hand out of Gilgamesh's consciousness, but could not. Her hand could not budge.
She was now the one being held in place.
"Shit! Let go of me! Let go, damnit!"
There and then, as she struggled to free herself, she felt her arm go cold.
Then, following a burst of pain, her arm detached, leaving more than half of it behind inside of Gilgamesh's consciousness.
"AHH!!!"
She wailed and cried as the pain wracked her consciousness, doing untold damage to her external body.
Then, Gilgamesh's voice spoke, coming from every corner of his sea of energy.
"Silence yourself."
The Holy Shaman instantly shut up.
She looked toward the image of Gilgamesh's consciousness, however, his consciousness had not yet recovered.
This voice was coming from the depths of his soul.
In that moment, even the Omniscient Author was shook.
"You touched me with the nature of your soul? How filthy!"
That voice alone, once it expressed dislike for the Holy Shaman, caused her consciousness to suffer a horrendous soul-attack, tearing it to shreds.