"Entertain me, mongrel." Gaio's voice echoed over the ruins, laced with an arrogance that could freeze the world.
(Note: "Zasshu" in Japanese means "mongrel." Honestly, "mongrel" just hits harder, doesn't it?)
Silence.
Rin, Shirou, Artoria, Archer, and even Gilgamesh, teetering on the edge of rage, froze for a split second under the weight of that declaration, sharper than any blade.
That disdainful aura was more chilling than a strike that could shatter a sky full of Noble Phantasms.
"Ha? Ha… hahaha!" Gilgamesh blinked, then clutched his eyes, his shoulders shaking violently as he threw his head back and let out a hysterical laugh, like he'd just heard the most absurd joke in the world.
Gaio hovered high above, his face expressionless, his gaze as cold as ever, looking down at what he saw as a pathetic clown.
As Gilgamesh's laughter grew wilder, the golden light radiating from him blazed even brighter.
A terrifying surge of magical energy erupted like an uncontrollable volcano!
The air over the ruins turned thick and warped, groaning under the strain. The ground trembled faintly. Rin and the others felt their hearts gripped by an invisible force, their breaths coming in labored gasps.
Archer reacted first, grabbing Rin's arm. "Move! Now!"
His voice carried an urgency unlike anything before.
Rin snapped back to reality. "Retreat!"
She channeled her magic, flinging out a few gems that exploded into a cloud of smoke to cover their escape.
Shirou gritted his teeth, supporting a weakened Artoria.
Gilgamesh's laughter cut off abruptly.
He dropped his hand, his crimson snake-like eyes narrowing to pinpoints in fury, his face twisting. "Leave? No one leaves! You mongrels dare insult this king and think you can just walk away?!"
"I'll tear you all to pieces!"
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Before his words even settled, the golden ripples behind him locked onto Rin and the others below. Hundreds, thousands of destructive Noble Phantasms tore through the air, shrieking as they rained down, faster and deadlier than ever!
Rin's pupils shrank, a chill piercing her to the core. Archer roared, projecting twin blades in his hands.
Artoria struggled to raise her sword, only to wince in pain.
Swish!
A flash of ghostly blue light streaked through the air.
Fast. Impossibly fast.
Shing—!
A faint, almost imperceptible slicing sound rang out.
The thousands of deadly Noble Phantasms, mere feet from Rin and the others, split cleanly in half! The smooth cuts gleamed with an eerie blue light. The severed weapons, along with their raging magical energy, vanished silently into nothing.
Gaio still hovered directly in front of Gilgamesh, his stance unchanged, the Yama Blade tilted downward, a single droplet sliding off its tip.
He didn't even turn around.
"Mongrel, are you deaf?"
"If you think killing them is your way of entertaining me, you're boring."
Those words were like a spark in a powder keg.
Gilgamesh's eyes blazed with tangible fury. A golden storm of magical energy exploded around him!
The sky over Fuyuki City turned a dark gold, the clouds shredded by the raging energy.
"Arrogant!" The Hero King's roar made the air and ground quake. "A mere mongrel dares speak of entertaining me?! I'll show you what true despair looks like!"
The heavens shifted.
The golden ripples behind Gilgamesh expanded wildly, covering the entire sky in an instant.
Not dozens, not hundreds—but tens of thousands of Noble Phantasms! Each ripple revealed a weapon glowing with destructive light, dense as a swarm of golden bees.
Gaio looked at the countless golden ripples and their weapons, a faint, scornful smirk tugging at his lips.
"That's it?"
Those words were like a match tossed into dynamite.
Gilgamesh's rage ignited further, dark red magical energy surging from him like boiling magma!
"It's not over!" he bellowed, raising his right hand. A golden vortex swirled in his palm, the space around it warping and cracking—
"Enuma Elish! The Star of Creation!"
A dark red beam tore through the heavens! Wherever it passed, space shattered, revealing a pitch-black void.
The red-gold Sword of Rupture, Ea, appeared in Gilgamesh's hand. Its mere presence sliced the surrounding space like broken glass.
A faint, satisfied smile finally crossed Gaio's cold face.
"Space severance, huh?" He gripped the scabbard with his left hand, his right slowly resting on the Yama Blade's hilt. "Not bad."
Before his words could settle, something strange happened.
The raging magical energy around him suddenly froze in an eerie stillness.
No—not froze. It was severed.
All magical flow was forcibly "cut" by some higher-dimensional force, broken into fragments that couldn't affect reality!
The scene was a stark contrast:
On one side, Gilgamesh, surrounded by a boiling golden inferno, his dark red beam obliterating everything in its path.
On the other, Gaio, enveloped in absolute "nothingness," like a deep sea that swallowed even light.
"Hahaha! Mongrel! Feel the agony of a world torn apart!" Gilgamesh laughed maniacally, Ea's magical energy peaking as he prepared to unleash a world-shattering strike!
At the same time, the sky full of Noble Phantasms hummed and trembled, ready to surge forward like a golden flood awaiting its king's command!
Gaio said nothing.
He slowly closed his eyes, his aura sinking into absolute coldness. His lips parted, whispering a few words:
"Dimensional Slash: Void Break."
Buzz—!
An indescribable "void" descended instantly!
A primal alarm screamed in Gilgamesh's mind. Something was wrong!
A lethal sense of dread gripped his throat. Without time to think, he relied on battle instinct, swinging Ea with all its condensed power!
"Die, mongrel!"
The dark red beam roared, tearing through space! At the same time, tens of thousands of Noble Phantasms surged like a apocalyptic tide, their multicolored magical glow blotting out the sky as they barreled toward Gaio!
In that world-ending moment—
Gaio drew his blade.
Eyes closed, yet perfectly precise.
The Yama Blade's unsheathing was so fast it defied visual perception, leaving only a fleeting blue afterimage on the retina.
No earth-shaking explosion. No dazzling clash of magic.
Gilgamesh's madness froze on his face.
His sword-swinging arm halted midair.
The world—sliced apart from his perception in the instant Gaio drew his blade!
Gilgamesh's motion locked in place. His manic laughter stopped cold.
"What…?!"
Time seemed to freeze—no, his perception was completely "severed"!
Magic? Gone. He couldn't feel the divine power surging within him, couldn't sense Ea's world-splitting energy, couldn't detect the magical torrent of the Noble Phantasms tearing through space. All energy reactions vanished into nothing!
Sound? Silence. The roar of Ea slicing space, the shrieks of Noble Phantasms ripping the air, even his own racing heartbeat and breath… all sank into absolute stillness!
Air? Stagnant. No flow, no temperature, no sensation. He was like a specimen in a vacuum, stripped of all physical connection to the world!
Sight? The scene remained—roaring red torrents, blazing Noble Phantasms, the distant ruins' outlines—but it lacked all "reality."
It was like staring at a lifeless, frozen painting! No threat, no presence! His eyes were open, yet he was a "blind man" devoid of perception!
Absolute "nothingness"! Even the concept of space itself seemed forcibly stripped away!
In that instant, the Hero King Gilgamesh was plunged into an unprecedented terror—a fear of his own existence! His vaunted power, his Noble Phantasms, the entire world—all were "negated" by this merciless slash!
As Gilgamesh drowned in the horror of sensory deprivation, sinking into a void-like abyss—
His trembling snake-like eyes could still clearly see Gaio's movements.
The draw of the blade was too fast to comprehend, but the sheathing was deliberately slow, visible.
The Yama Blade's ghostly blue edge, shimmering with chilling light, was steadily, evenly drawn back by Gaio.
He raised the blade before his face, as if performing a solemn ritual.
The tip slid precisely into the scabbard.
Bit by bit, it advanced smoothly.
The blade's friction against the scabbard's inner wall should've been silent, but in this absolute "nothingness," it was as if the faint motion could be "seen."
Gilgamesh's mind, nearly stalled in the terrifying silence and void, could only passively "watch" this suffocatingly slow process.
Finally—
The hilt met the scabbard's edge.
Clang!
A crisp, cold sound, like metal striking metal, rang out as the blade returned to its sheath!
That sound was like thunder shattering chaos, a blade slicing through chains!
It didn't come from the outside but pierced directly, brutally, into Gilgamesh's "severed" perception! It tore through his soul!
Boom—!!!
In an instant!
The stripped-away world flooded back into the Hero King's senses like a receding tide!
Sound! Magic! Airflow! Touch! Temperature! Presence! Everything surged back, drowning him in a raging torrent!
"Argh—!" Gilgamesh let out a low roar, a mix of pain and shock, his body trembling violently, nearly falling from the sky!
And in that same moment of restored perception—
Crack… crack… crash!!!
Above the sky, the tens of thousands of divine weapons summoned by the Gate of Babylon, hovering in the air—those Noble Phantasms steeped in myth and boundless power—
Without any external force touching them—
Crumbled like a sandcastle decayed for eons!
They cracked inch by inch!
Silently, they shattered in droves!
The dazzling golden light in the sky snuffed out like a candle! In its place, countless fine golden particles fell like a glorious, despairing curtain of golden rain!
This golden rain was the elegy of the Gate of Babylon!
Gilgamesh snapped his head down, staring at the weapon in his grip—the Sword of Rupture, Ea, the supreme treasure symbolizing creation itself!
Buzz…
A faint mark from the blue blade's strike suddenly flared with blinding blue light!
Then—
Crack! Crack-crack-crack!!!
Weblike fractures spread from the mark, crawling across the sword's three twisted pillars!
The red-gold divine light dimmed rapidly!
"No… impossible! My Ea!" Gilgamesh's voice broke in a horrified scream, his eyes showing true fear for the first time!
Before his words could finish—
Pfft!
The one-of-a-kind, world-rending supreme Noble Phantasm, in his tightly gripped hand, amidst the swirling golden dust—
Silently crumbled!
It turned to fine ash, tinged with faint red embers, slipping through his fingers and scattering in the wind!
At the same time!
Crack-crack—
The ornate, sturdy golden armor symbolizing the Hero King's supreme glory weathered as if eroded by eons!
Starting from the chestplate, cracks spread across his body! Shoulder guards, arm plates, leg armor… they shattered and peeled away like cheap pottery!
Golden fragments mixed with the falling Noble Phantasm dust, plummeting together.
Stripped of his resplendent armor, his bare form was revealed.
Gilgamesh hovered in the air, hands empty, clad only in tattered undergarments. Blood trickled from his mouth, dripping down his pale chin.
He looked dazedly at his weaponless, armorless hands, then up at the figure ahead—
Gaio had fully sheathed his blade.
The Yama Blade hung quietly at his side.
Gaio's gaze remained icy, like eternal frost, looking down at the disgraced Hero King, stripped of all his glorious armaments.
Over the ruins, only the soft rustle of falling golden dust filled the air.
The absolute silence was more suffocating than any clamor before.
Rin, Shirou, Artoria, and Archer had forgotten to flee, standing like statues, staring up at the surreal golden rain and the king at its center, stripped of all his radiance, fallen to the dust.
"You did well," Gaio's voice cut through the silence, clear and piercing over the ruins, carrying a trace of condescending praise. "You managed to entertain me a little."
Boom—!
Those words were the final straw, igniting the last embers of the "Hero King's" pride within Gilgamesh! Humiliation turned to towering rage, overwhelming his body's pain and weakness!
"—!" He snapped his head up, his crimson snake-like eyes nearly bleeding with fury!
His proud head would never bow to such an insult!
He wanted to roar, to curse this blasphemous fool who trampled everything he was with the vilest words!
But—
"Urgh?!" Gilgamesh's expression froze in the peak of his rage.
No sound came out!
His throat was sealed as if by the hardest ice. No matter how he pushed his magic, how he struggled, not a single breath could pass!
Instinctively, he raised his hand, trying to point at the lofty figure above.
That motion left him—and the distant Rin and others—stunned!
He raised his right arm.
But as he did, Gilgamesh watched in horror as the tip of his right index finger—under everyone's gaze—silently turned to fine golden dust, scattering in the wind!
Then the second joint… the edge of his palm… like the edge of burning paper, the golden dust spread uncontrollably up his arm!
Not destruction!
Complete "disintegration"!
The rage, shock, and defiance on Gilgamesh's face faded like a receding tide.
He looked down at his dissolving right hand, then his arm… his shoulder… he could even feel his torso disintegrating in sync.
So… that blade, which severed his perception, annihilated the Gate of Babylon, and shattered Ea… it hadn't just cut those external things.
It had severed him.
From the moment that blade was drawn, his end was inevitable.
The power was so absolute, so transcendent, that even his dissolution was delayed until this moment.
Gilgamesh slowly raised his head, looking at the man still hovering in the air, his gaze indifferent.
His remaining left arm hung limply, golden dust falling softly.
On his face, only an indescribable calm remained.
Then, on that pale yet still striking face, his lips curved upward.
Not mockery, not anger, not even resentment.
A pure smile.
It held a trace of understanding, as if he'd glimpsed some truth, a shred of the Hero King's final pride, and… a hint of fascination with something that surpassed his comprehension.
That smile was like the last golden flower blooming over the ruins, radiant yet fleeting.
He closed his crimson snake-like eyes, once so imperious.
Time seemed to freeze in that moment.
The next instant—
Whoosh…
Like a sandcastle collapsing.
The Hero King Gilgamesh's body, clad only in tattered cloth, in the sky above the ruins, amidst the backdrop of falling Noble Phantasm dust—
Completely disintegrated!
It turned into a cascade of golden light dust, purer and more glorious than the rain of the Gate of Babylon, yet carrying an endless sense of finality and annihilation!
The wind blew silently.
The golden light dust swirled and rose as if alive, then slowly dissipated into Fuyuki City's sky.
It was as if an era had ended.
Over the ruins, only Gaio remained, hovering alone.
He looked down at the scattering golden light dust, the Hero King's final mark, his gaze still devoid of any ripple.
In the distance, Rin, Shirou, Artoria, and Archer stood drained, as if all strength had left them, forgetting even to breathe.
The once-invincible Hero King Gilgamesh, who saw all as beneath him, wielding world-destroying power…
Without even a final word, under this man's single slash…
Was utterly erased.