Time had run out.
It wasn't a poetic expression. It wasn't a dramatic metaphor. It was a literal, cold, and terrifying realization. The time we had bought with blood, sweat, and sacrifices had vanished like water in the desert. Tiamat was here. At the gates of Uruk. And to say she was a monstrosity was an understatement. A massive understatement. Ridiculously so.
The Beast towered over the entire city. The walls of Uruk, which had withstood assaults from Lahmus, magical storms, and rains of arrows for days, looked like children's toys at the feet of that creature. Her twisted horns disappeared into the clouds, and her numerous eyes, scattered across her body like nightmare constellations, glowed with a sickly red light. You could look up at the sky and not see the full height of the Beast. It was as if a mountain had come to life and decided that humanity didn't deserve to exist.
And her chant... ah, that damned chant.
"AAAAAAH..."
It resonated everywhere. On the walls, in the streets, in the ziggurat, in my bones. It was a sound so loud, so penetrating, that I worried for my eardrums. If this kept up, I'd go deaf before Tiamat killed me. Part of me, the part that still retained a shred of dark humor, wondered if that would be the most ridiculous way to die: not devoured by a Beast, but ruptured by her decibels.
But no. I wasn't going to die. Not yet.
I had one hope. Two, to be exact. Ereshkigal and the First Hassan. The goddess of the underworld and the founder of the assassins. Two Servants who shouldn't be in this Singularity, but who had answered my call. Two anomalies that could change the course of this impossible battle.
Ereshkigal was at the top of the ziggurat. Her arms outstretched, her scepter glowing, her expression a mask of absolute concentration. She was channeling her power, summoning her realm, forcing the underworld to answer her will. It wasn't easy. The underworld wasn't designed to manifest on the surface. It was a realm of death, of shadows, of eternal silence. And she was demanding it to open, to emerge, to swallow the Beast.
"Come on..." I murmured, clenching my fists. "Come on, Ereshkigal..."
And then, she used her Noble Phantasm.
"Kur Kigal Irkalla!" she shouted, her voice resonating with power beyond human—"By my authority as Queen of the Underworld! By the pact I have sealed with the Master of Chaldea! Open, realm of the dead! Swallow the Beast!"
The earth cracked beneath Tiamat.
At first, it was small. A thin fissure, barely visible, snaking across the ground like a shadow serpent. But gradually, the crack widened. It expanded. It multiplied. It became a network of fractures surrounding the Beast on all sides. And then, with a roar that shook the walls of Uruk, the ground collapsed.
Tiamat roared. It wasn't her usual chant. It was a roar of surprise, of fury, of pain. The Beast realized too late what was happening. Her numerous limbs clawed at the air, searching for purchase, a way to escape. But the hole Ereshkigal had opened wasn't a simple pit. It was the entrance to the underworld. An abyss of pure darkness that swallowed everything it touched.
And Tiamat fell.
Kilometers. Literally kilometers down into the earth. The Beast plunged into the depths, her colossal body slowly disappearing into the hole. Her roars faded as she descended. And when she finally vanished completely, a sepulchral silence fell over Uruk.
"She did it," Mash whispered beside me. "Ereshkigal... she managed to make Tiamat fall."
"It's only the first step," I replied, my voice hoarse. "We haven't won yet."
The First Hassan moved into action. Without a word, without a gesture, he leaped into the hole. His imposing figure, clad in his black armor, disappeared into the darkness of the abyss. Behind him, other Servants blessed by Ereshkigal with protection against death followed: Karna, Arjuna, Musashi, Tomoe, and several more. They plunged into the depths, ready to attack Tiamat while the First Hassan finished his work.
I wanted to see how the battle was going. I wanted to use Tezcatlipoca, deploy my Surveillance Mirrors, track every movement of my allies. But I couldn't. My magical reserves were nearly depleted. Simply standing was a titanic effort. If I spent more energy observing the battle, I wouldn't have enough to maintain the First Hassan's contract when the critical moment arrived.
And that critical moment was the Old Man of the Mountain's Noble Phantasm.
"I can't see what's happening down there," I thought, frustrated.
"You don't need to see," Tezcatlipoca replied, his voice barely a whisper in my mind. "Trust them. Trust the plan."
"If the plan fails..."
"If the plan fails, we die. But at least we will have tried."
It wasn't the comfort I was hoping for, but it was the truth. And sometimes, the truth was all that remained.
The First Hassan was channeling his power. I could feel it through the bond. He was gathering a colossal amount of energy, preparing his Noble Phantasm. And that energy... it came from me. My mana flowed into him like a flooded river, draining me, exhausting me. I felt my legs give way. My vision blurred. My heart pounded so fast it seemed ready to burst.
"Stay firm," Tezcatlipoca ordered. "Just a little longer."
"I don't know if I can..."
"You can. You are the Master of Chaldea. You are my host. I will not let you fall."
And then, from the depths of the abyss, a voice echoed.
"It's time!" Emiya shouted, his tone urgent. "The First Hassan is ready! Everyone back!"
An instant later, an explosion of blue light burst from the hole. It was a cold, dim light, the light of death itself. The First Hassan's Noble Phantasm had activated. I felt it in my bones, in my soul, in every fiber of my being. It was as if an invisible scythe had cut through the air, as if the very concept of an end had materialized.
And then, silence.
A silence that lasted seconds, minutes, hours. I don't know. Time had lost its meaning.
And then, Tamamo's voice echoed in my mind through the bond.
"Goshujin-sama... Tiamat has been damaged. Critically. But... but she hasn't died. I repeat: she hasn't died. She's alive. And she's counterattacking."
I cursed. I cursed with all my might. The plan hadn't worked. Not completely. The concept of death had been implanted, yes. Tiamat was no longer immortal. But she was still a Beast. Still the most powerful creature we had ever faced. And now, wounded and furious, she was even more dangerous.
"Master," Scáthach's voice echoed in my mind, her tone tense. "Tiamat has created new Lahmu. They are more resistant than the previous ones. And she's trying to climb back up."
"Climb?" I asked, my voice barely a thread.
"She's scaling the walls of the abyss. If she reaches the surface..."
She didn't need to finish the sentence. If Tiamat returned to the surface, everything would be lost. Uruk would fall. Humanity would fall. All our sacrifice would have been in vain.
I fell to my knees. My legs couldn't hold me anymore. My body trembled. My vision blurred. I was exhausted. Defeated. Finished.
"So this is the end," I murmured. "I couldn't do it. I wasn't enough."
I thought of Fujimaru Ritsuka. The original protagonist. The one who should have been here in my place. He would have succeeded. He would have defeated Tiamat. He would have saved humanity. But I wasn't him. I was just a reincarnated soul, an impostor, an error in the fabric of destiny. And now, because of me, everyone was going to die.
"It's not your fault," Tezcatlipoca said.
"It is. I shouldn't be here. I..."
"You are the one who is here. And as long as you are here, there is hope."
"What hope? Tiamat is about to climb up. My reserves are depleted. The plan has failed. There's nothing more I can do."
"You haven't looked towards the ziggurat."
I lifted my head. And what I saw left me breathless.
A light. A golden, blinding light, erupting from the top of the ziggurat like a beacon in the storm. It was a light I had seen before, in the game, in the cinematics. A light that meant transformation. Power. Hope.
And then, the light dissipated. And where Caster Gilgamesh, the wise king who cast spells with his staves, had stood, now stood Archer Gilgamesh. The King of Heroes in his most powerful form. His golden armor gleamed under the sun. His blond hair waved in the wind. His red eyes, once dulled by exhaustion, now burned with the fury of a god.
"Well done, mongrel," he said, his voice echoing above the din of battle. He was speaking to me. To me—"Your plan, though somewhat hasty and imperfect, has partially succeeded. Tiamat has been weakened. The concept of death has been implanted. You have done more than any other Master could have."
"But... it wasn't enough," I replied, my voice broken.
"No. It wasn't." His eyes locked onto mine—"But do not worry. I will take care of the rest."
"What are you going to do?"
"What I should have done from the beginning." He turned towards the abyss—"Protect my kingdom."
And without another word, he leaped.
Gilgamesh plunged into the abyss like a golden comet. The wind whistled in his ears. Darkness enveloped him. But he felt no fear. He hadn't felt fear in millennia. What he felt was fury. A cold, controlled, ancient fury. Someone had threatened his kingdom. Someone had killed his subjects. Someone had dared to endanger the humanity that he, in his wisdom, had sworn to protect.
And that someone was going to pay.
As he fell, his thoughts drifted back to his visions. Gilgamesh possessed clairvoyance, the ability to see all possible timelines. And for months, his visions had shown him a young man named Fujimaru Ritsuka. A Master of Chaldea who would come to Uruk, ally with the goddesses, and defeat Tiamat in an epic battle. But then, the visions changed. Fujimaru vanished. And in his place, Leonel Herrera appeared.
At first, Gilgamesh had been skeptical. Who was this intruder? Why had fate placed him in the original hero's stead? What right did he have to alter history? But as he observed Leonel, as he saw his strategies, his sacrifices, his determination, he began to understand. Leonel Herrera wasn't an intruder. He was a replacement. An imperfect replacement, perhaps, but a replacement who fought with all his might.
However, Gilgamesh's visions remained grim. No matter how he examined them, no matter what variables he altered, Leonel Herrera always lost in this Singularity. His efforts were Herculean. His strategies were brilliant. But always, always, he ended up falling to Tiamat. That was his fate. The fate of a man who was never a match for Fujimaru Ritsuka.
But what fate hadn't accounted for was Gilgamesh himself.
In all the visions, in all the timelines, the Gilgamesh of those alternate realities never intervened. He stayed in his ziggurat, casting spells as a Caster, letting Leonel bear the full weight of the battle. And by not intervening, he condemned Leonel to failure.
But this Gilgamesh was different. This Gilgamesh had seen Leonel's determination firsthand. He had seen him summon Servants to the brink of collapse. He had seen him weep silently for those who fell. He had seen him rise again and again, even when all seemed lost. And that spectacle... he had liked it.
So he decided to intervene.
And the moment he made that decision, his visions changed.
Now, in this iteration among billions of multiverses, the visions showed Leonel Herrera victorious. They showed him standing over Tiamat's corpse, with his Servants around him and Uruk saved. They showed him facing Goetia in the Time Temple. They showed him... winning.
"So in the end," Gilgamesh murmured as he fell, "the difference between defeat and victory was me."
He smiled. It wasn't a kind smile. It was a fierce, predatory smile, the smile of the oldest king in the world.
"Well, then. If fate requires me to act... I will act."
And then, he unleashed his power.
The Gate of Babylon opened.
Golden portals appeared around Gilgamesh, hundreds, thousands, each containing a treasure. Swords of forgotten heroes. Spears that had toppled empires. Axes that had split mountains. Bows that had darkened the sun. All the treasures of the world, all the weapons ever forged, all the legends made steel, burst forth from the portals like a rain of destruction.
And Gilgamesh, floating in the center of the abyss, fired them all.
"Gate of Babylon!" he roared.
The Lahmu that Tiamat had created, those resilient and fierce creatures scaling the walls of the abyss, were annihilated in seconds. Swords pierced them. Spears impaled them. Axes split them. There was no escape. No defense possible. The Gate of Babylon was an infinite arsenal, and Gilgamesh was holding nothing back.
Tiamat, at the bottom of the abyss, roared in fury. Her wounded body writhed, and from her mouth burst a torrent of black energy aimed at Gilgamesh. But the king didn't even flinch. A new portal opened in front of him, and from it emerged a golden shield that absorbed the attack effortlessly.
"Do you think you can hurt me with that?" Gilgamesh asked, his tone mocking—"Pathetic. I have faced gods more powerful than you. I have seen wonders that would shake your insignificant mind. You are nothing more than a beast. A large beast, yes. But a beast nonetheless."
Tiamat tried to rise. Her numerous limbs clawed at the underworld's floor, seeking leverage. But Gilgamesh wouldn't allow it. Another portal opened, and from it emerged a golden spear that pierced one of the Beast's legs, pinning her. Then another. And another. And another. Within seconds, Tiamat was pinned to the ground, unable to move.
"Ereshkigal did her job well," Gilgamesh said, floating slowly towards the Beast—"Your authority over life has been nullified. The First Hassan did his job well. The concept of death has been implanted in you. You are no longer immortal. You are no longer invincible. You are just... a creature. A creature that made the mistake of threatening my kingdom."
Tiamat roared again. But this time, her roar wasn't one of fury. It was one of fear.
"Fear?" Gilgamesh smiled—"Good. You should be afraid. Because now, I am going to show you the greatest treasure in my collection. The weapon I used to separate heaven from earth. The weapon that forged the world as you know it. The weapon that only I, among all heroes, possess."
And from the Gate of Babylon, Ea emerged.
It was no ordinary sword. It was no weapon forged by human hands. Ea predated humanity. Predated the gods. Predated the very concept of a "sword." Its blade was a cylinder of ebony and gold, engraved with runes no mortal could read. Its guard was a metal ring that shone with its own light. And its hilt... its hilt was designed to be held by a king.
But the most distinctive feature of Ea were its three rings. Three cylindrical segments that rotated in opposite directions, each at a different speed, creating a vortex of energy at the center of the blade. That vortex was pure magic. Primordial magic. Magic from the age when heaven and earth were one.
The air stirred. The earth stilled. Even the skies, kilometers away on the surface, darkened before the majesty of that weapon in its full splendor. The Servants in the abyss, those still alive, felt Ea's power and instinctively recoiled. That was no Noble Phantasm. That was the manifestation of creation and destruction.
Gilgamesh raised the sword. And began his chant.
"I conceived an origin. An origin without heaven or earth. An origin without life or death. An origin where chaos was everything."
Ea's rings spun faster.
"And then, I separated heaven from earth. I separated light from darkness. I separated life from death. And with that separation, I created the world."
The energy at the center of the blade became blinding.
"This sword is the witness to that act. This sword is the power that rent the void. This sword is the King's Judgment."
Gilgamesh aimed at Tiamat.
"It is time for judgment! My sword of rupture will shatter the world! Receive this! ENUMA ELISH!"
The sword descended.
From Ea's tip, a torrent of magical energy burst forth with a power that shook the very earth. It wasn't a beam. It wasn't an explosion. It was the primordial force that had separated heaven from earth, concentrated into a single attack. A whirlwind of red and black power that engulfed Tiamat entirely.
The Beast roared. But her roar was lost in the thunder of Enuma Elish. Her body writhed. But her movements were useless against the power of the oldest weapon in the world. Slowly, very slowly, Tiamat began to fade. Her black flesh dissolved into particles of light. Her horns cracked. Her eyes dimmed.
And then, only a sphere remained.
It was Tiamat's core. The heart of the Beast. The last vestige of her existence. A sphere of black and red light that pulsed weakly, like a heart about to stop.
Enuma Elish didn't leave the job unfinished. The torrent of energy engulfed the sphere, surrounded it, compressed it. And with one final burst of power, it destroyed it.
Tiamat, the Beast of Creation, the mother of all monsters, ceased to exist.
What followed was an explosion of unclassified magnitude.
I was kilometers away, in the depths of Ereshkigal's realm, but even there, the explosion was so powerful that the shockwave shot up the abyss, tore through the surface, and swept across the battlefield. The air churned exponentially. Uruk's soldiers fell to the ground. The Servants protected themselves as best they could. The earth vibrated, shook, roared like a wounded animal.
And then, silence.
An absolute, total silence, as if the world were holding its breath.
And then, Tamamo's voice echoed in my mind.
"Goshujin-sama... Tiamat... Tiamat is no more. The Beast has been destroyed. We've defeated her."
I didn't respond. I couldn't. My lips curved into a smile. A weak, tired, but genuine smile. We had done it. Against all odds, against all visions, against fate itself... we had done it.
And then, I fell.
My legs gave way. My body collapsed. The ground rushed up to meet me. I heard shouts around me. Familiar voices. Mash. Nero. Jeanne. Tamamo. All calling to me, their tones filled with panic.
But I could no longer respond. My consciousness faded, carried away by a tide of exhaustion. The last thing I saw before closing my eyes was the sky of Uruk. A sky that, for the first time in days, was not shrouded by Tiamat's shadow.
I smiled.
And then, everything went dark.
I dreamed.
I dreamed of a quieter time. A time without Singularities, without Beasts, without Lahmus. I dreamed of Chaldea, of its hallways lit by artificial light, of the constant hum of life support systems. I dreamed of my Servants. Of my girlfriends. Of all of them, gathered in the cafeteria, laughing, arguing, fighting over the shift schedule. I dreamed of Mash, smiling shyly as she gave me a kiss on the cheek. I dreamed of Tamamo, preparing my favorite breakfast with her nine tails swaying happily. I dreamed of Kiyohime, curled up beside me, her warm breath against my neck. I dreamed of Jeanne Alter, affectionately insulting me as she punched my shoulder. I dreamed of the Artorias, all four of them, forming a protective wall around me. I dreamed of Nero, singing an ode dedicated to her Caesar. I dreamed of Morgan, taking my hand and kissing it with an enigmatic smile. I dreamed of Scáthach, looking at me with her crimson eyes and calling me "husband." I dreamed of Serenity, alive, smiling, touching my hand without fear.
I dreamed of a future where the war was over. Where humanity was safe. Where we could, at last, live in peace.
It was a beautiful dream. But it was just a dream.
Because the war wasn't over yet. Goetia was still there, in the Time Temple, waiting. And I, Leonel Herrera, the last Master of humanity, still had one more battle to fight.
But for now... for now, I would sleep.