Cybele met Cybele.
No—Cybele invaded Cybele.
Air between Medusa and Aegis solidified. Molecular bonds locked in place, atmosphere becoming a sphere of stillness that spread outward from the exact point where their eyes met.
Pegasus faltered beneath her.
Its feathers—each one a blade of white luminescence—began dimming at their edges. Tips first. White dissolving into grey, then grey swallowed by black. Their glow faded, light petrifying into stone.
She felt it in her thighs. Pegasus's heartbeat slowing against her legs.
Thump. Th-thump. Th...ump.
Each pulse was heavier than the last. Each one beating toward stillness.
Above, Aegis groaned.
Bronze flaked from its body, peeling away in curling ribbons to expose something underneath—black stone. Veined. Running with hairline cracks that spread with every second Medusa gazed at it.
The Gorgon carved into Aegis opened its mouth.
Its snake-hair began to move. Individual serpents uncoiling from their frozen positions, scales rasping against bronze-stone, heads turning, tongues flicking toward Medusa with hunger.
For a moment, Medusa was reminded of her past.
Stheno's voice—no. Euryale's laugh—no. The sound of teeth closing around flesh. Of swallowing. Of something that had once been her sisters sliding down her throat, their warmth becoming her warmth, their screams becoming her silence, their—
Medusa's hands went slack on the reins.
A crack split her cheek. Black stone pushed from under pale skin, Cybele meeting Cybele, their rebound turning her to stone from inside out. Her jaw tightened against her will, muscles petrifying mid-movement.
Stay.
Pegasus screamed. The sound warped—half cry, half grinding rock, its wounded wing seized, becoming a dead weight of black stone dragging them sideways.
Stay, then.
They slowed to a crawl. Gravity pulled them back. Their charge had been a screech; now it became a whisper, momentum bleeding away into a fall.
Aegis descended with them. Slow. Inevitable. Its Gorgon's eyes fixed on hers, unblinking.
Fifteen meters of frozen air existed between them and Gilgamesh now.
Eighteen.
Twenty.
A heel tap.
On Pegasus's back, somewhere behind her. A subtle weight settled on her saddle.
"Stay then. I will not stop you."
A familiar voice breathed against her ear.
Her fingers spasmed, their numbness shattering.
Medusa snapped her grip shut around the reins. Its material groaned, stretching to its absolute limit under her hold.
She pulled.
NEIIIGGGHHH!
White erupted from Pegasus's wings.
Blinding shockwaves of mana detonated across its wingspan, black stone blew off its feathers in explosive shards. Pegasus thrashed with total disregard for its shattered wing.
It jerked forward. Charged.
Black stone washed away from their bodies, burned pure by the sheer intensity of their will. They became a comet of screaming white light, a vertical arrow of radiance aimed straight at Vimana above.
Aegis was blown aside, plunging down and vanishing into the forest below.
Medusa and Pegasus continued, cutting a straight line toward Gilgamesh.
He was no longer seated. He stood on the very edge of Vimana's deck, Harpe resting over his shoulders casually, looking down at the blazing comet hurling toward him.
His smile widened by a fraction. More dismissive than before.
Then, the vambraces on his wrists began to turn to stone. Two purple eyes were gazing right at him from within that comet.
Gilgamesh watched without a change in expression. His smile did not fade.
Black tried to climb up. And stopped.
It was pushed back down, overridden by gold in moments—a king's will that refused to be anything other than gold.
"Bellerophon."
Medusa's voice resounded.
Pegasus's mane ignited.
White fire poured from every strand, every feather, every pore of its being—consuming the night itself.
The sky split.
Below—white. Above—gold.
Two colors bisected the world, like two horizontal rivers flowing side by side, clashing against one another for more sky.
Vimana swelled ahead.
Eighteen meters.
A shockwave reached Ryuudou Temple first. Roof tiles rattled. Then jumped. Then shattered upward in a spray of ceramic. Its foundation groaned under impacts from a battle raging far above.
Fifteen meters.
The forest below convulsed. Trenches ripped open across earth in parallel lines, soil splitting, roots tearing, groundwater erupting in geysers of mud and brown water.
Ten meters.
Vimana's hull turned red. Its material screaming under the radiant pressure of Bellerophon's approach.
Gilgamesh took a step forward.
On empty air.
His heel met nothing—no deck, no platform—and yet it stopped. Solid. As though the atmosphere itself had been commanded to bear his weight and obeyed out of terror.
For one suspended instant, he hovered there. Standing on authority alone.
"Mongrel..."
He brought his hand up. Harpe aligned over his head.
"At least you tried."
And then—
He fell.
Golden light trailed from his body like a comet in reverse, Vimana vanished above him, the distance between him and Medusa collapsing from meters to centimeters in a fraction of a heartbeat.
Harpe swung.
A golden line cleaved toward the white comet.
Medusa's eyes contracted.
Pegasus jerked.
In a fraction of a fraction, Pegasus threw itself sideways, twisting its body, ripping her out of harm's way by an inch.
The scythe caught it instead.
From crown to tail.
A line appeared across Pegasus's body—thin as a thread—tracing the exact path Harpe had traveled. For one heartbeat, nothing happened. It still beat its wings. Still climbed. Still carried her.
Then the line widened.
And Pegasus split.
Under Medusa's trembling eyes, her Pegasus dissolved into particles of white. It looked almost beautiful, particles of white revolving around her like floating snow.
It was gone. And she—
She fell.
Gilgamesh fell with her.
For one moment, they descended together—she spiraling, he straight-backed, Harpe's edge still trailing golden afterimages behind.
Then a portal ripped open behind him.
Massive. Ten meters across. Vimana's hull broke through it: golden deck, emerald wings, his throne still anchored at its center. The ship caught Gilgamesh on its surface without impact, as though it had simply decided to exist beneath his feet and did.
Half of Vimana extended below him. The other half remained above, its frame inside a second portal, connecting two different points in space by golden gates.
Gilgamesh stood on its deck. Harpe resting against his shoulder.
Below, Medusa plummeted, her body starting to dissolve into spirit form to avoid the damage of the fall.
Gilgamesh turned his back and walked toward his throne.
Gate upon gate opened around Vimana in a full circle. Each aimed at a single target—Medusa.
Hundreds of anti-monster Noble Phantasms launched at once.
Medusa was forced to revert to physical form, two stake-chains materializing in her grip, crisscrossing just ahead of her.
Drops of gold reflected from the metal of her chains like a rain of light.
A moment and those Noble Phantasms reached her.
Drowning her under a barrage of weapons forged to kill monsters.
A shockwave vaporized clouds above for miles upon miles.
Gilgamesh did not look back.
...
..
.
***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[5 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
Medusa! Nooooo! (P.S don't worry, I also don't want Medusa gone.)
So, I'll also clarify it here... When Cybele clashed against Cybele, both of them rebounded, Aegis' bronze flaked away, black stone underneath, Medusa's cheek cracked, black stone underneath. Meaning both started to work against each other from the inside out.
Do tell... does it feel valid? Or Cybele against Cybele would've resulted in something else? Discussing ideas would be fun.
...
As for why Gil did not get turned to stone? Bro's [Magic Resistance] via his golden armour is off the charts, he won't get turned to stone even if he stood there and let Medusa continue to look at him for hours on end.
...