Gilgamesh could not tear his eyes away from the goddess. Whether she truly was one or not, there was no other word for the depth of her being that emanated forth, mesmerizing and foreboding in equal measure.

  But he did not fully sink into awe. His wariness would not allow it.

  "Thy world is no more." Ate revealed, and Gilgamesh found that her name appeared naturally within his mind. "Thou shall now all enter the Tower."

  "The Tower is just. Salvation awaits all those who seek it." The transcendence of Ate's voice was both gentle and grand. "The Tower is wise. All shall be prepared to walk the path. Thy talent within which lies dormant will be roused. Ready thyself for thy Awakening!"

  A feeling Gilgamesh had long forgotten flickered within him. One of muted hope. He had given so much of himself for so long, an endless cycle of suffering and perseverance, and yet the status of a Magi had constantly eluded his grasp.

  But the being before him now was beyond comprehension, and this Tower that she heralded surely grander still. The shackles of the Zoraster clan could not hold him down here. He could finally awaken and claim his destiny. It was possible.

  Light started to bloom forth from deep within him, brighter and brighter. And suddenly it shattered. More than half of the silhouettes disappeared with the light, but Gilgamesh was among those that remained. His mind fell unusually silent, unusually slow to understand the emptiness that followed.

  Ate's head started to twitch violently, then snapped around to reveal a second obsidian face, this one drenched in golden malice instead of mercy.

  "Failures!" Ate mocked. "You harbor not even a mote of the Source within yourselves! Such unworthy things!"

  The goddess' echoing cackles struck Gilgamesh's ears like blunt stone, each one a heavy blow.

  "...I have no Talent...?" Gilgamesh's mind swirled like murky waves. "That is not possible... I am the Hero. I must have the Bloodline. I must have something..."

  Ate's laughter settled into a sneer. "Worry not, inferiors! The Tower is merciful. Find thy path, ye who struggle."

  Gilgamesh found himself transported in the blink of an eye once again, this time to a bizarre wilderness beneath a dark sky. A crowd of people with panicked faces surrounded him, ones he could now clearly see the features of. But he had only a moment to observe.

  A giant mass barreled through a chunk of the crowd right next to him that turned all who it struck into chunks of gore and mangled flesh. At the helm of the carnage stood a monstrous beast with giant tusks jutting out from its jaw.

  While most simply stared in shock and fear, Gilgamesh's focus instinctively jolted to where the creature had come from, and he found another bloated ram digging the hooves of its swelling legs into the ground.

  Gilgamesh threw himself to the ground, just barely in time before the second monster rammed through his section of the crowd. Finally, the people fell into hysteria.

  Gilgamesh took off into a sprint immediately, and with a few quick glances, he veered his way into the middle of a small, disjointed group that happened to be running in the same direction. He ran swiftly with his unwitting human shields as he tried to assess the situation.

  “Find thy path…” Gilgamesh recalled. But the goddess had given them no explanation of what that even entailed. "Is this part of my journey, then? But... What path are we meant to find in this hell?"

  Gilgamesh's gaze snapped to the right as another group was decimated by a large, horned lion with a fiendish face as though they were nothing more than bugs. He could not help but question whether this was not just a slaughterhouse, because there was no chance he could see here.

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  One of the cannon fodder at the back tripped and fell. Another went to help him, only for both to be crushed together under the foot of a humanoid creature made of roots and vines. Gilgamesh watched as it stomped over and over on the mangled bodies as they left it behind in the distance.

  He turned his focus to the group. Already, he could see them becoming less cohesive as a unit as the initial mindless panic started to wane and frantic desperation took its place.

  "Over there!" Gilgamesh pointed out an empty space up ahead. “There are no monsters there!"

  His careful words united them, and they ran at his guidance without thinking. The wall of bodies protecting him was firm once more. But some were faster than others. Three of the frontmost started to break ahead. Gilgamesh was about to call them back, but paused and decided against it.

  As soon as the three crossed the open land of fresh dirt, the mouth of a massive, grotesque fish-like creature snapped shut around them from the ground and quickly sank back beneath the surface.

  “This way! Hurry!” Gilgamesh shouted again before the rest of the group could collect their thoughts, and they veered left.

  A tongue latched onto a man at the side and pulled him away into the mouth of a giant frog that swallowed him whole. Terror spread through the others as they picked up the pace, but another woman at the back suffered the same fate.

  “I-I don’t want to die!” A young man in his twenties wearing a tracksuit yelled as he sprinted off in another direction.

  Gilgamesh did not shout after the fool, as he saw the giant frog's attention stray from the group to follow the man instead. He was fast by normal human standards, but he was still only human.

  The giant frog shot out its tongue once again, but something happened. Sheer desperation and fear allowed the man to run faster. On its own, it was nothing that special. He was merely a slightly faster commoner. But the difference made it so the tongue just barely missed him.

  Suddenly, the man vanished, and in his place an iron medallion shone in midair for a few moments before it too disappeared.

  Gilgamesh's eyes widened. His mind started to race as he tried to deduce what had just happened, but a stream of fire burned the land to their left. A winged serpent swooped down from high above and breathed fire again to burn a larger group alive.

  “What should we do?!” Someone in his group asked him directly.

  Gilgamesh looked at her, then glanced around. “This way.” He led them in a direction that seemed safest and sank deep into thought.

  "What happened exactly…? He ran, and the monster failed to keep up. Then he disappeared…” If Gilgamesh recalled the event. “Broken down to its most fundamental… he did something specific, and achieved something with it… Is that the answer?”

  “I’ve figured out how to escape.” Gilgamesh boldly told the group, and all gave him their attention. “The Tower is testing us. It wants us to achieve something.”

  “How the hell could you possibly know that?” An old man challenged him.

  "Do you want to get out of here alive or not?!" Gilgamesh shut him down immediately, his words designed to instill fear and urgency amongst the fodder so that they would think less and follow his directions blindly. In the resulting silence, Gilgamesh glanced down and picked up a broken branch.

  “Find a weapon.” He ordered. “A rock, a stick, anything you can use.”

  While the group did as they were told, Gilgamesh surveyed the land.

  "Over there." He pointed to a monster not too far in the distance, a giant slug the size of two carriages lined together. "It's slower than the others. This is our best chance."

  He guided them over, careful to avoid catching the attention of anything else. However, the closer they drew, the slower they became in their reluctance.

  “Look at it.” Gilgamesh spoke loudly. “It hasn’t even noticed us. This is our chance. We can escape if we just attack that monster. We can be free from this hell. Follow me!”

  Gilgamesh led the charge to urge them along with them against their better judgement. “It will attack when it notices us. The first will be the safest. The first will survive.” Gilgamesh continued to yell as he ran, but contrary to his words, he subtly slowed his own charge.

  Most slowed with him, but some failed to notice. Three in total, all who blindly rushed forward, unaware that they were alone. They struck with their primitive weapons, vigorously albeit poorly, but it did nothing to the slug’s fleshy body.

  The creature came to a stop as its body quivered, then suddenly squirted out a wave of green slime from its pores in all directions. Screams of the three unfortunate pawns were short-lived as the viscous slime violently melted them into mere puddles of sludge upon contact. And the creature sluggishly turned towards them.