Gilgamesh’s mind went uncharacteristically blank for a moment. Then he burst into action. He sent one Boulder Ape charging forth to stall Marduk while he sped away on the other down a different path.

  A blur of golden light destroyed the attacking golem in an instant. Then that same golden arm stretched out and passed through the stone buildings of the slums like a phantom. First it destroyed last remaining Boulder Ape in the blink of an eye, and then threw Gilgamesh back to where he started, well before he had even gotten close to the border.

  Gilgamesh rose again, stricken with the poison of urgency. The shock of Marduk’s sudden appearance had worn off, and now only the threat of him remained. Or rather, the threat of what was behind him.

  Hovering in the air was a sphere of golden wings, folded in to conceal its true form entirely. Two golden arms seemed to emerge from nothing with the being as its source. It was not the invisible presence he had always known them to be, but as tangible and solid as the buildings around him.

  This was a Yazata.

  [ Yazata - ??? (Iron Rank) ]

  “Is that the best you can do? Running away?” Marduk asked. “Surely the Tower gave you something to prove your worthiness?”

  Gilgamesh had now lost all of his Boulder Apes and Forest Hands, so he brought out the only golem left that could throw. His Clay Scout. Bombers formed one after the other as he commanded his Clay Scout to hurl them at Marduk. Fire, paralysis, poison, frost, acid. Gilgamesh desperately spent everything he had to bombard him with no response. But when the dust settled, Marduk stood in the center of the demolished street like a statue of gold, completely unharmed.

  “You must have realized the only reason you were put in the ritual was so that I may retrieve the name you stole. My rightful name.” Marduk said as the coat of gold receded from his body. “But the ritual does not end until only one remains.”

  “It’s too early… I’m not ready yet.” Gilgamesh was barely listening. He glanced at the light of the Bazaar in the distance. “Marduk entered the slums after he attacked. Even he cannot defy the Trial. If I can just make it to the Bazaar. If I can just escape…”

  Desperation rose further within him.

  “What can I do? How can I overcome this?”

  “The Hero will embark on a journey. Through many trials and many perils, he will reach the Land of Light. There he will find the secret of eternal life, to share with all of his people. And we will be free from Darkness at last.” Marduk gazed up at the sky. “Do you think this is the journey?”

  It took a few moments of silence before Gilgamesh realized that Marduk had asked a genuine question.

  “I had imagined something different, you see… But it does not matter in the end. All paths lead to the Light.”

  A golden arm grasped Gilgamesh by the head faster than he could react and raised him high.

  “You should consider yourself fortunate that this Tower granted you a little more time.”

  The holy hand unceremoniously crushed Gilgamesh’s head, but neither blood nor flesh spilt out. Only clay and red light. Red Light flared all around him, and to Marduk’s slight shock, that strange power struck his yazata’s arm and sent it back into the void.

  Then, to his disbelief, the bandages wove itself back together as Gilgamesh’s head reformed from clay. Marduk's eyes widened further as Gilgamesh regained his senses and rose to his feet once more.

  “You… How much more will you desecrate that name…?” There was no fear in Marduk’s tone, only a righteous indignation. He willed forth another golden arm from the void, and for the first time, sought Gilgamesh’s life in earnest.

  But two spectral arms struck from behind the leper and crashed against the golden Yazata arms. Both were coated in flickering flames, one a gentle white and the other a volatile black. The White Ghost Arm slowly absorbed the divine gold while the Black Ghost Arm eroded it away, and the Yazata could overpower neither.

  Marduk looked at Heroine for the first time. “...who are you?”

  Gilgamesh looked over as well, and found something he did not expect. She wore the same clothes and armor, but that was all.

  Her hair, a beautiful blonde instead of the ashen gray, now hung only low enough to graze her shoulders, as straight as the finest threads of silk. The scars that covered her face were gone, and her lips were now a ghostly shade of glowing green that matched the laurel wreath which adorned her head. One of her eerie eyes was as white as the pale moon and the other as black as the darkest night.

  But most striking of all was the smile upon her face, giddy and mad.

  She giggled mockingly at the question and pressed her attack without an answer. Both sides of arms were equal in strength but the Ghost Arms ate and tore at the golden divine. Soon, they broke them apart and lunged for Marduk.

  Marduk’s body encased in gold once again and he flickered back in a blur, far faster than a Hero of the Trials should have been able to. The Ghost Arms sank into the ground where he had stood. The black destroyed and the white consumed.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Her attack had missed the mark, but she did not seem to care. Mocking laughter escaped her lips at the sight of Marduk having been forced back.

  “I am the boundary between life and death! The center of the endless cycle! None may know that which is not through me, and all must pass as I will it!”

  Her smile deepened with the ecstasy of blind devotion as she held her arms out wide and looked to the horizon with irreverence.

  “Melinoe, Bringer of Nightmares and Madness~”

  [ Many gods are confused. ]

  “...Melinoe?” Gilgamesh stared. “The daughter of Zeus and Persephone? But how could she be here…? Was she a Zoraster? Did she become possessed through a ritual? But I’ve never heard of anyone being possessed by a god. Is that even possible?”

  Gilgamesh stared further at the sight he could barely comprehend before his eyes. “How is she winning…?”

  Marduk’s eyes narrowed, as though he had just heard something he could not understand. Though that feeling was quickly buried by something else, one that looked to Gilgamesh almost like frustration.

  “It doesn’t matter who you are.”

  Marduk conjured two more golden yazata arms and sent them racing towards Melinoe, but they were unable to reach. Although Melinoe wielded hers with mad irresponsibility, she was his superior in skill.

  The White Ghost Arm continued to consume more of the golden Yazata arms and the Black Ghost Arm continued to erode them away. Marduk pressed his attack with even more vigor, but Melinoe opened her mouth wide.

  A dozen laughing specters flew out and detonated on Marduk with chilling azure explosions more powerful than the Bombers. But the ghostly mist dispersed to reveal Marduk’s flawless golden form again.

  Melinoe’s joy twisted even more insane. “I can’t wait to have your ghost~”

  “Enough of this farce.”

  The golden Yazata strained at Marduk’s growing disdain, and two more golden arms emerged from the void as they reached out towards Melinoe. The Black and White Ghost Arms held some of them back, but most sailed past.

  Melinoe took to the skies as she conjured more spectral arms of a transparent blue, but the Yazata arms ripped them apart like paper as they reached ever closer. Melinoe’s eyes turned white with zeal as she merged a battalion of ghosts into a massive laughing skull that exploded on the arms, though not even that cataclysmic explosion seemed to work.

  But Melinoe did not care. She only danced through the air, careless and vain.

  Gilgamesh watched on in silence. This battle was far beyond anything he had seen of other heroes in the Trials. Far beyond what he could match. An unfamiliar and incomplete feeling began to form within him, but urgency buried it down.

  “I have to get away. I need more time…”

  The last of Melinoe’s ghost arms were ripped apart. She tried to conjure more with a smile, but nothing came. Marduk did not let the chance go to waste. His golden arms barraged her in an instant and plunged her back down into the earth.

  They ripped and tore away, but Melinoe suddenly ripped through the cluster of arms herself with an ecstatic smile. The right half of her skin shone white and the left half fell a deep black.

  She stood atop the inferior gold and spoke her next words like a mad prayer as she tried to press her hands together.

  “I am Supreme~”

  Sparks of Red Light flickered around her hands as the two sides refused to meet. But Melinoe did not relent. She pushed them closer and closer, and the Red Light surged more as the distance narrowed.

  [ Most gods are watching. ]

  Marduk’s face tensed. Instinctively, he felt the danger of the two flames becoming one. A danger that none were immune to. Melinoe’s mad laughter rained down on the world as the weight of the flame’s resistance oppressed the sky above and the ground beneath. And Gilgamesh saw his chance.

  He tossed one of the smokebombs from Tiago’s spatial bag and wielded his Clay Scout to carry himself towards the Bazaar.

  Marduk’s eyes snapped over just as the smokebomb exploded. His Yazata arms thrashed the smoke clear and reached towards Gilgamesh in the blink of an eye. But before they could reach him, the white and black flames exploded against each other, and a swirl of black and white swallowed the land.

  When the lights receded, there was nothing but an empty crater left behind. Heavily damaged golden yazata arms uncoiled themselves from the dome they had formed around Marduk, and Melinoe stood at the center of it all with Red Light sparking violently around her.

  “Hahahahahaha! Next time~” With sickeningly sweet laughter, Melinoe faded away like a phantom.

  Marduk narrowed his eyes at the empty space she had left behind, then looked over at Gilgamesh, who stood just barely outside of the blast radius and firmly inside the Bazaar. What remained of the Clay Scout that had carried him now crumbled away, leaving behind a core half-erased by the swirling black and white dome of light that Melinoe had caused.

  “Pathetic…” He lamented somberly. “Gilgamesh is not meant to struggle. Your pointless defiance will end someday, brother…”

  With those words, Marduk walked deeper into the slums, leaving Gilgamesh with a nearly intolerable bitterness. For everything he had done in the Trials, for all the effort he had made, the distance between himself and those who stood closest to the Light had only grown further.

  “... this is still the start. Only the start…” The resolve that had long stained his soul in heartless purpose would not allow him to wallow in despair. “I am the Hero. I will become stronger. I will be better.”

  “Wow~ Look how shameless you are~” Melinoe sang right beside his ear. Gilgamesh turned to see an azure spectral form of her with a mocking smile drenched in madness.

  “This fight doesn’t matter, there’s always the next one~ Surely I won’t fail again?”

  She floated around him provocatively.

  “All those promises you made, but you can’t even help yourself. Just another lowly being with petty tricks and hollow words.” She leaned in to whisper her next words from behind. “Did you think that you were special?”

  Gilgamesh felt something pulse within him. Something foreign and unsettling, that threatened to pull apart who he was and drown the pieces. But it didn’t. The bitterness within him bubbled closer to the surface and flooded him with a sense of direction.

  “Hmm~ Boring~” Melinoe hummed with a little disappointment. “That usually works… No matter!”

  Her face flew in close to his. “You’ll be mad for me someday~”

  Her specter dispersed like mist in the wind, but Gilgamesh’s bitterness remained. Her words had cut deeper than he could ignore, such that his festering resentment bled upon the ground with every step he took deeper into the bazaar.

  “...If all I have given is not enough, then I will give more. I will give everything…”