Apparently, the underground room he was in didn't allow people to use their powers.
After walking out of it, he could open a portal normally.
It made sense, considering they were keeping the high priest of Weaver in that cell.
Once he figured this out, Gilgamesh opened a portal and stepped outside, right in front of the cathedral.
Taking a deep breath of fresh air, he relaxed and looked towards the castle. Equipping [Wings of Anu], he flew towards it.
Once he had reached, he decided to find where exactly the rest of the Cohort were.
...
Gilgamesh walked through the castle, without wearing the upper part of [Golden Armor], feeling good at everyone immediately bowing when they saw him.
After walking through the castle for a few minutes, It didn't take him long to find Nephis; she was practicing her swordsmanship in the garden.
Jumping down, he landed in front of her.
"What's up?"
Nephis fixed her gaze on him and gave him a smile. It was still pretty off but looked better than her previous attempts.
Gilgamesh summoned a sword of Dormant rank from [Gate of Babylon] and stood across from her with it in his hands.
Not needing to talk, Nephis rushed at him with her longsword in hand. Parrying the strike, he attempted to slash at her.
Their spar went on for an hour or so, neither Nephis nor Gilgamesh winning.
While he hadn't gotten any better, because all he needed to do was just slash at his opponents, on the other hand, Nephis couldn't keep up with his sheer speed and strength, even if he was limiting it.
Dashing towards her, Gilgamesh attempted an overhead strike. Just as it was about to descend, Nephis parried it aside, making it fall out of his hands towards the ground.
"It... was a good spar."
She wiped the sweat off her forehead and nodded at him.
The sword got sucked into the portal as Nephis turned away, walking towards the exit while dispelling her sword. Just as she was about to take a step forward, Gilgamesh caught her hand.
Pulling her towards him until her chest was squished against his, he transferred her a sword and armor of Ascended rank that he had no use for. Once that was done, he released her hand and walked away with a grin on his face.
"You... you did not have to do all that just to transfer a Memory."
With a slight blush spreading across her face, Nephis tried her best to make her tone as emotionless as possible. He couldn't help but find her attempt to remain unaffected quite cute.
"Indeed, I could have."
Speaking shit that didn't make sense and remaining mysterious was the number one way to aura farm.
"Thank you for the Memories."
Without turning back, he continued walking towards the exit and waved at her nonchalantly.
...
Then, once again, he was walking through the hallways, hoping to find something interesting.
He could have asked someone where exactly Sunny and Cassie were, but that would have made it even more boring. So, instead, he resorted to walking on and on, hoping to find someone interesting.
Gilgamesh was almost tempted to walk up to Gunlaug just to trigger his PTSD, but of course, he was a good King who did not traumatize his subjects unnecessarily.
Suddenly, while lost in thought, when he was turning a corner, he bumped into someone.
Immediately, he caught the person who was starting to fall to the ground, without thinking.
Gazing at the dark eyes of the woman, it did not take long for Gilgamesh to realise who she was.
With her grey skin, dark eyes, and supple and full figure, it was pretty easy to guess that the person he was holding against his bare chest was none other than the daughter of Ki Song, Seishan.
(Image)
He had briefly interacted with her when he had become the King of the castle, mostly just a few words, because he did not know how to talk to her. It might sound pathetic, but it was because Gilgamesh barely knew anything about her personality. She was bordering on the edge of being an NPC with the amount of screentime—or would it be book-time?—that she had.
All he knew was that she had some flaw that made her want to drink blood, especially when fighting.
"It is good to meet you, Seishan."
She looked at him with an unreadable look in her eyes, her full red lips curling slightly.
Seishan paused all of a sudden, and unexpectedly pressed herself even more against him.
With his hand kept at the small of her back, and his other hand on her back, exactly where her heart would be located, Gilgamesh was ready to instantly kill her if she was trying something suspicious.
Still, he did not push her away as her head inched closer to his neck. When Seishan's nose was almost touching his neck, she inhaled deeply.
'Unhand me at once, you wicked woman! I am just fifteen years of age.'
Of course, Gilgamesh didn't say that out loud; he enjoyed the position that they were in way too much.
With her full and supple breasts pressed firmly against his bare chest, her regal red dress barely doing anything to stop the sensation of her chest, he couldn't lie and say that he wasn't appreciating it very, very much.
Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, even this.
After coming to her senses, Seishan pulled back, although she still stuck rather close to his side.
"My apologies, my lord, I should have been paying attention to where I was heading."
Her voice was pleasant, velvety, and had an undertone of... lust? Even her eyes had grown darker after pulling back.
"Apologies accepted."
The color of her eyes grew darker just at his words, and she looked at him even more intensely. Gilgamesh gave her a simple nod with a smirk and started walking away. Even when he turned around the corner, he could still feel her gaze at his back.
'What a weird woman.'
Gilgamesh hadn't expected this sort of reaction. If he had to guess, it most likely had something to do with her flaw. One thing he was confused about was, why? He was not sure why her reaction was so strange.
Did his blood smell better? More tantalizing than normal blood? Or... was she just a cougar who preyed on young guys?!
If he had to take a guess, then it most probably had something to do with [Demigod]; maybe the Attribute had done something to his blood as well?
It was difficult to say because nothing had been able to make him bleed even once since he had arrived in the Shadow Slave world.
Out of curiosity, he extended his hand, and an Ascended sword fell into his hand.
Without even a amount of hesitation, he ran the sword across his palm.
Interestingly enough, the sword did not manage to break through his skin.
'Huh, I did not know that [Demigod] made my skin this tough.'
Running the sword against his palm once again with more force, it finally cut his skin.
Gilgamesh stopped walking and stared with his brows furrowed at the blood dripping down his hands.
The sunlight streamed through the window, falling over his hand as the drops hit the floor.
He bled gold.
...
After the rather startling realization that his blood was golden in color, Gilgamesh teleported out of the room and summoned [Wings of Anu].
While floating in the air, he pulled up the Runes of [Demigod].
[Demigod] Attribute Description: [Your senses and body are greatly enhanced. Indeed, you are more God than human.]
The 'Indeed, you are more God than human' part made a lot more sense now. From what he remembered, only Gods and Daemons had golden blood in Shadow Slave.
Gilgamesh performed a few twists in the air to clear his head.
"I wonder if people can get my power if I give them my blood. Then again, I doubt that my blood is even close to a drop of Ichor of Weaver or the Shadow God... for now."
Gilgamesh was arrogant, not retarded.
He doubted that his blood would bring about any changes in anybody as of now.
Gilgamesh wasn't keen on sharing his power with anybody either way.
He performed a few more loops in the air.
"[Demigod] will likely evolve in the future, probably not before I reach at least Sacred or Divine rank, though," he rubbed his chin in curiosity as he remembered something, "Hmm, which rank would the original Gilgamesh be in this world? Probably Sovereign or Sacred. Then again, I don't know how strong Divine ranked people who are not Gods are in this world."
Wasn't there a super overpowered version of Gilgamesh, called CCC Gilgamesh? Either way, it did not matter; he was planning on surpassing all versions of him.
Blitzing through the air, he went outside of the city in search of Nightmare Creatures to kill. Gilgamesh had that it was time to finally lock in and get as many Golden Fragments as possible.
Gilgamesh was already bored in just a few days of staying in the castle. He was planning on lessening the amount of time it would take for them to return to the real world even more.
According to his calculations, in another week, he should be ready to annihilate the Crimson Spire even more.
Spotting a Nightmare Creature on the ground, he dived towards it.
...
Golden Cores: [2/7]
Golden Fragments: [679/2000]
"At this pace, it should roughly take me around two weeks before I reach my third core."
The thought of spending more time in this place was pretty boring. Gilgamesh had accomplished everything that he was planning on doing and there was nothing left to do anymore.
He sighed while floating above the dark sea and decided to go back to the Bright Castle.
With the wind whipping his hair back, Gilgamesh flew towards the direction of the Dark City.
"Does [Stone Saint] have genitals?"
It was such a weird question that it made him pause.
Nether had made his creations to copy the Gods.
His plan hadn't worked, and the creations came out imperfect, not comparable to human beings.
Surely he would have tried to replicate the reproductive systems of normal human beings?
"There is only one way to find out."
A sinister grin widened across his face.
Gilgamesh was joking... maybe.
...
He had reached the Castle after some time of lazily floating in the air.
As he gazed at the city and castle below him, Gilgamesh realised that for the most part, didn't really feel anything towards the Dark City.
Sure, he recognized himself as the King, but he wouldn't really care about it when he was going to leave it.
He cared more about the people than the city or the castle, because they were going to be the future residents of his clan.
During on of those sleepless nights of contemplation, he had decided on setting up his main city in the Nightmare Desert, mostly because it would look a lot similar to the actual Uruk city of the original Gilgamesh.
Gilgamesh went inside one of the open windows in his quarters and left the room immediately, heading towards the dining room while still being lost in thought.
While Gilgamesh did not know anything about the dangers of the desert, or what was inside Ariel's Tomb, he couldn't really care less.
His mind was set on making his clan over there itself.
The sound of his feet hitting the stone floors of the castle came to a stop as he reached the doors of the dining room.
There once was a sigil of a golden serpent on this door; he had removed it after the defeat of Gunlaug, along with the other symbols of his that were spread across the whole castle.
Twisting the knob, Gilgamesh entered inside.
He found Cassie sitting at the main table, still eating food. She immediately perked up at the sound of his footsteps.
"Gilgamesh! It's so good to see you."
Cassie's smile brightened, while he was rather impressed that she had guessed who he was even when he had removed the armour around his feet to trick her.
Gilgamesh instantly went up to her and hugged her. Pulling back the seat next to her, he sat down.
It was kind of funny that they were sitting at such an elaborate and elegant table when all they were going to be eating, was canned food.
While eating, Gilgamesh engaged in idle chatter with Cassie, nodding along and adding his opinions as she described her whole day to him excitedly.
Once they were done eating, he held her hand and transferred her the Memory that he had gotten today.
"This Memory, [Quiet Dancer], lacks the typical human senses like sight or hearing, but it can still sense shapes and motion, which it will tranfer on to you once you grip it. I think it's perfect for you."
Cassie's expression changed to surprise as Gilgamesh explained the abilities of the Memory to her.
Next, he opened his portals and dumped a few dozen Soul Shards next to her.
"I... I again don't know how I can ever thank you for everything that you have done, Gil."
Her shocked expression had changed to a guilty one after he had dumped the Soul Shards next to her.
...
Wanna give the credits to OverlordBGs who gave the idea of setting of Gilgamesh's clan in the Nightmare Desert.
Except for that, it causes me great displeasure to announce that my school is restarting soon. While that usually wouldn't have been a problem, this is the last year of my school, which will shape my life in the next two, three years depending on the amount of marks that I get.
I had also spent all of the days of my holidays in enjoyment, without studying or doing my homework, so I have to do everything in this last week before they re-open.
So unfortunately, no more two chapters a day.
Also next chapter will probably be the last chapter in the forgotten shore arc
Word Count: 2358