"Hahahahahahahaha...!"
An incredibly long, booming, and profoundly familiar laugh suddenly echoed out, violently interrupting the tender atmosphere between the two.
Startled, Takumi and Ereshkigal immediately turned toward the source of the voice. Strolling out from behind a large rock formation nearby was a certain half-naked King with golden hair and crimson eyes.
"I knew I wasn't wrong about you, Takumi! To think that you would use the excuse of 'taking a nap' to successfully seduce the Mistress of the Underworld and secure her allegiance to Uruk!"
"Yes, yes! This nap of yours was certainly not taken in vain!"
Gilgamesh offered his "highest" praise, his face plastered with a wide grin, the look of profound satisfaction in his eyes practically overflowing.
"King Gilgamesh? How did you end up down here?"
Deliberately ignoring Ereshkigal's panicked, blushing mutters of "Please don't say it so bluntly!" and "Exactly how long have you been eavesdropping?!", Takumi asked in genuine surprise.
"Hah! Is it not obvious? The soul of one of my most valued subjects was accidentally swept away by the Underworld. Naturally, I personally descended to retrieve you!"
Gilgamesh declared with absolute, unwavering confidence.
Takumi: "..."
No matter how you spin it, it looks exactly like you just died from overwork and ended up down here!
"Alright, let's try a different question. How long ago did you die of overwork and fall into the Underworld?"
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Takumi asked deadpan.
"Roughly half a day? I merely recall feeling slightly fatigued last night, deciding to take a brief rest, and suddenly finding myself taking a nostalgic stroll through the Underworld! Haha!"
Gilgamesh laughed heartily, answering without a second thought.
See? All it took was a tiny bit of bait and he immediately admitted it.
"Hey, hey! Do you have absolutely no sense of urgency as a King?! Your Uruk is currently under a massive attack, and yet you're standing here laughing!"
Ereshkigal couldn't help but interject, looking at Gilgamesh with sheer exasperation.
"What is there to panic about? Before I descended into the Underworld, I had already completed every single task and preparation within my power. Leaving the execution of the remaining steps to Siduri is functionally identical to me handling them personally!"
"Furthermore, the man standing before me is the absolute crux of our entire strategy. If he isn't present on the battlefield, what use would having two 'Gilgameshs' be?!"
Gilgamesh cast a disdainful side-eye at Ereshkigal, scoffing at her lack of vision.
This woman truly possesses absolutely zero grasp of the grander picture!
"Is that so? Then it looks like we need to hurry back up to the surface..."
But before that, there's one last thing that needs to be done.
Takumi shifted his gaze toward another massive rock formation nearby, focusing on the towering, imposing figure that had been quietly waiting there for quite some time.
The Grand Assassin, King Hassan.
Following Takumi's line of sight, both Gilgamesh and Ereshkigal noticed the figure clad in heavy, skull-motif armor, resting his hands atop a massive greatsword.
Only just now realizing another entity had been present this entire time, Ereshkigal let out a startled gasp:
"Eh? He was standing that close, yet I didn't sense his presence at all..."
For a literal Goddess of the Underworld to fail to detect King Hassan's presence within her own domain was an absolute testament to the sheer, terrifying prowess of the entity who practically embodied the concept of Death itself.
"Oh? The Old Man of the Mountain?"
Gilgamesh was clearly much calmer than Ereshkigal. Though a flicker of surprise crossed his crimson eyes, this development fell well within his calculations.
"This is the venerable King Hassan. The purpose of his visit is to sever the contract of the Three Goddess Alliance binding you, Eresh—Wait a minute. Our primary target isn't Gorgon anymore, it's Tiamat. Will severing this Alliance contract actually have any effect?"
Takumi began introducing the Grand Assassin and explaining his objective, but mid-sentence, he suddenly realized a massive logical flaw.
According to the original game's plot, Ereshkigal's Alliance contract was indeed severed by King Hassan. While Quetzalcoatl didn't receive the same treatment, during the final battle against Tiamat, the Goddess Alliance contract didn't trigger to hinder her. Based on that logic, did the Alliance contract even apply to Tiamat in the first place?
If it didn't, wasn't King Hassan's presence here right now entirely pointless?
"Umm, it should still have a partial effect, right? After all, Gorgon herself doesn't inherently possess Divinity. The Divinity she holds is entirely borrowed from 'Mother.' Therefore, the contractual link established between us Goddesses and Gorgon is fundamentally anchored by 'Mother's' Divinity."
Sensing Takumi's confusion, Ereshkigal thought for a moment before offering a theological explanation.
Takumi nodded, indicating he understood the logic:
"I see. In that case, we still need to go through with this procedure."
As if taking his cue, King Hassan took two heavy steps forward, the eerie blue ghost-fire burning within his skull visor flaring ominously.
A sudden, paralyzing chill ran down Ereshkigal's spine. Looking at the terrifying, greatsword-wielding assassin who absolutely did not look like a "good guy," she instinctively shrank behind Takumi, asking nervously:
"Umm... Could I ask what exactly this 'procedure' entails...?"
"Basically, he's just going to take that massive greatsword and casually cleave you perfectly in half starting from the top of your head. Don't worry, I've gotten totally used to it! It's completely safe!"
Takumi casually summarized the experience with a bright, reassuring smile.
Waaah! Did you just casually describe something unimaginably horrifying?!
"Wait, wait, wait! Even if I get cleaved in half, I won't just magically turn into two separate Ereshkigals! No matter how you look at it, this 'procedure' is incredibly dangerous, right?!"
Ereshkigal panicked, waving her hands frantically in protest.
"Relax. If you're really that scared, just hold onto my hand. I'll guide you through it and make sure you don't actually sink into 'Death'."
Takumi offered a warm, comforting smile and extended his hand toward her.
Seeing the absolute certainty and gentleness in his eyes, Ereshkigal's panicked rambling came to an abrupt halt. In an instant, her face flushed bright red, and she lowered her head shyly. Half-hesitant, half-eager, she reached out and firmly grasped Takumi's warm hand.
"...Mhm."
She let out a tiny sound of agreement, softer than a mosquito's buzz.
"I'll leave the rest to you, old man."
Seeing that Ereshkigal was mentally prepared, Takumi turned his attention back to King Hassan, who had been patiently waiting with his sword drawn.
King Hassan didn't say a single word. He simply approached Ereshkigal with slow, deliberate steps. Just as he raised his greatsword high above his head to deliver the strike, he shifted his gaze to look directly at Takumi.
It was a look that clearly said: "I shall instruct you one final time."
Takumi didn't need to be told. From the very second King Hassan had raised his blade, Takumi's entire, undivided focus had been absolutely locked onto the impending strike.
As for Ereshkigal, she wasn't paying attention to the sword at all. Her heart pounding with a mix of anxiety and a tiny bit of ulterior motive, she simply squeezed her eyes shut and pressed herself tightly against Takumi's side.
SWISH!
The greatsword descended with terrifying speed.
"Thou art now free... Goddess of the Underworld..."
Leaving behind those echoing words, King Hassan's silhouette dissolved into a flurry of blue, ethereal particles and vanished completely.
It wasn't until the Grand Assassin had entirely disappeared that Takumi finally snapped out of his profound trance, his eyes slowly regaining focus.
—His comprehension of the concept of "Death" had deepened once more.
[True Mystic Eyes of Death Perception (B)] -> [True Mystic Eyes of Death Perception (A)]
Meanwhile, the actual recipient of the strike, Ereshkigal—who still had her eyes tightly shut—suddenly felt an overwhelming sensation of falling from a great height. But before she could even register the fear, the hand firmly grasping hers violently yanked her forward, pulling her directly into a warm embrace.
Resting against Takumi's chest, Ereshkigal cautiously fluttered her eyes open.
"See? Didn't I tell you it was completely safe? I've gotten totally used to it!"
Takumi said, his tone carrying a distinct hint of showing off.
"I honestly have no idea what you're acting so smug about..."
Ereshkigal muttered softly. Reluctantly, she pushed herself out of Takumi's embrace.
Truthfully, she would have loved to lean against him for a little while longer, but unfortunately, a certain King who died of overwork was standing right next to them, watching the entire interaction with an incredibly amused, knowing smirk!
"Alright. The preliminary preparations are officially complete. Eresh, I need you to start aggressively expanding the Underworld directly toward Uruk's coordinates. King Gilgamesh and I need to head back up to the surface immediately."
Knowing they had already burned a massive amount of time, a growing sense of intense urgency gripped Takumi's heart, and he immediately issued instructions.
After receiving Ereshkigal's firm nod of confirmation, Takumi turned to Gilgamesh:
"King Gilgamesh, grab onto my shoulder. It'll be much faster if I bring you up with me."
—No form of physical or conceptual restraint could ever truly trap Takumi. Not even the absolute laws of the Underworld.
The only reason he had been "trapped" down here earlier was simply because he had been asleep. Otherwise, he possessed the absolute capability to come and go as he pleased.
"Ho? You actually possess a method to bypass the Underworld's strictures?"
Having watched the spectacle long enough, Gilgamesh raised an eyebrow. Sharing Takumi's intense urgency regarding the situation on the surface, he didn't hesitate for a second, firmly placing his hand on Takumi's shoulder.
***
Uruk.
The vanguard of the hyper-agile, flying Lahmu were mere seconds away from breaching the airspace of Uruk, crossing the city walls, and beginning their merciless slaughter within the city limits.
Watching the impending doom approach from afar, Siduri felt her heart burning with absolute, frantic desperation.
Who could possibly understand the sheer, suffocating pressure she was under right now?!
First, Lord Takumi had inexplicably fallen into a death-like coma. Next, King Gilgamesh had dispatched every single available Servant out of the city on critical missions. She had assumed that with King Gilgamesh personally holding down the fort, Uruk would remain secure. But to her absolute horror, she had discovered the King in the exact same comatose state as Takumi this very morning!
In the span of less than two days, she, a mere priestess, had inexplicably become the absolute highest authority in Uruk. The fate of the entire city—and potentially the survival of the entire human race—was suddenly resting entirely on her shoulders!
The pressure was so astronomically massive it threatened to crush her completely!
Yet, despite this, she cast one final glance back at the Ziggurat, gritted her teeth, and resolutely sprinted toward the heart of the city to join the defense.
As the Head Priestess of Uruk, she was significantly more powerful than the average soldier or civilian. Possessing this strength, she absolutely refused to cower in the rear.
—At the very least, until the King returns, I will protect Uruk with my life!
She absolutely refused to let the King wake up only to find his beloved Uruk reduced to an empty, blood-soaked graveyard!
Sharing her absolute resolve were the scattered squads of Uruk soldiers stationed throughout the city streets.
They tilted their heads back, staring at the descending "Grim Reapers" coming to harvest their lives. Their eyes burned with unyielding defiance, and their hands gripped their spears and shields with bone-crushing force.
[Come at us! You monsters—!]
The very next second, the swarm of Lahmu breached Uruk.
And it was only at this exact moment that the soldiers—who previously only possessed vague intelligence reports—truly realized exactly what kind of horrifying monstrosities they were facing.
They possessed absolutely zero emotion, taking sadistic, child-like joy in slaughtering humans. They completely lacked the primal fear of death that even mindless demonic beasts possessed. Furthermore, their pitch-black, chitinous skin was inexplicably harder than reinforced steel; the soldiers' desperate, full-power spear thrusts couldn't even leave a scratch on their "armor."
In stark contrast, the Lahmu's casual, erratic attacks could effortlessly obliterate human architecture. Their terrifying, spear-like appendages easily snapped the soldiers' weapons in half and effortlessly pierced through their armor and chests.
"They really are... absolute, unadulterated monsters..."
A soldier, his chest brutally impaled by a Lahmu's scythe-like limb, was hoisted into the air. Staring directly into the face of the creature—which was currently emitting a bizarre, eerie, child-like giggle—the man coughed up a mouthful of blood and forced out a bitter, mocking laugh.
The soldier's consciousness faded into eternal darkness.
Amidst a street completely painted in blood, littered with severed limbs, and echoing with that horrifying, continuous giggling, the Lahmu tilted its head, staring curiously at the man it had just killed.
"■? ▄? ▄■■■??" (Eh? Why isn't it changing?)
According to their fundamental programming, any human killed by a Lahmu was supposed to rapidly mutate and transform into a new Lahmu. Yet, several seconds had passed, and the corpse hadn't changed in the slightest.
Unable to comprehend the anomaly, the Lahmu simply abandoned the thought. It cheerfully dashed off to continue slaughtering the other Uruk soldiers—who, despite knowing their attacks were completely useless, were still relentlessly charging forward with absolute, suicidal resolve.
"Ugh..."
At the end of the day, Siduri was fundamentally a non-combatant priestess. While her mastery of Magecraft was vastly superior to an ordinary Magus, facing down a swarm of tens of thousands of Lahmu was an utterly insurmountable task.
The Lahmu were unimaginably fast, and nearly all of them possessed the ability to fly. Their defense was so absurdly high that several direct hits from her offensive spells barely made them flinch. Even if they completely ignored defending, without the physical blockade of the soldiers in front of her, they could close the distance to her in the blink of an eye.
"Gah!" "We won't let you harm Lady Siduri...!" "Hold the line! Over here! Watch out for that one!" "Waaah!"
Executing attacks that were essentially the equivalent of scratching an itch, dozens of Lahmu tore through the defensive formation of soldiers standing in front of Siduri like an unstoppable meat grinder. They casually tossed the heavily armored soldiers into the air and smashed them against the nearby stone walls like discarded ragdolls.
With their bizarre, unpredictable attack patterns and blinding speed, it took less than a few seconds for a Lahmu to completely breach the line and materialize directly in front of Siduri.
"Hehehehehehehe—!"
Amidst its eerie, sickening giggles, the Lahmu raised its lethal, spear-like appendage high.
Is this... the end...?
Maintaining her spell-casting posture, Siduri stared bitterly at the descending strike, which seemed to move in slow motion as her adrenaline spiked.
"You—"
A voice practically vibrating with absolute, explosive fury suddenly echoed through the street.
Siduri only saw a brilliant, freezing flash of pristine sword light. The Lahmu standing directly in front of her instantly froze completely solid. Its horrifying giggling was abruptly cut off, and a second later, its pitch-black body disintegrated entirely into a shower of fine, black ash.
Simultaneously, a gentle, revitalizing green light rained down across the street. The soldiers who had just suffered lethal, fatal injuries—whose consciousness was on the absolute brink of fading away—suddenly realized the agonizing pain had vanished. The life force draining from their bodies was instantly fully restored.
Surrounded by soldiers staring in absolute shock at their miraculously healed bodies, Siduri slowly tilted her head back and looked up at the sky—
Up there, an absolute tempest of blinding, god-like sword light was constantly flashing. The suffocating, apocalyptic cloud of black "mosquitoes" that had driven them to the brink of utter despair mere moments ago had already been reduced by more than half in the blink of an eye.
"Lord Takumi... The King... They have finally returned..."
Clasping her hands tightly against her chest, tears of profound, overwhelming relief welled up in Siduri's eyes.
***
Five seconds!
"You bastards—seem to be having an awfully fun time! MONGRELS!!"
The [Sword of the Heart] ruthlessly cleaved through another Lahmu. Sprinting across thin air, Takumi's eyes blazed with absolute, unadulterated rage as he practically spat the words through gritted teeth.
In a mere five seconds, he had systematically hunted down and slaughtered every single Lahmu that had breached the airspace of Uruk!
But was it over? Absolutely not.
"Since you guys love playing so much, why don't you let me join in on the fun—!!"
Shattering the final Lahmu within the city limits, Takumi didn't hesitate for a single microsecond. He locked onto the trajectory the swarm had arrived from and launched himself forward at absolute maximum velocity.
Like a raging inferno igniting a trail of dry willow catkins, wherever Takumi passed, the encroaching tide of Lahmu was flawlessly, mercilessly severed and exterminated!
***
The City of Umma.
Having relentlessly fought to kill as many Lahmu as possible, Ushiwakamaru—whose mana reserves were severely depleted due to Gilgamesh currently being comatose—was rapidly reaching her absolute limit, looking incredibly battered and exhausted.
After desperately managing to hack down one Lahmu, the very next second, another one slammed into her with the force of a speeding truck, violently launching her through the air.
"Ugh..."
Crashing brutally into a stone wall without bleeding off any momentum, Ushiwakamaru couldn't help but let out a painful grunt. But before she could even catch her breath, two more Lahmu immediately lunged toward her.
CLANG!
Leonidas, wielding his shield and accompanied by a small detachment of phantom Spartan soldiers summoned via his Noble Phantasm, arrived just in the nick of time. He successfully blocked the incoming strikes and forcefully bashed the Lahmu back.
"Can you still fight?"
Leonidas asked without taking his eyes off the enemy.
As a highly specialized defensive Servant, he was exceptionally well-suited for holding the line in drawn-out battles of attrition like this.
"Ah... I can still manage. But as for the remaining citizens..."
Using her katana to prop herself up, Ushiwakamaru instinctively glanced behind them. Looking at the massive number of casualties, and the small, terrified group of survivors currently huddled under the protection of Leonidas's phantom soldiers, her eyes dimmed with profound despair.
Never mind the civilians they were actively trying to protect right now—given the Lahmu's sheer, overwhelming numbers and hyper-aggression, it was highly likely that the massive crowds of civilians they had evacuated earlier hadn't survived either.
Leonidas clearly arrived at the exact same grim conclusion. He fell completely silent.
Yet, he still tried to rally their spirits:
"Just push a little harder! Perhaps reinforcements will..."
VMMMM—!
Before Leonidas could even finish his sentence, an uncountable, blinding flurry of sword slashes abruptly erupted within the swarming tide of Lahmu. In the span of a single blink, the entire horde of monsters that had them completely surrounded froze solid, instantly disintegrating into piles of black ash that rained down onto the streets.
Both Servants froze in absolute shock. And right at that exact moment, they simultaneously felt the severed magical connection between them and Gilgamesh violently snap back into place.
A massive, practically endless surge of pristine magical energy flooded back into their Spirit Origins.
"It's Lord Takumi! And King Gilgamesh!"
Realizing exactly what had happened, the two of them exchanged a look of pure, ecstatic relief.