"Enuma Elish!!!"
With Gilgamesh's cold, absolute-willed release of the True Name.
That world-rending, creation-replaying red storm of utter annihilation came crashing down upon Seiji Fujiwara at a speed surpassing time and space!
The sky was wailing.
The earth was trembling.
Even the solid space atop the Ziggurat was torn open into countless pitch-black, scar-like cracks before this absolute power!
This was the final judgment of a "king"!
This was the most extreme wrath of the "world" itself!
Yet, faced with this absolute "phenomenon" capable of reducing any existence to nothingness, the same calm, untroubled expression rested on Seiji's face, as if everything lay within his grasp.
He didn't show even the slightest intent to dodge.
He simply hovered there in place, spread his arms, as though to embrace, of his own will, the world-ending storm about to devour him.
"Well struck."
A delighted, manic curve tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Let me see..."
"whether your rotten creation from the past is stronger."
"Or whether the brand-new future I have defined is tougher!"
[System Directive: Absolute Authority (World Rule Resolution 45%) fully released!]
[Executing highest-authority directive: Conceptual Usurpation!]
[Usurpation target: Heroic Spirit Gilgamesh (Caster).]
[Object of usurpation: Noble Phantasm Ea, the Sword of Rupture.]
[Core concept to usurp: ownership of the splitting of heaven and earth!]
[Executing... conducting high-intensity conceptual contention...]
[Warning! Target holds triple high-tier conceptual exemptions: divinity, kingship, creation! Conceptual Usurpation difficulty extremely high!]
[Force execution! Fueled by the Host's Grail of infinite magic! Cored by the will of the Host's absolute self! Performing conceptual override!]
[Override progress: 10%... 30%... 70%...]
[Override successful!]
A single resonant hum split the air.
In the very instant before that red storm of annihilation was about to touch Seiji's body.
Time, it seemed, was once again forced to a halt.
That violent torrent of energy, enough to wipe all of Uruk off the map, stopped dead, abruptly, less than a meter from Seiji.
As if an unstoppable primordial beast charging in a frenzy had suddenly been yanked to a stop by an invisible, utterly inescapable bridle cinched around its neck.
"...What?!"
Gilgamesh's ever-confident ruby eyes showed, for the first time, the exact same extreme shock and... incomprehension as the Archer-class him back in Fuyuki City!
Impossible!
This was absolutely impossible!
Ea, the Sword of Rupture, was his one and only strongest trump card, towering above all other Noble Phantasms!
It was the "creation" authority before which even the world itself had to yield!
How could it...
How could anyone, in this... almost "mocking" manner, forcibly bring it to a stop?!
"I told you, Gilgamesh."
Seiji's voice came calmly, slowly, from behind that frozen storm.
"Your truth is far too old."
"And I..."
His figure slowly walked out, step by step, from within that violent torrent of energy.
The energy capable of tearing space apart, the instant it touched his body, parted automatically to either side like an obedient pet, clearing a path for him.
"...have come to lay down a new truth."
He walked up to Gilgamesh, reached out, and casually pinched the legendary Ea, still humming frantically and straining to break free, between two fingers.
Then, before Gilgamesh's disbelieving eyes, all but spewing fire.
He gave it a light snap.
Crack.
A crisp sound, like shattering glass, rang through the heavens.
That strongest god-forged armament, symbol of the "splitting of heaven and earth," towering above all Noble Phantasms...
was, between two of his fingers, with effortless ease...
snapped in two.
The broken blade dissolved into a sky full of golden motes of light, scattering into the air.
And that frozen storm of annihilation, having lost its source, vanished without a sound, like a popped balloon.
"..."
"..."
The battle in the sky had, at some point, come to a halt.
The Feathered Serpent, Saber Alter, and Siduri and Kingu in the distance.
Every one of them stared blankly at the scene before them, a sight so saturated with the fantastical that it had completely exceeded the limits of their imagination.
Their king...
Their great King of Heroes, ever-victorious and unconquerable...
His strongest trump card had actually...
been snapped apart by someone's bare hand?
"Monster..."
Kingu's lips trembled beyond his control, and he forced those two words out through clenched teeth.
The way he looked at Seiji was no longer anger and wariness.
It was a terror, the purest and most extreme kind, rooted in the very instinct of life!
And Gilgamesh himself stood rigid in place, head bowed, staring at the bare half of a sword hilt that remained in his hand.
His mind was a blank.
His absolutely rational heart, which since the death of his dearest friend had never once stirred violently, was now pounding wildly, fiercely!
Humiliation!
An unprecedented, ultimate humiliation!
A sense of shame ten thousand times stronger than when that damned clay doll had bound him with chains broke through all his reason in an instant!
"Mongrel...!!!"
He jerked his head up, those ruby eyes already shot through with veins of madness!
"You dare... you dare break my Ea!!!"
"I will kill you! I will absolutely kill you!!!"
He roared, and the golden ripples behind him surged forth again in a frenzy!
Yet...
Seiji had already lost all interest in this "defeated dog" who'd lost everything down to his underwear.
He merely raised his right hand slowly.
Then, at Gilgamesh's handsome face, twisted with rage.
He gave a light wave through the air.
Smack!
A loud, crisp, humiliation-laden slap rang out across the entire summit of the Ziggurat.
Gilgamesh's body was struck head-on, as if by an invisible hammer of a hundred million tons!
His magnificent golden ceremonial robes shattered to pieces in an instant!
His whole body became a golden meteor, flung backward at a speed countless times faster than when he'd fired his Noble Phantasms before!
With a thunderous roar, he slammed hard into the throne atop the Ziggurat, the one forged of gold and lapis lazuli that symbolized his supreme royal authority!
The solid throne, along with his last pride as a "king," was smashed to pieces together!
A mouthful of golden, divinity-laden blood sprayed wildly from his mouth, spattering across the broken walls and rubble behind him.
He struggled, trying to rise from the ruins.
But a force of absolute "suppression," one he couldn't comprehend at all, working at the level of "concept," pinned him down hard, like Mount Tai bearing down, onto the wreckage of his own throne!
Leaving him unable to move!
Able only to lie sprawled there in the most wretched, most humiliating posture!
"The battle is over."
Seiji's voice, level and cold, like a final verdict, rang slowly in everyone's ears.
He slowly descended onto the summit of the Ziggurat, ravaged beyond recognition by the aftershocks of the battle.
Then, step by step, he walked up to that throne, already smashed to pieces.
He ignored the man sprawled in the rubble, glaring at him with a gaze full of hatred and bitterness, the "king" of yesterday.
And went straight to sit down upon the wreckage of the throne, still stained with Gilgamesh's blood.
He crossed his legs, propped his chin on his hand, and with a victor's absolute bearing, looked down upon the vast city below, now sunk wholly into deathly silence and panic.
Then he slowly opened his mouth and, in a voice that seemed to carry magic within it, ringing clearly throughout the whole of Uruk, slowly declared:
"From this day on."
"This city, this nation, and..."
"...the fate of every last one of you."
"...will all be governed by me."
The false god reigned.
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