If There Is No Path

"And there you have it. All ninety-nine true energy natures-- severed completely." Gilgamesh said with a satisfied grin, dusting his hands off as if they were dirtied from a bout of hard work.

Keylah sat on the floor with her hair disheveled and her expression darkened. She seemed dispirited and lost; her eyes stared off into the desert at the sands, lamenting. "All my years of hard work, gone... Thankfully I got to keep the true energy I gathered, or I'd have shriveled up into an old prune."

"Of course you could keep your energy. It might have been derived from the natures you acquired, but it belongs to you. It's the foundation of your cultivation right now- the only thing that's actually solid- unlike your comprehension."

"Sigh." She shed a few silent tears.

Gilgamesh held in his laughter at her sorry state, suddenly finding himself experiencing a sense of enjoyment. 'I haven't done something like this since...'

He then recalled the last time he had taken up instructing...

Ateah...

At the first sight of bitterness, welling up within him, he shut himself off from it. Closing his heart to it all was easier, because he did not know how to deal with it. Instead, he refocused on Keylah and reentered a state of enjoyment.

"How am I even going to recapture those seedlings? How am I gonna get the chance to come into contact with them, far less meditate upon them? This is insane."

"You're insane."

Gilgamesh snorted amusedly, "Perfection isn't insane. It's natural- to me, at least."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Keylah rolled her eyes. "You a perfectionist?"

Gilgamesh seemed to consider the term before he answered, "Something like that. I guess I'm still learning what exactly I am."

Keylah gave an exasperated sigh and fell into depression once again. The more she thought about her path forward, the more she felt like sulking.

"And who said you had to recapture them? When I took them from you, I kept them all with me. I'll put them in stasis so you can keep them with you."

Keylah's depression and sulking immediately came to an end, and she looked up with glittering eyes. "Stasis!? You can put natures in stasis? I thought because they're composed of conceptual material its impossible to affect them with anything that isn't also conceptual in nature."

Gilgamesh nodded slowly, "That's true, which is why I'm going to use Time's Stillness- a nature of true energy."

At the same time, he snapped his fingers and created a loud snapping sound that swiftly faded away. Keylah looked on with rapt attention and focus, unable to stop even if she wanted to.

Her very soul was drawn to what Gilgamesh was doing. If she could catch a glimpse of even one of his secrets, she knew that she would benefit greatly.

Gilgamesh snapped again, creating a sound.

"What are you doing?" Her voice sounded distant, as if she were in a trance.

"In the moment between the sound's creation and its vanishment, there exists a point in time where the sound can always be heard. It's easier if there's a controlled variable like noise, because it makes it easier to identify the exact point the sound is able to be heard."

He suddenly snapped his fingers once again, then snatched something out of the air with such speed that the Empress could not even follow his movement. She gasped, seeing the very air heat up around Gilgamesh's hand.

Then, all was as normal.

"And there you have it," He opened his hand, revealing the spiritual image of a motionless hourglass. That image vanished as soon as it appeared, leaving behind nothing but a trace of specialized true energy.

"Is that it? The nature of Time's Stillness?" Keylah looked down at Gilgamesh's hand like a nosy child, evoking a soft chuckle from Gilgamesh.

"It is. With this, I can place all 99 true energy natures in stasis, and you can keep them on your person. Take them out of stasis so you can meditate on them, then refine them once you're finished."

"But, you need to be sure you fully understand them before you attempt to refine them. Once outside of stasis, they can be lost to a failed attempt, and you can't refine them if they're in stasis. Got that?"

Keylah nodded hurriedly. "I understand, Master Gilgamesh."

Groaning, Gilgamesh pretended he did not hear her address and brought the seed of Time's Stillness over to his face. Tilting his head forward a bit, he took a breath and then blew onto it. The isolated mini-field of true energy wavered a bit before it started to change.

Tiny specks of true energy appeared in it, being blown into it by Gilgamesh's breath. Keylah instantly recognized their spiritual signatures as the 99 true energy natures she once possessed.

She wondered how Gilgamesh was able to keep them inside of him, but stopped thinking about it when Gilgamesh passed the stasis field to her.

"And that's that. As long as you focus on understanding them before you try to refine them, you should be able to easily influence them with your inherent nature. Be sure to focus on how the two should interact with one another."

"Remember that your inherent nature is just the first step. You must build atop every nature you acquire, and drive your soul further and further toward completion."

Keylah listened to Gilgamesh words, frowning at the end. "Completion?"

"Yes. All of you cultivators are... incomplete. You lack the right ingredients. The only way you can make up for it is by taking those ingredients from the world around you. This Library is made up of so many natures, and they can all be used to push you beyond your limit."

"But, in the end, it is the act of building upon understanding that bolsters the soul. If you understand enough about a nature of true energy, you begin to see what lies beneath the surface."

Keylah's breath stuck in her throat, and she pointed at Gilgamesh with a crazed look in her eyes. "You're talking about... The Sovereign Natures..."

"You're saying that The Sovereign Natures can be gleamed by walking a nigh-endless path of understanding? No wonder even 'A' was seemingly unable to understand them. If there's no end to knowledge, how can endless knowledge ever be attained?"

Gilgamesh faltered, and was about to start saying something when Keylah cut him off. "Well, that's not exactly-"

"I get it! The only way is by seeking that which lies beneath! Thirsting after true energy natures will only ever lead you to the Source Of All Things, which is what 'A' ended up doing. His mistake was not focusing on that which lies behind even the Source."

"His mistake was blinding himself to The Sovereign Natures, but he didn't even realize it."

Keylah was breathing heavily at this point, hovering over Gilgamesh with their faces just inches away from one another.

Gilgamesh took a deep breath through his nose, enjoying her scent. He looked down and saw her chest once again, so he took a step back.

"You know, if they looked a bit less like pancakes, your nipples would be a perfect 10. I love the point of them, but there's just too much pigmentation on the areolas." He nodded slowly, like a professor studying a live specimen.

"Huh?" Keylah looked down, then flushed red before turning around and clearing her throat. "Anyway, thanks a lot for everything. Your instruction and aid is most appreciated. If there's anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to demand it of me."

Gilgamesh shook his head as he laughed lightly. "I should thank you as well. Helping you also helped me digest my newfound knowledge. I can see things a lot clearer now after thinking about it."

Gilgamesh turned around and looked up at the sky, still marveling at the sight of that Book Collection's scattered ruins.

Keylah sidled up to his side, staring up at the sky with him.

"Who do you think 'Florence,' is?" He asked her.

"She could be one of those legendary Librarians I heard about from the Descenders, those people that are capable of lording over entire Omniverses. I heard their powers are so immense, they can't even come close to the starting ground without causing it to evaporate."

"Hm," Gilgamesh appeared thoughtful. "How many Descenders are there?"

"In total, about twelve. No one knows why they came down here, only that they're always together, and keep to themselves. There are speculations and theories, some suggesting that they're waiting for something."

"Or someone."

"Still, no one has a clue. They each came down one after the next, some from Book Collections that we can't even see from here."

Hearing about other Book Collections, Gilgamesh stared further into the Library, past the closest Book Collections he could see. "If that's true, then it's quite strange that they all grouped up. Sounds like something planned to me."

"Ah, well," Keylah yawned, "Descenders are just another secret of this endless Library."

Gilgamesh nodded, "I guess so."

Keylah turned to her throne, about to leave with the stasis field when she paused. "One last thing," she turned her head to Gilgamesh.

"Mm?" His gaze never departed from the boundless sky.

"I sense no power from you, nor do you have an aura. Your senses are extremely dull, like you said, and your immortality isn't even a result of your own power."

Gilgamesh smiled bitterly.

"What are you? Do you even cultivate?"

He shut his eyes, pushing emotions back down into the pit. Careful to hide the tones in his voice, he cleared his throat and answered.

"I'm trying to figure that out myself. I don't know what exactly I am- or who- but I'm getting there. I'll figure out what I want to do, and then I'll do it."

"The same goes for my cultivation path. Right now, I'm not sure there even is one. What I can say for sure, though, is that I'm not going to let that stop me."

Gilgamesh opened his eyes slowly, this time the peculiar, ghostly light appeared in them again. This was what Keylah recognized as the pure Nature of Enlightenment, allowing him to see beyond.

His vision pierced the sky and trailed off into the Library, showing him more and more of it and the Book Collections it contained.

Keylah stepped forward, "But if there's no way forward for you, what can you do?"

"If there is no path for me, and I desire to move forward..."

Gilgamesh suddenly turned around, his eyes still glowing with a powerful and incomprehensibly phantasmal light, startling Keylah as she reeled from the abrupt shock and fear.

"Then I will make my own path."

Keylah's breath became uneasy, and she thought back to the stories and myths that were flittering around in her head. "If 'A' was right about the Source Of All Things, and if the person you call God is really the same as the Source, then it's not going to want to nurture something that is not of it."

"It's not going to accept you. It never will."

Gilgamesh's glowing eyes dimmed, and their crimson color returned. His hair was subtly blown about, and his horrid clothes slowly fell apart as he moved.

Looking at the sky once again, as shreds and shreds of ruined fabric fell from his body, a new outfit materialized out of no where, covering his body.

A cloak of pure black, dotted with minuscule bits of something that seemed to be comprised of the same material as the ruined Book Collection up above.

Finally, Gilgamesh spoke.

"She will have no choice."