Tremble

"I will become your successor," Calle said while looking straight into Gilgamesh's eyes.

Hearing Calle's answer, Gilgamesh smiled and nodded his head towards Calle. And suddenly, Calle saw the majestic glow come back to Gilgamesh's body as his body glowed brighter and brighter to the point where Calle needed to squint his eyes only to be able to see Gilgamesh's body. And as the glow came back, the earlier feeling that he got when he saw Gilgamesh for the first time resurfaced again as his instincts forced him once again to bow his head and kneel towards the man in front of him.

However, this time, before Calle succumbed to his strong instinct to submit himself to Gilgamesh, he suddenly heard Gilgamesh's voice once again.

"Hereby I, Gilgamesh, choose Maverick Calle as my successor and crown him as the sole inheritor of the dungeon sovereign system."

Different from when Gilgamesh was talking to him earlier, Gilgamesh's voice sounded dignified and heavy as it penetrated his very being.

And Calle might have not felt it, but right after Gilgamesh said the words and closed his mouth, the whole universe trembled just for a split second before it suddenly disappeared as if nothing had happened.

The vibration was so minuscule and brief that almost no one in the entire universe could feel that slight disturbance and nobody noticed anything about it.

However, the few beings that could feel the sudden tremble of the universe quickly contacted each other to confirm what they had just felt earlier. They rarely talked with each other even for millennia as their forces were constantly at odds with each other, but the tremble that they felt earlier was more than enough for them to put aside all of their differences and problems aside for the time being to talk to each other regarding the tremble that hey had just felt.

And as they found out that the situation turns out to be true, they all had one thought in their minds,

'It has returned…'

Back in the dark space where Calle and Gilgamesh were located, the moment Calle heard Gilgamesh's voice entered his ears and touched his heart, the natural instinct that was pushing him to submit to Gilgamesh had suddenly disappeared as if it was just a lie and he now could look at Gilgamesh straight in the eye without feeling excessive reverence towards him.

Seeing this, Gilgamesh nodded his head once again before saying,

"Looks like it worked perfectly. Congratulations, Calle, you are now the holder of the Dungeon Sovereign System."

"That's it? Just like that? Don't we need to sign a contract or maybe take a drop of my blood to make a blood contract ritual or something?" Calle asked.

Calle expected that there would be something big happening when he accepted the offer since Gilgamesh told him about the overwhelming power that will be given to him, but the process was too plain for him and he didn't feel much difference in his body other than the fact that he was now completely unaffected by Gilgamesh's majestic charisma.

"Don't you remember what I said earlier about the power behind the words of beings such as myself? That declaration that I made earlier is stronger than any contract that you could sign or even any contract ritual in existence." Gilgamesh said with a smug look on his face.

"But remember, now that you have become my successor, you will one day reach this level too. Wait no, since I am the one who chose you, you have to be better than me so that I could brag about my incredible instinct in choosing my successor." He ended his sentence while laughing and patting Calle's shoulder.

"What should I do now? How do I get stronger?" Calle asked the excited man in front of him.

"You're basically set now. You can start your journey by touching that door over there." Gilgamesh said, pointing towards an empty spot in the void.

"What do-" Calle was about to ask what kind of door since he saw nothing but endless darkness in the direction that Gilgamesh had pointed towards. But before he was able to get the words out of his mouth, he suddenly saw a huge stone door appear in the place where Gilgamesh's finger pointed.

It was a double stone door that had unknown symbols carved all over its huge body that towered over three meters tall. Comparing himself to the stone door, Calle could feel cold sweat started appearing on his back as he imagined that he would totally be squashed into a human pancake if the stone door was to accidentally fall on top of him.

Calle was about to walk towards the stone door as his curiosity was piqued by the symbols that he had never seen before on the door's body. But before he was able to walk two steps forward, Gilgamesh stopped him and said,

"Don't be impatient to start your journey, Calle. Let me give you a parting gift first." He said, urging Calle to come over by making a gesture with his hand.

"Parting gift? Where are you going? Are you not staying here?" Calle asked confusedly.

Since Gilgamesh himself said that he would be giving Calle the absolute power that he talked about, Calle thought that Gilgamesh will be the one who will guide him to achieve it.

"Me? Of course, no! Do you think I'm some kind of lingering spirit that stays here forever and has nothing else to do? You will have your own guide after you go behind that door. Now, come here quickly, you want to start your journey as soon as possible and I want to rest as quickly as possible. We're on the same boat here so don't waste too much time!"

Calle quickly came over towards where Gilgamesh was currently floating and the latter then snapped his fingers before suddenly a round altar appeared below him, right in front of Calle.

Observing the round altar that was about half as tall as himself and about 1 meter in radius, Calle noticed that the altar also had the unknown symbols carved into its body. There were some carvings on the sides of the altar, but particularly the top surface of the altar was packed full of tiny symbols that were all carved inside a large circle carving that was only slightly smaller than the altar itself.

"Now Calle, we will do the blood ritual thing that you wanted to do earlier. This one is not too complicated, you only need to put a drop of your blood inside the circle on the altar." Gilgamesh said as he materialized a short dagger out of thin air and floated it slowly towards Calle.

The dagger was fully black from the blade to its handle. And from the looks of it, the whole dagger was made out of black steel, even the handle.

Calle took the dagger and held it in his hand. The dagger was surprisingly very light as if Calle was holding a thin plastic knife despite its appearance looking like a heavy steel dagger.

Calle then put his left hand slightly above the round altar before moving the dagger closer to the tip of his left index finger. The dagger was apparently so sharp that Calle didn't even need to put an ounce of strength for it to be able to pierce his skin and draw his blood.

His blood then dropped to the top of the round altar and the symbols carved on the altar started to light up one by one starting from the ones in the middle and spreading outward until all the symbols had finally been lit up.

The moment all the symbols on the altar glowed, Calle's drop of blood floated right in the middle of the round altar before the glow on the altar was slowly sucked in by the drop of blood.

The drop of blood then was surrounded by a cocoon of light as it was now still steadily floating above the altar while sucking more and more light from the glowing round altar.

Calle looked at this in amusement as he asked,

"Gil, what is this actually?"

"Oh, this is an altar to summon your own familiar."