Chapter 629: Gil

Her voice wasn't loud, but it was urgent.

San Yue Qi's reaction wasn't slower than hers.

The moment Bai Hang's "Stop" hadn't yet hit the ground, she had already twisted her body, the tip of her foot touching the ground, and she flung Lin aside to the side, landing behind a half‑collapsed low wall.

Lin was spun so hard that her head swayed, and that Tail swung from the side of her leg to the other side, the tip of the tail knocking the wall and making her gasp a cold breath of pain; before she could finish inhaling, a violet‑black beam slashed across the spot where they had just stood, moving so fast she only saw a purple line sweep from the left of her vision to the right, then an explosion.

The sword was lodged into a ruined building about thirty meters behind them; most of the blade had sunk into the wall, leaving only a section of hilt bearing crimson patterns and a half‑inch of blade exposed, the patterns slowly flowing along the hilt as if a living thing were breathing.

The wall struck by it began to crack at the point of the sword tip, fissures spreading outward in all directions like a frozen lake, laying a dense web across the wall.

Then the wall seemed to be sucked empty from within; the whole wall's fragments contracted inward, then burst outward with a roar, raising clouds of dust.

San Yue Qi stuck half her head out from behind the low wall and looked toward the direction the sword had flown.

She saw Jing Yuan suspended in the air about thirty to forty meters away, back turned to them, his white long hair fluttering in the wind, the golden spear already gripped in his hand, the spear tip pointing down, hanging at his side—neither raised nor sheathed.

In front of him stood that building—not the fifty‑plus‑story tower San Yue Qi's group intended to go to, but another, shorter one with a flat roof, its edges topped by a few crooked lightning rods that resembled fingers reaching out from the ruins toward the empty sky.

A person stood on the roof.

San Yue Qi's pupils contracted once, then again, the moment the silhouette entered her sight, then froze, as if something had nailed them in her sockets, unable to move.

The hair was dark‑gold, as if contaminated from within, each strand from root to tip soaked in an unwashable layer of ash.

The armor was black, like the shell formed when molten lava solidifies, covered with crimson patterns that spread from the shoulder plates to the chest plate, finally converging into the eyes—crimson, unfocused, merely light, cold as if shining up from beneath an ice layer.

"Gilgamesh...!"

San Yue Qi's voice squeezed out of her throat, as if something were choking her, and even she thought it didn't sound like her own voice.

Lin pushed off the ground behind the low wall and stood up, that Tail stretched straight behind her, the hairs at its tip flaring out like a frightened cat.

She squinted up at the roof; the silhouette blurred into a dark‑gold outline in her view, yet she recognized it—not the face, but the feeling, that bone‑deep, suffocating arrogance; ten years ago she had stood before her father, confronting Sakura and the other, and had memorized it.

"Is it him, Banana?"

Lin's voice was pressed low, carrying a tremor she herself hadn't noticed, "That Golden Flash Banana?"

San Yue Qi nodded forcefully, then shook her head.

"It's Gilgamesh! The one from the Fourth! But back then he wasn't this color—he was golden, his whole body golden and glittering, not like this now..."

Bai Hang crouched on the other side of the low wall, her Fox Ears pressed so low they were almost glued to her scalp.

She didn't understand what "the Fourth" meant, nor what "Golden Flash" referred to, but she grasped one thing— the man in black armor up there was powerful.

"Who is he?"

Bai Hang's voice was pressed low.

San Yue Qi inhaled deeply, the breath swirling in her chest before she exhaled, carrying a tone of resigned acceptance.

"Hero King, Gilgamesh. Archer of the Fourth Holy Grail War, I was—"

Her words were cut off by the sound of metallic friction echoing from the sky.

It came from behind Jing Yuan, from behind the person in front of him—countless black‑red ripples unfurled in the air behind Gilgamesh, like a massive eye slowly opening; the ripples' edges were dark‑gold, their interiors pure black, with only a crimson point at the center like a pupil.

From each ripple protruded a weapon—sword, spear, knife, halberd, axe, war‑hammer, hook, fork; San Yue Qi couldn't identify them all, but she saw that the hilt, blade, and tip of each were covered with the same crimson patterns as Gilgamesh's armor, the patterns slowly flowing over the weapon surfaces.

There were so many weapons, more than San Yue Qi could count, more than her eyes could hold, so many that the sky seemed riddled with countless holes, each hole sprouting a hand gripping a deadly weapon, all aimed at the direction where the three of them stood.

Jing Yuan did not turn his head.

He simply lifted the golden spear from his side, holding it horizontally before him, the tip pointing up, the butt down, his body shielding the weapons and the low wall.

His white hair fluttered in the wind, and the hem of his robe was lifted by the breeze, revealing a dark lining underneath.

He just stood there, neither dodging nor retreating, as if waiting for something.

San Yue Qi felt Lin tug at her sleeve.

She looked down; Lin's fingers clenched a small piece of fabric at her cuff, knuckles white, that Tail already looped from behind her to the front, gripped by her other hand, pressed flat at the tip.

"Run, Banana."

Lin's lips moved, her voice so light San Yue Qi barely heard, "Run, Banana San Yue Jie—"

San Yue Qi didn't move.

It wasn't that she didn't want to; she couldn't.

The weapons were so many that she felt any movement would cause them to rain down, shattering the low wall, the ruins, the street, and the three of them into fragments.

Her palms were slick with sweat, the hand gripping the bow trembling, the bowstring quivering lightly under her fingertips, emitting an almost inaudible hum.

The weapons didn't fall.

Because Jing Yuan moved.

He took a step forward, a small, even composed step, and the instant he stepped out, the golden phantom behind him began to coalesce—first its outline, a vague massive, towering silhouette rising from behind Jing Yuan, as if sprouting from the earth or hanging from the sky.

Then the details emerged: the armor's patterns, the shoulder plate's angles, the gauntlet's engravings, becoming clearer point by point, as if someone were drawing with an ultra‑fine pen.

Finally the spear emerged from the phantom's palm, materializing from void to substance, from blur to clarity, a mass of golden light condensing into a golden long spear longer than San Yue Qi herself (sizzle—obviously a pointless remark), wrapped in crackling lightning.

Divine Lord.

The nearly hundred‑meter‑tall golden Wyrm stood in the sky above her, lightning coiling around it, briefly illuminating the gloomy heavens; it lifted the golden spear, the tip pointing down, aimed at the black‑armored figure on the roof, lightning striking from the spearhead, exploding in the air into a dazzling arc that struck near Gilgamesh's feet, shattering a corner of the roof's edge; fragments fell from dozens of meters up, crashing to the ground with a muffled thunderous roar.