Chapter 36

"Damn it, damn it..."

Gilgamesh was struggling furiously in a rage.

He exerted himself fully to contend against the fierce impact and ruthless tearing forces from all around, striving with all his might to maintain his form within this wildly raging chaotic mana torrent, but it was very obviously not an easy matter.

Just as humans are swept up into the sky by a violent storm, helpless in the terrifying torrent, although he was no ordinary human, this storm was also no ordinary weather phenomenon, but a terrifying vortex formed from the convergence of out-of-control mana.

The mana concentration permeating at this moment was extraordinarily high—

To the extent that the intensity of the mana environment within the storm region even surpassed the atmospheric level of the Age of Gods!

Merely the overflowing remnant waves of this mana storm were already enough to plunge all of Fuyuki City into oppression, countless citizens beginning to feel shortness of breath and stifling chest tightness.

If this abnormal mana atmosphere continued to persist, who knew how many people would directly suffocate to death.

Gilgamesh struggled within such a ferocious storm, barely managing to seize an opportunity to draw yet another new Noble Phantasm from his treasury, however, at this very moment, he abruptly sensed an extremely ominous premonition of crisis.

As if about to face a calamity that could not be resisted, sufficient to overturn everything, like Mount Tai pressing down on the crown, bearing down right before his eyes!

—What a joke!

—A mere mongrel doesn't know what despicable means he used to gain a slight upper hand, and he actually thinks he has me beaten?! Do these mongrels even know that I am the one and only King of Heroes in all heaven and earth!!

Gilgamesh's first reaction was naturally not vigilance, but indignation in his heart; he was truly humiliated to the extreme, to the point that his proud heart seemed to be bleeding blood, the fire of violent hatred filling his crimson eyes.

An indescribable mood, simply furious to the point of madness; he should never have entangled with these mongrels before! Not immediately firing an ancient nuclear warhead at the heart of Fuyuki City when boarding Vimana was his greatest miscalculation!

Otherwise, how could those mongrels have been given the opportunity to offend his supreme royal majesty!!

Anger burning in his chest, Gilgamesh, feeling even more humiliated, angrily raised his severed head amidst the storm, about to roar at that unknown enemy with his consistently tyrannical tone, using extremely insulting words.

However, in this very instant—

"...!!"

His crimson eyes suddenly widened, yet the pupils within contracted in reverse, shrinking to the limit in an instant.

In this turn of an instant that was almost the same split second, the originally wildly raging fierce storm, formed by the rampage of out-of-control mana, abruptly subsided, as if gently smoothed by an invisible great hand.

Without any warning, this supernatural weather phenomenon directly vanished into thin air; clearly the previous moment it was still violent like the arrival of doomsday, the next moment it returned to dead silence like a stage curtain falling, quiet to the point of disbelief.

The Nine Heavens' wind stilled into silence, the Four Extremes' qi cleared into purity!

Simply as if nothing had happened at all!

However, this did not mean everything was over, or rather it should be said, all of this had only just begun.

At the same time as the mana storm suppressing everyone's vision dispersed, everyone also saw that towering silhouette standing between Heaven and Earth; the entire world seemed to have fallen into a frozen stillness at this moment.

It was a figure, blurry yet distinct, as if poised between illusion and reality; its silhouette wore the round heaven as a crown, trod the square earth as footwear, crowned with the Nine Qi Crown, formed into garments... as if traversing reality's veil, slowly walking out from the boundless dark obscurity.

————

————

Dead silence, oppression.

In this sudden Divine Silence, a voice finally sounded.

It was the blue Lancer who had been thoroughly beaten down by Berserker, covered in wounds, and even briefly lost consciousness; he lay on the rugged mountain path, brows tightly furrowed, as if stimulated by something even in his coma.

Eyelids twitched, the blue Lancer slowly opened his eyes, simultaneously instinctively revealing a trace of bewilderment: how was he still alive?

Could it be that Berserker didn't intend to kill him, or perhaps encountered some accident when preparing to act?

He subconsciously thought this, and then, just as this question had yet to dissipate—

"Wh-what..."

Unconsciously blurting out this exclamation of shock that usually belongs to small fry, the blue Lancer's pupils reflected a colossal silhouette that obscured clouds and veiled the moon, seeming blurred and unclear, yet also seeming to condense bit by bit.

Visually it was an extremely massive entity, let alone the vast mana flowing and surging; this terrifying mana quantity was simply like the revival of gods and devils.

This figure, like a Magic God descending into the world, seemed connected to Heaven and Earth, filling every corner of the vision of everyone present at the scene, occupying all space within sight.

That extremely intense Presence was sufficient to crush all perception.

Stars and moon lost their color for it.

The night sky dimmed for it.

This scene, its shock level made it hard to distinguish reality from dream...

At least the blue Lancer, who had just awakened from the dark gap of unconsciousness and was still somewhat dazed, at this moment shockingly felt he was definitely dreaming.

In fact this was understandable; after all, that towering silhouette standing between Heaven and Earth indeed appeared particularly illusory amidst the interweaving of haziness and mystery, looking especially like it had a sense of transcendence and unreality, just like a projected out-of-focus image.

No, more accurately, it was as if a muddled, profound Mixed Hole that devoured all existed around its body.

"How could something like this possibly..."

Struggling to support his body and stand up, the blue Lancer looked at the sky's direction with a confused face; what on earth was going on with this Holy Grail War, how did even something like this appear, one look and it's clearly a rule-breaking existence!

"...!!"

The next moment, he suddenly shuddered without warning, as if sensing some danger and threat, directly rolling sideways in place.

That attack silently creeping from darkness and shadows missed, failing to take the blue Lancer's life as expected.

But this had no meaning...

Merely delaying the destined ending slightly.

Looking at the blue Lancer silently surrounded by black shadows, the purple-haired girl in the mountains and forests indifferently shifted her gaze, looking toward the sky's direction, then revealing a wary and cautious expression; the true great enemy was that one.

Just what power did that Heroic Spirit borrow—borrowing the power of oneself who cultivated to the end and became a xian god...

Or—

Was originally an existence as a xian god's divided spirit turned Servant Transformation?

…………

…………

On the other side—

An unequal battle had long since begun, like Don Quixote charging toward the direction of windmills.

First, a sharp, piercing howl and the sound of tearing air cleaved the horizon—

Close behind came the violent friction and stretching of chains, pulled taut to their limit—

Wedges of different shapes bound at both ends, the silver chains howled forth from the extradimensional space behind the golden Heroic Spirit, seemingly endless in their extension, rushing through the air toward that Magic God-like figure, as if alive, intent on winding tightly around the opponent.

In merely the blink of an eye, those figures, like a Magic God descending into the world, simultaneously growing increasingly substantial, were bound tight as a silkworm cocoon by the endless chains!

However, they could not hold for even a single second; all the chains were directly flung away, blasted outward by some tremendous force.

—No Divinity?!

—How is this possible!!

Gilgamesh could scarcely accept such a result, but fact is fact; the Chain of Heaven is the Noble Phantasm he trusts and favors most, its function being the "Anti-Divine Rule," a Noble Phantasm whose binding strength grows harder the higher the target's Divinity.

But conversely, if the target one wishes to capture lacks Divinity, it is merely a somewhat sturdier chain.

—Only this.

So facing that terrifying figure, tall as the heavens, the Chain of Heaven unable to exert its special effectiveness, could not possibly truly bind the opponent.

The decision to buy time having failed, Gilgamesh could only, carrying mortification and fury, frantically urge the golden key in his hand, desperately wanting to open the Vault in the Void Point and draw his strongest trump card.

Because he loved raining Noble Phantasms indiscriminately, to prevent accidentally shooting out the Sword of Separation as well, he had specially stored it deep in the Vault; before first use it had to be unlocked with the Key Sword to be retrieved.

Therefore—

This imperceptibly caused him to miss the opportune moment.

Just as this golden Heroic Spirit had just opened the Vault, that silhouette, which had still appeared ready to vanish at any moment, also relied on burning that wisp of vast, pure elixir energy to forcibly stabilize its dissipating form.

"Mongrel, behold this King's Sword of Separation, gaze upon it in death……"

Having just drawn the Sword of Separation from his treasury, Gilgamesh roared urgently at the top of his lungs, simultaneously trying to activate his Noble Phantasm at the fastest speed; he was anxious, truly anxious!

"Hm?"

The figure standing amid the cloud layer, blurred and indistinct, bowed and cast its gaze downward, then without any hesitation, backhanded a gentle press through the air!

"Brat, have you ever witnessed a palm technique descending from the heavens?"

In that instant, flat ground suddenly stirred up despair!

It was as if what fell was not a palm, but a meteor streaking across the horizon at furious speed, carrying blazing frictional heat; as it neared the ground, the air endured violent compressive impact, rippling into layers of waves and folds.

Wind pressure hard as steel raged, at a speed exceeding a hundred meters per second, booming forth ripples of destruction.

The whole of Yuan Cang Shan seemed to tremble slightly; whether the ruined constructions standing atop the peak, tottering on the verge of collapse, emitting creaking groans in the wind, as if they would submit to this power at any moment and disintegrate!!

Or the forest tenaciously surviving on the mountain body, now likewise submitting beneath the gale, lowering their resilient crowns, neatly severed at the waist, toppling outward in perfect unison!!

Even every minute thing on the surface world—

Fallen leaves, stone fragments, rubble……

All these things leapt airborne in this vibration, dancing to an invisible rhythm.

Immediately after, a high-speed shockwave surpassing the human eye's capture limit exploded in an instant; ultimate destructive power, driving an all-sweeping shockwave, rapidly scoured outward in all directions.

"……"

"……"

Unknown how long passed, heaven and earth suddenly fell quiet.

Atop the mountain peak, on the leveled Ryūdō Temple Ruins, Medea and Artoria stood on that incomplete formation ground of broken walls and ruins, eyes somewhat blank as they looked ahead, where the pervading smoke and dust were dispersing.

—There, a giant palm imprint was clearly etched into the earth……

—At the bottom of that deep pit, lay the embedded golden Heroic Spirit, his golden armor deformed along with his whole body……

—Large patches of vivid red seeped from beneath the no-longer-human-shaped Gilgamesh, slowly staining the surrounding land……

Simultaneously, violent wind still blew ceaselessly.

This palm descending from the heavens, as easily as swatting a mosquito, directly interrupted the Gilgamesh who was preparing to unleash his ultimate move, incidentally knocking him down, his entire body driven meters deep into the ground by the violent strike!

Facing such a terrifying blow, even a Berserker with astonishing Endurance would suffer a fatal heavy wound, let alone an Archer not known for Endurance.

That he did not vanish on the spot was entirely because he had been bathed in Black Mud, becoming an incarnated existence with a solid fleshly body; the Class Skill "Independent Action" had thereby reached an A+ Rank surpassing A Rank.

An irregular ability of the specification "able to remain manifested even after the Holy Grail War ends," preventing his immediate return to the Throne of Heroes.

"……"

An extremely faint sound came from beneath the palm imprint pit.

Gilgamesh's body trembled slightly, as if still trying to struggle.

But he could not succeed; not only because every bone in his body was already shattered, his last breath about to be swallowed. More because at this moment, a certain suddenly appearing black shadow pounced directly onto his body.

It was a shadow seemingly composed of Black Mud……

Like a jellyfish risen onto land……

One after another it extended shadow tentacles, seizing the moment of the King of Heroes' defeat, tightly binding him, then swallowing his whole body directly; this scene appeared both horrifying and bizarre.

Without any capacity to struggle or resist, Gilgamesh was eaten almost instantly.

The gigantic Xia Zhi subconsciously frowned, instantly locking onto the kill-stealing target via the magical energy connection: a purple-haired girl ascending the ruined mountain path step by step toward Ryūdō Temple.

With each step treading the stairs, her aura underwent a drastic change.

When the final step fell, her full head of purple hair seemed gilded by moonlight, turning silver-white in an instant.

Black skirt fluttering on the girl, on those fair thighs and jade feet, red vein-like lines quietly crept up, terrifying magical energy emanating from her body, filled with a Darkening aura.

"Finally ate it……"

"The King of Heroes' soul, whose spiritual weight possesses the mass of hundreds of thousands of people……"

"With this much magical power it is completely sufficient…… No one can stop me, no one can hurt me again……"

Like a broken doll, the silver-haired, black-skirted girl walked while muttering to herself, eyes so hollow it seemed the wind blowing through would echo.

Hum—

As if responding to the girl's words, Yuan Cang Shan's mountain body trembled once more, then soaring rays of light burst forth from the summit.

That was a brilliant True Elixir, containing an incomparably vast and astonishing Quantity of Mors Strength; like the lid of the "Alchemy Furnace" being lifted, it directly leapt up and rose into midair.

That figure, akin to a Magic God, did not Hesitate in the slightest, swallowing it in a single gulp.

Then, cold and piercing eyes projected straight down—

"Little girl, don't be too confident; this fist of mine carries sixty years of cultivation, it's still hard to say whether you can block it or not!"

(Chapter End)