Chapter 574: Holy Grail

With both methods deployed, as the summoning timer expired, the farmer reluctantly retracted his whip, which dissolved into nothingness; most of the spirits were shattered, none able to approach within the skeleton knight's vicinity.

"No spiritual energy fluctuation… I can't sense anything."

Abdul's expression was dazed; in his worldview, the stronger the cultivator, the more recklessly they wielded supernatural power.

Puppeteers controlled puppets to sweep floors and wash dishes; nenshou users used their mental energy to scroll on phones and play games; some mages, even when suppressing their power, would release a zero-level spell—【Mage Hand】—to fetch things for themselves.

Strong ones abused supernatural power as naturally as breathing. But Abdul felt no spiritual energy fluctuation from the Tungsten Bone Knight.

The Republican-era mansion seemed to sense the gap in power between itself and the Tungsten Bone; now, at the moment of life-or-death struggle, all remaining mold erupted from the carbonized wooden planks, coalescing into a single giant mouth that let out a shrill roar, "Roar!"

The players felt their spirits shaken; a deadly itch surged down their spines—the red spot curses on their backs sprouted dense mycelium, from which emerged countless miniature spirits.

"Wind enters the vessel, frost adorns the robe."

Wu Quan chanted the sword incantation, drawing a Taiji sword from empty air, spinning it behind his back to slash through the rampant mycelium growing on his spine, then spun again and slashed toward Aida.

The latter, as a fully mechanical lifeform, now had only her head left, lacking the back where the red spot curse had originally been. Even so, mycelium still grew from her titanium alloy skullcap, resembling hair.

Alcy and Abdul, still capable of movement, were desperately attacking the miniature spirits, but the spirits grew rapidly with the wind—and even the radiance-addicted warriors still unconscious were generating spirits.

"Come to me!"

Abdul roared, his face grim, clutching a sacred relic and slamming it hard onto the submarine's deck.

This sacred relic was not a power-up item from some two-word game, but an object from the Fate series universe, used as a ritual medium to summon specific Heroic Spirits in the Holy Grail War.

For example, using a fragment of a cloak to summon Iskandar the Conqueror, a shard of the Sword in the Stone to summon King Arthur, or the Tesla Museum to summon Nikola Tesla.

And the sacred relic in Abdul's hand… was a watch.

More precisely, a Casio F91W digital watch.

Wait…"

Li Cheng, whose senses covered all directions, had already sensed something was off.

"Its base is silver and iron, foundation stone and covenant of the Grand Duke… Your body obeys my command, my fate entrusted to your sword…"

Abdul rapidly chanted the summoning incantation, shouting: "Come with the Wheel of Suppression, guardian of the Twin Towers!"

As a blinding white light flashed, a middle-aged Middle Eastern man appeared before them, clad in a robe and wrapped in a headscarf,

with a thick beard.

His eyes were resolute yet melancholic, blending the nobility of one born into wealth with the scholarly grace of a learned man—contrasting sharply with the weathered AK-47 rifle he held in his hand.

"What the hell."

Li Cheng, still facing away from the others, exerted all his willpower to keep his expression neutral, refusing to turn around and erupt in furious commentary.

Meanwhile, Huiyu, seated in the edge fighter jet, didn't even bother to hold back—she leaned her face close to the screen, stunned: "It really is Deng Ge."

"Really? Where? Where?"

In the communication channel, Cylinder and Cube Servants were ecstatic—well, in a certain sense, their source countries had indeed both fought against the United States, just like Deng Ge.

Only to see Deng Ge calmly pull a lit cigarette from his robe sleeve, shove it into his mouth and take a deep drag, then instantly draw his gun and fire.

Bang bang bang bang—

The AK-47 fired without a single miss, each bullet striking the forehead of every miniature spirit.

Even more absurdly, as he fired, the classic opening theme of Naruto Shippuden suddenly echoed around them.

"When you spread your wings, resolve never to look back. The goal we yearn for is that deep, deep blue sky~"

When Deng Ge had once "housed" himself in a Pakistani cave, playing hide-and-seek with the CIA, his personal computer was loaded with plenty of single-player games and anime—he must've watched them often.

"Headshots every time, luck never ends."

"The only Steam user from Caoxian gave you a like."

Cylinder and Cube Servants couldn't help but exclaim in admiration, but then watched as Deng Ge swiftly eliminated every miniature spirit emerging from the red spot curses, took another deep drag of his cigarette, and smiled confidently.

The next second, Deng Ge clasped his palms together, and behind him appeared a spectral phantom of a Boeing 767 wide-body twin-engine jet.

"When you break through the clouds, you will know where your dream lies. May you shed all bonds and fly toward that boundless blue sky."

The Naruto Shippuden opening theme surged to its climax; the Boeing 767's engines spun rapidly, roaring with immense force, crashing heavily into the Republican-era mansion atop the swamp.

The scene was like a world-famous painting: dozens of bloated, floating corpses swung their swollen, pale arms aimlessly, like oars, propelling the mansion backward at high speed.

Even the carbonized wooden planks trembled and shook, as if engulfed in boundless terror.

But the next second, the plane suddenly turned insubstantial, passing straight through the mansion and vanishing.

All players stared in shock; Huiyu blinked in confusion; Cylinder and Cube Servants simultaneously sighed in disappointment.

"6"

""

Deng Ge frowned at his own gradually transparent hands, turned his head to look at Abdul, who had rapidly withered into a skeletal figure, then sighed and shook his head.

This was not a proper Holy Grail War, and Abdul, as the Master, was far too weak to sustain a Heroic Spirit's high-intensity battle.

With a touch of regret, Deng Ge and the phantom of the Boeing 767 vanished. Yet the mansion's escape speed showed no sign of slowing.

Because Li Cheng had already ascended.

Huiyu quickly adjusted the microphone in the edge fighter jet: "Li Cheng, Wu Quan's Ten Thousand Eyes communication earpiece is still active—Special Affairs Bureau's customer service Xiao Yuan already knows the skeleton knight. Won't your action expose you?"

The skeleton knight could easily block Alpha Serpent Head at full power—his strength is unfathomable. Showing only his back and letting Wu Quan and others guess is one thing, but actually acting directly would make identification far too easy.

It's like a folk scientist pretending to be a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences—open his mouth and say, "I think rockets should burn water to wash coal," or "Black holes work because of the five elements—wood, fire, earth, metal, water"—and he's exposed.

"The Ten Thousand Eyes communication earpiece can indeed capture visual information within a certain radius around the earpiece, but only visual information—it cannot detect spiritual energy fluctuations."

Li Cheng replied, "So as long as we make a big enough spectacle, Xiao Yuan won't figure it out."

He rapidly ascended to cloud level, releasing the Mist Concealment Technique to disguise himself as a thick cumulonimbus cloud, while simultaneously activating the 【Dragon's Breath】 skill.

On the submarine deck, Wu Quan and the others could not see the skeleton knight's figure at all—only flashes of lightning serpents within the cumulonimbus cloud, accompanied by deep, rumbling thunder.

【Dragon's Breath · Blue Dragon's Lightning】

【Illusion and Reality · Bullet Curtain Spectacle】

When the two skills stacked simultaneously, to Wu Quan and the others, as well as customer service Xiao Yuan at Wan Yan Communications earpiece, the effect appeared as if the sky had been torn apart.

Hundreds upon thousands of blue-violet lightning bolts materialized out of thin air, as if the sky had shattered into fragments of mirror-like glass, striking straight down toward the old Republican-era mansion.

The light was so blinding that Wu Quan and Priya instinctively closed their eyes; Arcy's mechanical ocular implant layered multiple light-shielding plates within half a second, barely blocking the searing brilliance.

Upon contact, the radiant divine lightning shattered the floating corpses, and the violent energy crushed every plank of wood—and the mold embedded within them.

The air was filled with the scent of ionized ozone; the old mansion, once floating on the water's surface, had vanished entirely, yet fish still swam beneath the water, as if untouched by any residual shockwave of the terrifying thunderstorm.

Is this... the level-40 expert's exquisite control over energy, down to the finest detail?!