Chapter 250: Death Demon, and Ishtar Makes Her Appearance! (Patreon)

Of course, calling it "watching the show" was a bit of a stretch.

Chris had a perfectly legitimate reason.

Morishita Ai couldn't fly, after all, so right now he was more or less holding her in his arms.

And although nobody except himself and Yotsuya Miko could see her at the moment… there was no point in risking exposure.

So the truth was, he had just bundled up the three temporary teachers—Koro Sensei, Gojo Satoru, and Jiraiya—along with the classmates desperate to farm points, and dumped the whole lot into a region rich in devil resources.

Now came the brief lull after their departure. It could pass for either deep thought or preparation to head back to Snowfield.

A little while went by like that.

Chris still hadn't moved.

Held in his arms, Morishita Ai couldn't help tilting her small face up to glance at him.

"Mm…"

Morishita Ai pursed her lips and asked softly, puzzled, "What's wrong? Weren't we going back to Snowfield for the Holy Grail War?"

Chris glanced down at the girl in his arms and answered offhandedly, "This place is a little more troublesome than I expected. The Darkness Devil, the Death Devil… and Makima, the Control Devil. If I leave them alone, I'll worry a bit."

Morishita Ai thought it over seriously for a moment, then offered, "If you're worried, why don't we take them all out while we're here, and then go back?"

"It's not that simple."

Chris smiled and shook his head.

He didn't explain. Instead he swiped a few times across his Black Sphere Watch and spent his remaining S Points on a [Controller].

A moment later, Morishita Ai tilted her head and leaned against Chris's solid shoulder.

She didn't quite understand, but she said nothing. She simply reached out and tapped the Controller with practiced ease.

A three-dimensional image of all Tokyo unfolded in midair.

"Open the reddest coordinate on there," Chris reminded her. "I want to confirm something I glimpsed earlier."

Morishita Ai hummed in reply.

"Beep—"

[Target: Death Devil]

[Value: 260 points]

[Traits: Eldest daughter of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Governs the concept of "death" and draws power from humanity's fear of it. Her innate ability is absolute immortality; by ordinary means, not even she can kill herself, and she lies outside the normal devil cycle of reincarnation. She can control and resurrect anyone she kills, and also wields teleportation/spatial movement, mental interference, consciousness separation, empowerment of her familiars, wide-area mental influence, and more.]

[But her strongest power is her "authority over death": the ability to induce death directly. If she weren't deliberately suppressing and weakening herself, she could instantly kill every human on the planet and turn Earth into a world of devils.]

[Fatal point: According to the Nostradamus prophecy, her descent will trigger the apocalypse and wipe out all of humanity. She herself is bound by this fate. Yet she sincerely does not want humanity to perish completely… so the eldest daughter of the Four Horsemen has decided to break free of the destiny that dooms her to destroy humanity.]

After reading through that long block of text, Morishita Ai narrowed her eyes thoughtfully.

"She wants to avoid her original fate… to break free of a destiny where she's bound to destroy humanity."

"A good devil, surprisingly?"

"Maybe."

Chris smiled noncommittally, as if something had just occurred to him.

"Come to think of it, I think I've still got a Bamboo Copter stored in the Mountains-and-Rivers Map."

"Ai, go in and grab it for me, would you? I need to have a word with this Death Devil."

Morishita Ai gave a slight nod.

With her sharp mind, it wasn't hard to guess what Chris was planning.

So she didn't ask any questions and stepped straight into the scroll on his back.

…

Meanwhile, on the streets of Tokyo.

Thanks to the Gun Devil's passive splash damage, the first shockwave had already caused heavy casualties in Tokyo, even though the Gun Devil hadn't fully arrived yet and was currently locked in a decisive battle with Makima far away on the coastline.

The Death Devil was strolling along a pedestrian street in ruins at that very moment.

She wore ordinary casual clothes and carried herself with perfect calm, a sharp contrast to the crowds around her, who were either fleeing in terror or pinned under collapsed buildings, wailing.

"What rude brutes…"

Ahead of her, a building was about to come down, and it looked set to flatten a pasta restaurant at its foot.

The Death Devil lightly snapped her fingers.

"Snap."

The passersby, who had been fleeing in terror and were about to be crushed by falling debris, along with the restaurant's chefs, lost every vital sign in an instant and dropped to the ground in neat unison.

No pain. No wounds.

This was the purest form of "death."

Once that was done, the building crashed down with a roar and buried the street.

But the Death Devil didn't care. The humans she had "deliberately killed" had already been branded with her mark.

If she wished, she could bring them back at any time.

That way, at the very least, their souls and bodies would be preserved, and they could go on living in the human world to rebuild a bustling scene for her.

After all, the main reason the Death Devil didn't want to follow the prophecy and destroy the world was her love for human society.

She sincerely adored human civilization.

The long strings of cheese pulled from a fresh-out-of-the-oven pizza, the pasta drenched in rich tomato sauce, and all the bizarre sensory experiences human society had to offer…

If humanity went extinct, she would lose the chance to enjoy any of it forever.

And this ruined shopping street happened to hold several of her favorite hidden shops.

It was just that…

Her power was far too vast, so vast that she stood unrivaled as the strongest of all devils.

So vast that if she didn't actively suppress and deliberately weaken herself, her mere existence could kill every human on Earth in an instant.

And that was precisely her contradiction…

If she accidentally killed all of humanity, even if she then used her authority to revive them all, the revived humans wouldn't become brainwashed puppets.

They would keep their independent minds. They would still have greed, desire, contradiction, and war.

By then, the fear of "death" flowing back in an endless stream from billions of resurrected humans would make her already enormous power even more uncontrollable. She might even lose herself in the vortex of that power and end up exterminating humanity anyway, just by a different route.

That was why the Death Devil had no intention of obeying the prophecy, whatever it took.

Naturally, to keep from losing control, she was actually holding back quite a bit this time.

Luckily, the Gun Devil didn't strike her as especially strong, and everyone she killed was an ordinary person caught in the splash zone, so she didn't need to use any real authority.

The Death Devil surveyed her handiwork with satisfaction.

She was about to turn around and find some reasonably intact Western restaurant to order herself a half-and-half pizza as a reward.

Chris drifted down and landed in front of her.

The Death Devil stopped and turned her face toward him. "Hello there. Can I help you?"

"Death Devil," Chris said bluntly, "I need to talk to you about something."

The Death Devil nodded.

Though she wasn't the first of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to come to the human world, after the Darkness Devil was killed and reincarnated by the man standing before her, curiosity about that unknown power had led the Death Devil to follow.

After all, a primordial devil had been killed for the first time, and by a human, a being unlike any devil.

As someone who had always hoped for something that could truly "kill" her and end this miserable fate, she naturally took an interest in these people.

Granted, since the Darkness Devil had been reincarnated even after being killed, it seemed they only treated the symptoms and not the disease. But talking with Chris, who was clearly the leader of this group, wouldn't cost her much time.

So the Death Devil tucked the long hair by her ear back and said calmly, "All right."

"But don't get in the way of something important."

She pointed at the pasta restaurant behind Chris.

Chris smiled. "I think what I'm about to tell you is so important that it far outweighs your efforts to stop the prophecy."

At that, the Death Devil raised an eyebrow.

What in this world could matter more than the destruction of humanity?

Chris didn't keep her in suspense. "I'm sure you know that strange "doors" that don't belong to this world have recently been appearing in the human world."

"Behind those doors lies a bizarre existence called the Backrooms."

"The Backrooms hunts like a predator. It specifically picks worlds whose barriers have developed flaws and devours them. Like a parasite, it drains every nutrient from a world until it's barren, and then it's destroyed completely."

"When that happens, neither the human world nor Hell will escape disappearing. And I can tell you plainly: even at the height of your power, you'd have no chance against the Backrooms."

The Death Devil frowned.

If it was as he said, that really was far worse than the prophecy.

"…So?"

"The world we come from is also facing the threat of the Backrooms right now," Chris said, spreading his hands, completely frank. "That's why I want to cooperate with you."

"What kind of cooperation?" the Death Devil asked.

"If I'm not mistaken, devils in your world only truly die once they're devoured completely by the Chainsaw Devil. In other words, unless you're killed by the chainsaw, you can reincarnate endlessly between the mortal world and Hell?"

The Death Devil gave a slight nod of confirmation.

Chris went on. "As it happens, we currently have a special system. We must defeat powerful enemies like devils to earn "points," then exchange those points for various items to strengthen ourselves, so that we can ultimately face and solve the Backrooms problem."

"I also know your troubles. But, after all…" Chris said meaningfully, "you only don't want human society to perish, right? As for ordinary devils outside the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, you probably haven't invested much feeling in them."

The Death Devil showed no reaction to that.

She simply studied Chris quietly, then turned the tables on him. "Why should I trust you?"

Chris looked at her. "It seems that nothing but being devoured by the Chainsaw Devil can truly kill you, right? You can't die even when you want to."

The Death Devil let out a soft "Mm," tinged with a hint of loneliness.

"In that case, I happen to have the ability to "separate concepts" and "obliterate souls.""

Chris raised his right hand, showing the Enma Blade still in its sheath.

"Maybe I can try peeling the concept of "absolute immortality" off you for a moment, then kill you once, as proof of my strength. I'm not the Chainsaw Devil, after all, so once you die you should be reforged and resurrected in Hell before long."

Chris paused. "The only thing is, I'm not sure whether you'd still remember this conversation after being revived that way. If you lost your memory, the proof would be meaningless."

The Death Devil listened to this outlandish proposal. Her eyes lit up at first, then she pressed her lips together.

"If you can really do that… a reincarnated devil does lose the memories of its past life."

"That's a problem."

Chris sighed and moved on to the second plan he'd prepared.

"Hmm… you're worried that going all-out might make your power spin out of control and destroy humanity, right? In our world, there's a presiding god suppressing everything, and almost all supernatural power there is restricted."

"Think of it as a vacation. Come see my world and experience that absolutely safe environment for yourself as proof," Chris said with a shrug. "Though you might have to wait a bit. We don't plan to go back just yet."

The Death Devil thought for a moment. "How long until you go back?"

"About two weeks."

"Fine," the Death Devil answered briskly, then looked toward the distance where Makima and the Gun Devil were fighting. "Should I have a word with Control? So she doesn't cause you trouble."

Chris shook his head decisively. "All you need to do is send Miyabi Nagumo and the others to Hell."

"Once Makima and the Chainsaw Devil start fighting, you can let them out."

"After all, Makima has bound the lives of the entire Neon population to a contract that transfers damage onto them."

"They don't have the means to break that contract right now. If it comes down to a fight to the death, we can't let the Neons go extinct, can we? And if everyone's gone, you won't be able to enjoy all the perks of human society ever again either, right?"

Hearing that, the Death Devil's expression finally changed.

She nodded solemnly. "All right."

"I'll be careful."

…

Snowfield.

Thanks to the Mirror World and the convenience of Rasiel, things had actually moved much earlier.

Just as the Mud-tainted Heracles was about to follow up with another shot, drawing his bowstring full at Tine Chelc after Goldie had used a Noble Phantasm meant for Enkidu's ambush to cancel out his attack, both Arisu Sakayanagi's group and Ryuuen's group had already received Rasiel fragments and learned how the battle in Snowfield was developing.

At that moment, inside the Snowfield police station…

Thanks to Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's persuasion, they had managed to strike a delicate cooperative arrangement with Orlando, all without revealing the Black Sphere's secrets or the full picture of the Backrooms.

But Hansa, the Executor sent by the Church, was also standing nearby.

He was nominally human, and by the Black Sphere's evaluation system, his score wasn't high enough to justify Ryuuen's group risking a forced kill.

So they simply borrowed an ordinary patrol car from the station, intending to run an experiment right there.

Orlando was full of doubts about the request, but he nodded and agreed anyway.

Then, under the tight-pupiled gaze of Orlando and Hansa, Ryuuen took out the [Allspark Fragment] and let its energy surge.

"Kukukukiki—!"

Accompanied by a classic transformation sound effect, the ordinary Ford police car in front of everyone twisted and flipped, and in just three seconds it stood upright and became a mechanical giant four or five meters tall!

"ROAAAR—!!"

The mechanical giant let out a roar and swung a fist at Ryuuen, who stood closest.

But in the next second, Ryuuen destroyed it. The change on his Black Sphere Watch confirmed the thing was worth only about ten points.

Even so, the sight had thoroughly shaken Orlando and Hansa, who'd watched it with their own eyes.

"Th-this… what sort of magecraft defiles life like this?! To grant a soul to steel?!"

Building an automaton and truly giving something a soul were two different matters.

Worse, Ryuuen had done it with no preparation at all. He'd merely pulled the thing out and flashed it, and a police car with no trace of mystery had turned into an enchanted puppet.

But the shock didn't last long.

Right then, Ryuuen tossed out intel on the "Backrooms."

He painted a half-true, half-false picture of it, hoping to get Orlando to pull strings and give them more chances to experiment.

Only…

Though Orlando was the Sheriff of Snowfield, the power he held was pitifully little.

Getting to summon a Servant had been largely a matter of luck.

In essence, he was just a local administrator for Snowfield, with no way of influencing the decisions of Faldeus behind him, let alone the higher-ups of the American government.

So aside from helping out within a limited scope, most of the time he was little more than a messenger.

Of course, Ryuuen and Ayanokōji's group had never planned to rely on Orlando to get things done in the first place.

After all, with an item like Rasiel, which completely outclassed even the Star of Omniscience and Omnipotence, they had investigated everyone.

Their real plan was to make use of Francesca, the Flying Princess, the troublemaker who delighted in chaos!

They wanted this thrill-seeker to take the bait on her own.

That would turn them into the "perfect victims," giving them the legitimate initiative over what came next!

By then, not even people like Honami Ichinose or Nanase Tsubasa, whose bones were full of saintly compassion, would find a single flaw to scold them for.

After all… they were the ones attacked first, weren't they?

This was self-defense, a reasonable counterstrike to secure their own right to survive!

Granted, this blunt, straight-to-the-hook trick was so brutally underhanded that even Ryuuen, the delinquent boss, couldn't help grumbling inwardly that Ayanokōji was a damn dark-hearted brat.

But then, who could blame them when this Holy Grail War was filled with nothing but crouching dragons and baby phoenixes?

Francesca was a pure thrill-seeker, a woman who thrived on chaos.

And when she saw with her own eyes that Ryuuen was holding an [Allspark Fragment], an artifact that transcended the very concept of a conventional Noble Phantasm, she naturally intended to make a big production out of it.

So just as Ryuuen's group walked out of the police station…

She had already projected the image of Ryuuen reviving a machine with the Allspark straight into the presence of Faldeus, who was plotting with True Assassin, using an illusion.

"Hi hi hi~ Faldeus, quit wearing that dead-man's face!"

"I've got something supeeeer interesting to show you!"

Francesca's phantom image writhed exaggeratedly in midair and let out a spine-chilling giggle.

"This is a brand-new system that even those old relics at the Clock Tower have never touched…"

"Since I'm being so thoughtful, are you ready to figure out how to thank me?"

…

Meanwhile, on the other side of Snowfield, Sakayanagi was also moving forward step by step.

As a Lord of the Clock Tower, El-Melloi II had worn himself to the bone.

After ending the call, he had traveled through the night and finally reached Snowfield before the war resumed, meeting up with Flat.

But before Waver could even catch his breath and properly scold this wayward student who'd sneaked off to join the Holy Grail War…

He saw a girl with a blonde ponytail stroll through a mirror as if on a leisurely walk and hand a [Rasiel] slip straight to Arisu Sakayanagi.

She ignored the shocked stares of everyone around, who looked like they'd seen a ghost, and once her task was done she went right back the way she'd come, into the Mirror World!

"…"

Watching this, Waver's vision went black.

The cramping in his stomach returned.

He turned to Flat, who was grinning foolishly beside him, and rubbed his brow as he demanded irritably, "Are you sure… that what you told me over the comms is true? That they really can't use magecraft at all?!"

Flat scratched his hair, a little sheepish. "It's true!"

"With your sharp senses, Teacher, I'm sure you noticed too that there wasn't a trace of mana flowing through that young lady just now, right?"

"That kind of spatial travel… it's just like a portal in a sci-fi movie. Super cool, right?"

Waver sighed.

Though every fiber of him was unwilling to admit it, his magus instincts told him Flat was right.

There was no trace of magecraft on any of these girls.

And that was exactly why his headache was so much worse.

Resigned, he pulled a cigar from his coat pocket and lit it. He took a deep drag, preparing to use his best talent, suggestion magecraft, to hypnotize all the witnesses around who had seen what they shouldn't have, in order to preserve the principle of secrecy.

Seeing this, Arisu Sakayanagi covered the corner of her lips with her folding fan, a bit awkwardly, and chuckled.

"Oh my, I'm terribly sorry, Mr. El-Melloi."

"None of the worlds we've been through had your kind of secrecy rule, where "the more people know, the weaker the mana becomes," so we tend to be a bit flashy. We'll be more careful next time."

The fingers holding Waver's cigar trembled slightly.

He exhaled a smoke ring in resignation and decided to get straight to the point.

"Your methods may be outlandish, but I assume you didn't come all this way just for a fallen Lord like me, did you?"

Waver gave a self-deprecating smile. "Though I'm nominally El-Melloi II, one of the twelve Lords of the Clock Tower, I'm really just a poor wage slave running around taking odd jobs to pay off debts."

"Aside from some experience teaching hopeless students, neither I nor my attainments in the magical arts are worth mentioning."

Arisu Sakayanagi shook her head. "There's no need to belittle yourself, Mr. El-Melloi."

"However, you guessed right. We didn't come here for you in particular."

"Finding you was only incidental."

"Speaking of which, as someone who lived through the Fourth Holy Grail War… you know the truth behind the great fire that destroyed half of Fuyuki City back then, don't you?"

Hearing that, Waver's brow tightened. "The Mud?!"

Arisu Sakayanagi nodded, pleased. "Correct."

"The Holy Grail War being held in Snowfield this time is the product of a secret collaboration between the Dioland family and America's secret government."

"They're trying to use a fragment of the Greater Grail stolen from Fuyuki City, combined with Snowfield's unique ley lines, to perfectly replicate Fuyuki's Grail system."

"And their ultimate goal isn't merely to analyze and recreate the legendary Third Magic. They intend to force it down into ordinary magecraft that can be used in bulk!"

"The aim is to break the old magus nobility's monopoly and catapult America to the top of the magical world."

"Downgrading the Third?!"

Hearing that insane news, even Waver, who as Lord El-Melloi II had seen plenty of storms, was shaken, and the cigar nearly fell from his hand.

But that wasn't all.

Chiaki Matsushita, who had been standing guard nearby, stepped forward and added, "Moreover, since they're using a broken fragment of the Greater Grail, the ritual system they've built is flawed and incomplete."

"So they first need six "false Servants" to slaughter one another in Snowfield, using the enormous mana released by their deaths to force the defective Grail system into completion."

Chiaki Matsushita's tone was grave. "Once the system is complete, their own pre-selected Masters will summon seven genuine "true Servants" to decide the final victor. Which means…"

"There are thirteen Servants descending on Snowfield this time!"

"…Thirteen Heroic Spirits?"

Waver clutched his stomach in agony, feeling he might collapse from a perforated ulcer at any moment.

Complaints aside, Waver's reason soon retook the high ground.

"Hah… that's actually easy to understand."

Waver rubbed his forehead hard. "Excess ambition, no scruples, methods vulgar to the extreme… but the worst part is, this plan might actually work."

"Those American magi are a bunch of lunatics who give me headaches."

He didn't waste more time lamenting it.

Instead he yanked the wide-eyed, sparkling Flat behind him to shield him, then looked at Arisu Sakayanagi and the others with a grim expression.

"If you have no interest in the so-called Holy Grail or the Third Magic, then what exactly are you here to find, at such risk?!"

"And why must you insist on throwing yourselves into these terrifying fights between Servants?!"

Faced with Waver's questioning, Arisu Sakayanagi did not panic.

She pressed her pale cherry lips together and said thoughtfully, "Mr. El-Melloi, it's just like you magi and your lifelong aspiration to reach the "Root." Even knowing the road is hard and you might be crushed to pieces along the way, you must press on, one after another, to complete the task passed down through generations."

"We also have a final goal we must face."

"To reach that goal, we naturally have to make some necessary effort in gathering resources and training ourselves."

"And, incidentally, we consider you a rare breath of fresh air in this rotten world of magecraft."

"On top of that, you're sharp and able to communicate rationally, which is why we want to seek a win-win cooperation with you."

"After all…"

Arisu Sakayanagi paused deliberately, her tone loaded with meaning.

"If you don't make preparations soon, I'm afraid your fragile world line will fall into "convergence" before long."

"…What does that mean?" Waver took a sharp pull on his cigar, his brows knitting into a deep furrow.

Arisu Sakayanagi did not answer his confusion immediately.

Well-versed in the art of handling people, she understood that fishing required alternating between pulling and letting out line.

Planting the seed of panic was enough.

Now it was time to dangle the bait.

She shifted the topic naturally, steering it toward that gaudy golden king who had dragged his opponent out.

"By the way, Mr. El-Melloi, I assume you can use something like clairvoyance or remote observation magecraft?"

"Unless something unexpected happened, the Mud-tainted Avenger Heracles should have crossed blades with the King of Heroes, Goldie, by now…"

"Honestly, if the tainted Heracles gets eliminated so easily and his soul is absorbed back into the Grail, that wouldn't be good news for us."

"Some of the key items we're looking for are inside that Grail…"

The girl tilted her head slightly, smiling brightly at Waver, whose expression kept shifting.

"So, Mr. El-Melloi."

"What do you say… shall we go help Heracles deal with the nuisance that is Goldie?"

"If I remember correctly, the two of you have quite a "profound" history together."

"This would be a fine chance for revenge."

Waver's mouth twitched several times.

He let out another long sigh, as if bowing to fate.

"…I'll pass on revenge. I'm not done living yet."

"Come with me to find Tohsaka."

"She makes stupid mistakes at crucial moments, but when it comes to setting up a defensive position and handling magecraft in ordinary times, she won't screw up."

Waver rubbed his temples and turned to lead the way.

"She should already have set up a magecraft surveillance network at the ley line nodes."

"Since you've looked into my past so thoroughly, I'm sure you also know how mediocre my magical talent is."

"So don't make me embarrass myself with high-precision long-range observation."

…

Just as Waver reluctantly contacted Rin Tohsaka and led Arisu Sakayanagi's group in a big procession toward the temporary magecraft workshop where she was stationed…

Out on the wasteland on the outskirts of Snowfield, far away…

Heracles had fired arrows two or three times in a row, mercilessly, at Tine, a little girl of barely ten and a Master.

That despicable act undoubtedly enraged the ever-proud King of Heroes.

Goldie had no intention of standing still and trading long-range fire with him. He summoned a golden ship of radiance from the Gate of Babylon—Vimana.

Standing upon the throne, he took Tine with him and advanced toward where Alcides stood.

And as the great Greek hero who had endured the Twelve Labors, Alcides remained absolutely confident in his strength even with his divinity stripped away by the Mud.

He didn't even need to set traps in advance. He firmly believed that against overwhelming force, any petty trick was useless against Goldie, and vice versa.

As Vimana drew closer, Alcides drew his great bow again and aimed an arrow at Tine.

"Whoosh—!"

The thunderous arrow tore through the air.

But at the instant it was about to hit, golden chains snapped out and stopped the shot, which was powerful enough to pierce a mountain, so it caused Tine no real harm.

Empowered by the Star of Omniscience and Omnipotence, a high-grade Noble Phantasm for seeing through true names,

Goldie needed only a single look from above to pierce the Mud-tainted disguise on Alcides and recognize his true nature as the greatest hero of Greece.

"What a revolting sight."

Goldie wasted no time in launching into mockery.

"To act so righteously while doing something so base as striking at a child… true, if I were fixated on vengeance, perhaps I too might do the same on a whim."

"But in all of heaven and earth, only I, the King, may act on a whim, heedless of the rules."

"It is not an act fit for the likes of you!"

With that furious rebuke,

golden ripples spread behind Goldie.

Ten gates, a hundred gates… no fewer than a thousand gates of the Gate of Babylon swung open at once!

Swords, spears, blades, and halberds—countless peerless Noble Phantasms that had made their names in human history—rained down in a saturation barrage from every direction at Alcides below!

"Be reduced to ashes, in the name of your King!"

"BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM—!!!"

The violent explosions flipped the entire wilderness over, and smoke and dust blotted out the sky.

Yet when the dust settled,

Goldie frowned slightly.

Alcides stood unharmed in the middle of the crater.

The seemingly ragged beast hide draped over him glowed faintly.

It was the legendary invulnerable [Nemean Lion's Hide]!

Once turned into a Noble Phantasm, it rejected every attack from Noble Phantasms forged by human civilization, which was effectively nullification!

Add to that his own A-rank divine-realm martial skill, and this thousand-gate barrage truly did amount to nothing against him!

"Is that all you've got, Goldie?!"

"How weak!"

Alcides sneered, preparing to launch his counterattack.

Just then,

the true Rider, who had been hiding in the shadows all along, charged into the battlefield on her steed.

She should have remained in the dark, observing. But seeing the great hero she had once revered sink to this shameless state, with no bottom line, repeatedly attacking a little girl,

Hippolyta felt an anger like never before.

With a roar she spurred her warhorse forward, intent on waking this lost hero from the abyss in her own way.

And with Hippolyta's intervention, the original duel between two titans turned into a three-way melee.

Just as Francesca finally couldn't hold back her inner delight and was about to dash out and show off some illusions to heat up this Holy Grail War so she could savor even more delicious chaos later,

suddenly!

Everyone on the battlefield—

the arrogant Goldie, the madness-stricken Alcides, and Francesca, who had been about to cast a spell,

all sensed, in the same instant, something strange in the surrounding environment.

It wasn't an illusion, nor was it some mere enormous fluctuation caused by gathering mana.

Rather…

the very fabric of the world across the entire wilderness, even the sky itself, was being rewritten by a higher, more ancient force!

The air grew scorching, the ground began to dry out and crack, as if some primeval Bull of Heaven capable of triggering a world-ending drought were about to descend upon this land.

And Goldie, as a king who had personally defied the gods and ruled the land of Uruk,

was all too familiar with, and all too disgusted by, the aura of mana trying to warp the world.

He wiped the expression from his face and fixed his red slit-pupiled eyes on the sky.

"Tch."

Goldie spat, "It's you again, you lingering bastard of a goddess…!"

"You do have some talent, to recreate a divine-age domain on this land."

"But do not forget: the King of Uruk has never been bound by your divine realm."

"Prepare yourself to receive the King's judgment!"

And in response to Goldie's harsh words,

Ishtar, riding the Heavenly Ship Maanna, was thoroughly amused.

"Heh heh, still the same as ever. Even now, that foul mouth of yours ruins everyone's appetite."

"Fine, then. Let this goddess see for herself whether the King of Heroes, cut off from the soil of Uruk, can keep his life and his pride within my sacred domain."

"Humbaba!"