I do not claim ownership over any of the characters, locations or terminology appearing in this fanfic except for those of my own creations, everything belongs to their respective owners.
Chapter 7: Dreams, a Taste of Victory and the Broken Sword
Witch of Betrayal.
What a ridiculous title to give me, when in fact I was the one who was betrayed.
Played by Aphrodite to love a man I didn't even know….
….then forced to betray my father for that very own man.
But the goddess decided that wasn't enough torment for me…..
….and soon she made me murder my own brother in cold blood like she did with my father.
I was denounced as a witch for the deeds that I was made to commit…..
…..was forced to flee from my own country….
…..only to be betrayed by Jason himself as well, when he chose another over me.
Because of this, I finally decided to really become the Witch that the people condemned me as; I took my revenge upon Jason and lived the rest of my life as a true witch.
Then after my death, I was summoned as one of the servants for the Holy Grail War…..
….A competition for a powerful artifact capable of granting any wish.
An opportunity for myself….
….to set things right.
I could have used it to get my revenge on Aphrodite and Jason…..
…..or to make all my bad deeds never happen in the first place.
Perhaps even a chance at a new life?
But sadly my master…..
….was not a man I could ever work with.
So I bided my time and made him use up his command seals on trivial things, luring him into a false sense of security, and then ending his life when his back was exposed.
But without a source of prana my body was quickly dissipating….
….I started wandering around aimlessly; I reached Ryuudou Mountain and awaited my death.
But instead Fate decided to smile upon me….
….and so I met him…
…my beloved Souichirou.
I had shamelessly begged for his help at the feet of the temple….
….and he helped me without hesitation, becoming my new master.
I eventually fell in love with Souichirou-sama, as he was the first person to treat me kindly and show genuine loyalty.
…Real love, not something fake that was forced on me by some Goddess.
So I planned to win the tournament in order to prolong the time I can spend with my beloved, beyond the grail war.
I became a witch once more so I could accomplish that goal; I manipulated the servants of the war and used underhanded methods to win.
And I almost succeeded, victory was just moments away.
We had eliminated Rider early, Assassin, Archer and Saber were under my thumb, the only ones that could still oppose us were Berserker and Lancer….
….but then that despicable man in red, Archer dared to betray us in the most crucial moment.
I watched as the countless blades were about to be launched at us, I was already moving my body to protect Souichirou-sama from harm….
….but I couldn't move, nothing else did, the swords simply remained in air and everything was frozen.
Time itself has stopped and a woman with half her body in a gap appeared as If some wicked god, finding this situation to be incredibly amusing.
I hated and despised gods, but she had offered me something that I couldn't refuse.
"….If you choose to participate in a game of mine and manage to win, then I will grant you the happy end you so vehemently seek." she said in a honey like voice that couldn't be resisted.
"Otherwise…" a malicious expression crossed her face as she snapped her fingers.
Time resumed normal and I was impaled with swords.
I coughed blood, but the next thing I knew I was back in the same position as before, time still frozen and I'm uninjured.
"….you will meet your inevitable death." she finished her sentence with a smile.
Naturally I accepted and the next thing I knew that I was in a completely different and strange land, reminding me of the days of my life.
Magic itself filled the air; the supernatural was still present and strong, not like the modern times I have been summoned into.
I have noticed that I was not alone in this strange place, a certain blue haired samurai that I binded to the temple gate was also with me.
"Assassin…but how?"
"Some sexy lady came to me saying that she would free me and let me get many interesting fights if I accompanied you in this place."
"Since I was extremely bored just guarding that shitty gate of course I agreed."
Assassin held out his hand and I took it with a smile on my face as he helped me get up from the ground.
We have been together since the beginning and more and more people flocked to my banners.
Memories of one of my earliest victories filled my head.
The village was burning, its defenses torn down and its people beaten by the pagans under my command.
Even though they had a high number of defenders we still won without any casualties.
Whoosh
A red blur came darting at me and I would have surely died if it weren't for Assassin who blocked a crimson looking blade for me.
"Hoh, you were able to block my strike, impressive."
It was a young looking blonde girl wielding a strange supernatural ability that allowed her to manipulate blood, she engaged in a duel with Assassin.
But soon they found out that they were evenly matched in skill, so they stopped fighting for a moment with a smile on their face.
"You people seem amusing; tell me what your goals are."
"We are going to conquer all of Britain and destroy anyone who dares to stand in our way."
To this the nearby pagans who were watching the duel erupted in cheers.
"Fufu, so conquest is your goal then? Very well, I, Meia Bloodroad have decided to bear witness to this ambition of yours." She said with a smile creeping onto her face.
So Meia has joined us and our numbers just kept growing after rumours spread that I planned to conquer all of Britain.
…
I started sweating as my dreams took a turn for the worse.
Darkness overtook me and I could only make the sounds of the wind blowing cries of agony and suffering.
A lightning hit the area and illuminated the surrounding darkness.
Bodies
Piles and piles of bodies upon each other.
Those markings on their skin
Those tribal garments
I instantly realized that these were the corpses of the pagans who had sworn their allegiance to me.
The wind made the ruined banner flutter in motion and soon the disgusting stench of putrid corpses entered my nostrils.
I fell back from the combination of smells and sights.
Splash
This took less than one second and darkness has already returned.
I noticed that I fell into something wet and my robes started absorbing it.
I didn't need any lightning to know what it was.
It was blood….
…The blood of all the people who died for my sake.
Another lightning broke the darkness and made me notice a figure that was left standing among the corpses.
I started running towards it, my steps echoing loudly in the sea of blood.
Even in the darkness I recognized that figure, it could only belong to Meia.
Her golden blonde hair now is stained in a sickening ghostly white colour which stuck out in the blackness like a sore thumb.
"Meia…." I muttered out
This made the girl turn around slowly, her face was falling apart and her eyes were bleeding.
The sight horrified me.
"I didn't want to die yet….."
Meia ran stumbled towards me, pieces falling of her in the process.
She clung to my robes as she said.
"You said you would lead me to many magnificent battles."
"You said that you would show me the victory you spoke of."
"WELL, IS THIS WHAT LIES AT THE END OF YOUR ROAD?"
She roared out while gesturing towards the corpses and all the blood around her, her jaw fell apart preventing from any further words from her.
I hugged the girl tight as her body crumbled apart in my hands.
"It was my fault…. I shouldn't have left her alone."
Said the familiar voice behind me, I looked back rejoicing to hear someone else here, only to be tormented by another vision.
Drip Drip Drip
The blood of the samurai kept spilling increasing the already endless sea of blood even further.
He was impaled from the back on a tall tree, unable to get off and slowly bleeding out.
"Hold on Assassin, I'll get you off immediately!"
"Don't bother….. this is a fitting end to someone….who abandoned his friend." he said, blood dripping from his mouth.
I attempted to help him, but my limbs hardened and started to turn to steel.
I couldn't move at all, a fear like no other took me over.
Soon my entire body was solidified, only my left eye and brain were left intact, forced to see and think in a prison of steel that was my own body.
A voice filled my head, a voice that I couldn't disobey.
"End his life."
I didn't want to do it, but my body moved forward regardless of my will.
My body arrived at it's destination, it took rule breaker out and murdered Assassin like it had done so many others.
I was forced to watch the betrayed look the Samurai sent me as I coldly ended his existence.
I took some more steps, but my steel body crumbled apart as I spotted someone in Red.
Another voice filled my head, this one was familiar
"You are running out of time."
I woke up with a scream that alerted the nearby guards, it was a horrifying and ominous nightmare, as a magus I could tell that these dreams were bad omens, but what could they be warning me of?
Suddenly I feel that I lost the connection with the ley line that I have been leeching power from.
'Did something happen at home?' A dreading discomfort came over me as I plundered on the possibilities
…..
He was dreaming of that fire again.
The fire that gave birth to him….
….his earliest memory.
Everything was being consumed by the flames and made the night sky glow so much that it seemed like it was broad daylight.
Cries of death and despair rang out everywhere as people tried to save each other or themselves, only to be consumed by the flames and turned into nothing but ash.
Those who couldn't move and were trapped by the flames were doomed to their death.
Those who moved to save the trapped people faced the same fate as well.
Only he survived, for he had ignored the others and just moved forward.
Forward forward, always ever forward.
That was the only reason he had survived.
But even he was getting exhausted and weaker; the smoke made it harder for him to breath and the fire didn't let him know where he was going.
The disgusting smell of charred human flesh that entered his nose almost made him throw up, but he continued, unrelenting.
His will and mind wants to keep on moving, but his body was completely overwhelmed and gave out under him.
He fell to the ground and with not being able to move he looked up to the sky that was painted in orange and red colours.
He expected to see the usual strange towering black monument in the view like he usually does during these dreams.
But instead he saw that woman wielding an umbrella gazing at him with a creepy smile in her black gap.
…..
Emiya woke up with a small scream and his whole body drenched in sweat like he was in a bad fever.
He got up halfway in the bed and covered his face with his hands.
"Ha…..Ha…..Ha…"
"Ha….Ha…Ha….."
He stopped his ragged breaths when he realized that he was in company.
"Minasaki… what do you think you are doing in my chambers?"
"You seemed to be having a nightmare so I came over to comfort you~."
He tried really hard to ignore the fact that she was naked and inching closer and closer to him.
He sighed, 'This is going to be a long day.' he thought.
"Are you worried about the upcoming battle?" she asked while tracing his chest with her fingers.
"Yes."
"Even with all the preparation you have done?"
"Medea was always one to have multiple tricks up her sleeve, you can never be too careful around her. Since we are at a huge disadvantage in terms of manpower, I need to do everything to give us a fighting chance, Merlin and I will be able to decimate a lot of their troops, but I wonder if that will really be enough to even out the odds."
'What else have I ignored that could be used to give use some more fighting power? '
As he was thinking this he gazed at the girl lying next to him. 'She is a wild card, so she must be strong, right?'
"Geez~, what are you looking at me like that for? Surely you are not thinking of sending me to battle, are you? I'm just a fragile little girl, if I went there I would be surely violated and killed in horrible ways~."
"Yeah, a little girl who coldly murdered one of my subjects…."
"Mou, you are still hung upon that? Well whatever surely as you noticed I'm not much of a fighter and more of an assassin instead, I won't go to battles, but if you want to deal with individual targets, then I might help you."
"Assassination huh, there are only 2 targets in their army that would be worth assassinating. One of them is obviously Medea; if she is killed the enemy troops would quickly lose morale and firepower. "'If Medea is killed many lives will be spared as a result, one life for the price of many' he thought. "The second target would be the blue haired samurai who wields a large katana; he is extremely dangerous and skilled if not stopped."
"Culling all the aces of the enemy, huh? Sounds boring, I think it would be more entertaining to see you overcome them by yourselves. Though if I feel like it I may decide to help, but you shouldn't count on it."
"I wasn't planning on it anyway, we will win with or without your help." he said with a smug smile.
….
Emiya opened the rusty doors of the local blacksmith and the smell of metal and furnace filled his senses as he entered. The smithy was inhabited only by a single presence; it was Merlin who was now without his trademark cloak, revealing his silvery hair. He was completely shirtless as he was furiously banging a piece of metal on the anvil.
"This isn't exactly the place I would have expected to a find a wizard in." he commented as he moved closer
"Heh, well I need to make use of it every once in a while if I want to create some magical artifacts." Merlin said while slightly glancing up.
Emiya looked at the item he was hammering and he instantly realized that he was making a sword.
"What use would a mage have for a sword?"
"It isn't for me, it's for Kay. I'm sure you noticed that he cannot fully use his ability as no ordinary sword can stand the heat for long, I was planning to remedy that."
"I see, let me help, I'm quite proficient when it comes to swords."
"No no, I need to make this one myself, besides I doubt you are as proficient in the field of enchantment as I' am."
"But-"
"No buts, if you don't like it leave."
"Fine, then…..I'll just watch." he said dejectedly.
"While you watch, you could tell me about Saber."
Emiya's eyes narrowed at the mention of the word that no one else in this age should know but him. His quick working mind also realized how Merlin was aware of this.
"So this is what you found out when you dug into my mind…."
"Amongst other things, so are you going to tell or not?"
"It's a long story—"
"Oh please, I have all the time, do indulge me."
"Very well, I shall tell you the basic version of it."
So he told him about everything that Arthuria would have come to face in her life, how she had regretted everything and how she bet everything on the Grail War, only to be plunged into more suffering and realize that it was a false hope.
Merlin only silently listened to the tale, working on the sword all the while.
And thus an hour passed like this.
"…and after that she faded away and I never saw her again." He finished his story, of course leaving out few bits like the fact that he met her a few more times in the grail wars where he was summoned as Archer.
"Huh, so I guess my actions condemned Arthuria to a lifetime of solitude and despair, only to be called into many more conflicts that are in the far future, I guess she wasn't as fit to be a King as my visions told me." Merlin said while engraving another rune into the sword.
"No you are wrong, she was too perfect. The people could never understand or sympathize with a perfect king like her, her perfection itself has alienated her from her subjects."
"So what makes someone the best possible King then?"
"I don't know, Monarchy is a flawed system anyway; it places the entire burdens and weight of a country and its people on a single person."
"A strange thing for a King to say, do you think you can handle the burden?" he asked as he engraved a fiery red gemstone into the blade.
He went into a deep thought, considering his situation, he honestly wasn't certain about anything thanks to the nature of this game, who knows how many wild cards are there and how many factions they control already. If Meia, a simple wild card was so powerful, what would the pieces be like then?
"I don't know….nothing is certain in this place, as the whole of Britain have been turned into a playground of powerful monsters."
Merlin actually seemed to be paying more attention to this than the story of Arthuria "Powerful monsters? You mean like that woman who was with you at the beginning? What do you mean by 'turned into a playground'?"
"Wait….you seen her? Where and when?"
"I guess this truly confirms it that she was indeed related to your appearance. Soon after you pulled out the sword, I spotted her looking at me in the distance; I knew immediately that she was something otherworldly from the power she was exuding."
"Yeah, she and few others are playing a disgusting game all over Brittania that involves innocent people's lives. I'm her 'piece' or so I'm told, if I manage to defeat all other pieces or conquer all of Britain, she will win the game. It is also the only way to end this stupid game, so I'm playing along, I just need to discover the other pieces and then I will deal with all of this."
"There are more of those monsters and they are playing some mysterious game spanning all of Britain? Fascinating I must say. So have you discovered any of the players yet? "Merlin asked like a curious child
"Only one, a strong vampire that resides in the northern parts of Britain."
Merlin added another final rune to the sword and Emiya's eyebrows rose up.
"You didn't say that you were making a cursed sword….."
"Hoh, you are better than I thought if you can just notice by looking at it, but can you tell what kind of curse I put on it?"
"A vile kind that I'm most familiar with, damage inflicted by this blade will be unable to be healed by normal means…"
…
Meanwhile….
…..in the Northern parts of Britain….
…..there was a richly decorated golden palace; inside it sat a golden haired, red eyed man on a golden throne, wearing nothing but a white robe, every part of his being radiated an aura of power and charisma. He was drinking a red wine from a similarly expensive looking goblet, when a muscular man walked into the room.
He appeared before the golden haired man and knelt before him. "My King we have successfully captured the city, but the enemy leader, Nero was not found inside it."
"Is that all?" he asked with a bored expression on his face
"Yes, your majesty."
"Then leave."
The man left and closed the door behind him.
"Looks like that mongrel is a coward just like I suspected, fleeing while her city burns to the ground….don't you agree Kotomine?"
From the darkness of the throne room walked out a shadowy priest with, bluish purple clergy clothes, his eyes were devoid of any life and his expression said nothing.
"Perhaps she was just afraid that you would propose to her as well and ran away while she could."
"Don't mock me Kirei, that pretender is only similar to Saber in appearance only, she lacks her ideals and motivations that made her so radiating on the battlefield, do not compare that vulgar whore to her."
"Hah." Kirei nodded blankly, not really understanding Gilgamesh's tastes.
"Now that you defeated Nero, where will you proceed next, to the south perhaps? No…you will be looking for a challenge after that shameful display Nero has put you through, that means you will be going to Transylvania." The priest concluded
"Indeed, it is time to see if this 'Scarlet Devil' is really that fearsome of a beast as they say."
….
A few days later a messenger has arrived to King Emiya, saying that the scouts have spotted the pagan army moving towards him.
He forwarded the orders for his captains to move the army to their designated position, while he and Merlin took their own places as well.
They took up position at an overlooking hill that allowed them to spot the pagan army whenever it was coming, they prepared for this battle for days, and if everything goes according to plan they shall survive with minimal losses.
Meanwhile the troops were getting anxious, everyone of them was uncertain despite the plans they have been told. They weren't sure they could win against the pagan army. One thought was upon everyone's mind, would this be the place where the Pagan Queen of Wessex would be defeated or would Cornwall prove to be just another stepping stone in her conquest? Only the end results will tell.
Emiya thought he had seen something in the distance, so he had flooded his eyes with prana, reinforcing them and thus increasing his vision by a few kilometres. And sure enough, he spotted the Pagan army, marching towards them.
"They are here." he said to Merlin.
"Excellent, they seem to be coming from the direction where I predicted, this will make things smoother." He took out what appeared to be a ritualistic dagger and readied it.
Medea's army was marching forward, but unbeknownst to them there was a huge magical circle of blood at their feet, hidden beneath the grass.
"Right where I want them." said Merlin as he stabbed his palm with the dagger and let the blood flow out.
"Aw rlyos adk afy, Pswiro! Rlofs ty uail haqylz ofk dyfk uail zyljofsz ab swy bdoty paty sa tu oek!" as Merlin chanted the otherworldly lines, the circle started to glow with a red light, Medea immediately detected the surge of magical energy, but she couldn't pull out her troops in time.
Flames erupted from the ground, sending both earth and hundreds of pagans into the sky. From where the ground used to be emerged a large, flaming demon. It wore obsidian black armour and from it's back and from the parts that were not protected by armour, continued to blaze the flames of hell itself. On its head it wore an obsidian crown and it gazed at the troops in front of it with its 3 fiery eyes.
It let out a menacing roar before charging towards them, the men in the front were unable to run from the flaming beast as there were comrades behind them, so they were forced to bear the attack.
They immediately died, as the demon's massive frame easily crushed their bodies and its fiery aura incinerating anyone else who survived. It slashed with its claws once which sent forward a wave of flame that immediately roasted several dozens of pagans. It picked up several soldiers who were still trying to defend against the monster, and easily swallowed them into its endless stomach. This was its prize for coming here, yes this demon was invited for a feast by the wizard Merlin, and there were plenty of pagans to feast on.
A giant that almost rivalled the demon in size tried to take him down, he swung his oversized axe at the demon only to break against its obsidian armour, the flaming beast then used its large hands to tear into the giant's chest and tear the huge man apart, roaring in triumph while doing so.
This caused many of Medea's troops to quickly lose morale, some even attempted to flee, before they were brought back together by the chieftains and shamans. The said shamans readied their spells and attempted to douse out the demon's flames with blasts of water, it looked like it extinguished for a while only to resume burning even fiercer than before as it continued to slaughter the troops.
Then they used ice spells next to freeze the demon, it seemed that it was over as it stopped moving for half a minute, before violently exploding out from the ice block, sending shards of ice flying everywhere, decimating even more troops.
Emiya used this moment to strike as well; he traced his good old black bow and muttered the first line of the aria.
"I' am the bone of my sword."
A drill like sword appeared in his hands, that would turn into an arrow once fired. This was the noble phantasm modified by the red guardian himself, Caladbolg II a powerful A ranked noble phantasm, capable of twisting even space itself when fired.
He took his firing stance, prana surging all around him and readied his weapon to strike, he pulled the projectile back and flooded it with prana, making it broken, "Caladbolg" and then shot it at the enemy army. It travelled faster than the speed of sound, drawing a trail of spiral in its wake, as it flew it became like an arrow of light.
It hit the enemy army and a huge explosion was caused by it, at least a thousand troops were killed by it, the fires that it caused claiming even more lives while he projected 3 golden objects next to him, these were the explosive noble phantasm known as Vajra an instrument of the Indian thunder god that he had seen in Gilgamesh's Gate of Babylon like so many weapons in his arsenal.
He shot the 3 prepared Vajra's and as they hit the earth itself erupted and a golden lightning raced across the field, electrocuting many of pagans in the process. He watched as Merlin's demon continued its assault and tore even deeper into Medea's lines, it was almost near her. The witch finished chanting a spell of some sort and from where the Demon has emerged from, several chains came out and bonded themselves onto the demon's body.
They began pulling the demon back, but it didn't want to leave yet as it still hasn't feasted enough, it resisted the pull and tried to move forward, but to no avail, soon the chains brought him down to his knees, and he could only resist being pulled into the abyss by digging its claws into the ground. Several laser like beams shot towards the demon which sent him flying back into the darkness where he came from. He let out a roar as he disappeared and the hole closed above him.
"Looks like this is as much as we could cut them down." Emiya said as he looked at the results of their collective destruction, about 1/3 of the pagan army was destroyed or incapacitated. "How are you holding up? Summoning and sustaining that demon must have been quite taxing." He himself was also exhausted since creating a broken phantasm took a lot of prana out of him and Vajra is not a bladed weapon so it costs more to trace than other noble phantasms.
"I will be fine." he said as he put away the hand he had stabbed with dagger, Emiya didn't see it, but strange black markings started appearing on it. Just like how he had failed to notice that several cracks formed on the blade that he was carrying on his back.
….
Arthuria as well as a thousand soldiers were waiting for the enemy to approach; they knew they would soon reach them as they already heard the explosions coming from the distance, which meant that Merlin and Shirou have already begun the first part of the plan.
Several minutes passed and the sound of explosions stopped, it meant that that the pagan is already coming towards them.
Soon the ground itself started shaking as fast moving figures could be seen approaching, they were the pagan cavalry, riding magically dominated giant wolves. Hundreds of them were charging at them which made many of the defenders sweat in anticipation and fear.
Only several hundred meters separated them, something that would be crossed in a matter of seconds.
"Ready your spears and bows!" ordered a loud voice which made the men take up their positions.
400 meters
Everyone was in their place now, awaiting the incoming enemy.
200 meters
"Archers, Fire!" rang out the voice of a captain, which let loose a few hundred arrows.
They flew towards their target.
Many missed entirely
Others would dig into the skin of the wolves, but it such damage was trivial to their huge bodies and they charged on.
Only some riders that were hit in the vital spots were taken out.
100 meters
A few more seconds passed and the wolf riders were about to reach them, but soon they would realize that they were in for a surprise as the ground disappeared beneath their feet and they fell to their doom, only to be impaled on the spikes that were planted into the pitfalls. The entire first line of wolf riders was taken out this way, but the ones that were left quickly caught on and made their wolves jump, effectively avoiding the pitfalls.
"Brace for impact!" Everyone raised their spears and the wolves slammed into them, some of them dying due to being pierced in the heart or the head, others that were pierced in the legs or the shoulders kept charging forth, demolishing the line of soldiers. The line couldn't hold out for long as the remaining the group of wolf riders joined in on the push, demolishing everything that was in their path, both soldiers and their comrades that happened to be in their way. It was a reckless and dishonorable tactic, but it worked as the defenders formation was completely broken thanks to it.
Arthuria readied her sword as one of the creatures was approaching her.
It jumped at her, she didn't waste any time and flooded her weapon with prana, slashing the giant wolf and rider in 2 with a single attack. Blood sprayed from it and tainted her beautiful cheeks; she didn't bother to wipe it as there were many in need of help against the strong beasts.
2 groups were near her, a group of soldiers wielding mostly swords that were having a hard time piercing the creature's thick skin with their short blades and another group that seemed to be doing better as they brought down the wolf to their level with their spears. So she moved towards the group that needed more help.
It was about to crush a soldier with it's paw, but she got there faster and managed to slice the paw off, the creature was enraged by this and attempted to bite her head off, she sidestepped out of the way only to notice that the rider's sword was also coming for her head, she used another prana burst to slice off the sword arm of the pagan man, who fell to the ground clutching the stump where his arm used to be a second ago.
The oversized wolf showed little concern to its master as it stepped on his fallen body, crushing the life out of it on his charge to attack Saber again. Arthuria sent prana to her feet and dodged out of the way, while tracing her sword against the creature's side. When she looked back she noticed that the wolf's intestines had fallen out and its body soon collapse as well.
Her instincts spiked as she felt danger from behind her, she quickly turned back sword ready to notice another wolf rider, but she didn't need to take it out as 2 lightning fast sword strikes took out both the canine and the rider.
She immediately recognized the person who helped her.
"I appreciate the assistance, Bedivere." She said while sending him a small smile
"No problem…." Bedivere stopped slightly as more enemies approached "…looks like we are surrounded." He stated as another 4 more riders encircled them
"Looks like it, let's team up until we deal with them."
They stood back to back against each other, each of them watching for an attack on their side, the wolves didn't attack yet and just growled at them, they seemed to be waiting for the order from their riders, the pagan soldiers looked into each other's eye and nodded, conveying some sort of plan.
One of the wolves from Bedivere side launched, he already sent forward and attack by reflex, but to his surprise at the last possible moment the wolf jumped to the side and caused him to miss his attack. The wolf feigned his attack once again, however this time Bedivere was fast enough to draw blood from its face, only to notice that the other wolf was also lunging at him using the fact that he was concentrating on the other one, by the surprised look of the rider he clearly didn't expect him to refocus so fast, Bedivere ended both of their lives with a strike that seemed like a single stroke.
"Looks like they are trying to distract and bait us since they know that we are stronger in the melee."
He said to Arthuria as he noted that she was being baited with the exact same tactic as well.
"Such cowardly tricks will not work against me!" she declared as she stepped forward with her legs, channeling magical energy into them, which made her barrel towards the wolf riders like a bullet, she cut the first one before it could even react and used her momentum to deal with the second one as well.
Bedivere just whistled at her display "You don't really mess around do you? Let's finish the last one together. "
But before they even started moving against the last rider, they noticed that something was darkening the skies, Bedivere looked up and immediately realized what it was. "Enemy projectiles!" he shouted.
Responding to his words many soldiers raised their shields to defend from the incoming arrows, and they would have been safe, if those were really arrows, instead they were massive spears that were thrown by the pagan infantry that caught up with the riders and now were furiously stampeding towards them, with axes, maces and whatever weapon they had at hand after throwing away their spears.
Many of the spears easily pierced the defenders shields, ending their lives almost instantly; some hit the few remaining riders and wolves, even the one that was next to Saber and Bedivere. Unlike them the enemy didn't need to be concerned for their troops, they would just need to win by whatever means possible and crush the defenders of Cornwall through sheer force and numbers, so the sacrifices of a few or even a hundred were within acceptable parameters.
Arthuria managed to dodge all of them through her extremely good instincts, which told her where to step and move in order to evade the blows. While Bedivere didn't bother with dodging and was simply content to cut down any offending piece of weapon that dared to come at him.
The defenders were still all over the place and out of formation because of the first charge and the hail of spears that came at them, surely if the infantry attacked them now they would be quickly ripped to shreds. Indeed the situation looked bleak, but it was all within the plan as the sound of a horn being blown rang across the battlefield. The one blowing it was none other than Saber; Emiya had given her this role since he knew that she would survive whatever came at her in this battle.
…
Meanwhile in an area far enough from the battlefield to not be seen, but close enough to hear the noise of battle hundreds of knights and soldiers on horse stood idly, waiting for the call that would signal that their allies are in need of help.
Amongst the soldiers was also Kay, who was grasping his new blade that way given to him by Merlin just before they went to sortie for the battle, the sword was an one handed sword which looked like a normal sword except it had several lines of runes engraved into it and a red ruby stone on the guard, he could also feel some faint power coming from it, the reason for that was obvious since Merlin explained that it was a magical sword that would allow for the better usage of his ability.
As he was looking at his sword he was thinking about a lot of things, how he wasn't actually Arthuria's real brother for example. That surely explained why she was so superior to him in almost every way.
He was also thinking about the last battle and how he couldn't do anything but be smacked around, he grasped his chest as he was thinking this where beneath the armour a scar laid that was inflicted by the blue haired samurai.
'I will do it, I will become stronger, I shall prove my worth in this battle and I will eventually become worthy enough to call Arthuria my brother, whether we are true siblings or not.' he thought this as he reached a newfound determination.
Kay was broken out of his thoughts as he heard the sound of a horn being blown; he knew what it meant as all of them were carefully instructed with the plan.
Everyone readied themselves and the captain that was leading this group spoke up "All right lads, looks like our comrades finally need our help, so let's give it to them, follow my lead!" he started charging with his sword raised an the group including Kay followed.
They galloped for a while and then they reached the battlefield, many of them had sadly taken in the fact that several of their own have been killed, either ripped apart or stabbed to death, nevertheless they were here to stop additional casualties.
They charged towards the pagan troops who only just noticed them coming, their shamans tried to order the rabble into defensive positions, but they were too late as the hundred horsemen broke into their lines easily knocking the lightly armoured pagans away. Many who fell had their bones and bodies squashed and broken immediately after the stampede of hooves stepped on them. The knights swung their swords and axes while continuing their charge deeper into the enemy lines.
They were like an efficient war machine, their horses crushing and shoving anyone out of the way who would try to harm their riders, while the knights used their weapons to decapitate and eliminate anyone who would try to run away.
Kay tested out his new sword and slashed down the enemies of his country, he found his new blade to be very strong, it easily passed through and cut his opponents whether they be armoured or not, a larger pagan tried to stab him, so he brought his arm down to parry the blow, but to his surprise the pagan's sword easily broke under the touch of his weapon, the blade continued it's path and removed the head of the heretic.
Others fought just as valiantly as Kay did…..
…But even this would not be enough to destroy the massive infantry, as they collided with more and more bodies their speed and movement decreased, several knights fell to the pagans who now realized their situations and worked together to bring down the horsemen, even the shamans helped them by casting either fireballs that would roast the armoured knights inside their metal armours or spells of freezing that would prevent any further movement from them.
Indeed it was fortunate that this was not all they had, as another massive sound of stampeding horses came from the other side. It was the second cavalry group led by Sir Ector himself, he raised his sword and shouted "For Cornwall!" as they went into the undefended side of the pagans. This attack was way more effective than the first one thanks to the fact that pagans now needed to divert their attention to 3 sides as the Cornwallian infantry had finished their share of enemies and now joined in to attack the infantry as well.
Being squashed into fighting 3 large forces the pagan infantry couldn't last long and was soon completely eliminated. But the battle was far from over as this was only a small part of their full army.
….
"Hmm, I didn't expect them to have more forces than that." Medea said as she was gazing into a crystal ball observing the events of the battle, sounding completely apathetic despite losing several hundred of her soldiers.
"What shall we do now, your highness?" asked one of the chieftains
"It is irrelevant in the end now that they fully revealed their hands it is time to go in and crush them with our forces, send in the giants and chimeras first, then another battalion of infantry, tell everyone else to support them if the need arises, I shall be heading out myself as well."
"But what about that wizard who attacked us earlier, what if he summons another demon?" he asked concerned
"Summoning such a powerful demon takes a lot of preparation, it is unlikely that he would have another one, if he shows up I will just defeat him myself."
The army started to march again, with the chimeras and the giants going in first with their thunderous footsteps that shook the area with each step. Medea simply floated above her army, with her cape extending like a pair of wings, watching over them in case the enemy magus shows up again.
….
The armies of Cornwall reorganized themselves now that they finished slaughtering the troops that came at them, all of them knew that it was not over and that the third wave would come soon, they were uncertain if they could win as their numbers were already on the verge of exhaustion and several of them were injured.
"I hope Shirou makes it back in time." Saber said to Bedivere
"Yes, if he and the wizard do not come, then I doubt we would be able to hold out for long against whatever they send us."
Bedivere's words did not help to reinforce the moral of those that were standing next to him as they started to nervous sweat and shake.
"E-Enemy incoming!" nervously shouted a scout that was coming back on his horse, behind him everyone quickly noticed that the beings that were chasing him were definitely not human. They were monsters instead, several meter tall giants wielding huge weapons and clad in black plate armour. Yet strangely the giants were the less stranger sight next to the gigantic wolf like creatures that were rapidly charging towards them, they seemed to be much faster than giants as one of them almost reached the scout, several of them were running on all fours like an animal some of them chose to go bipedal.
One of them pounced at the horsemen and managed to injure the horse with its massive claws; both of them plummeted to the ground and were promptly devoured by the chimeras. Arthuria and everyone else watched horrified as their comrade was torn to shreds, they all knew that this would be their fate if they lost to them, retreat was no longer an option, either they killed these creatures or they would lose.
"Spears, up!" said a captain as the chimeras resumed their attack towards them; everyone raised their spears as they were told. But all of them knew that this frail wall of spears would do little to hold back those beasts, if they couldn't even stop the simple giant wolves then how could they stop these monstrosities that were coming at them?
Dand Dang Dang
Strange metallic sounds entered the ears of men, they were the sounds of several swords being launched and striking through the air at an incredible pace aimed right at the Chimeras. The blades easily tore and sliced apart the chimeras into tiny pieces, they whimpered in pain, but they were not dead, soon everyone would realize how much of a bad idea it was to cut them apart.
Emiya had returned just in time to save his troops from the chimeras, the troops hailed and cheered at his return, but the giants and the infantry behind them were still approaching fast, and in due time the chimera would regenerate as well, combining this with the fact that Medea herself was also coming, they were in for a huge surprise.
He traced his bow once more and readied a projectile, they couldn't fight both the troops and the giants at the same time so they needed to come up with a way to only fight one of them instead, he added various properties to the nameless projectile he traced and flooded it with prana, he shot it towards the path of the enemy and it created a large fire when hitting, this immediately stopped most of the troops from advancing, but the giants didn't pay them any mind and just ran over it. The pagan infantry now would either need to find a different path towards or extinguish the fire, nevertheless now they have enough time to deal with the giants until that happens.
Emiya, Kay, Bedivere and Arthuria all moved forward since they are probably the only ones who could stand toe to toe against the giants. The first giant brought its battle axe down against Emiya, but he effortlessly blocked the attack and then used Caliburn to slice the axe in two, the giant was left to attack with its bare hands. It tried to strike him with it's massive hands, but the former counter guardian effortlessly side stepped out of it's way, he tried it 2 more times and it was met with the same results. This enraged the titan and instead it tried to grab Emiya, but he simply raised his sword, Caliburn glowing in a glorious golden colour and slashed the giant's body. The golden blade effortlessly slice through the plate armour of the giant and inflicted a gaping red wound on it's torso, however it was not deep enough to deal any life threatening damage to the huge creature.
While Emiya was soloing the giant the others were also engaging their own colossal behemoths, Arthuria was doing arguably the best out of the group, her prana empowered strikes were actually pushing the giant despite her smaller size. She expertly cut apart the chains that were holding together the brute's armour and they hit the ground with a heavy sound. Now that the monster was vulnerable she just needed to hit it in a fatal point, she sent prana to her legs which accelerated her movements, she punctured the giant in the chest right where it's heart should be, then used another prana burst to drive her sword sideways to make it exit out of the giant inflicting more damage into it. The mammoth sized humanoid tried to reach her with its last breath, but it soon fell to its knees and died.
Bedivere was having no trouble evading and parrying the behemoth, but without a powerful sword like Caliburn or ability like prana burst, he couldn't penetrate their thick armour. He needed to do something else; he moved to a fallen soldier and picked up his spear into his other hand.
Swoosh
The giant tried to use this opportunity to crush his bones, Bedivere evaded the blow then used his newly found lance to pierce into the giant, it pierced it below the armpits where it was unarmoured then he pulled the spear back in a way that it would sever the tendons there, making him unable to use his right arm, now that he had this weapon he had longer reach and could reach the weak point of the Hulking man.
He evaded several more blows from it as it became noticeably clumsier after it was wounded, it was also bleeding all over the place and Bedivere suspected that it would bleed out in several minutes if left alone, but he wasn't in the mood to wait. He used the next time the giant tried attack him with it's hammer, it obviously missed, but this time Bedivere decided to jump on the arm of the giant then use that as a basis to make another jump, this put him in range that would allow him to pierce the giant's neck, he drove the spear into the said area with all of his strength, he safely landed on his feet and the giant soon collapsed afterwards.
Kay was also doing well, him being on horse had given him the reach and the mobility to easily injure the giant as well as evade it's blows, his new sword was also capable of cutting apart their armour, however he was in a worse situation than the other due to the fact that he was fighting 3 giants at the same time instead of 1, nonetheless he was still winning despite the odds stacked against him, with 2 of the giants already heavily injured.
Emiya finished his first giant by this time and moved on to the next one, of course there were still several left, some took the bait and attacked the 4 of them and some were smarter and went in to rampage through the ranks of soldiers, but even they were losing since the coordination and teamwork of the soldiers of Cornwall managed to bring several of them to their knees and some were already stabbed to death be it with spears or swords.
"All of them are so strong, look at them go against those monsters!" said a soldier in a group that was not occupied with the giants.
"Yeah, I heard rumours about our king, but seeing it first hand is a whole different matter."
„▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅" Their conversation was disturbed when one of the chimeras started wiggling and made an otherworldly sound as several tentacles and green goo came out from its body.
„The hell, it's still alive, isn't it?" the man stepped towards the creature and punctured it with his spear, but when he tried to pull it out he noticed that he couldn't, and instead he was pulled into the creature's squirming body when green tentacles emerged from it and grabbed hold of his spear. He was immediately absorbed by the chimera and soon from the mess of body parts 2 smaller chimeras emerged.
"TO ARMS!" shouted someone as all the chimeras that were previously slashed apart had finished regenerating and divided into 2 or more parts.
"Go back to hell you monsters!" several soldiers tried to damage a large chimera, but the wounds they inflicted on it were meaningless.
„▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅" Roared the chimera as its eyes were glowing with a bloodthirsty colour, it flexed it's body and several tentacles erupted from it's body, these tentacles were very sharp and sturdy so they easily went through the armours of the soldiers and stuck into them.
"Ghaaha" one of them let out a pained sound as he realized that the tentacle pierced him in the heart, no matter what happened he would die, in a last attempt of revenge he threw his sword at the beast and it successfully pierced it in the skull, but the damage was so trivial to the chimera that it didn't even react to it. The man faded as he died with feelings of regret of unable to save himself or his comrades.
Others who were hit in more 'lucky' areas tried to pull the tentacles out, but they couldn't as it firmly embedded itself in their bodies, so next they tried to cut the tentacle itself with their swords, but soon the horrifying realization dawned on them that their weapons couldn't damage whatever material the tentacle was made out of.
They were suddenly overcome with a feeling of haziness as they felt something leaving their body, they looked down at the tentacle in unison and grimly noted that the green appendage was now getting more and more red, 'That bastard creature is draining our blood.' they thought in unison.
One of them who only had his arm pierced had made the choice to cut off his limb instead, so he brought down his sword, but it wasn't enough to cut it off, he brought it down for a second time and his arm separated from his body. He groaned in pain for a minute before holding his stump with his other hand to prevent bleeding out. He watched as more and more blood left his companions and soon they became nothing more than withered up corpses that had every fluid in them drained, he knew that would have happened to him as well if he didn't sacrifice his arm.
After the blood entered the chimera all of its wounds immediately regenerated and it grew slightly larger. The other chimeras were also quickly wreaking havoc against the troops; unlike the giants normal men stood no chance against these magic made monstrosities. To make matters worse Medea has grown tired of that little fire that was blocking her way so she promptly extinguished it with a wind spell. This naturally allowed the pagan infantry to resume their charge once more.
Emiya cursed himself, he should have known that the chimeras would have a trait like that, after all he hunted several of them even in his life as chimeras are the only phantasmal creatures that managed to survive the age of the gods and still exist in the modern world, usually in the far reaches of the earth where no human goes. Despite that they were still one of the more frequent cases where the normal world collided with the world of magic, and during that times the magus association and the church would work together to keep them a secret from the populace, many times executors are called in to eliminate the creatures that would prove to be harmful for the secrecy of magic. Even he himself has taken up several jobs to eliminate them as they were really dangerous for normal humans.
Which is why he should have expected something like this, Chimeras always possessed varying traits and special abilities due to different breeds and different mages creating them, he should have prepared for a situation where they have regeneration abilities, but he didn't and now his men paid the price for it as they kept getting slaughtered by the beasts.
The situation was extremely bad for them and he needed to think of something fast, there were 3 immediate concerns at the moment, the giants, the chimeras and the incoming army. The soldiers are clearly unable to deal with the chimeras, so that would mean either he himself, Saber, Kay or Bedivere would need to help them, the problem with that is that all of them were busy fighting with the giant and they would be sure to cause as much damage within the ranks as the chimeras if they left them alone.
That means they would need to deal with the giants first in order to free themselves up and allow them to assist elsewhere. He sighed, he wanted to reserve his prana in case he got into a fight with Assassin or Medea as he was already low on reserves from tracing several broken phantasms, but looks he there is no other choice.
"Trace on!" he loaded 17 swords, and set them into position.
Dang Dang Dang
He fired out the swords, and they flew towards the giants with the speed of sound, they didn't even see it coming, with the speed that the swords were going they had no problems penetrating the armour and their lives ended almost immediately. Saber, Kay and Bedivere watched in surprise as their opponents were quickly taken out.
'Now the giants have been dealt with, we need to focus on the chimeras and the pagan infantry.' his mind was already comparing the various possibilities and what results they would bring. ' I would be able to permanently disable the chimeras, but then the infantry would overwhelm us as many of our troops are still preoccupied with the giants that charged into their lines and the chimeras broke any semblance of order that was in the ranks. Which means the incoming enemy must be held back until we are defendable, and only I can do that, but then who would deal with the chimeras? Kay certainly would be able to with that new sword of his and I could just give a noble phantasm to Saber and Bedivere that would even out the odds.'
Not even one second has passed as he thought over all this, he traced 2 copies of Gae Budhie and threw the Yellow lances at Saber and Bedivere, and they caught it without hesitation. "Use that spear to kill those creatures…" he pointed towards the chimeras "…it should sever and destroy whatever magic is keeping them together." he said before turning towards the pagan menace.
"Shirou, where do you think you are going!?" Arthuria asked, worried for her king
"Somebody has to stall the army." he added
"You can't, it's too dangerous! Not even you can hold back an entire army."
"Watch me." he said cockily as he made a dash towards the enemy.
"Steel is my body…"
"…and fire is my blood."
…
The pagan troops watched horrified as the King of Cornwall suddenly made his way towards them like some sort of suicidal maniac. And what was surreal about this situation is that this suicidal maniac was making them scared shittles in their pants. It probably had to do with that murderous intent he was leaking or the fact that he was coming towards them at a hypersonic speed and had a large golden blade, ready to strike and draw blood.
Then the red man collided with the army and immediately struck with Caliburn in a horizontal angle, due to the speed he came and the reinforced strength, the blow ended the miserable lives of a dozen pagans who were in the front row and sent several more men flying away to their deaths. He didn't bother to stop with this, he resumed his sprint and went into the heart of the army, he was way too fast for the enemy to hit him or even react in time, he made sure to cut down as many of them as possible while continuing this rampage.
A limb
An arm
Sometimes even a head
They all fell and scattered across the battlefield, he didn't even look who he was striking, he was just focusing on surviving and dealing as much damage as possible. So he ignored the cries of anguish as he dodged another blow that was aimed at him, then another and another. He felt some arrows pierce his shoulders, but he paid it no mind, when the next time he looked there it was already healed, courtesy of Caliburn.
"Ατλας!" rang out a word that made him freeze, literally. Several swords and spears pierced his body and clubs and maces bruised his skin as he was left unable to move. He knew what was happening as he experienced this before, the spell Atlas a powerful magic that is capable of freezing even servants in place by altering the pressure in the atmosphere. This could only mean one thing….Medea.
He looked up into the sky, and indeed there floated the Witch of Betrayal with a triumphant expression on her face.
"Well if it isn't Archer, so you were the reason this little county has been such a thorn in my side." she concluded
'Great she seems to recognize me, that must mean that she was probably sent here after we met and exchanged blows, which sadly means I'm more limited to surprising her now.'
"Meia's death, how this tiny army repelled my first assault and that firework earlier, everything is clear now, it has all been your doing…." a hateful scowl crossed her face as she looked at Archer
"I would gladly torture you for the things you have done to me, but alas I do not have the time or the leisure, so I shall remove you from this game, right now." Strange coloured markings appeared beneath her cape and large orbs of light started gathering beneath it. Emiya knew that even a servant would get vaporized if hit by that attack, yet in the face of that impending doom he looked calm as ever, like he expected this to happen.
Medea released the ray of light and it impacted with something….
….but that thing was no Emiya. There stood Merlin who summoned up a magical shield and protected his liege from harm.
"I'm afraid I can't let you interfere with my king, so I came to have an old fashioned wizard duel."
Emiya quickly made use of the opportunity given by Merlin and released a large amounts of prana from his body, that was the only way to counter the effects of Atlas, the surge of prana knocked away the pagans and the weapons that pierced him. He quickly dashed away and continued his slaughter on the pagans, Caliburn already healing the wounds he took.
…..
Slash
The yellow rose of mortality came for the chimera's life, it couldn't dodge the blow so the beast raised its right arm to block the blow, and it went through it like a knife would go through butter and severed it. The creature looked confused at its arm seeing as it didn't start regenerating; it gave off an annoying growl then rushed at Arthuria, who simply stabbed Gae Buidhe in the chimera's chest as a response. It pierced its heart and blood started coming out from the wound, needless to say the heart didn't regenerate as well. It confused the beast to no end as this was probably the first time that it felt the emotion known as fear, a simple and potent fear of death. Arthuria didn't bother to pity the magical creature and finished it off with her next strike by impaling it in the skull.
She pulled out the spear from the corpse and looked at it; she stroked the runes that were engraved into it. She knew that it was a magical weapon from the moment Shirou had given it to her, as it radiated a sort of mystical aura, but it became way clearer when she actually used it in combat, all the strength of the creature was meaningless against it; it was a fearsome weapon that could kill monsters. She stopped thinking about useless things and went towards the next chimera, they have slain quite a few of them already but they were still a lot of them left.
Kay cursed under his breath as he dodged a swipe from his chimera opponent "That idiot of king forgot to give me a spear." he dodged a strike that came not from hands of the beast, but from its large tail that resembled that of a scorpions. 'Besides why am I fighting the only one that has a goddamn tail of all things? Well whatever, if he didn't give me a spear then I will just have to improvise.'
He channelled his power into the sword and instead of starting the glow from the heat as usual the sword simply lit aflame. 'So this is what Merlin meant by amplifying my power, huh?' he moved his horse forward and raised his sword to strike, he got near the creature, which once again attempted to knock him off with it's tail, he cut the tail in two and a green goo like substance started flowing out from the wound.
'Doesn't seem to be regenerating.' he thought to himself, he moved his horse once again and struck at the beast once more, it failed to fully connect, but it managed to take of the chimera's ear and lit aflame it's beast-like fur.
As a result of this he was now struck with fighting against a 3 meter tall flaming chimera, which was a pretty terrifying sight mind you.
…..
…Several powerful light rays were shot against Merlin; he didn't even bother to move and simply raised his hand.
"Faek Zhydd" an invisible magical shield came out and surrounded him; all the shots that Medea launched at him were nullified. He brought up two of his hands and smiled "My turn now, Orekufy!"
At the power of his words a large fireball was launched towards Medea, it glowed with an intense heat as it was about to devour the witch, but she merely flew aside, however the fireball was not done, it exploded and several smaller fireballs came out of it, all of them flying towards the former Servant. She didn't dodge this time and instead just muttered a word "Μαρδοξ!" and a barrier formed around her that shielded her both from the blast and the flame.
She hovered a little farther from Merlin and raised her staff as she spoke to him "It is certainly unusual to meet a demonic language even in this age. But demonic words are still no match for my divine words, Αερο!" She released another mystery just by speaking, this time it was a spell that manipulates the wind and turns them into sickles, they flew towards Merlin with a frightening speed.
The wizard raised his hand once more "Faek Zhydd" and erected the shield once more, but his eyes shot up in surprise as they went through it and bit in to his skin, he put up his arms to shield the vital areas from harm, his hand as lacerated by many wounds now thanks to this.
"I see, since that spell merely manipulates the wind itself, an element of nature a shield against spells won't work against it."
"Indeed, so what are you going to do, half demon." she said out the last words with a spiteful tone
"So you have figured my little heritage out, eh? In that case I won't need to hold back against you!" to this he threw off his robe, revealing his body that was a little too muscular for a magus, many black tattoos appeared on it with strange symbols and runes, and his eyes now glowed with a golden colour, all of his wounds received from Medea's previous attack started to close.
…..
The red reaper that has taken so many pagan lives in this battle launched once again….
….but was interrupted by a purple-blue lightning that met his golden blade with his overly long katana.
"Assassin, huh? I was wondering when you would show up." he said while their blades were still locked with each other
"Yeah, I have come to take your head, Archer. If you could defeat Meia then you shall prove to be a most entertaining opponent."
Both of them jump back to get some distance, Emiya puts Caliburn on his back "Trace on!" and traces Kanshou and Bakuya into his hands. The pagan troops knew better and decided to leave the men alone to their fight and marched towards the Cornwall army instead.
A gust of wind was created as the 2 men darted at each other; Archer tried to get in close to get a hit on him with his twin swords….
…but was stopped as the blue samurai did not permit his entrance, since he was wielding a longer weapon it was more advantageous for him to keep the distance, he would be a fool to give it up.
Assassin launched several blindingly fast strikes at him, Emiya only swung his sword at this, it was swung for the purpose of defence, to deflect his strikes. The blue haired man didn't let up and kept aiming at the red archer, his strikes were aimed at the forehead, the throat and the heart, all of them were meant to kill.
Emiya is pushed back with each strike, but successfully manages to block all of them, but he couldn't afford to go on the offensive as Sasaki approached with another set of combos. He dodged a strike aimed at his head and used this opportunity to close in on Assassin, but it was a pointless move as before he could do anything, his katana was swung sideways and he was forced to deflect it with Kanshou and Bakuya, both of them were shattered from this blow, but that was no problem as he just traced another pair.
The sound of metal hitting metal sounds out as Archer is pushed back even further, his arms felt heavy from having to deflect all these blows. Another group of hits came at him and he raised his arms once more.
"Guh-!" he groaned as the speed and frequency of strikes have increased and he was forced to react to them even faster. His attacks leave no room for openings or any weak spots, so the red man is forced to parry, deflect or evade all of them; those were his only possible moves at the moment. Another swing comes and it hits Kanshou, shattering it, he used this moment to jump back a little and finally put some space between the two of them, as he immediately retraced the black sword.
Assassin didn't let him rest or do anything as he continued his furious attacks, his strength and speed only increased even further. His blade was creating many beautiful arcs as he swung it with his godlike skill. Emiya had no way to fight back against it so he only kept retreating. He knew that he had no chance at defeating him in melee combat, after all Sasaki was a swordsman that was above even Saber in terms of pure skill.
'To defeat him I would need to use one of my noble phantasm…' he briefly gazed down at his Chinese falchions 'or that technique would as well, but I still have a third option left, let's wait a little longer and see if she comes.'
His swords shattered on more time as he thought this, he of course promptly retraced it and blocked the coming blows.
…..
Meanwhile on the other side of the battle field they all but finished exterminating the chimeras; all their toughness was useless against their weapon so they didn't pose as much threat as they were created to do so. The creatures were slain so quickly largely thanks to the fact that Kay could quickly move between the areas and assist the others in slaying the beasts due to the fact that he was on horse.
A harsh sounding battle cry rang out as the pagan infantry finally reached the Cornwall army, their numbers were drastically dwindled and many of them were wounded but their morale was still high being the fanatics they were.
A single thought ran across all of their minds 'If the pagan army is here, then did that mean the king lost?' they quickly ignored the thought as they didn't have the leisure to think on it in face of the approaching infidels.
Arthuria immediately wanted to go and see if Shirou is all right, but was stopped when Bedivere grabber her hand. "Let me go, Shirou might be-"
"He might be dead or might be not, we can't know for certain, what we do know is that we cannot abandon our positions, besides do you really think he would die that easily?" said Bedivere before she could finish her sentence.
"But even then!..." she wanted to argue more, but then her eyes came across another battalion of pagans coming from a different location. "Looks like we really can't leave this position alone." she said dejectedly as she began to move towards them.
"Wait, where do you think you are going now?"
"If Shirou can do it, then I should be able to do it as well, I will buy us some time." she said confidently as she darted away.
"Arthur…." he was about to growl something, but decided to follow her instead
'He is fast; I can hardly keep up with him.' Bedivere thought as they were reaching the enemy
Just 5 meters before reaching her target, Saber released a huge amount of prana to her feet and then stepped with such a force that it left cracks in the ground, the pagans could do nothing but watch dumbfounded as an accelerated Arthuria slammed into them with such force that it instantly killed many of them and broke the wooden handle of their spears. She continued for a while, before she twirled Gae Buidhe and slashed in a wide circle, cutting and dismembering anyone that was around her while still moving, she looked like a whirlwind of death. When she finally stopped on her feet there were at least a hundred corpses from where she entered to her current position, looking at the damage enemy as well she could say that she has done a lot of damage.
Bedivere only just caught up as he watched the ridiculous display of power with his mouth fallen agape.
…..
The pagan army was in a bad shape, the Cornwall army was successfully pushing them back and were losing quite a lot of their numbers, this had to do with the fact that the whole battalion was injured and the command structure was gone due to the fact that most of the chieftains were killed by Emiya. The soldiers of Emiya lost a few lives against them, but not as much as they would have suffered if he didn't stall them.
They were also disadvantageous in the fact that they were only infantry, so the armoured horsemen easily crushed and trampled over them. Kay was among them as he didn't leave with Arthuria and Bedivere, he was terrifying the pagans with his flaming sword, setting them on fire and making them scream as their flesh burned.
Amongst all this chaos a single shadow was moving, unseen by everyone it moved from one shadow to the next. Sometimes it stopped and observed a duel or two, sometimes it decided to directly interfere, like now.
A young looking knight was desperately trying to hold back a 2 meter tall pagan who was trying to crush him with his battle mace; the knight was barely holding back the man from crushing with his sword as it grinded against the thick wooden handle of his mace.
'He is quite good looking, so I guess his lift might be worth sparing~' she thought to herself, and made a simple shadow spike appear that impaled the large man in the heart. The knight suddenly fell to his butt as every force that was pressed on him was suddenly removed; he looked around confused wondering as to what happen.
'Fufu, I' am a merciful god~' the shadow mused to herself as it continued it's creeping.
As it noticed a streak of Red and Purple, she knew that she had reached her target, 'Now to get in position'. …
...
Emiya suddenly felt a presence enter the area where he and Sasaki were fighting, it was faint but it was definitely there, so Emiya knew that she had finally arrived and he wouldn't have to waste prana projecting a noble phantasm, the only reason he noticed her presence was because he was waiting for her, so he doubted that Assassin noticed anything.
He dodged and parried several more blows until the invisible shadow got right behind Sasaki. He knew that she was about to strike him, because that idiot made a fatal mistake, she emitted a malicious aura that even a completely oblivious and ordinary human would have felt. 'Goddamit woman, learn to mask your killing intent!' he cursed inside his mind, there was no doubt that Sasaki has noticed it with his A ranked Eye of the Mind skill.
Minasaki emerged from the shadow of Assassin in a striking position that allowed all pairs of her wings to be shot out if needed "Surprise~!", but Assassin was already turned back, swinging his Katana in a wide arc while doing so as he sensed her coming.
'Well, whatever we will just have to use this opportunity.' Assassin had briefly turned his back on him so he went to charge right towards him, but he didn't think he would be able to stop his strike from hitting Minasaki, so he was hoping that she would be able to defend somehow.
The katana was about to reach her, but she put her wings before it, Emiya didn't think it would help as those wings would most likely be cut through by the sword, but to his surprise a clang rang out as the wings blocked his blade. 'Hoh, looks like I misjudged the properties of those things.' the wing shifted and coiled and it grabbed a firm hold of his sword making him unable to pull it back, she shot a dark energy sting from her remaining wings that weren't occupied.
The twin swords were coming….
…and so were the wings of darkness….
…the blue haired samurai had no way of dodging everything…
…he was sure to receive an injury from this exchange.
The samurai didn't even attempt to evade the coming blows, the 2 Chinese blades sunk deep into his back, piercing his heart and lung in the process, while Minasaki 4 shadowy appendages penetrated him in various points of his chest. "Fufu, how do you like it when I plunge deep inside you?"
Emiya internally facepalmed from the inappropriateness of the comment
"I guess this is a fitting end for a samurai who let his friend die…gah." he coughed and blood started flowing from his mouth 'Is he referring to Meia?' Emiya thought "But if I have to die here….." he suddenly regained momentum and kicked Minasaki off her feet, released hold of his blades and turned around his trademark position, holding his 150 cm long blade in a horizontal stand "…. then I will take your life with me, Archer!"
"Secret Technique: Tsubame Gaeshi!" came Assassins sure kill technique that would take his head, 3 beautiful and wide arcs coexisted momentarily at the same time for the sole purpose of killing him.
Emiya knew that he didn't have enough time to jump back or evade, he didn't have enough time for any of his stronger projections, so he just summoned the swords that he was most compatible with and put before his neck where Sasaki strike was aimed at.
Clang Clang
Metal hits metal once more, but the Chinese short swords couldn't withhold the power of this attack.
Crack Crack
Both of them were broken apart, and dissipated into tiny particles of prana.
'This is bad!' Emiya thought as the 3 strikes were still coming at his neck.
'My body is made out of blades.'
Slash Cut Cut
The flesh is cut and a crimson nectar starts seeping out from the neck of the Red King, his tall body crumbles to the ground as he quickly loses his consciousness, the sword that lay on his back also cracked once more.
….
In the air Medea and Merlin continued their battle of spells, Medea shot another array of scatter beams while Merlin decided to shoot a lightning bolt towards her, both of their spell shields absorbed each others blow.
Caster suddenly felt a pain in her right hand, she looked down on it and saw her red command spells disappear that were present despite them not being servants anymore, it could only men one thing, Assassin lost. She turned to the location where he was previously fighting with Archer and he noticed his dead body on the ground, it was no surprise that he lost to one of the 3 knight class servants as he was just a mere Assassin, but what was shocking that he still managed to take down Archer with him despite that…..
Suddenly Archer's chest starts steadily moving as he resumed breathing once more.
….'No he was just injured, I need to finish him off myself.' She concentrated and then sent a telepathic order to all of her familiars that she previously hidden in reserve in case she needed them for this battle.
'Now let's see, should I just send all of them to Archer? No….I shall punish those annoying knights who dared to slay my chimeras as well.' she finished sending the order and came to her senses as a large boulder that Merlin lifted with his magic was now flying towards her.
"Tροψα!" She safely teleported out of it's way
Clap Clap Clap
She heard the sound of an amused Merlin hitting his hands together "Impressive, I didn't think you would be capable of a spell like that. "
"I can assure you that you will be in for plenty of surprises if you underestimate me, Αερο!" she sent the wind sickles towards him again.
"Lyhyd Balpy!"
"It's no use sorcerer, I already told you that you cannot shield against them….kuh!" her sentence was interrupted as something slashed her stomach open as her own wind sickle entered her, several more were coming, but she managed to dodge those.
"I may not be able to defend against them, but that doesn't mean that I can't redirect them."
"Bastard…" she put her hands to her wound and started the healing spell, in a few seconds it was completely fixed. As long as she isn't fatally injured she would be able to heal herself.
…
Minasaki was looking at Sasaki's corpse "Hmm, looks like he is finally dead, I was surprised that he was able to move after that." she moved her wings towards his head and stabbed one of her appendages into it "Well just in case, I don't want any more surprises today."
She walked over to Emiya's body and looked down at his gradually healing neck, the samurai failed to sever it completely because of one thing, the inside of his neck was filled with steel, swords to be precise, that were now knitting themselves together in order to repair the damage. She watched the process with a fascinated face. "I think I'm staring to like you more and more, darling kuhuhu." she said it out loud as she poked his cheeks.
Hustle Hustle
The sound of the grass being disturbed and running was heard by Minasaki.
"My my, they don't even attempt to be subtle these days." she said as she turned around and slashed her wings at whoever was coming behind her. She felt her wings sinking into the target and she knew that she had hit the target.
Hush
This is why she was surprised when a kick came to her and knocked her away, making her stumble awkwardly when she tried to get up, she had a fair amount of trouble as her body outside of her wings was rather delicate and wasn't really used to pain. "Itata, that hurt." her eyes widened as she seen a fist coming to finish the job with a frightening momentum. She barely managed to dodge it by sliding sideways; the fist impacted with the ground and shattered it in a few meter radius.
She raised her head and could finally take in the appearance of her assailant, it was a large man wearing nothing but a leather pants, his muscle and veins were bulging and his skin colour was noticeably red, his eyes though it was devoid of emotion or thought, like it was just some kind of puppet. It dumbly gazed at its hand that was pulverized in the previous blow, the bones and flesh could be seen on it, it was in a bad shape, but soon the bones realigned themselves and the skin had regrew on its hand.
"Regeneration huh…" she moved her vision to his stomach where she was sure that her attack connected, but there was no visible evidence to any injury "…so that's how survived it, what an annoying opponent."
He flexed it a few times before deciding he was good to go. He turned towards her and Minasaki was startled from the haste it took off.
Minasaki didn't make any attempt to dodge or block the blow, she simply disappeared into her own shadow, and instantly reappeared within the magic infused man's shadow, the dumb oaf didn't even realize that she was behind him.
"Regenerate this!" she said as her shadow wings cut of his head, then cut that head into even more tiny particles while it was still in the air. She also carved out his heart just for good measure and mercilessly crushed it while it was still beating. No, even this wouldn't be enough, if their regeneration was anything like the chimera then she would need to do way more damage than this, she thought.
She tore off a piece of her wing, and threw it above the man.
She then concentrated her power and smashed the shadow from above and the man's own shadow together, the body couldn't withstand the pressure it was forced to bear and it made many sickening noises as the bones shattered and the body became nothing more than a human paste. She continued the pressure for a few more seconds before releasing the hold on it, nothing humane was recognizable from the original body anymore, and it seemed that it couldn't regenerate anymore.
"Mission accomplished!" she dusted off her hands as she turned around…. only to notice several more of these man-chimera staring right at her, a quick count told her that there were 21 of them in total.
"Seriously? This is why I hate getting involved in fights…." They closed in on her, but all of them suddenly stopped and froze in their place like a puppet having its strings cut, from their shadows, beings of pure darkness had emerged they spread their wings of darkness and enveloped the men in their bodies. Their muffled screams could be heard as their life was sucked out of them, when the entities were done with their meal, they went back to their realm and left nothing but the very bones of their victims.
"I'm sorry, but this is what happens when you force my hand."
Condemned to the Invaders
This was her most powerful ability, although she wasn't even sure that she could call it her own, seeing how she didn't control the beings at all, she just merely invited them to a feast and they had accepted. She didn't know where the shadow entities came from or what the entities were themselves, she didn't really have a clear understanding of her own powers. But seeing how they don't leave anything but the bones after their work, she figured that it would be good as any counter to their regeneration.
She heard a coughing and she knew that Shirou had finished regenerating and woke up.
"What happened?" he asked while scratching his throat and noticing the large number of skeletal remains.
"Fufu nothing you need to worry about, some bad men just tried to hurt onii-chan while he was sleeping, so naturally eliminated them."
…..
Saber and Bedivere were facing off against a group of fifty pagans; the rest of them had long gone ahead and joined the main fight. Nobody charged from them and they seemed content to just keep them where they currently were, it seemed that their objective was to prevent further damage to the main troops so these 50 had sacrificed themselves for this goal. But they weren't going to let them do as they please.
She blasted off towards the wall of men that were trying to contain them, they tried to impale her by thrusting their spears forward, but she broke through just as easily as before, she made wide arc slash with her spear and a dozen of pagans fell dead, Bedivere similarly broke through on the other side although his kill count was considerably lower.
The remaining pagans steeled themselves, ready to sacrifice themselves, but it was not Arthuria or Bedivere that would be the end of them, it would be their own. A large shockwave was sent and all of them were sent flying as a massive man jumped into the fray, unbeknownst to both Bedivere and Arthuria this was a familiar to Medea that Minasaki had encountered on the other side of the battlefield.
"What in the gods name is that?" asked Bedivere as he watched the mans hand transform and shift, it grew larger and more thin, until it looked like a sword, a sword that seemed to be made out of bone and flesh.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅" the beast of a man charged towards Bedivere with an incredible speed, the knight was forced to block the charge with his spear, as he did so he was pushed back by several feet. The man-chimera didn't let up and delivered a kick with his oversized leg to the knight's stomach, sending him flying.
"Bedivere!" Arthuria shouted for her comrade she tried to go and help him, but her way was also blocked by a similarly large man, this one was wearing a goat head. His hand also started morphing, but it didn't grow longer, instead it got more bulkier and darker in colour, then bone spikes erupted from it, it became something like a mace.
"Move aside or I will cut you down!" she declared as she was already charging towards it, she moved her spear to slay the monster, but to her surprise it jumped out of her reach then shot several tentacles out of it's mouth, that were now coiling around her arms and neck. The man-chimera then leaped back to her with its fist raised, ready to pulverize Arthuria. She just barely managed in time to cut off the tentacles and evade the massive blow. The next second the beast impacted with the ground and shattered it.
The man seemed to have its mace-hand stuck in the ground as he tried to pull it out, she naturally made use of this opportunity and darted towards the man-chimera like a bullet being released. The chimera noticed this, and knew that he was unable to avoid damage, so it moved in a way that his stuck hand would be severed, losing him a limb and freeing him at the same time. The limb of course didn't regenerate thanks to the effects of Gae Buidhe.
Now that it was free it tried to grab her with its other remaining hand, unsuccessfully as Arthuria moved her hand and spear incredibly fast and cut it off as well, there weren't much options left for the man-chimera, but then more tentacles came out of it's stumps and they tried to grabbed hold of Arthuria once more.
She was getting visibly annoyed with the tenacity of the monsters, she surged prana from her whole body, making the air around her crackle and glow blue from the amount she was releasing, the shockwave created by this act pushed back the tentacles, then she released all this energy to her feet and moved through the beast in on move, cutting it in half.
"Now time to help Bedivere….Tch" she was about to go, but 3 more man-chimera were approaching her.
Meanwhile while Saber was fending of the 3 man-chimeras, Bedivere was struggling to try and get up, he was thrown away and when he landed he severely hit his head, and now his ears were ringing and he felt extremely dizzy.
"Cough….where….am…I?" his consciousness wasn't clear yet to the head trauma he suffered, he tried to move his body, but it didn't respond to him.
Stomp Stomp
He heard heavy footsteps incoming, but in his deluded state he didn't know what it was, nor could he move his head to locate the source of it. The footsteps got closer and soon he heard low growling noise as the monster found his corpse. He was now starting to have a vague idea what was happening, especially since a zapping pain was inflicted to him as the monster pulled him up by the hair, until he came face to face with the monster.
"Guh…." his cries of pain was all that was needed to signal the man-chimera that he was alive; it readied his sword-hand to cut him down for good.
'Shit, now I'm in trouble. I have to do something or I will be done in for good!' his thoughts were racing as he considered all his options.
His eyes looked for a weapon, he didn't have his sword or spear, his gaze went to the ground and noticed something yellow in the grass, he know that it was the spear, he most likely lost hold of it when he hit the ground, it was no good as it was out of his reach.
Arthur won't help him since he was most likely also ambushed, otherwise he would already be here considering how fast he is.
The beasts hand was coming closer in slow motion. He was close enough to poke the man's eyes out, but he wasn't certain if that would stop the blow from coming or if the monster even felt any pain, so he couldn't do that. He looked to his belt and noticed a small combat dagger there; he realized that was his only option. He quickly drew it out and then instantaneously moved it above to the hand that was holding him by the hair, and cut through the tendons and muscles, forcing him to let go of him.
The beast just barely missed cutting his head off as he fell to the ground, he quickly moved towards the grass and picked up the yellow spear and with the same movement he threw the spear towards the monster, striking it right through its head.
It momentarily fell to the ground, before it began to twitch and try to stand up once more. The man-chimera had no use of its brain as their personality and thoughts were completely wiped out, they were nothing but simple machines that would obey whatever order Medea has given them and carry them out to the best of their abilities.
Bedivere of course quickly caught wind of the creature moving so he went towards it and pulled the spear, then launched an array of blows to various vital part of his body, stopping any further movement from it.
At the end he was panting heavily from the experience before deciding to ignore the pain so he could go and help Arthuria.
Meanwhile in the epicentre of the battlefield where the 2 armies' main forces were fighting, Kay was standing proudly upon the corpses of 15 man-chimeras. He was resting his weight on his sword as he muttered "Is….that….all…you…got!?" The pagan troops were visibly too scared to even go near him, while his comrades cheered him for his might and bravery.
….
Medea looked with a growing frown on her face as all of her man-chimeras were annihilated; it annoyed her that not even one of her targets was eliminated especially not that damned Archer. These chimeras took even more preparation to make than the regular ones, but all of them were ended so easily. That girl instantly killed 20 of them through some strange summoning magic, and that horsed knight cut them down like butter.
Nothing was going her way today, and she was sad to admit that she was losing the battle on all fronts; she would need to bring in her trump card, but to do that she would need to incapacitate this annoying sorcerer. She thought as she dodged another spell from Merlin.
'Time for me to use that, it will put me at risk as well, but if it pays off then it will be worth it and turn the tides of this battle.'
She launched many beams of light towards Merlin.
"Fool, don't you learn? Such spells are meaningless against me, Faek Zhydd!" he raised his spell barrier once more
'You are the fool, that was merely a distraction and you've fallen right for It.' she thought as she let out a smile then uttered her next spell word. "Tροψα!" and she teleported, not herself but Merlin himself to be right in front of her. But she wasn't done with just this "Ατλας!" and froze Merlin in place, since this was a spell that was affecting the air pressure itself; Merlin had no way of negating it with his magic shield.
The wizard was confused by the combination of the sudden shift in his location and the even more sudden feeling of weight on his body, by the time he realized where he was, a vile dagger was already coming towards him, a jagged dagger that seemed to threaten his very existence and looked like it was sucking magic itself into it.
Thump Thump
He immediately knew that whatever magic lay in that blade was bad news for him, but he was unable to dodge, he moved his arm forward to minimize any possible damaging effect it has. To his surprise before it reached his arm he felt his spell shield dispelling, then he immediately knew what the Witch plan was, but was too late to do anything about it.
The blade bit into his arm next, but it didn't do anything else besides erase the black runes that covered his body and made him revert back into normal state. Her next move would be the match deciding one; his spell shield was disabled so she would be able to kill him if she charged him with another laser beam. But instead of that the witch used another spell, due to the fact that this one took less time to prepare and was almost instantaneous "Κεραινο!" a storm of lightning enveloped him and he felt the burning pain of deadly electricity enveloping all of his body, it lasted only for a few seconds, but it was enough to drain him of all of his power and severely damage him. He was unable to maintain his levitation and fell to the ground.
But he still managed to survive the fall due to his inhuman ancestry, but was unable to move even a muscle as he was forced to watch as the Witch of Colchis started chanting a massive spell; several great purple magic circles appeared near hear and started spinning. Whatever she was casting he knew that it was taking a ridiculous amount of prana and the air itself was glowing around her thanks to his.
She was chanting so fast that Merlin was unable to make out any of the coherent words, the power around her grew and an aura filled of ancient mystery gathered around her. Lightning was crackling all around her and blue orbs of prana started to converge into her location.
The magic circles were now spinning even faster, and glowed with the intense colour of twilight, Medea's own magical reserves were quickly draining to fuel this powerful spell. To Merlin who was observing from below now realized that this was a summoning spell, and whatever she was summoning it was going to be something terrifying, far more terrifying than the demon he had previously summoned, he was scared to think what it could be.
Zap Zap
The electricity surged around her and then she knew that the spell was ready, so she pulled out a small object from her robes and released its true name to increase the effect and power of the spell.
"ARGON COIN!"
And a massive cloud of lightning and storms came out of her magical circles, the summoning was complete, now it was time to sit back and await the results.
Merlin suddenly had a suspicion and activated his golden eyes, his eyes widened at the sight he saw inside the cloud. And he prayed to the gods….
….because against that thing that was lurking inside those clouds….
…they would need every blessing they can get.
….
Emiya looked as a massive storm could came out of the grand magic that Medea has performed, every part of his instincts and battle experience were screaming at him that whatever was inside it was definitely bad.
He reinforced his eyes to get a better idea on what lay inside it, but his gaze couldn't penetrate the layer of thick clouds, but he could tell that something big was hidden inside them. He could also feel an overwhelming amount of prana in them and the smell of electricity.
"Ne Shirou-san what's that?" asked Minasaki
"I don't know, but we will find out soon enough."
The clouds moved closer to the main battlefield where the 2 sides were battling, it was evident to everyone that the army of Cornwall was winning. They went for another charge to push back the pagans even further, but then a massive lightning bolt came from the cloud, and then another and another, the battlefield was ravaged by a massive barrage of lightning bolts, that spared no one, they vaporized and electrocuted pagan and christian alike. Emiya looked at the horrifying loss of life and one thought came to his mind.
"I have to do something." it was obvious that whatever was in the clouds were causing those unnatural lightning bolts to occur, so he should removed them as soon as possible.
"Eh, how are you going to do that, darling? It is just a cloud after all." asked a confused Minasaki
Emiya readied his bow and took aim "It isn't about the clouds Minasaki, it's about the thing that is resting inside it, I'm going to drive it out." he shot a few dozen red arrows into the clouds, they weren't noble phantasm or anything like that, but with them reinforced and the speed they were shot at they were still life threatening to most things. They entered the clouds and he knew that they must have hit as the form inside the clouds began shifting.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅"A booming and terrifying voice could be heard even from several kilometres away from the battlefield, it was a powerful and ancient roar that drew the attention of everyone within the battlefield, and nobody was able to ignore such a primordial presence. Within the stormy clouds a massive jet blue figure had emerged, making everyone's eyes who was watching widen with both fear and awe, there was no way that mortals wouldn't fear and wouldn't worship such a beast.
"Holy fuck….." was the only thing Emiya could say as he realized what the creature was that he has just shot.
It was a phantasmal beast.
No, not just any kind of phantasmal beast, it was the strongest kind of phantasmal beast.
"A goddamned dragon." he cursed under his breath.
"Well nice job drawing that out, darling. I think I shall be sitting this one out." Minasaki said as she disappeared into a shadow, Emiya was so out of it that he completely failed to register how blatantly he was abandoned by one of his supposed allies.
The dragon didn't ignore the fact that it was attacked by a mere mortal and raised its massive jaws that had at least a thousand blue teeth on it and started gathering its power.
'This is bad.' Dragons are creatures of pure magical phenomena; their very existence is mystery, incapable of existing in the modern world. They were the pinnacle of phantasmal beasts, the extensions of the world itself.
Emiya knew that what was coming was really bad; no one in their sane mind would willingly want to go against such a creature.
He raised his hand and channelled all of his power into it, due to him being already low on reserves this act caused great strain on him and he was forced to stabilize his arm with his other hand.
Dragons….
Breath attacks, their very lungs act like spiritual worlds themselves; they are capable of breathing out pure condensed prana which results in various mystical phenomena depending on the type of dragon and its age.
He gathered every knowledge he had on these mythical beasts; he would need all of them if he was to survive.
The type of dragon is identifiable by their size and colour, 'This one is a blue dragon of moderate size which means that it is a lightning dragon that is probably of the monstrous category according to the classification of phantasmal beasts, which is the weakest category. Good at least I'm not having bad enough luck to face off against a millennia old divine dragon.' he silently thanked whatever gods that were watching over him for this fact.
"I have created over a thousand blades." Emiya added another line of his area for increased effect and to help his concentration, he would need every advantage he could get against this monster.
A purple light was starting to gather in his palm, and the energy gathered inside the dragons mouth looked like it was reaching maximum capacity, the electricity was constantly discharging from it and the air was shivering from it.
The Dragon shot forward a massive lightning ball followed by an even bigger lightning beam, not even the greatest magus would be able to produce such a magnificent mystery, the lightning spell was just that amazing. Even the worlds top 100 mages gathered together wouldn't be able to come up with something even close to the power this thing has.
It would reach him in a mere second, but a mere second was all Emiya needed to activate his defences.
"Rho Aias!" The seven petals of fiery heavens came into existence and the moment it did so it immediately collided with the mass of prana.
As purple clashed with blue, they emitted so much energy that they painted the sky in their colours; everyone stopped their battles to watch this wonderful display. No human would be able to draw its eyes from such beautiful clash of raw powers.
Crack
A smashing sound was heard as the first petal was broken, pain immediately shot through his arm, but he had no choice but to bear with it, he could already feel the second petal breaking.
Each of these petals is supposed to be as strong and durable as a fortress wall, the fact that they were being so easily broken through was just a testament to the ancient power of this mighty beast.
Crack
The second petal broke as well, blood gashed from his arm, but he ignored it, he knew that Caliburn would heal it anyway.
Crack Crack
The third and the fourth broke as well, and the power of the energy ball didn't seem to be decreasing at all, it still continued to grind against his shield with all of its strength. On the other side of the shield he could see the ground becoming charred and ashen as the pure lightning storm evaporated everything that it could get its hands on.
Crack
Broke the fifth petal, the combination of the pain and the overuse of prana made him slump to his knees, but he still kept his hand up despite this.
Crack
Broke the sixth petal, it seemed to be losing in speed and power now and the ball was getting smaller, surely it would not break through the seventh petal, right? The orb of lightning spun some more, before becoming the size of a baseball ball, then disappearing completely. The seventh layer despite however cracked it has become has managed to hold its ground.
Emiya breathed a sigh of relief, and then suddenly felt a gush of wind and a deafening roar. He looked up and he had gazed into the abyss of death itself.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅" the dragon had decided to ram it's whole body into the shield, seeing that it's breath attack failed, Emiya could only curse as he tried to get his legs up, but he was only rewarded with a jolt of pain.
He knew that the seventh petal won't hold against the beast, it would slam into him and kill him.
He tried to think out of any possible way out of this, using his Eye of the Mind skill, but he couldn't figure out anything out.
Nothing that he would do would make it in time.
'Is this it?' the question rang arose in his mind as he seen the dragons maw approaching, he looked into it and he was an endless blue surge of prana inside it.
The dragon collided with the last petal, and it held it's ground for several seconds…..
Crack.
Yet even that was finally broken, Emiya had closed his eyes and momentarily resigned himself to his fate.
But then he suddenly felt something push his body away, and the next thing he knew was that he was on the ground….alive.
Someone had saved him by pushing him out of the way, but who could it be? He turned around to see the braided knight, Bedivere standing over him.
"Are you all right, my king?" he asked concerned for his well being.
Drip Drip
Emiya heard a sound that has frozen his soul
"Bedivere you….."
He looked towards his other side that he was frantically trying to hide.
Drip Drip
More blood fell and Emiya already realized what was happening. The place where Bedivere's hand used to be is nothing but a mere chunk of flesh now.
"…your hand." Yes, the dragon has taken his hand while he was trying to save Emiya. It was his fault and a wave of guilt came over him.
"I'm sorry, if only I would have been stronger, you wouldn't have-"
"Please do not be concerned with me; it is the duty of a knight to sacrifice himself for his liege when needed."
Yeah that's right, since he was a king now, it was only natural for his subordinates to die for him, right? Emiya hated to think like this, but he knew that's how things worked, the life of a soldier is not worth as much as the life of a king in this era. He was overcome with a slight amount of anger and gritted his teeth together.
Slap
He felt a sharp pain as Bedivere's remaining hand hit him in the cheek.
"Get yourself together, if you died here none of us would be able to kill that thing, saving you was the best possible choice to also save all of us!" he said while gesturing towards the dragon in the skies who has now resumed sending lightning bolts towards the armies.
Bedivere was right and he knew it. To save his people he would need to kill that dragon, if he didn't thousands would die and even more once the pagan armies marched into his country.
Killing a dragon was a common feat amongst the Knights of the Round Table, so how hard could it be to kill one?
Dragon is in the air, flying too fast to hit it with regular arrows.
'I would need something that is capable of hitting despite these conditions.'
Hrunting, the black blade of Beowulf came to his mind, but he quickly discarded it.
The dragon is a pure magical being, Hrunting would be unable to cause harm to it due to its nature.
Static
The memory of him fending off the cursed spear of Lancer came to him and so he knew his answer.
He stood up and raised both of his hands as if he were holding an invisible spear
"Trace on!" He began to recreate the spear through each of the steps, but he was constantly zapped from his circuits, they couldn't tolerate their overuse for much longer.
"Unknown to death…"
"…Nor known to life." With the help of his aria his mind became clear enough to focus at the projection he was working on.
In the next second the red spear appeared in his hands.
"The cursed spear of Cú Chullain? Don't tell me you intend to shoot it down using it!?" Of course Bedivere was aware that in the legends of the legendary spearmen he had annihilated entire armies with a single throw of his spear, but he doubted that his liege came close in power to the Hound of Ulster.
He held the spear for a second, releasing even more prana into it, and then he jumped into the air, imitating the blue knight. He got into throwing position; the cursed lance was now shaking and glowing with energy, waiting to be unleashed on its prey.
"Gae Bolg: Soaring Spear that Strikes with Death!" He threw the mighty spear and thus activated its true function as a weapon.
It flew twice as fast as the speed of sound; soon it became a red beam of menacing energy, heading relentlessly towards the dragon. The dragon sensed the imminent threat and barely managed to dodge it by twisting its body out of the way.
'Gae Bolg in its true function does not posses the 'always strike the heart' property, but that is not needed…..'
The spear that was supposed to be dodged turned around and impacted the dragon on its back, already trying to weave its way through its heavy defences.
'…as this spear will always surely strike its target.' Yes, this was the reason Emiya had chosen this weapon, it was similarly unavoidable to Hrunting, but even more powerful and capable of breaking its powerful protection.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅" the dragon cried out from having its back forcefully drilled through by a noble phantasm. The dragon of Colchis while still powerful among phantasmal beast, it was nothing compared to other dragons appearing in myths and legends. And surely its mysteries and concepts were of no match against the legendary spear whose tales told its power for 2 millennia. It was a simple battle between concepts, and the concept of Gae Bolg was much stronger than the dragon's.
Crack
The dragon's natural hide cracked apart, not being able to withstand the weight and power of Gae Bolg and the spear forcefully broke through it, piercing its flesh, upon entering into its massive body, it split into 30 red barbed wires and those 30 barbed wires split into another 30, this process was repeated until the whole dragons body was being impaled by thorns that were coming from Gae Bolg. The thorns moved and infected its whole body, piercing and damaging most of it's organs, even if the dragon survived this battle it would still die in a few hours because of the internal damage it has received.
The main part of the spear was still pushing the dragon down, and soon it wasn't able to stay on the sky anymore, and it impacted the battlefield, sending several soldiers flying to their death.
Not enough
Yes, it was not enough; the dragon was still able to move and would fly back into the sky if something was not done. He really doubted that he would have the reserves to project and use another Gae Bolg.
'I need to do something.'
Dragon Slaying weapons
Gram and Arondight are not usable; insufficient prana
That leaves only one possible weapon….
He began to trace once more, all 27 of his circuits rejecting the order, multiple waves of pain assaulted him because of this, and his circuits were signalling that they couldn't take the abuse for much longer. He had no choice but to continue his projection regardless, if everything goes well this would be his last for the battle.
Static Static
"Have withstood pain….to create many weapons." His circuits gave him a shock one last time, before resigning themselves and completing the unreasonable order.
A silver-grey two handed sword came into existence.
He didn't waste any time and just rushed towards the dragon, that was still recovering from its fall. It was the perfect chance to do what he was about to do.
The red knight moved and brandished the great sword against the right wing of the dragon, most normal weapons would break trying to damage the dragon's thick scales, but this sword was different as it cut off the base of its wing like it was nothing more than fragile wood.
This was the passive effect of Balmung, sword of the hero Siegfried who used it to kill the evil dragon Fafnir, due to this deed, the sword was granted dragon slaying properties, which greatly increased its damage against those of the dragon kind.
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅" Unsurprisingly the lightning dragon let out another cry, as this sword was like poison to its existence. It tried to crush the offending knight with its front limbs; Emiya was still capable enough to dodge these attacks, however massive they were.
It didn't matter what it tried to do anymore, Emiya had accomplished his goals and removed its flying capability, now the beast was ready for the slaying.
….
Several minutes before the dragon was cast to the ground.
Merlin was regaining some of his muscle movements, his natural healing abilities, taking care most of the life threatening damages, but that of course didn't mean that he wasn't in a shitload of pain at the moment.
He knew what the thing the witch had summoned was, and he realized how much trouble it will be to slay it. If the witch herself attacks them as well, then the Cornwall army will be most certainly doomed. So Merlin wasn't given the leisure to just continue lying and wait for the battle to be over. He had to do something about that witch, however hard it would be in his battered state.
He raised his hand and gathered power into it. "Cofkufy!" a lightning bolt that was weaker than his usual left his hand and shot towards Medea, it was deflected by the barrier which she still had on. But that didn't matter as the purpose of this attack wasn't to damage her, but to draw her attention towards him.
She turned around and floated closer to him, "Oh my I didn't think that you would be still alive and conscious after that. Well whatever, if you were smart enough to just keep laying there you would have survived this battle. But now I have no other choice than to finish you off." Her cloak opened and beneath it many orbs of light had gathered, all of them were brimming with energy.
'Heh, fell right for it.' the witch didn't know that she was playing right into Merlin's hand.
The spell was released and all of them went to end the wizard's life.
Just before they collided with him, the wizard muttered one more spell word.
"Zhydd Kloef!"
Dust and other rubbles filled up the area where the wizard rested just a second ago. Medea turned around thinking that she had finished off the annoying man. But she was wrong as she soon found out when a sword went through her back and made its exit through her stomach. She didn't need to turn around to know who it was, Merlin somehow survived her attack.
She quickly teleported away from him before she would receive another blow. The witch was now able to take in the form of the man, and she noted that all of his previous injuries have been somehow healed, the tattoos were also back, but now they were no longer black and instead were glowing with a blue light.
"How did you…"
"Quite simple, I formed a spell draining aura around myself that breaks down any spell it comes into contact with into raw prana, and then I used that raw prana to completely heal myself. You have nothing to blame, but your foolish desire to finish me off so badly. "
"Hmph, it changes nothing you are still no match for me and your comrades will be devoured by my dragon." She said while gesturing towards the blue beast that was now raining lightning bolts all over the place.
"I wouldn't be so sure, after all I' am now aware of the most efficient way to deal with you. That shield of yours doesn't defend against physical attacks at all, even if it can block the most powerful sorceries; it is meaningless if I can break through it with a mere sword strike."
"And you would really result to such methods? You disgust me." The concept that a mage would stain their hands to do something was beneath her.
"Naturally, after all in the end what matters is who wins and who loses, it doesn't matter what methods you use to achieve victory as long as you succeed."
"Solinomo!"(Attack power up)
"Zininomo!"(Agility up)
"Loninomo!"(Defense up)
Merlin muttered 3 magical worlds that raised his physical stats and hefted his sword and launched towards Medea.
"Fool do you really think that a brash method like that will work against me? Ατλ-gha!" It would have been easy to deal with someone closing in on her by simply using Atlas, but she had made the mistake to look into the wizards golden eyes, and when she did so she felt a wave of pain assaulting her brain and her hands started shaking. 'Magical paralysis?'
She was confused, eye effects like that shouldn't affect her as they would normally be taken care of by natural magical resistances. Unless…..
…..Unless they were mystic eyes. She didn't have the leisure to calmly analyze the situation as Merlin was already right in front of her and made a sword slash. Medea released a large amount of prana from her body to counter the paralysis effects and flew backwards to avoid the blow, but it was done too late and the sword bit off a piece from her shoulder.
She cringed from the pain, before teleporting farther away from him. She moved her free hand into her robes and took out a small vial with a red liquid inside it. She opened the bottle and quickly drank its contents. Both her stomach and shoulder wound healed after she did this. The Witch of Betrayal wouldn't be defeated this easily.
…
A hundred arrow shots could be heard around the battlefield as the Cornwall troops tried to help their King against the fearsome beast; needless to say the arrows did nothing against the beast's scales and simply bounced off it.
The dragon tried to crush the red knight with its legs many times, but it failed in hitting him, it only ended leaving massive claw marks in the landscape.
Soon it realized that if it simply swipes with its legs instead of trying to crush him, he will have an easier chance in hitting him. But soon it realized that it was a bad idea, as Emiya simply jumped when the leg came for him, and drew a slash against the limb that was below him. It easily went through its scales just as before and drew blood from the beast.
Suddenly there was a war cry and the sound of horse galloping. It was Kay riding his horse towards the dragon, flaming sword in hand. He was going right towards the dragons head, every onlooker thought that it was a foolish move since it would be easy for the dragon to eat him or fry him if he did that.
And just as the onlookers thought, the dragon was already moving its massive head towards the charging knight.
But to everyone's surprise including the dragon, Kay simple jumped off his horse and landed right atop the dragon's head. He quickly started stabbing, but soon he found out that his sword wasn't large enough to completely pierce through the dragon's skull. Nevertheless this caused the dragon quite a bit of pain, so it started trashing around to get the swordsman off. But this didn't work as Kay held into his sword firmly, which was still stuck inside the dragon.
The dragon was still not helpless despite this and simply moved onto the next best possible move, which was to release electricity from its body.
Zap Zap
Kay had no idea what was coming, he couldn't have know. He was foolishly still holding onto his sword when the dragons skin started glowing and sparks were coming from it. It travelled through every part of its body and then soon enough it reached the head area where Kay was. The many volts started to fry Kay's body and he cried out in pain, he wanted to jump off the dragon, but horrified found out that his hand couldn't leave his sword.
The obvious cause of this was that the electricity that was now flooding his body, made his muscles involuntarily contract themselves, which resulted in his sword hand fiercely gripping his sword, against his own will. But since Kay had no idea what electricity was or how it worked, he of course had no idea what was happening and was in the danger of being roasted, if he couldn't find some way to save himself soon.
A shadow flew over to the dragons head, the electricity zapped her, but she just ignored it, her demonic resistances made her able to withstand this much. She walked over to the knight and noted that he has already fallen unconscious; she moved all her 8 wings and used some to take the sword out from the dragon and others to lift the body of the knight. When she was done with both, she simply jumped off from the dragon and shadow stepped away to safety, while carrying Kay.
Emiya now couldn't damage the dragon, because if he did then he would suffer the same fate as Kay, so he was forced to dodge blows from an overgrown electrified lizard. But Arthuria didn't have those kinds of problems, her magical resistance was high enough to completely nullify this petty magical electricity and lightning, that was coming from the creature.
The dragon tried to claw at her with its electrified paw, but that was a foolish mistake on its part, as she merely cut off the beast fingers that tried to touch her, with a flick of her yellow spear. Even if Gae Buidhe wasn't a dragon slaying noble phantasm, it was a still a noble phantasm, and Arthuria could do a lot of damage with it if she used it in combination with her prana burst.
Then it tried to bite Saber's head off next, it opened its massive jaws, only to have the attack blocked by the small girl who was holding her spear in a vertical position. The girl was pushed back due to the sheer size of the creature, but what was more concerning was the fact that it was charging another breath attack.
She wasn't certain if her resistance could counter a direct blast from that, so she needed to get away from it, but was unable to as the dragon was still pushing its head towards her spear, driving her even further back.
The answer to her problems came in the form of a flying yellow spear, it was the other Gae Buidhe that Shirou traced, Bedivere decided that losing an arm wasn't going to stop him from helping and threw it towards the beast. It flew straight into the creature's eye, and pierced through it.
It stumbled back from the pain and allowed Saber to get away from it, but she still delivered a slash to its jaw while she was at it.
Emiya moved forward, this was the time.
He knew that his body couldn't last for much longer, so he would need to deliver the finished blow right now. Balmung was made to strike the dragon once again, he wanted to cut off the neck or to deal enough damage to it that it would lead to suffocation. But the dragon saw his attempt and despite still being in pain from having its eye pierced out, it quickly spun and swatted Emiya away with its massive tail like he was a fly.
The dragons remaining one eye was positively glowing with rage and moved towards Emiya, Saber tried to do something, but not even she could stop such a large moving object when it was moving with its full speed, her futile lance stabs were ignored by the creature.
Emiya barely recovered himself only to see a massive claw come for his life, he quickly brought up Balmung and it cut deeply into the flesh, despite this move saving Emiya's life, it put him into a whole new danger altogether.
Zap Zap
Yes, Emiya was now being tortured by waves of electricity, so he was forced to let go of Balmung and roll sideways.
The electric attacks didn't do his already exhausted body much good and he felt that he could hardly control his body anymore and his head was being assaulted by a massive dizziness, in short: he felt like shit. The dragon made use of the fact that he no longer had that disgusting weapon and charged a breath attack.
It moved its neck to draw in some power, an orb of energy started to gather at the tip of its mouth, far larger than any other before.
Static
Emiya tried to project a weapon to defend himself, but gravely found out that he was unable to do so, but he already knew this as he made Balmung, expecting it to be his last projection for this battle, this was nothing more than an act of desperation.
He couldn't do anything now and not even Saber, Bedivere, Kay or even Minasaki would be able to stop that attack from being released.
He almost lost hope, when suddenly he noticed a glowing area in the dragon's chest that looked like it bursted from the inside out. It didn't take much to figure out even in his delirious state that that was the spot where Gae Bolg exited through the dragon's body.
Which mean that it was a vulnerable spot that would allow him to lay damages to the dragon's insides if he had a weapon.
Tug
Another headache assaulted him, which made him remember something that he had forgotten.
Yes, the golden blade, Caliburn was still resting faithfully on his back.
He pulled the sword out, but something didn't feel right.
Static
It was as if the sword was trying to reject him.
Crack Crack
He noted that almost the whole sword was now covered in ever growing cracks, though he wasn't sure if this was not just a hallucination that came to him due to the state he was in, he couldn't imagine that the golden sword would be breaking apart for no reason.
So he ignored it, and ran forward with all the remaining the strength he could muster. He reached the crack inside the dragons scales, from the indication of the blue glow that was coming from the wound, it was probably leading right to the dragons lung that supplied its breath attacks, the massive amount of magical energy that was escaping through the hole almost made him choke, but he steeled himself as he didn't have any more time left.
He swung the golden sword right into the crack and shouted out its name "Caliburn!"
A golden glow that promised victory began to fill the dragon from the inside out, as Caliburn unleashed its true power inside the creature.
Golden glow was coming out even from the dragon's mouth, which was now crying from the constant pain that was killing him from the inside.
Crack Crack
All of a sudden while Caliburn was still releasing its light, it broke apart into 3 separate pieces, ending the light it was emitting. But the light was not needed anymore as the damage that was already done was more than enough to finally kill the dragon. The golden blade accomplished its last task before dying.
The dragon fell without a voice, and stopped moving. Everyone watched with wide eyes how the strange creature was destroyed.
Emiya was barely conscious enough to hear a shout from his troops: "Dragonslayer! The king has slain the dragon!" Before succumbing to all of his pains and finally collapsing, Caliburn no longer healing him, his life was now in a grave danger.
…..
Medea felt the connection between the dragon and her get erased, and she knew that the impossible was done. Someone slew a dragon.
She looked around the battlefield, and she came across the red knight, just before he fell into the ground as well. "Damn that Archer." she cured under her breath before beginning to teleport farther and farther away.
There was little reason to stay in this location anymore, the battle was clearly lost, Assassin was dead, the Chimeras were dead, all the other mythical creatures including the mightiest of them the dragon, were dead. The remaining troops were also in bad shape and for some odd reason reinforcements were not coming.
Medea was a smart enough woman to know when a situation is hopeless and when to cut her losses. So she made her way to escape, she would go back to Wessex and rebuild everything, she would gather an even stronger army and crush that damned Archer once and for all.
But before she could fully make her escape the annoying wizard came at her once more.
"Don't think I'm going to let you escape."
"Oh but you will." she calmly stated and raised a massive pillar of stone from the earth, which blocked Merlin's way and vision of her. When Merlin finally got around the pillar, he annoyingly noted that the witch completely disappeared. But in fact she had just covered herself in prana, hiding her presence while continuing to safely teleport and fly away.
…..
"Let's go, Jeremiah." said a raven haired, amethyst eyed boy to a dark green haired man. Both of them were observing the battle from the beginning in a safe location.
"But my lord, didn't you want to watch the battle?"
"This battle has already reached its conclusion, a conclusion that was obvious from the beginning. An army whose commander doesn't value them and willingly abandons them at the first hint of a loss was doomed to fail to begin with."
Rustle Rustle
The nearby bushes were disturbed as a figure walked out from the forest.
"Your majesty, I have annihilated all the pagan reinforcements and support troops as you have ordered." the figure bowed to the boy while saying this
"Good, we are finished here. We will continue to the north where we will gather more allies to our side."
And the 3 figures disappeared from the area with this
…..
Author Notes: Whelp, this was a severely long chapter that got out of hand several times and grew way bigger than I originally planned it to be. I had restarted this chapter several times for various reasons, many of the original scenes were cut out or remade completely. This battle was originally set in a battleground where Cornwall troops were defending the area within a castle, but then I realized that would have been too easy so I scratched it. Then I had an area surrounded with forests, but scratched that as well since Emiya would have just burned the forest on the pagans, solving everything. Which resulted in a more or less open field area for the battleground.
Sasaki was also going to survive this battle in the original draft, but then I thought about what I would use him for in the case he survived, and I couldn't really find any use for him, so I just let him die in this chapter instead.
The dragon was the final boss of this arc, I bet many of you thought it was going to be Medea, but nope she is going to survive her own arc and come into the next arc. As for Medea summoning a dragon, she actually has an EX-ranked noble phantasm that is capable of summoning dragons, she just didn't use it in fate/stay night because she doesn't know any spells that are capable of summoning phantasmal beasts. Anyway I thought that a dragon would be a lot more heroic boss and worthy for an Arthurian setting.
Merlin is canonically a half-demon, and in his legend he was given birth similar to Jesus Christ, virgin mother except instead of a god, an Incubus impregnated his mother, for this reason he was branded as a possible anti-christ. So due to his heritage, summoning a greater demon would be nothing for him.
Bedivere lost his hand after some time in his legend and proceeded to become a one-handed badass. I just figured that this would be a good place to cut off his hand, it will only make him strive to be even stronger.
I also finally figured out what sword to give to Saber, seeing how she obviously isn't going to get Excalibur this time. Here are a few hints if you want to guess:
-Its from a video game
-It is a two handed sword of strange design
-It has both a dark and a light side
-It reacts to the person that is wielding it
-It may or may not whisper things to the wielder
-It is haunted by a sorrowful spirit
Next chapter we will see more Yukari, Emiya won't be doing much action seeing that now Caliburn is broken, he will take more time to heal. Most of the action will be coming from the Holy Magic Sect side and their encounters against the remaining pagans. It won't be as long of a chapter as this one(I hope) Also excuse me for any typo or spelling mistakes I have, due to the length of this chapter it was harder for me to check everything, and there may be quite a lot of them that I haven't noticed.
Anyway tell me how you felt about this chapter, since I'm quite uncertain and dissappointed with how some of my scenes came out.
Also shameless advertisement: The fanfic that I work on as a beta, A Tale of Swords and Scales will be resuming updates shortly. If you want to read another fanfic where powerful and bored reality-warpers play games that involve entire worlds, then be sure to check it out.
Answer Corner:
what story is Meia and Minasaki from? I searched T.A.B.A. and their names, but I could not find anything.
If you don't know about TABA, that just means you lead a lot healthier life than I do. (It is Taimanin Asagi Battle Arena, I warned you)
Did Nero became the Emperor of Rome... again? Will Shirou bend knee and swear fealty to the Roman Empire as a Vassal Kingdom?
Nope, not yet, I'm just setting up future arcs this early, she is still just beating the barbarian hordes back and gaining power. It will probably happen several years in seeing as it is a mid-tier event/arc and Emiya wouldn't be able to handle it in their current state without it ending badly for them. I have several events planned, but sadly most of them are either high or mid tier events, so I'm kind of lost what to do after the following 2 events, maybe I just bring in a mid tier event early. Anyway this fic will take place over several years, characters will get older, situations will change and what not. It is not really a speed conquest, seeing that maintaining hold over a lot of lands forcefully will end badly for any pieces, not to mention that most armies and factions can't make any moves during winter otherwise they would lose their soldiers to the weather. Sure just taking out the pieces would be a simple way for a speed conquest, but that isn't really possible due to the power level of these characters as Homura will learn it in some chapters.
