franco1234: Manfred von Carstein... yes... the characters have already heard of him. After all, he was one of the pretenders to the imperial throne when a Distorting Stone comet fell upon Mordheilm. That said, at the time he passes for dead (killed at the Battle of Hel Fenn) and the Sylvania is officially ridden of the vampire counts... officially is the most important word of this sentence. Philosophically (and practically) the undead pose some problems when it comes to considering them as "dead" after all... if they died the first time and returned, what prevents them from starting again? And, by definition, an enemy who refuses to remain dead cannot be defeated... That said, I don't think I'd bring the vampire counts into Order ab Chaos. The vampires of Moussillon already fulfill the role of "future principal vampiric enemy of Hakuno". Moreover, Manfred is the most cunning of the vampire counts, and being dead he is patient. He is certainly not going to attack the Sigmar Empire as the forces of Chaos move on the world. He'd rather wait for a better time. For Archaon... he will probably appear in the last chapters of Order ab Chaos. So far, no one has heard of him.
Guest: Putting the explanations at the end of each sentence would be even more annoying for the reader.
Dan1142000: Yes, I agree, the Mad Dog is like a puppy with Hakuno... Uh... a puppy that walks alone the garrison of a castle... but it's beside the point.
Boyzilla: Ready for the big final battle?
Stratos263: Thank you for your interest.
Read this chapter with listening Fate/Zero OST
Marienburga bellum
(The battle of Marienburg)
This world is dying. You better know that. You say that you live and breathe, that you love and hate, and that you are afraid… Yes… All this is unique to mortals… Of course, you are alive, there is no doubt… But you live in a suffering world, poisoned by a fatal wound. The rot of the north spreads like the gangrene of a wound. And we are the maggots on the corpse.
- Anonymous
Within a few hours, Marienburg had turned into a landscape of another world, a universe of madness and unnatural perversions. The inhabitants ran, the mind ravaged by visual and auditory hallucinations. Niggardly saw gold rains falling from the sky, the violent heard voices urging them to attack their neighbor. Temptation attacked the weakest minds, inexorably eroding their reason.
Once the largest trading city in the Old World, Marienburg was now a vast open-air insane asylum. Some would eat food until their bellies would explode... Some stole, some killed, some fought in the middle of the squares, and some more burned down the houses for the pleasure of burning...
But the evil plague that attacked the Marienburgers was not only present in their minds. It materialized physically. The inert material was transformed hideously. Here a house was covered with barbed wire and protrusions in the form of bright red hooks. Living matter mutated. A tree that had torn itself from the ground advanced on its roots and its branches seized the inhabitants to bury them in an enormous mouth that had opened in its trunk. There, a Black Hat watched with horror his arm that had turned into a filthy pink tentacle...
Even the sky had changed in a monstrous way.
All we could see was a filthy mixture of discordant colors that turned furiously over Marienburg. Crushed metal noises, insane laughter, silly caking, and discordant music mingled with the rolling of thunder.
The center of this vortex of pure chaos was a gate...
The portal was like a bloody wound, a tear in the texture of reality and a passage to another dimension. The passage resembles a large ring surrounded by unholy machinery, dwarfing the surrounding mountains. It is covered with immensely powerful runes that shine in the darkness and whose shifting forms alter reality. The Winds of Magic and the mutagenic clouds of Evilstone are poured out of the gates.
There were golden flashes of lightning that struck the roofs and steeples of Marienburg incessantly, while the furious and wild winds tore the screaming inhabitants from the ground and threw them into the abyss of another world.
But the gate did not just take, it also gave. It came out of the gate an uninterrupted flow of demons in incorporeal form. They appeared as luminous comets falling from the furious sky. The attentive eye discerned greedy faces with waving lean arms and spectral silhouettes in the said "comets".
But when these "comets" coughed up the ground, they plunged into the matter, digging conical holes while the stone turned into dust swirled... quickly giving birth to a tide of blasphemous abominations.
The Slaanesh Beasts combined in particularly disgusting way pieces of the anatomy of men, scorpions, and lizards. The Daemonettes were both beautiful and repulsive. Some of these demons were mounted on Q'qha'thashi'i (or Skin Lickers) horrible steeds that vaguely resembled bipedal seahorses.
These monsters came down on Marienburg one wave after another. They massacred and tortured the inhabitants, completing the transformation of the city into a hell of perversion and sins.
However, the Daemons had not yet won
A second army from another world appeared on the streets of Marienburg.
They were photonic crystal creatures: "Attack_Type programs" invoked by the Moon Cell Automaton. First the endlessly spawned legions of the soldier-type effigy that can even overwhelm a Servant with sheer numbers. They are divided between the common sword-type and the rarer archer-type, lancer-type, and mace-type. The effigy was lead by a tall and more powerful commander, the Aggressor that can invoke effigy indefinitely... at least until it was destroyed. The other photonic crystal fighter was the colossal gatekeeper with two spiked maces in place of hands, the winged-effigy who attack from the sky by electrical shock; and, finally, the strange Plant, a special attack_program that continually spawn Aggressor.
Wherever the two armies met, the fight was of indescribable violence. Neither the demons nor the attack_programs were afraid of death. The furious madness of the slaves of Slaanesh ran up against the mechanical impassiveness of the defenders of the Seraph. The losses on both sides were appalling, but not a fighter backed down.
It was a mythological clash between Slaanesh the Supreme Snake to the Moon Cell Automaton... an incarnation of Chaos versus an incarnation of Order.
And besides that, the confrontation between their champions:
Hakuno Kishinami, the Last Master and inheritor of the Moon, the Sovereign of the Seraph.
Heartbreaker, the Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, the Scourge of Marienburg.
Of course, Marienburg was not isolated. Or at least not isolated...normally. Stagecoaches connected it to Middenheim by road, barges descended the Reik and its tributaries to the merchant city and ships crossed the sea from countries as far as Yamato and Cathay.
They offered the opportunity to merchants and ordinary travelers to leave the city... as to the agents of the Chambre Noire (1).
King Louen Leoncoeur had obviously learned of the latest events. The facts had left him wondering. It was as much a question of the presence of a Demon Prince in Marienburg as of the exploits of Hakuno Kishinami. The sudden disappearance of the Damsel of the Lunar Grail had shaken the King of Bretonnia less than her reappearance in the heart of the city he sought to take.
If Morgianna the Enchantress Fairy had not berated King Louen to regard the young Inheritor of the Moon first as a sovereign, then as a woman, the King of Bretonnia would probably have ordered Kishinami to return to Couronne...
And in doing so, he would have made a fool of himself.
First, because Hakuno Kishinami would not have obeyed. Artoria Pendragon had told King Louen that her Master had not left the security of the royal army without thinking about what she was going to do, and when Lady Kishinami thought she was right she could be stubborn. And King Louen held the opinion of King Arthur too high to go against her opinion. Secondly, without the presence of Hakuno Kishinami, the Demon Prince would have conquered Marienburg.
Nevertheless, what knight would not feel ashamed to leave a damsel in danger?
King Louen Leoncoeur had prepared his army for battle, intending to rush to the aid of Lady Kishinami as soon as an opportunity arose.
Two days earlier, several of the spies stationed at Marienburg had joined the king's camp to warn him that mayhem was spreading in the city and that rebels were fighting the Black Hats in the streets while crystal golems invoked by Lady Kishinami fought the mutants and the Skavens in the underground.
Since his arrival in the Vasteland, the King of Bretonnia has been waiting for an opportunity of this kind to seize Marienburg... and rescue Lady Kishinami. Leaving only a weak garrison behind to control the conquered territory, Louen Leoncoeur led the rest to advance to Marienburg in a forced march.
However, the arrival in Marienburg had reserved two surprises for the Bretonnian army.
First, the appearance of a portal to the plans of Chaos over the city had terrorized the levies of farmers which constituted the bulk of the king's troops. Even the most devoted Knights of the Grail and the most courageous paladins had marked a pause at the sight of this manifestation of the powers of Ruin.
Fortunately, the second surprise contributed to shave many sinking hearts. When they arrived, an army was already in front of the walls of the merchant city. Its banners were of silver to the lion of azure of Artoria Pendragon...
King Louen Leoncoeur was the only member of the royal army to have shown no reaction to these two surprises. At first, he was totally inaccessible to the fear of Chaos... where the powers of Ruin manifested themselves, they always found him ready to fight.
Then he expected King Arthur's army to appear before Marienburg. Although the king of Bretonnia had not seen the Servant since the capture of the Bergbres' fort, he had exchanged many letters with her. Her army was generally west of Marienburg, occupied in protecting the conquered territories against the insurrections fomented by the Empire, the Orks raids descended from the ancient dwarf city of Grung Zint, or the harassments led by the Skavens.
In all these missions, Artoria Pendragon had shown obvious quality as both army commander and governor. Not only had the king of Britain regularly defeated Orks and Skavens, but the attempts of the Sigmarites to rousing the population had been countered by the growing popularity of Artoria.
To imagine that the events of Marienburg had escaped her would have been a gross underestimation of King Arthur.
One heard only the rattling of the harnesses of war and the henning of the horses which were chirping with impatience. Apart from the horse-drawn soldiers who carried messages from the hill where Sir Kay had set up his headquarters, there was no movement.
The Bretonnian infantry, a crowd poorly prepared for war, poorly trained and poorly armed, had their throats squeezed by fear. Most of the fighters wore padded armor or studded leather, the luckiest had old rusty chain mails "generously" provided by their overlord. They had chapel-de-fer helmets or bassinets with camail. They held with one hand spears or maces and with the other arm a long tear-shaped shield which covered them from the throat to the ankles.
Behind the front lines of the infantry stood archers without armor dressed in dirty and patched herds. The Bretonnian bow was long but rather rigid and therefore difficult to band and relatively powerless.
Apart from the plate-armored squires and battle pilgrims zealously devoted to the Lady, the military value of the infantry was very low.
Several groups wore seat ladders with spikes that allowed them to hang on to the walls.
Since the besiegers did not have time to build siege towers or rams, they were going to have to attack the walls of Marienburg by the most costly method: "the staggering".
Unlike the infantry, the cavalry offered a vision of splendor. Each knight wore plate armor over padding or chain mail, a camail covered the neck and shoulders, and a jupon surcoat with the coat-of-arm of the knight. The heaume was adorned with a silk veil, inlaid with gold and surmounted by a figure like a lion's head, unicorn's head, globe, or sword. Each knight held a long conical spear in his right hand and a kite shield in his left arm.
The whole army was adorned with flags, pennons, and banners that slammed in the wind and helped to give it a magnificent appearance.
Artoria Pendragon stood at the head of the cavalry.
Her steed was a beautiful white stallion with a steel flank and a robe of the same blue as Artoria's one.
Artoria wore her usual but splendid armor with her segmented plastron inlaid with a blue decor, her heavy gauntlets, and the articulated steel blade skirt that protected her sides. Under the armor, you could see her blue dress over a white petticoat and her steel boots. A long cape with a white fur collar and gold thread enveloped her shoulders, falling on the rump of the horse.
She's waving Excalibur around.
The Sword of Promised Victory was clearly visible in her hand and wrapped in golden light.
Saber's narrow face reflected the same determination as her emerald eyes. Since she did not wear a helmet, all could recognize her blond hair as powdered with gold, her braid coiled at the back of her skull, and her rebellious ahoge.
"My friends, I would never lie to the children of La Belle Bretonnie! The battle ahead will probably be the most difficult you will ever have to fight. Yet we have no choice. The powers of Ruin are not only trying to destroy Marienburg. If we do not stop them here, your families and your houses will in turn be destroyed! I tell you as I believe: we will win! We will win because we have no choice! To lose is to die... to lose is to condemn all that we love to be consumed in the madness and depravity of the gods of Chaos! So follow me, follow me to victory! For we have no other way to survive than to be victorious! For the Lady, for the Roy de Bretonnie, and for everything we believe and love, to victory!"
Saber's charisma worked wonders on the wavering morale of the simple infantrymen, a concert of cheers and war cries replied:
"Pour la Belle Bretonnie!"
"Pour le roy Louen"
"Pour la Dame!"
Leaving his horse in the hands of one of the knights, Artoria jumped to the ground and advanced about ten meters. Concentrating deeply, she closed her eyes and slowly raised Excalibur above her head. Around it luminous particles rose from the ground, rising to the sword and merging with the blade which became more and more luminous, pulsing like the sun.
Her sword shine, a dream that all warrior shared on the battlefield, in past, present, and future: Victory. Her Noble Phantasm was the incarnation of victory. She carries the will of all the Bretonnian as her pride, bidding the army to remain steadfast in its loyalty.
And the undefeated king sang the name of the miracle she holds in her hand:
"Excalibur!"
Excalibur's blade had turned into a flame that rose more than ten meters high. When she struck the air with her blade, the light turned into a river of gold that rushed out of her hands to run towards the city walls.
The barbican and the main postern were engulfed in holly gold light...
In an instant, hundreds of monsters perished before the stellar light leaped towards the sky in a formidable geyser to return to the stars that had generated it.
When the dazzling Bretonnians, flickering eyes, turned towards the door, they discovered that a huge breach where still lingered a few tiny golden pixies...
The flood of knights charging towards the breach enveloped Artoria who had lowered her sword... she disappeared... to resurface at the head of the riders having caught the bridle of her horse at the passage and having jumped in the saddle.
Hakuno Kishinami stood in the center of a small square in Marienburg. An Aggressor and several Enemy_Programs formed her protective custody ready to repel the Daemons that continued to materialize.
The Last Master focused on different translucent screens that showed different aspects of the ongoing battle. Thanks to the presence of Sir Kay in the Bretonnian staff, Hakuno could even guide the troops of King Louen to attack the most vulnerable points of the walls.
With one hand, the young Japanese woman enlarged a screen that showed Pegasus knights diving on the walkway to strike with hooves and spears the Daemonettes who held the ramparts.
Farther away from the Damoiselles de Magie were casting spells on the defenders of another wall. An Amber Spear exploded in a prodigious glow of blue-white light... over a dozen meters the Daemonettes collapsed, cremated, or were thrown off. A Damoiselle des Bêtes struck the ground with her staff and clouds of crows fell on another part of the rampart. The birds were more an embarrassment than a threat, but they diverted the demons and mutants that held this sector of the defenses.
With a quick move, Hakuno pushed this window away to enlarge another. Still the walls, but this time the Battle Pilgrims were climbing the ladders, their shields raised above the head. The first ones who arrived on the ramparts were already fighting against the Daemonettes already harassed by the Bretonnian archers who shoot them with inflamed or poisoned arrows.
Suddenly a projectile of violet light fell in the midst of pilgrims... it was horrible and Hakuno turned her eyes away when she saw the Bretonnians darkening and collapsing into burning ashes.
An alarm flashed on another window, indicating the origin of this devastating spell. Kishinami enlarged the window to observe Heartbreaker. The horrible and magnificent Demon Prince was the key to enemy defense. Around her, the air was full of black magic and at every moment, she threw new spells. Monsters appeared in the middle of the Enemy_Programs targeting Plants that Effigies and Aggressors struggled to defend. In other places, the rains of fire or lightning were causing devastation among the regiments of Bretonnians loaded with ladders that continued to assault the walls.
As long as the demoness is not defeated, the portal would remain open calling more and more Daemons.
[Gawain?]
On one of the translucent screens, the Knight of the Sun fought in the front row of an Effigies group. Galatine described blazing bows that burned the Daemonettes who rushed towards him moaning and dancing languidly. The depravity of his enemies had frozen the face of the knight into a mask of disgust.
As he dodged the attack of a serpent-headed Slaanesh Beast, he replied to Hakuno:
[Master?]
[Let the Enemy_Programs clear the port, go to Paleisbuurt to attack Heartbreaker.]
Dodging another attack from the monster half-man, half... something else, Gawain cut off an arm finished by a claw before planting Galatine in its chest. As the Beast of Slaanesh caught fire, he nodded:
[At your command, Master.]
Bringing his sword under his arm, he concentrated his Mana, finding himself enveloped by a golden aura while a magical circle adorned with a drawing of the sun appeared under his feet.
The next moment, a wave of golden fire crossed the street, reducing to ashes the army of horrors that held it.
Taking advantage of the breach he had just opened in the enemy formation he rushes forward. Behind him, the Enemy_Programs advanced a few meters before being stopped by the materialization of new demons.
The fight resumed, fiercer than ever...
An ordinary human would have seen Bedivere only in the form of a blue and silver trajectory that bounced from Daemon to Daemon. Like a pinball, he plunged his silver spear into a chest and left leaving only an afterimage to jump towards another enemy.
All alone, he massacred the demons that occupied the street. The Enemy_Programs that followed him faced only slight opposition.
As Bedivere leaped to a roof to get an overview of the situation, he smiled. The nearby streets swarmed with demons... but beyond the canal, he could see the fortified walls. Most of the towers were already carrying flags adorned with the golden lion of Bretonnia. Infantry regiments were already heading for the bridges.
The spearhead of the Bretonnian Army was the knights who had first crossed the gate pulverized by Excalibur's light.
They had encountered at least equal force of Daemonettes mounted on filthy bipedal creatures. Nevertheless, the streets near the door were practically cleared of any opponent. Only a few knights lay on the ground among many daemons...
This did not surprise Lancer, at the head of the knights, King Arthur handled Excalibur with a sure hand, blowing the heads off, cutting the monsters in half. Nothing seemed to be able to resist her.
Suddenly the ground convulsed around the Bretonnian Knights. Multi-storey houses collapsed in a crash of planks and tiles, while large tentacles covered with slimy mucus came out of the ground to crash upon the knights' host.
Bedivere uttered a cry of concern when he saw Artoria wrapped in one of the tentacles and torn from her steed.
But Hakuno was already reacting by handling the Scabbard of the Sacred Sword:
"Code Cast: def_up (64)"
The Code Cast protected Artoria from much of the constriction damage imposed by the sticky tentacle that restrained her, but the king of Britain grimaced with pain. Drawing Mana from her Dragon Core, the King of Knight called to all her power.
At that moment Artoria found herself surrounded by lightning flashes that expanded up to a distance of about ten meters. The tentacle that had surrounded her had just exploded throwing away shreds of pinkish flesh, while the lightning struck the other repugnant appendages, electrocuting and burning them.
The knights welcomed this deployment of power by a recital of war cries. Charging the remaining tentacles, the horsemen nailed them to the ground with their spear before cutting them into pieces with their swords blessed by the Lady.
Heartbreaker's attack repelled, the knights' advance resumed. Taking the Slaanesh demons against the Enemy_Programs guided by Bedivere, they joined forces with Hakuno Kishinami.
In spite of the demons that kept materializing in the ruins of Marienburg, the battle was obviously for the benefit of humans.
Colossal creature with a height of nearly nine meters, Heartbreaker was both beautiful and horrible... in the last few days, she had suffered one defeat after another against Hakuno Kishinami. Since then, the Sovereign of the Moon Cell has inspired to her an unholy hatred.
"All this is your fault, Kishinami. Without you, the whole city would have opened its eyes and recognized the gifts offered by my god. I will offer you as a holocaust to Slaanesh for the price of your blasphemy."
With one hand, she made appear a cloud of Harpies which dipped into the place where Kishinami had settled.
Reacting with her usual rapidity, Hakuno erased with a gesture the translucent screens that showed her the battle before wrapping himself in a force field in the shape of a dome. The first Harpies broke their claws on the invisible shield, while the Enemy_Programs defending the young Sovereign of the Moon repelled the attackers with swords.
The clash was fierce, Heartbreaker sent more and more Harpies as the destroyed Enemy_Programs were replaced by others.
Suddenly, the ground explodes in about ten places to let out horrible tentacles of pink slime. The tentacles beat violently around them, smashing the Enemy_Programs as if they were just children's toys. Having momentarily cleared Hakuno's defenders, they fell upon her protective shield.
With concern, the young Master saw a virtual screen showing the shield gauge. With each stroke of the tentacle, the charge of the dome dropped. It had already left the green zone to enter the yellow one.
She raised a hand:
"Code Cast: Hack!"
One of the tentacles stopped, surrounded by yellow lightning. Unfortunately, Heartbreaker was an immense and powerful creature... far too powerful for such a weak Code Cast to interfere with.
Hakuno Kishinami hesitated for a moment and raised her hand to use a Command Mark. She was about to summon a Servant to her aid.
But as she opened her mouth the tentacle that rose to strike the dome fell heavily to the ground.
A powerful creature kept it on the ground while flapping its wings. The hindquarters resembled that of a horse, while the chest was covered with feathers surmounted by an eagle's head.
"Bravo Beaquis!"
A knight mounted the hippogriff. Its red blue and silver armor sparkled with gold inlays. His shield was adorned with the coat-of-arm of the kingdom of Bretonnia, a golden lion holding a sword. The silver sword of the knight, blessed by the Lady, was wrapped in a dazzling golden light.
He struck the tentacle and in three strokes cut it in half.
After eliminating another tentacle, King Louen turned to Hakuno:
"Are you all right, my lady?"
Hakuno nodded:
"Thanks to you."
He replied with a smile.
"Don't think about it. As a king, I protect my ally. As a knight, my duty is to protect the damsels in distress."
The King of Bretonnia had not come alone, and in the sky, the Royal Pegasus Knight routed the Harpies.
Heartbreaker kept a cry of rage. She still felt invincible, stuffed as she was with the passions of the Marienburgers. But her army was losing. Heartbreaker continued to summon monsters, while the portal in the sky sent her more and more daemons. But her forces were repelled on all sides, while her enemies had joined forces.
Hearing an explosion, the Demon Prince turned...
The bodies of a dozen demons covered with golden flames were consumed. They surrounded a handsome knight brandishing a sword that radiated like the star of the day:
"I, Gawain, Knight of the Round, proclaims that your reign of terror ends here and now. For the glory of the Round Table, for the honor of King Arthur, and in the name of my Master, Hakuno Kishinami, perish!"
He made a pose to concentrate then:
"Your will. My holy sword is the embodiment of the sun. Under the king's command, I will burn all on the surface of the ground."
Gawain threw Galatine into the sky.
"The blade of this sacred sword is a copy of the sun itself. Holy sword of the stars, swing once again!"
A small sun appeared where the sword burst into beams of golden light, radiating powerful and warm rays. From it was born a pillar of fire that fell before Gawain. The Knight of the Round grasped it as if it were the sword itself. Before he can invoke the name of the Noble Phantasm to liberate its strength, Heartbreaker raised two tentacles in a defensive gesture.
Gawain was stunned to recognize human forms trapped in the slime:
"Will you endanger your friends, Knight?"
Like any self-respecting demon, the voice was tempting, seductive, and Gawain stopped to look at the faces. He recognized Alvarez Carpio... and having never met Lucie, saw only a young blonde woman.
Taking advantage of his distraction, a tentacle snapped like a whip hitting the knight in the chest. The blow was so violent that he tore himself off the ground, passed through two houses like a cannonball before hit the muddy water of a canal in a large splash.
Heartbreaker did not stop there, dropping a volley of fireballs that boiled the water of the canal and ignited the nearby houses.
The demoness burst out laughing:
"You stupid son of a bitch!"
We had the right not to like Heartbreaker or her methods, but we could not deny that her assessment of Gawain's intelligence was not totally erroneous.
Hakuno Kishinami was looking at a screen where Gawain appeared. The Knight of the Sun had just climbed onto a wharf between two burning houses. His armor was smoking... but as a Saber and benefiting from the skill "protection of the fairies", he was the Servant enjoying the best protection from magic after Artoria.
The fireball salvo supposed to finish him did not scratch him. He suffered only fractures caused by the tentacle stroke. The master reached out:
"Code Cast: Heal (64)!"
The Scabbard of the Holy Sword shone and Gawain straightened up.
[Thank you, Master, I will immediately return to face Heartbreaker and end this battle with one stroke].
Hakuno tilts her head in an adorable expression that the Knight of the Round, unfortunately, could not see... unlike the Pegasus knight who dared not even breathe.
"I'm sending you reinforcements. A Demon Prince is too strong for a single Servant."
Gawain bowed stiffly, visibly vexed:
"As you wish, Master."
Dwergsbezit (or Dwarf Fort) was the Marienburg district where Fooger had built his residence. This dwarf was one of only two directors to join the rebellion against the rest of the Directorate, supported by his militia... miners, merchants, and blacksmiths. All Dwarves. And all Dwarves knew how to fight. The island where the Dwergsbezit was built was separated from the rest of Marienburg by fortified bridges.
For several hours there was fierce fighting. Arquebuses thundered, crossbows slammed, while a furious melee was taking place on the bridges. Armed with axes as big as them, the armored Dwarves repelled one wave of demon after another.
In truth, facing this tide of insanity and deformity all the courage of the dwarves would not have been enough to save the island if they had not received help that worried them almost as much as the enemy...
"RRRRrrrRrrr... RRRrrr"
A cloud of black smoke moving at high speed zigzagging between the dwarf defenders. A guard armed with a halberd felt a violent shock and found himself with nothing in his hands.
Jumping from pillar to pillar, Berserker suddenly let himself fall to the ground at the end of the bridge, then like a pole-vaulter at the Olympics, he planted the halberd which he had just "borrowed" in the ground, propelling himself to the height before falling on a Keeper of Secrets, a major daemon with a conical head adorned with numerous horns.
The clash between Berserker and the Keeper of Secrets looked like an explosion, throwing inferior demons in all directions in the middle of the dust that was swelling into a huge cloud. The Black Knight was constantly screaming, blinded by rage and the desire to destroy what faced him.
The halberd covered with tendrils of red light seemed like molted, cutting again, again and again... despite its resistance and its regeneration abilities, the daemon eventually collapsed. Berserker struggled for a few moments on the motionless body and turned backward, screaming at the top of the lung:
"RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
If the daemons of Slaanesh could have felt fear, they would have fled, but they threw themselves forward and the halberd mowed down the Daemonettes and the Beasts in whole rows.
In this district of Marienburg, the conflict was coming to an end. An army of Enemy_Programs, led by a Gatekeeper and overflown by winged-effigies, arrived from one end of the quay.
On the other hand, the Bretonnian infantry moved much slower but still played its role as an anvil for the Moon Cell army.
[Berserker?]
"RRRrrr?"
[I want you to go rescue Alvarez Carpio and Lucy, prisoners of Heartbreaker!]
The monster shrouded in black smoke seemed to distort and appear in several blurred images as he turned his head towards the sky to howl his madness and thirst for blood:
"RRRRRrrrr... RRRRRRRRRRR!"
Having received a mission, he looked for a weapon that could serve him. The red light which filtered through the vision slot of his helmet turned to a dwarf Gyropter which bombed a group of daemons with grenades. Berserker leaps.
The dwarf pilot howled with terror when he saw his stowaway. Berserker was hanging under the primitive helicopter-like machine, as a draw out of one of Da Vinci's notebooks.
When the four bands of tissue that the Black Knight wore on his shoulders fastened to the aircraft, glowing red scars appeared on the surface, contaminating the Gyropter, which turned into... A pseudo-Noble Phantasm.
Horrified, the Dwarf jumped into the void... fortunately, he was only a few meters from the ground, and fortunately he did not receive much harm.
Heartbreaker looked at the insolent insect that came to taunt her. The Gyropter transformed into a Noble Phantasm swirled, dodging with supernatural skill the spells she cast. Berserker counterattacked with grenades that caused red and black explosions that ravaged the square, crushing the daemons by dozens. More powerful, able to instantly regenerate the Demon Prince waved her tentacles to seize the flying object without appearing injured.
Berserker screamed again and... launched his Gyropter into a collision course.
As the Noble Phantasm exploded against the chest of the Demon Prince, sending her bouncing down, the Black Knight took advantage of her momentarily knocked out to invoke the elven sword held by Asuryan's golem.
The weapon, forged to fight the creatures of Chaos, severed the two tentacles serving as a prison for Alvarez and Lucy.
Hakuno, who followed the fighting, distributed her orders:
[Gawain, take our friends to safety!]
[Yes, master]
Coming out of the ruins, the Servant ran at full speed to pick up the two fainting humans. As he laid them on the ground, Hakuno focused on the Scabbard of the Holy Sword:
"Code Cast: Cure (64)"
The Code Cast removed the presence of Chaos that threatened to corrupt and mutate their friends. Calling with one gesture another window, the Sovereign then focused on Berserker.
Even without order, the Black Knight continued its assault on Heartbreaker. Surprised, the Master realized that the Servant had invoked the drawbridge's chains of Rijker Castle. One of the tentacles completely immobilized, the Demon Prince was stuck on the spot, unable to escape or evade. Completely hysterical, Berserker gave free rein to his rage, he wielded the elven sword covered with red lines to slice the limbs of the demon who constantly howled.
It was a horrible and beautiful demonstration of a feat of arms...
When we thought that Berserker no longer really had any memory or intelligence and that only instinct guided his actions, it was even more frightening.
The victory was at hand.
Heartbreaker, the demon capable of destroying a city, an army, or defeating a Servant of the power-level of Gawain with one stroke... Heartbreaker was screaming iwith rage, new wounds were constantly appearing, faster than she could close them. Her spells were constantly exploding around, breaking the stone, setting fire to nearby palaces... but Berserker was too agile, too fast. He was never touched.
The Demon Prince was completely helpless.
It was at this moment that the Bretonnians' Knights appeared on the square.
"ARTHURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
The scene seemed to freeze.
Having forgotten the Demon Prince, Berserker was furious as he watched the thin young woman in blue and steel dress-armor who lead the knights.
He dropped the elven sword to bring out another one. Made of black metal, the blade had a guard adorned with chains.
Bedivere looked at the black sword with horror:
"Arondight!"
Blackened, evil, it was no less the sword nicknamed The Unfading Light of the Lake... the weapon of Lancelot du Lac!
All the Knights of the Round Table and Hakuno immediately understood who Berserker was.
As he hurled himself at Artoria, Dark Arondight was abruptly stopped in a burst of sparks.
"That's enough, my child!"
Berserker Lancelot took three steps back with clumsiness, seeming to fall. He lowered his sword... having forgotten King Arthur he stared at the opponent who had suddenly materialized.
There had been a whirlwind of green light and a knight in armor had sprung from nothingness.
He was spectral, translucent, entirely made of green light.
"Green Knight" murmured the ethereal Knight with a ghostly voice.
Lowering the Blade of Pain with which he had just blocked Arondight, the legendary Green Knight prance his spectral mount to stay between Artoria and Lancelot.
Yet the Black Knight had only given him one look and all his aggressiveness seemed to vanish.
Staggering, he sought to distance himself, fleeing the one who had appeared at the same time as the Chevalier de Sinople...
Beautiful and unreal, the Lady of the Lake seemed to slide on the ground rather than walk. Her skin had the translucent appearance of the water of a mountain stream, her green hair resembled algae. She wore a blue dress and in her hands shone the object that terrified Berserker Lancelot: a golden chalice from which emanated a calm and deep light.
"That's enough, my child," she repeated. "Artoria is not responsible for your downfall. You don't have to pursue her with your ire as you do. You and you alone are responsible for your miserable state. You have betrayed your duties as a knight, betrayed your duties as a vassal, and betrayed your duties as a friend... you, my son. You, whom I had raised as the paragon of chivalry, have become this abject and pitiful monster. I am ashamed, my son, and I weep to see you so tortured by your own failures."
"Rrrrrr... rrrr..."
The Black Knight groaned in a plaintive fashion, he fell on his knees raising his hands before his eyes to protect himself from the light that emanated from the Holy Grail.
"Rrrr Ni... mue... rrr... parrrrrrdon!"
Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, nodded.
"A mother always forgives the sins of her child. But that does not exonerate you. You are sick and I will heal you, my son."
She lowered the Grail and the light came out enveloping the black helmet that broke. With crazy eyes and long, tangled hair, Lancelot opened a mouth with sharp teeth to howl.
He collapsed to the ground and remained prostrate.
The Lady of the Lake turned to Artoria and bowed slightly:
"Once again, I am obliged to ask your forgiveness for the behavior of my son, King Arthur. If I had been a better mother, I could have made him a good knight."
Tears shone in Artoria's eyes, touched by her friend's confession.
"Lancelot is lucky to have you as his mother. It is the child who never knows the warmness of a mother who tells you, Nimue."
The two women bowed to each other and the Lady touched Lancelot's shoulder, still unconscious.
"I'll bring my son back to you when he is healed, King Arthur."
"As always, you are the one who saves me."
Artoria then turned to the Green Knight:
"I am glad to have seen you again, Sir Knight."
"Green Knight!"
The moment after Lancelot, Nimue, and the Green Knight were gone.
As the moving reunion unfolded, Heartbreaker continued to fight against the Enemy_Programs and the Bretonnians. Although seriously wounded and still immobilized by the Rijker chains, the Demon Prince repelled the assaults of an entire army.
Hakuno turned to King Louen who was still was still shocked by the scene he had just seen on the Master's control screens:
"Your Majesty, I must approach Heartbreaker."
King Louen startled:
"But why, by the Lady, you are far safer here."
"I can destroy Heartbreaker."
Le Roy de Brétonnie sighed and yielded... He began to understand that Morgianna had not exaggerated. The Sovereign of the Moon was a legend. Who was he to oppose the will of a being that was called "Master" by the Son of the Lady?
Climbing behind King Louen on Beaquis, his hippogriff, Hakuno brandishes the elven star-stone, recovered in the ancient temple of Asuryan. The object was the plague of daemons, provided it was illuminated by the fires of the sun... absent from the sky transformed into a psychedelic painting by the presence of a portal to Chaos.
Her mind turned to that of the Knight of the Sun:
[Now!]
For the second time of the day, Gawain released the miniature sun that was in Galatine's guard.
The rays struck the star-stone, which began to radiate.
A solar fire came out of it. Everywhere the daemons caught fire spontaneously, collapsing into burning ashes.
More powerful, able to regenerate, Heartbreaker writhed in the flames screaming for a long time. She could have fled by sinking into the ground... if Lancelot had not stopped her thanks to the drawbridge chains! After a long struggle, Heartbreaker collapsed, curled up, and blacked out. Finally, She broke into several pieces of burning coal which crumbled into ashes which the wind carried away.
In the sky, the gate and the strange colors disappeared suddenly to give way to a winter sky with grey clouds.
The return to normality was greeted by a stupefied silence then... everywhere cries of joy and victory resounded.
Men fell to their knees crying.
The terrorized population of Marienburg came out of the cellars and attics.
The apocalypse would not take place today. Their eyes turned to the sky, they discovered Hakuno on Beaquis, and the luminous crystal in her hand.
Many powers had allied themselves to allow this victory.
The Moon Cell
The Lady of the Lake
Asuryan
But only one hand had united these forces against Slaanesh, that of Hakuno Kishinami.
While Beaquis touched the ground, Artoria, Kay, Bedivere, and Gawain came to surround their Master to congratulate her.
Gawain had the final word:
"We had an interesting day today. I was particularly pleased to see the Green Knight again."
This surprised King Louen Leoncoeur:
"Do you know Giles the Breton?"
Gawain agrees that:
"He came to the court of King Arthur with an axe, asking that the bravest of the Knights of the Round Table cut off his head. What I did! He put his head back on his shoulders, took up his axe, and asked me to come in a year to have my head cut off. I went to the rendezvous the time had elapsed and the Green Knight was content to give an axe slash... next to my head. (2)"
While le Roy de Brétonnie shook his head surprised by this absurd story, the only two directors to have survived the battle approached Hakuno:
Clotide de Rœlef, a rather old woman and the Dwarf Akat Fooger bowed deeply:
'Lady, you saved Marienburg. We are the spokesman for the whole Directorate. Our group officially existed to find a new duke in the Lost Country. On this day, our task is accomplished, for who is more worthy than you to wear the ducal crown of the Vasteland?"
A formidable ovation answered the speech of the old Dwarf. The survivors of the population, but also the Bretonnian soldiers cheered him.
Artoria kneeled down, followed by the other knights of the Round:
"Master, I suspect you don't want this honor. But... you are the only person the population will accept. It is your duty to restore Marienburg to glory."
With her hands pressed on her chest, Hakuno looked around with the wide-eyed eyes of a hunted beast. But everyone agreed.
Even the Moon Cell...
A translucent window appeared:
Vasteland secure.
Transformation in Territory.
Wait...
Wait...
Suddenly, cubes of photonic crystals appeared above the New Palace ruins and assembled to form a model of the Moon Cell Automaton, which was to measure ten meters by side.
A cold voice, without inflection, mechanical, resounds:
"Attention, attention, secure territory. Removal of chaotic influence and repair ongoing..."
The buildings destroyed or mutated by chaotic influence disappeared, replaced by a whirl of photonic cubes. They rebuilt a crystal model of each destroyed house, collapsed docks... then gradually the crystals metamorphosed into stones, wood, tiles...
Within a few minutes, the almost-razed city had regained its original appearance.
Hakuno learned of this a few days later, then throughout Vasteland the destroyed villages and farms were similarly rebuilt.
The artificial voice spoke one last time:
"Territory: Vasteland. Status: Secured. Control: Hakuno Kishinami, 100%"
Author's note: epic chapter and almost twice as long as one of my ordinary chapters. Feel free to comment and tell me what you think of Marienburg's Arc. Personally, I am very happy with the result!
Next chapter: start of a new cycle
Shadow mirror
on the program... the Dark Elves and two new Servants.
(1) Bretonnia Intelligence Service.
(2) Famous Arthurian chivalric romance: "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" ( 14th century Middle English, presumed author: Pearl Poet).