hnh058513: The power of a Servant depends on several factors, mainly: the quality of the Magic Circuits of the Master, the quality of the connection with the Summoner, the power of the Servant in his lifetime, and the importance of the legend of the Servant. We often forget the importance that Paracelsus had for the history of medicine, magic, alchemy, the kabbalah, astrology... and even more its importance for the history of religion. Paracelsus is the second commentator of the Bible in German after Luther!
Already that in his lifetime, he was one of the most powerful Magus of history...
In fact, Paracelsus would be even stronger if he had been summoned by someone other than Galliasta...
TeotakuFantasia: My interpretation of the characters is not necessarily faithful in the sense that the universe of "The Invincible Girl Return" (IGR) began to diverge from that of Fate/ Stay Night at the time of Fate/ Zero.
For example, the (exaggerated) taste of Illya for shoujo manga is a character's mannerism specific to IGR's illya.
Artoria likes lions... Arthur not particularly.
The quarrels between Pyrrha and Arthur will continue, I don't want Merlin to get bored... nor my readers.
Thank you for your interest.
The different "guests" will recognize each other.
Guest 1: I do not particularly pity Emiya father and son. They both chose to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. Yes, they suffered and were broken... no one had asked them to do anything so absurd.
Guest 2: I particularly enjoy writing the misadventures of Illya, happy that it pleases others. She's an adorable monster... On the outside she's an absolute cutie... but on the inside, she's worse than Berserker.
Invincible Girl Return is a story based on fate Stay Night... so we get the same vibe, of course.
Thank you for reading me.
Guest 3: good guess.
Guest 4: I think that's the way Shirou/Archer should be viewed.
Author's note: the writing of this chapter lasted longer than usual because of IRL's problem, I hate the administration... it is always necessary that you are asked for a document of which you ignore the existence at the most inopportune moment.
"Sola dosis facit venenum".
"The dose makes the poison"
Condensed of a more long explanation:
"Alle Dinge sind Gift, und nichts ist ohne Gift, allein die Dosis macht dass ein Ding kein Gift ist."
"All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison."
Paracelsus
The Lady of Poison
Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus (in Latin: Beyond Heaven), lowered his sword to look around him with an amused smile.
The computers were reduced to piles of scrap metal and smoking plastic. The giant test tubes were broken. The machines around the walls were ripped open. Sparks and smoke came out. The wrecks of what had been the pride of his Master bathed in water that completed their destruction.
One of the walls had been swept away by the True Ether flow generated by Azoth. A tunnel formed of partitions pierced by a succession of holes with jagged edges pierced the skyscraper through. At the end of this wound, one could distinguish the lights of Fuyuki...
Target number one: destroy Galliasta's Hell Kitchen... 100% filled!
For a doctor dreaming of curing all the sick, he had discovered a late taste for destruction... unless one counted in "taste for destruction" the burning of the works of Galenus and Avicenna(1). That said, as with every serious task, Paracelsus achieved praiseworthy results.
Caster approached the destroyed area. The ground had largely collapsed and pieces of partitions continued to fall into the gaping breach. Leaning down, the Servant discovered that Berserker had not been completely destroyed by the attack. The colossus lay lying in the debris. His back was burned to the bone and all that remained of his head was a charred skull...
Forgetful of the situation, Paracelsus rubbed his chin with a thoughtful look.
"I suppose a demigod like Heracles must have great resistance to all forms of Magecraft. Fascinating... "
He jumped into the hole and approached the smoking corpse.
The monster continued to press against him his little Master. Seeing that Illyasviel was still breathing, the doctor smiled. Though incarnated as a Berserker-class Servant, the Greek hero had shown the nobility of his heart, protecting the little girl. He must have had a special bond between these two beings... inexplicable by the only Master-Servant bond.
Hearing the little girl groaning, Caster shook himself. There was more urgent than meditating on the relations between his enemies. A child was in danger! He reached out and concentrated. A bluish light surrounded Illyasviel. The burns on her face disappeared and her painful breath settled as her broken ribs solidified again. Paracelsus cured the failing internal organs and his forehead folded as Azoth taught him WHAT the little girl really was... The Inferior Grail, a half-homunculus heavily modified to be the receptacle of the defeated Servants during the War and the future incarnation of the Grail.
A sacrifice!
Because of course, this transformation was a one-way course. Once she became a golden cup capable of fulfilling the wishes, the young Master had ceased to exist!
Unaware that his lips and hands were tensing with anger, Paracelsus continued to analyze Illya. In a way, he was in admiration... few Magi knew as much as he did about the Homunculi and what the Einzberns had managed to do was more than impressive.
Of course, if we forgot that they had sacrificed a child.
A child.
Only one.
What is it in comparison to a "miracle" like the appearance of the Holy Grail?
Many would not say much, would they? This contempt for life was so usual among the Magi! But Paracelsus was no ordinary Magus, he was very fond of kids and only saw in Magecraft a technique making him a better doctor.
This new example of the inhumanity of the other Magi put him in a rage... beyond livid.
A noise startled Paracelsus.
The Servant turned and his eyes were enlarged by surprise.
"What? But it's not... "
Like all rats, Caster's Master had an innate talent for knowing when the ship was to be abandoned.
While Paracelsus faced Berserker, Atrum Galliasta had begun the evacuation of his wealth... everything that mattered to him.
When I say that Galliasta was evacuating, understand what I am saying. I mean, he was standing in the middle of his men running around, taking an important look, and issuing orders. The orders in question were of two types. Either these were perfectly obvious orders and Atrum gave them after (long after) that his mercenaries had already thought of it by themselves... or they were stupid orders. Well paid... well enough to support their boss without complaining... his bodyguards clenched their teeth, pretended to obey... and left to do useful things as soon as the Magus had his back turned.
Apart from Galliasta, the biggest problem of the mercenaries was the "fiancées" of their employer. As for everything else, the Magus was a collector. He had bought the "affection" of some pretty women with fur coats and diamond necklaces. These superficial and dizzy girls had two things in common: they had very little clothing, and their chest measurement was inversely proportional to their IQ.
In the midst of the alarm sirens and the stupid orders of Galliasta, they were running in circles like panicked chickens and several guards were trying to evacuate them so they don't get in the way.
It is at this moment that a horrible scream resounds... As if a furious monster had shout with all the strength of its lungs.
The next moment, a section of wall exploded, sprayed by a projectile that was stopped in its course by a support pillar.
Surprised Galliasta remained the mouth wide open staring at... Caster!
The Servant stood up painfully while shaking his head.
"... possible!"
Hearing the insane and angry cry again, the people present turned as one man towards the shredded wall. A monster moved with difficulty... In one hand he held an inanimate little girl, in the other a sort of stone axe-sword.
The creature would have looked like a colossal gray stone statue if not for its burned chest and head... However, a black mist flowing from his wounds, healing and closing them.
No, it was not that, Paracelsus thought. It was not a question of healing or regeneration, but rather of resurrection! Berserker had been brought back to life and his wounds disappeared because their effect was canceled... as if time were winding back, flowing back and forth! It was Berserker's Noble Phantasm!
A very scary power... how to beat the one who refused to stay dead!?
"Don't just stand there! Run!"
Caster's order awakened the men who were watching the scene, transformed into a statue. The trophy wives, the bodyguards... even the Master ran away as fast as they could run.
Berserker yelled again and threw himself at Caster. The latter reacted by throwing several diamonds that exploded above the monster's head, sprinkling it with shimmering fragments... Each fragment grows monstrously. Swirling around Heracles they united with each other to imprison him in a diamond prison.
Groaning with pain, Paracelsus spewed blood...
He must have had several broken ribs and internal bleeding. Leaning against the supporting pillar marked by the imprint of his body, Caster concentrated on his sword:
"Bitte, Raphael, heile mich!"
Normally, invoking an archangel was a long and difficult Formacraft ritual, requiring a circle of invocation and several hours of incantation. But thanks to Azoth, it only took a prayer for the archangel Raphael to manifest himself in the form of a halo of emerald light that healed Caster.
The pain has disappeared, the Servant turned to the diamond prison... to see that the enormous gem was already starting to crack!
Fortunately, his two elemental had meanwhile joined him. The fight was going to be a little more equal with their help.
Caster smiled. But his short expression of joy was replaced by anxiety...
He sensed a second Servant nearby. Without the Bounded Field surrounding the skyscraper, he would not have noticed. As if this Servant was masked by...
Presence Concealment!
Assassin!
Paracelsus turned toward the air elemental:
"Hurry, go and help Master!"
Saber, Archer, Berserker, Rider, Lancer, Caster...
All Servant-classes whose names ended in "er" were formed by Heroic Spirits specialized in the fight against other Heroic Spirits.
Of the seven standard classes of the Grail War, Assassin was the only exception.
The Servant Assassin was not optimized for combat against other Servants, but his Class Skill Presence Concealment made him an extremely difficult opponent to spot even for the supernaturally sharp senses of other Heroic Spirits.
In fact, the Assassin-class Servant was specialized in attacking the other Masters. After all, even an invincible Servant could exist in this world only by the bond of invocation. Without Master to feed him with Prana, his artificial body would evaporate in a few minutes, putting an end to his existence in the present time.
In this respect, the Assassin of the Fifth Grail War was the perfect incarnation of her Class-Card. Lively, agile, fast, as discreet as a shadow, she had an A+ rank in Presence Concealment. Except for the few seconds before her attack, Assassin was practically impossible to spot.
However, the skyscraper of Atrum Galliasta was Paracelsus' Territory. One of Caster's Class skills was Territory Creation. For most of the Caster-Class Servants, it was the ability to create a "Workshop", a territory advantageous to the Caster. But, Paracelsus has the skill at the rank A+... and is Territory was a "Temple" which is superior to a "Workshop".
Also, the Bounded Field surrounding the Galliasta skyscraper had reacted to Assassin's intrusion.
A shadow among the shadows, Assassin moved in perfect silence. Surveillance cameras, human guards, and even motion detectors did not detect her presence.
Leaning against a pole, she listened to the sounds of battle in the upper floors and then bent in half to start running again.
Avoiding two guards who were patrolling following a dog pulling on its leash, she slid up to the door of an elevator. Assassin skillfully used his two dirks (sort of throwing daggers) as levers to open the sliding panels and she snuck inside the elevator shaft.
Leaping from one wall to another, Assassin climbed to the top of the concrete well with agility and speed that would have fascinated a cat. Then, opening a door, she exits into one of the upper floors of the tower.
Forgetting his dignity as a "powerful" Magus, Atrum Galliasta ran as fast as he could, down the fire escape. His car was waiting at the underground garage. In a moment, he would flee this place to take refuge in his suburban villa...
What was that monster?
A Servant?
It was not possible, a Servant was a simple familiar in the service of the Magus who had invoked it. This monster could not be a "hero", he had nothing of a champion of humanity! And this power... it was not possible! Her tower trembled under the blows of the Servants. Each attack made her tremble from top to bottom. If the building had not been built according to Japan's strict seismic standards, the skyscraper would have already collapsed like a house of cards.
The two guards opening the road froze and collapsed forward.
Galliasta's eyes widened... recognizing short metal daggers protruding from the throat of both men.
Before him, the shadows seemed to come to life, gathering in a dark form... a floating mantle, torn down, under the hood... a mask resembling a human skull.
"Assassin!"
"Nice to meet you, Master Galliasta... and goodbye!" whispered a voice of sugar and honey.
As the shadow raised three daggers, Atrum Galiasta glanced a few words in Arabic and a flash came from his fingers.
Assassin dodged. Leaping high, she turned in the air with a supple movement of the kidneys. She clung to the ceiling and threw her three dirks. Except that two other bodyguards had intervened, making a rampart of their bodies. The blades hit their bullet-proof vests as if they were made of jute cloth. The next thing they knew, they were collapsing on the floor, a greenish foam foaming at their lips... victims of the potent poison that impregnated the daggers.
Galliasta retreated, terrified, continuing to throw lightning that blackened the walls and ceiling, retreating to the top of the steps. His last two bodyguards had grabbed submachine-guns and were firing bursts of bullets... but not a blow was striking.
Like a will-o'-the-wisp, Assassin was untouchable.
Her throwing daggers whistling in the air... and the last two guards collapsed.
Atrum Galliasta opened the nearest door... two daggers stuck in the wooden panel that closed.
Thanks to his Strengthening Magecraft, Caster's Master was fast enough to avoid attacks, but it wouldn't last forever.
Assassin was already going through the door. Her hooded head was turning back and forth.
The floor was occupied by offices set up in a large room. Computers lined up, separated from the neighboring post by glass walls. A coffee machine and a vending machine were near the elevator. Doors led to the offices of the various department heads.
The usual work environment of corporate-slaves.
Caster's Master hid somewhere and Assassin didn't have time to look...
Under her mask, she smiled. Her hand defied the fastening of her coat, which fell to her feet in a rustle of cloth.
Gracious, she began to dance...
لقد حافظ قلبي على شغفه الحثيث
والرائعة الشابة الوقاحة تركتني.
إلى حب (هيند) دفعني إلى...
القلب بالعمر غير معزز.
قلت ، عندما يكون لدى عيني
دموع السقيفة والدموع.
إذا كانت (هيند) قاسية معي اليوم ،
بعد أن كنت رقيقة جدا وقريبة مني.
ثم الجنس البشري كله
(2)وعدت أن تختفي والعدم.
Hearing the lovely voice of Assassin singing in Arabic, Atrum Galliasta was drawn like a moth by a naked flame. Prudently, he crawled behind the desk which hid him and glanced at him, which he wanted to be brief... and froze, unable to move, forgetful of the situation, he watched...
Assassin was dancing.
In the lunar light that fell from the windows, the young woman contorted herself with languor, like a dancer of the seven veils.
She wears a black, sexy, form-fitting outfit that revealed more of her coffee-colored skin than it hid. Her hair was short and purple colored. She was the perfect embodiment of the desirable woman, the one who was glimpsed furtively at the turn of a dream, and who left you regrets when you woke up.
But this woman was... a perfect honey trap because she wore the traditional Hassan's skull mask.
Hypnotized by the dance, Master Galliasta did not become alarmed that his throat began to burn. Then a feeling of nausea overwhelmed him. He pressed his hand over his mouth to contain the raucous cough that peeled at his lungs. Staggering, he fell back and had a chill of horror when he saw the blood on his hands.
He coughed more blood while his irritated eyes were tearing... as if... as if... poison gas had spilled into the room!
Atrum Galliasta stared at Assassin. She had stopped dancing to advance towards him with the supple grace of the cheetah having cornered it prey. Despite the mask, the Magus was certain that she was smiling:
"So, Master Galliasta, did you enjoy contemplating my Dance of Silence?"
Atrum Galliasta was a half-breed Levantine. He was interested in the traditional Arab Magecraft and the Eastern traditions. He could consider himself a connoisseur of Arab, Iranian, and Indian legends...
"Hassan of Serenity!"
Yes, he recognized her... Hassan of Serenity was the incarnation of the poisoned woman, the cursed Eve, Visha Kanya, Mary, and Poison Ivy... whatever the name one gives her.
Illyasviel von Einzbern groaned and rose up slowly. His clothes were wet, torn, and burned... And it was not the worst, the half-homunculus had the taste of blood in the mouth and the impression that all her bones had been broken with a hammer.
To tell the truth, she wasn't feeling very well.
But she was used to pain. Compared to some "training" that Old Man Acht had put her through, it was like a walk in the forest on a beautiful spring morning...
Instantly lucid, she put her hand to her forehead and straightened up.
The room she was in was devastated. The walls had been ripped open and broken down. Her eyes turned to the origin of this devastation. Berserker fought the Undine. The latter enveloped his head and upper chest with it body made of water, seeking to crush him. Heracles rushed into the walls waving his powerful stone weapon to try to dislodge it.
The clash had lasted several minutes, given the damage. Nevertheless, neither of the two opponents had scored a decisive blow.
Focusing on her connection to Berserker, Illya frowned.
Five lives!
Paracelsus' attack had taken five lives from her Berserker!
Fortunately, the Undine would not be able to take a new life from her Berserker like this... at least not for hours. Because by suffocating her Servant, the elemental prevented Illya from regenerating the Prana of the Heroic Spirit.
Furious, the Einzbern's master stood up. Passing her hands in her hair, she manifested four Storch Ritter: Knight of Stork, the bird-shaped familiars drew "magic bullets" that tore the water creature apart. As the Undine reformed, Illya changed two of her familiars in their Degen form and projected them against the elemental. The Undine pierced by the silver wire swords retaliated and Illya was saved by Berserker. He seized her and took her to safety, while a fist of water fell on the place where she had stood.
Without breaking her concentration, the Einzbern's Master continued to harass the Undine. The water creature exploded... re-formed... each time smaller, more unstable. But it continued to attack, raising waves that broke the walls and gradually dismantled the tall tower of glass and steel. Without Berserker's reflexes, Illya would have been crushed or drowned, but the Servant avoided all attacks. Then... finally... the watery creature ceased to reform... definitively destroyed.
Exhausted by the intense fight, Illya panted.
The fight had been... wow... Although proud to have defeated an opponent capable of standing up to Berserker himself, the young Master did not allow herself to rejoice.
She was perfectly aware that only the absence of Caster and his Sylph earned her the victory of this confrontation.
Concentrating, she perceived the presence of two Servants nearby.
A third Servant?
Definitely, things weren't working out in her favor.
She struck the ground with her little foot and turned to the grimacing face of Heracles:
"Berserker, I've had enough, we're going back to the castle!"
Illya was furious and worried... A Servant stronger than his Berserker? It was intolerable!
Atrum Galliasta tried to get up, to flee, but his movements had lost all coordination, his limbs were weak like those of a baby.
He was going to die there, killed by a woman, an inferior creature? Without having accomplished anything?!
Crawling, he painfully walked away, crying tears of blood.
Without haste, Hassan of Serenity followed her prey. She raised a dirk, ready to strike.
But...
Suddenly the wind burst into the room, wrapping around Galliasta. Assassin raised her arms to protect herself as the glass boxes exploded, as the desks tore themselves from the ground to swirl around the room and hit it. Retreating, bombarded with computer keyboards, chairs, and computer monitors, she staggered. But the wind only forced, insensibly Hassan of Serenity retreated. An even more powerful burst lifted it from the ground and projected it against the opposite wall.
A Servant could not be wounded by mere physical attacks, but Assassin was equally powerless against her opponent... a Sylph! Neither the poison nor her daggers could hurt an air elemental.
Moreover, if one of Caster's familiars was here, it meant that Paracelsus would arrive at any moment. Under her mask, Hassan had a tense smile. No matter how much she admired a doctor who could cure all poisonings... she preferred by far to meet him in other circumstances.
She leaped to the nearest bay window, her daggers cutting an opening quickly, then - without a moment's hesitation- Assassin plunged into the void...
Paracelsus entered the devastated office.
The Sylph had taken on the appearance of an ethereal woman whose lower body was a whirlwind of wind. The air that circulated thanks to the movements of its hands chased the last miasmas of Hassan of Serenity's Dance of Silence.
"Cas... ter!"
The doctor knelt down near his Master. A physician above all else, he cast off his antipathy for Galliasta, concentrating only on the clinical presentation presented to him by Azoth. Poisoning...
"Don't worry Master, I am the creator of toxicology (3)".
Azoth was a Philosophical Stone, a Mastercraft instrument of alchemy, it has the power to transmute any matter into any other matter.
Caster held out his hand and a vial filled with a blue liquid appeared.
"Drink this, it's an antidote to Hassan of Serenity's poison."
Under the Ryuudou Temple stretched the massive cavern where the Greater Holy Grail was created. Three kilometers in diameter.
It was a hard place to reach because it has properties similar to a bounded barrier.
In the eternal darkness of the stalactite and stalagmite-filled caverns, shone magic circles connected to each other by complex networks of canals where energy flowed from Fuyuki's exceptional Ley Lines network.
On the walls of the caves, an intruder could also have distinguished strange mural paintings of a dark blue juxtaposed, entangled as some demented scripting. These signs would have made anyone shiver... they gave an impression of discomfort, like something horrible that no one would have really recognized.
They were the symbol of the contract of Angra Mainyu.
In a nothingness that was neither near nor far from the site of its creation, the Greater Holy Grail was an infinite but limited... nothingness. An empty, black space where red, blood-colored light swirls were floating. These formed paintings of howling and wailing faces, screaming mouths, haggard eyes, hands crocheting nothingness... this energy whirl was All the Word's Evils, a thing lost in an abyss of shallow slumber within darkness sealed in the bottomless earth. Its only dreams were the endless unreasonable and unattainable "prayers," that the human had long ago entrusted to it. For it, the Greater Grail was like a mother's warm placenta. It is only waiting for the moment of its coming birth, so it searches for opportunities to manifest into the world.
It was the incarnation of the 5.6 billion curses flowing out from the portal to hell.
But one thing was disturbing this creature without consciousness or personality... an additional curse had appeared and this change was like cancer spreading through the monstrosity trapped in the Greater Grail.
Angra Mainyu was unaware of this but the arrival of Pyrrha Nikos was the cause of this change. She was human and as such subject to the curses embodied by All the World's Evils, but she came from a world that was suffering from a curse unknown on Earth. And the presence of Pyrrha had allowed this original Remnant curse to manifest itself in All the World's Evils.
Slowly the darkness was pulsing reddish swirls... slowly something was contorting... Something filthy and blasphemous was about to be born.
(1) On the feast of Saint John 1527, Paracelsus threw into the bonfire the works of the doctors Avicenna and Galenus "Go to the fire" proclaimed Paracelsus "so that all misfortune may disappear with the smoke." This provocation led him to lose his position as a professor at the University of Medicine in Basel and to be banished from the city.
(2) My heart has preserved in its ardent passion
And the youthful insolent splendor has left me.
To the love of Hind pushed me a
Heart by age not strengthened.
I said when my eyes have
Shed tears and tears.
If Hind is cruel to me today,
After being so tender and close to me.
Then the whole human race
Is promised to vanish and nothingness.
A classical Arabic love poem, by Hind, around 700 after J.C.
(Note: I chose this poem... because of its subject. A woman laments to no longer receiving the love of... Hind... the author of the poem. The arrogance of this poet infatuated of himself went well as the accompaniment of a dance of death).
(3) Paracelsus is the "father" of toxicology, but also balneotherapy, and even occupational medicine (Paracelsus is responsible for the first study of diseases specific to miners). Paracelsus is also the inventor of many medicines, especially Laudanum, the first medical anesthetic.