Chapter 114
It didn't take long for Assassin and Gray to find their way blocked by Avenger.
Making their way away from Ayaka's tracker signal, to put some distance between her and the other Servants, they served as a decoy to let the professor and Flat retrieve her safely. It was easy to tell that they were partially succeeding, just from the unfiltered, raw hatred directed at them that grew strong with every passing second. The dread weighing down on Gray's shoulders grew heavier, and even Assassin couldn't help but feel a twinge of anxiety. Just what in the galaxy was this Servant?
The killing intent reached a fever pitch, the two feeling like there was a guillotine blade positioned above their heads, a thin thread just barely preventing it from dropping. Then came a blunt announcement of her presence, the floor in front of them exploded.
Assassin jumped backwards and shielded her Master from the spray of rubble, pushing them back a few meters as well to put some distance between them and their foe. The pressure on the two of them was extraordinary, and though Assassin was a Servant who could easily handle something of this level, Gray was still only human, and with the terrific amount of hatred levelled against her by Avenger, she was gradually losing her grip.
Ordinarily, the presence of a Servant close by was enough for normal people to notice something was off. Whether it was how they spoke, acted or looked like, gazes would always be attracted to them, with people understanding instinctively that 'this person isn't normal'. It could reach great heights, with native heroes summoned to their own homeland commanding such a majestic presence that they were unable to go unnoticed at all if they manifested in the public, often attracting large crowds wherever they went. If Karna was summoned in India, it was guaranteed there would be crowds following him every day, with people proclaiming him to be a holy man, and others who would try to get him on television and so on. The same thing would apply for Nobunaga if she was summoned in Japan, or Anastasia Romanova in Russia.
In this respect, Avenger was similar, yet also different.
Hers was a class born from resentment, a vengeance that refused to rest even after death, manifesting as a Servant. They were undeniably human, being so fixated on the hatred and revenge that spurred them on against their fellow humans in life that that was all they had left when they became Servants, and each one carried a grudge unique to themselves.
For Avenger, it was her father.
The bastion of Britain, an unyielding fortress that held fast against the Saxons, but all Mordred could see was the long shadow that stretched from his back to her mother's feet. Caught between the two, all she could see was darkness, standing in the abyss of being manipulated by her mother and a father who rejected her.
Amazingly, she was still able to let go of her hatred, or at the very least suppress it so deeply that it was almost like it never existed in the first place, all because of the unique circumstances she enjoyed in that timeline, so far removed from what the other Mordreds had experienced. All things are destined to end, and in her case it came tragically soon.
In the end, all that repressed anger surged forth from her darkened heart with tripled vengeance, her body becoming an avatar of senseless slaughter and bloody retribution as she went mad, carving a path of blood, flesh and bone in Britain to make her way straight towards Arthur, and end everything on that destined hill. Her feats of revenge became the grand finale to the saga of King Arthur, a final climax that no other epic could match, allowing her to attain the Avenger class. It could be said that if Edmond Dantes as Avenger had conquered time and space in pursuit of his revenge, then Mordred had gone beyond what the human body was capable of, pushing it reach a point where it could bend space and time, a monumental effort that was somewhat similar to Sasaki Kojiro mastering his special technique, though in essence she refined and honed her ability to specialize in one thing only. Killing Arthur.
Strangely, if she were to manifest in public, no one would notice her, nor would they feel any stirrings of hatred or killing intent directed at them. Only mages sensitive to mana disruption, or people gifted with something similar to that would notice her disturbingness. That was because she focused on her target, and excluded everything else. It wasn't that she didn't kill anything else during her quest to reach Arthur, but it was more like she only saw it as cutting grass or stepping on insects to reach him, instead of being any significant event. As such, anyone standing in her way wouldn't really feel any killing intent directed at them. They would just die, cut apart by her sword, like an impartial force of nature, a tornado of violence sweeping across the battlefield.
But for her father, or those close to her, the pressure was intense.
Right now, Gray was on the verge of fainting, her pale skin turning even paler from the close proximity of the Servant, her skin turning cold and clammy as she tried to maintain a grip on her silver bow, half her mind wondering whether it was Add shaking in her hands, or if it was just her body trembling. Assassin could tell how bad her condition was now, and slowly retreated, step by step, making no sudden movements to trigger Avenger, who was simply staring at them through the black slit on her visor, a crimson glow tangible through the dust left over from her dramatic entrance.
Struggling to control her breathing and palpitating heart, Gray stepped back in time with Assassin, carefully, slowly, putting one trembling leg behind the other, doing it like she was making a 3D glass sculpture puzzle piece while standing on only one leg.
*krch*
Unknowingly, her boot stepped on a small piece of concrete with a short length of rebar still embedded in it, the concrete crumbling into gray dust under her weight as the steel rebar loudly scraped on the floor between her rubber soles and the hard floor, drawing a minuscule gouge out of it.
Like a cannon going off, Avenger burst into motion, her confusion at the essence of Assassin, so far removed from the regular Artoria, gone as the primal hatred once more dominated her mind, turning everything into black and red as her keen edge sang for blood while the blade whistled through the air.
Assassin was prepared for the blow, but she wasn't prepared for the rapid fire double kicks that came soon after, or the stray punch, and to top it off a headbutt as Avenger swivelled her entire body mid-air with Mana Burst to turn it into a drilling strike. She had no right to be so agile, especially in mid-air, yet somehow she managed to pull it off, with each strike as heavy as it was fast.
Assassin hadn't survived the galaxy for nothing though. It was comparable to the quick draw bullets of Billy, and she had cut those down before, so something on this level wasn't impossible for her. Though she was pushed back with each blow, ending up almost a meter away from the trembling Gray, who was leaning on the wall and inching away from the two, desperately fighting off the mental burden of Avenger's attention, as well as the sudden spike in mana consumption from Assassin. Normally she could easily handle something like this for an hour, but with her psychological state crumbling, it became exponentially harder to control both her mind and body, piling up the fatigue and stress on both sides.
Furiously, Assassin swung her glowing sword up and down, left and right, diagonally and vertically, cutting the air several times within a second in quick successions as she deflected, parried and blocked every blow raining down on her, the space between the two turned into a still tracing of golden lines and black flashes interspersed between them. The air pressure cut the ground and floor, scoring gashes and thin lines into the concrete as more and more rubble appeared on the ground, the lights that were spared from Avenger's rampage earlier slowly extinguishing one by one as the fight progressed with Assassin being pushed backwards, every two steps backwards breaking one light, with Avenger becoming a literal herald of darkness.
Blue rimmed portals opened up at the sides, above and behind Avenger, indiscriminately shooting as bolts of energy as large as a dog hammered into the floor and ground while Avenger dodged them with the barest of margins, melting great holes and utterly destroying the hallway. Without the bombardment, Assassin would have been hard-pressed to keep up with Avenger's unorthodox movement that defied everything she had seen before in her travels throughout the galaxy, but as Avenger dipped and ducked to avoid both her sword and cannon shots from the portal, she was given half a seconds reprieve to plan out her next move and analyze Avenger's style in order to anticipate her plan of attack.
A cut on the cheek. A slash of her jacket. A lock of yellow hair fluttering away from its rightful place. Slowly, the tip of the blade came ever closer to Assassin, the black edge creeping beneath her guard, over her head, even reaching behind her in several nigh-impossible maneuvers that saw Avenger taking insane gambles to strike at Assassin from completely unexpected spots, leaving the rest of her body open for a blow. Only the sheer unexpectedness, and the speed it was executed with, saved Avenger from a crippling blow.
Shaving away at Assassin's stamina, she was starting to feel her body struggle to keep up with her movements, her intended actions experiencing a delay as the strength of Avenger's blade clashing with hers shook her entire frame, rattling the very teeth in her mouth. Somehow though, the ahoge didn't so much as twitch, the shifting air and Assassin's twisting body not even affecting it in the slightest. Her determination didn't waver, her eyes searching for a sign of weaknesses even as she weathered each blow.
She could tell that if she didn't protect Grey, Avenger would instantly switch her focus from her to Grey and leap past her to directly attack her Master, probably obliterating her in one blow. But with how she was intentionally blocking Avenger, the Servant had no choice but to go at her as hard as possible, investing all her energy into defeating her. They were both targets, but Avenger knew who to prioritize, even with her muddled mind. She unintentionally left the threat of switching targets to Grey in Assassin's mind, forcing Assassin to fight in a way that protected Gray, leaving her unable to exploit any openings that appeared in Avenger's stance, lest she leave a gap in her own that let Avenger through to target Grey.
Grey was aware she was a burden to Assassin, and she was forcing her body to move as fast as it could, but her legs remained uncooperative, each foot slow and unresponsive as it sluggishly lifted into the air, then plodded down, bringing her body mere inches forward.
Sensing a prime opportunity, Rider navigated to the end of the hallway, prepared to materialize and fire an ace in the hole.