Chapter 128
Drawing from the mana gushing into her body, Berserker activated both blades of her saberstaff, the red blades spitting and hissing defiantly in the face of the golden wall that promised their demise.
To her eyes, even the lightsaber blades that extended from the hilt looked slow, crawling out of the emitter like a snail. She could feel the air currents brushing against her cheeks, the palpitations of her beating heart, the drawn out sound of her lightsaber humming to life. All her senses were hypersensitive, putting her in a state similar to what Kiritsugu experienced during his Time Alter magecraft, seeing everything slowed down relative to what she could process.
But that wasn't all that was enhanced.
Her body felt like it was able to leap mountains and break glaciers, the blood thrumming through her veins as condensed Alterite was pumped into every single crevice of her body, courtesy of the Alternium crystals that made up the Altreactor. The (Infinity) Chestnut Paste', composed from six fundamental forces of Desire (Soul), Sugar (Power), Sales Location (Space), Cost Price (Reality), Production (Time), and Demand (Mind), granted infinite power to the possessor, power that could destroy and remake a galaxy in the image of it's wielder.
Or that was what she was told, but it was really more of a self-hypnosis technique like what magi performed, in this case for Berserker to release her maximum potential and fight at full strength, as it was usually sealed for safety purposes after some disastrous incidents and the amount of self-harm she unknowingly inflicted.
As for why it was chestnut paste, well that was because she liked the taste more than black bean paste, switching to it soon after arriving in Japan.
The world exploded into a storm of red and gold, two titanic forces clashing against each other without reserve, a scene that civilization no longer permitted to exist.
Berserker's hands moved at an inhuman pace, the saberstaff swinging at speeds that rivalled the supersonic Concorde place. It was no longer visible as a single blade, the red melting into the air like gas until it was a dense shell of ruby light that formed a wall blocking the ever growing cone of gold shining from Marmyadose, the blast covering the entire hallway in a flood of mana. Caster's mana may have been endless, but just as inexhaustible was Berserker's movements, the mana surrounding the sword swelling to epic proportions as it approached what Illya had seen during her battle between her and Lancelot of the Dark Rounds in the Servant-verse during the dream cycle.
With every slash, the golden light held at bay, streaks of lightning crackling between each and every slash until it became a disk of vermillion lines, jagged and scarring the very air itself, burning furiously as it resisted the inexorable push of a divine weapon grinding down on them.
In reality, Berserker was really just spinning the saberstaff really fast, like the blades of a regular fan, only much faster, and pumping mana into the saberstaff so that it was capable of blocking the blast.
It was a simple strategy, but it worked.
A disc of scarlet expanded in front of Berserker and her saberstaff, the raw mana forming into a dense shield that protected her from the beam, with her taking care to shield Gray as well so she didn't accidentally redirect the blast towards the unconscious magus. From Shirou's perspective all the way behind them, it actually looked like a fan going really fast that kind of blurred together until the blades looked like one solid object, except this fan glowed, was red and had lightning crackling inside it.
Just as abruptly as it began, the blast abruptly ended, Marmyadose ceasing it's attack as it's glow slowly faded away til it returned to it's normal form. The divine weapon floated to Caster's side since it was also her staff, Chastiefol merging with it when she summoned the godlike weapon to her side. She had no idea why it did that, but she didn't have the luxury to wonder why as she stared, dumbfounded at the massive wall of pulsing crimson energy that blocked the entire hallway, cutting into the floors, walls and ceiling itself as it extended beyond the dimensions of the hallway. Scarlet lightning danced across the surface of the mana shield, the edges of the floor, ceilings and walls cleanly cut with barely any deformations, the mana piercing through concrete and metal the same way it did in the air.
Gradually, the wall of mana receded, starting from the edges as it slowly shrunk down to the center of the saberstaff that was slowing down it's spinning at the same time. The wall retreated and collapsed into a single point, the center of the saberstaff where Berserker's hands were situated, and then the mana ceased flowing out to augment her saberstaff. Slowly, the saberstaff came to a halt as well, going from a blur of red to different arcs of red, and then finally recognizably different blades then slowed to a complete stop.
Caster didn't even know she had been slashed until she felt the warm liquid dripping onto her leg.
Looking down, she saw the red streak of flesh running across her white uniform, now stained with a layer of concrete dust and blood.
Berserker sheathed her sword as Caster fell to her knees in the exact same position the illusion had shown her being in, the saberstaff clipped onto her belt as she used telekinesis to freeze her in place, her right hand stretching out towards Caster as it formed a half-curled fist.
Without warning, the tip of the staff glowed, the crystal lighting up, and the cerulean spears from earlier floated in a circle around it, thin blue streams of energy connecting to the crystal and shooting up into a portal above, shadowy green shifting around the edges of the circular hole.
Slim beams of azure rained down on Berserker from the charred and blackened ceiling, slicing towards her limbs, head and body as they changed directions midair from landing away from her to a razor sharp turn that pitted her right in their sights.
Still, this was Berserker.
She easily batted them aside by flicking them with her single-bladed lightsaber, her other hand lifting up and absorbing the blasts as a combination of her lightning and telekinesis formed a rotating circle of lightning on her palm that 'ate' the energy.
Still, it was enough to buy time for Caster to put some distance between them and recollect herself as she used some basic healing magecraft to treat the wound at her side. Thankfully, her Noble Phantasm had been active in her body since she had called on her holy land when Berserker had just broken her invisibility. Carnwennan had come back to her arsenal with a slight delay, but the actual invisibility spell took time to cast, so instead she decided to lure Berserker closer with her own body, then manifested her Noble Phantasm internally to avoid grievous injuries. It was surprisingly easy, since she had already linked her Noble Phantasm to the major ley lines at Ryuudou temple, hence rendering 'constantly active', so since her body was also part of the prerequisites for the Noble Phantasm, she was also part of the Noble Phantasm itself, allowing it to take form within her.
In fact, casting on allies was actually more difficult since the Noble Phantasm was already anchored in place so to speak, so she didn't cast it on Saber earlier despite the relatively low mana cost.
The two of them stared at each other, one gritting her teeth and leaning on her sword-staff, treating the wounds she had sustained, while the other looked on coldly, her lightsaber remaining out though she remained still.