A hovering apparition appeared speaking at once. "Albion's corpse remains stable even as the world freezes I can hold it in place for now." Message conveyed it vanished even as Caster looked back at him.
He answered the unspoken question. "The temple of Time will hold even if I die, as long as a single demon remains it will be fine."
She nodded back softly enough. "That's good to hear."
Saber flickered and smiled. "Sakura has convinced Amaterasu to open her mountain. They are perhaps the safest of all of us. I think that should be everyone we have left?"
Archer stepped across space breaking it with his presence. "There were a few stragglers but I think I found them all, and sorting it out comes first. If this continues no one survives, and we have everyone who could fight."
Caster nodded. "That's everyone I can think of too, so lets head out."
He nodded along and set his feet. It was time to begin, as he stepped forth into the Tiamat's primordial chaos and anchored himself amidst it.
He could not see their foe, even as he felt it in every quake of the earth as the world shook under the weight of its presence. He could not aim for it, but then even if it stood over the horizon it wasn't like he was going to miss a continent.
Goetia drank in the power fuelling the world around him.
The sea of chaos bubbled as it surrounded him, the possibilities of an endless number of lifeforms that could have been reaching out at the moment they failed to come into existence. Life itself burning as fuel as he reached in beyond his now mortal limits.
Enough that his existence began to bubble and roil as new life seeded itself within his corpse and flowed out through his blood into the sea. A single giant finger pressed down gently pressing against his head and the chaos fell under control, his fellow beast smiling down at him as something almost like a word crashed through the boundary.
And then he was above the world, the possibilities scoured away amidst the flames as he converted it into a single spell.
Enough power to burn the whole made manifest circled the world, a limitless number of rings of light spiralling out of control as he obtained a level close to apotheosis, the judge of humanity buoyed by their hopes and dreams.
"Ars Almodel Salmonis."
Power flowed through even as his body crumbled away into the mud below.
She stood perched on the continent itself feeling its power shifting over the world. A frozen blizzard that enveloped the world in a blanket of tis own ice so cold that even time began to freeze and the moment would last forever.
"I really made myself the best weapon this time didn't I?" It didn't answer but then the clouds that had been its brain had been scrambled and endless number of times over them millenia since its death.
And wasn't it better this way? That even her guardian of this endless moment would never need to think for itself merely accepting the order she'd place down to define its world.
But the insects gathered, and she raised her eyes to the sky once more to crush them once and for all.
Light poured forth from the heavens as a thousand lines of light crashed down, tearing into the frost and snow around her in a single moment. A single instant of destruction that carved away the foothold and scoured the surface into a fog of mist as it covered her sight.
And at her feet Ymir responded as the vapour burned away recrystallised and dragged itself back down. The world itself rising up to protect it as existence itself flowed into it once more.
Her winter wonderland collapsed as a single brilliant lance of light struck and was caught in the moment it would have struck her eye. Frozen as time itself was held in place by her gaze. Daintily she reached out and plucked it from the air as a glimpse of her own power transmitted itself through and she felt it become a part of her, a fitting weapon to use as a tribute.
And in that moment the spear crashed through her spine divine power flowing through as it burned her flesh, so she flowed through with it allowing herself to be carried along. The flesh that was cut and would not heal flowing away as she discarded form and splashed out across the world behind her. Her new form remade in an instant as she stepped back into the world staring up at her old seat as it stepped away.
A tree blossoming into the world as a thousand roots burrowed into its flesh and skittered harmlessly over its surface, caught and entwined but unable to break through. Frozen in the moment they reached for its core.
She stepped forward rising into the sky, growing with each step until she crossed miles each time, falling further away still as the space between them expanded and Primate Murder stepped into the space between them. Fur burning as it became a hail of light and fire that raced across the expanse.
She gestured and the world compressed. A black hole forming in the gap between them as every drop of power was dragged in. The beast itself hovering on the edge as the gap between them was crushed effortlessly by her power.
The part of her carved into the realm of Gods touched back and pressed against the fabric of the world itself, and even as the ground surged up she slipped away and tore it asunder. Existence bleeding and breaking away as it buckled under the image of her own existence.
And the void remained as she hung in the void surrounded by stars. Their own ethereal light pulsating int time as they became a new world. The stars moved and she moved alongside them as the fractured space peered into her mind and touched at the cracks she'd made. Six separate parts joined together whole once more and as the light filtered through the pressure slowly peeled her apart once more.
So she rose above it, titanic force growing beyond the limits of the world once more as she towered over existence and the pressure collapsed inwards upon itself. The sheer strength of having to contain her existence collapsing back into itself as the tiny world broke at its seams and she stepped back. Allowing herself to fall into reality once more.
The ground rising up as a picturesque forest grew out in all directions. It was home and kindness and warmth all rolled into one as a feeling of contentment and nostalgia wafted across her mind in a haze. The part of her that knew it settling into place until she almost felt like she could sit down and while away forever.
"You trapped a part of me here once I'm sure of it, perhaps just so I would remember this feeling." The girl who'd been lost in the forest she plucked it free and her name came to her in a single moment. "Violet."
The trees swayed in the breeze, light poured in from the sky and the parts of her faded away did not return, the floating feeling only growing stronger as part of her mind seemed to slip away from the whole.
Her friend entered the clearing smiling all the while as she bid her good day and invited her to sit down and while away forever once again. Concern mirrored as she felt
"You've done something so I can't remember so I don't think you are my friend."
But she could be. The thought lingered in her mind as more slipped away, she could set down the task she'd carved the world open for and strive alongside them as well. And the task was so unimportant when she could work with them.
There was another who shared her purpose, made that way by her own hands. The realisation crashed down as she dragged it up from her mind, her hand burning as she felt the words slip free. "Ymir crush every texture she attempts to paint over the world."
The sky broke as winter came in.
Her titan standing at the precipice of the world and letting it crumble under the weight of its gaze. The perspective of a single human crumbling as the world itself turned and observed it.
To the part of her carved from the myths of humanity it resonated, and she grew strength. To the part of her carved of the moon she was supressed as it slipped away. Still even weakened it was a chance and she stepped up and willed the world itself to hold in place under her sight.
Light poured out as the world flickered and the moment was gone, her gaze falling only on a shell of fire and ash crumbling away as space warped and the gap between them grew once more. "Ah well this game can only go on so long before I catch you all."
The sky answered as light poured forth once more in the moment of her weakness. And endless blaze of light enough to burn away the world crashing down. Caught on Ymir's hand as the ice and snow evaporated instantly as it protected her once more.
She blinked as ice and snow cascaded down around her, the glittering shards reflecting the torrent of power as it pulsated down and her protector shattered and broke. Power flowing through the link between them freely as she gave it more strength to regrow its shattered limbs. The drain required to keep it growing as it shattered again and again even with nigh limitless power at its disposal.
Then she would just have to make nigh limitless into truly limitless. The third mark flickered away as she spoke. "Ymir drag the moon closer."
The great titan reached up, dragging the laws of the world along with it as it formed a bridge to the heavens. The frozen world it embodied raced along the path of its limb in a trail of ice and snow that grasped the moon and reeled it in.
He raised his cup seated on the apex of its skull and joined in. "Demonic Tyrant." Blood poured in as the crystallisation of a slaughter made itself manifest once again.
Kill one demon to be a hero.
Kill them without counting and become one yourself.
He embraced his heritage and fell into the world as the weight of his own existence was dragged down by the glut of souls pouring into his own. Their metaphysical weight entwining with his own as he made it manifest as something real, gravity surging a hundred-fold as he tugged alongside the giant below.
And without thought or design it fell into place and aided him. It's world converging alongside his own as carved the path through which they could fulfil its request. The titans strength empowering him as it sought the easiest path to bind the worlds together without thought or understanding.
The pure and perfect moon itself growing as it dwarfed everything around it. Each breath carrying faster as it began to spin around the world faster than ever before. Until it became something that defined day and night as the world flickered between moments.
The time the moon covered the sky, and stars and sun alike were hidden by its size.
And the moment it passed beyond the horizon and daylight was allowed to touch the world once again. Both moments lasting only a fraction of a day as under the immense pull of gravity it raced around the world.
The atmosphere igniting as the moon touched the earth and he stepped above it all. Crashing through the gap where the worlds connected for a single moment. "Caster you're here as well I see."
"Of course, the moment he made the path I came through to see what I could get." She smiled as her frame stretched beneath her mantle. "Well, it might have been nice to sit on the throne of the moon but it seem beyond me right now."
He grimaced. "Not enough like Odin's throne then, eh Ollerus."
"The law of the world is different, and I don't have a path through. I can still represent the tides through Jorumgandr so it's not like I'm helpless. But a moment isn't enough to kill her in this place."
He nodded along easily enough. "My plan is still on track, so don't hold too tightly. For the moment there is someone I'd like you to meet."
The two of them ventured forth, crashing through the layers of the moons defences in an instant until he sat at the gates of her palace once more. The first time he'd been able to come in this lifetime.
"Chang'e, sentimental at a time like this old Yi."
"I'm always very sentimental, aren't I?" Unlike the last time he stepped past the threshold. Doors shattering under the weight of his presence as the castle broke, the walls cascading down as the weight of the world shattered everything around him. Until he reached her room.
Tiny and ephemeral as she danced without presence. An existence so light that the simple act of touching her would crush her from existence once and for all. "Can you take her with you when you go?"
She eyed him softly. "Of course, although I don't see how you could fit."
He winced. "Right now? Think with some other part of you like maybe your head for once."
"Ah well, fair maiden your husband just gave you to me how ungentlemanly of him." A bird grew from her flesh, the mantle wreathed around herself driving itself up as it combined with the world she'd been given. An existence of mud and life bound around the divine core of the Morrigan. "But if you give me your hand I'll let you come back with us to Earth, are you willing?"
The figure flickered and watched the two of them carefully, before extending her hand and touching the bird. A path forming as she linked the two of them to the moon itself.
"Well, I'm into Earth's side of the boundary." Her form grew almost enough to match his own in the space between worlds. "And the old man has his giant laser canon set up so whenever your ready."
He fell down into reality itself once again to watch the glow. The moon rocketing across the sky as it stood caught in the well of gravity he'd made, space itself held taut for a moment as the eyes of the giant dimmed. Its task completed as the moon stood closer than it ever had before.
Knocked to the string that was the fabric of the world and held in place by the weight of his soul.
He poured it away as the lifeblood spilled free of his body and back into the demonic arrow in his hand, its very presence flickering in the world as it attempted to return to shape. To become a demon once more and rage across the world in all its fury. A primordial demon trapped in his hand for but a moment.
His ego collapsing as the weight he'd held in place was lifted and space buckled in response. The fabric of the world recoiling as it unravelled and the arrow in his hand took to life once more. His own soul entangled with it for but a moment more as he fought off the collapse of his own existence.
In the distance the ocean rose carried aloft by an enormous serpent as it raced over the world. Stretching up into the sky and down into the very foundations of the world as the tides moved, and through them the moon was bound. A wave shattering over the land as it tore forth and dragged BB into the sky.
He stepped through space appearing beneath her. Even as she shed her form becoming one with the foam as she reached out to become the wave in her own way.
She remanifested, Saber standing at the edge and drilling a spear into her shadow as the curse bound to it forced her back into corporeality in the line of his shot.
Vijaya raised as he knocked his arrow once more. Existence trembling under the weight of its presence as she hung caught in the sky above him. The single moment caught in her gaze as time froze between them.
And the Beast of Gaia turned its gaze as the world observed them and forced the moment forward.
"Kusanagi." He released it as his body crumbled away.
Eight dragons arched forward in an instant. Crashing forward like an ocean they traced a path coursing over the path between the Earth and the Moon. A moment caught in the wake of its passage as fate itself was severed by its passage.
Seated on the surface of the moon she felt everything fall into place once again as an absolute existence. Buoyed by its strength dominant as the world itself fallen under her dominion.
"Well that was enough to hurt, but you need a bit more than that to kill BB-chan." Softly she pulled herself back and smiled up at the Earth above.
A kaleidoscope of light poured from above across the divide between worlds, an endless stream of possible realities scuppering there power uselessly across the divide as they touched upon a world that did not understand it.
Like a meteor it careened through a breathless sky and shattered the ground beneath, the world itself cracking under the impact. Crust deforming under the weight of its impact.
The surface splintering and cracking as it began to vaporise and dust and residue blasted itself free of its surface as everything that was her body broke under the strain.
It mattered not, for the moon did not understand death as humans did. Its surface splintering was of no meaning and the computer at its core continued on much the same, spinning endlessly through the void.
In the midst of the calamity, she stepped free in a new body, reforged from the memories of the old and glimpsed the world receding away from her, a tiny jewel of blue and green. But the two planets had been bound together for an age, the connection stretching across the ages ever since the moon itself had responded to Gaia's plea all those ages ago.
It was gone.
The last link between the worlds severed as the gap grew and her domain fell further away.
For a moment the Titan stood silent in its reverie, staring into the fading world as its grip on existence started to falter. The power from the moon itself severed as it slipped back into mindlessness. An egoless existence standing without direction and lost.
Mindlessly swinging as its titanic mass crashed down against the rest of existence.
Seamlessly it faded into the world and became it. The tundra falling over the texture of the world and becoming one with it as an existence that covered existence in a blizzard without thought. A blanket of frost enshrouding existence as the divine core at its heart pulsed in time with the heartbeat of the world itself.
The sun plunged down, a glimpse of light pouring into the world and reflecting harmlessly off the surface as it grew colder. New heat harmlessly radiating back out into space as the giant covered the world.
Light poured forth from her flesh
Shirou turned and looked up at Primate Murder hovering along beside him. "Can you do it?"
The Beast grinned back fur radiating out into the world as it shone with a strange light, carving a space free of the world, A hole in existence as the snow fell all around it.
A simple sword acting as the vessel, a flame burning in the space inside began to expand. "O lord I entrust this body to you." The sword glimmered even as it accepted the full weight of existence. "La Pucelle."
The armour surrounding her was consumed, fire and ash and smog dragged into the weight of a world and fuelling it brighter. Her soul fed the furnace as it grew larger once more. A world of flame extending carved into reality in the shape of a sword.
She swung the forty-kilometre world crashing down into the continent before her. Shearing away the layers of ice and snow as it rewrote the world and cast its existence into the flames. Feeding itself on the soul of the giant itself as its world broke.
Two primordial forces crashing against one another as the texture of the world came undone and raw chaos erupted across the surface of the world. The aftershock crashed over her form and split as the spear in her hand parted it, a remnant of its memory as a pillar that upheld the laws of the world even once broken.
She stepped forward into the maelstrom and found her body crumbling. Existence fading away even as she raised the spear its form growing as it became a pillar enough to uphold the laws of a world of its own accord.
And her body was crumbling away.
Strength flowed in through the gap between worlds.
Seven other worlds expanded in the wake of its passing each one carrying a reflection. Each strength pouring back a glimpse of her power as it gave form once more. The story of a king who returns echoing back from those granted power as it gave her a moment more time.
The spear plunged down into the maelstrom even as the Goddess above poured life into the mix. Pinning the creation of a new world into place, dragging echoes of the worlds around her as she pulled its laws into place. Taking from the worlds not yet ended.
Mud enough to seed it with life.
Plants enough to feed a people.
Fire enough to warm them.
Steam and innovation as ideas flowed.
Dreams to make the future brighter.
Steel to protect from whatever horrors came in.
A story to bind them together, the nascent spark of a world growing into place. For an instant it flickered, a tiny candle daring to stand before the storm.
In the next Tiamat stepped past. "Un." Blood pouring into the new world as it expanded endlessly, seeding itself across Gaia as it bloomed into life once more. And as it expanded she felt the worlds supporting her falling away as they made space.
Her form softly flickering away once more. Duty fulfilled.
A hand clamped down on her shoulder, Large muscular frame shifting down to stare into her eyes, a vessel of mud and soil rising up out of her flesh in the shape of a human as she locked eyes with her. Caster smiled from inside the mass of shifting mud. "Well I did say I want to keep you, and you'll keep your memories intact. You know you want to."
She smiled back. "Lets go."
AN: Gonna do an epilogue and then move on to something else. I have truly enjoyed the massive increase of readers I've had over the course of this, we've broken through double digits and at one point I even got as many as thirty of you. My beta was shocked having bet at one when this started.
But I am also not dragging it out forever and want to try and see if I can get some other projects running that may even see higher numbers than that. Pipe dreams exist and I shall push for them.
Also, the person who is missing is Gilgamesh, oops. But like Crimson Moon I realised I wasn't sure what I was going to do with him for a moment and then decided forgetting him was easiest. Whether that is him just getting ganked off screen by Crimson Moon earlier or something else everything in the Nasuverse is better without Gilgamesh.
Anyway, feel the horror of a fifth of this chapter being character sheets while I go sleep and only realise afterwards this had no beta.
Grand Archer – Hou Yi
Pulls from older Hou Yi myths where he was as much a tyrant. (Mostly because it fits with how the Chinese Gods assume he lacks filial piety.
A slaughterer of monsters to the point that he became a demon himself, a hero who cast down the Sun and caused a blight upon the land, a legend he shares with Susanoo. And from there I started picking up all sorts of Storm Gods and carving him something of his own.
He also counts as a Xianxia protagonist, hence the whole weight of his ego joke.
Noble Phantasms
Vijaya – The bow of indra Hindu God of storms (among other things) and represents part of the myth of the storm god obscuring the Sun. As it also matches Hou Yi's bows qualities in myth having an unbreakable string that takes immense effort to pull back this became his bow.
Kusanagi – The demonic sword that represents the flood of storms and devastates the landscape, and was obtained by Susanoo as the Japanese God of storms among other things.
Blood Tyrant – Carved from Hou Yi's legend as a tyrant that killed countless monsters, it draws in the blood of all those slain to help him ascend as a demon in his own right bound to the world. Based on the Chinese myth of someone who slays demons becoming one themselves.
Grand Caster – Ollerus
Or Ullr depends on which source you want to use. The Glorious One who stole Odin's throne and became King of the Norse Gods. Which in the Nasuverse requires actually being able to steal a God's divine core.
So I started this one with the assumption that any hero who came from somewhere nameless can easily be made one of Loki's half human children. And Ullr has the association with death and rebirth through the Yew tree, and then from there to an existence that binds the bodies of monsters to herself and takes on their powers in an attempt to steal Odin's throne and overthrow the rather terrible fate of Norse Mythology was born.
The other allusion is of course a vine creeping up the world tree to represent her usurpation of the Gods.
Personal Skills –
The Third Eye – The eye Odin sacrificed to the World Tree in exchange for knowledge stolen back and fused with her flesh. Granting her a glimpse of the fate of all beings and fulfilling her Grand Caster requirement of being able to observe the whole world.
Metamorphosis – Pulled from her heritage as a descendant of Loki, being half jotunn grants her access to their abilities as shapeshifters and allows her to fuse the traits of others into herself.
At this level she is even capable of fusing with parts of divine beings including their divine cores.
Noble Phantasms
Mantle of Glory – Seated upon a Stolen Throne– Stitched together from the corpses of monsters killed in her youth, and fused with her flesh. It has dual purpose the first being to grant her immense strength and to take on the features of any number of mythical monsters that she had slain in life. The second to obscure her own fate and was used to prevent Odin himself from viewing her attempt to usurp his throne.
It is also a fun wordplay. I am a terrible degenerate of a person.
Hall of Heroes – Valhalla is here and having been the ruler of the Norse Gods she may pull all those heroes, and all those who die in battle in her service back from the dead as a huge army. Does what it says on the tin.
Ydalir – A bow of yew wood containing the power of life and death. It fires not into the physical form but into the soul of a creature allowing caster to pour herself into a new existence as part of the cycle of death and reincarnation.
Grand Saber – Michael
For the Fae are made of stories wished for by humanity. And one of those stories that spreads across cultures is the great king who having died returns in our hour of need. With the main ones I used to make it up being.
King Arthur of course, hence Excalibur.
Baldr – Norse god of Light who returns after Ragnorak
The Christian God who returns to bring salvation.
Though not the same person they are one who bears their likeness, and as one such mythological figure who it applies to is the Christian God, therefore the fae bearing that story can be referred to as one who bears the likeness of God, or Archangel Michael.
Also it let me have her kill the Beast of Revelation as her first act on screen, I wondered if that made it too obvious.
Personal Skills –
Beloved of the world – No harm may come to Grand Saber from any weapon of Earth below a certain divinity (or made out of Mistletoe)
Radiant one – Saber burns with light around her as a representation of the day that scours away all darkness.
Prana Burst
Noble Phantasms
Excalibur - You read the nasuverse you know what this is
Kingdom – That left behind – A fragment of those things that persist until the end of the world, the dreams of man made manifest until the end. Grants Grand Saber both the reality marbles that humanity had built up, and allows her to take other Noble Phantasms as her own.
Salvation – Grand Saber may return from death once, embodying her existence as a story that dies and lives again as she returns to the battlefield.
Oh, and Grand Rider was Primate Murder, with Shirou as a tagalong.