Heracles carried both Chloe and Artoria on his back as he followed the Lion King down a tight corridor. Curses filled the air and made it vile, every breath being painful for even the dark giant. They were about to reach the bowels of the mountain where Avenger gestated. It was time to face the ultimate evil of this journey, a darkness that was one of the greatest evils Heracles had ever heard of. The malignance had to die.
The group had one more obstacle to deal with first. Daggers came from both ahead and behind. The Presence Concealment of an army of Hassans was undone, the possessed civilians standing at both ends of the tunnel. Heracles turned around and used his body to take the knives coming from behind, the blades bouncing off his skin. The goddess handled the front, swinging her spear to destroy the daggers.
The Assassins pulled out more knives and held them up to their necks. They were using the same ultimatum they had when they first appeared, threatening to end their lives and thus the lives of the innocents they had pilfered the bodies of if the enemies of the Grail didn't stand down. The difference in this case was that, due to the narrow passage, there was no way to run down the hall and destroy all the masks before at least a few of the Assassins could self-terminate.
"God, not this shit again. Can't we just let these people die?" Chloe groaned. "We're trying to save the world, they're gonna be some sacrifices."
"No." Heracles spoke deeply. "We aren't making any more needless sacrifices."
"Normally I would agree with Chloe." the goddess put a hand on her chest. "However, I can feel Gray inside me, and she doesn't want to sacrifice anyone. I want to respect her human choice."
"So we're just gonna bend the knee here?" Chloe said.
"Of course not." Artoria echoed what Heracles was feeling.
"We just have to be careful about this." The Lion King spoke as she fired multiple beams of energy, Heracles simultaneously summoning his bow and shooting several arrows. The Archer's shots hit the walls of the cave, rebounding off them and hitting the masks of multiple Assassins before they had the chance to pierce their necks. The hits were all grazing blows that avoided harming any of the civilians, only breaking the masks. Meanwhile, the Lion King's beams moved with curving trajectories that cleanly shattered all the remaining masks. The innocents all hit the floor, unconscious. Despite the awkward shape of the arena, the team of the goddess and demigod managed to kill Hassan for good and save all of the victims in one second.
"Fucking Hell." Chloe was in awe. "I keep forgetting how fucking strong you guys are."
"That had nothing to do with strength, it was technique." Artoria said.
"You know what I meant." Chloe huffed and summoned a green rune. "Gather all these people together so I can teleport them somewhere safe.
"Where are you going to send them?"
"Depends. I'm going to contact some of the others to see if any of them can quickly get to one of the teleport spots to watch over these people." Chloe began having a telepathic conversation. Heracles smiled as he thought of how Chloe's empathy had grown thanks to Illya and her family. It was unlikely that Chloe would have cared about sending these people somewhere safe before she grew. She still was willing to kill these people when Assassin first got in their way, but that was because the entire world was on the line. She was concerned about the world, about humanity. Her hatred wasn't tinting her view of humanity as unilaterally cruel anymore. "Alright. Bazett and Scáthach are free."
Heracles and the Lion King gathered all the civilians together. Chloe fired a few runes and the innocents were teleported to safety.
"Aight, let's go. The Grail awaits." Chloe said and the group took off.
Once they entered the chamber, they saw the Greater Grail. It was a black spot in the air, sitting like an ebony sun at the top of the crimson-tinted chamber. While Heracles had seen far more powerful forces, none were so full of hatred that made even the valorous hero of Greece feel his hair stand on end. Below the Grail sat the womb, a translucent structure shaped like a teardrop, within which was a writhing entity with four eyes trained squarely on the invaders bent on destroying it. The nearly born Beast was excreting curses that formed little pools and piles around itself. This womb sat on a plateau that led to a platform over a lake of the Grail's mud. Around the room were so many giants made of mud that they crowded the area and made it difficult to see. There was barely any space in the room that wasn't occupied by the titans composed of curses. There was one other large mass, but it was made of meat rather than mud, an avatar of an Outer God so large it barely fit in the room. It was something between an amoeba and a squid and it exhaled a mist that darkened the chamber. This must have been the gigantic entity that Gilles was able to summon. In that case, the false magus was inside that monster. The serial killer hadn't used the river in the city, but perhaps he managed to use the lake of mud in the room to bring about this affront to all things.
"Suffer." Standing in front of the womb was the Black Grail. She looked identical to Chloe and Illya and was wearing a black dress woven from threads of mud. She was…not all there. She displayed no clear acknowledgement of the group that had entered the room other than the one word she spoke. She wasn't stable on her feet, waving back and forth slightly while her eyes were pointed towards the ground. Irisviel, the vessel of the Grail, was previously being controlled by the wish granter's will, but she still had some sense of a personality. Now it seemed her ego had all but completely eroded away. Both Artoria and the Lion King looked at Irisviel with squinted eyes and clenched jaws. Their breathing was steady.
"Iri!" Artoria's voice was strong despite her battered body. Her cry reached out and grabbed the Black Grail's attention, the haze in the homunculus's mind clearing enough that she looked Artoria's way. "We're going to save you! Iri, this night won't end until all of us are leaving this cave together! We're going to go back to Denmark and we're going to live as a family! You, me, and our children! I swear on the love I feel for you with every atom of my body, we will save you!"
Irisviel tilted her head.
"Who are you?"
A frigid silence followed. Heracles could feel Artoria's hands squeezing his back. Despite Heracles' near impregnability, Artoria's grip hurt.
"It's okay if you don't remember. We'll still save you. We will save you." Artoria was smiling.
"As if there was any other option." Chloe said as she got off Heracles' back, the giant handing Artoria to his Master. "I'll watch her, so you two just go all out."
"We shall." The goddess said as she stepped forward, the giant at her side. "I shall charge in, you watch my rear. Does that sound agreeable?"
"It does."
"Suffer." The Black Grail's word caused the horde of mud titans to charge while the extradimensional god destroyed the platform with a whipping tentacle and jumped into the lake of curses. The mud titans would preoccupy and wear away at the invaders while the horror protected the Grail. A good plan.
The Lion King jumped and you'd be forgiven for forgetting she was in a weakened state given the speed at which she moved. One thrust of her spear tore one of the titans in half while a follow up swing brought down two more. The mud from the felled titans began gathering tougher to reform while more of the monsters kept moving forward. Sparkles danced around Rhongomyniad before firing like bullets and filling several titans with holes that quickly sealed shut. The Lion King could have brought down this army with a few swipes of her spear when in her prime, but now she was struggling. A dozen mud punches flew at the goddess, but Heracles' arrows made a whistling sound as they crossed the air and blew apart the fists before they could land, allowing the Lion King to counterattack by stabbing her spear downward. Her entire body shot into the ground and unleashed a shaft of light that widened until it had overtaken and eradicated all of the mud titans in the nearby tenth of the room. The goddess followed up by jumping around the room, bouncing off walls while blanketed in light that made the Lion King look like a living laser as she sliced the titans into pieces. The chunks of curses tried fusing back together, but Archer rapidly fired shots that dispersed them. The droplets that remained still gathered back together, but more slowly. The only way to get rid of the mud was to completely annihilate it down to the most fundamental particles. That was difficult when the mud dissolved almost everything it touched, including the matter and most of the energy behind both the Lion King and Heracles' attacks. A high rank Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm was necessary for this. Rhongomyniad would have been perfect for the job, but its True Name was sealed due to the damage to the Lion King's Saint Graph.
The fight continued with the Lion King tearing apart attacking titans while Heracles provided support from a distance. Shooting through the chamber with her spear forward, the goddess burst through over fifty titans in a single motion and soared over the evil god. She was headed straight for the Grail. She lacked the power to destroy it as she currently was, but she could damage it enough to stop its womb from functioning for the time being. Tendrils from the evil god rose up and got in the Lion King's way. She pierced through them, but they slowed her down enough that another tentacle was able to swat her out of the air. The goddess was slammed into one of the mud titans, both the curses and the gluttonous meat of the horror eating away at her.
Heracles became a juggernaut as he jumped towards his captured ally, his body breaking through the mud and flesh to grab the goddess and leap back towards the ground. As they descended, more mud giants ran at them, but the Lion King felled them all with her lasers which she swung like a blade. Both Heracles and the Lion King were hurt from having their bodies and Saint Graphs eaten away at, but the goddess was doing far worse. Some patches of her skin had actually turned black.
The two heroes hit the ground and were immediately surrounded again. They both unleashed a barrage of projectiles that blew away the attacking force, only for another wave to be heading their way. The two warriors were in one place which made it easier to assail them both at the same time. It also meant that Chloe and Artoria had nobody to protect them. Three titans lumbered towards Heracles' Master and the wounded king.
"I've got them!" Heracles charged through multiple mud giants and got between the three that were about to attack his Master. The Archer unloaded hundreds of arrows and the masses of mud were reduced to droplets that hit the opposite wall of the cavern.
The battle had returned to its original state, excluding the fact that both the Servants were now in less than top shape.
"This fucking sucks!" Chloe held on to Artoria. She wasn't strong enough to help abate her Servant's struggle, so all she could do was watch over the injured King of Knights. Even that wasn't actually helping since Chloe lacked the capability to halt a single attack from the mud giants. All her barriers would be too vitreous to stop a force akin to what those titans could output, and that wasn't even taking into consideration the fact that the mud would just melt any defense actually durable enough to handle the raw force behind the curse constructs. One might think Heracles couldn't personally empathize with her vexation given his might was ever present no matter the obstacle, but her helplessness struck a chord with him. He too knew what it was like to feel helpless before the will of beings that possessed power that was on a higher plane. Many of his life's tragedies were the work of gods he could not challenge.
"Heracles." The goddess telepathically spoke to the hero. "Can you make a path for me using Nine Lives? It's clear I can't make the path myself and also move through it in time."
"I'll try. Get right by the wall to my right."
The Lion King topped a few titans as she got to the designated wall. As she did, the hero of Greece readied nine arrows to all be released simultaneously. Even before he fired it could be felt that he was preparing something grand. This was ultimately a technique more so than an ability, which meant his magical energy didn't spike too highly, and yet it would be obvious to any warrior that he was initiating his ultimate attack.
"Nine Lives."
The nine arrows left the bowstring and became dragon-headed lasers. They were on a collision course for the evil god. Many of the mud constructs gathered together and became like a fortress wall to dampen the force of the incoming projectiles. It was then that the shots all changed their vectors, making a hard turn as they went around the extradimensional horror and curved parallel to the cave wall. The dragons charged through dozens of titans and left a clear path for the Lion King to go down to reach the Grail.
Since the goddess was already prepared to move and wasn't preoccupied with anything else, she just had to kick off the wall and become like a beam light to cross right over to the womb. Neither the evil god nor the cursed constructs could react in time to stop her. Rhongomyniad was thrust towards the gestating Beast.
A curved blade came from a pile of mud near the womb and arced towards the Lion King's face. The goddess tried to stop her attack and evade, but she only achieved the first of those two goals. The blade stabbed into the Lion King's left eye and destroyed it. Before it could go any deeper, the goddess propelled herself away with a Mana Burst, the point ripping out of her head. She landed a few feet back and found a woman with long purple hair wearing a dark hood rising out of the muck. They held a scythe in their hands and their face was unmistakably familiar. It was Medusa. Medusa Alter.
Out of more of the mud that had been scattered around the Grail came four more figures. Three looked identical to Medusa except they lacked the hoods to their outfits and only one of them had a scythe, the other two having a mirror shield and a sack. They were the Gorgon Sisters Alter.
Last was a giant with black armor made of individual plates who held a kopis in one hand and a sarissa in the other. Iskandar Alter.
They must have all died against their opponents and now had been resummoned as Blackened slaves to the Grail. They hid among the mud near the womb where its vile magical energy would be thickest to hide themselves from detection.
The Lion King tried to regenerate her eye, but she couldn't. The weapon she had been wounded with rejected all unnatural forms of healing, meaning her eye was gone forever.
The four gorgons turned their hair into chains that came at the Lion King from all sides. She jumped up, but the conqueror thrust his sarissa at her while channeling electricity through it. The goddess met the spear with her own, Iskandar's polearm splintering. As the goddess landed a fair distance away, she felt her body petrifying slightly from the four sets of Mystic Eyes that were trained on her. More chains came at her from the front while multiple titans punched towards her from all other directions. The Lion King thrust her spear towards the ceiling and she was surrounded by a pillar of light that destroyed the titans and would have killed the enemy Servants if they hadn't dodged backwards.
Photons gathered at Rhongomyniad's tip to burn through the five bodies standing in the Lion King's way and make a hole in the wretched womb. Iskandar ran in the way.
"Ionioi Doúlos!"
The conqueror summoned and absorbed a Reality Marble which caused him to grow and gain tails of electricity in the shape of chains on his back. In his hand was a branching lightning bolt that he swung at the Lion King's beam to swat it away. Thanks to the speed boost he had gotten in tandem with the goddess' speed decrease due to the petrification, Iskandar got right up to Lion King and exhaled a wave of electricity right in her face before she could run. The Lion King predicted the attack and so preemptively began summoning another tower of light to protect herself. The weakened goddess' power wasn't enough to completely halt the metamorphosed Iskandar's lightning, so some of it broke through the light and hit the king. She was sent flying off the plateau, her armor cracked and her skin burned. She was sent right to the evil god which grabbed her with its tentacles. The otherworldly horror began devouring the king through its flesh, subsuming her like a unicellular organism.
Heracles wanted to run over and free the Lion King, but he'd have to leave Chloe and Artoria unattended to do so and that was an opportunity their enemies wouldn't let pass them by. The hero fired multiple arrows to try and destroy the tentacles holding the goddess, but those projectiles were destroyed by another electric beam from Iskandar who then lunged at the Archer. The conqueror crossed from one end of the cave to the other and swung his branching bolt. There was no way that Heracles had the strength to match such a blow. He was as strong as a Servant could be, but Iskandar's current might was beyond that of a Servant. If he dodged, Chloe and Artoria would take the hit, so he had to be their shield. The bolt struck the demigod and his skin turned to mist. He tried to hold himself together, Chloe using her full body Command Spells to reinforce him with the order, 'endure.'
When the strike had ceased, Heracles was just a pair of legs. He had been killed three times over and his Bow of the Hydra had been destroyed. God Hand restored the hero's upper body and he grabbed the ax-sword at his hip. Iskandar swung his branching bolt again while Heracles drew his weapon and slashed in one motion. The bolt hit Heracles first, but the demigod didn't stop his own swing which hit the Berserker's chin. Heracles' ax could only break through the skin, the conqueror's jaw bone being too tough to take anything more than some cracks. The impact did hit hard enough to knock Iskandar away. Heracles' upper body was a melting mass of bubbling flesh and blackened bone. This time the hit only took a single life. Heracles regenerated again and got ready to face what came next, but he found that Iskandar wasn't coming at him again.
The tentacles around the Lion King were blown to pieces by an explosion of light the goddess radiated. Her armor had been eaten away which left her in the blue leotard she wore underneath, her body bloody, partly petrified, and stained black in multiple spots. Chains wrapped around the goddess. The quartet of bloodsuckers had been waiting for the king to try and escape. The fetters wrapped around her limbs, waist, neck, and even her head. The Lion King's trick of summoning and desummoning her armor to escape the chains wouldn't work this time since there were too many of them. The chains began to squeeze, threatening to crush the Lion King. At the same time, the four gorgons turned any of their hairs that weren't in the form of chains into snakes that all lunged at the goddess. More light erupted from the goddess, the chains and snakes getting vaporized. A giant hand wrapped around the king's waist. Iskandar Alter had switched targets from Heracles to the Lion King. The Berserker threw the goddess into the lake of curses, exhaling a lightning beam to follow up. An honestly pitiful golden barrier tried to stop the electric wave, the mud eating up most of the Lion King's shield as it was being formed. The lightning was halted just long enough for the goddess to have time to jump out of the mud, the beam missing her.
It was then that a scythe came for the goddess' neck again. The hooded Medusa was wreathed in a purple aura denoting she was using some kind of Noble Phantasm. The Lion King blocked the incoming slash with Rhongomyniad, the gorgon following up with many more which the goddess barely managed to guard against. As soon as Medusa paused, the king swung back, but the gorgon jumped away.
"Caress of the Medusa!" Medusa's eyes began to glow eerily before firing off a laser of petrifying energy, a condensation of the power of her Mystic Eyes.
At the same time, the other three Gorgon Sisters attacked with more chains and Iskandar threw his branching lightning bolt. There was nowhere to run.
The ground crumbled under Heracles as he jumped with so much force that the leg he used was reduced to ribbons. He was overloading his own body with magical energy in a way similar to how Broken Phantasms work in order to reach the Lion King in time to wrap himself around her. The power of God Hand made the attacks from the four bloodsuckers, even the petrifying beam, do no damage, but the Berserker's javelin was another matter. That attack was equivalent to an A+ rank Noble Phantasm as it hit the demigod and became a storm of electricity that killed the giant seven times over, leaving him with only one last life and turning his ax-sword to dust. As the slop that Heracles' body had become began to reconstitute, multiple mud giants punched down at the demigod and the goddess he just protected. The Lion King fired a wide ray of light that destroyed the giants, but the Alter Servants were already beginning their next wave of attacks. The hoodless Medusa fired another beam from her eyes while the Gorgon Sisters attacked with snakes made from their hair. Iskandar held a lightning javelin in each hand which he threw at the same time.
There was no way to dodge, nor to block. Even if they escaped this wave, another would come for them. They were going to die if Heracles didn't do something drastic. He didn't want to due to the consequences, but there was no other choice.
Heracles' body reformed enough for him to be able to look his Master's way. Chloe and Artoria were about to be attacked by a group of mud titans. Chloe was running while holding on to Artoria and forming a barrier. Despite doing so many things at once, she was looking at Heracles. She was worried about him. How kind of her. He hated to have to leave her, but she was strong enough to endure the loss and move on.
"I'm sorry, Chloe." Heracles took a breath right as Iskandar's lightning was about to hit. "Hold the Sky!"
Heracles swung his arm and the wave of lightning was dispersed on the particle level. The hero stood tall as his aura of magical energy grew so fierce that it destroyed the attacks of the gorgons before they even had the chance to strike true. The Divinity in Heracles' body increased by the power of his final Noble Phantasm. This ultimate power embodied two legendary aspects of the life of Heracles. The first was when he temporarily took Atlas' place as a pillar holding the Texture of the World in place using strength alone. Heracles in his original life possessed strength so great it allowed him to keep the very fabric of reality in place, and it could also tear it asunder. This Noble Phantasm returned that strength. The second thing this power represented was Heracles' ascension to the status of a Divine Spirit upon his death. Heracles was not only becoming a Divine Spirit once more, but he was reacquiring his Authority over the concept of strength. This was a power that would lead to his self-destruction after using only a few attacks due to the nearly incalculable power he had regained, but it would be worth it to save Chloe.
The Alter Servants and titans of mud were all stunned by the sight of the god before them whose hair and skin turned pure white like his father's. Even Goddess Rhongomyniad before she was weakened couldn't achieve this level of power while being limited to using Gray's body as a vessel. Only her original form's power could compete. The entire chamber was constantly vibrating, even the Greater Grail quivered. The god of strength had to be careful or he could legitimately destroy the World.
"Archer, what are you doing?" Chloe screamed from across the cave, tears pouring from her eyes. "Why would you do this? Now you're going to die! You're going to leave me!"
"I know. I'm sorry, Chloe, but I had no other way to protect you. I wasn't strong enough to succeed without sacrifice."
"How am I supposed to go on without you? You saved me from my family! You're the only reason I'm free!"
"No, you're free because you had the strength to ask for my help. You're free because you had the will to fight back against your family after years of abuse. You're stronger than anyone, Chloe." Heracles smiled.
"But I'm not!" Chloe clutched at her clothes. "I act tough, but I'm just scared! I'm a coward!"
"If you were a coward, then you wouldn't be here right now, fighting for humanity. Your fear is normal. I'm scared right now, I'm terrified to leave you, but I know you'll be okay because I trust you. You will be okay. You're strong enough to live without me, and you won't be alone anyway. You have Sella, Leysritt, and Illya. You are loved, Chloe. I love you, Chloe. You're like a daughter to me."
"I love you, too! You're like my dad! I love you so much!" Chloe rubbed her tear-stained face, her makeup smudging. She looked Heracles in the eye. "Fine, you want me to keep going, then I will! I'll show you how strong I really am! I'm your badass daughter after all!"
"I know you will." Heracles looked to Artoria. "I was honored to meet you, Artoria Pendragon. Make sure to treasure your family."
"I will." Artoria nodded. "I was honored to meet you as well, Heracles."
Heracles turned to face the Lion King.
"It was a pleasure fighting alongside you, Lion King, Gray."
"The pleasure was all mine. I'll make sure Chloe makes it out of this okay no matter what."
"Thank you."
Thumping sounds. A group of mud titans finally managed to break through their paralysis and ran at Heracles. The god brought his middle finger and thumb together. He flicked his finger and fissures formed in the Texture, cracks in space and time that ran through the giants and obliterated even the very atoms and magical energy that formed them.
Despite the display of power, the enemy forces were only incensed to take action. It was fight or flight, and they chose to fight. Iskandar and the gorgons prepared to attack again while all the mud titans ran at Heracles and even the evil god moved to strike at the hero.
"Throughout my life, I caused tragedies and took innocent lives, even those of my family. Now I shall revel in knowing that I now fight instead to defend my family, and the families of the innocent." Heracles looked Chloe's way one last time and smiled before taking a low stance and raising his fists. "Nine Lives."
Heracles moved with steps that rocked the heart of the World. His fist flew and ripped through the fabric of existence, burning in an extradimensional flame born from conceptual friction. The punch tore a hole in spacetime and the bodies of hundreds of titans. Another punch took out even more. The entire area began to warp from the might it was trying and failing to contain. Iskandar threw two javelins of lightning, but both were erased by a kick from Heracles. The embodiment of strength followed up with another kick that defied distance and wiped away the conqueror as if he was a canvas being painted over. Four jabs followed and left four holes in the Texture where the four gorgons had once been. Heracles moved from where he was standing and began eradicating all the mud titans with strikes that were nothing less than martial arts perfection. Not a single mud monster remained as Heracles moved on to the extradimensional horror. He had used eighty-nine of his one-hundred hits. He was almost done.
A pang. Heracles stumbled. The backlash was hitting him. He was going to disappear.
It was too soon. He wasn't done yet. He needed to do more.
"By my Command Spells!" Chloe cried out as her whole body glowed bright. "Keep fighting, dad!"
Heracles was rejuvenated and he smirked.
"Of course!"
A rising kick burned away the evil god and the false magus inside. The same leg Heracles just used came back down as an ax kick that crushed the lake of curses into nothingness. Ninety-nine hits. Nine left.
It was time for the Beast.
The hero shot past Irisviel and towards the womb with a body burning with extradimensional fire. As soon as he got close, he unleashed a combination of eight strikes that were so fast and flowed into each other so well that they might as well have happened simultaneously. Eight large portions of the womb disappeared, as did the mud that was around it. All that was left was a single eyeball of Avenger. Heracles couldn't leave anything behind or risk some minor manifestation of this monstrosity.
Heracles reared his arm back for one final punch. This would be it. The Beast would be gone, and he would be gone too. This second chance at life had been a pleasant experience, but it was time to move on.
The hero punched and it was over in an instant. The eye was eradicated and an explosion of flame came from Heracles' fist.
The arm Heracles just punched with turned to particles of magical energy and the rest of his body began following suit. He hadn't had the chance to destroy the Greater Grail itself, the dark sphere still high in the air, but he trusted that his allies would be able to dismantle it.
The hero looked back at his daughter. She was crying. It would be okay. She was strong.
Finally, Heracles had found a family that he hadn't ruined.
Finally.
"Thank you." Heracles said as he completely dissipated while awash with contentment.