Author Note: Most of the comments left in the Reviews point to the same things, so I decided to respond collectively rather than individually. I would like to thank everyone who posted comments and I apologize for not responding directly. Despite the length of my answer, I probably did not convince all my detractors, but I would write a thousand more pages that it would not change anything.

Lancelot in love with Artoria? First, it's based on the FSN Cannon. But is it true? Don't forget WHO explains this to Hakuno. Kay really doesn't like Lancelot and has never hesitated to speak ill of him or gossip about him behind his back to tarnish his reputation. If you don't believe me, read Chrétien de Troyes. But, regardless, is that false? Maybe, maybe not... in spite of all his faults, Kay is an excellent psychologist... but he is also a biased, angry individual who uses his talent to understand others to harm them.

Pair Artoria and Lancelot? I don't hate Artoria enough... Remember that no woman who loved Lancelot has a happy ending. In some version of the Arthurian legend, Galahad's mother (Elaine of Corbenic) ended her own life because Lancelot never returned her love. Otherwise, most of the women who fell in love with Lancelot make a brief appearance in the Arthurian legend before disappearing, unable to attract the attention of the Knight of the Lac.

In addition, Lancelot is a tragic hero who falls in love with someone he can't love. That's why I find the end of Thomas Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur (where Lancelot married Elaine of Corbenic) very bland: "They lived happily ever after and had many children"... That said, the Lancelot of Fate/ Extella Link is based on the Lancelot of Mallory book so that's what happened.

And it makes sense in the context of Mallory's personal history, he writes his book imprisoned in France (he was captured during the Hundred-Year War and is waiting for his family to pay his ransom). For him, Gawain (the Englishman) was the real culprit for the fall of Arthur's kingdom. He pushed the king to prosecute Lancelot who had returned to Brittany and started a war. Lancelot (the Frenchman) is only defending his life and his land. After years of detention in France, Mallory seemed to suffer from some sort of Stockholm syndrome, sympathizing with his jailers.

The True Nature of Bedivere: This is the piece of bravery in my response to the Reviews. First of all, responding comes up against a huge obstacle... literally. How many pages would I have to write? By quoting how many books? How many conferences? How many researchers? And all this for what result? If you don't want to believe me, no matter how long I explain it you will keep your own opinions.

Do you think you know Arthur's family?! Research on this subject covers hundred of... books!

In fact, I think I explained myself sufficiently on this subject in the last chapter.

I can't transcribe all the research I makes in the answers to Fanfiction Reviews. That is not the purpose of this website, or of my writings. The idea that Bedivere is Arthur's older brother is not mine. I never enjoy rewriting legends. It's much more interesting to show a little-known aspect of the Arthurian legend than to act like a Hollywood writer and distort everything because it sounds catchy.

Anyway... right... wrong? But do you realize that there are almost as many versions of the Arthurian legend as there are authors who have written about Arthur (not to mention 50 films, 20 TV series, three plays, Wagner and Purcell's opera, many cartoons, Japanese mangas, Korean manhwa, American comics, French-Belgian Bandes Dessinées, oral legend, and even the toponymy)? No author describes exactly the same Arthur. The names of the Knights of the Round Table (or even the very existence of the Round Table), the location and name of Arthur's Castle, and a million other details vary from book to book.

And you say one version is right and all the others are wrong?

I guess some people starting to get mad at me, looking at their screens: "We're talking about the version of the Arthurian legend in Fate, no other material, we don't care about medieval novels or movies, we're just talking about Fate."

But so am I!

Fate's universe is based not on a single reality... but on legends.

Does a hero exist in a single version?

No, there are as many versions of a Hero as there are versions of his legend. These are called Alter, in the Canon of Fate.

And those who want to contradict my vision of the Arthurian myth, what do they do?

They essentially quote the F/GO canon about the last Arthurian singularity... based on a 'what's if ' situation (If the dragon died under London had managed to dig far enough to allow the creatures of the magical world to continue to manifest in the Arthurian era). In this world, Artoria is a Caster!

Do I need to clarify that this content is much further from the Classical Arthurian Canon than anything I've written so far?

Arthur Family: "Arthur son of Uther" It's so evident. But it is true? In fact, the very name of Uther appears only marginally in the ancient Welsh Arthurian legends and is associated only once with Arthur in The Death-song of Uther Pen from the Book of Taliesin. It was not until Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniae (1136) (where he is the youngest son of the King of Britannia, Constantine) that Uther is presented as Arthur's father. In Nennius' Historia Brittonicum, Arthur's father is not named but he has a child named Amr. In Kulhwch and Olwen, his father's name is not known. It has been suggested that Arthur is "a fatherless child" the son of a dead man (probably killed by the Saxons) however his mother is called Anna (or Anna also known as Danna, Dannu, Annu... the name of the All-Mother, the goddess Earth in pre-Christian Celtic religion... the equivalent of Gaia). Arthur would have been raised by his maternal grandfather and two other boys shared his education, one named Gwyar and the other named Kai (Kay), son of Kymyr.

According to the De Ortu Walwani, Arthur is not the foster brother of Gwyar but he is Gwyar and Anna's son. But he was born out of marriage (the fiery passion of the youngest cannot be controlled). Now, according to Culhwch and Olwen, Arthur's mother was a relative to Gwyar. This would mean that Arthur is an incestuous child. It is not so rare in heroic literature. Heroes are often the product of incest (like Siegfried) or violate this taboo (like Oedipus). This can be seen even in Tolkien's Silmarion (chapter 21 Túrin Turambar). To hide her fault, Anna would have entrusted her just-born child to merchants and was taken beyond the ocean. But there is a recurrent theme in the old Celtic legends; the hero is without a father, does not know his father, is separated from his father. He suddenly discovers his inheritance later and must conquer it with the sword in his hand, as in the Peredur, a novel of the primitive Arthurian cycle centered on the hero of the same name, the prototype of Perceval.

The Welsh Triads say that Arthur was married three times (Triad 21). The Triad 22 quotes the three mistresses of Arthur: Indec, Garwen, and Gwyl. A Triad quotes the three most famous prisoners and ends the sentence with: "There was one more eminent than the three of them, who was three nights in prison at Kaer Oeth et Anoeth, three nights in prison because of Gwen Pendragon, three nights in an enchanted prison under the Echymeint Stone: it was Arthur."

You read that right: Gwen Pendragon.

Gwen was a member of Arthur's family whose name survived only in this short text. And the episode was to be well known. Kaer Oeth et Anoeth is the name of a prison made of Roman legionnaire bones built by the Manawyddan ab Llyr (the Welsh equivalent of the Irish god of the sea Mannan mac Llyr).

Mentioned in the Welsh Triads, we see Medrawt (Mordred) but he is not presented at any time as a member of Arthur's family.

The Triad 4 mentioned another son of Arthur: Llacheu.

It is the son of Arthur who is most often mentioned in the old Welsh legends.

He appears in the poem y Goddodin.

Llacheu fights alongside Cei (Kay) in the first Arthurian poem Pa gur yv y porthaur?

Llacheu is also mentioned in a poem of the 12th century and its name is given to several sites in the British Isles (tourists can even see his grave).

In the poem Ymddiddan Gwayddno Garanhir ac Gwyn fab Nudd the author remembers that he had "been where Llacheu was killed/ Arthur's son, horrible in songs/ when crows croaked on blood".

Recent studies show that Llacheu must have had great importance in the archaic version of the Arthurian cycle but it was almost completely forgotten afterward.

Other traditional Welsh sources give a brother to Arthur (Madog), and a sister who had a son named Gwalchme (Gawain).

According to Vita Illuti and Brut Dingestow, Arthur's mother was named Eigr (Ygern).

Even the medieval Arthurian romances of chivalry do not agree among themselves on the family of Arthur.

I have a memory lapse... Is in the Lancelot-Grail (attributed to Gautier Map)? I can't remember... after the Battle of Camlann and the death of Mordred. Arthur's sons helped by Lancelot hunt down Mordred's sons and kill them to the last.

Chrétien de Troyes in his Enec et Enide mentions Loholt, Arthur's son (which is probably a fictional version of Llacheu).

A Welsh poem from the fifteenth century also mentions a son of Arthur.

Sanddef [Bryd Angel] leads the raven

on the face of Duran [son of Arthur].

Darling and beloved, her mother raised him.

Arthur [sang it]

Speculum Umbrarum

(Shadow Mirror)

The Sundering was the great civil war fought long ago from -4419 to -2723 IC that fractured the Elven race into the High Elves and the Dark Elves, culminating in a magical cataclysm that sank a large portion of the island continent of Ulthuan.

The Sundering, Warhammer Encyclopedia.

Günter Braun seemed to be getting younger. The sigmarit erudite would run from one building to another with his notebook in his hand, drawing facades, taking notes. He also watched the strange Elves moving through their city suddenly raised from the rubbles. The ghosts were immaterial and went about their occupation without appearing to notice the humans.

Mercenaries and muleteers looked around with a mixture of fear and morbid fascination.

It must be said that the market square where they had established their camp was a horrible place.

Here we sold food, weapons... and slaves. The latter were brutal and primitive-looking humans, dressed in poorly tanned skins, and as hirsute as beasts.

Hakuno remembered that the scholar had said that the city was to date from - 2000 or -3000 IC A date prior to a millennium to the War of the Beard. At the time, the only human civilizations existing should be Cathay and Nehekhara.

But even more than the rather terrifying appearance of the buildings, or the repulsive behavior of these ancient elves, cruel and inhuman, Kishinami had noticed something that worried her a lot.

The first time, it could have been a coincidence. A muleteer a little more courageous (or stupid) than his companions had picked up stones and had begun to throw them at a merchant. Of course, the projectiles passed through the immaterial body of the shopkeeper who was busy bragging about his merchandise, but... briefly, the ghost elf stopped talking to cast an angry look at the muleteer. It lasted only a brief moment, and then he resumed his activities there as is nothing had happened.

Then, a beautiful and ominous Elf woman, dressed in a black and red dress, had walked through one of the mercenaries. For a brief moment, she turned to look at him with a surprised look on her face... and then went on her way seeming to have immediately forgotten the incident.

But the third occurrence was even more revealing. For perhaps three seconds, one of the guards had put his hand to his sword as if to draw it. During her clashes with Archer (Robin Hood) and Assassin (Li Shuwen), Hakuno had developed an intuition that sensitized her to the thirst for blood. And she could not have been mistaken... the elf had wanted to kill the humans who had entered his city. Then, just as suddenly, the elf had forgotten the incident and resumed his patrol in the market.

Once it's an accident. Twice it's a coincidence. Three times it's a problem.

"Saber, Berserker... stay alert. These strange elves could be dangerous."

Calm, Artoria nodded.

"Yes, Master!"

Her eyes did not stop for an instant going from one elf to another and she was ready to summon Excalibur at any moment. If Hakuno had a sense of observation that no ordinary human could match, Artoria had a sixth sense that warned her when she was in danger... and she did.

Lancelot had moved a little away, approaching a building somewhat resembling a Gothic church, decorated with green banners adorned with red runes. He reached out and...

"Master... I have bad news."

His hand was lying flat on the wall.

For a moment Hakuno looked without understanding then...

"Sir Lancelot... you can touch the wall."

He nodded:

"Yes Master, these constructions are solid for a servant."

Hakuno acquiesced.

"Of course... a Servant is a Ghost Liner."

The Servants were ghosts strengthened by humanity's collective memory. At the time of their invocation, they received temporary bodies made of prana. But they belonged to the astral plane and they could dematerialize to return to the astral plane.

The Sovereign of the Moon turned to King Arthur:

"Saber?"

Now accustomed to her Master, Artoria understood what she was asking. She reached out to touch the wooden stake supporting the awning above a market stall.

Her hand went through.

This did not really surprise her. She was a special case among the Servants and many of the usual rules did not apply to her.

"I'm still alive and I can't Astralize."

That's right... although visible to ordinary humans, this city existed only on the astral plane. It was interesting, it meant that among them, only Lancelot could interact with their environment. This meant that he could also touch the Elves. Nevertheless, the latter did not seem to pay more attention to him than to other humans.

Except that the incidents that Hakuno had noticed proved that in fact, ghosts perceived their presence... But something outside of them forced the ghost to continue what must have been their normal activities at the time this city was inhabited.

"I understand where we are!"

Günter had just called them, standing in front of a building. With frantic gestures, he pointed to a banner with one hand, on the other he opened a book with a full-page illustration. Both showed the same rune.

"It's written 'Druchii'... but in an archaic version of the language of the High Elves."

Druchii, specie more commonly known as... Dark Elves.

Wiping his glasses with a hand trembling with excitement, Günter Braun continued to speak:

"The Druchii civilization was born gradually. First in Nagaryth, north of Ulthuan, then after the Civil War, the renegade elves went into exile in the New World. Little by little, their language, their custom, and their architecture has changed. But originally their culture was that of the High Elves of Ulthuan. What we see around us..." he made a gesture encompassing the buildings of the ghost city and the elves who continued their routine imperturbably... "is an intermediate state between the High Elves from the Sundering Era and the contemporary Druchii."

His eyes shone with fervor and he smiled with a delighted look.

"We have just discovered something unique. No contemporary human has ever had the chance to discover anything about this distant time. This is the historic discovery of the millennium!"

Oddly, Hakuno would have preferred to be far away... she looked briefly towards Artoria and she nodded imperceptibly. The King of Knight seemed to share her concern.

At this moment, a cry of stupor made them all turn.

A muleteer was sitting on the ground and pointing with one hand to an elf standing in front of him.

"I fell to the ground... I hit him. He is material. He's not a ghost."

And as the Dark Elve drew, to cut the head off the muleteer, Hakuno noted three things.

This Druchii had plate armor and not a scale hauberk like the other guard, a scimitar and not a sword, a crossbow instead of a bow... In fact, this weaponry must have been forged millennia after the Sundering Era, because it was similar to the equipment of the Dark Elves who had besieged Marienburg!

Artoria had taken Hakuno in her arms like a princess and was now running through the streets of the strange city.

Around them the scene was surreal.

The specters continued to repeat their incomprehensible and repulsive daily life, practicing bloody rituals, conspiring against each other or trading without appearing to notice the chase between humans and an unknown number of living Darks Elves.

In the rear guard, Lancelot had already fought three Black Ark Corsairs. Without magical weapons, the Druchii had not resisted very long.

However, whistles continued to ring behind them, attracting the attention of more and more pursuers.

The crossbows were ringing in the ears of the Servants... unable to hurt them, even if they hit the spot. But muleteers and mercenaries succumbed one after the other.

In fact, despite the formidable power represented by the two Servants, the chances of surviving that night were not very high. Unlike their prey, the Darks Elves knew the city perfectly and knew which walls were still standing and which others were just an illusion... which allowed them to take shortcuts or hide inside an obstacle to ambush them.

And since the bolts that the Druchii were using were impregnated with deadly and blazing poison, everything would be over as soon as Hakuno was hit.

Artoria stopped and let down Hakuno, who made a small cry while rubbing her sore posterior. But the young Master did not have time to express a protest. Skeletal hands had just come out of a wall aimed at Saber's throat.

King Arthur cut the undead in half through the ghostly wall, and a shower of bones fell around her. A skull rolling on the ground stopped in front of the Sovereign of the Moon. For a few seconds, the empty orbits continued to burn with a cold flame that eventually extinguished.

Around the two women sounded encouraging sounds of gaiters, rattling bones, squeaking, and metal noises.

Animated skeletons... dozens of animated skeletons... were coming out of the ground all around them or advancing in the nearby streets, or crossing ghostly walls.

They were brandishing old rusty swords, and their armor had been corroded. A terrifying sight.

But they were up against Saber... it was over in an instant.

The King of Knights appeared simultaneously as a blurred afterimage at various points on the battlefield. Her invisible sword left behind a path of blue prana, drawing complex arabesques.

The instant after, all the skeletons exploded into shattered bones.

As Saber apologized for dropping her, Hakuno simply nodded.

The appearance of the skeletons had added a piece to the enigma of this ghostly city defended by living Dark Elves. The appearance of ghosts, the apparent restoration of buildings, all this was the work of a necromancer... When we thought of Necromancy, the first idea was to accuse the Vampire Counts of Sylvania. But they had acquired their knowledge in old books written by the Tombs Kings of Nehekhara. Few people knew that the first human necromancer, the Undying King Nagash the Betrayer, had acquired his knowledge from a Druchii prisoner... Because it was the Dark Elves who invented necromancy. Yet another reason to hate this evil species.

The opponent was therefore a group of Black Arks Corsairs accompanied by a powerful Dark Elf wizard capable of controlling an entire city full of undead.

Wherever she goes... hell was unlashed.

At times, Hakuno felt like the character of one of the video games played by Shinji... in the hardcore mod.

They had just escaped their pursuers for the second time. Besides Hakuno Kishinami and her two Servants, only Günter Braun was still alive. The last few hours had been particularly challenging for the old archaeologist. Nothing had prepared him for such a trial.

As Saber and Berserker stood guard, the two humans caught their breath.

The Dark Elves never lost track for very long and the animated skeletons were even worse. They seemed able to detect the aura of living beings at short range and did not know fatigue. This little game couldn't go on much longer.

They had moved into an alley in an almost deserted area. The buildings on both sides were some sort of warehouses. They only saw a few ghosts. Some were human slaves unloading a wagon full of crates, others, their Dark Elves guards armed with whips.

At first, Saber did not pay attention to the spectrum that was moving toward them... It wasn't until he entered the alley that she realized he was different...

He was a human, but he seemed to have been tortured, his throat was crossed by a red line... as if he had died with his throat slit. His face was frozen in a horror mask... and he was not dressed in furs, but in contemporary clothes.

"Master, watch out, something's going on."

Her sword in hand, Artoria faced the newcomer

"Mayer?"

It was Günter Braun. The archaeologist looked at the specter with surprise.

"You know him," asked Lancelot.

"Of course... He was one of my students. He was part of the group that stayed with my partner Werner Gauss to search these ruins."

Without paying attention to the two Servants, the specter advanced to his teacher. He stopped, and then turned towards the visible mountains beyond the roofs, pointed at them, and then set off in that direction. After a few steps, he stopped anew to look at Braun.

"He wants us to follow him," explained Hakuno unnecessarily.

Despite the fact that they now had a goal, although the silent specter did not explain where he wanted to lead them, their situation remained very precarious.

After only two hundred meters, they heard whistles. The Dark Elves had found them.

After their previous failures, the Druchii were better organized. Instead of attempting to attack them immediately, they had deployed on both sides and were now trying to pass them to complete the encirclement.

Already, crossbow bolts were planted in the ground around them.

At that moment the sound of a trumpet resounded. It was a ghostly sound, coming from the past. But stifled cries of war responded punctuating the footsteps of thousands of combatants in armor.

Running to escape death, the small group did not understand what was going on.

The ghost city and the specters that inhabited it were like a 3D film projected around them. This film could be called: "The last day of the Black City"... and the recording had just arrived at the sequence of the attack.

Around the city, battalions of High Elves and Dwarves had gathered discreetly. Now they were attacking. The Elf archery regiments fired, the repeating ballistae and the caster spells supported them.

On the Dwarves' side, cannons and arquebusiers attacked the city.

For a human of the present, it was incredible to see Asur and Dwarves cooperate in this way. The misunderstanding between the two peoples was as much a fact as the presence of two moons in the sky. However, it was to forget that before the War of the Bearb both peoples were allies.

All over the city, buildings were collapsing as flames and smoke obscured the vision.

The non-combatants were running in all directions, in panic, while the ghostly Druchii warriors were gathering, trying to organize the resistance... in vain, the city was going to be devastated, the result of the battle had been determined nearly 4,700 years earlier.

The chaos that had spread over the spectral city also had an effect on the living and the material undead. The sudden explosions and panic had made the living Dark Elves lose all cohesion. As for the animated skeletons... they were slowed down and weakened because, around them, the ghosts relived their dead and it affected them.

Artoria, Lancelot, Hakuno and Günter escaped the encirclement. Through the scenes of battle where regiments of Dark Elves were repelled by the Dwarves and High Elves, they reached the mountains.

Still, in front of them, Mayer's specter continued to guide them. They climbed a tree-covered hill that extended to the foot of the mountains surrounding the valley. They discovered a rough shelter, a hole dug in the ground and hidden by vegetal clay covered with leaves. A sudden cry of surprise sounded... coming out of the ground. A man appeared. He was dirty, thin, and clothed in torn, soiled, visibly exhausted, and hungry clothes. Despite his face covered with a thick beard, Günter Braun immediately recognized him

"Werner!"

They hugged each other with emotion, delighted to see each other again alive. Having accomplished his mission, the specter of Mayer dissipated.

In the valley, the battle was coming to an end.

Superior in number, having taken the Druchii by surprise the Dwarves and the Asur had quickly crushed any organized resistance. Nevertheless, it took them a long time to clean up all the buildings where the irreducible had to take refuge.

When the first ray of the sun touched the city, the illusion dissipated.

The smoking ruins twisted and disappeared, as well as the victors were busy digging through the rubble and the dead lying on the ground.

All that remained were the stones gnawed by the time of a city whose name had long since been forgotten.

The only signs of activity were the Black Arks Corsairs and skeletons still searching for the fugitives.

Hiding in the hole that served as Werner Gauss' refuge, they listened to him tell his story.

"It all started two months ago. It was an ordinary day. We were working on the ruins of the Khaine temple, at the end of the valley. Suddenly they arrived... "

His face turns pale and he swallows.

"It wasn't a fight, the mercenaries who were monitoring the site were massacred. Then they killed our students and the diggers... finally killed... I pray to Sigmar that they were immediately killed. These monsters tortured them for a long time... just for fun. Every night I have nightmares where I see what they did to Mayer. I guess that explains why he didn't find rest... that and the necromancy spells."

"How come you're alive," Braun asked.

His friend shrugged his shoulders.

"They questioned my students before killing them and learned that I am an archaeologist. The Druchii kept me alive because they needed my knowledge. They are looking for an object, a sort of medallion carved from a black piece of rock with the image of a dragon in relief. They have not told me what it is used for. But given the resources they devote to its research, this medallion must be of immense importance. '

"How many are there," Artoria asked.

"The Dark Elves? I've never seen more than 30 of them simultaneously, but there are other groups that are attacking the surrounding mines to get slaves. However, they are not the main adversary, there is a necromancer with them, and he can compel the dead to leave their graves. He can control thousands of specters simultaneously, not to mention the skeletons that defend the valley and the zombies that evacuate the earth and the rubble that has accumulated in the ruins."

"Precisely, what is the purpose of this spell?"

"The necromancer, Dargin, calls it 'Shadow Mirror'. According to his explanations, it's a mixture of necromancy and curse art. It makes it possible to recall from beyond the souls of the dead and to control them. Dargin uses it to force the inhabitants of the city to relive the last day of their life in the hope of discovering the resting place of the man who wore the medallion," replied Werner Gauss.

There was a brief moment of silence as everyone reflected on the implications of what they had learned.

Finally, it was Hakuno who spoke:

"How did you escape?"

"I know the valley well, which is the very reason the Dark Elves kept me alive. They asked me to guide them through the city and show them the homes of the powerful, the government buildings. They seem to think that the last owner of the locket was someone very important. On an outing, I took advantage of the distraction of my guards to escape. I've been hiding ever since."

"And where have they settled?"

"Where my own camp was. The temple of Khaine. It's the only building that still has a roof."

Artoria nodded with a dignified move of the head.

"What can you tell me about those who command them?"

The archaeologist shivered.

"Their leader is a major hero named Mihzan. He's the closest thing to an honorable warrior in the Dark Elves... if the word 'honorable' means anything to them. I know he is an ambitious nobleman who financed, organized, and personally led this expedition. This gives a good idea of the importance of the medallion."

He paused and a strange expression appeared on the face of the archaeologist.

"Then there is Sithel."

His voice became restless as he sought his words:

"She's... she's... she's Mihzan's beautiful older sister. I do not know how she managed to get Mihzan to accept her presence because it is visible that he hates her and has no confidence in her. But I suppose the Darks Elves' domestic politics resemble pure insanity for any other people. I've never seen such a woman more bewitching in all my life... but at the same time, I've never seen such a terrifying woman. During my stay, Sithel was the only one who showed a little compassion for me but... this compassion is really something other than a way to gain my trust and use me against her brother? I know she wants to take the medallion for her own purposes... even if it means eliminating her brother. When I was with her, I felt... I don't know how to say it... she's fascinating, beautiful... but at the same time... I was a little mouse in front of a starving cobra."

He shivered for a long time.

"And then there's Dargin."

Hakuno blinked:

"The Necromancer?"

Werner nodded and confirmed:

"The necromancer. I've never met someone more terrifying than him. I think he's completely neutral in the conflict between Mihzan and Sithel, and I don't think he's interested in the medallion either. With Sithel, he's the only person who speaks Bretonian. I believe that curses are his only passion and he stays away from others, protected by his skeletons. I can't understand how Mizhan convinced this reclusive sorcerer to follow him on an expedition where he obviously has nothing to gain... but they're Dark Elves. I never find any sense in their actions."

He shook his head.

"Finally, there are the others. At least 30 Black Archs Corsairs. I don't know the names of any of them. For me, they all look alike, are perfectly interchangeable, and speak only in their comprehensible language. A bunch of cruel bullies, they fight well, have good armor, and just do whatever Mihzan and Thiel tell them to do. When they get bored they entertain themselves by torturing a prisoner. Trust me, it's not people you want to meet."

He was going to talk about the prisoners held by the Dark Elves when the two Servants stood up simultaneously.

"Something is going on."

Artoria and Lancelot had run outside feeling that a powerful spell was at work. They raised their eyes to the morning sky. And what they saw impressed them.

It seemed as if someone was pouring black ink into the heavens and everything was as if the liquid was spread out on transparent glass, forming a puddle that stretched out.

After a few seconds, the "puddle" stopped growing. Movements of color appeared on its surface then... slowly, an image was formed.

It was the image of a male Dark Elf. You could just see his head and the top of his shoulders. He was wearing a suit of armor whose shoulders were carved with skulls. With his head bare, he wore his hair gathered in a sort of 'palm tree' which protruded from the top of his skull. His forehead was tattooed with a black star.

He had a thin face, with harsh and cruel features but his attitude also reflected a certain nobility.

Werner took a step back when he saw the giant face that looked down on the valley.

"Mizhan!"

Hakuno nodded, watching attentively the face of the chief of the Druchii. His lips began to move and his voice echoed throughout the valley. Every word snaps like thunder.

"Listen to me, intruders. I have an important mission to accomplish here. I don't have time to play with you. Since I am a reasonable person, and I understand that it is preferable to seek an agreement rather than a confrontation, I will make you a proposal. Meet me at the entrance to the valley, where you have set up your camp. I will then explain what I expect of you. I give you my word of honor that your freedom and your life will be guaranteed, at least as long as you don't try to flee this valley. You have until tonight to join me. If you do not come... tonight the specters will receive a new mission: a search and kill mission!"