Later that night, the rest of the Masters prepared to summon their Servants.
From the tallest perch in the city, a dark-skinned magus with robes that twinkled like the night sky was preceded by dozens of loyal followers. Their robes were a more modest white, so as not to outmatch his own splendour.
They were bound to him, and the second he started to intone the summoning incantation, several of them slumped over, their life force nearly completely drained in an instant.
"In the name of mercy, the name of truth, and the name of the preservation of the world, I call upon thee, Servant!
Let my body be yours and your blood be mine.
Let the Kingdom of Heaven have you save the world from the evils of mankind!"
In his ancestral home, a magus' voice alone rumbled the ground beneath his feet. He had no need for tricks or shortcuts or cheats, and while the dark rings around his eyes grew even darker with exertion, he and his catalyst were the only things he needed inside the summoning circle.
"If you answer the call of the Holy Grail,
If you will submit to my will and my own truth,
Then swear an oath to me and me alone!"
Within the furthest reaches of the Clock Tower, another magus prepared her own ritual. Hundreds of sigils were painted on the walls with the blood of freshly slain livestock, amplifying each other in succession.
"Yet you shall serve with your eyes clouded by chaos.
For you would be the one caged in madness,
And I shall wield your chains."
At a sacred shrine, a priestess stood resolute, surrounded on all sides by hooded knights.
"I shall attain every virtue under Heaven;
I shall defeat ever evil born of Hell.
From the Seventh Heaven, bound by the three great words of power,
Come forth from the ancient ring of restraint, O Keeper of the Balance!"
Four beams of light shot up into the sky in unison. Deep within the Earth, Britain's leylines thrummed with magical energy as its blood was pulled up through the world above.
The remaining four Servants had been assembled.
The Holy Grail War had begun.