Chapter 41
The wind swirled around the two as mana collected around their bodies, dead leaves and branches shifting on the ground.
*BSH*
Unexpectedly, Berserker jumped backwards in a massive leap, her entire body flying through the air away from Lancer. Before Lancer could react to her sudden move, Berserker started to slow down while in mid-air, and then reached a complete stop hovering in the air with nothing under her feet. For a moment, she held her position in the air, knees crouched and tucked almost to her chest as she lowered her head towards Lancer, her hood down.
Lancer raised her spear and prepared to charge at her, pulling the reins of Llamrei as her legs pulled in to his sides, her mount sensing her muscles tensing up and readying up for a charge as well.
*tatatata*
*SCHWIP*
The sound of something like cables on a bridge being stretched to their limit echoed through the gap in the trees, then Berserker catapulted forward like a human cannonball rushing towards Lancer.
Lancer charged at the same moment Berserker rebounded, her mount reaching full speed in a matter of seconds as the tip of her lance glowed and hummed, spinning once more to wrap itself with a cloak of corrupted mana.
It was for naught, as Berserker approached with almost double the speed compared to before, her blade skating across the lance and slicing off the spikes adorning it's edges, just barely missing Lancer's arm. For Lancer had leaned Llamrei sideways on instinct just like a motorcycle, her Riding skill exercised to great effect as he performed a motion normally impossibly for most equestrians, one side of his body leaning as his left hind and forelegs buckled, while his right hind and forelegs remained straight. Berserker shot past the two of them, reaching the back of the Bounded Field, and then hitting another invisible wall to slow down, then rebounded off it to come hurtling back at Lancer behind her, the speed now almost tripled.
The Bounded Field was in fact Illya's hair threads wrapping around the entire area around the two, a network of wires anchored at various points on the ground to form the perimeter of the Bounded Field. The thin threads of hair were so thin as to be almost invisible, with only someone like Berserker with enhanced vision and optic nerves able to see them. Illya poured her magic to reinforce them to the utmost limits, turning them into ultra thin threads that were extremely strong while also possessing high elasticity. Using these threads that only she could spot, Berserker could jump on them and stretch them with her force, and then rebound off them with greater strength, reaching a wire on the opposite side and rebounding off it as well to gain more and more momentum until even Servants couldn't spot her at the speeds she was going at.
The threads also served as an invisible wall that could cut any Servants that pushed through them too quickly. Like how a paper could cut with a thin edge and dragging it across the skin fast enough, the hair worked similarly, reinforced and imbued with mystical strength that far exceeded anything capable of being produced by modern technology, its strength even greater than carbon fibers. It was also a purely physical obstruction in nature, despite the magical reinforcement applied to it, so Magic Resistance wouldn't dispel it or make it dissolve. Instead, just like how Magic Resistance couldn't cancel out the Reinforcement of combatants in their immediate area, so too did the thread retain its strengthened state. The cage enclosed the enemy, and boosted Berserker to great speeds unattainable by herself.
In addition, her boots were laced with Illya's hair, allowing her to contact the threads safely without being cut herself.
She began to shoot randomly in through the air, rebounding on each waiting thread as she sped up, becoming a black comet bouncing back and forth. The threads strained more and more with each bounce, the very air whipped into a frenzy as her body went fast enough to make the friction between the air and her body significant, large amounts of heat suddenly appearing from the air rubbing across her body.
On the ground, Lancer quickly decided to charge out, nudging her horse to dash out of the Bounded Field. She didn't understand the true nature of the Bounded Field, and fell for it.
*schlick*
The neck of her horse was cleanly cut through by the angel hair, it's neck and head dropping to the ground and dissipated into motes of light as it's body slumped to the ground , cut into several different parts. The head was missing part of it's right ear and the left nostril up to it's upper skull, the parts lying further to the left. Horse legs laid there, stained with blood scattered across the ground, and the internal organs could be clearly seen slowly sliding out of the sliced corpse. A few more seconds, and it was all gone, once more ether that returned to Lancer to recover and fully manifest again after a few days. As long as she lived, her mount would be able to regenerate, but she would be seriously inconvenienced in combat.
As was the case right now.
Berserker seized the moment she jumped off Llamrei to redirect towards her, taking a few seconds to rebound into the appropriate vector with the speeds she was going at, and then her blade was at Lancer's neck.
*TONG*
The lightsaber clashed with the black lance, the long spear resting on Lancer's shoulder just in time to block the strike that came from behind, the long and thick cone providing a shield that kept Lancer from having her head separated from her body. The few seconds that Berserker had needed to orient herself towards Lancer had given her enough time, but she was unable to withstand the force of the blow.
"Gah!"
Just like how Berserker had been thrown around earlier, Lancer slid forward, driving two troughs into the ground as she pushed against the ground with all her strength to stop herself from flying into the threads wrapping around the clearing formed by her charge. The strike had also slammed the lance into herself, a red spike on her lance stabbing through her armor to pierce a hole near her spine on her lower back.
As soon as she transferred the entire kinetic force of her blow into Lancer and blew her backwards, Berserker jumped back on the angel hair and resumed her charging, aiming to reach her top speed again.
"Hah, hah, hah."
Lancer knelt on the ground, her muscles trembling from blocking the Berserker's lightsaber with all the force accumulated behind it. Blood poured out of her back profusely, a trail of red staining the jagged black armor behind her.
She shifte the lance until it was pointing straight upwards, the handle half-sunken into the ground as she clasped it tightly with both hands, her eyes closed beneath her helm.
"Reveal thy true form."
Berserker abandoned her charging and shot straight towards her, but it was too late.
*ZWOOOM*
Far above in the sky, a massive tower of light shone as a majestic anchor, holding the fabric of reality together. Just like Gray's Rhongomyniad, it was a nail that pinned the layers of the surface firmly, ensuring the continued existence of humanity on the Earth. And this wasn't it's full manifestation either. It's full form would be a massive light tower that had rings of energy in a helix around it, reaching the atmosphere and piercing it, with a width of several cities combined. Yet, it's reduced form was enough to pierce through the angel hair and burnt it away as the threads loosened and fell onto the ground, no longer tightly intertwined. Even with the corruption of the grail, it simply turned a dull red, with no other visible differences from its usual form.
With Mana Burst fully active, Lancer glided into the sky, "riding" the tower all the way to the top as she flew into the sky, her legs bellowing large trails of red mana as they merged with the tower of magical energy that connected the sky and earth, almost like she was surfing up to the clouds alongside her Noble Phantasm.
She swiftly became a speck in the distance before her partially manifested Noble Phantasm dispelled, using mana bursts as jets to glide through the sky as she left the Einzbern territory, far above the snowy forest.
Berserker was thrown out of the immediate area by Rhongomyniad, but she remained mostly unharmed. Watching Lancer leave from the ground, she tracked her until she disappeared behind the mountains, before returning back to the mansion.