The Miraculous Tower to Heaven
As you gradually zoom out the area captured by the camera, you'll find that the world map has become useless, and the Earth is no longer the round sphere you remember, but an ellipse covered with craters and gaps.
Asia, the Middle East, and other regions have become riddled with deep craters, rendering the planet inhabited by humans incomplete. The land has become loose and fragmented, seemingly ready to decompose at any moment, and it would not be surprising if it turned into dust more than four billion years ago.
The glaciers at the North and South Poles have all melted, first sweeping westward, along the European coast, and those countries that were once incredibly powerful during the Age of Exploration, as well as the island nations of Nanyang Asia, have all become history. Most of North America has been submerged under the sea, and there is less and less land left for people to live on.
The most farsighted land of China, where ghost cities were once filled with empty buildings, is now teeming with people. Buildings that are said to be able to accommodate 3 billion people are completely full, and many people have chosen to return to their old houses in the mountains covered with green leaves and live a rural life.
As populations gathered, cities flourished, and world-class metropolises emerged one after another in Asia and Africa. Asian landlords, African kings and chiefs became the elite, and their cities became incredibly prosperous and wealthy.
Everything seemed bright and promising, everything seemed full of hope, but something in this world was disappearing; something had died; and some places were already broken.
Buzzing!!!
A streak of red lightning flashed by, and a monster with Red Thread afterimage was moving rapidly across the highway. In the blink of an eye, the Black Shadow would change position again, accompanied only by a rumbling sound like muffled thunder.
People on the road had to look very hard to spot the Black Shadow; it turned out to be a black, metallic car with flashing red headlights, weaving through rows of cars as if no one else was there, speeding across the highway at lightning speed.
"You bastard in front!! Stop right now! You've seriously violated traffic laws! Stop immediately and be arrested!!!" the traffic police detective captain shouted, holding a megaphone.
Behind them was a group of Japanese traffic detectives riding white motorcycles, their red taillights spinning and sirens blaring. They formed a square of nine and sped along the highway, chasing after the black motorcycle.
In front of the black motorcycle with its red lights flashing was a group of cars that had gathered because the red light had just passed. Behind it, another group of Japanese traffic police was about to catch up.
At this moment, the traffic lights on the road began to flash, and the remaining red light time was less than three seconds.
"Stop the car! You bastard!" the traffic police captain yelled from behind, about to catch up.
But the motorcyclist in the black leather jacket remained unmoved, twisting the throttle and speeding diagonally into the traffic without slowing down, instantly leaving the traffic police behind him.
As soon as the red light ended, the rolling traffic began to move, trapping the nine-person motorcycle team behind them, leaving them unable to move freely in either direction.
When most of the cars in front had finally driven away and started to pick up speed, the red light came on again, the cars in front stopped, and the traffic police motorcycle team was once again stopped on the road.
"Damn it!" The detective captain angrily punched the windshield of the white car, shattering it into an unsightly spiderweb pattern.
The black motorcycle had long since vanished without a trace. It moved with incredible agility and freedom through the steel jungle until it came to a stop in front of a towering black skyscraper. It was a colossal building whose walls stretched as far as the eye could see, its vast facade a pure black.
If there's any distinguishing feature, the only one that stands out is the numerous antique-style flags adorned with black birds, somewhat resembling swallows, but with long, phoenix-like tail feathers.
The skyscrapers stretch upwards, layer upon layer, countless in number, because you can't see the top of the building at all; it's probably only halfway up before it's completely obscured by clouds.
"Come on, we've arrived. The Chinese version of Noah's Ark built by that man... the Tower to the Sky." The white-haired man looked up at the exaggerated behemoth and said, stretching out his long legs to get off the motorcycle and extending his palm to the girl on the back seat.
Only then did it become clear that the rider of the black motorcycle was a man dressed in a black leather jacket and pants, 1.87 meters tall, with long arms and a muscular, V-shaped physique that clearly showed he had undergone a high degree of training.
The man took off his motorcycle hat, revealing a striking head of short, silver-white hair. He looked to be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. Under his bangs, he pulled out black sunglasses from his leather jacket, put them on, and immediately covered half of his face, making it impossible for anyone to see his true expression.
The silver-haired girl sitting on the back of the motorcycle smiled faintly on her cool and pretty face, took the other person's hand, and used it to jump off the motorcycle.
"Well then... let's go, Anna." The white-haired man put his hands in his pockets and walked up the stairs.
"Okay!" replied the young girl with long, straight, snow-white hair.
The silver-haired girl took the arm of the white-haired man and slowly walked up the stairs into the towering building with the black bird emblem.
Traffic detectives who had been chasing after them caught up. Seeing the man get out of the car, they excitedly tried to rush up and arrest him. However, when they saw the layout of the place, they slammed on the brakes, almost colliding, and barely managed to stop their vehicles. They could only watch helplessly as the man led the girl upstairs.
Yes, even those who act as instruments of violence are not qualified to enter. The area outside the tower belongs to Japan, while the area inside belongs solely to Tower to the Sky. This applies to every city, and anyone who enters has extraterritorial rights, much like the concessions established by Western aggressors in the East during the last century.
462 The Greatest Martial Arts in the World??
The towering black building, the black staircase—the stones here are like indestructible black crystals, or like crystal-clear, solid steel, possessing a peculiar texture, as if they were made from materials that did not originally exist in this world.
In this black world, the appearance of the man and the girl added a touch of white.
This is a cute girl of fifteen or sixteen, like Princess in a fairy tale's snowy world. She is about 1.60 meters tall, and her long bangs cover half of her eyes. She is a girl who exudes an aura that is not easy to approach.
She held a Russian doll named Viy in her arms, and when she remained silent, she exuded a cold and dignified aura. Her icy blue gemstone eyes seemed to possess a mysterious magic that could see through the secrets of certain things.
"Won't they catch up again?" The silver-haired girl tugged at the man's clothes and turned to ask the noisy detectives below.
"Ah, no, because these are things that aren't allowed here. So even if you leave your car there, there's no need to worry. That's what the Tower to the Sky is all about," Shirou said. At that moment, he even felt a sense of sadness for the people below.
Seemingly sensing the meaning behind the gaze, the detective captain below blushed, angrily waving his arms and shouting, "Damn it... I don't need your pity! You remnant of the white devil!!! I will never forget the hotel explosion twenty years ago! I won't rest until I've killed every last one of you mercenary scum! Aaaaaah! Bastard!"
"Captain! Don't be impulsive! This is the building where that conference is being held...!" A squad leader turned around and said to the captain.
"The higher-ups have given a strict order: not only us, but even the police are not allowed to go inside and cause any disturbances," a traffic detective whispered to the captain.
"It's here again! It's here again! This inexplicable competition has brought a bunch of weirdos lately! They ignore traffic rules! They ignore the law! They let them come here! They treat Japanese people differently from foreigners, that's what they do! This country is no good!" The captain said, his face flushed and veins bulging with excitement.
"Captain... Captain!! Stop talking!"
"Damn it! Aaaaaah!! Let's go back!!!" The traffic detective captain, watching the back of the silver-haired man who was leisurely climbing the stairs towards the building with the silver-haired girl in his arms, threw his hat down and roared.
This facility is known as the Tower to the Sky, a colossal building erected in every major city in the world only in the last decade. In this era of constant natural and man-made disasters, it is seen as humanity's last line of defense. It utilizes advanced technology of unknown origin, making it waterproof, shockproof, and explosion-proof. It is said that even Tsarina- level nuclear bomb explosion could not shake the tower's protection.
It has all the facilities found outside, including its own water and electricity generation, an estate for raising animals and cultivating vegetables, a factory that can produce daily necessities, and even a cremation and burial service.
Even with the most conservative estimate, it could sustain a million people for thirty years, and theoretically, it could last for fifty years.
This is an impressive building, but getting into such a place is not an easy task.
Residents are either highly skilled technicians who have undergone rigorous selection processes to be assigned to positions inside, or they are staff members of the building. Those without such connections need to purchase tickets, with the lowest-priced tickets costing at least one million US dollars.
And these figures are based on the premise that scalpers, connections, and other such factors are not taken into account. In fact, even if the price of such tickets were increased tenfold, the supply would still be insufficient to meet the demand.
At this moment, all the members of the motorcycle team sprang into action, some taking out new hats from their trunks and handing them to their captain.
Some bent down to pick up the captain's broken hat and put it in the trunk, intending to take it back as a consumable item from the dangerous struggle with the violent driver, and hand it over to the relevant authorities.
Although the detectives moved somewhat clumsily, they still adhered to the rules. Even a needle and thread is bought with the blood and sweat of taxpayers. Everything used by public servants comes from the taxes paid by the people, so nothing can be done carelessly. At least in this area, it must be so.
Although the traffic captain looked annoyed, he still took the helmet handed to him by his subordinate and put it on. After everything was done, the convoy started again, with the grumbling traffic detective captain in the lead, heading back in the direction they had come from.
At this moment, the white-haired man led the girl up the steps to a large black door, where two burly men in black stood guard like door gods.
Shirou pulled a black invitation from his pocket and handed it over.
"The invitation is confirmed." Upon seeing the seal on the invitation, the two black-clad gatekeepers snapped out of their daze, pushed open the gate, and stepped aside to make way for them. They bowed respectfully, inviting them in, saying, "My lords, please come in."
Shirou and the silver-haired girl exchanged a glance and then walked inside together.
"They're here! They're here! They're here--!!!! A new contestant has entered~!" someone shouted excitedly through the loudspeaker.
The moment he stepped inside, spotlights shone on the white-haired man.
On a raised platform in the center of the room, stood two figures. One was a bunny girl with long, dark hair in a ponytail and an Asian face. She was waving her arms and smiling brightly as she introduced the girl to the audience:
"First, let's get to know our newest contestant! This tall man with white hair and brown skin is a ghost who survived the death pit in the Middle East and inherited the will of the White Demon!"
Neither greedy for money nor lustful, sometimes a righteous hero saving the weak, sometimes a murderous maniac wiping out the entire clan of those he protects—Emiya--Shiro, the most cruel, cold-blooded, and incomprehensible mercenary of this century!!!
The white-haired man slowly took off his sunglasses, revealing a pair of sharp, hawk-like eyes. He coldly scanned his surroundings, from the nearby walls to the distant corners, from the central platform to the upper floors.
First and foremost, it's clear that this place is indeed very special, almost like a lawless zone, and the people inside are extraordinary as well. Although it's located in Tokyo, the two bunny girls on stage are speaking Chinese.
On the rooftop, the people holding wine glasses, as if watching a Colosseum performance, were of different skin colors and appearances, seemingly dignitaries from various countries.
Inside the door was a spacious area, like an indoor football field, with a boxing ring-like platform in the center. Above the platform was not a ceiling, but a transparent glass wall.
On the second floor, a large observation deck with transparent glass walls surrounds the platform, capable of accommodating hundreds of people who can clearly see what's below.
On the raised platform in the center of the first floor.
Besides the bunny girl with the ponytail, there was another bunny girl with two buns on her head, a slender and athletic figure, and a serious, somewhat rigid expression like a soldier.
The two beautiful women dressed as bunny girls, each holding a microphone, are standing on the high platform in the center; they appear to be the hosts.
The other was a bunny girl with a black ponytail, who was holding a microphone and striking various poses, occasionally throwing a flirtatious glance and showing off her charm, interacting with the dignitaries looking down from the second floor above the hall through the vertical glass.
Hello everyone!
"Whoosh, Miss Rabbit, are you free tonight?" someone called from above.
"I'll remember you! If you don't buy me a drink later, I won't let you off the hook!" the bunny girl with the long ponytail replied with a smile.
"Oh! I'll be waiting for you!" the white man in a casual suit replied with a delighted smile.
"Damn it, we got beaten to it..." someone nearby said resentfully.
The bun bunny girl opened her notebook and calmly explained, "According to the investigation and evaluation by the Black Ice Platform Foundation's specialists, the danger level is between E- and S+. Your life or death depends solely on whether you have committed any evil deeds or whether you have hindered their mission."
If you encounter him on a normal day, unless it's on the battlefield, there's no need to pay him any attention.
If you are confident that you consider yourself a good person, then this self-proclaimed champion of justice will not harm you. However, please keep a safe distance from him, because he is the kind of man who, in order to save the majority, will not hesitate to betray and will not hesitate to kill the minority.
"Oh no! Everyone run! There's no one safe in this hall right now!" The bunny girl with a single ponytail screamed, feigning fear.
"Because the characters participating here are all very fierce, please be careful! Do not act on your own, leave the designated activity area, or go to the restricted area," the bunny girl with the bunny hair bun reminded everyone.
"Hahahaha!"
"Wow, you really dare to say that, miss!"
The bunny girl with a single ponytail's words caused the people upstairs, who had transformed into elegant figures and wore masks, to burst into laughter. Their confidence stemmed from their comprehensive protective measures.
Then the spotlight shifted slightly, turning towards the silver-haired girl next to the man.
"Next up is the adorable Russian girl Anna ~! Anastasia~!, an ice fairy from the white wilderness. She's so cute, even I can't help but feel my heart flutter. I really want to hold her in my arms and cherish her. But... but~!" The bunny girl wagged her finger at the camera and continued:
"Don't be fooled by her expression, everyone! This little girl has the superpower to freeze an entire mountaintop in an instant!"
The bunny girl with twin buns continued, "Anastasia, danger level A-! According to the investigation by our Black Ice Platform Foundation's special envoy, it seems that only by keeping your distance can you avoid being harmed."
"Shirou... that Khitan shepherdess rabbit woman is a bit annoying~!" The silver-haired girl peeked out from behind the man, frowned, pursed her lips, and exuded a super fierce black aura as she spoke.
"Anna... to be precise, the Chinese are not quite the same as the Khitan, nor are they the shepherdesses... well... this is just an incorrect name used by Russia during the period when it was ruled by the Mongolia Golden Horde."
"It's like calling East Asian yellow-skinned people 'Mongolia.' It started as a term created unilaterally by some people with ambiguity, and gradually became a conventional name. Now it's hard to change. Besides, they call you Russians over there, so it doesn't matter," the white-haired man explained.
"Huh...?" Anastasia blinked, still looking confused.
"Look, a vicious killer, seemingly imparting some ominous knowledge to underage girls, it's utterly depraved! Could someone in this venue already be being targeted!? Ugh, how terrifying~!"
The bunny girl with a single ponytail pointed in the direction of the man, screamed exaggeratedly, hid behind the bunny girl with two bunny heads, put her arm around her companion's shoulder, raised one leg behind her, and pretended to be scared.
"Hahahaha..." The powerful and wealthy people upstairs burst into laughter again.
The white-haired man's face darkened further, and he changed his tune, saying, "Very well! Anyway, this place is full of traps and traps set by villains. We'll find a chance to teach her a lesson later and turn this talkative woman into a frozen rabbit."
"Hmm, let's make it into an ice sculpture and put it on the street! Lift it upside down, put the head in the hole, and feed it to the bears starting from the butt!" Anastasia nodded excitedly with a mischievous glint in her eyes when she heard Shirou's suggestion.
"Ah, if she's in our way," the white-haired man replied coldly.
Indeed... there are hardly any people in this place who shouldn't have been killed. Almost all of them are utterly wicked, their wealth stained with countless amounts of blood, and there are quite a few desperate criminals among the contestants.
He simply didn't care about or want to waste his energy on pointless killing. He came here for a purpose, and he was willing to sacrifice everything for it.
In this world, all that remains for him is despair. The body named Shirou Emiya is empty inside, devoid of any thoughts. The only reason he has spared this life is to kill 'that person'.
The builder of this black Tower to the Sky!
Chapter 463 The Miracle Tower to the Sky
Twenty years ago, a terrorist attack in Fuyuki City, Japan, brought everything back to square one—no, it was worse.
Although the world line diverged during the Third Holy Grail War, Thousand Tree Family, with the help of the military, seized the Greater Holy Grail from the Three Founding Families, Fuyuki City was unable to continue hosting the Holy Grail War.
However, where there are people, there is conflict. The struggle between Magecraft has never ceased. Although the Holy Grail War can no longer be realized, pseudo-Holy Grail War have been held in many other places.
A great battle in Fuyuki City caused terrible damage to the entire city, and it was at this time that Shirou's spiritual clone, in the form of a child, descended into this world.
Perhaps it was a trick of fate, or simply a coincidence, but in any case, through a series of unexpected events, the fates of many people reached similar ends in different ways.
Kiritsugu Emiya, Magus Killer, arrived in Fuyuki City during a mission. In this world, he did not become the son-in-law of the Einzbern, nor did he encounter the woman Irisviel.
He is simply hired to hunt down Magecraft who threaten the world, roaming battlefields around the globe. He is ruthless in killing those who instigate unrest, and equally ruthless in carrying out acts of salvation.
Like a sophisticated killing machine, he views things with absolute rationality, so calm as to be cold-blooded, treating everything he encounters, whether human or animal, as a tool to achieve his goals.
Kiritsugu did not participate in the Holy Grail War, but he did get caught up in a massive battle among Magecraft in Fuyuki. He crashed into a bridge, a sea monster appeared, and many people died. It was like a cursed destiny, resulting in a similar outcome to Shirou's previous life.
Unlike the previous world, Shirou was caught up in a battle as soon as he arrived, lost his memory in the impact of the battle, and was then picked up by Kiritsugu.
Thus, Shirou, knowing nothing about this world, followed Kiritsugu as his adopted son and apprentice to the Magecraft.
Kiritsugu discovered Shirou's talent for Magecraft and took him in with the intention of training him as an assistant. Just as the bounty hunter had adopted Kiritsugu years before, Kiritsugu adopted Shirou, only more ruthless and with a clearer purpose.
In this world, Shirou lived the life of a mercenary on the battlefield, amidst gunfire and bullets, from a young age for over a decade. Even when he lived in a safe place, he was still mostly focused on missions, constantly navigating various dangers.
It wasn't until after 'that incident' that Shirou's memories, still reeling from the shock, began to return. But by then, it was all over, all too late...
This world is on the verge of collapse. It's not like a prematurely deceased infant that is wiped out from the start, but rather, at some stage of growth, there is overnutrition, bodily imbalance, cellular abnormalities, and excessively rapid division, leading to gradual disintegration. Now, it has become a terminal cancer patient.
All means, whether mystical Magecraft or modern science, have been exhausted, but modern medicine is powerless to reverse the situation.
In fact, Shirou no longer possesses the power of Creator God in this world. He can only be considered an observer. As a differentiated spiritual entity, he will watch this world until the very last moment before disappearing.