Let us shift our gaze back to the Old Tie Family.
As mentioned previously, no sooner had Shirou landed than he was surrounded by a swarm of Buffilo Family puppets...
Well, it remained to be seen precisely who was surrounding whom. Judging by sheer force, it might even be said that Shirou was the one surrounding that pack of puppets. To sum it up, Shirou inexplicably began an unhindered rampage right in the middle of the puppet swarm.
Although those puppets swung their fists with immense weight, faintly carrying the momentum of a certain purple Caster where each punch meant one kill, this contraption operated far too slowly.
Leaving aside Shirou, who was hardly human, even an ordinary person with slightly heightened reflexes could dodge their attacks.
Therefore, dealing with them required no techniques from Shirou whatsoever; a single slap was enough to smash one to death.
Smack! The final puppet within his field of vision was swatted into pulverized dirt by Shirou, who then flicked his hand with eighth-grade-syndrome flair just like Yanlong Xia, gazing off in a certain direction—the location of the Buffilo Family Workshop.
"Warm-up's over," he said. "Keeping my previous view, this time's prey is indeed much chewier than the last. I just wonder how long this chewiness can hold out."
He casually fired off a Bala. The Bala grazed across the ground, carving out a trail before finally being blocked by a wall. That was the Buffilo Family Workshop, the location of Shirou's target this time. Generally speaking, mages hid within their own family workshops.
Of course, exceptions aside, and heterodox mages counted separately. Shirou stretched out his left hand and swept it across that wall, his right hand clenching into a fist. His unique dark green Cero leaked out a fraction from the gaps of his fingers, making Shirou's fist look like a lightbulb glowing with green light.
"It just so happens I came up with a new move recently, and it's not convenient to run experiments in crowded places, so I'll test it right here!" Shirou muttered to himself.
The inspiration for this move came from Kurosaki Ichigo's Wrapped Getsuga—wrapping a Cero around a blade so that every subsequent slash possessed the destructive power of a Getsuga.
Shirou did not know Getsuga Tensho, so he found something similar, and that was his Cero; neither did Shirou intend to wrap this move around a blade; he simply wrapped the Cero directly around his own fist. He gave this move of his a name: Serious Punch.
The green-glowing fist traced a green trajectory through the air. Although Shirou had not used Fake Kanesada to destroy the barrier in advance this time, it did not matter. In Shirou's view, there was no barrier in this world that could not be broken. If there was one, it was simply because the force you used was not big enough.
A demolition-like sound rang out as the barrier of the Buffilo Family Workshop along with a wall were shattered by Shirou, and then... Shirou fell into a pit.
Falling down together with Shirou was a massive amount of gravel and earth. It seemed this was likely some kind of automatic magic that would trigger the instant the barrier was broken. The routine used was to dig a pit, bury the dirt, and count one, two, three, four, five. However, what was buried here was not seeds, but a person, so what emerged in return was not RMB, but a beam of light—a flash so green it made you feel uneasy.
A massive surge of magic power soared into the sky, and a single Cero melted all that sand and gravel. Shirou flew straight out from the pit.
At that moment, Shirou discovered that the wall he had just broken was now as good as new once more. Whenever there was a problem, one had to ask. Although Shirou had never been a particularly good student, it was best for him to ask about this current situation.
Coincidentally, there was someone in the distance who had been aiming at his side all along.
"Natalia-san, did you see what was going on just now?" Shirou asked.
"That wall restored itself," Natalia's voice came through the other end of the radio. "It's probably some kind of earth-attribute spell. I've seen similar arts; as long as the magic power of the spell isn't exhausted, this wall will continually self-repair."
"So detailed! As expected of Natalia-san!" Shirou offered a heartfelt praise, then asked again, "Since this wall can recover, what if I just erase the entire workshop directly?"
"Then our bounty will probably go down the drain!" Natalia said half-jokingly.
"Is that so..." Shirou propped his chin with his right hand, supporting his right elbow with his left hand. He assumed a pensive posture, pondered for a moment, and said, "It seems I can only smash the wall first, and then get inside before the wall body recovers."
"I likewise don't support this idea of yours. This spell fundamentally exists to trap things. If you just go in like this, you're very likely to fall right into their trap."
"Really?" Although Shirou reckoned that he could win simply by rushing right through recklessly, being a bit cautious was still necessary to avoid capsizing in the gutter. "Then how about this?"
Shirou expressed his idea to Natalia, and the latter immediately declared it feasible: "I'm starting to think you and that brat Kiritsugu are father and son. Facing pretty much the same situation, your coping methods are almost identical."
Shirou rolled his eyes. Now you believe it, and only starting to? Are we two guys really so lacking in father—wait, come to think of it, it really seemed like they didn't share much father-and-son resemblance.
Shirou was a master of all household chores, whereas Kiritsugu... Furthermore, they were an adoptive father and son; the routine of biological fathers and sons simply could not be applied to the two of them. If anyone were to say to Kiritsugu, "Your son looks just like you," Shirou could bet with his cooking that the very next person would be beaten to the point even their own birth mother wouldn't recognize them. Oh, right, perhaps that day they would suffer a Spear of Thunder falling from the sky.
The only resembling trait might be eighth-grade-syndrome, but that was truly unspeakable. In addition, both of these individuals were men of action. Since the plan had been drawn up, then youth, charge forth! Yaranai ka, let's seal the deal with one strike!
With one hand he projected a bow, and with the other hand he projected a European-style rapier. For the sake of shooting convenience, Shirou did not project the rapier's handguard.
He intended to shoot the sword like an arrow. Although this approach bore the suspicion of plagiarizing a certain mountain-peak savage, as things stood right now, it was indeed the simplest method.
Moreover, Shirou now had a new idea: he planned to wrap the Cero around the arrow and then fire it out. Only recently had Shirou discovered that this Cero was truly a wonderful thing; you could wrap it around practically anything.
Aiming right at the Buffilo Family Workshop, Shirou did not hesitate at all. His opening move was three swords... three arrows... forget it, let's just call them jian.
Just as Natalia had said, that wall possessed extremely powerful self-repair capabilities, and the damage caused by those three jian was repaired within a few breaths.
That was precisely what Shirou wanted! Did you think those were powerful arrowheads? No, no, no—those were actually explosive arrowheads!
Broken Phantasm!
A two-stanza chant spilled from Shirou's lips. Shirou deliberately controlled the output to ensure a corpse could still be left behind.
Following the detonation of magic power, the Buffilo Family Workshop instantly turned into a firecracker.
Amidst a loud explosion, the head of the Buffilo Family walked out from the smoke-filled pit with a blackened face—the result of being blasted.
And goodness knew why, even though the blast had charred him nearly the color of coal, it simply hadn't managed to kill him!
"Did you do this?" The Buffilo family head glared angrily at Shirou and demanded.
There was annoyance and hatred in his tone, but uniquely, no contempt. What measured a mage's strength was their magic power reserve and technique, not their age.
Looking at that face even darker than Lord Bao's, Shirou immediately indicated that he didn't want to talk to a black ghost, activated Sonido to arrive behind him, raised his green-glowing fist, and intended to hand him a Serious Punch.
Then he made his move, and then Shirou was sent flying backward.
Amidst the pile of rubble, Shirou wiped away a trace of blood from the corner of his mouth. The original injuries had already healed during the flight due to super-speed regeneration.
He climbed to his feet, gazed toward the direction from which he had been sent flying, and said, "To think even you are here—just how bad is my luck?!"
Before you continue