"Is this the Labyrinth City, Orario? What a miraculous city!"
Standing atop a towering hillside, Shirou Emiya gazed at the enormous and magnificent city in the distance, unable to keep from sighing in wonder.
Especially the white tower that pierced the clouds—Tower of Babel.
He simply couldn't imagine how it had been built.
"A world where gods and the people of the Lower World dance together, the birthplace of heroes—Orario. This place must be able to grant me power comparable to that of a Heroic Spirit!"
"Once that happens, I'll be able to defeat Julian and make sure they can never disturb Miyu's life again!"
Thinking of his little sister's face, Shirou Emiya's memories involuntarily returned to the past.
In his previous life, he had been a college student from China named Emiya, and a veteran anime fan. In particular, as a huge fan of the Fate series, he had watched nearly every work in it.
After all, whenever this Emiya saw another Emiya slaughtering his way across the battlefield with a crowd of girls around him, he couldn't help but feel a powerful sense of identification.
After Emiya finished watching the theatrical film Heaven's Feel II: Lost Butterfly on Bilibili, he was once again shaken by Sakura Matou's tragic past.
Among the heroines of the original work, he preferred Sakura Matou to Rin Tohsaka.
After all, who wouldn't like a girl as well-endowed and gentle as Sakura?
But her background was simply too tragic. The HF Route, which centered on Sakura, was especially unbearable.
So, after finishing it with his heart aching, Emiya hurriedly opened Magical Girl Illya, hoping the girls' affectionate interactions would heal his wounded heart.
Then, while he was at it, he stayed up all night rewatching Magical Girl Illya's theatrical film, Vow in the Snow. Afterward, he went to sleep—and crossed into another world.
When he awoke, he found himself lying on uneven ground, with broken swords and fragments of various weapons scattered all around him.
Not far away, Angelica, Shining Girl, was watching him while holding Garisong.
"Heh heh, facing the Boss right from the start—and after already being defeated, no less. Could there be a more miserable opening?"
The memories in his mind played back nonstop.
"Shirou Emiya," "Miyu Shizuki," "Holy Grail War," "King of Heroes."
Countless pieces of information surged from the depths of Emiya's memories, allowing him to quickly sort out his identity.
Even without those memories, he already knew when and where this was.
After all, all this information was engraved in his DNA.
This was the conclusion of the Holy Grail War in Miyu Shizuki's former world from Vow in the Snow, as well as the beginning of Magical Girl Illya.
It was the story of Giant Hero Emiya abandoning his ideal of being an ally of justice to save his little sister, turning into evil, defeating seven opponents in succession, and ending the Holy Grail War in a single night.
And now, it was the ending of that story. To buy time for his sister to be transferred away, Shirou Emiya had faced Angelica, who had taken on the form of Gilgamesh, King of Heroes, alone as a mere human.
Although he had lost the battle, he had won the war.
At that moment, he was covered in wounds and lying on the ground, feeling happy that his sister had been saved.
Infected by that emotion, Emiya also realized a fact: he had already crossed into this world long ago and had merely just awakened.
As a result, his personality also leaned more toward Shirou Emiya's.
After all, they were both him. One was his past life, and the other was his present.
"Now that the memories of my previous life have awakened, something must have interfered. Maybe it was the culprit behind my reincarnation."
"But no matter what you are—a system or a god—since you awakened the memories of my previous life, you probably won't let me be captured and imprisoned just like this, right?"
"Please, I need your power right now!"
Awakened by Shirou Emiya's heartfelt plea, a golden radiance rose from his chest and gradually dyed the entire space in gold.
"What is that?"
Stirred into action by the phenomenon rising from Shirou Emiya's body, Angelica immediately assumed a battle stance.
More than a dozen golden ripples appeared behind her in an instant, with more than a dozen Noble Phantasms ready to fire in case of danger.
But before she could understand what was happening, her consciousness was severed.
The space had been frozen!
Relying on his battered arms, Shirou Emiya forced himself upright and looked toward the source of the gathering golden radiance.
A golden pocket watch slowly floated out of the golden light in his chest.
"Isn't that the pocket watch I spent several dozen yuan on from Pinduoduo just to show off? Did I actually stumble across a treasure?"
Who could have imagined that the culprit behind Emiya's transmigration was a pocket watch he had bought from Pinduoduo? How was that any different from a miracle and getting something for free?
Looking at the golden pocket watch floating before him, Shirou Emiya extended his trembling right hand and caught it securely. The moment he touched the golden pocket watch, a stream of information instantly appeared in his mind.
It turned out that this pocket watch was called the Distant Timepiece, and it possessed the ability to take people across worlds while allowing them to perfectly integrate into the destination world.
Seventeen years ago, this golden pocket watch had brought him to this world. However, because his original three-dimensional body was incompatible with a two-dimensional environment, it had searched through countless worlds and found the person with the highest compatibility with him as the target of his reincarnation.
The reason he had not awakened during these seventeen years was that his soul had been gradually adapting to this world. It was only during this battle that his intense will to fight and his resolve allowed him to fully adapt.
Now, he was Shirou Emiya, not the Emiya he had once been.
"So this is the cause and effect behind my transmigration? Since I'm here, I'll make the best of it. I should think like Shirou Emiya now and figure out what to do next!"
Looking around at his surroundings and at Angelica, who stood there without moving, Shirou Emiya suddenly laughed. "Do I even need to think about it? Of course I'm going to cross into another world first!"
"Right now, I don't have the power to oppose Julian and the others. The most important thing is to obtain greater strength."
Shirou Emiya knew that in the later story of Magical Girl Illya, after Miyu, Illya, and the others returned to this world, they temporarily defeated Julian and his allies.
But in the battles afterward, they used Shirou Emiya's body as an excuse to make him stay home. Illya, Miyu, Chloe, and Bazett handled the battles that followed.
At the thought of such a future, Shirou Emiya was filled with unwillingness. How could he let his little sisters go into battle while he hid in the rear and rested?
That was not the future he wanted.
"Let's go, Distant Timepiece. Take me to a world where I can increase my strength."
The Distant Timepiece could not select a specific world. It could only choose a general direction unless it had visited that world before and possessed its coordinates.
At Shirou Emiya's command, he was enveloped in golden light.
Looking at Angelica, King of Heroes, in the distance, Shirou Emiya said unwillingly, "Angelica, I have to admit that you're stronger right now. But I'll be back soon, and I'll defeat you!"
Afterward, Shirou Emiya's figure vanished from the space, leaving only Angelica, who had regained consciousness without realizing it.
Awakening from his memories of the past, Shirou Emiya gazed at Orario in the distance and murmured, "I hope you won't disappoint me, Divine Blessings!"
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