The Eighth Chapter: One Side's Battle Ends

This was a battlefield steeped in slaughter.

This was a place that erased all humanity.

This was the journey the woman beloved by that man had to endure.

"For the sake of the perfect king in his heart, I'm willing to bear all of this..."

The golden-haired girl stood on a grassland, feeling the breeze carry a faint trace of blood as she looked toward the battlefield, where their side had achieved a complete victory.

Even after countless battles, this body remained steadfast and resolute!

Even with death drawing near countless times, this body remained utterly fearless!

These were the thoughts of the girl standing on the battlefield during the Third War.

I would never betray him!

I trusted him completely!

These were the convictions the girl still held as she endured the bloodshed of the Fourth War.

But...

When the Fifth War began, the girl started to worry.

Where was he...? Was he safe? Was he still alive..? Xia... I miss you.

During the Sixth War, the girl began to feel afraid.

Did he still remember me? Why hadn't he come to me? Come back soon, Xia... I'm so lonely...

During the Seventh War, the girl began to lose her way.

Would he really come back to my side? Did he really love me? Why had he left without a word? Xia... have you already forgotten me?!

During the Eighth War, the girl endured the painful memories.

The joy of the Fairy Forest, the happiness of curling up in that man's arms, the captivating figure that always appeared before her whenever she was in danger... Xia... I miss you! Where are you?!

Please... answer me!

Before the Ninth War..., the girl finally couldn't bear the merciless decisions, repeated time and again, or endure the nightmares that tormented her over and over.

Had that man betrayed me?!

Had he forgotten me?!

Had he... decided he no longer cared about his promise to me?!

Xia... come back~! Come back! Xia! Xia!!!!

Crystal-clear tears streamed endlessly down the girl's cheeks.

Beneath the moonlit sky, the golden-haired girl cried out again and again in her heart, calling for the person she depended on most.

But... there was nothing except the bone-chilling wind howling, and the quiet sobs of the lone golden-haired girl on the vast grassland.

Nothing else at all...

When the Tenth War began...

The girl stood once more on the high ground of the grassland, clad in silver armor. Both hands rested on the Holy Sword embedded in the earth, and her emerald-green eyes gazed into the distance...

"This battle is our victory!" The girl spoke softly, her eyes gently closing.

The five tall knights standing behind her remained silent after hearing their king speak.

The grassland breeze rose again, lifting the golden hair of the girl atop the high ground.

The golden-haired girl even closed her eyes, enjoying the soothing touch of the breeze.

"Your Majesty, this time... you didn't mention that name." Just then, one of the knights behind the king suddenly spoke.

"?" Her puzzled green eyes turned toward him.

"Before and after every battle, you always mention a name—Xia. Why... not this time?" the knight asked, perplexed. He had thought it was some kind of comfort for the perfect king before him. But why... hadn't she mentioned it this time?

"...What are you talking about, Sir Lancelot? When have I ever mentioned a name I don't even know?" The girl looked at the tall knight in confusion and asked in bewilderment.

The knight named Lancelot opened his mouth in shock. It seemed he had never expected the king before him to give such an answer...

"No, it's nothing. I overstepped... my revered king." With that, the knight lowered his head and stopped looking at the girl's bewildered expression.

When the golden-haired girl saw the knight lower his head and fall silent, she paid him no further mind.

She turned again to face the distance. The gentle breeze that had been blowing moments before had somehow begun to grow stronger.

The fierce wind bent every blade of grass across the plain.

The knights standing behind the girl had no choice but to drive their weapons into the ground to keep their footing.

Watching the girl face the gale, her body unmoving and her feet planted firmly in place...

A sense of shame rose in the hearts of all the knights. One by one, the stubborn knights copied the girl before them, straightening their backs to face the raging wind. No matter how fiercely it blew, they would not yield in the slightest~!

Our king!

She had fought a hundred battles, great and small, and never known defeat!

The sword in her hands was the blade of victory!

Our king! She was the ruler of Britannia! King Arthur!

The figure we would follow forever!

Our eternal sovereign!

The one to whom we would always be loyal!

At that moment, the spirit of the knights standing behind the girl rose into the sky.

It became the indistinct silhouette of a young man.

The young man stood tall and straight, quietly suspended in the sky.

When his gaze fell upon the figure at the very front of the knights, he smiled slightly...

"Artoria..."

"ROAR!!!!" A thunderous beastly roar rang out between heaven and earth.

Golden light filled the sky!

Brilliant light, powerful enough to rip a hole in the cloud-covered heavens!

"Gates of Babylon!" Hundreds of Noble Phantasms rained down from above! Their dense formation! Their sheer number, blotting out the entire sky~!

Boom! Boom! Boom!!

Explosions followed one after another! The furious dragon's roar shook the cloud-covered sky into chaos~!

The enormous crimson dragon coiled its massive body! Facing the rain of Noble Phantasms falling from above, it opened its jaws and took a deep breath, swallowing them all!

"If you enjoyed this book, remember to add it to your bookshelf so you can find it again next time."

"Everything up to this point! I'm giving it back to you, Hero King!" A young man stood atop the dragon's head, holding a crimson spear in both hands as he shouted at the extravagant golden ship floating in the air! The crimson dragon raised its massive head once again and roared at the sky!

"ROAR!!!"

Along with the earth-shaking roar, more than a thousand exquisite Noble Phantasms appeared beside the dragon's head in an instant. They glittered with an eerie red light, turning into streaks of crimson meteors that shot toward the sky!

"Fakes dare to make a scene before me?! Gates of Babylon!!" Facing the red Noble Phantasms that resembled a meteor shower, hundreds of exquisite Noble Phantasms appeared beside the golden ship in an instant. They formed a golden meteor swarm and charged headlong toward the crimson one!

"Destroy them!!"

"Vanish, you trash!!"

Amid two furious shouts, the crimson Noble Phantasm meteors and the gleaming golden barrage collided in midair with a thunderous crash~!

Clang! Clatter~! Bang! Clang! Clang!~

The clash of Noble Phantasm against Noble Phantasm rang out fiercely. Brilliant golden and dazzling red light burst forth from the colliding meteors again and again! Each flash marked the fall of a powerful Noble Phantasm! And so, two showers of Noble Phantasms clashed in a dazzling spectacle above the dark clouds!

"It's not over!!! Unleash the full sword storm!!"

"Ha! Fakes should know their place~! Turn into a pile of junk before the genuine article! Gates of Babylon!"

As the two sides roared at one another once more, the light from the Noble Phantasm barrage, which had begun to fade, flared across the sky again! This time, the volleys were far larger and covered a much wider area~! With each side adding nearly five hundred Noble Phantasms to the barrage, the once-gloomy sky was completely replaced by dazzling, vivid light~!

"Man, these people are loaded! They're using Noble Phantasms like arrows. Isn't that ridiculously wasteful?" Lancer, standing on a stone platform, looked up at the sky and said what everyone was thinking. Indeed, the two figures high above had used nearly five thousand Noble Phantasms since the battle began—not counting the dozens they had used at the start.

"But... something's strange." Just then, Weber, the Conqueror King's Master, suddenly spoke.

Weber's question drew the attention of the Servants present, and they all turned to look at him. Startled by so many eyes suddenly on him, Weber instinctively tried to hide behind his Servant, but the Conqueror King stepped in front of him first.

Weber looked at the Conqueror King in confusion.

"My little Master, if you can't even handle a little scene like this... then you're not worthy of being my Master, the Conqueror King, Alexander the Great!" The Conqueror King spoke to Weber with an unusually serious expression. How could a Master capable of summoning him—and earning his response—be so timid?!

Looking into the Conqueror King's thick-browed eyes, little Weber trembled twice, then took a couple of deep breaths and stepped out from beside him.

"Ha ha ha ha!! Excellent!" That step forward was exactly why the Conqueror King had accepted the little Master.

After stepping forward, Weber tried to steady his still-trembling heart. Then he looked straight at the Heroes and Masters and said, "That strange red-armored Servant doesn't have nearly enough magical energy to sustain this kind of expenditure. And yet, even after using this 'Reality Marble,' he can still fight that powerful Servant to a standstill. Isn't that strange? By all rights, his magical energy should have run out long ago..."

"Besides, it's even more absurd that the young man in white isn't actually the Hero himself! That goes completely against the most basic principles of magecraft. He's a Servant with only C-rank magical energy, and everything about this is just so unreasonable! This place is almost like... almost like..."

"Like a real dream, right?" Kiritsugu finished for Weber.

"Uh... yes, that's right!" Weber replied, startled, glancing at the cold man who had been quiet from the very beginning.

"And that's not all. Look carefully at what happens to that red blood dragon when it touches the Hero King's Noble Phantasms." Lancer spoke up, his narrowed eyes fixed on the enormous blood dragon in the sky.

"?"

At Lancer's words, everyone looked up in confusion.

In the sky, the two sides, who had been exchanging volleys of Noble Phantasms, had somehow shifted to close-quarters combat. The huge blood dragon had wrapped its massive body tightly around the golden ship, biting down on its middle with its enormous jaws. It held itself fast against the ship.

On the dragon's body and the golden ship's hull, two rapidly moving figures, one white and one gold, clashed fiercely. Every collision produced a thunderous sonic boom. Each clash of blades marked the fall of a famous Noble Phantasm. The two sides kept attacking each other relentlessly while continuously summoning more Noble Phantasms to clash again.

"...You want us to watch those two spendthrifts showing off how many Noble Phantasms they have?" Alice suddenly asked.

"No, you're wrong, Alice. Don't watch those two spendthrifts fight. Look carefully at what the blood dragon is doing!" Kiritsugu turned to remind her.

"...?" Confused, Alice looked back up at the sky and watched the blood dragon coiled around the golden ship.

"Gulp...~" Its massive jaws clamped tightly around the hull as it kept biting down with its sharp teeth. At the same time, it made the sound of swallowing something. Thin streams of green liquid trickled from the corner of the blood dragon's mouth.

"!!" Alice's eyes widened in shock as she stared at the droplet of green liquid falling slowly from its mouth.

"That's right... This is why the blood dragon hasn't attacked the Hero King itself from the beginning." Kiritsugu spoke softly, seeing that Alice had noticed something was wrong.

"It's using the power of a Noble Phantasm and the magical connection between Servants to ignore the space and process in between, and directly draw its Master's magical energy from the Noble Phantasm?!" Weber's eyes widened too as he stared at the blood dragon coiling through the sky.

"No! The blood dragon isn't draining magical energy!" The Conqueror King suddenly objected. Everyone's attention turned to him once more.

"If the blood dragon really were draining magical energy... then why isn't it giving that magical energy to the young man? Why is it causing what we're seeing in the sky instead...?" As everyone listened to the Conqueror King and looked back up at the sky...

Crack!

A bolt of lightning struck down from above!

Pale white light illuminated the two figures standing atop the golden ship.

The young man in white stood at the top of the ship, still holding his spear in both hands, poised to thrust it at the Hero King. But he never did...

The Hero King stood on the raised platform, holding a long sword marked with strange patterns in one hand. Its blade was buried straight through the heart of the young man in white.

"Cough!" The young man in white spat out a mouthful of blood, staining even more of his already filthy clothes red. Though he should have been the defeated one, a victorious smile played on his lips.

"...Trash, what's so funny?" Seeing this, the Hero King had been pleased to have slain the detestable fake himself, but his brows furrowed tightly again.

But the young man in white did not answer the Hero King. He slowly turned into specks of starlight and vanished in midair...

{I've completed the task you gave me... General Xia.} Smiling, the young man slowly faded away with a look of contentment.

All that remained was the displeased Hero King, along with the Heroes and Masters on the ground who had watched the show from start to finish.

"Hmm?!"

At that moment, Xia, who was still in the Fairy Forest, suddenly looked up into the distance as if he had sensed something.

Then, as though he had realized what had happened, he shook his head gently and sighed.

"Thank you for your hard work. The 'false dream' ends here..." His soft words expressed his gratitude.

"But... it's a little late." With that, Xia gave a bitter smile. He raised his head, his dark eyes filled with helplessness, and stared intently at the golden-haired girl before him.

Drip...

A drop of water fell to the ground.

Xia remained bent forward, both arms wrapped around the waist of the beloved woman before him. He and Artoria held each other tightly. Under ordinary circumstances, anyone would have thought the two of them looked like lovers, wouldn't they?

But...

The Holy Sword that pierced through Xia's body was clutched tightly in the hands of the golden-haired girl before him.

Bright red blood dripped one drop at a time from the tip of the golden sword.

Red blood!

Vivid, brilliant blood!

Blood flowing from inside his body!

Artoria's face was expressionless as she slowly pushed the Holy Sword farther in, paying no heed to the small pool of blood that had already formed on the ground.

"The seal on my self-imposed prison is harder to undo than I expected..."

What should I write next?--

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