The golden sun hung high in the sky.
It radiated astonishing heat, shining down upon the dunes below.
One after another, the golden dunes glittered with countless grains of sand.
They looked like little mountains made of gold.
A skeletal hand protruded from the bones buried beneath the sea of sand, pointing toward the sky.
As if begging for salvation...
This was a desert people called the Land of Death, an ominous place personally cursed by the god of death, the Nine Heavens Palace.
Those who entered never made it out alive.
Those who died here never found peace.
Their souls were trapped here, doomed to eternal torment!
A wriggle.
A wriggle, wriggle...
"Ptooey! Ptooey! Damn it, my mouth's full of sand!" The Lancer, covered in sand from head to toe, spat repeatedly as he leaped out of the dunes.
"Tch, seriously... going straight for the big move? Is that guy's mana bottomless or something?!"
The Lancer grumbled as he emerged from the sand. He raised a hand to shield his eyes and looked around, only to find dunes in every direction.
The other Servants who'd come in with him had vanished without a trace!
"Tsk..."
He looked up at the sun high overhead.
The Lancer unconsciously licked his dry lips.
"Looks like this isn't ordinary sunlight... It can actually make me, a spiritual body, feel like a 'human.' That's one hell of a bounded field!"
And... this light is suppressing my mana detection to the bare minimum. Just what is this bounded field called the Eternal Throne...?
The Lancer shook his head in frustration and put the thought aside. He casually rested his long spear across his back, then started walking deeper into the desert.
His footsteps left shallow impressions in the dunes, almost too faint to see.
He walked and walked.
An hour...? Two hours...? A day...? Two days...? Or four...?
The Lancer didn't know how far he'd gone before he finally stopped, frowning.
His handsome face had twisted with irritation and unease. Sweat poured from his skin as fast as rain, while his mana was draining at three times its normal rate.
Feeling the increasingly dire state of his body, the Lancer irritably yanked out his spear and gripped it.
"Hey! Anyone there?! You brat named Xia! Since you dragged me in here, the least you could do is—Pfft!!"
The sound of a blade piercing flesh.
The Lancer's eyes widened in shock and disbelief.
The instant he reached for his spear and impatiently shouted, a blade appeared out of nowhere and pierced his throat. Caught off guard by his frustration, he had failed to notice it in time.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!
Four more blades appeared out of nowhere and plunged into his body, piercing four vital points: his heart, intestines, liver, and spine.
"Ugh... you... you...!" Eyes blazing with fury, the Lancer reached out a hand, trying to touch the five mysterious figures who had suddenly appeared beside him. They wore golden cloaks.
A blade rang as it was drawn! The Lancer saw a flash of white, and suddenly his body felt strangely light...
Under the merciless, scorching sun, his head soared into the sky, trailing wisps of blood as it spun through the air.
Thud!
His knees hit the ground. His headless body then dissolved into points of starlight before the mysterious figures.
After confirming that the Lancer had disappeared, the five mysterious figures let out a long howl!
The golden sand around the Lancer began to writhe in unison!
Whoosh~!
A squad of a hundred emerged from underground in an instant.
Every one of them wore a golden helmet and a golden cloak, each embroidered with the character "Xia."
The mysterious figures howled again!
The hundred-man squad leaped into formation. Along with the five mysterious figures, they vanished from the spot in the blink of an eye.
All that remained was golden sand swirling through the air...
Lancer—OVER.
"..."
The Assassin stood silently atop a mountain peak, gazing at the towering peaks around him and the endless sea of clouds below.
"..."
Though he had no idea how he'd ended up here, his most important task was to conceal himself! That was the most basic rule of being an assassin.
But...
The Assassin looked around with some concern. Towering peaks pierced the clouds, while an endless sea of clouds stretched below.
He stood on a mountain platform less than twenty meters wide and twenty meters long.
The surroundings consisted entirely of smooth rock or herbs growing along the cliff's edge.
In such a place, even the most highly skilled assassin couldn't possibly find a suitable hiding spot at a moment's notice.
"@!#@*...%!"
An unfamiliar mutter escaped the Assassin's throat. His figure flickered—and then he vanished from the platform without leaving a trace.
After that, no matter how harsh the conditions became,
no matter how fiercely the wind and rain battered the mountain, or how thunder crashed again and again,
the Assassin seemed to have disappeared from the peak for good, never to return.
On the third day after the Assassin vanished,
the weather was sunny and cloudless.
The pristine platform suddenly began to undulate strangely.
Then two or three people dressed in white slowly emerged from a crack in the rock, their bodies twisting into bizarre positions as they squeezed out.
Once they were out, they quickly gathered and whispered among themselves for a while.
Then, as if they had reached an agreement, one who seemed to be their leader walked to the edge of the platform. He stepped twice on a protruding rock near the edge with his left foot, then three times with his right.
Clatter...
The sound of chains turning rang out, and a tunnel leading into the mountain appeared in the center of the platform.
As soon as the tunnel appeared, the three white-clad figures hurried inside.
Then, amid another clatter of chains, the tunnel slowly disappeared from the platform.
"..."
Watching this, a look of what seemed like scorn appeared on the Assassin's white mask.
The expression vanished in an instant, and the Assassin continued to hide nearby, keeping his presence concealed.
One hour, two hours, half a day, then a day later.
Whoosh~!
Suddenly, the sound of a cloak fluttering rang out, and the surroundings of the mountain peak began to ripple strangely.
Then about three to five people suddenly appeared around the platform.
As their cloaks fell, one could see just how many killers had been hiding on what had seemed to be an empty platform.
"He's gone."
"Notify the 'Xia' unit at the foot of the mountain."
"Understood."
After a quick exchange, they wrapped themselves in their cloaks and leaped off the edge of the platform.
The few people who jumped into the air had no means of slowing their fall.
Any ordinary person who saw this would have been certain that they were going to fall through the sea of clouds and crash to their deaths on the ground!
But then something strange happened.
The people who had leaped downward had fallen only a few meters when, with a pop,
they were suddenly standing in midair, as if on solid ground!
Then the cliffside slowly shifted, and a stone door opened, taking in the people standing in the air.
...Another day passed.
A ripple of light shimmered across the platform, and the Assassin's pitch-black figure appeared.
The prolonged effort to conceal himself and the heavy expenditure of mana had begun to wear him down. The Assassin had little mana to begin with.
"Whew..."
After finally confirming that he was safe, the Assassin let out a slow breath.
The mental strain of the battle of wits over the past few days had been immense. An ordinary person would probably have gone mad and jumped off the cliff long ago.
For now, he could finally relax a little. But what came next was the real problem.
Thinking this, the Assassin once again began to move his throat, wanting to cast his secret spell.
But...
A burst of blood-red light erupted! The Assassin had only enough time to feel his whole body shudder violently.
Then a figure in a blood-red cloak appeared behind him and sliced him into a thousand pieces!
As chunks of flesh rained from the air, the figure in the blood-red cloak slowly turned around.
Looking at the platform now drenched in blood, he let out a deep breath...
"Old fox..."
Assassin—OVER!
An extra chapter today!
I don't know what came over me. Suddenly, I felt like posting another chapter.
Though this chapter doesn't really have much Xia or Artoria in it~
Wahahaha!
Before you continue