Rin, Shirou, Artoria, Archer, and even Gilgamesh, who was on the verge of exploding with rage, froze for a moment at the declaration, sharper than any blade.
That contemptuous air was more unsettling than the destruction of countless Noble Phantasms.
"Huh? Ha... Hahahaha!" Gilgamesh stared blankly for a moment, then suddenly clamped a hand over his eyes. His shoulders shook violently as he threw his head back and burst into hysterical laughter, as if he'd just heard the most absurd joke in the world.
Chen Tian hovered high in the air, his expression blank and his gaze as cold as ever, as though looking down at a buffoon.
As Gilgamesh laughed maniacally, the golden light erupting from his body grew even more blinding!
A terrifying surge of magical energy erupted like an out-of-control volcano!
The air throughout the ruins instantly grew thick and distorted, groaning under the strain! The ground trembled faintly! Rin and the others felt as if a massive hand of magic were squeezing their hearts, making it hard to breathe!
Archer reacted first, grabbing Rin by the arm. "Move! Now!"
His voice carried an urgency unlike anything they'd heard from him before.
Rin snapped back to her senses. "Retreat!"
She channeled her magic, and several gems flew out, exploding in the direction of their escape to create a smokescreen.
Shirou gritted his teeth and lifted the weakened Artoria.
Gilgamesh's laughter abruptly stopped!
He dropped his hand, his scarlet, serpentine eyes narrowing to pinpricks with rage as his features twisted. "Leave?! Nobody leaves!! How can I let you all get away after you insulted This King, you mongrels!!!"
"I'll turn you all—into! Mince! Meat!"
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Before the words had even left his mouth, the boiling golden ripples behind him instantly locked onto Rin and the others as they moved below. Hundreds upon hundreds of weapons of destruction tore through the air, shrieking as they rained down! Faster than before! With even greater bloodlust!
Rin's pupils shrank! Chilling dread pierced her to the bone! Archer roared, projecting twin blades into his hands!
Artoria struggled to raise her sword, but the pain forced a muffled groan from her.
A flash of ghostly blue light!
Fast! Blindingly fast!
A faint cutting sound rang out, almost too quiet to hear.
The hundreds upon hundreds of lethal Noble Phantasms were all severed in half, right above Rin and the others, less than three meters from their heads! Their smooth cross-sections glimmered with a ghostly blue chill! The broken weapons, along with their violent magical energy, vanished without a sound!
Chen Tian remained suspended directly in front of Gilgamesh, still holding the pose of his swing. Enma Sword pointed diagonally downward, a drop of dew sliding off its tip.
He hadn't even looked back.
"Mongrel, can't you understand what I'm saying?"
"If you're only trying to kill them as a way of entertaining me, then you're far too boring."
Those words were like a spark falling into a powder keg.
Flames of rage seemed to blaze in Gilgamesh's eyes, and a golden storm of magical energy erupted around him!
The sky over all of Fuyuki City turned dark gold, and the clouds were torn apart by the rampaging energy.
"Arrogant fool!!" The Hero King's roar made the air and ground tremble. "How dare a mere mongrel speak of entertaining This King?! I'll show you, mongrel—what true despair looks like!"
The golden ripples behind Gilgamesh expanded wildly, covering the entire sky in the blink of an eye.
It wasn't dozens or hundreds of Noble Phantasms—but tens of thousands! Weapons gleaming with destructive light emerged from every ripple, packed together like a swarm of golden bees.
Chen Tian looked at the tens of thousands of Noble Phantasms emerging from the golden ripples filling the sky, and the corner of his mouth curled into a disdainful smile.
Those words were like a spark falling into a powder keg.
Chen Tian's taunt further stoked Gilgamesh's rage, and dark-red magical energy gushed from his body like boiling lava!
"It's not over yet!!!" he roared, raising his right hand. A golden vortex condensed wildly in his palm, and space began to warp and fracture—
"Enuma Elish! Star of Creation!!!"
A dark-red beam tore through heaven and earth! Space shattered inch by inch in its wake, revealing a pitch-black void!
The red-and-gold Ea appeared in Gilgamesh's hand. The magical energy that came with its appearance alone sliced through the surrounding space like shattered glass.
At last, a faintly satisfied smile appeared on Chen Tian's cold face.
"Cutting through space?" He held the scabbard in his left hand and slowly placed his right hand on the Enma Sword's hilt. "Heh. Not bad."
Before the words had even left his mouth, an abrupt change occurred!
The magical energy that should have been raging suddenly fell into a strange stillness around him.
No—not stillness. It had been severed!
All the flows of magical energy were forcibly "cut off" by some higher-dimensional power, broken down into fragments that could no longer affect reality!
The scene of the two confronting each other formed an extreme contrast:
On one side, golden lava boiled around Gilgamesh as the dark-red beam swept everything away;
On the other, there was an absolute "nothingness" around Chen Tian, like the depths of the sea where even light was swallowed.
"Hahahahahaha! Mongrel! Feel the agony of the world being torn apart!" Gilgamesh cackled as the power of Ea reached its peak. He was about to unleash the blow that would rend the world!
At the same time, the Noble Phantasms filling the sky hummed and trembled, poised to strike like a golden flood awaiting their king's command!
He slowly closed his eyes, his breath sinking into absolute coldness. His lips parted, and he uttered a few words:
"Dimension Slash: Sky Break."
An indescribable "emptiness" descended in an instant!
A warning bell went off wildly in Gilgamesh's heart! Something was wrong!
A deadly sense of danger seized his throat! He didn't even have time to think. Relying on his battle instincts, he brought down Ea, whose power had reached its limit!
"Die, mongrel!!!"
The dark-red beam roared as it tore through space! At the same time, tens of thousands of Noble Phantasms surged toward Chen Tian like a flood of destruction breaking through a dam, their multicolored magical light blotting out the sky!
At the very moment this world-shattering attack erupted—
Chen Tian drew his sword.
His eyes were closed, yet his aim was flawless.
The path of the Enma Sword as it left its scabbard was too fast for the eye to follow, leaving only a ghostly blue afterimage on the retina.
There was no earth-shaking explosion, no dazzling clash of magical energy.
The madness on Gilgamesh's face froze.
The arm wielding his sword locked in midair.
The instant Chen Tian drew his sword, the world was completely "cut off" from Gilgamesh's senses!
Gilgamesh's sword arm abruptly froze! The mad laughter on his face stopped!
"Wha...?!"
Time seemed to freeze in that moment—no, his senses had been completely "cut off"!
Magic? Gone! He couldn't feel the divine power surging inside him, the energy in Ea that could split the heavens, or the torrents of magical energy tearing through space as the Noble Phantasms shot forward! Every trace of energy had vanished into nothingness!
Sound? Silence! The roar of Ea cleaving through space, the shriek of Noble Phantasms tearing through the atmosphere, even the sound of his own rapid heartbeat and breathing... all had fallen into absolute silence!
Air? Frozen! No movement, no temperature, no sensation! He was like a specimen cast into a vacuum, stripped of all physical perception of the outside world!
Sight? The scene remained—the roaring dark-red torrent, the brilliant Noble Phantasms, the silhouettes of the distant ruins... but they had lost all "reality."
It was like looking at a still image, false and lifeless! He couldn't sense any threat or any presence! His eyes were open, yet he'd become a "blind man" with no perception at all!
Absolute "nothingness"! It was as if even the very concept of space had been forcibly stripped away!
In that instant, the Hero King Gilgamesh was plunged into an unprecedented terror over his own existence! His power, his Noble Phantasms, even the entire world—all were completely "denied" by that cold slash!
As Gilgamesh sank into the terror of having his senses stripped away, as though drowning in the abyss of nothingness—
His trembling, serpentine eyes could still clearly see Chen Tian's movements.
Chen Tian had drawn his sword too quickly to comprehend, but his motion as he returned it to its scabbard was clear.
The ghostly blue blade of the Enma Sword, its edge gleaming with a chill that could sever anything, was drawn back steadily and at an even pace.
Chen Tian raised the Enma Sword in front of his face, as if performing some solemn ritual.
The tip of the blade slid precisely into the mouth of the scabbard.
Little by little, it slid in with steady precision.
The blade brushed against the inside of its scabbard. It should have made no sound, but in this absolute "nothingness," he could almost "see" its faint path.
Gilgamesh's thoughts nearly stopped amid the terrifying silence and nothingness. He could only helplessly "watch" this suffocatingly slow process.
The guard met the mouth of the scabbard.
A crisp, cold sound of steel returning to its sheath rang out, like metal striking metal!
That sound was like thunder breaking through chaos, like a blade severing chains!
It didn't come from the outside world. It was brutally forced straight into Gilgamesh's "severed" senses, piercing his soul!
Boom—!!!
The world that had been stripped away flooded back into the Hero King's senses like a receding tide in reverse!
Sound! Magic! Air currents! Touch! Temperature! Presence! Everything, like a raging torrent, engulfed him in an instant!
"Ugh—!" Gilgamesh let out a low groan filled with pain and shock. His body swayed violently, and he nearly fell from the sky!
And at the very moment his senses returned—
Crack... crackle... crash!!!
High above, the tens of thousands of divine weapons summoned by Gate of Babylon and suspended in midair—Noble Phantasms imbued with myths and legends, containing boundless power—began to crumble without anything touching them—
Like castles built from sand that had weathered for billions of years!
They broke apart in silent waves!
Shattered! Annihilated!
The golden light gleaming across the sky was extinguished like a candle in an instant! In its place, countless tiny golden particles poured down like a brilliant yet despairing golden rain from the heavens! They drifted softly to the ground!
This golden rain was the lament of Gate of Babylon!
Gilgamesh jerked his head down and looked at the supreme treasure clenched in his hand, a symbol of world-creating power—Ea!
The faint mark left by the ghostly blue blade suddenly blazed with dazzling blue light!
Crack! Crack, crack-crack!!!
Webs of fractures spread wildly from that mark, instantly covering the three twisting pillars of the blade!
The red-and-gold divine light rapidly dimmed!
"No... Impossible! My Ea!" Gilgamesh cried out, a look of disbelief and fear appearing in his eyes for the first time!
Before the words had even left his mouth—
That unique supreme Noble Phantasm, capable of tearing the world apart, crumbled silently in his clenched hand, surrounded by countless golden particles—
It turned into wisps of equally fine dust, tinged with a trace of dark-red embers, slipping through his fingers and scattering in the wind!
The Golden Armor covering Gilgamesh, splendid and sturdy, a symbol of the Hero King's supreme glory, also began to crumble as if it had weathered for billions of years!
Cracks spread across his entire body from his breastplate! His shoulder guards, arm guards, greaves... shattered and peeled away piece by piece like cheap pottery!
Golden fragments fell together with the golden dust of the Noble Phantasms raining from the sky.
With the splendor of his armor gone, his body was exposed beneath it.
Gilgamesh hovered in midair with empty hands, dressed only in tattered underclothes. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and dripped from his pale chin.
He looked blankly down at his hands, stripped of weapons and armor, then raised his eyes to the figure before him—
Chen Tian had already fully returned his sword to its sheath.
The Enma Sword hung quietly at his waist.
Chen Tian's gaze remained as cold as ever, like ice that had endured since time immemorial, as he looked down at the Hero King below, stripped of every symbol of glory and utterly defeated.
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