Another Attack

As he watched the flood stretching from sky to earth, Li Ke fell silent.

So this was the mighty Gilgamesh everyone raved about?

He was just a madman who did whatever made him feel good!

Even crazier than Li Ke, wasn't he?

Li Ke had only gotten a little carried away by his sudden surge in power. Gilgamesh was a complete lunatic! Did he really slaughter a city over the slightest disagreement?

Was this the King of Heroes, the Mushroom's real dad?

Watching the flood descend from the sky, enough to kill at least hundreds of thousands of people once it hit, Li Ke drew a deep breath.

There was one thing he really wanted to know right now.

The Holy Grail War supposedly had people responsible for the cleanup. He really wanted to know how they planned to handle this—and convince the people of Fuyuki City that all of it was "normal."

Especially the Gugalanna from earlier, and this flood now.

"Come to think of it, for an ordinary bystander like me, the Holy Grail War really is incomprehensible."

Li Ke tightened his grip on his spear. He had enough mana inside him to fight back against the flood falling from the sky. But afterward, he'd be unable to fight—and he wouldn't get the chance to defeat his teacher, Scathach, fair and square.

"Honestly, this is so frustrating. I only got to stab Gilgamesh once earlier. He got off way too easy!"

Li Ke drew a deep breath, then raised his spear and gathered all the mana in his body.

Staring at the flood in the sky, Li Ke closed his eyes and recalled how it had felt to blast Gugalanna apart.

Strictly speaking, he didn't know whether he'd actually killed Gugalanna. But he had definitely stolen enough mana from it, and that was where the lightning earlier had come from.

So if he now poured all his power into the lightning and the divine authority over the sky, he should be able to stop this flood from falling!

Lightning flickered across Li Ke's body. At that moment, he felt as though he could wield the power of lightning freely. No—more precisely, the electromagnetic force.

Every metal object around Li Ke began floating of its own accord, creating a weightless scene around him. Even the fine Iron Sand buried in the ground was drawn to him, gathering beneath his feet into a black earth.

Amid the raging storm of mana, the air crackled with lightning. Plasma flowed over Li Ke's body, as if dressing him in armor made of lightning!

"That's... divine authority over lightning? The Master can really do this?"

Enkidu exclaimed in astonishment. But Scathach stood nearby, her face lit unevenly by the glow of the lightning, looking somewhat disappointed.

She had waited so long for Li Ke to gain the strength to fight her, only to watch him use it against a natural disaster caused by some tiresome person.

It truly displeased her.

And yet, her disciple's growth was undeniable, leaving her with complicated feelings.

Li Ke had no time to think about any of that. If he didn't act now, the flood would hit the ground!

So he hurled his spear.

The moment it left his hand, it began to spread rapidly. Lightning rose from the earth like a fast-growing tree, unfurling branches that heralded death!

That wasn't all. The storm that had been swirling overhead all this time began producing countless thunderstorms, stirred by the flood and Li Ke's lightning.

A pillar of raging lightning instantly blasted apart the red Magic Circle hidden beneath the flood. In a mere instant, it destroyed the source of the vast deluge.

But even the brief time the flood had been falling was enough to destroy this city—the city where Li Ke had lived for so long.

So Li Ke began to command the wind!

Lightning continued to tear through the crimson Magic Circle, which looked like a circuit board, setting off explosions. As it stopped the disaster from growing worse, the blasts also broke apart the flood above, allowing the storm to carry the water in every direction.

To the people below in Fuyuki City, it looked as though countless thick pillars of lightning were rampaging overhead. Then explosions erupted one after another above them, the shock waves making cars and wooden houses tremble as if they were about to collapse. It was as though the apocalypse had truly arrived!

Worse still, a typhoon descended once more!

Violent winds carried even more violent moisture in every direction. Rain poured down on Fuyuki City and several nearby cities as if there were no end to it.

Watching this, Li Ke raised his hand again. The last of the mana he'd gained from Gugalanna surged into action. In the next instant, an even fiercer wind blew, carrying the flood that had lost its source toward the coast and keeping the rainfall here from becoming too extreme.

After all, Japan's infrastructure was only so-so. Hoping this city could handle rainfall on this scale was less realistic than expecting to find a German engineer wrapped in oiled paper after opening a manhole!

Once he had done all that, Li Ke crouched on the ground, drenched by the rain and still crackling with electricity, panting heavily.

His mana was nearly spent. He could no longer maintain his towering form, and the body he had grown entirely with mana shrank back to its original size.

The Magic Circuits in his body were so hot they hurt. It felt as though he had a fever and a cold; every inch of him felt awful.

But as Li Ke gasped for breath, a faint glimmer flashed through the rain. He immediately looked up and instinctively swung his empty arm, trying to block the light attacking him!

Then Li Ke realized he had no weapon in his hand!

Before, he could have used mana to summon back the spear he'd thrown. But he'd spent too much mana just now and hadn't had the chance!

"Damn it!"

As he watched the flying blade draw closer to his throat, Li Ke tried to move out of its path. But a sudden wave of dizziness left him unable to move.

Just as he thought he couldn't block it, metal rang against metal. His arm jerked upward as though something had slammed into it, and the object in his hand flew away.

At that moment, both the attacker and Li Ke froze.

Li Ke stared in shock at the golden sword flying high into the air. If he remembered correctly, it was the Noble Phantasm Gilgamesh had just used as an arrow to unleash that Nabistīn flood!

But why was it in his hand?

He couldn't figure it out. Then he noticed a golden ripple beside him!

"What..."

Enkidu's eyes widened too. He had seen it most clearly: at the critical moment, when Li Ke swung his arm, the golden ripple of the Gate of Babylon had appeared beside his hand, and Li Ke had drawn a Noble Phantasm from it to use.

He immediately realized one possibility.

"Could it be that, just as Li Ke killed Gugalanna and gained divine authority over the sky, he killed Gil and absorbed his mana, gaining the ability to open Gil's treasury? Wouldn't that mean..."

At that moment, Scathach appeared behind Li Ke, as though she'd been there all along, poised to intervene. She spoke up as well.

"So all you have to do is keep hunting, and you'll grow stronger and stronger?"

Her delight grew, though she kept her expression cool as she looked at the Assassin draped in a white Shroud of Magdalene.

Or rather, the Caster of this Holy Grail War.

The reason she was focused on him was simple. The Hassan who had attacked Li Ke earlier had already been wiped out along with Gugalanna by Li Ke's attack. The remaining Caster, however, wasn't an ordinary Heroic Spirit. He was a hired hand of the Counter Force.

A hired hand sent to eliminate those the Counter Force wanted dead.

"Your arrival proves that the Counter Force has set its sights on my disciple, doesn't it?"

Scathach gripped her spear and pointed it at the Caster who had been posing as an Assassin.

"This is troublesome."

The Assassin being targeted gave a bitter smile. He had come on the Counter Force's orders to eliminate an unstable factor in the Holy Grail War, because the history of this world had been altered ever so slightly.

The Counter Force consisted of the Earth's consciousness, Gaia, and humanity's consciousness, Alaya.

So after being summoned through the Holy Grail War, he had immediately killed the person he'd wanted to kill. Then, after killing Kayneth, the participant the Counter Force had singled out, he'd come for Li Ke.

Li Ke was someone who shouldn't have existed in history, either.

He just hadn't expected that, even with Hassan's help, he still wouldn't be able to kill Li Ke—and that he'd fail his mission.

If he didn't kill Li Ke, only a small number of people's fates would change, and the impact on history wouldn't be very great. But that wasn't a reason for him, a hired hand, not to attack.

So even though it was difficult, he still wanted to kill Li Ke here.

There was no doubt that this was Li Ke's most vulnerable moment. His awakened body needed mana, and the battle just now had consumed an enormous amount. Once Li Ke recovered, it would be impossible to take him out.

At least, he wouldn't be able to do it.

If he wanted to kill Li Ke after that, he would have to wait until Li Ke caused massive destruction across the human world and triggered an enormous surge of mana. Only then would the Counter Force be able to attack him again.

But if he waited until then to kill someone, what use would he be?

Li Ke might not cause massive destruction to the human world, but—

The Counter Force didn't care about that. It judged by results alone. If there was even the slightest possibility, it would send its hired hands without hesitation.

"But the problem is, how am I supposed to get past Scathach's attacks?"

He tightened his grip on the twin blades in his hands. Though his class was Caster, his specialty was Projection Magecraft. He could continuously project Noble Phantasms from legends and attack with them.

He could even read the experience and techniques of the owners of the Noble Phantasms he projected, helping him wield them.

That was his ability—the only Magecraft he knew.

"Hmph..."

But Scathach had no intention of fighting with her own body. Looking at Li Ke, who stood before her, she bent down slightly and wrapped her curvaceous body around his, still trembling from mana exhaustion.

She had never thought of her disciple as a child. Li Ke's gaze and way of thinking were nothing like a child's.

That was why she had been willing to indulge his desires.

"I'll lend you my strength this time. Go defeat the person who wants to kill you."

She could feel the anger in her disciple. The enemy had attacked them twice, crossing the line they shared. So she chose to lend her strength to him.

In the next moment, Scathach's body merged with Li Ke's. His trembling stopped, and his mana was replenished. His body didn't grow larger, but it filled with strength once more.

"Thank you, teacher."

Li Ke stood up. But instead of summoning his spear, he picked up the two weapons called the Swords of Termination, which he had unconsciously summoned just now. Then he looked toward the white-haired young man, who was rapidly changing position.

His abundant mana burst forth. Li Ke's figure shot toward the white-haired young man like a phantom.

The white-haired young man fired his bow again. This time, the arrow split in midair into hundreds of red-glowing arrows, which hurtled toward Li Ke.

Li Ke charged ahead without paying much attention to the incoming red arrows. Lightning erupted from his body, instantly shattering them and setting them off in midair.

With his mana restored, Li Ke quickly broke through the smoke from the explosions. As expected, an arrow was waiting for him just then, but he dodged it with a nimble flip.

The instant he avoided it, however, the arrow began to fracture. Li Ke immediately realized it was about to explode, so he wrapped his body in mana and accelerated with all his might!

The explosion went off at once. But with mana covering his body, Li Ke was unharmed. Instead, he used the blast's shock wave to surge forward even faster, making the enemy's next attack miss completely!

But the white-haired young man had no time to attack again. In the few short seconds that had passed, Li Ke had already crossed several kilometers and reached him!

For a Heroic Spirit, a few thousand meters was simply too short a distance.

If the commotion hadn't been so great, making it impossible to attack from farther away, the white-haired young man would never have taken such a risk. But there was no changing what had happened.

"Don't even think about escaping!"

Li Ke's figure plunged down. The young man projected a sword into his hand with mana, hoping to block Li Ke's attack.

But—

Li Ke wanted exactly that: for their weapons to clash!

Lightning!