Chapter 24

"When I despaired of reality, Joy treated me like a mere plaything."

"The Stellaron accepted me; though it only sought to use me as well, I no longer cared."

"Gepard, can your eyes see the sights that I can? The deathly visage of Jarilo is gradually taking tangible shape before my eyes."

"You have nowhere to run, whether it is you or Cocolia. I will utterly erase everything on this planet from this universe."

"The Stellaron promised me everything. When you inferior stones of the City Builders turn completely to dust, I shall become the "Jarilo" of a new era."

Gepard gazed at the Illusionary Annihilator spouting such nonsense, remaining silent for a brief moment before charging forward once more toward that target, like a tireless bull, launching yet another meaningless charge.

His mind was not particularly nimble, but the Landau family education taught him what to hold onto. When his own thoughts could yield no conclusions or solutions, he simply handed the answer over to his body—to... instinct.

"Never fall!!!!"

Clang------!

The instant that instrument case crashed against the earth once more, a gust of wind suddenly swept up across the ground. Whether it was auditory hallucination or not, in the ears of the Illusionary Annihilator, the sound of a heavy iron hammer striking down seemed to overlap with the noise of the instrument case.

"Preservation, be here!!!"

p.s.: It's serialized! Ten chapters today, begging for first subscriptions! Begging for first subscriptions!!

Chapter 050: Asshole, why is your imagination so active?! (Begging for first subscription, 2/10)

"Boring tricks----!"

The Illusionary Annihilator was likely provoked. The leaden clouds in the sky were directly and abruptly torn apart in a single breath, and this earth covered in ice and snow welcomed the illumination of the sun after a long absence. Yet the very next moment, the radiant flames of the sunlight were swallowed up in an instant by the imaginary energy charged to the point of manifestation.

"Hereby, I proclaim the end~ of you all----!"

Gathering and compressing, as if holding an entire sun in her palm, just witnessing that agglomerated mass of radiant flames made Gepard feel a burning, stinging pain in his naked eyes.

"World-Ending Requiem!!!"

The moment that strike crashed down, Gepard laughed aloud, utterly fearless. His body stood straight, showing not the slightest attitude of submission to a blow capable of destroying a city. He merely poured all the imaginary energy he could control into the skills he had honed and refined through decades of grueling practice, preparing to meet this most terrifying strike.

The storm, fierce enough to tear apart the sky and atmosphere, whistled wildly within the narrow space.

And at a certain moment,

the storm suddenly dissipated,

in the space that Gepard gazed upon, he could faintly capture some microscopic cracks.

Perhaps that was not an illusion, but a tangible phenomenon happening that he could not understand.

The opponent's power had roughly reached an upper limit hard for him to imagine.

Yet even so,

he felt no fear, nor did he retreat. He merely remained silent, walking alone further ahead—right to the dead center of the storm's eye, directly in front of the target locked onto by that mass of radiant flames.

The silvery-white Power of Preservation blocked his subordinates behind him. The garrison officer named Gepard Landau stared at what was perhaps the final enemy of his life and roared,

"If you have the guts, come take it!!!"

"As you wish!!!"

Radiant flames, as if squeezing space itself until it collapsed, whistled out in an instant, aiming straight for the garrison officer on the ground. That was a plasma formed by a storm capable of blowing away an entire city, possessing a super-scorching temperature surpassing the sun's surface—more than enough to easily dissolve every creation on this planet of Jarilo-VI.

The instant he was struck squarely by that mass of radiant flames, the surface of the instrument case began to transmit an unquenchable burning sensation, as if he were holding a glowing red branding iron barehanded... no, perhaps there was no need to use "as if," because the surface of the instrument case had already begun to melt.

The defensive shield propped up by the power of Preservation also continuously fractured, squeezed by that terrifying impact force. Gepard's body was constantly forced down until he knelt on the ground, and blinding white light covered everything in his vision.

...Was he still going to lose?

When this thought surfaced in his mind, in a daze, as if suffering from auditory hallucinations in his ears, he began to hear many people shouting...

"Captain! Captain!"

"I can't endure this! Even if I die, I've gotta punch that bastard!"

"Stand up! Gepard! Stand up! Don't you dare lose!"

"That bastard knocked my little brother down to his knees; he's definitely gonna get—"

"Dragged back to be a star-slave-husbando?!"

"Asshole, why is your imagination so rich?!"

...She was still so full of vitality.

Huh? Wait...

Older Sister?!

Gepard's eyes abruptly widened quite a bit. He wanted to turn around to check on his sister's condition, but the pressure he bore head-on made it impossible for him to spare even a split second of mental focus.

However, suddenly, the very next moment, he felt the pressure he bore head-on lighten abruptly. Before his eyes was no longer pure white; instead, he could catch sight of a red-clad, rather robust figure standing before him. That man raised his left hand and gave a thumbs-up pointing upward,

"Well done. Next, I'll take over!"

"Who are you?"

"Shirou Emiya, or well, you could also call me... Miracle God?"

Accompanied by a somewhat teasing, smiling voice, the overlapping petal-shaped defensive armament spread out at high speed like cherry blossoms blooming in the height of spring. Almost in the blink of an eye, tens of thousands of petal shields took over the plasma impact he had previously withstood, and even directly pushed that beam of light right back.

"Seven Rings of Heavenly Domination... no, should it be called Ten Thousand Rings now? Or simply call it Aias?"

Close at hand, the man's whispered words reached his ears. Gepard gazed at those overlapping cherry blossoms and suddenly smiled,

"Jarilo-VI."

"What?"

"The god of battle in spring, Jarilo, the god of victory who brings forth a blazing, flourishing blossom season."

Hearing this, Shirou was startled for a moment, then could not help laughing as well,

"If the localization doesn't get any bonus from local legends, I'm going to charge you copyright fees, you know."

Finished speaking, Shirou turned his head to gaze at the true enemy that needed to be resolved. After the petal shield pushed that beam of radiant flames back, Shirou projected once more in his hands. The Red Dog of the Plains and the Spiral Sword—a pair of exceptionally well-suited partners—landed in Mr. Emiya's hands, and he then unhesitatingly began drawing his bow right under the nose of that Illusionary Annihilator.

"In the future promised by the Stellaron, there is no place for you!"

The Annihilator was indeed provoked by this action, letting out a sharp roar and unhesitatingly beginning to overdraw her limit-breaking energy-gathering effect. Multiple plasma radiant flames began to gather around her body, six in total, and their power... exceeded even that of the single strike fired at Gepard.

Its specification was...

comparable to an Anti-World Noble Phantasm!

"Playing a bit too big, but my bro just happens to be able to catch it."

A trace of a pleasant smile appeared on Mr. Emiya's face. This kind of simple, brute-force exchange of head-on collisions was one of his favorite scenarios. He abandoned his beloved Red Dog of the Plains and Spiral Sword, turning instead to project a strange weapon he was not quite familiar with—an odd object whose outward appearance did not conform to the shape of a sword.

Grasping its base, the disorderly circular objects upon it began to spin at high speed in an irregular pattern. Accompanied by the spinning of these circular objects, a storm symbolizing primeval hell suddenly surged upward,

"Speak of the origin, split heaven and earth----!"

"Unblessed parting, cleaving the world is my Enuma Elish----!"

A storm capable of cutting apart the primeval universe began to sweep across this patch of broken walls and ruins. All the building debris was thoroughly blown away, and the sky and earth were forcefully plowed out into a huge cavity, stretching out to a distant boundary. The Belobogians who had recovered their sanity gazed in disbelief at that abruptly clearing sky.

"What is that?!"

"The sky... the real sky, and... the sun?!"

"Jarilo-VI... is the god of spring finally going to arrive?"

People hesitated, cheered, and leaped for joy at that ray of light shining into Belobog—that sky which had never truly been liberated for hundreds or thousands of years, as if it were proclaiming something to everyone:

Seven hundred years.

To the vast majority of people, this number might seem unfamiliar.

Only those who had truly read the history of Jarilo-VI and Belobog would know the weight of this number.

That was the past of dozens of generations of people shrinking back in humiliation within this fortress, barely clinging to life.

... ... ...

That was the thorny path of being unable to resist the Great Cold, turning instead to march underground in search of hope.

That was the time during which generation after generation gradually forgot the name Jarilo-VI.

However...

This time might soon be coming to an end.

Some old scholars who knew many inside stories could not help shedding hot tears. They gazed at the violent storm tearing the sky apart and let out a heart-rending roar,

"End all of this! Whoever you are!!!"

"Mortar surrounding the stars----!"

"The primeval hell in the heavens is the endpoint of the eve of creation----!"

The storm cutting through space gathered to its peak. Radiant flames—similar to the plasma gathered from a massive concentration of imaginary energy—gathered at the front end of that strange weapon. Everyone who had been blown out of the arena by the storm earlier gazed at that mass of radiant flames that had already condensed to its limit,

that was a mass of radiant flames which, just by capturing it with the naked eye, one could clearly know would bring forth what manner of great terror.

That was the farewell object given to the primeval hell last of all before Genesis.

Everyone unconsciously held their breath. The Illusionary Annihilator above the sky also let out a sharp wail born of terror,

"Jarilo-VI shouldn't have freaks like you appear! Monsters! Monsters! This planet should belong to me! The Stellaron promised me the future of this planet; no one can take it from me!"

"No one is going to take it. It has always been right here. This planet belongs neither to me nor to the Stellaron, but solely to the people of Jarilo-VI. I can give you a chance—abandon the Stellaron, and I can give you and the other Jarilo people a chance to compete on the same stage once again."

"You're toying with me! This power is already my possession."

"In that case, it is only natural for me to destroy you along with the Stellaron as one."

Her power had already accumulated to a peak, and Shirou unhesitatingly swung down the "sword" in his hand,

"Settle all of this with the destruction of you and it."

"Enuma Elish----!"

Chapter 051: Hey, can we reconcile? (Begging for first subscription, 3/10)

Enuma Elish.

This name originated from Ea and Enki in the two mythologies of Mesopotamian mythology and Babylonian mythology. Of course, the person who named this sword was our friendly old neighbor from Fuyuki, the regular customer of the arcade, the kind citizen Mr. Gilchaos who got his elbows chopped off whenever nothing else was going on.

It actually merely possessed the vast power within the creation myth, which was why Gilchaos named it Enuma Elish; in fact, the thing wasn't even considered a sword sort of contraption to begin with.

However, none of these were the main point.

The point was that this thing genuinely possessed an archetype and was not an artifact sublimated from some sort of great achievement. Kind citizen Mr. Gilchaos did not have any past experiences of splitting heaven and earth.

Therefore, to sum it all up, this thing originally possessed a destructive power unique to the Nasuverse. Even if it went head-to-head with Old Man of the Forest's Star Sacred Relic sword, it would probably not fall behind. Moreover, its most important function was possessing super-strong destructive and disintegrative capabilities toward the concept of "the world."

However, to that local resident who was of one body and mind with the Stellaron, this redundant performance had no extra use. When the power of Enuma Elish poured out and blew everything in sight completely away, the earth was pierced as if cleft, tearing out a canyon as if after an extremely major earthquake, spreading to the distant horizon. Dense "wounds" even seemed to spread through space.

Had Shirou not intentionally altered the direction of the sword-pressure impact, the entire Kliperburg and even the entirety of Belobog would have already turned into an untracked primeval wasteland devoid of any living things by this moment.

As for the Illusionary Annihilator, who was squarely blasted by the power of Enuma Elish, she was currently lying inside that canyon of pierced earth. More than half of her body had been torn into dust, leaving only half a mutilated torso barely clinging to life thanks to the residual power of the Stellaron.

When Shirou leaped down from the ground, landed within the deep canyon, and stood before this unknown villainous character parasitized by the Stellaron, he projected his beloved Red Dog of the Plains and Spiral Sword once more, slowly pointing them toward the Illusionary Annihilator's head.

Having presumably captured Shirou's movement, the Illusionary Annihilator's already heavy breathing grew even more pronounced. She exerted her only remaining hand, and a hoarse, intermittent voice came from her vocal cords,

"Wait, wait..."

"Any last words?"

"Hey, can we reconcile?"

"Reconcile? At this very moment? You aren't kidding—"

Before the words even faded, a new message buzzed into his head with a hum. Mr. Emiya immediately slapped his forehead,

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