Illya's Multiverse Odyssey

Could such a Holy Grail save her?

"No matter what, I have to try!"

A series of low growls suddenly jolted her out of her thoughts, and Su Ning finally realized the situation she was in.

In the thick snow before her lay the corpses of seven or eight vicious wolves, scattered in every direction. Their blood had already stained a large patch of snow red. Farther away, dozens more wolves bared their fangs at her, their eyes gleaming with cruelty.

"Damn Acht!"

Su Ning truly hated that vile, disgusting Acht to death.

Through Illya's memories, she already knew why she had ended up here.

Because the Heracles she had summoned was too powerful, maintaining his existence required an enormous amount of magical energy, placing a huge burden on Illya's body. Simply put, it hurt terribly.

That was why Illya had always rejected Heracles, even wanting to unilaterally cut off the magical energy supply to him.

Naturally, Acht disagreed. This was Heracles, the Great Hero of myth, whom he had summoned with great difficulty. How could he simply discard him just because Illya was afraid of pain?

So, in order to make Illya face reality and accept Heracles—

Acht threw Illya into the Winter Forest outside the castle.

The Winter Forest contained all sorts of magical restrictions laid down by the Einzbern family over two thousand years. Ordinary magi simply could not use magecraft inside.

But Illya was no ordinary person. She was a homunculus who had surpassed the limits of humanity, the only being in the Einzbern family's two-thousand-year history capable of standing alongside Justeaze Lizrich, the Winter Saint. Her entire body was made up of Magic Circuits.

Even in a Winter Forest filled with magical restrictions, Illya could still use magecraft. Its power had simply been suppressed horribly. Magical shots that had once rivaled rockets were now barely stronger than slingshots. Against the pack of vicious wolves before her, killing seven or eight was already her limit.

If she wanted to survive now, there was only one way: summon Heracles.

The contract between a Heroic Spirit and a Master could not be severed by ordinary magical restrictions. While Heracles's magecraft aptitude was poor, his base attributes surpassed every Heroic Spirit in the Fifth Holy Grail War, and his martial skill was extraordinary. Killing these wolves would be effortless for him.

Yet Illya stubbornly refused to yield.

If Heracles had not broken through the negative effects of Mad Enhancement himself and rushed over to rescue her, Illya might have died here.

But it was precisely Heracles's voluntary rescue that finally earned Illya's recognition.

One had to know that Heroic Spirits afflicted with Mad Enhancement completely lost their reason, retaining only beastlike fighting instincts. Yet even under those circumstances, Heracles had come to save her... That was true love!

It could be said that throughout the entire Fifth Holy Grail War, the Master and Servant pair with the deepest bond was neither Artoria and Shirou Emiya nor Rin Tohsaka and Red A, but Illya and Heracles.

Seriously, in order to protect Illya, Heracles had even broken free of the Chains of Heaven, which perfectly countered him, scaring Golden Gilgamesh senseless at the time.

However, the Illya of today was no longer the Illya of before.

"Berserker—"

At Su Ning's call, a pale golden light shot toward her at tremendous speed, finally condensing before her into a towering, mountainlike figure over three meters tall—the Great Hero Heracles, manifesting in this Holy Grail War as the Berserker-class Servant.

But Su Ning's mind was not on Berserker at all.

Because... it really hurt.

"Kill them!"

At Su Ning's command, Heracles let out a thunderous roar and charged forward, swinging his stone sword.