"Can you see what's happening in their fight?" Rin Tohsaka watched for a while, then turned curiously to Su Ning beside her.
In her view, Su Ning was watching so intently that she must have seen something. But in truth, Su Ning saw about the same as she did: nothing but a red and a golden ball of light constantly colliding.
Their base attributes were already high, and they had both activated Mana Burst. Even Heroic Spirits with agility below Rank B would be unable to follow their movements, let alone two ordinary magi like them.
"I can't see clearly." Su Ning shook his head. "But I know that if she doesn't use her Noble Phantasm soon, King Arthur is going to lose!"
Rin Tohsaka froze, surprise appearing on her face.
"What did you say? King Arthur will lose? That can't be possible, right? How could she lose to Mordred?"
"What's so impossible about that?" Su Ning shrugged. "They aren't Heroic Spirits at full strength now. They're Servants, and their physical attributes are heavily affected by their Masters' abilities. Emiya... Shirou has twenty-seven Magic Circuits. That's not too bad, but he's only studied magecraft for a short time. He's far worse than you, let alone Little Black."
"...What do you mean, far worse than me? Am I that bad?"
"Little Black has over a thousand Magic Circuits."
"..."
Rin Tohsaka was instantly dumbfounded. She only had seventy Magic Circuits. While that already placed her among the best human magi, compared to over a thousand... there was simply no comparison.
"Einzbern homunculi really are monsters..." Rin Tohsaka muttered to herself.
As far as she knew, even the Clock Tower's top magi only had around one or two hundred Magic Circuits. Over a thousand was truly beyond human.
"What's wrong, King Arthur? After all these years, have you become this weak?"
Before the words had even faded, the two intertwined masses of light finally separated.
King Arthur dropped to one knee, using the Holy Sword in her hand to support herself. A wound nearly twenty centimeters long had opened across her abdomen. Mordred stood opposite her. Though she was breathing a little heavily, she bore no injuries at all.
"Mordred..."
Artoria looked at Mordred, and a trace of complicated emotion surfaced uncontrollably in her emerald eyes.
Though it was due to the gap in their attributes, she had indeed fallen behind. If she did not use her Noble Phantasm, Mordred would very likely be the one to win in the end.
Likewise, behind her helmet, Mordred's feelings were even more complicated than Artoria's.
Having always regarded Artoria as her goal, she had finally "defeated" Artoria this time. It should have been something that made her incomparably happy, yet when she saw Artoria battered and wounded, her heart suddenly felt hollow. She even felt immense heartache and... regret.
"No... I... Why should I regret this?!"
"King Arthur! Did you see that?! Do you still think I'm unworthy of inheriting the throne?!"
At the mention of the throne, Artoria took a deep breath. Her wavering gaze became focused and resolute once more.
"For a king, strength is not the most important thing. So I still do not believe you are qualified to inherit the throne!"
Mordred was deeply wounded by those words, and her pretty face instantly twisted into a savage expression.
"Strength isn't the most important thing? What a joke! Look at yourself now. Without strength, you can't even beat me!"
Enduring the pain, Artoria rose to her feet. Like the sword in her hand, her body stood perfectly straight.
"Strength without virtue makes nothing but a tyrant."
"So a king should be like you, then? Like an emotionless machine?!"
Before you continue