Nightfall's Mad Flow of Darkness

In reality, Zhou Yuxuan's permits were specifically meant to deal with uninformed "Muggles," to prevent anyone from breaking the principle of concealment.

When Shirou got his hands on this, he found it quite troublesome. If it were a mage family, they'd just set up a "Drive Away Ordinary People" suggestion barrier and be done with it. Why bother running around manually dispersing civilians?

But Zhou Yuxuan added that normally, letting ordinary people in wouldn't matter—no one would waste time digging three feet underground next to an abandoned construction site for relics. However, the timing was too sensitive now, and Zhou Yuxuan felt it necessary to stop them and check.

So Old Tang took up a defensive position at a good vantage point with his rifle, Zhou Yuxuan stopped the car ahead, and Shirou handled the one behind.

"Why did the car ahead get through, but ours can't?" Su Xiaoqiang hadn't given up, showing signs of persistence, her flickering gaze practically saying, 'You must be hiding some secret.'

"No, the car ahead didn't get through either, so someone's already intercepting it."

Shirou Emiya sidestepped, blocking Su Xiaoqiang's craning attempts to peek.

Suddenly, a loud bang came from the car ahead, followed by the sharp sound of shattering glass.

Su Xiaoqiang said, "What's going on? Is this also something you archaeologists handle?"

Shirou Emiya whipped his head around and saw Old Tang up ahead drawing his gun and shouting, "Brother, come back and help! These people are insane! They're trying to haul a truckload of monsters into the ruins!"

"What monsters?"

"Death Servants—rampaging dragon-blood monsters!" Zhou Yuxuan raised his Alchemy Gun from afar and fired a spread of buckshot. "They refused to negotiate and woke the frozen Death Servants hidden in the truck!"

That day, Su Xiaoqiang paid a heart-shaking price for her inexplicable curiosity.

In her field of vision, the car's windows exploded again, and a burst of orange flame erupted in front of the vehicle, as if someone had tossed a napalm bomb there. Two burly men climbed out of the car, one of them muttering something, and then a supernatural scene unfolded—

Invisible air masses condensed into several clumps, and the next second they burst forth, blasting countless flying chunks from the concrete road.

At the farthest point, a young man with drooping eyebrows was firing an HK416A5 in a "relatively normal" manner. On the other side, a lean young man charged straight forward, a heavy sword like a door panel before him, while his other hand held a bizarrely shaped large gun that spat out crackling spreads of shot. As he moved, countless streams of iron sand and fragments of rebar swirled up from the ground.

Crack!

Su Xiaoqiang's worldview shattered from the impact.

Superpowers? Magic?

As her mind reeled, claws pierced through the transport truck, the metal sheeting easily twisted and torn by inhuman force, and hideous monsters covered in dark cyan scales crawled out.

The monsters' dull, scaly skin reflected a cold metallic sheen. Their faces were stern or ferocious, their limbs slender and twisted, their lower bodies resembling mutated giant pythons.

Their eyes glowed with a dim or bright golden light, like cold, soul-snatching lanterns of Death Gods in the pitch-black night. Someone opened fire fiercely from a distance, but most bullets only sparked off the scales...

Then, as if a deep-seated fear surged from her bloodline, Su Xiaoqiang felt a shudder through body and soul, and finally empathized with the helpless ordinary people in disaster or horror films—

The "Little Heavenly Maiden," blessed by wealth, fame, and appearance, was nothing more than a powerless ordinary girl when faced with approaching death.

At that moment, the only familiar person on that death-shrouded battlefield, Shirou Emiya, had already charged forward. The Alchemical Tachi in his hand clashed with the extended claws of the first serpentine Death Servant, sending dazzling sparks flying through the air.

Swish!

Su Xiaoqiang's vision blurred as patterns lit up on Shirou's leg. He accelerated abruptly, crossing paths with the Death Servant in an instant, and the tachi in his other hand traced a silver, beautiful arc from a blind spot. Black blood splattered as the blade sliced through the Death Servant's spine and into its nerve center, causing it to collapse like a high-level paraplegic... The move was so clean it almost made her want to clap in admiration—far better than the overproduced stunts in movies.

Boom!

The rear door was violently torn open, and an arm twice as thick as normal shot out from the darkness. Before Su Xiaoqiang could warn him, Shirou, as if with eyes in the back of his head, reversed his blade to block the claw.

A furious roar came from the darkness. The arm pushed with insane force, keeping Shirou from advancing, while the metal roof was smashed open. A black serpentine figure rose upright—a towering Death Servant over five meters long!

The serpentine Death Servant stood on powerful lower limbs, its heavy body leaning forward, casting a shadow over Shirou's entire form. It howled, the stinking mucus between its teeth nauseating. Just then, Old Tang's covering fire arrived in time, M995 armor-piercing rounds hammering into its back, making it flinch and release its grip.

Shirou seized the chance to flip his blade and drive it into the Death Servant's neck. Then, engaging his leg muscles, he stomped on the creature's limb, leaped into the air, and spun his body to rotate the blade over 180 degrees. As he landed on the Death Servant's back, its grotesque head was completely severed.

Watching the Death Servant's lower body twitch meaninglessly like a reflex, still retaining some vitality, Shirou felt a creeping unease and a chill in his heart.

This kind of Death Servant, a dragon-blood-rampaging monster, clearly exuded a craving for slaughter and fresh flesh. It reminded him of Akiha Tohno in "Tsukihime" falling into the "Red Lord" state of Inversion Impulse—not only did her emotions turn pathological, but she also became addicted to killing and blood-drinking.

But the Red Lord, at the very least, retained a human form. These Death Servants, however, had undergone varying degrees of serpentine bodily mutations. Was this unique to dragon blood, or a physical change caused by further deepening of the Inversion Impulse...?

Pushing aside his thoughts, Shirou was about to continue fighting valiantly when a scream came from behind him.

He turned to see Su Xiaoqiang trembling, unable to move from her spot. A dark cyan claw had tightly gripped her calf. That "high-level paraplegic" Death Servant had broken away from the fight, crawling quietly on its barely functional arms toward the ordinary person... Truly "Bully the Weak and Fear the Strong."

Uncle Li beside Su Xiaoqiang hadn't lost his nerve, but his strength was far too feeble against the injured Death Servant. He kicked the creature's skull repeatedly, but couldn't budge the rock-hard beast.

"Get back!"

Su Xiaoqiang heard Shirou shout in her direction.

How the hell am I supposed to get back when I'm grabbed... Su Xiaoqiang was about to retort when she realized Shirou was talking to Uncle Li. Uncle Li immediately understood and stepped back. Then Su Xiaoqiang heard a sharp crack in the air—

Two fleeting streaks of light struck the Death Servant square in the back of the head and neck, pinning it firmly to the ground. Looking closer, they were arrows!

The Death Servant's grip weakened. Su Xiaoqiang broke free and looked up to see Shirou Emiya's heroic stance with his bow drawn. In the deep darkness, he seemed like a brilliant splash of light—so much like, too much like... the invincible, majestic hero from the movies, with a handsome, gentle face, missing only a multicolored cloud beneath his feet as he appeared before her in glory...

But in reality, there was no gentleness on that face, only urgency, as he shouted, "Go! Drive, get out of here!"

Su Xiaoqiang saw several dark figures emerge. The monsters had completely surrounded Shirou, as if hunting some rare prey. The emotions bottled up inside her were replaced by a fury that shot straight to her crown, as if a voice in her head roared that she, the Little Heavenly Maiden, was no coward who abandoned her savior to flee alone—if she was going to leave, she'd do it with honor and take everyone with her...

But Uncle Li saw that the situation was already critical, and staying would only drag them down. Without argument, he forced her into the car. The Audi reversed and sped away.

Su Xiaoqiang, strapped into her seatbelt, could only watch helplessly as Shirou Emiya was swallowed by those pitch-black monsters, vanishing from sight.