Mayuri's command went straight through.
Upon receiving the command, Thunder Sanctuary-Vulture Form broke away from the two Giant Divine Vultures.
Its metal wings dipped, and its body veered off its previous aerial combat course, its eagle head turning toward the rear of the army on the ground.
The King of Conquerors' position.
Vulture Form left a vapor trail across the desert sky.
The purplish-red lights in its metal eagle head locked onto the chariot a hundred and fifty meters away, along with the man in the red cloak riding it.
It would take less than a second to charge over from here.
The King of Conquerors' agility was only D.
He would not have time to react.
But there were still people beside him.
Just before Vulture Form struck the chariot, three figures rushed out from nearby.
The first to block its path was a blond man in a bronze breastplate, his hair tied back.
He held a large round shield across the front of the chariot and took Vulture Form's talons head-on.
Metal struck the shield with a clang that carried far into the distance, and even the sand on the ground bounced from the vibration.
The other two closed in from either side, one with a spear and the other with a shortsword, thrusting at the roots of Vulture Form's wings.
Hephaestion. Craterus. Leonnatus.
Several of the capable generals under the King of Conquerors had moved first when their king came under attack.
Together, the three forcibly stopped Vulture Form's charge.
It was brief, only a fraction of a second, but it was enough.
Vulture Form's first attack failed to get through. Its talons scored a deep gouge across the round shield but still failed to pierce it.
Vulture Form broke free of the three men's pincer attack and climbed higher.
The King of Conquerors had already seen through it.
"Trying to force my Reality Marble to collapse by killing me?"
His voice rose from below, still carrying the tone he used to issue orders on the battlefield.
"I won't give you a second chance."
Iskandar grabbed Waver by the back of his collar with his right hand and tightened his grip on the reins with his left.
The next second, he and Waver disappeared from the Reality Marble.
Iskandar was the master of Ionioi Hetairoi.
He could remain inside, or he could leave and continue maintaining the barrier.
Now he had taken both himself and his Master outside.
Hovering sixty meters in the air, Mayuri sensed the King of Conquerors' Spirit Origin fluctuations disappear from this place.
He had fled.
But the Reality Marble remained.
The midday sun still hung overhead, the vast desert still lay below, and countless soldiers still surrounded her.
The King of Conquerors' magical energy continued pouring in from outside, sustaining this space.
Mayuri was trapped here.
This Reality Marble was a separate phase space, isolated from the outside.
She could fly upward or into the distance, but she could not fly out.
The spatial boundary was sealed.
The soldiers on the ground kept firing arrows, and volley after volley of javelins came flying up.
Those attacks could not penetrate her Astral Dress, but they had never expected them to.
They only needed to keep stalling.
Mayuri paused in the air for two seconds.
No, I can't keep dragging this out.
Whatever method the King of Conquerors had used, magical energy consumption was no longer a problem for him.
Mayuri's supply source was still Tokiomi Tohsaka.
No matter how exceptional a human mage's magical energy was, it was not infinite.
Spiritual Power Integration could absorb magical energy from the surroundings to replenish her expenditure, but the magical energy here belonged to the King of Conquerors' mental landscape. It was difficult for Mayuri to use, and converting it was very slow.
If this dragged on, she would be the one at a disadvantage.
Mayuri had originally wanted to conserve some magical energy.
The Holy Grail War was not over yet, and there would probably be more troublesome enemies ahead.
Now she could no longer afford to conserve it.
Mayuri closed her eyes.
A faint glow rose over the surface of her black Astral Dress. It was not Thunder Sanctuary's system.
Another Noble Phantasm within the core of her Spirit Origin had been activated.
The disaster caused when a Spirit manifested in the world.
Her third Noble Phantasm.
Spacequake.
Mayuri's body began to fade.
Under the eyes of every soldier in the army, her outline grew indistinct little by little, until she vanished from the air.
Thunder Sanctuary-Vulture Form disappeared with her.
The soldiers stood where they were.
The enemy and the metal flying beast that had been overhead a moment ago were simply gone.
Outside the Reality Marble.
The real world.
Deep in the mountains on the southern outskirts of Fuyuki City.
Iskandar stood on a hill, his left hand on Waver's shoulder to keep the boy from collapsing to the ground if his legs gave out.
He was still connected to the interior of the Reality Marble, so he, too, had sensed the instant Mayuri disappeared.
"She disappeared?"
The King of Conquerors narrowed his eyes.
What method had Caster used to escape the Reality Marble?
But Ionioi Hetairoi's phase barrier was sealed.
Breaking through from inside would require at least Anti-World-level power.
Iskandar suddenly paused.
Things were not that simple.
Mayuri herself could not say exactly where she was now.
An empty gray space surrounded her, with no up, down, left, or right, and no wind or temperature.
Scattered points of light drifted in the distance.
Mayuri's Spirit Origin remained here, her four wings spread without needing to beat.
This place was probably close to the layer between the spirit world and reality.
The principle behind a Spacequake was a Spirit's manifestation itself.
The instant a Spirit entered reality from the spirit world, a massive amount of Spirit Power spilled out, overwhelming the structure of space.
The charge was already complete.
Mayuri could sense that the Spacequake energy within her Spirit Origin had been compressed to its limit.
When she manifested again, this power would be released with her.
The point of departure was set to the interior of the King of Conquerors' Reality Marble.
Go back.
Mayuri's figure disappeared from the gray space.
Inside the Reality Marble-Ionioi Hetairoi.
In the midday desert, tens of thousands of soldiers still stood by.
Their enemy had suddenly disappeared, and they had received no new orders.
Then Mayuri returned.
The very instant she reappeared in this space, the Spacequake activated.
The first thing to collapse was the space within a fifty-meter radius directly beneath Mayuri.
A black fissure tore open in the sky, its edges ragged, as though they had been forcibly twisted.
The sand on the ground churned upward, and the boundary between sky and desert was stirred together.
A black shock wave spread from the center.
The foundation of material existence was stripped away within this region.
The black void devoured its surroundings, and every piece of space it touched vanished outright.
The nearest few hundred soldiers were swept inside, their Spirit Origins dispersing upon contact with its edge.
Then came the formations farther away, the dunes, and that dazzlingly white sky.
The entire Reality Marble began to collapse.
The phase barrier was bearing pressure from within.
An Anti-World-level Noble Phantasm had detonated inside, and the structure of Ionioi Hetairoi could not withstand it.
Cracks formed across the barrier. As more and more spread, the space grew unstable with them.
The real world.
Atop the hill.
Iskandar let out a muffled grunt.
The King of Conquerors stumbled half a step forward, pressing his right hand to his chest.
The feedback transmitted through the contract link was severe. His Reality Marble was being destroyed, dismantled at its very foundations.
The foundations of that mental landscape were torn apart, and even his Spirit Origin was affected.
Ionioi Hetairoi collapsed.
His trump card had been shattered from within.
"An Anti-World Noble Phantasm."
The King of Conquerors gritted his teeth and forced the words out between them.
Of all the Noble Phantasm classifications in the Holy Grail War, only an Anti-World Noble Phantasm could do something like this.
A Reality Marble was itself a miniature world, making it particularly vulnerable to this type of attack.
Caster had been hiding a trump card like this.
He had not accounted for that before.
The lingering magical energy of the Reality Marble dispersed.
The aftershocks of the spatial collapse reached reality, pressing the trees within several hundred meters outward for a moment.
Then Mayuri's figure appeared in the night sky.
Her four wings were spread, and her black Astral Dress was undamaged.
Her rose-red eyes watched the King of Conquerors on the hill in the moonlight.
Beside her, Thunder Sanctuary-Vulture Form materialized again, its metal wings slicing through the air with a low sound.
"This time, there's no one left to block Thunder Sanctuary's attack for you."
Mayuri's voice came from above.
"Go. Eliminate him."
Upon receiving the command, Vulture Form drove its metal wings down with full force, its entire body becoming a black shadow as it charged toward the hilltop.
Against that speed, the King of Conquerors' D-rank agility was almost no different from standing still.
Thirty meters.
Twenty meters.
Ten meters.
A white flash of sword light cut in from the side.
Metal talons collided with a blade, scattering white sparks.
That sword strike stopped Vulture Form's charge. The sideways force knocked its body five meters off course before it steadied itself in the air again.
Mayuri's gaze changed.
On the hill, three meters in front of the King of Conquerors.
Diarmuid.
A dark green combat outfit, golden-amber eyes, and a handsome face.
It was the same man she had seen at the harbor on the first night.
But the weapons in his hands had changed.
There was no red spear.
There was no yellow spear.
Diarmuid held a longsword in his right hand. Its blade had a deep crimson sheen, and its pattern resembled congealed blood.
In his left was a somewhat shorter sword, its blade bright and tending toward golden yellow.
One long, one short. One red, one yellow.
As the two swords crossed, their presence was completely different from that of his two spears before.
Demonic swords bestowed by the Celtic sea god.
"I wouldn't be so sure."
Diarmuid's voice came from the hill.
His golden-amber eyes looked at Vulture Form in the sky, his swords crossed before him, the tip of the red longsword pointing steadily at it.