Diarmuid landed roughly three hundred meters from the edge of the Spacequake.
The air behind him was still trembling. Though the black spatial collapse had stopped, the remaining shock waves were still surging outward.
Holding Waver under one arm, Diarmuid knelt on one knee and used his back to shield him from the last wave of flying rubble and dust.
Waver had already passed out.
The boy's breathing was fairly steady, and his heartbeat remained regular.
That impact had placed too much strain on his nerves, and his brain had shut off his consciousness on its own.
He was alive.
Escaping that area with his life was already no small feat.
Diarmuid laid Waver flat and checked that his vital signs were fine before looking up toward the mountains to the north that had been wiped flat.
The area had become a smooth depression, as though someone had dug a chunk straight out of the earth's surface.
At the center of the depression, where the King of Conquerors had last stood, nothing remained.
Diarmuid's breathing paused.
Iskandar had stayed behind at the last moment, using his own body to buy time for his Master.
The next second, the power of a Command Spell passed straight through his Spirit Origin.
Diarmuid's body was pulled from the remote mountains on the southern outskirts of Fuyuki City. In an instant, he crossed the entire city and appeared in the top-floor suite of the Hyatt Hotel in Fuyuki New City.
Kayneth El-Melloi stood before the reinforced floor-to-ceiling windows, his pale blond hair meticulously combed.
Of the three Command Spells on the back of his left hand, one was already gone.
"Report."
"Caster has wiped out the King of Conquerors' faction. The King of Conquerors has been eliminated. His Master is still alive, but currently unconscious."
Kayneth closed his eyes briefly, taking two seconds to collect himself.
The King of Conquerors' elimination meant their temporary cooperation had come to an end.
The external output settings of those three Mana Furnaces would have to be readjusted.
In other words, the Command Spell he had just used had been wasted.
He had granted Diarmuid access to Saber-class Noble Phantasms so he could provide support, yet they had still failed to save him.
One Command Spell in exchange for a Servant's corpse.
An ugly loss.
Kayneth frowned.
That brat Waver was still unconscious in the mountains to the south. Should he send someone to retrieve him?
In terms of usefulness, a Master who had lost his Servant was essentially worthless.
But he was still a Clock Tower student. Bringing him back alive would at least give Kayneth something to report.
Before he could finish considering the matter, something happened.
The workshop's alarm bounded field lit up.
Someone had triggered the defensive bounded field laid over the hotel's exterior.
Someone was attacking the building.
"Lancer!"
Kayneth still used that designation out of habit.
He rushed to the window and looked down. The nightscape outside had already changed.
There was not a soul on the streets surrounding the Hyatt Hotel. Shinto's commercial district, which should have been full of cars and people, was now unnaturally quiet.
A fire alarm.
The fire safety broadcast in the hotel lobby was playing evacuation instructions at maximum volume.
But this was not a malfunction in the hotel's own system. Someone had taken over the broadcast externally and forcibly activated the evacuation procedure.
Kiritsugu Emiya.
Kayneth was certain almost the instant the name came to him.
The Magus Killer had taken advantage of Lancer's absence while he supported the King of Conquerors to attack Kayneth's base directly.
The fire alarm and evacuation were meant to clear out the civilians.
That man always went straight for his target, but he also tried to involve as few unrelated people as possible.
Before Kayneth could issue any further orders, something happened.
The entire Hyatt Hotel shook violently.
A beam of golden-white magical energy cut in through the eastern exterior wall.
It pierced straight through the multiple defensive bounded fields he had laid between the twenty-eighth and thirty-fifth floors.
Before that light, the magical barriers of the bounded fields were as fragile as paper.
Even after passing through the bounded fields, the golden-white stream of light retained tremendous density and destructive power, directly vaporizing the structure on the eastern side of the Hyatt Hotel from the twenty-sixth through the thirty-first floors.
Reinforced concrete, glass curtain walls, interior furnishings-everything in the light's path vanished, leaving a hole over ten meters in diameter through the building.
Artoria's Mana Burst.
The King of Knights stood on the rooftop of a commercial building three hundred meters away.
Excalibur was in her right hand, the afterglow of that strike still lingering on its golden blade.
She had not released the holy sword's true name.
With Irisviel now supplying magical energy at full capacity, even an ordinary Mana Burst had an output not far below an Anti-Army Noble Phantasm.
That strike had merely been a greeting.
Had the defensive bounded fields Kayneth had laid on the upper floors not blocked at least sixty percent of its power, that blow would have been enough to erase the entire Hyatt Hotel from Fuyuki City's skyline.
Irisviel stood behind Artoria, her hands clasped before her chest.
Her silvery-white hair streamed backward in the wind raised by the Mana Burst, her wine-red eyes fixed on the distant hotel with a chunk missing from it.
Kayneth's suite, on the thirty-second floor of the Hyatt Hotel.
The blast had overturned everything in the room that had not been secured.
Volumen Hydrargyrum had formed a thin mercury membrane around Kayneth at the last moment. Though he was uninjured, his expression had darkened.
Five floors. One strike had wiped out five floors.
The defensive bounded fields he had spent three days weaving, layer by layer, had been pierced with a single swing from Saber.
This was the firepower of the King of Knights at full strength.
Kayneth made his decision immediately.
The second Command Spell on the back of his right hand lit up.
"By my Command Spell, I order you, Lancer: come to my side and protect me with all your strength!"
The absolute order of the Command Spell poured into Diarmuid's Spirit Origin, temporarily raising his combat capabilities a notch.
The red light of the Command Spell flashed in his golden-amber eyes.
Diarmuid tightened his grip on his twin swords and shot out through the damaged window.
Artoria was already closing in.
Her silver-and-blue armor traced a cold streak through the night sky. The King of Knights leaped from the rooftop of the commercial building three hundred meters away, using Mana Burst to forcefully open up the distance, Excalibur trailing golden light as she headed straight for the Hyatt Hotel.
Diarmuid intercepted her in midair.
His red longsword met Excalibur's horizontal slash.
The shock wave that erupted at the point of impact shattered all the glass curtain walls across three floors beneath them.
Shards of glass fell through the night wind like a scattering shower of silver rain.
At their very first exchange, Artoria clearly saw the weapons in Diarmuid's hands.
Not twin spears.
Twin swords.
"Lancer... no, what should I call you now?"
Artoria's voice cut through the shriek of clashing metal.
Diarmuid did not answer.
The yellow shortsword, Ripples of Passion, thrust out from his left hand toward Artoria's flank.
The King of Knights raised her vambrace to block it, sending blue-white sparks of magical energy splashing across her armor.
The two began fighting on the hotel's thirty-second floor.
Every clash of their swords could shake an entire room apart.
The Hyatt Hotel's exterior wall was already riddled with holes.
It continued collapsing as the two Servants fought, chunks of concrete and steel reinforcement falling ceaselessly from above.
Relying on the flexibility of his twin swords and his own A+ agility, Diarmuid darted back and forth through the building's wreckage.
The explosive force of his Mana Burst-assisted leaps allowed him to move across vertical walls as though they were level ground.
Artoria's fighting style was entirely different.
She neither dodged nor evaded. Every swing of Excalibur carried an excess of magical energy, driving back everything in front of her along with Diarmuid's guard.
Diarmuid's red longsword, Surging Waves of Fury, gave a low resonance with every block.
The sea god's power within the blade was clashing head-on with Excalibur's Mana Burst.
The yellow shortsword, Ripples of Passion, handled most of his defense.
Its specialized ability allowed Diarmuid to withstand magical-energy attacks better than he could in his spearman form.