Ea's three spiral blade segments spun at high speed, spewing a crimson storm of chaos.
Wherever the storm passed, space was forcibly torn apart, only to piece itself back together the next second.
It was the power that had separated heaven and earth from primordial chaos, but only a small portion of it could be unleashed now.
Because the one holding it was Gilgamesh in his child form.
Strength: C.
Ea itself was ranked EX, already at the very top of conventional Noble Phantasms.
But how much a weapon could unleash depended not only on the weapon, but also on its wielder.
Adult Gilgamesh had B-rank Strength. Combined with his mastery of Ea and his mana reserves, Enuma Elish at full power could overpower an A++ Anti-City Noble Phantasm.
His child form only had C.
His body, Spirit Origin, muscles, and skeleton could not withstand Ea's full release.
The power he could draw out of Ea now was probably only around sixty percent of what he could manage as an adult.
The crimson chaos storm collided head-on with the white torrent of annihilating lightning a hundred and fifty meters away.
Space collapsed outright at the point of impact.
Visible light vanished at that point for a fraction of a second, then lit up again in a very strange way.
The outcome was decided in the first second.
The white beam pushed through.
In energy density, total energy, and sustained output, the torrent of annihilating lightning overpowered Enuma operating at sixty percent.
The moment the crimson chaos storm touched the white beam's core, it began to be forced back.
The space-rending effect produced by Ea's three blade segments merely distorted the beam's surface slightly, and the next frame of energy quickly filled it back in.
The chaos storm was pushed back.
Kid Gil gripped Ea's hilt with both hands, his young body taking a step back under the recoil.
Vimana's deck gave a shrill metallic screech beneath his feet.
His crimson eyes narrowed against the white light.
After scattering the chaos storm, the white beam did not slow. It continued along Ea's trajectory, striking the spherical array formed by the dozen or so defensive Noble Phantasms in front of Vimana.
Rho Aias shattered.
The seven petal-shaped, iridescent defensive barriers began collapsing in succession the moment the beam touched the first layer.
Without its True Name Release, Rho Aias was merely a high-grade shield with conceptual defensive properties.
It was still far from being able to block any thrown Noble Phantasm.
The seven barriers were pierced one after another, shattering into iridescent dust that dispersed.
Achilles' Akhilleus Kosmos shattered.
The miniature world projection spread across the shield's surface fell apart under the beam's impact. The sky split, the earth buckled, and the seawater evaporated.
Without its True Name Release, Akhilleus Kosmos could not turn the concept of a complete world into an actual defensive barrier.
It was merely a high-grade divine shield bearing part of the concept of a world.
Before the Sword of Blazing Flame, a partial concept was little different from none at all.
Aegis, Shield of the Gods, shattered.
The relief of Medusa's snake-haired face warped in the white light, its divine pressure suppressed by a higher-order power.
One after another.
In less than a second, the white beam pierced and destroyed the dozen or so top-tier defensive Noble Phantasms in succession, turning them into golden dust.
Every one of them was a legendary piece of defensive equipment.
In a normal Holy Grail War, any one would have been enough to secure its wielder's footing.
But none of their True Names had been released.
Taking them out of the Gate of Babylon and directly arranging them into a physical barrier was never how they were meant to be used.
A Noble Phantasm's power depended on the causal connection between it and its Heroic Spirit, as well as the complete activation of that causality through its True Name Release.
Gilgamesh owned the prototypes of these Noble Phantasms, but he did not possess the heroic myths behind them.
He was not Ajax the Greater, nor Achilles, much less Athena.
In his hands, these Noble Phantasms could only display their basic capabilities.
Basic capabilities were not enough against the Sword of Blazing Flame.
When the last defensive Noble Phantasm shattered, the white beam was less than twenty meters from Vimana's hull.
Kid Gil's brain had yet to finish processing the fact that all his defenses had been breached.
White light swallowed his vision outright.
The beam struck Vimana.
Within the white stream of annihilating light, the golden flying vessel was like a piece of ice thrown into a furnace.
The golden hull began disintegrating the instant it touched the beam.
The molecular structure of its golden material could not withstand an energy density beyond the limits of matter.
The emerald-green wings became green dust, and the golden throne became a stream of golden particles.
Before Vimana's automatic defense system could activate, it was erased along with its physical medium.
At the same moment Vimana was pierced, Kid Gil's Spirit Origin was also engulfed in white light.
The boy's body began turning transparent within the white light.
In the end, it all became golden dust drifting upward.
Ea's three spiral blade segments stopped. The sword turned into a streak of crimson light and dispersed into the night sky.
Young Gilgamesh left no last words.
From the moment he unleashed Enuma to the complete collapse of his Spirit Origin, the entire process took less than a second.
He did not even have time to change his expression.
Archer Gilgamesh was eliminated.
The second Servant eliminated on the fourth night.
The fourth Servant officially eliminated from this Holy Grail War.
Even after destroying Archer, the white beam did not stop.
It continued advancing in a straight line.
A band of white light pierced the night sky three hundred meters above the ground.
Within a dozen or so seconds, the front of the band crossed Fuyuki City's coastline and shot into the northern sea.
The instant the beam touched the sea, the water in its core region vaporized outright, skipping the liquid and gaseous states and entering a plasma state.
A circular waterless zone appeared on the sea's surface.
The beam lasted about three seconds before dissipating completely.
When the white light went out, it left a bottomless hollow more than two hundred meters across in the sea.
Under gravity, the surrounding seawater flowed back into the hollow. The immense volume pouring in raised walls of water and white waves dozens of meters high, sending successive tsunami ripples outward in every direction.
After completing its attack, the Sword of Blazing Flame began retracting.
The black cone, over a hundred meters long, retracted even faster than it had unfolded, shrinking from a cone back into a sphere, then from a hundred-meter scale to twenty meters in diameter.
The horns on either side vanished, and the red wings at its rear turned white again.
Mayuri disengaged her fused state from inside the sphere. Her body seeped out of its black surface, and she spread her four wings, hovering in the night sky.
She lowered her head to look at the white waves that had yet to fully disperse on the sea to the south.
Then she turned to where Archer had vanished.
Nothing remained.
Mayuri took a deep breath and conveyed the result to Tokiomi Tohsaka through their contract.
"Archer has been eliminated."
The study in the Tohsaka Residence.
"Thank you for your efforts, Caster. Come back."
His tone was very calm.
But the fingers of the hand he used to set down his teacup still trembled slightly.
Excitement.
The King of Conquerors had been eliminated.
The King of Heroes had been eliminated.
Only three Servants remained in the Holy Grail War now.
His own Caster, Cherub; Saber, the King of Knights; and Lancer, Diarmuid.
Once two more Servants were defeated, the basic conditions for the Holy Grail's descent would be met.
After the souls of six Servants were collected and the Lesser Grail filled with energy, it would usher in the Greater Grail at the correct location.
There was only one slot for a wish.
Tokiomi Tohsaka sat behind his desk, his blue eyes shining brightly under the lamplight.
The two remaining opposing teams.
Kiritsugu Emiya's Saber and Kayneth's Lancer.
In terms of individual Servant combat strength, Saber, the King of Knights, was indeed very strong.
The combination of Excalibur and Avalon was almost impossible to deal with in close combat.
But so what?
Caster's Sword of Blazing Flame had just obliterated Gilgamesh, King of Heroes, with a single shot.
An EX-rank Anti-City Noble Phantasm unleashed at full power was enough to erase a city.
However strong Excalibur was, it could not surpass EX rank.
As for Lancer, Diarmuid, his pair of demonic swords was somewhat troublesome in close combat.
But Caster had no need to fight him at close range.
With air superiority entirely in their hands, Diarmuid would not even have a chance to touch Mayuri.
Tokiomi Tohsaka picked up his teacup, then set it down again.
This time, he truly felt it was in the bag.