The light was very faint.
In the almost pitch-black room, that speck of red light was like a spark suddenly flaring in the night.
Mayuri saw that speck of red light.
Her pupils contracted the instant she saw it.
A Command Spell.
Too late.
Artoria appeared in the bedroom in a flash of red teleportation light.
Instinct A.
Less than a second passed between completing the teleportation and locking onto her target.
The moment she appeared, her emerald eyes fixed on the figure who should not have been in the room: a girl in a black Astral Dress, floating two meters from Kiritsugu Emiya's bedside.
Excalibur.
Artoria did not swing her sword.
The distance was too short. Swinging her sword at this range would only waste a fraction of a second.
She released her magical energy directly.
A torrent of golden-white magical energy erupted from Excalibur's blade, rushing straight at Mayuri from less than a meter away.
Point-blank.
Mayuri reacted an instant before the light exploded.
It was already too late to dodge.
She spread two pairs of white wings from her back and folded them across her front.
Mainly to protect the Lesser Grail in her left hand.
If the Lesser Grail was destroyed here, all her efforts would have been for nothing.
The torrent of golden-white magical energy struck the four white wings.
The impact drove Mayuri backward, smashing her back through the bedroom's outer wall and blasting her out into the night sky beyond the castle.
The surfaces of her four wings were scorched from taking the point-blank Mana Burst head-on, but they soon began repairing themselves.
Mayuri herself was unharmed.
With the dual defenses of her Astral Dress and Magic Resistance A, even an A+ rank magical energy beam would have difficulty hurting her.
She had blocked that attack with her wings purely to protect the Lesser Grail in her hand.
After steadying herself in the night sky outside the castle, she glanced down at her left hand.
The Lesser Grail was still there, completely intact.
A pale golden glow pulsed quietly in her palm.
Go.
Mayuri beat all four wings with full force, flying away from the castle at high speed.
At the same time, she left a gift for Artoria and her Master.
Thunder Sanctuary finished charging as Mayuri flew away from the castle.
The arcing patterns on the sphere's surface turned from reddish gold to deep red, and then a crimson ball of lightning more than ten meters in diameter separated from its underside.
The moment the lightning ball left Thunder Sanctuary, it plummeted toward the ground.
Straight toward Einzbern Castle.
Crimson light bathed the forest for hundreds of meters around the castle in blood-red.
The ten-meter-wide lightning ball resembled a small sun falling from the sky, ionizing the air in its path into crackling plasma.
At its energy density, this lightning ball was more than enough to destroy all of Einzbern Castle.
Artoria leaped through the hole blasted in the bedroom's outer wall, her emerald eyes taking in the crimson fireball overhead as she made an immediate judgment.
Too late.
Releasing Excalibur's true name took time. Even two or three seconds was too long against the speed of this falling lightning ball.
She could only meet it head-on with Mana Burst.
Artoria poured all her magical energy into Excalibur. The blade erupted with golden-white light so intense it was almost pure white, and she slashed upward at the crimson lightning ball overhead.
The golden-white slash of magical energy collided with the crimson lightning ball thirty meters above the castle.
The two energies formed a spherical impact zone dozens of meters across at the point of collision.
The air inside was sucked away in an instant.
Then the shock wave exploded outward.
It did not blast upward. It pressed downward.
Mana Burst intercepted most of the lightning ball's energy, but not all of it.
The residual energy and the shock wave from the collision struck Einzbern Castle at an angle.
The west wing and the central tower were destroyed outright by the shock wave.
Stone walls shattered, roofs collapsed, and wooden floors broke apart and caught fire.
Within three seconds, the entire western half of the castle became a burning ruin.
Kiritsugu Emiya was still in the west-wing bedroom.
The moment Artoria leaped out, he tried to roll off the bed.
But he had only one arm, a leg that had yet to fully recover, and numerous internal injuries.
Even rolling over was almost at his limit.
When the shock wave reached the bedroom, he had only just rolled off the bed onto the floor.
The ceiling shattered above him, sending stones, wooden beams, and glass crashing down.
A main beam struck his back.
Then a second.
Then an entire wall.
Kiritsugu Emiya was buried beneath the rubble.
Artoria landed on the grass in the castle's front courtyard.
She immediately sensed the change in their contractual link.
The magical energy supply began to destabilize, trembling constantly like a rubber band stretched to its limit.
Then the link broke.
Like a taut string suddenly snipped in two.
Cleanly, completely, beyond reconnection.
Kiritsugu Emiya was dead.
Artoria stood on the courtyard grass, Excalibur slowly lowering in her hand.
Her Master lay beneath the rubble less than thirty meters behind her.
Dead.
Crushed to death by the building's collapse, caused by the residual shock wave she had failed to stop.
In a room on the castle's ground floor.
Maiya Hisau was knocked over by the shock wave, and an entire wall collapsed along with its windows.
Rubble and glass struck her head and upper body. In the final second before she lost consciousness, she instinctively curled up, then sank into darkness.
Severely injured and unconscious.
Artoria did not fall.
Normally, once a Master died, their Servant would gradually fade away after losing their supply of magical energy.
But her circumstances were special.
Kiritsugu Emiya was not the only person supplying her with magical energy.
Irisviel was also providing the magical energy sustaining her existence.
Although Irisviel's heart had now been removed, Avalon's restorative function was maintaining her bare minimum vital functions, while Avalon itself was powered by Artoria's magical energy.
This cycle was fragile and would not last long.
But at least for now, Artoria would not disappear.
She could still continue with Independent Action for a while.
Artoria looked up in the direction Mayuri had flown.
She was already out of sight.
Artoria turned and ran back into the castle.
The east wing.
This area had not taken a direct hit from the shock wave.
There were cracks in the stone walls and a few broken windows, but the overall structure remained intact.
Artoria pushed open the door to Irisviel's bedroom and rushed inside.
Irisviel was still lying on the bed.
Her position had barely changed from before.
Artoria's gaze fell on her chest.
There was a hole over the left breast of her white nightdress.
Its edges were neat. It did not look torn, but rather like something had pierced through it from inside.
But the skin beneath the hole was intact.
There was no wound.
Avalon had already repaired it.
Artoria's emerald pupils contracted.
"Caster... she took the Lesser Grail."
She had taken the heart inside Irisviel's body, the organ that served as the Lesser Grail's core, directly out of her chest.
Artoria stood beside the bed, her left hand slowly clenching.
Just then.
Irisviel's eyelashes fluttered as she lay in bed.
Very faintly.
Had Artoria not been standing beside the bed watching her, she would never have noticed.
Then they fluttered again.
Irisviel unconsciously raised her right hand and rubbed her eyes.