Reines could be seen reading a book on Greek mythology. At that moment, Saber entered the room.
"Hmm, I see you know something," Saber commented, pointing to the book and sitting down across from her teacher.
"You could say that," she replied, still looking at the book. "Bazett gave us important information about Avenger's identity."
This piqued Saber's interest.
"Is it known?" she asked.
"Most likely, it's Libra," Reines explained, placing the book on the table next to a painting depicting the moment Libra destroyed Anakosmo.
"But what says it's her?" Saber questioned.
"The bracelets she had on her forearm," she said, showing another painting, this one of the aforementioned weapon. "The Ten Bracelets of Chaos—that's what they're called—were created by Dante, son of Chaos, for his daughter Libra, who is also a descendant of Chaos."
"Bracelets of Chaos?" Saber inquired.
"That's not their name, but it turns out that neither Libra nor Dante ever mentioned it, or if they did, the weapon's true name was lost, so historians named it that, and it stuck."
"Are they that easily recognizable?" Saber asked, referring to the bracelets, to which Reines nodded.
"The bracelets exist, and there are ten in total, scattered around the world. We only know about seven of them," Reines said, holding up seven fingers. "There are two in the Clock Tower, one in ATLAS, and two in the Wandering Sea, leaving one in Japan, one in Russia, and the last one in the United States; the whereabouts of the remaining ones are unknown."
"I see, that's why they recognized the weapon; it's here in the tower," Saber concluded, based on the information she had.
"The bracelets are highly coveted relics, and no one would lend theirs for any reason since there are all ten; in someone's hands, they gain great strength, power, and, above all, immortality, or in this case, infinite longevity. I'm adding to what Reines said.
"Hmm, I see you know a lot about those weapons," Saber said simply, leaving Reines thoughtful for a moment.
"Let's just say I knew someone who knew a lot about this subject and similar things," she said, involuntarily letting out a smile. Something Saber didn't miss.
"But if so many people have had them, how do we know it's her?" Saber asked, referring to Libra.
"The last person to have all ten bracelets was Libra's great-grandson, who ended up leaving five of each to his two children, unaware that their magical effects would weaken when separated. And so, the bracelets began to change hands, and that owner sometimes had fewer." "Bracelets and so on, until only one per person remained," Reines recounted.
"Yes, but doesn't that answer my question?" Saber reiterated.
"Before the bracelets were distributed separately, no one ever fought with them while using a bow, only freehand; the rest used swords, bows, and their bare hands, and Avenger, possessor of all 10 bracelets, who fights primarily with a bow and possesses astronomical strength—let me tell you, there's only one person left who falls with those characteristics," Reines finished, looking directly at Saber.
"I see, using that logic, it has to be her," Saber said, grabbing the book to look at Libra's description. "Inhuman strength, near-supersonic speed comparable to her father and Achilles, a pursuit beyond imagination, and finally, a blue eye that once belonged to a divine entity, a gift from her father; "Not to mention her weapons, she's a formidable opponent."
"There are tales that this eye once belonged to a god in Celtic, Norse, or Egyptian mythology, but those are mere speculations," Reines added, looking into Saber's eyes. "If you were to face her, could you defeat her?"
The question hung in the air as Saber stared at her own body.
"It depends," she replied.
"Depends on what?" Reines asked.
"It depends on how much my body can withstand against her."
...
On the coast of England, a little way from London, but not far, Rider could be seen walking to gaze at the sea, which reflected the moon in the middle of the night.
Rider sighed.
"I'll never get tired of seeing the sea like this." With that, he lit his pipe and began to smoke.
The man hadn't even fought yet and he already felt exhausted. He had answered the call of the Grail to fulfill a wish he had always had since he died: to fight his greatest rival one last time, who, ironically, was now his comrade in battle.
"Who would have thought that from sworn enemies we would become war buddies," Rider said, laughing at himself.
But the situation was more complex than he had imagined, and with what he was learning about Caster and his master, this couldn't end well, which made him regret having accepted the call.
"I knew the old men were a bit off their rockers, so I'll say it's normal that you're talking to yourself," a voice said from behind him, as a cane of a peculiar shape, reminiscent of a Gothic one, appeared.
"If I told you I wasn't talking to myself... would you believe me?" said Rider, who had just arrived, glancing back to see a woman with white hair, Victorian clothing, and pale skin.
"I don't think you were talking to me, and I don't see anyone else here, so I don't believe you," the woman replied.
"Hmm," Rider took the pipe from his mouth and exhaled a large puff of smoke. "Since I didn't detect you in time, I can say you're a murderer; I wonder why you didn't kill me right away."
"My partner told me that if I killed you, it wouldn't solve anything, since the little seal would just get out of control," she replied with a touch of irony.
"Ha, I can't imagine who would call a giant sperm whale a little seal," Rider laughed, and the worst part is, he was right.
Both he and his companion were technically separate entities, so if one died, the other would continue living, and right now, he was the one keeping that monster calm. If he died, the monster would go on a rampage, since the sailor was the anchor that kept it in check, not to mention the control he provided.
At that moment, an explosion was heard in the distance, distracting Assassin, which allowed Rider to deflect his enemy's staff and, extending his hand, summon a harpoon and fire at his opponent.
Assassin managed to twist his body to dodge Rider's shot and fire several shots back to create distance.
"I think you won't have another chance to get so close to killing me, miss," Rider mocked with a smile.
"You think so?" Assassin replied, somewhat irritated by the situation.
...
The caster from the Clock Tower faction was walking straight toward a building that had caught his eye.
It wasn't far from Rider, so if anything happened to him, he could act, not to mention the spells he'd already cast.
When he arrived at the building, he went inside only to find a note in the middle of the living room. Caster picked it up and read it.
"How to win a pizza-eating contest: first step, eat; second, win," Caster said, looking at it only to turn around and see that it said Kaboom.
Caster's eyes widened in horror as he felt what was happening.
Outside the buildings, something glowed and then suddenly exploded.
It was a massive explosion, capable of drawing attention from places far away.
Once the smoke cleared, Caster could be seen surrounded by a barrier that helped protect him from the blast.
"I expected nothing less from you," a voice said behind him.
Caster turned around, squinting at the individual standing there.
She recognized him immediately, as this man was one of the contenders vying to become a Grand Caster in the Hero Throne system. The difference was that Solomon was the leading candidate, while the Servant before her was a more circumstantial one, though still a contender.
But that wasn't the real issue. She recognized him for one simple reason: this Servant was the one she fought in her premonitions, the one who brought about the end of Earth.
"I hadn't seen you until now; I was hiding you," Solomon remarked. As soon as she was summoned, she tried to use her clairvoyance to enter this individual's realm, but she couldn't. Even though he was the King of Sorcery, he wasn't the god of magic, and there were things that could stop him or that he simply couldn't do.
"It's not that I was hiding; I just wasn't interested in participating in this war," his opponent explained.
"And what changed now?" Solomon asked.
"Well, I discovered that my daughter needs the Holy Grail, and as a good father, I will help her on her journey. To do that, I need to eliminate the most troublesome Servant in this, which is clearly you," Dante said, smiling at Solomon.
"I see, that confirms my hypothesis," Solomon declared, making Dante raise an eyebrow. "Before, my premonition had some things I didn't foresee, but when I arrived here, I saw it clearly: what brings about the end is the fight between the two of us. If I hadn't answered the Grail's call, the premonition wouldn't have come to pass."
This was because the end he foretold would occur in the face of combat between the two; if one of them wasn't present, then that end wouldn't happen.
Faced with this revelation, Solomon could have avoided all the chaos by surrendering, but there was still the problem of the world's whitening, so he still had to participate in this Holy Grail War. Therefore, he could only do one thing: try to end this battle as quickly as possible to prevent that future.
"Hmm, you're talking about that possibility, huh?" Dante said to himself, becoming thoughtful.
"True, you should see it too, but in a different way," Solomon said, drawing Dante's attention. "We can both see the future, but in different ways; I can see premonitions, while you see different possibilities, and that's why you see more possible futures than I do. But there's also the possibility that we'll never see the same thing. After all, the possibilities are infinite, so even you couldn't see them all."
Upon hearing Solomon's explanation, Dante could only applaud.
"The wisdom God gave you isn't just for show; from what I can see, I haven't even told you how my clairvoyance works, and you already have an idea," Dante said, activating his magical circuits. "That only makes it clear to me that I absolutely must eliminate you."
Solomon didn't reply; he simply created a magic circle in his hand, ready to respond to his enemy.
...
Assassin spun her staff, creating a burst of blood on the ground, allowing Rider to leap into the air and stare down at her enemy.
He swiftly summoned several spears and fired them at Assassin with almost superhuman speed.
The countess gave her no time to dodge, so she summoned several steel maidens to block the attack, but to her horror, they were destroyed as if they were mere sheets of paper by Rider's spears.
Reacting as fast as she could, she managed to move, dodging three of the four spears, but one of them shattered her hand.
"Tch," Assassin clicked her tongue at this, then dashed between the buildings, making her disappear from Rider's sight.
"Hmm, you want to start a hunt? I don't think that's a good idea," Rider said, whistling loudly into the air and leaping to another building.
Assassin, with that simple exchange of blows, realized that Rider was incredibly stronger, so facing him head-on wasn't a good idea. She should try attacking his blind spots or from behind.
That was her plan, but out of nowhere, she felt a chill that made her stop for a moment.
She felt the ground move, but it wasn't an earthquake or anything like that; instead, the ground began to undulate, as if the earth were ceasing to be solid and becoming liquid.
In a split second, a sperm whale emerged from beneath her and crashed into her at high speed.
"What the...?" she screamed, vomiting a little blood from the impact, which was comparable to an ordinary person being hit by a moving car.
She quickly grabbed the whale's front and tried to attack it with magic, only to find that it did practically nothing.
(Note: A sperm whale is not a whale; in fact, sperm whales are in the same family as orcas or dolphins, but in general culture, they are seen as whales. I'll occasionally call them that so I don't keep repeating "sperm whale," which is the same logic as when I call sorcerers "magicians," and I'm not going to call them "odontocetes" either because I don't think people understand that term without having to look it up online.)
"Unfortunately for you, this predator has high magical resistance; only physical attacks can truly harm it," Rider's voice echoed, a spear pointed at it.
Assassin could only curse his bad luck at encountering such a troublesome enemy, especially this wannabe whale.
The true Rider, Great Hunt of the White Leviathan, is the manifestation of the great predator he attempted to hunt in his final days, the mighty Moby Dick. The human, better known as Captain Ahab, is merely an extension of this Servant, acting primarily as a controller and coordinator of the great white whale; hence, if Ahab dies, the sperm whale lives on.
This creature was always present, only now swimming beneath Rider on land, as this monstrosity possesses the ability called "All Things Become Sea," which allows Moby Dick to "swim" within soil, buildings, mountains, steel, ice, and bound magical fields. Visually, the surface begins to ripple like water. The ground beneath your feet turns to liquid… but only for Moby Dick. For everyone else, it remains solid.
Not to mention, it can locate any individual using echolocation, which in this case is particularly useful for mana sources, rendering the Assassin class's invisibility useless against this sperm whale; after all, Moby Dick is the ultimate "Apex Sea Leviathan."
Rider aimed at Assassin and fired his spear, intending to kill her in a single strike.
(Note: I know I just said that Rider is actually Moby Dick, but he's been calling him Rider for quite some time now, so I'll leave it at that for the time being.)
Just as the spear was approaching Assassin, a shadow appeared at full speed and deflected the attack, saving the countess from certain death.
But Moby Dick continued its descent through the air, crashing into a building and damaging Assassin, sending her flying backward through debris and sustaining significant injuries.
The sperm whale would have continued attacking her, but its gaze wasn't fixed on her but rather on the one who had suddenly appeared.
Rider looked at the blonde woman with golden eyes, staring at him.
"What a devastating pet," Kiss-shot commented, surveying all the destruction the white whale had caused, before turning to Rider, still smiling.
Rider immediately became serious. Against Assassin, he knew he could defeat her, but against this new enemy, he felt things wouldn't be so easy, especially since it was now a 2 vs. 2 fight.
...
Solomon dodged several magic bullets that Dante frantically fired at him, only to have to create several intercepted fire attacks, which he couldn't evade.
Joining his hands, several ice figures appeared beside Solomon, moving to attack Dante.
The blond-haired man simply smiled and, activating his sorcery and Haki, launched himself into hand-to-hand combat against the golems.
Luckily for Dante, the sorcery he developed in the clock tower could be used in its caster form, not because it was ingrained in him, but because, knowing how it worked and having created it himself, he was able to use it the moment he was summoned.
With a single punch, he destroyed the golem created by his enemies, but as he destroyed one, more and more appeared, irritating Dante.
"What a nuisance," he said, his hand shrouded in darkness as he patted the ground.
The entire ground was shrouded in darkness, and it began to absorb all the ice golems, eventually leaving the wasteland desolate.
"I see, so that's how your ability works? I thought it was some strange magic, but something more," Solomon said, looking down at Dante below.
"Hmm," Dante stood up to look down at Solomon. "Is that so?"
Solomon just stared at him for a few seconds.
"Partly," he confessed. "I don't understand where that black miasma from your body comes from, so I can only connect it to your legend and lineage linked to Chaos itself, but I see that you can absorb and store anything that darkness touches." He raised his hand. "I also know that you have other abilities that stem from that, but to understand them, I have to see them firsthand, or else I won't be able to deduce how they work and why."
The king of sorcery created a magic circle, flooding the sky with electrically charged clouds.
Dante immediately understood what his opponent was doing: he was preparing the ground in his favor; what he had done was a prelude to an attack.
He wasn't sure if it was a good idea for Solomon to understand how the Yami Yami no Mi worked, since there was a chance he could learn how to counter it, but something inside him wanted to know what he was saying, and to be honest, Dante already had a general idea of how this power actually worked, but being able to confirm it with this guy would be ideal.