"You've come."
Seated upon Kur's throne, Ereshkigal spoke calmly.
"..."
Ophis stepped slowly out of the Underworld's shadows, remaining silent.
"You shouldn't have come."
Ereshkigal shook her head with a sigh.
"..."
Still, only silence answered her.
"Since you're already here, you must have prepared yourself for what comes next?"
Ereshkigal's lips curled into a subtly enchanting smile.
"..."
The silence continued.
After an awkward cough, Ereshkigal rose from her throne.
"My goal is to claim Uruk's Holy Grail and imprison all humans in the Underworld, making them mine alone. This is my choice—Ereshkigal's very first decision made solely for herself. But your goal is different: you chose to protect humanity. In that sense, a battle between us was inevitable from the start."
Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Ereshkigal spoke with resignation.
Ophis still didn't respond.
Ereshkigal smiled faintly, drawing her uniquely-shaped weapon.
"No answer, hm? Well, perhaps there's nothing left to say. Even if it's you, I won't hold back... Allow me to introduce myself once more: I am Ereshkigal, mistress of the Underworld, guardian of death's silence, a goddess sacrificed by the gods themselves. This resentment, this suffering—"
Death's aura surged forth powerfully as Ereshkigal's expression grew unprecedentedly solemn.
"I'll have you experience it too!"
...
Kingu jumped back slightly awkwardly, narrowly dodging the combined strike of a great axe and the Sword of the War God, yet still paid the price as a light-arrow pierced her shoulder.
Even so, Kingu swiftly swung a blade-hand to repel Heracles and Altera's pursuit, gracefully retreating several steps back.
Blue flames burned fiercely at her wounded left shoulder, clashing violently with her golden energy, preventing Kingu's regeneration.
"This is getting troublesome…"
Suddenly, Kingu chuckled.
The usual Kingu would've been enraged at being wounded by inferior "old humanity," yet now she showed none of that reaction.
Ever since that enormous surge of mana earlier, Altera's power had skyrocketed ridiculously in every attribute, as if suddenly drugged. Arjuna's support fire also greatly increased in both power and frequency.
And Heracles—Kingu almost cursed aloud at him.
Though his strength hadn't risen significantly, all twelve lives had instantly reset.
This was like fighting a boss down to its last shred of health, only to have the game reset due to a system crash—no matter how much stronger you were, it still made you want to curse furiously.
Moreover, though Kingu could defeat Heracles alone, simultaneously facing all three prevented any easy victories.
Initially, she'd planned to swiftly eliminate the brainless Heracles, then slowly deal with Altera afterward, but now that was impossible.
Twelve might seem a small number, but when it represented the resurrections of a giant who once rivaled gods at his peak, it became incredibly vexing. Even worse, though his resurrections refreshed, his immunities to previous attacks remained—what failed before would still fail now. Thus, Kingu lost all motivation to waste effort on Heracles.
Take down Altera first.
At this moment, Kingu's expression turned utterly calm. No arrogance, no anger, no mockery.
If any Uruk citizen could see her now, they'd surely be shaken deeply—for at this moment, Kingu's aura matched Enkidu's almost exactly.
Yet, Kingu herself seemed unaware of this change. Instead, she quietly ducked, allowing another arrow of light to skim over her head.
Nor did she realize that although she'd sensed Mother's imminent encounter with Chaldea, she felt no urge to aid her.
Then, Kingu's emerald eyes shimmered with golden radiance.
"Being pushed around like this isn't acceptable. Time to get a bit serious..."
The earth began to tremble.
...
"We've finally entered Gorgon's temple..."
Mash frowned at the eerie, cocoon-filled chamber.
The atmosphere here didn't match the holy feeling a temple ought to have at all...
Beside her, Ritsuka furrowed her brows deeply for a different reason. While she disliked the environment, her senses as a non-Servant weren't as sharp, leaving her less affected.
The real problem was this Singularity...
Everything was going too smoothly. With soldiers guarding them, they'd reached the temple without alerting hordes of demonic beasts, and their tightly-formed soldiers had barely suffered losses.
On Merlin's side, although regular Dingir cannons couldn't normally launch the massive Axe of Marduk so far, Ophis had clearly modified something—anyway, using the axe's power, they'd successfully weakened Gorgon's divinity.
Honestly, they'd only just learned the goddess was Gorgon thanks to Jeanne's last-minute lecture... Everyone from Chaldea deeply felt this Singularity was, how to say—filled with delays in receiving critical intel until now.
It all felt too fast-paced.
They'd barely gotten familiar with Uruk's situation before running into not one but two goddesses back-to-back, with no breaks between fights.
Thinking carefully, this Singularity involved almost no exploration; Ophis had arranged everything from the start. Other than Kingu briefly toying with them, no enemy had genuinely targeted them directly.
Everything had been too easy.
I hope nothing's wrong...
Ritsuka finally sighed.
Have the previous, impossibly difficult Singularities turned me into some kind of masochist...?
She'd started suspecting something was wrong precisely because everything was going smoothly...
Anyway, she'd heard Ophis had personally gone to confront the last goddess. If they could resolve things here and Ophis succeeded, then everything would be over quickly.
"Let's do this..."
Calming herself, Ritsuka marched forward alongside the Servants toward the enormous magical energy ahead, so powerful even a novice mage like herself could easily sense it.
At these three battlefields, the true fight was only just beginning!