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Blue flames, purple flames, red flames—an endless cascade of multicolored fire spewed forth from Max's outstretched palm like a dragon's breath.
And what finally converged and merged at the center was the ultimate manifestation: pitch-black flames that seemed to devour light itself.
At that moment, through the third-person perspective camera feeds from Maverick and the others positioned at various angles—
The legendary great battle recorded in ancient mythology was displayed in real-time before the eyes of the streaming audience.
[Arsonist]: Is this the legendary Arsonist of Hearts?!
[Coach]: Coach, I want to learn this technique!
[GetLost]: Get lost! I want to learn it!
[SoCool]: HOLY SHIT THIS IS SO COOL!
[Chuuni]: Isn't this dialogue extremely chuunibyou? I need to record it immediately and find an opportunity to use it for a solo kill IRL later!
[Devious]: Wow buddy, you're too devious! But honestly... I like it too.
[Elaborate]: Please elaborate on "like it."
[DemonicLaugh]: That evil laugh is SO good! It's comparable to that Gilgamesh player next door!
[Handsome]: Max is TOO handsome right now! What's the true name of this Servant?! Hurry up and release merchandise for this character—I'll buy it! I'll DEFINITELY buy it!
[Kneeling]: Yes Max, don't make me literally get on my knees and beg you!
[Anything]: Please release it! I'll buy anything! I'LL DO ANYTHING!
[Truth]: No guy can refuse playing with fire.
[AlsoTrue]: Similarly, no guy escapes getting grounded at home for playing with fire.
Edmond Dantès.
He originates from the world-renowned revenge novel The Count of Monte Cristo by the legendary French author Alexandre Dumas.
He is quite literally the most famous avenger in all of world literature.
He possesses well-known titles and aliases such as "The King of the Cavern" and "The Count of Monte Cristo."
And his story represents the most classic, cathartic revenge narrative ever written.
He was framed by a malicious conspiracy orchestrated by jealous rivals and bore false criminal charges.
His beloved fiancée was stolen away by another man, and he was imprisoned in the nightmarish Château d'If—a fortress prison from which escape was considered impossible.
If he were an ordinary person, he might have completely surrendered to despair and given up all hope.
But Edmond Dantès, possessing an iron will that could not be broken, refused to despair even for a single moment.
The flames of vengeance were already burning brightly in his heart, keeping him alive.
Thus, with the guidance and help of the brilliant Abbé Faria—his fellow prisoner and mentor—Edmond learned swordsmanship, toxicology, economics, and various other forms of knowledge and skills.
He made exhaustive preparations for his future revenge over many years of patient study.
Finally, after a full fourteen years of imprisonment—
By switching places with the body of Abbé Faria, who had died of a stroke, and feigning his own death to be thrown into the sea by the jailers in a burial sack—
Edmond successfully escaped the inescapable prison.
And he subsequently obtained the massive treasure that Abbé Faria had left hidden on the Island of Monte Cristo, making him fabulously wealthy.
Hence the legendary title: "The Count of Monte Cristo."
And as the suffering and imprisonment arc concluded, what followed was a pure revenge catharsis story.
The Count of Monte Cristo, now possessing both knowledge and incredible wealth, returned to Paris in disguise.
Then he systematically dragged every single one of those powerful, influential people who had conspired to frame him straight down into hell—destroying their lives, fortunes, and families with surgical precision.
At the same time, he also helped Abbé Faria complete his mentor's unfinished revenge against those who had wronged him.
Yes—the Count's journey was not only about revenge. It was equally about repaying kindness and honoring debts of gratitude.
"My journey is to the other shore of gratitude and vengeance."
Only after repaying the kindness of those who had helped him did the Count finally begin to fulfill his terrible revenge.
And such a turbulent life story—a revenge drama hidden behind false identities, the obsessive love for his trampled and stolen fiancée, the anguish and regret after enduring unimaginable hardship, and finally, his ultimate repentance—
Made the novel, once published, receive overwhelming acclaim from readers across France and around the entire world.
And they remembered The Count of Monte Cristo forevermore as the most famous and iconic avenger in all of literature.
However, although The Count of Monte Cristo is classified as a novel, modern historical research has actually discovered that the character of Abbé Faria genuinely existed as a real prisoner in the Château d'If.
Therefore, in the Type-Moon worldview and Fate franchise lore, The Count of Monte Cristo is not merely a fictional character created by Dumas's imagination—but rather a real person who actually existed in history.
And the Noble Phantasm that Max was currently wielding—"Enfer Château d'If" (Hell's Château d'If / Tiger, Blazing Inferno)—
Had been sublimated and crystallized from the iron-like, absolutely tenacious willpower that the Count had forged within that literal hellish prison over fourteen brutal years.
Not just a physical prison that confined the body—The Count of Monte Cristo's conceptual Noble Phantasm could even allow him to escape intangible prisons like the constraints of time and space itself.
And through ultra-high-speed thinking processes, he could forcibly reflect that accelerated mental state onto his physical body, enabling ultra-high-speed physical actions that subjectively rivaled actual time manipulation.
Therefore, the multiple "clones" that appeared simultaneously during combat were actually just afterimages left behind by movement so fast the human eye couldn't properly track it.
And the game mechanics worked exactly the same way.
Therefore, this operation of allowing the Count's Heroic Spirit to temporarily possess Max's body was absolutely unique to Max alone—no other player could replicate this.
If it were anyone else attempting this technique, they would very likely be instantly disoriented and nauseated by a single instance of that extreme super-acceleration.
As for how to prevent the livestream audience from noticing anything unusual about the disorienting speed—
That was naturally handled by locking the main perspective camera to a single stable viewpoint that didn't reflect the subjective time dilation.
This was quite simple for Max to implement as the game's developer with backend access.
So, getting back to the actual combat—
Endless torrents of black flames erupted outward.
The pitch-black fire, possessing the conceptual ability to incinerate absolutely everything it touched, surged toward the dragon Vritra from every conceivable angle simultaneously.
In an instant, several scorched marks appeared across Vritra's beautiful azure-blue dragon scales, marring their pristine surface.
The searing pain also made Vritra let out ear-splitting screams of agony!
But the uncontrollable excitement audible beyond those screams of pain was even more terrifying and unnerving!
"It hurts! It hurts SO MUCH! The pain is exquisite!
Humans, you are truly powerful! To defeat me, you can even transform yourselves into Servant-like existences!
You really are wonderful! I love you the most! But if this is all you can manage, it's still far from enough!
You can't even break through my outer shell! This level of flame can't even begin to evaporate the water reserves stored within my body!"
[Yandere]: Holy shit, what kind of yandere statement is THAT?!
[Sis]: Isn't it, sis—you've literally dried up and killed almost all the humans on Earth, and you STILL keep saying you "love humans"?! What, do you love the taste of humans?!
[Jerky]: Maybe she prefers dried human jerky specifically.
[GetIt]: I understand now—it's roasted masochism play!
[Friend]: Friend? Or food? Delicious?
[Vore]: This is advanced vore content!
It could only be said that there was never a shortage of absolute chaos and dark humor in the streaming chat.
However, the current tactical situation was genuinely quite problematic for Max's side.
Although his black flames could theoretically incinerate anything given enough sustained contact—
The problem was that he'd given Vritra far too much preparation time earlier while waiting for reinforcements.
That absurdly plump body of the dragon had clearly absorbed massive quantities of water as a defensive countermeasure.
Under the suppressing effect of such enormous water volume, Max could barely manage to scorch through the outer armor layer, but he was completely unable to inflict any meaningful damage to the dragon's core spiritual essence.
And besides the strict ten-minute time limit on his transformation, the technique was also heavily dependent on magical energy consumption.
The magical energy provided by a single borrowed Command Seal was simply nowhere near enough for Max to fight without any restraint or resource management.
This isn't working, Max thought grimly as he dodged a massive gout of dragon breath spewed directly at his position.
After the evasion, Max landed hard on the ground below.
With a sudden explosive burst of power channeled through his feet against the street pavement, Max transformed into multiple flickering afterimages, successfully dodging several high-pressure water jet attacks that followed in rapid succession.
At the same time, black flames coiled and wrapped around his right wrist like living serpents.
He launched a devastating punch forward with all his enhanced strength.
Vritra's chest armor—or perhaps more accurately, her enormously fat belly—showed fresh dark scorched marks from the impact.
But the damage was far too shallow. Barely scratched the surface.
"What's wrong, human? Has your fist already become weak? We've only just begun! Don't tell me you've already exhausted all your strength!
And YOU up there!" Vritra's massive head swiveled toward the airborne combatants. "Your companion is fighting desperately down here! What are you just LOOKING at?! Get down here and FIGHT ME!"
"In your dreams! Maverick, don't let her distract you! Stick to the battle plan!" Chen Ge's voice crackled over the telepathic link.
It could only be said that proper support and covering fire wasn't anywhere near as easy as it looked.
The enemy Master was Kenneth, which meant the opposition had absolutely no shortage of magical energy whatsoever—essentially infinite resources.
And because Max's team were the challengers in this encounter, Medea had no opportunity to establish a proper magical energy ley line circle to replenish their team's mana reserves.
This meant they had to be extremely conservative and hold back significantly when committing to attacks.
At the same time, although Vritra had manifested in full dragon form, she was limited to only breath weapon attacks and simple physical dragon strikes—she didn't even seem to have access to a proper Noble Phantasm.
But sometimes overwhelming raw statistics could simply overpower everything through sheer numbers, not to mention Vritra's absolutely obscene HP bar that seemed to stretch on forever.
Right now, unless that person was finally willing to draw their bow and commit—
Otherwise, they simply didn't possess high enough concentrated firepower to eliminate this ridiculously fat dragon in a single decisive alpha strike.
And once they failed to eliminate Vritra in one overwhelming burst, her continuous magical energy supply would allow her to rapidly regenerate from virtually all sustained injuries.
After all, she was simply too fat. They couldn't even reach through all that bulk to touch her actual Spirit Core.
[TooBig]: She's too damn THICC!
[CantReach]: We can't even reach the center!
[FatShaming]: This is advanced fat dragon problems!
[NeedMoreDPS]: They need way more DPS for this raid boss!
The battle was reaching a critical impasse.
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