"No! The Greater Grail belongs to us. Rather than let it be taken, I'd rather destroy it!"
"Was someone really faster than us?"
Seeing this scene, the witch with eagle wings was furious. She raised her hand to summon her tin staff again, pointed it at the golden pillar of light, and gave the evil dragon an order.
"Kill them! Devour every thief trying to steal the gold, Ladon!"
"ROAR!!!"
The evil dragon erupted with immense magical power. Sound waves rippled through the air like translucent waves, blasting away the Servants fighting it as if they had hit a wall of steel.
Its enormous body, made of machinery and rock, also began to move amid the constantly venting steam.
Enraged and humiliated, the eagle-winged witch no longer cared about the consequences. She didn't have any wish to entrust to the Grail anyway, and as a Servant she didn't fear death to begin with.
If she could wipe out all the annoying pests in her way, then even being caught in the aftermath herself didn't matter!
"Stop! Circe!" Medea hadn't expected Circe to be this extreme, but thinking about it carefully, this aunt of hers really did have that kind of personality… she was starting to regret working with her.
"It's fine. Who do you think I am? I'll control the scale. I won't touch the Greater Grail!" The eagle-winged witch ignored Medea's warning and controlled Ladon to stretch its body to the limit, unleashing all the vast magical power inside it.
At this moment it wasn't just the "hundred heads." From every part of Ladon's body, powerful magic cannons comparable to Anti-Army Noble Phantasms fired out.
The Garden, Chaldea, the Red Servants, the platform... every opposing side was treated as a target.
In Circe's eyes, Iori, who had severely injured her, obviously deserved to die. But Chaldea's Master and the other Servants weren't any better.
Without the restraints from the Garden and the Servants, how could someone have slipped in and taken advantage of the situation?
"Senpai, watch out!"
Mash stepped forward with practiced decisiveness.
"[Lord Camelot: The Already Distant Ideal City]!"
"Boss! [The Small World That Encircles the Heavens]!"
"[My Lord Is Here]!"
A chalk-white city appeared within sacred radiance, protecting Chaldea's flesh-and-blood Master.
The other Servants didn't dare be careless either and released their Noble Phantasms one after another.
And amid all this chaos, only the platform had no one guarding it. One destructive wave after another slammed into the towering structure.
The solid rock was instantly ground into countless particles of dust under the torrent of energy, obscuring everything…
"The Greater Grail!" Amakusa, watching from the Garden through magecraft, immediately tensed up.
"No, this is…"
As the dust cleared, the Greater Grail had not been destroyed as imagined. It didn't even have a single scratch.
Nearly half the platform had been blown apart, but the destructive force had stopped right in front of the Greater Grail, as if an invisible wall had blocked it, leaving behind only a smooth cut surface.
"Bakudo #81: Danku."
A figure appeared within the Grail's radiance. He calmly walked to the edge of the cut and drew his longsword. But after a moment's thought, he sheathed it again, as if planning to face the evil dragon barehanded.
"Berserker!"
Circe's eyes widened. Her agitation made the divine patterns on her wings glow.
"Go! Ladon!"
"ROAR ROAR ROAR ROAR!!!"
The hundred heads waving under the light looked like demons enjoying a mad feast. A pale blue glow lit up in Ladon's eyes. Those full hundred pairs of pupils now resembled a sky full of stars. Nothing could hide.
Heavy...
Unbelievably heavy.
Layer upon layer of pressure fell onto Iori. His body heat was stripped away instantly, making him feel like he had fallen into an ice cellar. His whole body froze in place.
It's said that humans have an instinctive fear of certain sounds and shapes etched into their genes.
For example, the hissing of a snake, or inorganic vertical pupils. Hearing or meeting them makes people tense up without realizing it.
This is the primate instinct to seek benefit and avoid harm. In mythology, that instinct became the supernatural power of countless dragon-serpent monsters. Medusa, who could turn people to stone, was a typical example.
Ladon was undoubtedly one of the top-tier evil dragons. Under its gaze, no one could hide themselves. Even Servants would feel intimidated.
And when that binding force stacked a hundred times over, it became a curse as powerful as petrifying mystic eyes.
"ROAR!"
One dragon head lunged forward. Its long neck made it look more like a giant serpent. It opened its devouring jaws and swallowed Iori whole in one bite.
Bang!
Broken stones scattered. Iori's figure was nowhere to be seen.
"Did it work?" Circe frowned, instinctively feeling it couldn't be that simple.
Sure enough, the dragon head that had "swallowed" Iori couldn't close its jaws no matter what. It thrashed wildly, even bumping into the neighboring heads, as if something were stuck inside.
Looking closely, Iori was right between the upper and lower rows of fangs. He wasn't using any weapon. With both arms raised, he was holding the jaws apart purely with physical strength.
"Ha!"
With a single punch, the air rippled like thick liquid. The overwhelming force snapped Ladon's fangs, penetrated straight into the bone marrow, and shattered the skull along with it.
Amid the evil dragon's wail, Iori lightly jumped out, and while he was at it, kicked away another dragon head that came chasing after him.
Buzz!
Hoh!
Roar!
Scorching beams, razor-sharp fangs, invisible sound waves. The hundred-headed dragon frantically tried to tear Iori apart.
The black-haired boy remained completely at ease, weaving between dragon heads large enough to swallow a car.
Every time he struck, the sound of snapping tendons and breaking bones echoed from inside Ladon's body.
A moment later, Servants like Karna had already reformed their formation. But with the situation between friend and foe unclear, they didn't rush in to help.
Instead, they watched in amazement as Iori entangled the evil dragon using nothing but martial arts.
"Hm?"
Noticing the Servants had regained their fighting ability, Iori easily shook off the pursuit of three dragon heads. He leaped backward, tracing a graceful arc before landing steadily on the platform.
He didn't look like he was fighting. It felt closer to exercising, or a physical test. As if he were exploring just how far he could go.
The boy stood on the solid earth and stone. Inside his chest, a heart beat powerfully, sending scorching blood coursing through his body…
He didn't immediately launch a second attack. Instead, he closed his eyes and carefully felt this very moment… memorizing the subtlest reactions of his body, deeply experiencing every change…
He opened his eyes and raised his hand in surprise. The loose sleeve of his Shihakusho slipped down, revealing part of his forearm.
On the well-proportioned, beautifully lined muscle, there was actually a wound with bright red liquid flowing from it.
About four or five centimeters long. It had only cut flesh, not arteries, nerves, or bone. Even for an ordinary person it wouldn't be considered a very serious injury, much less for a "Shinigami" like Iori.
And yet, at this moment, Iori showed an expression of genuine disbelief. Curious, satisfied, even a little happy.
...Of course, he wasn't a masochist. He didn't have some strange quirk where getting hurt and bleeding made him excited.
The reason he reacted like this was because he felt "pain."
That wasn't something normally worth pointing out. Though Servants and Shinigami were spiritual bodies, they still possessed all the characteristics of "life." A body capable of desire would naturally also be able to feel pain.
However, there was still a difference… exactly what, Iori couldn't quite say. But the sensation of a spiritual body and one of flesh and blood truly wasn't the same.
On this point, Iori could now give an absolutely certain answer...
Because what he was feeling was undoubtedly the pain of a flesh-and-blood body. The pain of a "living person".
The impression was so vivid that Iori couldn't help curling the corner of his mouth.
"Ha… I'm bleeding… so this is what being 'alive' feels like? Not bad at all."
This excitement was hard to put into words. The thrill and the urge to fight tangled together inside him, making every pore open.
His bones cracked softly. Every muscle felt like a tightly wound spring, ready to release tremendous power at any moment.
...It seemed this newly obtained body, like Iori himself, couldn't wait to discover everything it was capable of.
And as it happened, there was no shortage of practice targets here, "Ready? Grit your teeth for me, beast!"
Iori stood on the platform. Though he wasn't as tall as the evil dragon's hundred heads, anyone looking at him would feel like he was looking down on everything.
"ROAR!!!"
Perhaps feeling slighted, the evil dragon left only thirty heads to watch Chaldea and the Red Servants, twenty to deal with the Garden in the sky, and used the remaining half to open their eyes wide, fixing the boy's arrogant figure in their gaze.
Buzz!!!
The heavy restraint descended on Iori again. This time Ladon didn't try to swallow him. Instead, it opened its mouths and spewed high-temperature flames.
As they connected together, they formed a sea of fire that fell down, completely engulfing the boy's figure…
Clang!
A cold, moist wind sliced through the sea of flames like countless sharp blades. Iori's unscathed figure appeared once more before the evil dragon Ladon.
His hand gripped the cold sword hilt. Abundant moisture rippled along the scabbard. When the blade was drawn, it quickly formed thin waves that covered the edge.
He swung once. A threadlike silver line flashed through the air...
Without any warning, one dragon head fell straight down.
"ROAR!!!"
The evil dragon Ladon grew even more furious. It had no concept of fear. As a summoned Phantasmal Species, its only purpose was to obey its summoner's command and devour all enemies here.
But this time, it had kicked an iron plate.
Clang!
Clang!
Clang!
Iori's body kept appearing in midair, approaching the dragon heads like a ghost, then cleanly cutting them down.
By the time Ladon focused its attention and other heads tried to rescue it, Iori had already used Shunpo to move elsewhere and continue attacking.
He never stopped moving. The evil dragon used its "hundred heads" to observe every enemy's movements, missing no detail. No one could hide before it.
So Iori used high-level Shunpo techniques, rapidly shifting positions at high frequency in short intervals to counter this astonishing observational ability of the "hundred heads".
Clearly, Iori had the upper hand. Controlling a hundred heads at once gave Ladon a huge home-field advantage, but to achieve that, when facing a complex situation, its thoughts often became too chaotic to coordinate.
At this moment, every time Iori appeared he would either break its bones or simply cut off another dragon head.
This filled Ladon with rage, but it often couldn't stop him in time, and sometimes even got counter-killed…
In just the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the evil dragon Ladon, which had previously left many Servants helpless in awe and had perfectly blocked great heroes like Karna and Achilles, had already lost twenty or thirty dragon heads.
Even if nothing else happened, if time kept passing, the battle between Iori and Ladon would end with the evil dragon's defeat… not to mention the Red Servants watching from the side like tigers eyeing prey.
If the Son of the Sun or the fastest hero joined the fight, Ladon's defeat would only accelerate further.
...Of course, from a god's-eye view, that worry was unnecessary.
Whatever Iori and his Master had done inside the Greater Grail to cause such a huge disturbance had already made Ritsuka realize he'd been deceived… right now, Chaldea and the Red Servants were far from being "allies."
Just as Ladon, or rather Circe, was wary of Chaldea entering the battle, Iori was also worried about interference from other Servants!
So he had to end this quickly. His newly obtained fleshly body burst with power that didn't match his youthful appearance.
The divine sword in his hand was the natural enemy of dragons and serpents. Every time the moisture-laden blade pressure fell, blood would surely spray.
'No, I can't just sit and wait for death... Circe took a deep breath and made up her mind.'
"At this point, the only option is to release everything you have. Roar at the world, you evil dragon standing at the end of twilight!"
"ROAR ROAR ROAR ROAR!!!"
The evil dragon, its entire body made of steel and earth, plated in gold and adorned with steam like something from a post-apocalyptic wasteland, raised its body.
With two heavy thuds, the armor on its chest automatically popped open. Inside was an endless void, deep and mysterious like a starry sky, with countless points of light flickering within.
As a super Phantasmal Species valued by the King of Gods and the Queen of Heaven, its strength naturally wasn't limited to just "never resting."
It was an evil dragon that lived at the end of the world. Its body connected to a conceptual "starry sky."
Its immense mass could crush everything. Once that power overflowed from its shell, it could completely destroy everything around it... even space itself.
However, doing so would also crush the evil dragon itself into powder. Its soul would return to the Inner Sea of the Planet until the next time it was summoned… This was a trump card that meant mutual destruction, not to be used unless absolutely necessary.
But clearly, Circe believed now was that necessary moment.
"Your name is Ladon, the one who devours all things!"
The endless void where starlight and darkness merged continued expanding from the cracked chest armor.
The tremendous attraction was like a massive black hole, twisting the surrounding space and pulling all matter inward.
But at that very moment, dazzling lightning erupted from Iori's body. A massive phantom condensed into substance under the infusion of an enormous amount of magical power.
It was a giant in armor, its face somewhat resembling Iori's, over a hundred meters tall.
Such enormous magical power and pressure was a miracle only possible by connecting to the Greater Grail.
"True Name Release. My name is Susanoo! The hero who slays dragons and serpents!"
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