Floor 37 — White Palace (White Palace).
The white had once simply been the color of rock.
Now it became a suffocating, deathly pale intent to kill—so dense it felt like the entire floor had turned its face toward them.
After the Bone King — "Move. Now."
"Oi, Emiya! Stop spacing out! Yeah, I know you're tired like a dead dog, but we're moving!"
Bete grumbled as he roughly shoved a stamina recovery potion into Shirou's hand.
"Thanks, Bete." Shirou forced the cap open and drank.
The duel with the "Bone King" had left his magic circuits in that dry, needle-sting pain that comes after complete depletion. Riveria had re-set his left arm's bones, but it still throbbed, deep and ugly.
"All units report ready!" Finn's voice echoed down the corridor. "We leave this area immediately. I have a… very bad feeling."
His thumb didn't just hurt anymore—it was spasming.
Which meant the incoming crisis was at least ten times worse than the Bone King.
The Floor "Hums" — Mana Goes Wild
The moment they prepared to depart—
HMMMMMMMM——
Not an explosion.
Not a monster's roar.
A low-frequency hum that struck straight into the soul.
Space across Floor 37 warped. Ambient mana became violent, chaotic—like the air itself was boiling.
"What is that sound?!" Tiona clamped her hands over her ears and collapsed to the floor.
"This is wrong…" Riveria went pale. Her staff shook violently. "The Great Source Mana is… boiling? No—it's gathering!"
Gathering around one point.
Not Finn.
Not Ais.
Not the twins.
Emiya Shirou.
Rejected — Like a Virus
"Looks like… I'm not liked," Shirou said quietly, lifting his gaze to the bone-white ceiling.
With Mind's Eye (True), the "red killing intent" wasn't what he saw anymore.
What he saw was black—absolute, pure rejection.
Like an immune system identifying a foreign pathogen and mobilizing every white blood cell to erase it.
To the Dungeon, Emiya Shirou—an 'Heroic Spirit' from another world—was a virus.
The Ground Turns to a Swamp
BOOM!!
Without warning, the floor under Shirou liquefied.
Solid white stone became a devouring swamp that wanted to eat him whole.
"EMIYA!" Ais reacted instantly—she lunged, reaching for him.
"DON'T!" Shirou roared.
He could feel it—if Ais touched him, the malice targeting him would swallow her too.
"Ariel—Repulsion!"
With the last scrap of his remaining mana, Shirou projected a small shield and used the blast recoil to violently shove Ais away.
"IDIOT!!" Ais' fingertips grazed his coat—
And then the white swamp snapped shut.
Shirou vanished from sight.
Not Falling — "Transferred"
THUD!
He didn't drop to a lower floor.
He was thrown—like a piece of waste being flushed—into a sealed space.
"Cough…!"
Shirou struggled up.
Still Floor 37, but not the maze outside.
A huge circular hall—completely enclosed.
No passages.
No exits.
Only white walls that writhed like living intestines.
"…A stomach?" Shirou let out a bitter laugh.
The mana density here was insane—pressure on his nerves so heavy even breathing felt like wading through iron.
This wasn't "the Dungeon" anymore.
This was the Dungeon's will.
And it was rejecting him as an intruder.
It was running antivirus.
It Analyzes Him — And Builds an "Antibody"
"Got it… so I've finally been noticed."
Shirou steadied himself against the wall.
He'd tried hard to blend into this world, careful as a transplant.
But his power growth—especially repeatedly using a Reality Marble, a large thaumaturgy that erodes reality—had pushed the Dungeon past tolerance.
It was done being patient.
GURGLE… GURGLE…
The floor at the hall's center bulged.
White rock poured inward from the walls like living matter.
It didn't birth something like a Minotaur or Goliath.
It was imitating.
Parsing Shirou's magecraft—
then reproducing it in the Dungeon's own way.
A massive sword of white stone rose from the ground.
Then arms.
Torso.
Head.
Seconds later—
A giant over five meters tall, forged entirely of ultra-hard white mineral, holding a greatsword, stood before him.
No facial features.
Only a giant black hollow—like a mouthless void that could swallow everything.
[Executioner].
A Floor 37 anomaly boss.
An immune-system "antibody" born for one purpose:
erase the foreign object.
It had no throat—yet it roared loud enough to crack eardrums.
The roar carried a single absolute command:
"Disappear."
Shirou Draws Anyway
"So that's the Dungeon's hospitality."
Shirou wiped blood from the corner of his mouth.
His mana was practically empty.
His body was in ruins.
And the enemy in front of him was custom-built to kill him.
Even so—
"Trace—On."
Black-and-white twin blades Kanshou & Bakuya appeared in his hands.
"Come."
His body trembled, but the sword tip stayed steady, aimed at the Executioner's chest.
"If you want me dead…"
"…it won't be that easy."
Overwhelming Stats — Plus "Disintegration Breath"
BOOM!
The Executioner moved.
Unlike normal monsters, it wasn't clumsy.
It was fast.
That white mineral greatsword fell with hurricane pressure—
CLANG!!
Shirou caught it with both blades.
His knees shattered instantly.
His whole body got hammered into the floor.
"So heavy…!"
This was far stronger than the Bone King—pure stat suppression.
And it wasn't done.
The hollow "face" split—
and spat a white mist.
Shirou felt danger and rolled away on instinct.
SSSSS—
The mist touched the ground and the hard rock crumbled into ash.
Not poison.
Decomposition.
A breath that breaks matter down into mana.
"Physical stats and magical disintegration?"
Cold sweat spilled down Shirou's spine.
"This isn't a boss."
"This is an incinerator designed to dispose of trash."
Desperate Refill — Eating Magic Stones
"…Then I don't have a choice."
Shirou gritted his teeth and pulled out the last few magic stones in his pocket—Lili's hidden stash she'd forced on him.
"Wasteful as hell… but we're here now."
He swallowed them.
Not the proper method—but in this pressure cooker, his body automatically ripped the mana out.
A little.
Barely enough.
Then he began the chant:
"I am the bone of my sword…"
"Steel is my body…"
"Fire is my blood…"
The Executioner sensed the threat.
It raised its greatsword again—this time the blade was wrapped in white decomposition light.
Shirou slammed his palm to the ground.
He didn't have the mana to unfold the full inner world.
So he did something else:
He injected mana into the earth.
"Unlimited Blade Works—"
"Sword Barrel—Open!"
Sword Barrel — "Win by Volume"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Blades erupted from the ground around Shirou like a steel tidal wave—surging toward the Executioner's greatsword.
"Win by quantity!"
If one sword can't stop it—
ten.
A hundred.
CRACK! CRACK!
Projected blades shattered the moment they touched the Executioner.
But the sheer mass of them forced its motion to slow—just for a heartbeat.
Shirou's eyes flashed.
"Now!"
He stepped on broken blades and launched upward.
Kanshou vanished from his hand—
replaced by a twisted dagger:
Rule Breaker (Pseudo).
He couldn't reproduce the original perfectly.
But even a momentary "cutting" of magical structure or contract—
was enough.
"STOP!"
He drove the dagger into the Executioner's chest—
straight into the giant core magic stone.
HMMMM—!
Purple light detonated.
The Executioner locked up.
Its huge body shuddered.
Cracks spidered across the white mineral armor.
"It worked—!"
The Dungeon Chooses Mutual Destruction
Then the Executioner's hollow face lit up red.
It didn't collapse.
It initiated self-destruction.
The Dungeon's will was absolute:
Even if it had to destroy the "antibody"—
it would drag the "virus" down with it.
"Damn it!"
Shirou tried to retreat—
but his arm was trapped, locked in place by the Executioner's stone muscle.
He couldn't pull free.
A voice thundered directly inside his mind:
"In this, judgment is delivered."
"Foreign object… excluded."
Detonation
BOOOOOOM————!!!
White light swallowed the entire hall.
A martyr explosion of raw mana.
Enough force to erase a section of Floor 37 from existence.
Outside — Ais Breaks
"EMIYA!!"
On the other side of the wall, Ais had been hacking at the rock like a madwoman.
Then her heart seized with pain.
She heard it.
That despairing explosion.
"…No. Don't…"
Her sword slipped from her fingers.
She collapsed to her knees.
Her golden eyes lost focus.
The man who always smiled and cooked for her.
The man who said he'd show her "infinity."
The man who promised he'd stay with her—
…was gone?
Finn's Counterpoint — "Not Dead Yet."
Finn stared at the magic stone tool tracking Shirou's life signs.
The light was fading fast—
but it hadn't gone out.
"…He's not dead."
"NOT DEAD!" Finn roared, snapping everyone out of the abyss. "His life reaction is still there! Weak, but he's still holding on!"
"Dig!" Finn shouted. "Even if you have to dig with your hands—dig him out!"
At Ground Zero — The Mad Trick
At the blast center—
Shirou wasn't dead.
But he was barely alive.
At the final instant, he'd done something insane.
He didn't defend.
He assimilated himself.
He converted his flesh into the concept of "sword"—
and hid inside the collapsing remains of the Executioner.
Now half his body was charred.
His consciousness was smeared and drifting.
Above him: collapsed rock, sealing every route out.
He coughed black ash.
Alive.
Only "alive."
And it got worse.
This was deep beneath Floor 37.
No water.
No food.
Air thinning.
He was critically wounded.
And the Dungeon's malice still remained—
the rock around him slowly writhing, trying to crush the surviving "virus" into paste.
"What a… hellish start."
Shirou laughed softly and closed his eyes.
This time…
he might have to use the final method left behind by "Red Archer."
But before that—
could he just sleep?
He was so tired.
In the darkness, the red-haired boy fell into unconsciousness.
And in his chest—
the Spirit Origin that once belonged to Senji Muramasa began, under this hopeless pressure, to undergo an unseen—
qualitative change.
....
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