Meanwhile—inside the Einzbern castle.
"Damn it…"
Kayneth's mood had plunged straight into the abyss.
Not long ago, he had felt it with brutal clarity: his contract with Lancer had been severed.
It was something he hadn't foreseen—something he absolutely could not accept.
Diarmuid had been holding an overwhelming advantage just moments before. Everything had been progressing according to plan. So why had he been eliminated so abruptly?
Had another Servant launched a sneak attack?
It was possible.
But even so, it shouldn't have ended like this. Even with interference, Diarmuid shouldn't have fallen so quickly. Kayneth knew exactly how strong his Servant was.
So what the hell happened?
This sudden twist doused the last embers of Kayneth's earlier confidence.
He looked at Irisviel—cornered, driven to the brink—his killing intent thickening into something almost tangible.
A flawless plan had collapsed into farce: Diarmuid's unexpected death, and then Iskandar—who should have been striking alongside him—being stalled by an attendant so absurd it bordered on the surreal.
To Kayneth, it felt like the gods of fate were openly mocking him, watching every scheduled piece slide out of his grasp.
With Lancer gone, this was already a crushing defeat. Saber could return at any moment. If he delayed, he would simply be wiped out.
He had only two choices left.
One: turn and run immediately, preserve himself, rebuild strength, and wait for another chance.
But that option was, to Kayneth, a humiliation too vicious to swallow. To flee with his tail between his legs would be to deny everything he'd done—to make Diarmuid's sacrifice meaningless.
Kayneth couldn't accept it. Not even in death.
And he could feel it—if he ran now, even if he lived, he would never again be able to claim he had defeated that wretched "destiny" he so despised.
So he chose the second option without hesitation.
He stared at Irisviel—forced back, nowhere left to retreat—and made his final decision.
Kill her, and drag Saber down with her.
Or capture her, and use her to control Saber.
Kayneth had set up a masking barrier in this area, so Irisviel didn't know the battle outside had already been decided. She didn't dare use a Command Spell to summon Saber, terrified she might pull him into an ambush.
Of course, at this distance, Kayneth had no intention of giving her that chance anyway.
The instant she tried to invoke a Command Spell, he would kill her—without mercy.
Because this was his last chance.
And also his best chance.
If he could eliminate Saber—the greatest threat on the board—then even without Lancer, he and Rider could still force a path to victory. If he could wipe out or seize the Einzbern competitor entirely, the war wasn't over.
But if he fled now—if he gave that pair time to regroup—what awaited him would be the fiercest retaliation imaginable.
So he would cut the problem out at the root.
If he acted, he would act to the end.
"Die for me, you Einzbern homunculus."
With no hesitation, once he had driven Irisviel into a dead end, Kayneth pulled several mercury vials from within his clothes and hurled them at her.
"Boil—my blood!"
The instant the vials shattered, the mercury surged outward. Under Kayneth's control it split into dozens of razor-edged blades, whipping toward Irisviel in a killing storm—cold, precise, merciless—aiming to sever her limbs and take her alive.
"Ah…"
Chased without pause, now pressed into absolute desperation, Irisviel shut her eyes in despair as the blades came screaming in.
She had tried everything.
Against a fully prepared Lord like Kayneth, every trick she'd attempted had been child's play. Every technique she knew from the Einzbern lineage had been dismantled with ease.
And he hadn't given her even a single opening to escape.
This was the end.
All that waited for her was a painful conclusion.
So she closed her eyes.
Unlike other homunculi, Irisviel wasn't a "person" in the normal sense—this personality named Irisviel existed only to house what lay within her: the Lesser Grail's vessel.
She had always known that. She had always been prepared.
But the death she had accepted was meant to come quietly, at the proper time—not like this, not cut down in disgrace.
She had only just begun to taste the real world.
Only just begun to see what existed beyond the castle walls.
She hadn't even had time to savor it, to truly feel it—
and now the preordained death surged toward her anyway.
Like fate was laughing at her.
She could have endured darkness—if she had never seen the light.
But she had seen it now.
And that made it unbearable.
She wanted, so badly, to see this world a little longer. To feel more of what she'd never been allowed to feel—
beauty.
And now she would return to endless darkness, waiting for the extinguishing of her life.
Bang. Bang. Bang!
Just as Irisviel waited—eyes closed—for pain and death to arrive, several dull gunshots shattered her thoughts and dragged her back.
The blades never struck.
The agony never came.
Instead, a warm hand seized her hand and yanked her behind it.
"Stay behind me. Don't run. I'm taking over from here, Irisviel."
"Huh…? You are—?"
Hearing her name, Irisviel slowly opened her eyes.
A black-haired boy stood in front of her, shielding her completely—steady, focused, protecting her as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Ritsuka had arrived in time.
His Mystic Eyes were already open.
At the exact moment Kayneth's Volumen Hydrargyrum formed into blades, Ritsuka fired—precisely, impossibly—striking the "points of death" within the magecraft itself, destroying the phenomenon at its root.
Kayneth's attack collapsed before it could fully manifest, and Irisviel was snatched back from the brink.
"What the hell is this?!"
Kayneth stared, disbelief twisting his face, as his supreme Mystic Code was shattered by bullets from angles so viciously exact that the attack didn't merely disperse—it died. And worse… it wouldn't re-form.
His eyes widened, almost feral.
Volumen Hydrargyrum was a treasure he trusted absolutely. He could even withstand the red Assassin's mystic bullets with it.
So how could a sudden black-haired boy destroy it so easily?
What had he just done?
"How did you do it?" Kayneth snarled.
"Who are you?!"
"Fujimaru Ritsuka," the boy answered flatly, raising a handgun with an almost obscene sense of confidence. "A Master in this Holy Grail War. Just a passing magus—who's here to stop you."
And he didn't give Kayneth time to think.
Ritsuka squeezed the trigger again.
Gunfire thundered through the corridor as fresh rounds screamed toward Kayneth—each one aimed at a lethal point.
"Please retire peacefully, Director Kayneth."
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 90)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 95)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 80)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter70)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter70)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter50)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter60)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 30
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 30
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