Jeanne's words were like a cold mirror, reflecting the calculations deep within Kanjuro's heart that even he might not have been fully clear about. She expressionlessly pierced through his disguise: "No. You have clearly already predicted the ending."
Kanjuro was slightly stunned, then burst out laughing. The laughter carried a strange pleasure from being seen through, as well as a deeper obsession directed at Jeanne herself. He gently brushed Jeanne's silver-white hair, his movements as soft as if touching a fragile treasure, his eyes deep enough to suck her soul into them.
"My ending?" he whispered, his voice carrying a magnetic quality that was almost like a sigh. "The script was written long ago. The only variable, the unpredictable factor... has only ever been you, Jeanne."
He gazed into those ice-blue eyes that seemed to have frozen all emotion, revealing for the first time a sense of possessiveness that was almost defeat yet even more intense.
"I'm really liking you more and more." His fingertips slid across her cold cheek. "Liking you so much that... even though I desire your body so intensely, wanting to watch you struggle and sink under my control, making you ignite the flames of emotion because you hate me, only to be toyed with and extinguished by my own hands... what an ultimate enjoyment that would be."
His words were blunt and cruel, revealing his deepest intentions for Jeanne all along—not simple possession, but to completely defile that inner "cold clarity" she possessed, which even her fall hadn't fully erased. He wanted her to produce the most intense emotional fluctuations because of him, be it hate, pain, or humiliation.
However, he regretfully found that Jeanne was a woman who was almost cold-blooded and had no need for desire. Her physiology and psychology seemed separated by an eternal layer of ice; no matter how he stimulated her, it was difficult to stir any real ripples.
"So you went through all this trouble just for something like this?" Hearing this, Jeanne even curled her lips into a very faint, pitying sneer. "You can have this shell at any time, Kanjuro. To me, it has long since been no different from a suit of armor. But if you think that through physical contact you can make me feel any physiological affection for you, or stir my soul... then you needn't waste your efforts."
Kanjuro fell silent. Jeanne's absolute "lack of feeling" was like an unbreakable wall, which instead stirred a deeper obsession in him. His gaze moved past her, toward the golden figure in the distance struggling against the Cthulhu monster—Saber, Artoria.
"You are just like that woman." Kanjuro's gaze became complex, a mix of disgust and a strongly attracted irritability. "An existence that I extremely dislike, yet also makes me unable to look away. Her foolish persistence, her so-called 'King's' responsibility... it all makes me sick."
The corners of his mouth split open again into a dangerous, malicious smile.
"But... because of that, I want to see it even more. I want to see what it would be like if she were also made to act against her heart, to let her noble soul be stained with unwashable filth, and to let her... taste my 'flavor' amidst extreme contradiction and pain?"
Jeanne immediately understood that Kanjuro was plotting a new, vicious plan against Saber. And just then, the brilliance of Artoria's all-out "sword of promised victory" slammed into the chaotic energy spat out by the Cthulhu monster, erupting in a deafening roar. The shockwave formed by the surging magical energy even made the entire mountain tremble.
Kanjuro seemed touched by this violent energy collision, and his gaze shifted, landing on Conqueror King Iskandar, who was erupting with a majestic aura on the other side.
Iskandar felt Kanjuro's uncomfortable gaze, his brow furrowed and his mind uneasy. He instinctively disliked this man; that posture of seemingly seeing through everything and toying with everything made him, the Conqueror King, feel offended.
"Rider! That lunatic! Go kill him! He's still killing children!" Waver hid behind Iskandar, his face pale, his trembling finger pointing toward Uryu Ryunosuke, who was still frantically massacring children amidst the wreckage of the barrier below. Ryunosuke had gone completely insane, letting out meaningless howls as his dagger rose and fell continuously, bringing up sprays of blood like a demon crawled out of hell.
Conqueror King Iskandar looked in the direction Waver pointed, his thick brows furrowing, and for the first time, his heroic face showed pure, undisguised killing intent. He let out a laugh like thunder, trying to dispel the unease caused by Kanjuro's gaze:
"Haha! Good! Bullying the weak and massacring young children—such actions are worse than those of a thief! This King shall finish him personally!"
He stepped forward, his massive body blocking Waver like a mountain, the Sword of Cypriotes in his hand pointing at Uryu Ryunosuke. However, in the depths of his fire-filled eyes, a faint hint of vigilance always lingered—the corner of his eye never truly left that black-clad man in the distance, Kanjuro, who wore a gentle smile but seemed to control everything.
He knew that killing Ryunosuke was easy, but the true threat was always that unfathomable bystander. This battle was far from over.
Kanjuro's playful and provocative voice clearly pierced through the din of the battlefield, slithering into Iskandar's ears like a venomous snake:
(caaf)
"You must be the Conqueror King, Iskandar, right?" Kanjuro had his hands in his trench coat pockets, his posture lazy, but his gaze was as sharp as a scalpel as he looked the majestic king up and down. "I'm telling you, Uryu Ryunosuke—is under my protection!"
This unreasonable, almost thuggish declaration instantly ignited Iskandar's fury.
"You beast!!" The Conqueror King let out a thunderous roar, the Sword of Cypriotes trembling slightly from his anger. "What on earth do you want to do?! Trampling on life like this and protecting such a villain who massacres children—what exactly is your purpose?!"
Facing the Conqueror King's rage, Kanjuro didn't back down; instead, he revealed an even more ironic smile. He tilted his head slightly and asked back in a naive tone, as if discussing philosophy:
"Purpose? As a king, shouldn't one transcend mundane ethics and take one's own desires and hegemony as the highest standard? Why consider the feelings of these ants?" He spread his hands, as if stating a simple truth. "Your kingly way, your conquests—weren't they also built upon the bones and blood of countless 'ordinary people'? Why start caring about the lives of a few mere children now?"
Before his voice had even faded, Kanjuro's gaze casually swept across the ground. Then, he performed an action that made everyone's pupils contract and their spines go cold—he bent down and, with his black-gloved hand, easily picked up the head of a young child that had just been cut off by Uryu Ryunosuke. The expression on the head was frozen in extreme terror, eyes wide open, staring hollowly at the sky.
As if kicking an inconsequential ball, Kanjuro casually, even with a hint of "playfulness," kicked the head precisely to Iskandar's feet.
Thud, thud, thud—
The head rolled in front of the Conqueror King's heavy boots and stopped. Those lifeless, youthful pupils happened to look up, meeting Iskandar's downward gaze.
That gaze... was filled with the most primal dread before death, a lack of understanding of the violence, a lingering attachment to life, and pure fear toward the one inflicting pain.
Iskandar's majestic body suddenly stiffened. It wasn't that he hadn't seen death; his path of conquest was paved with bones. But to face the final terror of an innocently slaughtered young life at such close range and in such a sacrilegious manner... an indescribable surge, a mix of anger, disgust, and a hint of... a tremor even he was unwilling to admit, instantly gripped his heart. This wasn't fear of a powerful enemy, but an instinctive shudder at the pure, indifferent "evil" before him.
Kanjuro keenly caught the Conqueror King's fleeting wavering. He laughed out loud, as if he had discovered something extremely interesting. He leaned intimately toward Jeanne's ear beside him and whispered in a volume only the two of them could hear, his voice filled with insight and mockery:
"Did you see that, Jeanne? This is what they call a 'monarch'." His gaze swept across Iskandar's stiff back. "Claiming to be heartless and overbearing, viewing all living beings as straw dogs—it's nothing more than a magnificent coat to drape over their own selfishness and desires. When they truly face the most naked, most humble fear created by themselves (or their own kind), that high-and-mighty mask will also develop cracks."
His gaze turned back to Saber, who was still fighting the monsters in the distance.
"So sometimes, I feel that although Artoria is a 'hypocrite' indulged in impractical ideals, at least her 'hypocrisy' comes from a heartfelt desire to protect the people in her eyes. She is willing to bear responsibility for it, even to the point of self-sacrifice. Whereas this king of conquerors..."
The corners of Kanjuro's mouth curled into a look of extreme contempt.
"A monarch who is so sanctimonious, priding himself on his 'overbearing way' and enjoying the pleasure of conquest, yet never truly looking down at the corpses beneath his feet, is actually sometimes worse than a 'hypocrite'. At least a 'hypocrite' can occasionally reveal a sliver of 'Holy Mother'-like radiance, while they... Heh."
"What do you doubt?" Jeanne asked calmly. She had always maintained a cold kind of 'appreciation' for Kanjuro's unconstrained yet core-piercing analytical ability.
Kanjuro's gaze returned to Iskandar, his deep eyes flickering with the light of doubt and scrutiny. He spoke slowly, his voice not loud, yet clear enough for the shaken king of conquerors to hear distinctly:
"I have even doubted for a time... those great achievements of yours, Iskandar, in conquering the world, those illustrious military feats so widely praised in history books—how many of them are real? How many are merely exaggerated or even... fabricated out of thin air by you or your followers just to shape the image of a 'Great Conqueror'?"
These words, like the sharpest of daggers, were no longer a critique of moral behavior but a direct stab at the very foundation of Iskandar's existence—his kingly way, his glory, and the meaning of his being summoned into this world as a Heroic Spirit!
Iskandar's back trembled violently, and he suddenly clenched his fists, his knuckles cracking from the force. Kanjuro's questioning was more lethal than any Noble Phantasm attack because it shook his most cherished and unquestionable dream of 'conquest'.
The atmosphere of the battlefield became even more eerie and oppressive due to these soul-crushing words.
Standing amidst the corpses and chaos, Kanjuro was like a cold judge, interrogating the soul of a king in the most cruel manner. Kanjuro's cold and contemptuous rhetorical question was like the final straw that completely broke the dam of Iskandar's reason.
"Kanjuro!!! You have successfully enraged me!!" The roar of the king of conquerors shook the fields, filled with the fury of a king whose dignity had been trampled.
"That's right, I've enraged you—" Kanjuro's voice remained steady, yet it carried a chilling tone as if looking down at an ant, "—and what of it?"
"You dare... you dare doubt the reality of my conquest of the world!! You have touched my absolute bottom line!!" Iskandar's eyes were bloodshot, and the majestic magical energy throughout his body erupted like a tsunami! He raised his arms as if embracing the entire world, and scorching sand and wind instantly swept out with him as the center!
"Manifest! My Peerless Army!!"
Boom—!!!
The space of reality was forcibly overwritten and replaced! In the blink of an eye, the gloomy mountain peak scenery of Ryudoji Temple vanished, replaced by a boundless golden desert scorched by the blazing sun! The hot wind kicked up grit, blowing against the faces of every armored, fanatical, and loyal warrior who suddenly appeared.
Army of the King!
Thousands upon thousands, a dense and endless army of Heroic Spirits, holding various weapons and riding vigorous warhorses, surged like a torrent out of the long river of history, completely surrounding Kanjuro, Jeanne, and the small area where they stood! A murderous aura soared into the sky, even temporarily suppressing the maddening scent of the Cthulhu monsters permeating the air. This was the ultimate Noble Phantasm of the king of conquerors and his dearest friends, the manifestation of his hegemony and glory!
"Do you see this?! Mongrel!!" Iskandar stood before the thousands of troops, his voice like a great bell, attempting to crush Kanjuro's doubts with this absolute military might. "This is my kingly way! This is the proof of the bond between me and my subjects! How can it be slandered by an evil being like you!!"
However, facing this overwhelming army that would drive any Servant to despair, Kanjuro's reaction was merely... to laugh toward the sky.
"Haha... Hahahaha!!!"
His laughter echoed in the golden desert, filled with undisguised mockery and pity. He didn't even look at the boundless army; instead, his gaze fell upon the black sword of promised victory floating up in his hand, entwined with ominous shadows and ripples of destruction.
"Proof? Using numbers to prove reality? Iskandar, you are truly... adorably naive."
Following his words, that black holy sword slowly rose into the air, hovering above Kanjuro's head. On the blade, deep dark magical energy began to gather and compress frantically. It wasn't a simple magical beam, but as if it were extracting some deeper, more primordial power—it was the power of the eternal night treasury driven to its limit by the authority of the Gospel of Matthew, mixed with the essence of chaos connected by the dark bible.
An indescribable and terrifying pressure spread out from that black sword like water ripples! Space began to emit an overwhelmed wail, and the golden desert seemed to be stained with ink, beginning to grow dim. It wasn't murderous intent, but a more fundamental aura of annihilation, as if it wanted to return 'existence' itself to 'nothingness'!
Even Gilgamesh, who had been watching haughtily from the sidelines and even looked upon the Army of the King with disdain, suddenly narrowed his crimson snake-like pupils. For the first time, a look of unprecedented solemnity and a hint of... shock appeared on his handsome face! He clearly felt that the power Kanjuro was currently gathering had surpassed the scope of a general Noble Phantasm. The sense of 'ending' contained within it even made the divine blood in his body tremble instinctively!
"What is that..." he muttered to himself, the golden ripples behind him fluctuating uneasily.
Iskandar similarly felt that soul-freezing horror. He looked up at the black holy sword hovering in mid-air, which seemed to have become the focus of the world. His heart suddenly tightened, and an ominous premonition doused his entire body like ice water. The aura emitted by that sword made the thousands of troops he took pride in seem small.
"All forces—Charge!!!" The king of conquerors suppressed the unease in his heart and issued a death-defying command. He firmly believed that no matter what kind of enemy they faced, the bond and power of him and his subjects were enough to crush them!
"Roar—!!!"
Thousands of Heroic Spirits let out a world-shaking war cry, like a bursting torrent. Horse hooves crushed the yellow sand, and blades reflected the blazing sun as they launched a devastating charge toward Kanjuro, who stood there all alone, with the force of a mountain toppling into the sea! The torrent of steel instantly swallowed Kanjuro's position, and the raised dust blotted out the sun.
However, at the very moment that torrent of steel was about to completely submerge Kanjuro
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