"Hey, stop spacing out, Adam. Hurry up and tell me where the enemy is!"
"I'm already ready."
Ciel said as she shifted the power within her body, instantly switching from her second Saint Graph in her instructor uniform to her dazzling third Saint Graph—the cosmic idol form.
In other words, Cosmic Ciel.
The world of Servant universes could be quite comedic, and the combat power of gag characters was naturally on another level. In this state, Ciel's strength was practically unrivaled, an existence far beyond normal parameters.
Right now, the cosmic-version Ciel was cracking her knuckles, eager for a fight.
The enemy that required Ciel's presence must be incredibly powerful, someone capable of standing against her.
Right?
What about the Vlad III who was currently scattered in pieces across the ground?
When Adam had summoned Ciel earlier, he naturally did so because he faced an opponent who needed her to handle. Given the high-intensity battles she was usually involved in back in his Chaldea, Ciel had instinctively assumed there would be a worthy adversary waiting for her here as well.
Because of that assumption, she hadn't realized that she had already casually one-punched the enemy into oblivion while still in her second Saint Graph.
"Actually… you've already taken care of the enemy, Ciel."
Adam looked at the scattered fragments of Vlad III's Spirit Origin lying around and spoke quietly.
"Huh? When?" Ciel looked at him in confusion.
"Just now, with that punch of yours. The one you hit was Vlad III—the enemy I summoned you to defeat." Adam pointed toward the ground where Vlad III had disintegrated into pieces of Spirit Origin.
Only after hearing Adam's words and looking where he pointed did Ciel remember her earlier punch.
"You mean… the guy I just punched was the enemy?"
"And he was Vlad III?"
"But wasn't Vlad III supposed to be pretty strong? How did he get taken out by a single punch from me?"
Ciel had automatically compared the Berserker's strength to the Vlad III she knew from Adam's Chaldea. The Vlad III (Berserker) in Adam's Chaldea had been heavily strengthened through training, skill upgrades, and Noble Phantasm enhancements, creating an enormous gap compared to this version.
A level 1 Servant defeating a max-level, fully ascended and skill-maxed version of himself? The Vlad III from Adam's Chaldea could at least put up a decent fight against Ciel.
But getting instantly reduced to Spirit Origin fragments with one punch was completely outside her expectations.
Honestly, if it weren't for the clear Servant Saint Graph signature she had sensed from him, she would have assumed his strength was only on the level of an average Dead Apostle.
The numerical strength of the enemies she normally faced was simply on a completely different scale. It took her a moment to adjust to the much lower power level of the Servants in the first Singularity.
Adam then explained to her that they were currently in Singularity F—the very first Singularity—not the high-difficulty late-game environment of his original Chaldea.
Ciel immediately understood, but her attention had already shifted away from why Vlad III was so weak. There was something far more interesting occupying her mind.
Her eyes sparkled with excitement as she looked at Adam. "Adam, are you saying this is the very first Singularity you experienced before?"
"Yes, this is it. Why, Ciel? Do you have an idea?"
After receiving confirmation, Ciel's strong curiosity about Adam's past adventures flared up. All traces of her earlier resentment about working overtime had vanished.
"Adam, even though I've already completed the task you summoned me for… can I stay here for a while? I want to witness everything you go through in this Singularity."
Ciel stared at him with hopeful eyes, clearly eager for a positive answer. She desperately wanted to remain by his side right now.
She had only ever heard about Adam's Singularity conquests from others before. Even then, she had shown immense interest—after all, it was the story of the man she loved. How could she not be interested?
Still, she had always regretted that she could only listen. If possible, she wanted to experience it firsthand.
Now it was different. Adam could summon her directly. She could watch his story up close—or even participate in it.
But she also noticed the scattered remains of Vlad III on the ground. Her mission was technically complete. From a combat standpoint, Adam no longer needed her.
Even so, she still wanted to stay and see everything Adam would experience in this Singularity.
Adam could tell from her words that this request came from her deep feelings for him. She wanted to see more of him, more directly.
Looking at her expectant expression, Adam hesitated for less than a tenth of a second before his heart softened and he agreed.
"Of course you can, Ciel."
"Though when I'm dealing with enemies, I might need to switch out the Servants I have deployed. You may be sent back to Chaldea temporarily, but I'll summon you again once I'm done."
Ciel's face lit up with joy at his agreement, but a hint of disappointment flashed across it when she heard the second half.
"But I want to watch you the entire time."
"I don't want to miss even a single moment."
Ciel was being very greedy about this. She wanted to witness every second of Adam's experience in the Singularity.
Adam's eyes showed a brief flicker of conflict. His plans had just been thrown into disarray.
His feelings for Ciel ran very deep. They had known each other for many years before he ever joined Chaldea. Normally, he would have agreed without any hesitation.
The reason for that tiny moment of hesitation was his current deployment cost:
Deployment Cost — 32/60
What he planned to do next was head to the battlefield where Carmilla was fighting Elizabeth Bathory.
He already had an idea for how to deal with Carmilla.
Carmilla absolutely despised Elizabeth Bathory, her past self. Even in this first Singularity, she had been searching for traces of Elizabeth, intending to find and eliminate her completely. To Carmilla, Elizabeth was nothing short of mental pollution.
Over the years in Chaldea, the number of Servants hadn't just increased in the Artoria variety. There were also the Elizabeth Bathory variants that kept appearing during Halloween events and other occasions.
Adam had originally planned to summon every single Elizabeth in front of Carmilla just to give her a real shock.
In total, he had eight 4-star Elizabeths and one 5-star.
Each 4-star cost 12 deployment points, while the 5-star cost 16.
8 × 12 + 16 = 112 points needed in total.
The bad news: His current maximum deployment cost was only 60.
The good news: His emotion value had already reached 150,000 points.
Adam was quite fond of his emotion points. Besides using them to increase his deployment capacity through the emotion pool lottery, he had a deep attachment to gacha mechanics from his past life.
Even with 150,000 emotion points, he had planned to convert half of them (70,000 points) into 35 deployment points.
60 + 35 = 95—still far short of 112.
He was short 17 points, which meant he needed another 34,000 emotion points.
He had been willing to grit his teeth and reduce his planned gacha pulls to make it work.
But now, with two additional fixed 5-star Servants, the required total jumped to 144 points.
Even if he converted all 150,000 emotion points, that would only give him 75 more points. Added to his base, it would reach 135—still not enough.
As for the other 5-star Servant besides Ciel…
Dozens of meters away, two Servants were watching the situation.
One was Kiyohime, looking at Ciel with extreme wariness as if facing a powerful enemy. Beside her stood Draco, who was glaring at Ciel with clear displeasure.
Kiyohime wasn't an issue since she had been summoned naturally in this Singularity and didn't cost any deployment points.
But Draco…
Adam hadn't dismissed her yet because she had stubbornly insisted—with her usual tsundere attitude—on staying by his side a little longer. Of course, Adam had interpreted her tsundere words accordingly.
At the time, he had agreed on impulse.
If Ciel also stayed by his side, his deployment cost would remain locked at 32/60.
The more fixed Servants he kept deployed, the fewer new ones he could summon.
If he really wanted to bring out that many Elizabeths, he would have to dismiss the two 5-star Servants first—Draco and the Ciel in front of him.
But when he saw the disappointed look in Ciel's eyes, his heart softened again.
Adam was faced with a choice: Satisfy Draco and Ciel by only summoning a few Elizabeths in front of Carmilla, or disappoint them by sending them back so he could summon all of them?
This time he hesitated much longer—fully 0.2 seconds, double the previous hesitation.
In the end, his heart chose the former: to satisfy Draco and Ciel.
His original goal of summoning all the Elizabeths in front of Carmilla was to farm emotion points, but emotion points were nowhere near as important to him as Ciel and Draco were.
Ciel was still looking at him with those sparkling, expectant eyes.
Adam let out a helpless sigh. He really couldn't say no to her.
"Alright, Ciel. I won't send you back to Chaldea while we're in this Singularity. After all, how could I say no when I like you this much?"
Adam agreed to her request and even shot back with a direct, heartfelt line.
Ciel's idol-like face instantly flushed red with embarrassment.
Just moments ago she had boldly declared that she wanted to stay by his side and watch him, her love completely unconcealed. Yet the moment Adam returned fire with a straightforward attack, she became too shy to even meet his eyes.
Ciel was always high-attack but low-defense in front of Adam. Because she cared about him so deeply, she could never withstand his direct advances.
After enjoying the sight of a flustered Ciel for a moment, Adam began deciding which Elizabeth Bathory variants he would summon for the upcoming confrontation with Carmilla.
"Hmm… Better not summon the original one. I should save the Halloween version, the Brave version, and the Cinderella one… Maybe skip the mech version for now…?"
Adam scrolled through his Servant list, carefully selecting from his collection of Elizabeth Bathorys.
After some consideration, he tentatively settled on three 4-star Elizabeths he could summon: Elizabeth Bathory (Halloween), Elizabeth Bathory (Cinderella), and Elizabeth Bathory (Brave).
Besides those three, he could still bring out two more 4-star Elizabeths.
As he continued scrolling and pondering which two to pick, his hand suddenly stopped. His eyes widened and he leaned forward slightly in excitement.
"Wait… how could I forget about her?"
There was one Elizabeth who could perfectly solve his current predicament.
The issue of insufficient deployment cost.
The inability to summon that many Servants.
But what if one of the Servants he summoned could summon other Servants herself?
That particular Elizabeth belonged to the Pretender class.
Her Noble Phantasm allowed her to summon all the other Elizabeths, provided the conditions were met.
That Elizabeth was:
Eliza the Nine-Tattooed Dragon!
***
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