Chapter 138
He forced his trembling hands into his lap and tried to piece together his fractured memories. He remembered the dark highway. He remembered the cold, synthetic blade pressing against his neck. The tiny, black-cloaked girl had held him hostage, using his life as leverage.
“Command your Servant. Tell him to unleash his Noble Phantasm.”
He remembered the sheer absurdity of the demand. What kind of enemy takes a Master hostage, only to order them to have their Servant fire their ultimate weapon at the attacker’s own ally? It made absolutely zero tactical sense. He had thought the girl was insane.
But with the blade breaking his skin, he hadn’t argued. He had used his telepathic link to command Siegfried.
His last memory was the blinding flash of Balmung illuminating the night sky. Right after the light faded, the blade left his neck, and two small hands had shoved him hard in the back. The ground beneath him had vanished, replaced by a golden tunnel.
He had fallen, and now he was here.
I’ve been captured, Gordes realized, his shoulders slumping in defeat. This is a prison.
But why was he still alive? In a Holy Grail War, a captured Master was a dead Master. If the enemy wanted to eliminate the Black Faction, slitting his throat would have been the most efficient method.
She kept me alive for a reason, his magus brain began to rationalize. Magi only take prisoners if they need raw materials. A battery. A sacrifice for a high-level ritual. A hostage to control Saber.
None of the options were good. He had to find a way out. He had to save himself.
He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the throbbing pain in his rear. As he looked around the endless white, he remembered something. Just before he hit the ground, he had seen a speck of green in the distance.
Without any other options, Gordes began to waddle toward the spot where he had seen the color, praying for answers.
….
In a completely different sector of the infinite white void, the air distorted once more.
A golden portal opened, and a figure was unceremoniously dumped onto the white floor.
It was a young woman with long blonde hair, clad in silver armor and an intricate silver headpiece. Unlike Gordes, she did not fall freely. Her arms and torso were tightly bound by a thick, pitch-black chain tipped with a diamond-shaped blade.
However, the moment her boots touched the ground, the black chain dissolved, turning into a shower of golden particles that quickly faded into nothingness.
Freed from her restraints, Ruler instantly leaped to her feet, her blue eyes scanning the environment with sharp, combat-ready intensity.
She remembered the fight clearly.
The hurricane winds. The petite girl hovering in the sky. The sheer, overwhelming speed of the enemy’s movements.
Jeanne had fought valiantly. Her Revelation skill had warned her of every incoming strike, acting as an ultimate sixth sense. But knowing an attack is coming and being fast enough to dodge it are two entirely different things.
The black chains had moved like living vipers, anticipating her dodges, wrapping around her weapon, and finally restricting her arms. It had taken all her focus just to parry, let alone launch a counterattack.
The result was undeniable. She had lost.
Jeanne bit her lip, a wave of bitter frustration washing over her.
It wasn’t just the defeat that stung. It was the crushing realization of how she had been defeated. As the fight progressed, she had felt it distinctly: her opponent had been holding back. The cloaked girl hadn’t used her full speed. She hadn’t used lethal force. She had simply played with Jeanne, tiring her out before capturing her like a wayward bird in a net.
Clatter.
Jeanne looked down. Lying on the pure white floor right next to her boots was her holy battle standard, Luminosité Eternelle.
The enemy had thrown her weapon in right after her.
It was a silent, arrogant message: You can have your weapon. It won’t help you here. Your struggles are meaningless.
“Phew…”
….
The more Jeanne dwelled on her defeat, the heavier the frustration in her chest became.
She stopped walking, closed her eyes, and took a long, deep breath. She let the cool, sterile air of the white void fill her lungs, forcing the anxiety out as she exhaled. Panic would not help her escape. Anger would not break these invisible walls. Even as a prisoner, she was still the Ruler. She needed to observe, analyze, and act.
“I never imagined someone like that existed in this era,” she murmured to the empty space.
As she resumed her march across the infinite, featureless plain, her restless mind began to settle. She reviewed the intelligence the cloaked girl had given her. The Red Faction wanted her dead; the Black Faction wanted to use her. It was a bleak picture of a Holy Grail War that had rotted before it even truly began.
However, Jeanne was not one to blindly trust the words of an enemy who had just imprisoned her. She needed to escape, meet the Masters of both factions, and judge their intentions with her own eyes.
….
In the world she had been taken from, the script of fate had been thoroughly shredded.
Because of Stell’s calculated interventions, Jeanne had not encountered Karna on the highway. Because of Stell, she had not been rescued by Siegfried and Gordes. The predetermined events of the Great Holy Grail War were crumbling, replaced by a new, unpredictable narrative.
Unseen by the warring magi and their legendary heroes, a mechanical shadow had stretched over the entire country of Romania. Stell’s grand design was already in motion, and the inhabitants of this world were merely pieces on a board they didn’t even know existed.
How this corrupted war would end was now a question no prophecy could answer.
….
Ten minutes had passed. Or perhaps it had been an hour.
Jeanne continued to walk, her silver sabatons clanking softly against the pristine floor.
She was lost.
In a space devoid of landmarks, shadows, or even a horizon, the concept of direction was meaningless. It felt as though the creator of this pocket dimension had taken a planet and flattened it into an endless, white sheet of paper.
Jeanne stared straight ahead, a profound sense of helplessness creeping into her heart. She couldn’t even tell if she was walking in a straight line.
This space was unnatural in its perfection. Before being captured, Jeanne had fought on a dusty, cracked highway. Her boots were caked with dirt and ash. By all logic, she should be leaving a trail of muddy footprints across this immaculate white floor.
A few minutes ago, hoping to use her own tracks as a point of reference, she had turned around.