Chapter 244
At the critical moment, Frankenstein raised her war hammer to block while frantically activating her innate Skill—Galvanism—attempting to convert the magical energy contained within the descending bombardment and discharge it into her surroundings, thereby neutralizing the attack itself.
"By the name of the Fifth Black Master, I command you—Berserker, unleash your greatest power and stop that attack!"
The voice of her Master suddenly rang through Frankenstein’s mind.
In the very next instant, her presence surged explosively.
It was the reinforcement of a Command Spell.
As her Master, Caules had been keeping a close eye on Frankenstein’s condition throughout the battle.
He had already begun to feel that something was wrong when she charged too deeply into the enemy formation by herself.
And the moment he noticed the terrifying bombardment gathering in the sky while the Dragon Tooth Warriors below deliberately swarmed around her to prevent her escape, the sense of danger in his heart shot straight to its peak.
Almost instinctively, he chose to use a Command Spell to strengthen his Servant.
The amount of magical energy contained within that beam was simply too horrifying.
To make absolutely certain Frankenstein had enough power to survive it, Caules did not stop after using only one.
He burned all three Command Spells in a single breath.
According to the conventional mindset of magi, that was an extraordinarily dangerous decision.
A Servant’s power far surpassed that of most modern magi, while Command Spells were effectively the only reins a Master possessed to restrain and compel such overwhelmingly powerful beings.
Once those Command Spells were exhausted prematurely, a Servant who was no longer bound by any meaningful form of coercion might refuse orders entirely—or, in more extreme cases, even turn against their own Master.
Yet Caules still used them.
There had been no careful weighing of gains and losses behind his decision, nor any calculation of how it might affect the Holy Grail War afterward.
He simply did not want his Servant to be hurt.
"RRRRAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
Reinforced by three Command Spells in succession, Frankenstein’s magical energy surged to an entirely different level.
The efficiency of Galvanism rose dramatically, allowing her to absorb an enormous quantity of magical energy from the incoming bombardment and draw it into her own body.
Her physical capabilities and magical energy were both pushed to unprecedented heights.
For a brief moment—
She actually managed to hold back the Empress’s terrifying beam.
Seeing that the situation had not yet become hopeless, Frankenstein activated another one of her Skills.
Overload.
A Skill that deliberately forced her output beyond its normal limits despite knowing full well that doing so would injure her own body.
Frankenstein converted the magical energy accumulated through Galvanism into an electrical current exceeding the capacity her body could safely endure, then transformed all of it into raw output, causing the destructive power of her weapon to increase explosively.
Every scrap of strength she possessed was gathered into the war hammer in her hands.
Then she drove it upward, attempting to break through Semiramis’s bombardment head-on.
"They’re holding each other back..."
Caules clenched his fists tightly, silently urging his Servant onward with everything he had.
"There’s still a chance..."
Crack...
Crack—
The faint sound of something beginning to fracture reached Frankenstein’s ears.
Her spirits immediately rose.
Believing that she had finally begun breaking through the attack, she summoned every last reserve of strength and pushed harder.
"How astonishing."
High above, Semiramis watched the scene with genuine surprise.
Even she could not help but offer Frankenstein a trace of admiration.
"Unfortunately..."
A faint smile appeared on the Queen of Assyria’s face.
"The difference between our power is simply too great."
She snapped her fingers.
BOOM!
The output of the magical bombardment increased abruptly.
Frankenstein’s resistance shattered in an instant.
At the very last moment, she turned her head toward Caules.
Their eyes met across the battlefield.
For that single instant—it seemed as though time itself had stopped.
And somewhere within the roar of magical energy, Caules thought he heard Frankenstein’s faint farewell.
"Good... bye..."
BOOOOOOM!
The pillar of light struck the ground.
Frankenstein’s small body disappeared completely beneath the overwhelming radiance.
The explosion unleashed a violent shock wave and hurricane in every direction, hurling the nearby Dragon Tooth Warriors through the air.
Those closest to the point of impact were shattered before they even hit the ground, reduced to showers of white bone fragments.
The homunculi fared little better.
Many were struck by the shock wave with such force that their internal organs were destroyed outright, leaving them collapsed across the battlefield with no hope of standing again.
"BERSERKER!"
Caules shouted without thinking.
But there was nothing he could do.
He could only stand there and watch everything happen before his eyes.
Tears of guilt and regret slowly ran down his face.
"I really am... a useless Master."
Caules lowered his gaze toward the back of his hand.
The Command Spells had completely faded away.
His voice carried bitter self-mockery.
If he had recognized the Red faction’s intentions sooner...
If he had provided some form of support that could have improved Frankenstein’s mobility...
If he had been stronger himself...
Perhaps—
Perhaps there might still have been some way to save her!
Bang!
Caules drove his fist into the trunk of a nearby tree.
Blood immediately covered his knuckles, but he did not seem to notice the pain.
"Caules..."
Fiore looked toward her younger brother with obvious concern.
She wanted to comfort him, but no words seemed appropriate.
"I’m fine, Nee-san."
Caules closed his eyes.
The final image of Frankenstein looking toward him before disappearing beneath the beam surfaced once more in his mind.
Something hot began burning in his chest.
Outwardly, he remained calm.
But beneath that calm exterior, his emotions were like a volcano on the verge of eruption.
"Even without a Servant..."
His eyes opened again.
"I’m not going to let them do whatever they want."
Caules made the decision silently, then took over part of the command responsibilities from his sister and began organizing the surviving homunculi against the Dragon Tooth Warriors.
"I won’t let you get away with this."
...
"To resort to such a contemptible ambush... truly disgraceful."
Some distance away, Vlad III had also witnessed the enormous beam descending from the Hanging Gardens.
His voice was filled with cold contempt.
"As expected of invaders. No matter the era, your methods remain as ugly as ever."
Without either combatant noticing exactly when it had happened, the battle between Vlad and Karna had already moved far from Yggdmillennia’s estate.
Even from that distance, however, a bombardment of such magnitude was impossible to miss.
"So Berserker has already been defeated?"
Karna withdrew his gaze from the distant explosion and spoke quietly.
"It could hardly be helped. After all, she is Assassin."
"What?"
Vlad III stared at him as though he had misheard.
A magical bombardment on that scale was already firmly within the realm of Greater Magecraft.
For someone to produce such destructive power through magecraft, Vlad would have expected a magus from the Age of Gods—or, at the very least, a Servant summoned under the Caster Class.
And Karna was telling him the person responsible was an Assassin?
"You must be joking!"
Vlad roared.
His Noble Phantasm activated once again.
"Kazikli Bey: Lord of Execution!"
Countless stakes erupted from the surrounding terrain and converged upon Karna from every direction.
Vlad had to eliminate the enemy in front of him as quickly as possible and find some way to force his way into the Hanging Gardens.
Only by entering that fortress would he have any opportunity to defeat the magus controlling such terrifying bombardments.
Remaining on the ground would only turn each of them into stationary targets, allowing the enemy above to eliminate them one by one.
And anyone with even the slightest sense could guess that the Hanging Gardens itself would be filled with traps, mechanisms, and deadly defenses at every turn.
He could not invade such a place alone.
He would need more allies.
’Archer is one...’
Then another figure came to mind.
’And that young man...’
Vlad’s eyes narrowed.
’He is fighting the legendary hero Achilles.’
’You had better survive, boy.’
Vlad III’s fighting spirit was burning stronger than ever.
Unfortunately, reality immediately delivered another blow.
Just as his battle with Karna resumed—
BOOOOOOM!
A tremendous roar shook the distant battlefield.
Vlad instinctively turned toward the source of the sound.
The sight before him nearly made him lose his grip on his spear.
"What in the world is happening now?"
...
High above Yggdmillennia’s estate, at the very center of the Hanging Gardens, Semiramis stood tall with both arms spread wide.
An almost fanatical expression appeared across her beautiful face.
"Come, then..."
Her voice echoed through the enormous fortress.
"Greater Grail."
"Come to me."
As Semiramis spoke, the central section of the Hanging Gardens began glowing with a deep violet light.
Then—
An immense force of attraction erupted from within it.
RUMBLE—!
A deafening roar shook the entire Yggdmillennia estate.
Every layer of rock and soil illuminated by the violet light shattered almost simultaneously.
The earth was torn apart.
Layer after layer of stone and soil was ripped upward, spiraling into the sky before being swallowed by the vast, seemingly bottomless opening beneath the Hanging Gardens.
"AAAAAHHH!"
Several Yggdmillennia magi and homunculi were caught completely off guard and swept upward along with the debris, spinning helplessly through the air.
At that moment, however, no one had the attention to spare for them.
Because something far more magnificent—
Far more sacred—
Had begun emerging from beneath the earth.
It was an enormous spherical structure wrapped in layers of rock.
From a distance, it resembled a gigantic egg whose shell had been violently cracked open.
Through the broken gaps in that rocky exterior, everyone could see something shining within.
A vast object radiating sacred golden light.
Its indistinct shape seemed almost like a Buddha lowering its head in silent contemplation, yet from another angle it resembled a god gazing compassionately upon the mortal world below.
Its exact appearance could not be seen clearly.
But there was no mistaking what that colossal object truly was.
The Greater Grail.
And in that otherwise solemn moment, an entirely inappropriate thought surfaced in more than one person’s mind.
’So the Greater Grail is basically a giant egg?’
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