mtl008 Chapter 68: A System Error Titled the Holy Grail
Chapter 68: A System Error Titled the Holy Grail
The ruins of the Linglong Pavilion workshop trembled in the afterglow of the Holy Sword.
However, the anticipated all-encompassing end did not come.
Instead, there was a kind of "system crash" that defied the logic of magic.
Arthur was the first to sense something was wrong; his Dragon Force River was tightening on its own.
The golden dragon power that was flowing smoothly in the riverbed was now blocked by something invisible.
The entire space seemed to reject his presence!
As his power continued to rise, the "Great Grail" system, which served as the cornerstone of this Holy Grail War, finally let out a mournful cry of despair.
Arthur is not a spirit composed of ether summoned by the Holy Grail, but a living king with active cells and the heart of a dragon's furnace.
His heart was beating, his blood was flowing, and every cell was generating its own magic.
For the Holy Grail ritual, which was designed to accommodate the spirits of the dead, it was like an overflow code forcibly inserted into an outdated system.
His quality is so high that the system cannot identify whether he is a Master, a Servant, or some kind of being completely outside the rules.
So the system chose the simplest approach...marking it as a "foreign object" and then attempting to delete it.
"...What is that?" Misaya asked, pointing tremblingly to the center of the hall.
The particles seeping from the void rift where Arthur clashed with the three Servants were no longer magical light particles.
The golden, purple, and crimson afterglow of the battle was suddenly tainted by something darker and heavier. The gap was widening.
The logic layer of the Holy Grail system was forcibly breached by Arthur, this alien entity.
What flowed from the mouth was no longer magic, but a thick, deep, foul-smelling black mud.
Black mud gushed out from the spatial rift, transforming into countless groaning, distorted faces, attempting to completely devour Arthur, this "foreign object."
Cú Chulainn suddenly leaned back on his spear and leaped, narrowly avoiding a splash of black mud.
The moment the black mud touched the ground, it corroded a bottomless hole in the expensive magic floor.
What came from the hole was not the sound of burning, but countless overlapping, distorted cries and curses from men, women, young and old.
The sound did not travel through the air, but appeared directly in the depths of consciousness.
"Ha, it seems even the world thinks you're being unfair, junior brother!" Cú Chulainn retorted, but his grip on the gun was tighter than ever.
The black mud before us is "living evil"; it is breathing, watching, and choosing its targets to devour.
An eerie silence fell over the battlefield.
"Tsk, what an unromantic dead thing," Sasaki Kojiro said nonchalantly, holding his nodachi horizontally in front of him.
His tone contained no fear, only disappointment, like a hermit whose moon-gazing had been interrupted by bad weather.
"I thought I would finally witness the true form of the Holy Sword, but I was interrupted by these aesthetically unappealing imperfections. Since the laws of nature are determined to erase you..."
He brandished his long sword, the hem of his dark blue kimono fluttering in the wind pressure from the splashing black mud. "Then I shall try to cut a corner of this 'natural law'."
After he finished speaking, he drew a silver arc with his long sword at his side, and actually took the initiative to cut off the mud tide that was surging from the side for Arthur.
The moment the blade touched the black mud, it emitted a piercing shriek—the scream of a severed curse.
Medea looked terrified, the tip of her staff flashing incessantly. As a magician from the Age of Gods, she knew the true nature of this black mud better than anyone else.
That wasn't magic, it wasn't a curse, it wasn't anything that could be categorized as a "spell".
That is the form in which humanity's entire imagination of "pure evil" is realized after being received by the Holy Grail.
Evil thoughts powerful enough to curse a hero, corrupt his soul from within, and forcibly corrupt it.
"Arthur Pendragon! What kind of monster have you turned this ritual into?!"
Medea fell to the ground, the staff in her hand making a cracking sound as if it were about to break.
Arthur stood at the center of the black tide, golden magic forming a pure ring beneath his feet, forcefully pushing back against this malicious encroachment.
He looked at the black mud, his brow furrowed with worry.
"The Greater Grail is wailing... This is not war, this is pure collapse."
"Hey, Arthur, you look troubled."
A soft sound, like a feather skimming the surface of water, abruptly broke the chilling atmosphere of this chaotic scene.
Sajō Aika released her sister Ayaka's hand and slowly walked into the black mud realm that even Heroic Spirits avoided.
The hem of the white dress trailed over the stone slabs covered with pebbles and black mud residue, without picking up a single speck of dust.
What's terrifying is that the viscous mud, which is enough to corrode a spirit's foundation, seemed to develop a sense of self and retreat in fear the instant it approached the hem of Aige's skirt.
The black mud split open at her feet, clearing a smooth path for her.
"Sister! Come back quickly!" Ayaka screamed. She tried to rush over, but her feet seemed to be nailed to the spot.
Her body understood before her consciousness did: that was a realm she could not enter.
Aegean didn't turn around; she simply gazed tenderly at Arthur, a near-divine smile playing on her lips.
The morning light streamed down from the broken dome of the workshop, illuminating her long golden hair, the edge of her white dress, and her sapphire-like eyes.
"Arthur was working hard to clean up the broken chess pieces; he was doing it so well, so diligently."
"In response, the world is causing trouble for the prince... This is so unfair."
She extended her fair index finger and gently touched the air, right at the center of the gushing black mud.
"Be a little quieter, Holy Grail. Since you insist on coming out at this time..." A dark red glint flashed in Aika's eyes.
That is the power that connects to the "root" and is capable of rewriting the logic of the universe.
"Then eat up all these 'nuisance offerings' and obediently become the kind of person Arthur likes."
As Ai Ge finished speaking, the gravity of the entire workshop instantly reversed.
Cú Chulainn was shocked to find countless purple veins cracking beneath his feet; it was the Command Seal contract between him and Misaya Ryouko who had been forcibly "opened".
The patterns of the contract spread from the soles of his feet to his calves, and then to his knees. With each inch the contract spreads, a portion of his magic is drained away.
"What?!" Cú Chulainn tried to steady himself by pinning the tip of his spear to the ground, but the pull of the contract was not on a physical level.
The love song did not dispel the black mud; instead, it accelerated the collapse of the Holy Grail.
Using her authority over the Root, she forcibly pushed the Servants present into the black mud as top-tier magical fuel.
Medea's body began to transform into spiritual particles, and golden spiritual particles danced in the air above the black mud before being forcibly drawn into the center of the mud tide.
"You want to... sacrifice us?!" She looked at the excessively beautiful girl in disbelief.
"To make Arthur's final stage even more magnificent, your departure is necessary."
Aige smiled, her eyes devoid of any compassion, only filled with an absolute desire to sacrifice herself for Arthur.
Arthur's face changed completely; he had never seen such a twisted form of "love."
This act of wantonly trampling on the lives of others in order to achieve his goals runs counter to his chivalry.
"Aiko! Stop! This is absolutely not what I wanted!"
Arthur roared, and the light of the holy sword surged once more, attempting to forcibly sever the magical threads that were plundering the lives of his followers.
Just as the Holy Grail was about to be forcibly ripened by Aika, and the entire sky of Tokyo was dyed an ominous purplish-black.
A sneer of extreme arrogance and disdain plummeted from a height of ten thousand meters.
"What a disgusting farce."
The clouds parted instantly, and a luminous ship, constructed of gold and emerald and radiating dazzling light, broke through the sky.
Gilgamesh stood atop Vimana, his crimson serpentine eyes gazing down at the black mud below, which resembled a festering sore, and at the girl who was trying to manipulate the Root.
Finally, the power fell upon Arthur, who stood at the center of the black tide, surrounded by golden magic.
What he held in his hands were no longer ordinary treasured artifacts, but weapons with peculiar cylindrical pommels and blades, engraved with crimson divine inscriptions.
"Sajō Aika, do you really think you already own this land? How dare you speak of 'giving' before me... You dare to challenge me?"
Gilgamesh slowly raised the ultimate weapon that was powerful enough to cut through the world.
Ea.
The cylindrical blade began to spin, with each of the three blades accelerating in a different direction. Crimson divine inscriptions rose from the blade and spontaneously combusted in the air.
"Arthur, put away your hypocritical compassion. Since this theater has collapsed, let me, the king, draw the grandest curtain on this farce!"
The spinning of the Ea sword generated a crimson storm that poured down from the light boat, colliding head-on with Aegean's Root Authority.
Arthur stood at the center of the black tide, the golden ring beneath his feet flickering between light and shadow as it was struck by the aftershocks of the two forces.
One is Aisong, who is rewriting the logic of the Holy Grail; the other is Gilgamesh, who is pointing the sword Ea at the earth.
His dragon eyes simultaneously locked onto the flow of two forces at their deepest depths.