“Father—!!!”
With that hysterical roar from Mordred, all the air in the Mion River waterfront warehouse district seemed to be sucked dry in an instant.
A dead silence fell over the entire area.
This silence even drowned out the distant ship horns and the sound of crashing waves.
Hiding behind a shipping container, Irisviel covered her mouth, her beautiful face blank with shock—a look that practically screamed, *What kind of earth-shattering gossip did I just hear?*
She looked at the petite, delicate Saber, then back at the female knight opposite her—equally petite, but raging like a Tyrannosaurus rex—and her brain completely short-circuited.
Two girls?
*Father*?!
Not only her, but even Diarmuid, dual spears in hand and ever the picture of knightly chivalry, stood frozen in shock.
His soulful eyes were filled with massive question marks, and he even forgot to maintain his offensive stance.
Dozens of meters above the ground in the night sky, accompanied by a rumble of thunder, an ancient chariot pulled by two divine bulls had just emerged from the void.
The burly “King of Conquerors,” Iskandar, was holding his spatha high with lofty spirit, preparing to bellow “Cease your battle!” for a grand entrance.
Instead, the moment that cry of “Father” rang out, the King of Conquerors stumbled, nearly tumbling straight off his chariot.
“Hey, hey, hey, Rider!
Aren’t both of those girls down there?!
Is Britain’s royal family dynamic really this chaotic?!” Grabbed by the collar in Iskandar’s hand, Waver Velvet clutched his hair and shrieked, his voice cracking.
“Well…
perhaps it’s some sort of secret court sorcery?” The King of Conquerors scratched his thick red beard, awkwardly sheathing his sword, and decided to stay up in the air as a quiet spectator.
Even hundreds of meters away on an abandoned crane, Kiritsugu Emiya—the “Magus Killer”—observing the battlefield through a night-vision sniper scope, dropped the half-burnt cigarette from his lips with a faint *clatter*.
“Damn it, what kind of insane situation is this?”
Only Yoru Hayashi, perched atop the gantry crane, was slapping his thigh in pure excitement.
“Brilliant!
This is so damn amazing!” Yoru Hayashi shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth and muttered indistinctly to Kariya Matou beside him.
“Bro, you see that?
The blonde girl over there with the hair bun is the legendary King Arthur!
And that crazy punk girl is King Arthur’s own ‘filial child’!
This spectacle is ten thousand times trashier than a primetime family drama!”
Kariya adjusted his glasses, feeling like thirty-plus years of common sense had just been thrown out the window.
“King Arthur is a woman?
And she birthed a daughter?
How on earth did she give birth?!”
“That’s a long story.
To put it simply, the old British village chief refused to recognize her illegitimate daughter, leading to the tragic destruction of the village,” Yoru Hayashi spouted nonsense off the cuff.
Down in the center of the battlefield, this tragic display of “loving father and filial child” erupted without a single moment of buffer!
“Mordred…”
Artoria stared intently at the Berserker wrapped in crimson lightning, her hands gripping the invisible sword trembling violently from sheer shock.
“Why…
would you descend upon this era in such a form…”
Before her eyes, vision after vision seemed to flash: the mountains of corpses and seas of blood at the Battle of Camlann, and the sight of this very “child”—once rejected by her—lying dead in a pool of blood.
“Stop looking at me with those disgusting, condescending eyes!!!”
The crimson in Mordred’s eyes looked ready to bleed out.
Her Mad Enhancement rank A rendered her utterly incapable of listening to explanations, as the twisted tangle of love and hatred violently detonated inside her chest.
*Boom!*
The pavement instantly shattered as Mordred transformed into a bolt of crimson and silver lightning, raising Clarent high above her head and swinging it straight down toward Artoria!
*CLANG—BOOM!*
Artoria reflexively raised her invisible sword to block.
But forget not: in her clash with Lancer moments ago, her left thumb had been nicked by Gáe Buidhe.
Not only was the tendon severed, but she was cursed with an unhealable wound.
Wielding her sword one-handed against a Berserker whose strength was bursting at its absolute limit, Saber immediately suffered a massive blow!
The tremendous impact knocked Artoria backward, forcing her to slide over ten meters and plowing two deep, scorched trenches into the ground with her leather boots. Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping . com.
“Gah!” Saber let out a muffled groan.
The webbing between her right thumb and index finger went numb, and her blood churned violently.
“What’s wrong?!
Where is that noble kingly way of yours?!
Where is that invincible power?!”
Mordred pressed closely like a mad dog, swinging Clarent like a windmill, slamming blow after crazy blow down upon Saber.
*CLANG!
CLANG!
CLANG!*
Every strike burst with explosive crimson lightning, causing the surrounding shipping containers to buckle and collapse one after another.
“Hand the throne over to me!
Acknowledge me!
If you can’t even beat me, what right do you have to say I lack the caliber of a king?!”
Mordred swung wildly, bellowing a roar choked with tears and fury.
Watching Saber retreat step by step, barely managing to hold her ground, Diarmuid could watch no longer.
“Mad knight!
My duel with Saber is far from over!
I will not allow you to intrude upon this sacred battle between knights!”
Lancer roared, leveling his twin spears and thrusting forward from the flank to pincer Mordred.
“Get lost, small fry!!!”
Without even turning her head, Mordred threw back a completely unreasonable horizontal sweep.
The wild magical energy bursting from her blade instantly coalesced into a crescent-shaped crimson storm!
“What incredible Mana Burst!” Lancer was shocked, forced to cross Gáe Dearg to block, and was blasted off his feet by the brute strength, crashing heavily into a shipping container.
“Tsk tsk tsk.
Now this is what they call gods fighting and mortals suffering,” Yoru Hayashi observed with relish from above.
Standing beside Yoru Hayashi, however, Gilgamesh’s expression grew darker and darker.
The King of Heroes looked down on the battle below with icy scarlet eyes, his lips curling into a sneer of utter disgust and contempt.
“A king who gave her entire life to a nation?
A stray dog driven mad by a lack of recognition?”
Gilgamesh’s voice dripped with profound disdain.
“What a laughable farce.
A little girl hijacked by so-called ‘ideals’ and ‘subjects,’ throwing away even her own desires—she dares call herself a king?
And that howling trash makes begging for handouts her life’s pursuit.
Such vulgar notions are an insult to the noble word ‘king’!”
In the eyes of an absolute tyrant like Gilgamesh, who believed “everything in the world belongs to me,” Artoria’s martyr mindset of “a king must devote everything to her kingdom” was nothing short of irredeemable foolishness.
“Old Gil, if you can’t stand the sight, why not go down and educate these two British village bullies?”
Yoru Hayashi tossed his popcorn bucket aside, stoking the flames with reckless abandon.
“You’re the King of Kings, the Oldest King!
Not only are these two fighting in a gang brawl on your turf, but they’re constantly boasting about their kingly ways.
Can you really tolerate this?
Go down there and show them what true royal dignity looks like!
Let them know who really calls the shots in Fuyuki City!”
If anyone else had dared to talk to the King of Heroes like that, they would have been turned into a hornet’s nest of blades long ago.
Yet Gilgamesh merely let out a cold snort, as the night sky behind him was instantly illuminated by blinding golden light.
“That is precisely my intent.
*BOOM!*
A ray of golden light as brilliant as the sun shot down from the sky, slamming right into the space between Artoria and Mordred as they clashed!
*BANG!*
Accompanied by a visible golden shockwave, the battling “father and child” were forcefully blasted apart by the tyrannical impact!
The gale dispersed.
Dressed in his flashy leather biker jacket, Gilgamesh stood like a deity in the very center of the battlefield, hands thrust into his pockets.
He raised his chin slightly, his crimson slitted eyes brimming with arrogance that looked down upon all creation.
Behind him, half the night sky had transformed into a golden ocean.
Hundreds of golden ripples spread out like a peacock fanning its tail, as countless Noble Phantasm blades brimming with terrifying magical energy pointed their sharp edges straight at every Heroic Spirit present!
“Mongrels, who permitted you to bark at each other in this dusty court?”
Gilgamesh’s voice was not loud, yet it carried an indisputable majesty that silenced the entire battlefield in an instant.
Up in the sky, Iskandar, the King of Conquerors, knitted his brows, his expression growing exceptionally grave.
“Oh?
It seems this glittering Heroic Spirit is quite the impressive king as well.”
Steadied on her feet, Artoria gazed at the absurdly vast array of Noble Phantasms behind Gilgamesh, her emerald eyes filled with vigilance.
“Who are you?
Why do you interfere in our fight?!”
“Interfere?
Do not flatter yourself, little girl.”
Gilgamesh scoffed, his eyes filled with pity and mockery.
“I simply cannot tolerate your pathetic display.
As a king, to carry the ideals of foolish peasants?
To be bitten back by a mad dog you raised yourself?
A marionette whose spine has been bent double by so-called ‘duty’—you are an absolute disgrace to royalty!”
“You—!” Artoria trembled all over with anger.
Her kingly path, everything she had given for Britain—dismissed as utterly worthless by this man!
On the other side, Mordred, whose assault had been interrupted, flew into an absolute blind rage.
A Berserker’s brain had no concept of analyzing the balance of power.
She only knew that the blonde thief from the hotel yesterday—who stole her “toy” and threw Noble Phantasms at her—had barged in again to get in her way, and even dared to mock her Father?!
Though she hated King Arthur, in her twisted psyche, King Arthur could only be defeated by her!
Anyone else who dared interfere was her sworn mortal enemy!
“You bastard thief!!”
Mordred roared like a she-wolf guarding her meal, crimson lightning bursting frantically around her, charring the surrounding asphalt to cinders.
“Die!!!”
Kicking off with both legs like a cannonball launched from a barrel, she pivoted her attack and charged recklessly at Gilgamesh in a suicidal rush!
“Heh.
Truly a mad dog that doesn’t understand human speech.”
Gilgamesh sneered, as the golden ripples behind him instantly unleashed a horrifying barrage!
“Out of my immense mercy, I shall reduce you to dust today, mongrel!”
*BOOM BOOM BOOM—!!!*
Countless Noble Phantasms clashed violently against Mordred’s crimson lightning like a swarm of shooting stars flying in reverse!
The entire Mion River warehouse district was instantly turned into an inferno of chain explosions!
Meanwhile, the perpetrator behind it all squatted atop the tall gantry crane, holding a pair of high-power binoculars pinched from some unlucky worker, laughing so hard he nearly died on the spot.
“Fight!
Hit each other harder!
That’s the stuff!”
As Yoru Hayashi watched, he calculated in his head how much health Old Bastard Tokiomi had left.
*With this ultimate mana-draining rampage from her filial child, Tokiomi’s probably twitching on his hospital bed right about now, isn’t he?*