However, Li Xiang, now freshly adorned in the youthful appearance of Gilgamesh, did not immediately charge out like a headless fly to seek a fight.
Instead, he stood in place, plunging his hand into the golden ripples of the Gate of Babylon, searching through it with meticulous care.
He was preparing an item—a defensive tool intended to prevent his upcoming “meal” from being disrupted by unnecessary distractions.
The intended target for this item was none other than that idiot Master, Flat Escardos.
To be fair, while Flat was a magus entirely devoid of common sense, he was fundamentally a very, very good-natured and kind child.
In Li Xiang’s value system, life and combat were kept strictly separate.
He loved clashing with the strong, but when it came to such pure and kind-hearted juniors, he leaned toward offering encouragement and protection.
Of course, a more critical reason was the heavyweight entity hidden inside Flat: Thia.
That monstrosity, researched by the ancestors of the Escardos family and passed down alongside their lineage, represented the possibility of a New Primate.
If that thing genuinely broke free, there was no telling what would happen elsewhere, but Snowfield—and likely the entire American continent—would undoubtedly face an absolute catastrophe.
Li Xiang knew all too well that in the original timeline, Enkidu had to push his anti-human threat output to its absolute limit and unleash his full power just to force a tense forty-sixty split against a newly awakened Thia.
That clash had directly shattered twelve percent of the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice, a display nothing short of apocalyptic.
Though his selfish desires as a combat fanatic meant Li Xiang desperately wanted to sample a supreme delicacy like Thia, he was a king who possessed reason and boundaries.
He could never bring himself to commit the stupidity of letting a kind child drop dead on the spot just to satisfy his own lust for battle, pulling out a monster that could cause global ecological collapse and potentially overwrite humanity itself.
He had come to participate in the Holy Grail War to enjoy the pleasure of clashing with Heroic Spirits, not to play the role of a world-ending demon king.
“Therefore, this dish must be removed from the menu.”
Li Xiang drew a charm radiating a gentle pulse of magical energy from his vault.
“To ensure that thing doesn’t pop out and ruin my fun, I need to go give this boy a powerful blessing ahead of time.”
“This should be more than enough.”
…
Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet in London, England—inside a Lord’s office within the Clock Tower.
The man known as the embodiment of overwork, Lord El-Melloi II—formerly Waver Velvet—was massaging his aching stomach while staring helplessly at a new email popping up on his phone.
It was a report sent by his most troublesome, blockheaded student, Flat.
Initially, when Waver saw that Flat had summoned Berserker Jack the Ripper using a piece of gaming merchandise with absolutely zero sense of ritual, he merely let out a bitter laugh and scolded him as a “reckless, idiot genius.”
However, when he clicked open the next email Flat had sent immediately afterward, the Lord of the Clock Tower froze entirely.
The subject line of the email read: [Professor!
Professor!
Do you know who these two Heroic Spirits are?
They’re both completely golden and shiny!
I really want to go make friends with them!]
Golden Heroic Spirits?
The moment those words entered his sight, Waver felt as though his mind had been struck by a sledgehammer.
More than twenty years ago, in the brutal Fourth Holy Grail War of Fuyuki City, that high-and-mighty golden tyrant—the one who had torn through the Ionian Hetairoi with Ea and personally killed his most revered King of Conquerors, Iskandar, right before his eyes—rose unbidden in his mind like an inescapable nightmare.
A severe wave of PTSD struck instantly, causing Waver’s hand to tremble slightly, entirely beyond his control.
No, I need to take some medicine.
But still…
two golden guys?
Suppressed by immense dread and confusion, Waver forced himself through the agonizing cramps in his stomach to click on the image attachment at the bottom of the email.
It was an exceptionally clear night photograph, obviously snapped by Flat the previous evening when Gilgamesh and Li Xiang had ignited their earth-shattering clash on the main avenue.
In the photo, the night sky was densely packed with a honeycomb of golden ripples.
At the epicenter of the storm, an arrogant monarch clad in golden armor was engaged in an incredibly violent exchange against another blonde youth wearing Uruk light armor and wielding a long lance wrapped in a horrifying, pitch-black deathly aura.
Waver’s eyes widened instantly.
In sheer disbelief, he pulled his face back from the screen, rubbed his eyes, and then tentatively leaned back in, trying to wake himself from this absurd hallucination.
But unfortunately, his eyes were not playing tricks on him.
There really was a Gilgamesh!
And there were fucking two of them?!
Why on earth would two monsters capable of wielding such rule-breaking Noble Phantasms appear in the Snowfield Holy Grail War?!
And looking at the camera angle of this photo, that brat Flat couldn’t have been more than five hundred meters away from the center of the battlefield!
“That utterly hopeless idiot!!!”
Waver bolted out of his chair, cold sweat instantly drenching his shirt.
He was now worried sick about Flat’s safety.
He knew better than anyone else exactly how cruel and arrogant that golden tyrant could be.
For Flat to be hanging around that close was practically dancing on the very edge of the Grim Reaper’s scythe!
He frantically grabbed his phone, prepared to call Flat’s number regardless of the consequences to order an immediate retreat.
But just then, Flat’s next message popped up on the screen.
[Oh, right, Professor.
The golden Heroic Spirit holding the lance is actually standing right next to me!
He even smiled and said he wants to give me a present.
He’s a really nice guy!]
The moment he saw this message, Waver Velvet’s vision went dark, experiencing the literal definition of sudden cardiac arrest.
What do you think you’re doing, Flat?!
Meanwhile, on a quiet, secluded street in Snowfield, Flat was holding his phone completely off-guard, looking up with a cheerful grin at the figure walking toward him.
“Hello there!
You’re that super cool golden Heroic Spirit from last night, aren’t you?” Flat greeted him in a lively tone.
However, upon Flat’s wrist, the watch that Berserker had shifted into had plunged into an unprecedented state of absolute frenzy.
The second and minute hands of the watch were spinning erratically, pointing rigidly in the direction of Li Xiang’s approach, and a faint, sharp scraping sound of magical energy echoed from within the dial.
If Jack possessed a physical body, every single hair on it would have been standing on end by now.
Jack’s instincts were screaming a frantic warning to his Master.
[Master!
Fall back!
Fall back right now!!!]