Deep within a desolate canyon layout, well removed from the main urban sector of Snowfield, a chaotic melee was underway.
Across this heavily scarred battlefield, three figures were constantly interweaving and clashing at velocities far surpassing the limits of human dynamic vision.
They were the King of Heroes, Gilgamesh; the True Archer, Alcides, who had been thoroughly corrupted by black mud; and the Amazon Queen, Hippolyta, who had manifested as the True Rider.
The trio had already completed an initial exchange of blows.
Following a brief testing of boundaries and life-or-death skirmishing, the three Servants had achieved a basic reading of one another and were currently priming their next, far more lethal execution sequences.
Yet, at that exact juncture—
“Tch.”
Gilgamesh abruptly ceased the torrential deployment of the Gate of Babylon.
His expression instantly turned as black as the bottom of a cooking pot.
Staring toward the distant horizon, his eyes betrayed an unmaskable trace of irritation and disgust.
That damn fellow again!
Almost simultaneously, Alcides—shrouded entirely in the black mud of calamity—and a heavily panting Hippolyta raised their heads at the same time.
Along the distant horizon, a golden presence bearing a magical signature strikingly similar to Gilgamesh’s was rapidly closing in on the canyon at missile-like speed!
True to form, a gold-and-black blurred silhouette slammed brutally into the dead center of the clearing like a kinetic payload.
BOOM—!!!
The earth fractured instantly like brittle crackers.
Amidst the billowing plumes of dust and debris, the man slowly straightened his posture.
Yes, Li Xiang had arrived on the battlefield!
The other combatants looked down upon this sudden intruder, their expressions instantly hardening to an extreme degree.
This was particularly true for the Avenger, Alcides, who was draped in the Pelts of the Divine Beast.
Through the thick red-and-black cloth concealing his features, he could distinctly sense that the aura radiating from this newcomer was fundamentally distinct from that of the arrogant monarch hovering above.
The man before them, currently wielding a pair of broadswords, shared a similar magical wavelength with Gilgamesh, yet his entire being exuded an apex mastery of martial arts forged through a thousand refinements.
That unadulterated thirst for combat and the effortlessly confident smirk resting on the corners of his mouth left no room for doubt—this individual was a top-tier grandmaster whose sheer presence would make even Ares pause to take notice!
“Made it just in time.”
Li Xiang cracked his neck, propping the twin blades over his shoulders while completely disregarding the glares directed at him.
He declared his identity with absolute casualness, his fanatical gaze subsequently sweeping across everyone present as if inspecting a high-end restaurant menu.
“Yo, I’m here to throw down a challenge to everyone.”
“Don’t hold back.
Let me properly savor these few delicacies before I head off to meet the next main course!”
Following this highly provocative declaration, Li Xiang drove his legs into the ground with explosive force, transforming into a streak of golden lightning as he launched an indiscriminate, hyper-aggressive assault against everyone present on the field!
The already chaotic three-way skirmish instantly upgraded into an even more frantic free-for-all due to Li Xiang’s brute-force intrusion.
The heavy edges of his broadswords slammed violently against the fired divine constructs.
Relying on his raw martial prowess, Li Xiang navigated the pincer attacks of the three Servants like an agile dragon.
Because his years in the Divine Age frequently involved soloing entire swarms of demonic beasts or opposing armies, he handled this multi-front melee with immense fluidity—he was visibly enjoying himself.
Following a brief sequence of rapid exchanges, Li Xiang locked the vast majority of his attention onto Alcides, who was oozing the rancid stench of black mud.
While Hippolyta possessed exquisite martial techniques, her level of “deliciousness” fell slightly short in an apex brawl of this caliber.
As for the original Gilgamesh, Li Xiang had already sampled him the previous evening; there was no need to keep ordering the exact same dish.
Consequently, today’s primary entree had to be this legendary hero who had fallen into the Avenger class.
“Furthermore…”
Li Xiang reversed his grip, cleaving an arrow fired by Alcides cleanly in two, his gaze turning several degrees colder.
“You laying your hands on that child managed to test my patience just a little bit.”
He was naturally referring to Alcides’s ruthless attempt to execute the twelve-year-old Master, Tine Chelc, during the prior engagements.
Amidst the screeching friction of colliding weaponry, Alcides’s low, rumbling voice vibrated from beneath his cloth shroud, dripping with overt mockery:
“Farcical hypocrisy.
The moment that little girl chose to step onto this battlefield as a Master, her hands were stained with blood.
She should have prepared herself to be slaughtered at any given second.
Inside this meat grinder, there are no special privileges for youth!”
“You’re absolutely right, Archer.
But I don’t like it.”
Li Xiang let out a cold sneer, crossing his twin blades before him to rigidly brace against a mountain-splitting heavy strike from Alcides before forcefully repelling the Avenger.
“If those brats were naturally born malicious scum, I wouldn’t bother meddling.
I’d personally crush their skulls myself.
But…”
“Pure children like her, who are willing to sacrifice absolutely everything to fight and protect the land and lineage they hold dear, deserve far greater leniency and attention.
Before they commit an unpardonable blunder, it is an adult’s obligation to serve as the shield before them.”
The corners of Li Xiang’s mouth curved into an expression that was gentle yet laced with boundless majesty:
“Blossoms of that nature can manage to bloom with spectacular color even within my wife’s underworld!”
The instant those words left his lips, Li Xiang casually tossed his twin broadswords backward into the unfolding ripples of the Gate of Babylon.
Immediately following, he extended his right hand, slowly drawing a completely pitch-black lance wrapped in a dense, suffocating deathly aura from the golden reservoir.
Sensing an immediate threat, Alcides wasted no time activating one of the Noble Phantasms contained within the King’s Order.
Accompanied by a piercing shriek, the arrow unleashed by the Avenger coalesced into a massive, predatory monstrous bird that swooped down to execute Li Xiang.
It was the Stymphalian Bird that had once occupied Lake Stymphalia, a former kin of Ares.
Facing the onslaught of this titanic avian horror, Li Xiang didn’t even blink.
He merely gripped the lance with one hand, driving the tip violently into the earth beneath him.
“Return to dust!”
The moment the lance swung, an explicitly visible, massive surge of ash-gray deathly energy erupted outward like a tidal wave, centering violently on Li Xiang!
This was the absolute pinnacle of deprivation on a conceptual tier.
The exact moment the overbearing monstrous bird made contact with the deathly aura, its metal-plated defenses—the very traits it took pride in—were instantaneously erased.
The mid-air horror didn’t even have time to emit a death rattle before it was reduced to a scattering of rust and cinders within a fraction of a second, scattered completely into nothingness by the wind.
This terrifying ripple of death not only completely liquidated Alcides’s offensive maneuver, but its residual force violently repelled Hippolyta—who had been attempting a flank execution—alongside Gilgamesh, who was preparing to launch a Noble Phantasm from a higher vantage point, forcing them both back dozens of meters.
“It appears I’ve claimed the opening point for this round.”
Li Xiang planted the lance heavily against the ground, proudly surveying the three forced-back combatants as his fighting spirit surged to its absolute peak.
However, just as he prepared to press his tactical advantage, an ill-timed, artificially distorted playful voice suddenly echoed across the canyon via a wide-range illusionary broadcast.
Concurrently, the terrain itself began shifting, morphing the visual landscape into a snowy forest layout.
“Oh, that won’t do at all, my grand heroes!”
It was the voice of Francesca Prelati, one of the primary puppet masters of this False Holy Grail War.
The ancient crone, who spent every waking hour plotting disruptions, was currently adopting an affected, exasperated tone, complaining loudly through the broadcast:
“Everyone had a tacit, mutual understanding to abide by the convention that ‘the Holy Grail War does not initiate matches during daylight hours.’ So why is everyone suddenly going back on their word?
Staging a clash during broad daylight is going to make a certain someone complain to me to no end!
Tone it down a little bit, won’t you?
Pretty please~”
Francesca was utilizing a large-scale illusionary magecraft deployment to halt the progression of this battle, preventing the scenario from completely fracturing away from the original script.
Yet, in the face of this theatrical, illusion-driven warning, Li Xiang snapped his head up and roared back with absolute, self-righteous volume:
“We are currently standing inside a completely deserted canyon outside the city proper!
Who gives a damn about daytime or nighttime parameters?!”
“Furthermore, why don’t you get down here and throw down for a couple of rounds too?!”