“Why don’t you get down here and throw down for a couple of rounds too?!”
At the precise moment she heard those words while monitoring the tactical parameters, Francesca experienced an acute sensation of her scalp going completely numb.
The playful smirk resting on the ancient crone’s face fractured entirely.
What on earth is going on?
Where exactly did this False Holy Grail War deviate from the script?
How did a hyper-fixated battle maniac like this even manage to spawn into existence?!
Faced with Li Xiang’s blatant provocation, Francesca executed a decisive tactical judgment sequence—she opted to run away.
She announced on the spot that she was deeply sorry for the interruption and took her leave.
The absolute velocity at which she deconstructed her illusionary matrix was several times faster than the speed at which she had initially deployed it.
Admittedly, based on raw lore parameters, Miss Francesca’s profile carried an exceptionally high pedigree.
She was a residual fragment of the goddess Ate, as well as a former apprentice to Merlin, the Incubus dwelling within the Tower of Avalon.
In the intelligence dossiers Li Xiang had read during his past life, she even carried the highly satirical moniker of “The Dismembered Princess.”
She was given this title because she had been reduced to a pulverized, shattered heap of flesh by various top-tier combatants countless times throughout history.
Yet, by leveraging her exquisite technical proficiency alongside a reservoir of prepared backup bodies, she invariably managed to replicate a cockroach’s resilience, resurrecting time and time again.
But the core issue remained: an impressive pedigree did not correlate to raw combat efficiency, nor did it imply a lack of fear regarding total erasure.
During the timeline of the original Fourth Fuyuki Holy Grail War, this seemingly unfathomable, high-spec Miss Francesca had been single-handedly shut down by Zouken Matou, rigidly barred outside the geographic boundaries of Fuyuki City without so much as touching the periphery of the war.
In the end, she could only settle for obtaining a few recorded snippets of footage to review repeatedly upon her return.
With a profile tailored almost entirely for backstage manipulation, what could she possibly use to execute a direct front-line confrontation against a hyper-optimized King of Heroes?
Are you serious?
Am I supposed to engage him?
Who would ever dare to engage that?!
The primary source of Francesca’s absolute dread was the ash-gray deathly aura Li Xiang had unleashed moments ago.
She could distinctly sense that it was a thoroughly rule-breaking conceptual property.
Who knew whether this deathly presence, infused with the authority of the Divine Underworld, would completely strip away her capability to migrate her consciousness into a backup vessel, executing her permanently on a fundamental tier?
Since she couldn’t afford to provoke him, hiding was the only logical alternative.
Miss Francesca executed a cowardly yet highly rational retreat away from his forward momentum.
As the illusionary matrix dissolved back into reality, the remaining three factions—who had been locked in a life-or-death skirmish—instantly lost the motivation to prolong this chaotic free-for-all.
The delicate equilibrium of this canyon clash had been utterly upended.
The first to execute a response sequence was the Amazon Queen, Hippolyta.
Her Master rapidly processed the macro-tactical layout.
Facing two independent Kings of Heroes whose underlying capabilities remained undocumented but whose passive pressure was thoroughly catastrophic, prolonging the engagement would only yield meaningless attrition.
The command to disengage was delivered instantly.
Hippolyta complied with the directive with absolute martial discipline.
Reining in her steed, she raised her noble head high, declaring her true name and honors with absolute volume.
She pointed her long spear rigidly at Alcides, delivering a grand proclamation that “at our next encounter, I shall definitively achieve victory over you.” Following a resonant neigh from her horse, she rapidly evacuated the volatile zone.
Within the canyon floor, only two golden figures and one black silhouette remained.
However, the Avenger Alcides—corrupted entirely by black mud—had absolutely no intention of halting his offensive cycle.
Maintaining a complete, chilling silence, he slowly drew back the massive bow string wrapped in an ominous presence.
The next fraction of a second saw dozens of arrows—laden with volatile black mud and divine energy—pour downward indiscriminately toward Gilgamesh and Li Xiang like a dark-red meteor shower.
Faced with a devastating barrage capable of perforating mountain ranges, the two Kings of Heroes executed entirely distinct defensive responses.
Hovering at a higher elevation, Gilgamesh let out a cold snert.
A massive divine shield engraved with mythological patterns materialized from his reservoir, wrapping his entire frame securely behind its defenses and intercepting every incoming vector.
Meanwhile, Li Xiang, standing directly in the dead center of the crater, adopted an exceptionally leisurely posture.
He made no move to draw upon any protective Noble Phantasms from the Gate of Babylon.
He merely planted the black lance oozing deathly energy casually into the earth beside him.
Facing several fatal meteors screaming directly toward his location, he slowly elevated his right hand.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
There were no earth-shattering explosions.
The fired projectiles—possessing enough kinetic payload to punch through fortress walls—were deflected away effortlessly by his bare hands.
The final arrow, tracking a direct trajectory toward his face, was caught precisely and confidently within the tight grip of his palm.
The residual kinetic shockwave channeled down Li Xiang’s arm and drained into the ground, radiating a spiderweb of fractures across the rocky strata beneath his feet, yet his physical frame remained completely unmoving.
This specific sequence sent a profound chill down the spine of Alcides’s Master, who was monitoring from the shadows.
This consistently ruthless mafia operative was forced to acknowledge the sheer hostility of the tactical layout.
This newly materialized golden entity not only wielded a treasure vault identical to Gilgamesh’s, but his physical conditioning was so monstrous that even the Avenger’s single-point executions couldn’t phase him.
While on the surface, the two Kings of Heroes appeared to be deeply incompatible, if the engagement prolonged under these parameters, there was no guaranteeing they wouldn’t arrive at a sudden consensus, reversing their vectors to team up and liquidate Alcides first.
Though the statistical probability was minimal, even a one-in-a-thousand chance had to be thoroughly suppressed by Buzzdilot.
He required the Avenger’s output intact to secure the final Holy Grail.
The directive to fall back was transmitted to Alcides.
Upon receiving the data, the Avenger ceased his firing sequence.
His massive frame rotated slowly, preparing to dissolve back into the blowing sand and dust.
But before executing a total extraction, Alcides paused for half a second.
His gaze first swept coldly across the original Gilgamesh hovering above, who was hiding behind a shield array.
Following that, his sight locked deeply onto Li Xiang, who was holding the arrow with one hand while sporting an effortlessly composed smile.
A low, raspy tone cut cleanly through the howling winds of the canyon, delivering a distinct message to their ears:
“A mighty king who relies on external toys, possessing empty majesty; paired with a fragile warrior.”
The opening segment of the declaration was directed at Gilgamesh.
Immediately following, his gaze locked rigidly onto Li Xiang:
“And…
a mighty king whose martial execution has achieved the absolute peak; paired with a mighty warrior.”
The concluding segment was dedicated to Li Xiang.
“Your heads shall remain provisionally attached to your necks.
I look forward to our next slaughter.”
Leaving behind those parting words, Alcides’s physical form dissolved into a dense bank of fog, vanishing entirely into the wilderness of the great canyon.
The howling sand gradually settled, but the ambient atmosphere across the battlefield turned significantly more bizarre and suffocating than before, purely due to the parting words Alcides had left behind.
Because Gilgamesh had completely suffered a mental breakdown.
The King of Heroes’ facial expression was currently as dark as it could possibly get, and even his arrogant crimson pupils were vibrating slightly with unadulterated fury.
What did that goddamn barbarian Archer just declare?!
A mighty king, paired with a fragile warrior?
Yet his assessment of that counterfeit was a mighty king, paired with a mighty warrior?!
What is the meaning of this?
Is he explicitly mocking the fact that my close-quarters combat proficiency—my baseline conditioning as a “warrior”—falls completely short when compared to that vulgar brawler down there?!
What an absolute humiliation!
Gilgamesh felt a volatile, raging inferno burning violently inside his chest.
He wanted nothing more than to unleash Ea this exact second, reducing that fleeing Avenger along with this entire canyon layout into absolute atoms!
Yet, he could not let his emotions break through.
Gilgamesh ground his teeth with extreme force, his gaze fixed rigidly on Li Xiang below.
How could he possibly vent his fury against another version of himself?
If he lost his temper right now over an outsider’s comparative assessment, wouldn’t that imply a subconscious admission that he was truly losing his composure out of sheer incompetence?
A king must absolutely never display such a pathetic, sore-loser exhibition.
Looking up at the King of Heroes, who was visibly vibrating with suppressed rage, Li Xiang shook his head with a trace of amusement.
He naturally didn’t care about Gilgamesh’s obsessive, face-saving tsundere tendencies.
He casually pulled the black lance from the ground, returned it to the Gate of Babylon, and lowered his head, inspecting the specific piece of loot resting inside his hand with genuine interest.
It was a massive arrow thoroughly saturated with dense black mud.
“So this is an arrow fired by the grand hero of Greece…”
Li Xiang gently traced the cold shaft with the pad of his thumb, a thoughtful gleam flashing deep within his crimson eyes.