Matou Residence.
Medea stood upon the rooftop parapet, her gaze sweeping over the grounds below.
The surrounding perimeter of the estate had already been fortified by her multi-layered bounded field.
The instant any stray entity attempted to breach the boundary, she would intercept it immediately.
‘I wonder how Master is faring down below.’ Medea mused quietly.
While she harbored zero doubt regarding her Master’s overwhelming combat power, the subterranean pit was steeped in the primordial corruption of the Greater Grail.
Extra caution was always warranted against that cursed black sludge.
Just as she was calculating how much longer the underground purge would take, the entire mansion beneath her boots suddenly lurched violently.
It felt as though a volcanic eruption had detonated directly beneath the foundation.
Stumbling back two paces, Medea stabilized herself against the stone balustrade, intuitively knowing this earthquake had to be her Master’s handiwork.
She peered over the edge into the courtyard.
In the very next instant, every single glass window across the sprawling mansion shattered in unison!
Crash—!
A colossal, writhing tidal wave of black shadows erupted from the shattered frames.
Hundreds of thousands of mutant insects beat their chitinous wings in frenzied panic, letting out ear-splitting shrieks from their jagged mandibles as they scattered in all directions like a burst dam.
Medea’s eyes narrowed slightly as she glided backward, immediately snapping an azure barrier around herself to avoid being caught in the chaotic swarm.
She could clearly detect the rancid, corrupting malice of the Greater Grail radiating from several of the larger vanguard bugs.
‘Did something go wrong?
Did Master fail?’ The anxious thought had barely crossed her mind before she forcefully dismissed it.
Their spiritual contract remained rock-solid, and she could distinctly sense that Surtr’s vital signs were not only intact, but blazing with terrifying vigor.
Furthermore, the panicked insect swarm was completely ignoring her presence, flying with suicidal desperation just to put as much distance between themselves and the estate as physically possible—as if an ancient, apocalyptic predator was hot on their heels.
‘It’s because of Master.’ Medea deduced in an instant.
And her deduction received an explosive confirmation a heartbeat later.
Rumble—!
A blinding, roaring cascade of crimson hellfire erupted straight out of the mansion windows right behind the fleeing swarm!
Like hungry maggots latching onto bone, the divine flames chased down the swarm’s trajectory with terrifying precision.
The sickening crunch of chitin melting and vaporizing under thousands of degrees of heat filled the night air as a gale-force thermal storm swept across the suburban block.
The sky, the courtyard, the atmosphere—every single atom within sight was rapidly consumed by the gushing sea of fire.
“Incredible…” Standing right at the epicenter of the inferno, Medea couldn’t help but let out a soft, breathless gasp.
At this exact moment, the blistering flames were roaring past her barriers at a distance close enough to make any magus’s heart stop.
Even as a Servant, had an Age of Gods Caster with her frail physical parameters been caught in that blaze, she would have been critically charred in seconds.
Yet she felt zero fear.
Because she knew with absolute certainty that these flames recognized her soul and would never harm their own.
Only the choking stench of sulfur and the acrid smoke of incinerated bugs hanging in the air left her wrinkling her nose in slight discomfort.
‘Medea.’ Surtr’s calm, telepathic voice resonated inside her consciousness.
‘Sweep the perimeter and eliminate any stragglers that slipped through the net.’ Deep beneath the earth, Surtr stood before the liquefied remains of the worm pit.
The surrounding stone walls were melting and dripping downward like hot candle wax, pooling into glowing, viscous puddles of slag.
She tilted her head upward directly above the scorched pit lay the mansion’s living room.
To avoid accidentally burning the entire manor to the ground—which would destroy the precious research grimoires and catalysts stored in the vaults—she had deliberately reined in the true apocalyptic radius of Lævateinn.
As a result, a few lucky bugs might have scattered to the surface.
‘Understood, Master.
Leave the clean-up to me.’ Meanwhile, atop the distant high-rise rooftop.
“H-Hey, Archer…
that apocalyptic firestorm was Caster’s Noble Phantasm, right?” Rin stared slack-jawed at the mushroom-like column of crimson fire lighting up the Fuyuki skyline, asking a question that sounded more like an attempt to comfort her own fraying nerves.
“Unfortunately, Rin.” Archer ruthlessly shattered her wishful thinking.
“That sea of flames was almost certainly unleashed by her Master.” Lowering his black composite bow, Archer let out a deep, defeated sigh.
The sudden eruption of hellfire had completely broken his line of sight, obliterating his sniping window.
“B-But…
if she’s just a human Master, using a Noble Phantasm of that magnitude should carry severe bodily backlash or magical exhaustion, right?!” Rin desperately tried to pinpoint a structural weakness in Surtr’s profile.
“Indeed.
For an ordinary human magus, projecting or liberating a genuine Noble Phantasm is an extraordinarily perilous feat the higher the armament’s Rank, the more catastrophic the toll on human circuits.” “However, that principle applies exclusively to mortal magi.
Caster’s Master clearly does not belong to that category.
In fact, whether she can even be classified as ‘human’ remains heavily open to debate.” Archer delivered the cold, unvarnished truth.
“Then…
what if we ambush them right now while they’re recovering from the blast?” Rin proposed, her eyes flashing with tactical resolve.
However, Archer slowly shook his head, his sharp gaze scanning the shadowy perimeter surrounding the burning estate.
“With a catastrophic explosion of this scale, I guarantee we aren’t the only Master and Servant pair drawn to the sector.
Furthermore, Caster’s magical core remains completely unharmed.
If we get bogged down in a protracted clash, we will be the ones walking straight into a death trap.” “Ugh…
why does just a single enemy faction have to be this absurdly difficult?!” Rin ruffled her black twin-tails in sheer frustration.
She had believed her pre-war preparations were ironclad, never expecting to run into an unquantifiable god-tier anomaly right on night one.
“My recommendation is to seek out strategic allies among the other Masters first.
Our primary imperative should be pooling our forces to eliminate the highest-threat target on the board.” “Looks like we have no other choice.” Rin nodded in reluctant agreement.
It was a sound, pragmatic strategy that required little debate.
The only tricky part was picking reliable partners navigating fragile truces with other Masters and their Servants was always a dangerous dance.
“For now, focus on shooting down any stray winged bugs that manage to escape that perimeter.
If those mutant abominations scatter into the civilian downtown area, it’ll trigger a full-blown catastrophe.” Rin gazed at the apocalyptic pillar of crimson fire illuminating the midnight sky, gnashing her teeth in irritation.
“Good grief…
detonating an inferno of that size right in the middle of a residential district.
Tomorrow morning’s newspaper headlines are going to be an absolute nightmare to cover up.” As the Second Owner managing Fuyuki’s leylines, the responsibility of preserving the Concealment of Mystery fell squarely on her shoulders.
“Understood, Rin.” Back at the Matou estate.
“Master, the perimeter has been fully secured.” Surtr had just stepped out through the scorched front entrance when she caught sight of Medea floating gracefully down from the rooftop.
“Speedy work.” Surtr offered a nod of praise.
“The volume of fleeing familiars wasn’t particularly massive, and a foreign Servant was sniping stragglers from long range as well.” “Which Servant?” Surtr raised an eyebrow.
“Archer.” “Archer, huh…” Surtr tilted her head back, casting her spiritual senses across the distant rooftops.
The sector was quiet the sniper had likely relocated the moment his position was exposed.
“Was it a tall, tanned man with white hair, wearing a crimson windbreaker and wielding a black composite bow?” “Your intelligence network is truly terrifying, Master.” Medea widened her eyes in genuine astonishment.
Even utilizing an Age of Gods sensory spell akin to Clairvoyance, she had barely caught a hazy glimpse of the sniper’s silhouette, yet her Master could rattle off his exact aesthetic traits before even stepping out of the cellar.
“Let’s just say I have a minor skill that allows me to peek into future storyboards—though occasionally the continuity gets scrambled.” “Just like our detour to the high school earlier?” “…Don’t bring up painful memories.” Surtr sighed helplessly.
Who on earth could have predicted that in this bizarre timeline, Sakura had been shipped off to Finland to become an Edelfelt instead of rotting in a bug pit?
“I’ll brief you on the other Servant profiles once we get back.
For now, what is that wriggling in your hand?” Surtr smoothly changed the subject, pointing toward Medea’s right palm.
Hovering above the witch’s fingers was a fat, squirming gray rat, bound tightly within a shimmering cage of woven magical threads.
Judging by the creature’s unnervingly human-like expression of pure agony, Surtr could easily guess its true identity.
“This is our esteemed old bug.
His core soul worm parasitized a common sewer rat, attempting to scurry away under the cover of your firestorm.
Fortunately, my outer bounded field snagged him the second he crossed the driveway.” ‘A literal rat in the gutter.’ Surtr smirked coldly.
Medea hoisted the rat higher.
The bloated rodent flailed its limbs hysterically, its snout opening and snapping shut as if desperately trying to beg for its life, yet not a single squeak escaped its throat.
“His mental screeching was rather grating, so I took the liberty of sealing his vocal cords.
Would Master like to hear his final testament?” “Nah.
Zero interest.” Surtr had no intention of wasting breath on a festering parasite.
Raising her right hand, she snapped her fingers cleanly.
Snap!
A tongue of crimson Muspelheim flame ignited across the rat’s fur, incinerating both the rodent vessel and Zouken’s ancient, degenerate soul into sterile, microscopic dust in a fraction of a second.
A crisp series of system alerts chimed across her consciousness.
[Eliminated: Matou Zouken] [Reward: Primogems ×50] [Current Primogems: 823.2] ‘That decimal point is wildly specific, but whatever.’ Factoring in the thousands of mutant bugs flash-vaporized inside the breeding pit, Surtr’s Primogem balance was now barely two hundred shy of the one-thousand milestone.
While individual familiar bugs yielded minuscule crumbs of currency, there was no denying the sheer profitability of mass-clearing a hive.
Furthermore, the mutant bugs bred with the Greater Grail’s black mud offered slightly higher payouts than ordinary familiars.
One single slash of Lævateinn had harvested thousands in one go.
If not for the fact that half the egg clusters hadn’t hatched yet, her harvest would have easily breached four digits.
‘What a shame.’ While she had half a mind to keep Zouken locked in a cage as an automated Primogem mob spawner, she wasn’t planning on staying in the Fate world indefinitely anyway.
Ending his miserable existence permanently was far more satisfying.
‘It’d be awesome if there were more high-density mob grinding spots in the upcoming worlds.’ Surtr mused greedily before dismissing the holographic screen.
Turning on her heel, she led Medea back into the scorched remains of the Matou manor.
It was time to claim the spoils of war.