” “Surtr…?” “Mhm.” “That apocalyptic Fire Giant from Norse myth who burned nine realms to ash during Ragnarök?” “Just sharing the same name.” “Then…
what is that divine sword in your hand called?” “It is Lævateinn.” “…” The conversation ground to a dead, suffocating halt as the surrounding air froze into absolute silence.
With her razor-sharp sensory hearing, Surtr could distinctly hear someone’s ragged, hyperventilating breaths.
Clack.
Something small and brittle tumbled onto the pavement.
Following the sound, a premium brown cigar bounced across the shattered asphalt, rolling a few inches before coming to a stop near the curb.
“…Excuse me.” After a prolonged, agonizing silence, Waver raised his hand to adjust his non-existent spectacles between his brows, his voice completely devoid of inflection.
The Lord of the Clock Tower possessed truly top-tier emotional regulation—even if his long, pale fingers were visibly vibrating like tuning forks.
‘A textbook intellectual trying to keep his dignity.’ Surtr mused with amusement.
Beneath her oversized gray hood, Gray’s little head darted back and forth.
Seeing that nobody was moving, the timid girl hopped down from the chariot, retrieved the fallen cigar, and held it out to her teacher.
“Lord El-Melloi II…” Hesitantly reclaiming the cigar, Waver gripped it tightly in his palm, having zero intention of lighting it up.
The current atmosphere was obviously unsuitable for puffing casual smoke rings—unless he wanted to offer one to the Fire Giant as a peace offering.
‘Why didn’t I just stay in London…?’ The suicidal thought flashed through his brain for a tenth of a second before being furiously shoved into the abyss.
He hadn’t pulled out the cigar because of a nicotine craving though it looked like standard tobacco, it was actually a top-grade mental stabilization Mystic Code crafted to suppress panic.
Except right now, it was achieving the exact opposite effect.
Waver felt his cheeks burning with mortifying embarrassment.
If a fissure opened in the asphalt, he would have dove headfirst into it on the spot.
Yet could anyone truly blame him?!
Did a single magus exist in the entire Clock Tower who could hear the words ‘Surtr’ and ‘Lævateinn’ spoken aloud by a horned girl and remain calm?!
Surtr the primordial calamity that incinerated the cosmos.
Even if the girl before them wasn’t the mythological giant’s literal incarnation, her existence was intimately tethered to that ancient authority.
Unlike Gray—who was an artificial ‘semi-finished vessel’—this girl was a walking, living divine mystery from the Age of Gods.
Her ability to fire off three strategic-grade Noble Phantasm strikes in rapid succession proved that her spiritual core was essentially indistinguishable from a primordial titan.
What on earth was wrong with this Fifth Holy Grail War?!
Why had such an absurd monstrosity been allowed into the tournament bracket?!
In a conventional Holy Grail War, deploying the King of Conquerors alongside the Divine Construct Rhongomyniad was an undisputed, guaranteed victory.
Yet every single faction they had encountered so far was an apocalyptic anomaly!
Waver deeply regretted not being thicker-skinned back in London.
He should have dragged the entire El-Melloi Classroom along for field support!
“Bwahaha!
What’s the matter, boy?
Shivering in your boots?!” Iskandar’s booming roar violently shattered Waver’s spiraling existential crisis.
“No…
I am merely surprised, Rider.” Waver shook his head firmly in denial.
As the King’s Master, he would never exhibit cowardice before the enemy.
“Excellent!
To speak the truth, this King is equally astonished!
I never imagined our opponent harbored such a legendary pedigree!” Iskandar clapped his strategist’s shoulder, his broad face radiating unadulterated, intoxicating battle lust as he locked eyes with Surtr.
“Yet this King’s blood boils with unmatched fervor!
The greater the adversary, the more glorious the conquest!” “You shall be crushed beneath my chariot wheels as the premier stepping stone of my global conquest!” Raising his sword high into the clouds, the conqueror bellowed an official, uncompromising declaration of war.
“Audacious barbarian.” Medea spat a sharp, venomous rebuke from beneath her hood.
The king’s arrogant rhetoric thoroughly grated on her nerves, and his shaggy, gorilla-like appearance completely violated her refined aesthetic tastes.
“I will destroy you…
along with your entire army.” Surtr stated with a flat, matter-of-fact tone.
Honestly, Surtr had zero interest in fulfilling the personal wishes of the three guests before her.
Iskandar wanted to conquer the globe with his bare hands Waver wanted to seize total victory beside his King and Gray desperately wished for Waver’s dream to come true.
Even if their commissions promised a mountain of currency, fulfilling them held ly zero probability.
Compared to their grand ideals, Surtr was infinitely more interested in the hundreds of walking Primogems marching inside Iskandar’s Ionian Hetairoi.
If diving straight into his Reality Marble weren’t tactically reckless, she would have engaged right now.
Feigning an even struggle, retreating to reset, diving back in to harvest more soldiers, and repeating the cycle three or four times…
The net Primogem haul would easily eclipse that fossilized worm Zouken!
“Then let us test our steel on the battlefield!” A flash of sharp surprise flickered in Iskandar’s eyes before he laughed heartily.
Snapping the reins, he drove the divine chariot roaring into the clouds, vanishing into the night.
“Let’s head back as well.” Surtr glanced back at the cratered avenue, bent down to scoop up the catatonic, unresisting Illya under her arm, and withdrew toward Ryuudou Temple alongside Medea.
While it was somewhat unrefined to admit, she was genuinely looking forward to the municipal evening news broadcast.
Shortly after their departure.
Atop the roof of an adjacent commercial complex, a teenage girl sporting a crimson winter coat and iconic twin-tails stared blankly at the pulverized boulevard below.
The asphalt looked as though a battalion of heavy artillery had carpet-bombed the district six times over.
“Archer…
wasn’t the Holy Grail War supposed to be conducted in absolute, ironclad secrecy?” Rin Tohsaka’s voice sounded hollow and completely drained of life.
Despite not throwing a single punch all day, she looked ready to suffer a total nervous breakdown.
The paramount iron rule of the Mage’s Association was the strict preservation of thaumaturgical secrecy.
If a catastrophic breach of mystery occurred on Fuyuki soil, the first person dragged to the Clock Tower tribunal for criminal prosecution would be her—the hereditary Second Owner of the territory!
Liquidating all of House Tohsaka’s remaining assets would be the best-case scenario she might even incur a generational debt that would take three lifetimes to repay.
By that point, forget buying imported Austrian gems for jewel magecraft—she might literally have to publish and serialize “Tohsaka Family Household Affairs” just to afford instant ramen!
“Look on the bright side, Rin.
At least they had the basic decency to evacuate the civilians with a bounded field first.” Archer offered a deadpan consolation that provided zero actual comfort.
“Ha…
I was far too naive to expect these lunatic Servants to follow rules.” Letting out an exhausted sigh from the bottom of her soul, Rin suddenly grasped the terrifying reality of the ‘Holy Grail War’.
A single casual skirmish had leveled an entire city block calling this a war was an understatement.
“I detect three completely distinct residual mana signatures at ground zero.
It was likely a three-way melee…
no, a two-on-one suppression.
That scorching, volcanic heat clearly overwhelmed the other two signatures.
Tsk…
is it that horned monster again?
She’s way too active!” Lacking Surtr’s True Name, Rin defaulted to referring to her by her physical traits.
Even without witnessing the brawl, Rin’s sharp deductive mind pieced together the aftermath, sending a cold shiver down her spine.
That horned girl’s combat parameters were completely broken—fighting two Servants simultaneously and walking away with the upper hand.
What a freak.
And engaging in high-tier strategic brawls for two consecutive nights…
didn’t that monster ever suffer from mana depletion?!
Rin mentally elevated Surtr’s threat assessment to the absolute highest danger tier.
“Archer, can you deduce who won?” “Negative.
Judging by the residual dispersion, it likely ended in a mutual draw.” Archer shook his white head.
The current timeline had devolved into such an unrecognizable, chaotic labyrinth that even a Counter Guardian who had experienced the Fifth War in his past life was completely disoriented.
This Holy Grail War shared zero resemblance to his memories.
“Whatever…
let’s move.” Rin looked up at the moonless winter sky.
The sun had completely set, cloaking the earth in shadows.
To be precise, this was the hour when the true Holy Grail War officially commenced.
Remembering the flock of rogue Servants running around without basic secrecy protocols gave Rin a splitting migraine.
“We move out tonight as well.
We can’t let that horned faction dictate the entire war.” Rin instructed her Servant.
Rather than passively waiting for the monster to kick down her front door, she preferred seizing the strategic initiative.
During their patrol, she could scout out potential Masters suitable for an anti-Surtr alliance.
Uniting the weaker factions to eliminate the strongest titan was the oldest, most logical military doctrine.
“Understood, Master.” Archer responded calmly before his eyes snapped toward a narrow crossroad below.
“Speaking of which…
a rather aggressive pair is heading straight for us.” Archer’s eagle eyes pierced through the concrete gap between two buildings, locking onto a pair of feral, blood-red eyes.
Lancer had arrived.