Inside the Great Altar.
As the broadcast rang out, Europa and her bronze giant Talos—who had been trading blows with Artoria and Orion—came to a halt under that cold, indifferent voice.
When Zeus declared the termination of all sentient beings and lifeforms, it didn't apply only to the Interstellar Metropolis. It applied to Europa as well, even though her mind had been forced under his control.
"Great God… Zeus…"
Europa looked as if she were waking from a dream. She sank down in Talos's palm, kneeling there in grief, and stopped fighting.
She had never wanted this battle in the first place. It was Zeus's coercive command that had turned her, like the other gods of Olympus, into a weapon meant to erase their enemies.
"The attacks… stopped?" Artoria landed nearby, watching Europa closely.
"I'm sorry. Please… no matter what, you have to stop the Great God Zeus…"
Europa apologized for what she had done, then pleaded from the bottom of her heart.
Orion drew his gaze back.
If the fighting had stopped, there had to be a reason.
"It hasn't stopped. Right now, the only one Olympus is still allowed to fight is Zeus!"
When that dazzling, planet-destroying divinity of a Noble Phantasm began to manifest, Orion clenched the bow in his left hand and gripped Artemis's hand with his right.
Even as a Grand Servant, faced with that single strike, all he could do was look up for a moment—without an answer for what came next.
Until the light of destruction was split apart by a gigantic axe and came crashing down toward Zeus again.
Only then did the answer return.
"King of Knights," Orion called out, "I remember you're a goddess, right?"
"I am," Artoria replied.
"Then use your Holy Lance to hit Zeus," Orion said. "My buddy needs a little help right now."
Artoria didn't hesitate—but there was one problem that weighed on her.
"But… my power right now probably can't pierce Zeus's Authority defense."
"I'm not saying now." Orion sprang to the highest point of the altar. "I'll make an opening. You get ready. Zeus's barrier is gone, and that ship will be here soon!"
He meant Storm Border, now heading this way with nothing blocking its approach.
The problem was that the closer it came to the Great Altar—to the airspace where Zeus was—the thicker the danger became. Even with Skadi's barrier, just staying airborne without being shot down by Zeus's attacks was already nearly impossible.
At best, it could probably only stop near the Machine God's Corridor.
"What are you going to do, Orion?" Artoria was frantic now.
She watched Shiomi, controlling that gigantic axe, locked in an unbroken struggle with Zeus.
[—Authority activation.
—Automatic offensive defense: shatter target.
—Authority: Hades.
—Decompose target to its smallest units.]
While enduring the blows of Marduk's Axe, Zeus activated the integrated Authority of Hades, trying to break down both the axe and Shiomi at once.
But Hades had been one of the six Machine Gods who once opposed Zeus. What remained of that Authority was incomplete.
Against the divine might carried by Marduk's Axe, against the newborn god Tehom, it met only an opposing force that held fast and refused to yield.
"Creation."
Shiomi spoke under his breath.
Recreating and regenerating at a speed even faster than Hades's disassembly, he brushed it aside as if it were nothing.
"Hahaha! You're unbelievable, buddy! Zeus's attention is completely on you! If this were Proper Human History, that'd be terrifying."
Orion laughed and set Artemis down from his back.
"Orion?"
"This is as far as I go. As a Servant manifested in this world, getting to travel with you again… that time was happiness beyond anything for me."
Orion kissed Artemis solemnly.
"Even if you're only a sub-machine, I still love you the same, Artemis."
"Are you leaving?"
"Yeah. The next shot is the last duty I have to fulfill as a Grand Servant."
Orion looked at her.
"After that, I'll withdraw from here. I won't even get the chance to say goodbye."
Artemis watched him in silence, then spoke.
"Then let me go with you."
"What?"
"If you're going to break through Zeus's Authority defense, you'll need the best arrow."
Cradling Orion's hand, Artemis began to glow from head to toe.
"I don't have any strength left. All I can do is give you everything that remains."
Orion understood what she meant.
He couldn't stop her—and he shouldn't.
This Artemis of the Lostbelt still didn't fully understand love, and yet she already knew how to express it.
Any attempt to hold her back would only reject that love.
When Artemis's sub-machine body vanished, all that remained in Orion's hand was a single, razor-sharp arrow.
"You idiot… So before crashing, you entrusted your last piece to your own sub-machine…"
Clutching the arrow tightly, Orion rose to his feet and looked up at Zeus, who had eyes only for Shiomi.
"I am Orion, manifested as Grand Archer! Now, for my duty—and side by side with the Moon Goddess I love—I shall become the path that leads to victory!"
He raised his bow high and, with steady hands, carefully nocked the one and only arrow.
"I declare it here and now—I cast aside my Grand Spirit Origin. With this arrow born of my beloved, I will fire the strike that reaches the Great God Zeus. You've been looking down on us for far too long, Zeus! He is The Huntsman that Pierces The Goddess - Ortygia Amore Mio!"
Abandoning his status as Grand, standing together with the beloved who existed only in this fleeting moment, he carved out a road for those who would follow.
A third Noble Phantasm—one that should never have existed—was completed through the hands of Orion and Artemis.
A single shot.
Certain hit.
A strike meant only to break through the defenses and reach Zeus's Machine God True Form.
A pure, moonlike radiance outshone the lightning and surged straight toward the great god.
Zeus was focused entirely on resisting Marduk's Axe before him. By the time he noticed the incoming arrow, there was no room left to defend or counter.
He could not evade.
He could not block.
If he devoted himself to defending against this shot—staked with the very existence of a Grand Servant and a fragment of a god—then the massive axe poised at point-blank range would cleave through his Machine God True Form.
And if he prioritized the axe instead, his proud Authority defense would falter in that instant.
"—Orion! Artemis! You—!"
The silver arrow pierced through the defense and drove deep into Zeus's Machine God True Form, carving out tremendous damage.
But the hunter who loosed it—and the Machine God who had followed him, not yet fully understanding love—never saw the result.
At the highest point of the Great Altar, only slowly drifting Spiritrons remained.
"Didn't you hear?! That hero told you—your head's held too high, Zeus!!!"
With Shiomi's roar, Marduk's Axe broke through the weakened Authority defense and came crashing down upon Zeus's head.
An even greater shockwave erupted, blazing across heaven and earth.