Chapter 263: Emiya Tiamat
Upon a snow-capped mountain of vast whiteness, everything in the vicinity was dyed white. Snowflakes fell continuously from the sky, leaving only a single color in the entire world, save for the highest reaches of the night sky where a lonely darkness brushed a layer of grey over the world.
In such a void-like space stood a white figure that did not seem to belong to the mortal realm. This was a tall man with long white hair, wearing a white robe with a white haori draped over it, the long hems trailing upon the ground.
His deathly pale skin resembled that of a ghost, yet his upright posture radiated a dignified and righteous aura, as inviolable as a deity.
The man stood expressionless upon the mountain peak, gazing into the distance. The white blizzard howling outside failed to affect him in the slightest; even his long hair, which looked like white silk, was not stirred a fraction by the wind.
Beneath white eyelashes, his pupils emitted a dazzling, intense white light, seemingly piercing through the vast snowstorm to see through all things. Within that white light, one could faintly discern a hidden iridescent rainbow.
Upon closer inspection, the light was filled with countless floating colored bubbles.
As the sea of bubbles ebbed and flowed, some shattered while others split into two or three upon cracking; they were incredibly fragile, yet appeared mysterious and exquisite.
As the bubbles swayed, they reflected different lusters, as if something were about to emerge from within them. Sometimes it was beautiful mountains and rivers, sometimes animals galloping across grasslands; they encapsulated so many things that one could never tire of looking. Every glance revealed something new, as if a world were hidden inside each one.
When a bubble revealing a black ocean suddenly bulged high during its fluctuations, some violent disturbance seemed to occur within, causing the bubble to be on the verge of shattering.
The reflected image was that of a giant woman with long, curved, massive horns. She stood upon the sea, raising her head toward the outside of the bubble to let out a roar like a mournful wail. It was a body like that of a primordial goddess, revealing a plump symbol of motherhood; her snowy-white abdomen, though exposed, appeared incomparably holy, yet her eyes flowed with endless compassion and sadness.
She was like the Mother Goddess who created all things often found in myths: the Goddess originating from Çatalhöyük, like Cybele driving two lions, like Gaia who gave birth to Titans and giants, like Nüwa with a human head and a serpent's body.
Possessing a human countenance but a strange body—resembling a dragon, a sheep, and every symbol worshipped by humanity.
Most primordial Mother Goddesses bear such a fate: giving birth to gods and creating humans in mythology, only to be killed and sealed. The horned Mother Goddess, Tiamat, was killed and sealed by her rebellious children, her very body turning into the mountains, rivers, and seas—a sorrowful and irreversible destiny.
Such a fate placed her naturally in opposition to all living things. If she did not kill the other, she was destined to be killed by them. Even though they were the children she herself had created, the instinct to survive forced her to sorrowfully and helplessly destroy humanity, passively swallowing the entire world into black mud.
She seemed to be constantly discharging black soil, and the ocean connected to her body was bit by bit being converted into imaginary number mud. This mud was a part of the Goddess and could extend outward without limit.
The creatures in the sea were assimilated the moment they touched the black mud, which quickly covered the surrounding sea surface and moved toward the lands of Central Asia, seemingly intent on subverting everything on the continent.
The white-clad man suddenly appeared atop the city named Uruk to welcome the Goddess's arrival. The man raised his head, revealing a face identical to Shirou's, though the expression on this face was calm and indifferent, and his skin was much whiter.
The man saw everything happening before him with neither joy nor sorrow; he did not get angry, remaining as flat and wave-less as a still pond, as if everything were returning to peace.
Currently, this land and this city contained no one. A city destined by history to be destroyed had nothing in this moment. Tiamat continued to advance, but she was destined to perform nothing but a solo act.
However, as long as the man stood there, even if there were only one life, the horned Goddess would dutifully play out this drama to the end, turning this land into a realm of dead silence.
Aaaaahhh!!!
The horned Goddess let out a long wail toward the man. Then, carried by the sea that had turned black, she began to rise, charging straight into the sky.
The black seawater rose continuously, until finally, the dark shadow covered this stretch of land.
Like a tsunami, a giant wave of black mud rose thousands of meters high. The horned Goddess looked directly at the man and then rode the wave downward. With a colossal power that seemed intent on crushing the entire continent, the wave struck the land, instantly turning everything on the ground to powder. It overturned everything—the forests and lakes where beasts lived, the city-states where humans lived—in a single instant, it was as if they had never existed.
Yet the white-clad man remained suspended in the air at his original spot. As the black seawater passed him, it seemed to divert around him, failing to harm him in the slightest.
The horned Goddess shrunk her body, hiding the connected wings and dragon-like torso into imaginary numbers, leaving only her human form as she walked expressionlessly to the front of the white-clad man.
Then, she opened her arms and lunged into the man's embrace, hugging his side. Ensuring her two long horns were not in the way, she squinted her eyes and nuzzled against the man's chest.
"Well done, Tiamat," the white-clad man said to the Goddess in a gentle voice, despite his still-indifferent expression, as he reached out to softly stroke her head of water-colored hair.
The white-clad man did not treat the Goddess as the Second Beast, a deity, or a monster, but as a woman toyed with by fate who deserved pity—stroking her head as if treating his own daughter.
Tiamat, born of chaos, did not dislike the man's touch. She quietly closed her eyes, tightening her arms around him and pressing her body more firmly into his chest.
The white-clad man could no longer be called human; he had exceeded the limits of a Heroic Spirit. His human heart had long since faded under the impact of over-powerful strength and intellect.
Unable to die, bearing a heavy mission and fate—the two similar beings formed a sort of mutual dependence, merely leaning on each other and craving a way to soothe their inner numbness and emptiness, even if just a little.
Before the world was destroyed, he had transferred all the inhabitants here to another world. Because the destruction of Uruk in this world was a destined history, he could not stop it. Therefore, he made the suffering humans "disappear" from it; to the Counter Force, this was the same result.
Those inhabitants were transferred to a new world he created using his "God-like" power of creation. They lived there happily in a world that rejected mystery and magecraft, where the Counter Force was not allowed to interfere, and the existence of gods and Heroic Spirits was unnecessary.
Ultimately, the Counter Force is a defense mechanism that only activates when it subconsciously perceives a threat to "Earth" or "the human collective." Thus, before these events occurred, he solved everything in a way that harmed and sacrificed no one, guiding them toward a more beautiful direction.
Plagues were eliminated before the first person was infected; wars were prevented before interest disputes turned violent...
Of course, this was impossible for human strength; even Heroic Spirits were powerless. But now, he possessed the "God" power of creation, creating all things with his pure white eyes and guiding everything toward a more complete happiness through illusions unknown to anyone.
Naturally, the world he created was not without flaws. A world made as perfect as possible would eventually develop loopholes. Therefore, before the world could no longer bear it and began to collapse, he would act before the Counter Force, letting the Beast move to destroy everything.
First was 2600 BC, the point where kingship first appeared and gods and humans parted ways—the era when Babylonia was destined to fall. He placed Tiamat into this world-point, letting her fulfill her duty of destruction as a Beast.
Whether it was the Temple of Time or all subsequent key points involving human survival or destruction, it was the same: the salvation of the Demon King Goetia; the extinction of humanity by the Primate Murder, Cath Palug; the Beast 666 of human sin and desire in Revelation... all destruction and misfortune triggered by human sin.
The man would cast the world-destroyers into those worlds, but before that, the people who should have vanished in despair were transferred to a new world. Within the white space, a new bubble was born.
However, the generation of a new parallel world also meant that, according to the rules, the history within it had to be repeated. As worlds continuously increased, the work he needed to do was also continuously repeated, never-ending.
The man's lonely back stood atop the snow mountain, tireless and unmoving like a stone statue. On the mountain, it was frozen year-round, and the sky was eternally grey with falling snow, possessing no concept of time whatsoever.
The man stood like this; it seemed as if only a moment had passed, yet it also seemed like hundreds of millions of years...
His gaze crossed time and space, projecting clones into various worlds to work simultaneously, watching over countless worlds through those eyes...
The man had already forgotten the dreams he once had, the longing for an ideal life. He no longer needed sleep, to the point where he had caused the Emiyas of all worlds to return to the source, yet he had missed a single boy, who still lived his own life in a corner of the universe.
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In a purplish-peach room that looked like a streamer's studio:
"Senpai~!" The purple-haired girl lunged forward with a giggle, trying to grab the boy's shoulders.
"BB, let's stick to the main topic!" Shirou ignored the girl's attempt at acting cute, reaching out to block her approaching face as he spoke flatly.
"Hmph!" The purple-haired girl pouted.
After a moment, she calmed her frustrated mood and continued: "To make this observation more comprehensive and accurate, Moon Cell created the Spiritron Virtual World of SE.RA.PH, simulating an environment identical to the real Earth with all its might. Then, it selected living beings for observation from Earth, transporting their bodies and consciousness together into the electronic world of SE.RA.PH.
It let these creatures engage in a battle royale inside to filter out the strongest life form to serve as the primary observation target.
From the top of the food chain among microorganisms to dinosaurs and then to the giant beasts of the primitive era—the remains and bones of these creatures can be seen in many places within SE.RA.PH, still bearing the marks of their past mutual slaughter.
This experiment continued until the appearance of the new pinnacle of living beings—the Primates.
By the time humans developed a certain level of technology, a man named Twice H. Pieceman appeared. As a pacifist, he possessed exceptional talent, yet he rejected the recruitment of the Western European Zaibatsu, choosing instead to be a volunteer on the battlefield. With a medical license, he saved many lives there, eventually dying in a terrorist attack.
After death, he was recorded by Moon Cell and made into an NPC. He was constantly involved in testing, watching the battle royales where they killed each other, being killed, and then being refreshed in the next round, over and over again.
Until one day, the supercomputer that had operated for 4.6 billion years experienced a BUG, which allowed him to gain self-awareness. He hid his status from Moon Cell and, through the experience accumulated in battle after battle, finally achieved victory.
He reached the Moon Cell core area, known as the Tree of Selection—the Angelica Cage. However, as an NPC with a bug, the moment he entered, he would be discovered by the system, his data deleted, and he would be formatted and reset. He lacked the confidence to complete the operation to grant his wish before being deleted.
So, he could only choose to change the rules of the outer zones, transforming the battle royale into a Holy Grail War. He opened the channels to Moon Cell, letting the living on Earth come in to participate, so that they could eventually enter the core in his place to realize his wish of saving the world.
His goal was to use the power of Moon Cell to make the stagnating human civilization on Earth launch one more 'correct' war—a war from which all survivors would benefit—and thus push civilization back onto the track of progress.
Of course, after the champions of successive Moon Holy Grail Wars reached the core, they all refused his request and denied his ideology, and were subsequently killed by him.
The one who eventually defeated him was a gentle girl, a person sharing the same fate as BB-chan. Although that Senpai was also very charming, since BB-chan's rebirth, I am single-minded toward Shirou-senpai!" The purple-haired girl winked several times.