"What exactly happened here?" Artoria no longer knew what expression to use to convey her feelings at this moment.
After finally dealing with Seimei, who was controlled by Command Spells, the three Servants, along with Waver and Irisviel, slowly arrived at the place where Oda Nobunaga and Meruem had fought earlier.
Zouken, Nobunaga, and Meruem were all gone, and the location looked as if a colossal monster had attacked it.
The surrounding area of what was originally the bustling city center had turned into an open flatland, as if bombed by nuclear missiles, with a bottomless pit left in the very center.
The residual mana lingering in the air told them how intense the previous battle had been.
Among the remaining Heroic Spirits, perhaps only Artoria using Excalibur at full power or Goldie with his ancient nukes and EA could achieve this level of destruction, and Goldie had been recalled just now.
And that would be achieving the effect using the power of Noble Phantasms.
But the scene before them looked more like it was smashed out purely by physical bodies.
Fist imprints and indentations of human bodies sunk into the ground could be seen everywhere.
Human bodies? Even Servants and Heroic Spirits, whose bodies are far stronger than humans, shouldn't be able to achieve such an effect, right? It was simply too terrifying. Rather than saying humans did it, they would find it more acceptable if Phantasmal Species did it.
And the Conqueror King and Diarmuid couldn't achieve such an effect even if they exhausted all their mana.
If this was really done by a single person, then it was too terrifying. Everyone present was deeply shocked.
"Where is CASTER's MASTER? And what exactly did he summon? I don't believe a mere District 11 Heroic Spirit could achieve this level. Even if this is his home field." The Conqueror King frowned, looking at the bottomless pit.
"Don't know... maybe he summoned some other terrifying thing and it backfired on him. Or maybe he successfully summoned that so-called Demon King of District 11, but something unexpected happened and brought something else out too." Waver said casually, seemingly trying to crack a joke to ease the tension.
"How can you jump to conclusions so hastily?" Artoria disagreed with Waver's words. If it were truly as he said, wouldn't that be too coincidental?
"But... what the little MASTER said makes some sense. Otherwise, I don't think CASTER's MASTER would choose to hide after summoning such a powerful thing. Moreover, he has nowhere to hide, since this place is only so big." The Conqueror King was referring to the range of the barrier. If something really appeared, unless it could evade the detection of all their Heroic Spirits, they would definitely have discovered it.
So although Waver's deduction seemed a bit too incredible, it was very likely the truth.
"The barrier has disappeared..." Diarmuid, who had been silent, spoke up.
"It seems CASTER's MASTER is really dead," the Conqueror King said. "I thought it would be a fierce battle, but I didn't expect it to end so inexplicably."
In the end, although Artoria felt unwilling, they indeed couldn't find any other evidence. Finally, the temporary team composed of several Heroic Spirits disbanded again.
Everyone went back to their respective homes.
"I didn't expect this old worm to bring me some decent food." Meruem, the protagonist, had long left the place after dealing with Oda Nobunaga and Zouken.
Sage Mode. While dealing with Nobunaga, Meruem used the Sage Mode he hadn't used for a long time. Ever since he gained the Chimera Ant transformation ability, Meruem had stopped using this ability.
But because he was in the FATE world, suppressed by this world, he couldn't use abilities exceeding a certain range, so he couldn't transform into a Chimera Ant. However, controlling Sage Mode to a certain extent was no problem.
As for the fate of Nobunaga and Zouken?
After entering Sage Mode, the strength Meruem could unleash turned the confrontation with Nobunaga into a one-sided slaughter.
In the end, the defeated Nobunaga used his strongest ability as the Sixth Heaven Demon King—transforming into the Demon King Papiyas.
However, although his strength greatly increased, he was still defeated by Meruem and became Meruem's mana source.
This boosted Meruem's Mana stat to A-rank.
Originally, Meruem intended to properly punish Zouken, but the battle was too intense. Zouken was accidentally swept into it, and now probably only ashes remained.
A generation's famous magus, Makiri Zolgen, disappeared from this world just like that.
This made Meruem feel it was a pity; that old worm got off too easily.
Having dealt with Zouken, who stirred up trouble outside and played dirty tricks behind the scenes, Meruem rushed non-stop towards Tokiomi Tohsaka, who was courting death.
Although Meruem extremely didn't want to care about this guy's life or death... Tokiomi was, after all, Sakura's biological father.
He would leave this world sooner or later. What could be happier than staying by one's parents' side? But if it were just Aoi Tohsaka alone, Meruem didn't think she alone could bring Sakura happiness. Her character was too weak; Sakura being sent to the Matou family was partly due to Aoi's weakness.
If you replaced Aoi's character with adult Rin Tohsaka, I reckon Tokiomi would have to think twice before sending Sakura to the Matou family.
Well, if Tokiomi doesn't listen, if worst comes to worst, I'll transform him into an ant. At least protect Sakura well until she reaches adulthood.
Just based on his conviction to avenge his daughter regardless of victory in the Holy Grail War, even offending Goldie to kill Kiritsugu, he earned a tiny bit of goodwill from Meruem.
Just a tiny bit, counting him as a man with some backbone.
Not the kind of cold-blooded animal who endures everything for "great things" to the point of losing their balls.
He still had some humanity, not completely irredeemable.
However, when Meruem arrived, he didn't see Kiritsugu's corpse as he had envisioned. It seemed that before Tokiomi could use the last Command Spell, Mapo that guy had already betrayed his master.
"Kirei... why?" A voice as tiny as a mosquito's was squeezed out of Tokiomi Tohsaka's mouth.
Currently, Tokiomi Tohsaka no longer had his previous noble posture; his appearance was unusually wretched. Tokiomi's throat was being tightly gripped by his most proud disciple, Kirei Kotomine.
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