Chapter 245: Scathach and Skaði's Mixed Doubles
Compared to before, the change in the world was unmistakable.
The Holy Grails that already existed had begun to solidify Mystery across countless regions. Then, once the planet was linked into a single, planetary scale Holy Grail, that system did something even more terrifying.
It re condensed what was constantly being lost.
No.
Not only what was being lost.
It also drew from other worlds, from within the Sea of Stars, from assimilated possibility worlds that now brushed against this reality like overlapping shadows.
This was not a true fusion.
Those other worlds still existed independently. They simply treated this world as the main world.
As long as the branches existed, the main world could receive a continuous supply of Mystery.
And those branches were infinite possibilities. Every choice made by every person could give birth to a different world.
In other words, as long as the main world existed, it could endlessly derive branch worlds.
And as long as the branches existed, the main world could continuously stabilize and strengthen its own existence.
Intertwined.
Cyclical.
A self sustaining system.
This was the largest scale manifestation of the Third Magic, materialization of the soul.
From that day onward, one corner of Mystery was exposed to the sun.
The old principle of secrecy was gone.
Countless Heroic Spirits, heroes from ancient and modern ages alike, appeared openly before the world. The upheaval this caused did not even need explanation.
"King Arthur? The legendary King of Knights, the second generation Wild Hunt, the King of Storms, the monarch prophesied to return from Avalon?"
"Nero? Nero, the king of Rome who remained in the flames and waited for the words of one person?"
"And the Hero King, the Sun King… I never thought the legends were true…"
Only a few days had passed since Rowe forged innumerable Holy Grails and stitched the world into one vast vessel.
Most people were still dazed.
Most were still trying to accept that reality had changed while they blinked.
But this was only the beginning.
Because with infinite possibilities, everyone now possessed the qualification to become a Servant.
And the qualification to touch Mystery.
It depended only on whether they worked hard.
It depended only on whether they found the correct path.
This was not an era where everyone was born a dragon.
It was an era where everyone had the right to try to become one.
Of course, none of that mattered to Rowe.
After vanishing and reappearing, he was no longer where he had been. He concealed all traces of his aura, and for the moment, the manifested Servants could not find him.
The worst of the chaos briefly receded.
Now, Rowe only needed one thing.
To die.
To die by another's hand.
Then, through the connection between the Thrones, he could reach the highest layer of the Throne of Heroes.
And retrieve his power.
Those who wanted him dead had already arrived.
It was still the East.
Tokyo's streets lay under a fine drizzle. People on both sides of the road hesitated, still half stunned by the changes of these past few days.
In the gloom ahead, a long spear appeared, angled downward, rainwater sliding along its length.
The one holding it had long dark purple hair hanging loose, a beautiful heroic face, lips faintly upturned, a soft flush on her skin that shimmered in the city's reflected light.
Scathach.
Queen of the Land of Shadows.
A figure who should have returned to her proper position along with the others.
And yet, she was still here.
"You used Skaði," Scathach said, eyes fixed on him. "You had her return in your place to hide that you remained here."
"It was not using," Rowe replied. "It was cooperation."
Scathach's smile did not change.
Around them, footsteps quickened.
The world had become unstable, and Heroic Spirits were not all kind. Many were troublemakers by nature, and some were worse than that.
So when ordinary people saw someone dressed strangely and acting strangely, they avoided them.
Within moments, the rainy street emptied.
Distant city lights drifted down through the mist, outlining the two figures facing each other.
Rowe lifted his hand. His grey clothing stirred in the wind.
Scathach looked much the same as she had when they first met.
Dark purple hair loose.
A tight outfit that clung to a body built for combat, slim at the waist, full at the chest and hips, legs wrapped in black stockings.
A graceful athletic silhouette, standing steady against wind and rain.
Most striking were her red eyes.
Battle intent.
Killing intent.
Pure and undisguised.
Rowe found himself pleased.
Perhaps she was the first ancient hero he had met since descending into the present world who truly, sincerely wanted to kill him.
It almost moved him.
Enough that he answered her with the same sincerity.
He shifted his stance, the air around him tightening as if the world itself had noticed.
"I was not your opponent back then," Scathach said, raising her spear slightly. "And I am probably still not now."
She smiled.
"But I still want to try."
Vast magical energy spread from her, pouring into the world linked by countless Holy Grails. Servants had manifested their true bodies and could now display their powers without the usual restraints.
Centered on Scathach, a dark and profound landscape unfolded.
Behind her, a gate formed, steeped in deathly silence.
The Land of Shadows, existing between life and death.
Scathach, who transcended life and death, stood before Rowe.
At this moment, she was stronger.
Far stronger than she had been nearly three thousand years ago in the Nordic region.
This was the nature of a transcendent.
She had not transcended the world itself, only life and death. A living being who was neither alive nor dead.
And because of that, her strength could rise without interruption.
She refined her martial arts endlessly.
She prepared endlessly for another confrontation with Rowe.
A transcendent's strength had no clear ceiling.
A living being was not restricted by the fixed shape of legend.
So now, the Land of Shadows expanded until it threatened to swallow the entire Tokyo area.
A modern metropolis, wrapped in a domain of death.
Beyond city scales.
Beyond the reach of ancient kingdoms.
The pressure was enough to make the air itself feel heavier.
"A continent scale god king," Rowe said, voice holding a flicker of genuine admiration. "So this is your current full output. Three thousand years of progress is not a small thing."
"Back then, you were barely at a main god scale that could affect an island."
"It is still not enough compared to you," Scathach said.
She lifted the spear with one hand and swept her hair aside with the other, casual, almost intimate, as if the world was not trembling behind her.
"But that does not matter."
She did not care how strong Rowe was.
She did not care how far he had surpassed her.
She wanted to challenge him.
The Queen of the Land of Shadows was a fanatic of combat. She craved strength. More than that, she craved one specific opponent.
Rowe.
Meeting him was the first time she had not felt bored by the present world.
She did not seek death.
But she did not fear it either.
She even wanted the moment of breaking through at the edge of it.
"I have reached my strongest at this stage."
Her spear rose.
"Rowe."
"Show me something that can shake you."
The spear traced a bright arc through rain.
Scathach vanished.
Then reappeared beside Rowe, her thrust already arriving.
The Land of Shadows closed in from all sides. Countless shadows followed her motion, weaving into converging spears.
The weight of a world pressed into that single strike.
Effortless.
This opening move was already equivalent to her trump card from long ago, the spear that once mimicked Ereshkigal's temple. It was stronger than that now.
If Rowe had been his Nordic era self, without revealing his machina body, he might have lost to this Scathach.
No wonder she dared to challenge him.
It was not arrogance.
It was certainty shaped by a fixed impression.
Unfortunately, the current Rowe did not exist on the same curve of power as the one she remembered.
A Star Creating God.
A being who could create planets.
A being whose full power could shake the essence of a world and brush the Sea of Stars.
Strictly speaking, the current surface of reality had not fully matured. Even now, with branch worlds supplying it, it still could not bear Rowe's unrestricted output.
But balance existed.
Internal and external.
And within those limits, Rowe could display the greatest extent of his power that the world could endure.
So, against Scathach's world weight spear, Rowe took one step forward.
It was like stepping from one world into another.
The spear landed behind him.
Rowe turned his head slightly, looking at her.
"Still not enough," he said without hesitation. "This alone is not enough."
Death by an external hand would be enough to reach the Throne. There were no other requirements.
Except one.
That hand needed to be able to shake his existence.
So he had to guide her.
Force her higher.
Bring her to the point where she could kill him.
Scathach frowned.
Her waist twisted, her posture tightening like a bow.
She threw the spear.
The first strike carried the weight of a world.
This second strike carried the weight of an era.
Countless shadows condensed into a single point, breaking the surface of reality with that point.
"Now that is a little interesting," Rowe said.
"But it is still useless."
He shifted. The spear grazed past him.
Then Rowe advanced.
One sudden step.
He closed the distance, seized Scathach's spear hand, and gave a sharp shake.
Gae Bolg flew free.
Scathach was flung away, sliding through the darkness of her own domain until she stabilized more than ten meters back.
"Is the gap really that vast?" she asked quietly.
She stood straight again, hair settling, expression not discouraged, only thoughtful.
After so long, the gap had not shrunk.
It had widened.
Rowe shook his head.
"It is not that the gap is vast."
"It is that you have not dug out your real power."
Scathach froze.
"What do you mean?"
She raised her hand. Gae Bolg, called back by her will, dropped into her grasp with a heavy sound.
Rowe pointed at the spear.
"You have lived for nearly four thousand years, have you not?"
Scathach narrowed her eyes.
"Sir," she said slowly, "it is extremely rude to state a woman's age so directly."
"I am not calling you old," Rowe said, tone flat.
"You already did," she replied.
She lifted her spear. Behind her, the gate of death became clearer, larger, more oppressive.
Her lips curved into an enigmatic smile.
The power she displayed seemed to sharpen, as if his words had struck something far more dangerous than her patience.
Rowe, for the record, wanted Scathach stronger. Strong enough to touch his essence and kill him.
He had not intended to weaponize vanity.
He simply miscalculated how lethal that subject was.
"I understand," Scathach said.
Her spear tip dragged lightly, then lifted.
"Existence is power."
Existence was power.
Even though Scathach was not like Rowe, always active in human history, she had not been fully dormant either.
To refine her martial arts, she had taught countless heroes across eras.
Not one truly satisfied her, in the way Rowe did.
Most never even saw her.
They received her teachings in dreams.
But after they left the Land of Shadows, after their dreams ended, they became active in their countries, leaving behind reputations and, more importantly, the phrase that followed them like a shadow.
Scathach's disciple.
Now, with human order manifest and Mystery solidified, existence became tangible power.
"I am a living being who transcends life and death," Scathach said, voice steady. "I am not constrained by legends in the way ordinary Servants are."
"But I resisted the power that legends bring."
Her eyes narrowed.
"That resistance ends here."
"Existence is power."
"And it is my power."
"It cannot be taken away."
In the era of solidified Mystery, legends were no longer stories.
They were structure.
Scathach planted her spear into the ground.
A smile formed.
And she spoke ancient words that carried the weight of an older world.
"Gate of Skye."
The wind answered.
Behind her, the gate of the Land of Shadows opened wider, revealing an abyssal depth.
The Land of Shadows swallowed the world.
This was a Noble Phantasm granted by legend, one the original Scathach had been unwilling to rely on.
But now, with her power stacked upon itself, the Land of Shadows she manifested carried the faint outline of a complete world.
What was called an Origin was the complete manifestation of a magnificent space.
Like Tiamat's Sea of Chaos, from which all things emerged.
Like the highest heaven Rowe had reached at the end of the Nordic era.
Either an Origin took the form of a planetary landscape.
Or it took the form of entrusting one's spirit core to a complete vast space.
At this moment, Scathach showed the tendency.
She was advancing toward becoming the will of the Land of Shadows itself.
Scathach now carried the hint of an Origin.
With that potential, she could shake Rowe's existence.
Rowe laughed, bright and delighted.
"You did not disappoint me."
He did not resist as the gate swallowed him.
He did not resist as he fell into the domain of the Land of Shadows.
Tokyo regained its light.
Dark clouds dispersed.
The sky looked almost like dawn.
Far above, in the high heavens, Amaterasu cast her gaze down.
"Rowe's aura…"
"It appeared, then vanished?"
A certain fox's furious muttering did not matter.
Neither did the countless people in the present world who looked up, confused.
Rowe and Scathach's battlefield had shifted from the surface world into the Land of Shadows.
A familiar scene.
A world of rock, shadows, and cold silence.
Rowe landed on stone.
Walls of stacked rock formed a palace like a memory carved into geology.
Ahead, Scathach stood before a throne, smiling faintly.
"Familiar, is it not?" she asked.
"It is," Rowe replied.
Their first meeting had been like this.
Pulled into the Land of Shadows by a woman who craved an opponent.
Similar.
And different.
Same people.
Different strength.
"Then let us continue," Scathach said.
Now she had potential. Now she had the qualification to challenge him.
Because a Star Creating God was also an Origin.
The highest specification of a planet's manifestation, the end of Mystery's display.
From affecting the surface to shaking the planet's essence, all of it was Origin.
The difference between reaching the end and reaching the extreme was vast.
But both stood on the same axis.
A child and a strong man were both human.
And if a child held a blade, even with a one in ten million chance, the strong man could still die.
Scathach raised her spear.
Darkness converged.
The power to pierce the world gathered at its tip.
Gae Bolg locked onto Rowe.
Her Gae Bolg was an imitation of Odin's Gungnir, obtained through Skaði.
But now it surpassed its origin.
Gungnir targeted fate.
Gae Bolg targeted the world.
To pierce the world.
Then every life within the scope of the world would naturally be struck and killed.
Certain death.
This was Scathach's maximum.
To defeat Rowe, she had to truly intend to kill him. That decision had been present from the start.
And because the Land of Shadows was now linked to the present world, dying here would be no different from dying outside.
Everything was set.
Rowe smiled.
And raised his hands.
He watched Scathach cross the distance in an instant.
He felt the Land of Shadows press down.
Facing a spear that could kill him, he made a choice.
He gave up resistance.
"Let me see," Rowe said softly.
"If your full power strike can shake me."
"It can," Scathach answered.
She moved close, too close, the air around Rowe filling with the scent of rain and steel.
Then Rowe's body tilted.
His back hit the ground.
The death he expected did not arrive.
Rowe blinked, stunned.
His body sank slightly.
Scathach pressed down on him.
Her legs straddled him.
The spear stood to the side, planted like an oath.
She leaned down, hair falling like dark silk, red eyes fixed on his gold.
"Is that it," she murmured, voice low. "So that is how it is."
Rowe did not answer immediately.
Scathach's lips curved.
"You were looking for death on purpose, were you not?"
As a transcendent, her insight was sharp enough to suspect it long ago.
Now she had confirmed it.
Rowe steadied his breath.
"So what?"
Scathach's expression turned serious, their proximity too intimate for the battlefield.
"To be honest, I am not confident I can kill you," she admitted plainly.
Then her smile returned.
"But I know that if I show killing intent too clearly, you will surrender."
Rowe's eyes narrowed, a faint sense of danger surfacing too late.
Scathach's cheeks carried a slight flush.
"Did you forget something?"
Her body pressed closer, deliberate, heavy with implication, not violence.
Rowe's mind searched.
Then she spoke the answer.
"Skaði loves you."
"And I and Skaði…"
"We share an origin."
Two sides of one coin.
After thousands of years together, did he truly believe she had not been affected?
Rowe went still.
He had forgotten that.
Completely.
Scathach's smile sharpened, victorious.
"How does it feel," she whispered, "to spend your life plotting others, only to be plotted against yourself?"
"Of course."
"If I had not confirmed that you were still pure during that close exchange just now, I would not go this far."
"But now."
"The winner is decided."
"You lose."
Rowe's mouth opened.
Scathach sealed it with a kiss.
Her arms wrapped around him.
Beside them, Gae Bolg's presence locked his movement like a law.
Rowe could break free.
Easily.
But…
A second presence brushed the domain.
A familiar cold divinity.
"Rowe."
Rowe's eyes widened slightly.
"Skaði… you are here too?"
Scathach did not look away.
Her voice remained steady, almost amused.
"Since you are here, join us."
Then, as if it were necessary to state out loud, she added:
"I told you. I did not use her. We cooperated."
Rowe did not move.
If he broke free, Scathach would endure it.
Skaði might not.
Had Scathach calculated even that?
Scathach's lips curved again, and her voice softened into something dangerous.
"I do not dislike greedy powerful men."
"Not compared to men who take what they want and abandon what they touched."
Outside.
Britannia.
London.
Within Buckingham Palace, where the Queen resided, the flag of Camelot flew high.
A queen with golden hair and azure eyes ascended a throne.
Before swarming reporters and aimed cameras, she issued her first administrative order.
"At all costs, search for the Prince Consort of Britannia."
"Rowe."
Not only Britannia.
Rome.
The Hunnic Empire.
Israel.
Egypt.
Uruk.
Across the world, nations issued orders and warrants in frantic succession.
Everyone understood the new rule.
Servants were not merely legends.
They were power comparable to nuclear weapons.
In the New World across the sea, the modern hegemon struggled most of all.
Its history was short. It had fewer Servants.
It attempted to summon anyway.
And on the first day, it met humiliation.
A Servant named Quetzalcoatl appeared, immediately blasted open the gates of the White House, then vanished.
The Servant called Edison, gathering the power of past presidents and falsely claiming the name Washington, was furious.
And yet helpless.
"To summon the god of a people they exterminated," a voice murmured, watching the scene.
"Should they be grateful Quetzalcoatl is a benevolent god?"
Atop the Statue of Liberty, a golden haired girl held a small doll.
A dark keyhole like mark flashed faintly across her smooth forehead.
She shook her head.
"But it has nothing to do with me."
"This land has nothing to do with me either."
She stood and looked toward the distance.
"I only came to play with Big Brother."
Her smile was innocent.
Sweet.
And unsettling.
"What do you think, Big Sister who was summoned?"
She looked to the side.
A golden haired, agile figure had appeared beside her at some unknown time.
.....
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