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"So that's what happened... you were forced under Command Seal."
"Kill... KILL!"
Between transforming himself and summoning his Servant, Max chose the latter.
As the Command Seal on his hand erupted with dazzling crimson brilliance—while Maverick, still perched on some distant rooftop, was busy wondering where the hell Medea had disappeared to—the summoned Caster materialized beside Max in a swirl of magical energy.
Medea took one look at Shuten-douji's current state and felt her heart sink.
The oni had completely fallen into frenzy. Her eyes were those of a beast—vertical slits that held no recognition, no restraint, no hint of the playful personality that had been there before. Her movements held none of the elegant grace that had characterized her earlier—only raw, murderous intent.
The blood-red horns practically glowed in the darkness.
Although Medea had always found Shuten-douji annoying—that flirtatious attitude, that constant teasing, the way she'd look at Max like he was a snack—a hint of genuine pity crossed her pretty face now.
What a waste.
She didn't deserve this.
But pity wouldn't save anyone here.
Shuten-douji was completely beyond communication now.
With a flash of steel, the sword in her hand swept toward Max and the others at impossible speed.
"I CANNOT FORGIVE THIS!"
Lily's voice rang out like a bell, filled with righteous fury.
"ABSOLUTELY CANNOT FORGIVE THIS! To use something as despicable as a Command Seal to force a Servant to act against their will—SNAP OUT OF IT!"
Despite having no excess magical energy left to release, despite her body screaming with exhaustion from the earlier battle, Lily threw herself in front of everyone.
Her blade met Shuten-douji's in a shower of sparks.
She was immediately suppressed.
The difference in raw power was simply too great. Shuten-douji at full strength versus an exhausted Lily was no contest at all.
But then—fueled by pure, burning rage at the injustice of it all—Lily did something unexpected.
She headbutted Shuten-douji right in the face.
CRACK.
The oni actually stumbled back, momentarily stunned.
Medea seized the opening instantly. A barrage of arcane projectiles erupted from her hands, slamming into Shuten-douji and forcing her back several meters.
The oni still retained some rationality even in her berserk state—enough to recognize when pressing forward would be suicidal.
But before anyone could catch their breath—
The scent of alcohol flooded the air.
Every nerve in Max's body screamed DANGER.
Without hesitation, he sprinted to the side.
Medea grabbed Lily like a ragdoll, wrapping her arms around the smaller Saber and rocketing straight up into the sky.
[Lung_Capacity_Larry]: Oh my god, what kind of epic lungful is THAT?!
[Focus_Fred]: Medea, the enemy is RIGHT THERE, snap out of it! Stop sniffing Lily!
[Moral_Mary]: Shuten-douji's Master is truly despicable. Using Command Seals for forced mind control...
[Pragmatic_Paul]: Otherwise what? Wait for Beowulf to recover? I don't think Lester did anything wrong. For victory, I'd do the same thing
[Warning_Wendy]: Then just wait for YOUR Servant to betray you someday
[Worried_Wanda]: But how do they even fight this? This is FULL POWER Shuten-douji, and Max doesn't have any extra Command Seals to transform
Medea, still holding Lily close enough to appreciate her scent, took one last deep breath of the young Saber's fragrance.
Focus. Focus. The battle comes first.
Fortunately, she hadn't completely lost her mind. As the chat surged with commentary, she tossed Lily back into the battlefield—much to Lily's flustered protests.
But while Max and the others were fighting for their lives above—
Down in the massive crater Beowulf had created earlier, a very different scene was unfolding.
William Zhang knelt beside his Servant, tears streaming down his face.
Beowulf lay on the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. No—worse than that. A puppet without its bones. Every muscle in his body had gone slack, unable to support his weight without the skeletal structure that Shuten-douji had ripped away.
It was horrifying to look at. The legendary Dragon Slayer, the man who had just single-handedly beaten a divine dragon into submission, now lay helpless as a newborn.
His skin sagged in ways that skin shouldn't sag. His limbs bent at angles that made no anatomical sense.
And yet, somehow, he was still conscious. Still alive.
That was the resilience of a Heroic Spirit.
"Uncle Beowulf! Uncle Beowulf, are you okay?!"
William's voice cracked with guilt and desperation.
"It's all my fault. If I hadn't insisted on coming to find you—if I hadn't gotten ambushed by that guy—if you hadn't had to save me—you wouldn't be like this!"
"Fool."
Beowulf's voice was weak, but still carried that gruff warmth.
"We Servants are just shadows of the past. Echoes of people who died long ago. Any living being is more important than us."
He managed to raise one trembling hand—pure muscle memory, since he had no bones left to support the movement.
"Trading my life for yours... is truly worth it."
His fingers brushed away the tears from William's cheeks.
Then his eyes went wide.
"Also—LOOK OUT!"
"Beowulf?! UNCLE!"
Beowulf's arm shot out and shoved William aside with the last of his strength.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Bullets rained down from above.
Beowulf's already ruined body was riddled with new holes. One round caught him in the right eye, punching straight through.
And standing at the edge of the crater, smoking gun in hand—
Lester.
That smug, self-satisfied grin was plastered across his face. The coward had waited until everyone was exhausted, used his Command Seals to turn Shuten-douji into a weapon, and now he was here to clean up.
Vulture, William thought. You're nothing but a vulture.
William's grief transformed into something else entirely.
Resentment.
Pure, crystallized hatred.
"3x Intrinsic Time Control!"
I'll avenge him.
The thought burned through William's mind like wildfire. Without hesitation, he activated his magecraft—triple acceleration flooding his body with speed that let him blur out of the path of the pursuing bullets.
At the same time, he drew the Glock 17 he'd been carrying and returned fire at the figure standing above.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Bullets screamed past both their faces, grazing cheeks and drawing blood.
"AH!" Lester screamed at the minor wound.
"Ngh—" William barely grunted, even though his right hand had been clipped by return fire, bones cracking from the impact.
He couldn't afford to show weakness. Not now.
A smoke grenade flew from his off-hand, filling the crater with concealing fog.
William sprinted up the slope, heading for the ruins of a nearby building. The crater offered no cover—staying down there while Lester had the high ground was suicide.
And he absolutely could not die.
Not until he'd avenged Beowulf.
Pain lanced through his right calf—a bullet had caught him mid-sprint—but William pushed through it, rolling into position behind a crumbling wall.
On the other side of the smoke, Lester's face twisted with disgust.
This was supposed to be an easy kill.
Beowulf had pushed the kid out of the way. Lester had emptied half a magazine into the Servant, but the Master had survived.
Now the hunt had become complicated.
Venting his frustration, Lester held down the trigger and emptied his submachine gun in William's general direction.
"Little friend!" he called out, voice dripping with false sweetness. "It's late! Time to go to slee—"
A grenade came sailing through the smoke.
"SHIT!"
Lester dove forward without thinking, throwing himself into the crater to escape the blast.
Bad move.
The hunter had just become the hunted.
William appeared at the crater's edge, submachine gun aimed down at Lester.
But the skills William possessed, Lester had too.
Caught off guard didn't mean helpless. This was life or death, and that kind of pressure had a way of bringing out a person's survival instincts.
Under double acceleration, Lester scrambled across the crater floor—
And grabbed Beowulf.
The pistol in his hand pressed against the Servant's already-ruined head.
"I just saw how close you and your Servant are!" Lester shouted up at William, desperation making his voice shrill. "You don't want to watch him die, do you?! Put down your weapon! NOW!"
William's finger tightened on the trigger.
His eyes were cold.
"Never."
"YOU COLD-BLOODED LITTLE SHIT!" Lester's composure cracked. "You'd really watch the Servant who saved you TWICE get killed right in front of you?!"
William's response came without a moment's hesitation.
"If you want to shoot, then shoot."
His voice was steady. Absolute. The voice of someone who had already made peace with the worst possible outcome.
"It's precisely because Uncle Beowulf saved me twice—with his own life—that I will NEVER hand my life over to you."
William's eyes never wavered from his target.
"He believed in me. He protected me. He told me that my life was worth more than his."
The submachine gun stayed perfectly level.
"So I'm going to honor that. I'm going to survive. And then I'm going to make you pay for what you've done."
A cold smile crossed William's face.
"Go ahead and—"
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