The instant Jeanne d'Arc Alter, filled with resolve and love, pierced Marisbury with her Noble Phantasm and slammed him into the throne, it was as if the entire chaotic battlefield froze for a brief moment. Everyone halted what they were doing, all eyes converging on the Lord of Astromancy—once believed invincible—now writhing in agony amid black flames.
Victory had arrived, cruel but magnificent.
At this moment, Steve, who had quietly watched everything unfold, finally felt that the time had come. The most crucial act of this grand drama, which he himself had orchestrated, was drawing to a perfect close. Now, the director steps in for the finishing touch.
He raised his hand and, with a snap of his fingers, the Reality Marble that separated the battlefield, the land of steel, and the crimson sky, shattered like a broken mirror, scattering into countless points of light before vanishing without a trace.
Steve's composed figure emerged from the void at the center of the devastated battlefield as everyone's gaze gathered on him.
Looking around, Steve saw, in the distance, Gilgamesh and Artoria face off against Lord Logres; the three kings had silently paused their fight, their eyes probing Steve.
On the other side, Chaldea's exhausted members propped up the collapsing Ritsuka Fujimaru, fatigue and confusion stark on their faces. Beneath the throne, Goetia held Solomon by the collar, venting pent-up rage with relentless blows against his archrival, the source of so much of his suffering.
Smiling gently, Steve went first to Chaldea's group. In a calm and kind, yet undeniably authoritative voice, he spoke.
"Everyone, you've done well."
"You have defeated an enemy once thought invincible, utilizing your own strength, and fought an admirable battle."
"Your efforts have brought about a great victory."
Steve's words paused. He turned to the throne, eyes shifting to Marisbury, who burned in black fire and hovered near death.
"Now… it's time for the final reaping of victory," he intoned meaningfully before slowly approaching the throne.
Goetia, noticing Steve's arrival, merely clicked his tongue and reluctantly released Solomon's collar, retreating to the side.
Ignoring the disheveled King of Magecraft, Steve silently stood before Marisbury. He raised a hand, and a gentle magical power, steeped in the laws of the cosmos, softly covered the wound in Marisbury's chest. Wounds that could have been fatal were forcibly suppressed by Steve's power, and the black flames gradually faded.
He was not healing Marisbury—only ensuring he would not die so easily before judgment was done.
"Marisbury Animusphere."
Steve spoke his name gently—not loudly, but clearly enough for all to hear.
"Before I render my final judgment, I wish to tell you and your daughter a story about the future'.
His gaze shifted to Olga Marie, not far away. She shivered at his words, staring at him in confusion.
Steve gave a comforting smile, then began to narrate a tragedy that—meant for Olga Marie alone—would have unfolded in a distant future. He spoke with a cruel calmness, as if telling a fairy tale.
"I'm sorry to reopen your wounds, but I feel it's necessary to explain why I am punishing this man."
"In another future, Olga Marie—you will be betrayed by Lev Lainur at Singularity F and cast into Chaldea's core: the simulated Earth of Chaldea, CHALDEAS."
"And your father, Marisbury," Steve's gaze returned to the throne, locking onto the man now drifting in and out of consciousness from the pain.
"Right before he's forced to commit suicide after being captured by Daybit, his data is recorded into Chaldea. That data, preserved as an AI, will do nothing but watch helplessly as you fall into another Earth within Chaldea's walls."
"In that place, thanks to cognitive impairment, no one can even perceive your appearance."
"You're treated as an unknown extraterrestrial, placed on an Area 51 operating table."
"Over more than a hundred years, you were continuously studied in parts."
Steve's soft voice struck Olga Marie's heart like an iron hammer. Her face instantly went pale; those painful memories she never wished to recall crashed over her, and her body began to tremble uncontrollably. Mash and Ritsuka rushed to her side to steady her.
But Steve continued in that calm tone.
"Throughout that century, the Magic Circuits connected to your nerves were constantly extracted—a superb, versatile material in that other world."
"And your father had the power to stop it all.
"But he decided it wasn't necessary. He merely allowed it, simply watching as his daughter was dismembered."
"At the end, you only died completely after the last of your nerves were finally harvested."
"By then, your mind had been utterly shattered by endless torment."
"You forgot who you were, lost your human identity, and began to truly believe that the alien spoken of on the Alien planet was yourself."
"After your death, this deranged obsession reincarnated you as a follower, calling yourself the Alien God."
The story ended. For a long moment, the temple was deathly silent.
Olga Marie's eyes lost focus, tears quietly streaming down her face. She did not cry out. Overwhelmed by the tide of memories, paralyzed by sheer terror and despair, she found herself unable to speak.
Steve turned to Marisbury, whose mind he had restored to lucidity through his cosmic magecraft, and smiled.
"Now, have you understood?"
"As the highest compliment to your vaunted reason, I grant you a merciful sentence."
"You will experience, directly, not even one ten-thousandth of the endless agony your daughter endured."
With that, Steve gently placed his hand on Marisbury's forehead.
The next moment, dazzling starlight burst from Steve's palm. Marisbury's body convulsed violently, his eyes wide, with a rasping sound deep in his throat, though no voice emerged. Beneath his skin, complex magical circuits like a blue neural network lit up under an inescapable force, shining out before being forcibly torn from his flesh.
Countless threads of luminous energy were ripped from his limbs, torso, and head, converging in midair.
The sight was both majestic and unspeakably cruel.
Marisbury remained conscious through it all. He could feel, with harrowing clarity, the very foundation of his being as a mage—the pride inherited by his family over generations—being irretrievably stripped away piece by piece.
The agony reddened his eyes, but there was neither pleading nor regret within them, only extreme stubbornness and bitter hatred for Steve, the Servant.
At the end, every filament of light converged into a diamond-like sphere the size of a fist, hovering quietly in Steve's palm before shattering into countless motes of light and vanishing with a pop.
Stripped of all his Magic Circuits, Marisbury at last lost consciousness and slumped onto the throne like a lump of mud, utterly insensate.
To leave someone alive yet powerless, forced to watch a joke that would never end, unable ever to control their life again—this, to Steve, brought deeper satisfaction than simply killing an unrepentant mage outright.
Steve then paused and, as if nothing had happened, brightly declared to all:
"Alright, I've completely destroyed his magic circuits."
"From today, he's no longer a magus. He's just a helpless cripple who won't cause any trouble."
None of the Chaldeans objected—they knew everything that had transpired.
Olga Marie's eyes sparkled with a relief she herself could not comprehend, reassured that her father had merely fainted.
Goetia, who had witnessed everything, seemed to think the punishment still too light, clicking his tongue again. But before long, he found himself aware of the dark history in his own past. Casting a glance at the Demon Pillar, then at the dazed Olga Marie, he ultimately said nothing.
After all, if even the greatest victim kept silent, what right did he, a sinner who had incinerated humanity, have to object?
…