Clouds had gathered overhead at some point. Thunder rumbled above without pause. A light rain had begun to fall.
I exhaled, walking toward Gilgamesh.
At the first beat of my heart.
Thump.
Intricate blue glyphs climbed over my face, dense with patterns that defied easy comprehension. They plunged down across my chest, arms, torso, and legs—superimposing themselves over my magic circuits, etching into my body as though they had always belonged there.
Thump.
My crimson eyes narrowed to reptilian slits. Countless onyx scales surfaced across my neck and chest, gleaming with a quiet defiance against Gilgamesh's gold.
Thump.
My eyes closed for a moment, and then opened.
BOOM!
The world blurred.
I was already moving toward Gilgamesh—fast enough that countless sonic booms tore through the air behind me, a chain of detonations that almost resembled music.
However... faster still were Gilgamesh's golden portals. Every one of them shifted target instantly, tracking and launching toward me without a fraction of delay.
Time warped further as [Square Accel] dilated my perception, pushing me to four times normal speed.
Everything slowed to a crawl for me. Even the raindrops falling from above seemed to slow their descent, suspended mid-air like glass beads on invisible threads.
Three weapons shrieked toward me in slow motion.
A massive, two-handed golden greatsword etched with ancient runes, a distinctive blue jewel set into its hilt.
A large, double-edged ornate blade that radiated a vibrant yet demonic aesthetic.
A golden European-style longsword bearing white and blue accents, its guard intricate and deliberate.
All three were Noble Phantasms. All three radiated mortal danger. All three were Anti-Dragon.
A fraction of my mind split off within the stretched seconds...cataloging, deducing, referencing them against my perfect knowledge of mythology.
A moment. That was all it took to decipher them.
Balmung. Gram. Ascalon.
Respectively.
Any one of them could tear me apart. [Beast Will] active or not, it made no difference.
Just before they reached me, I opened my left hand.
Excalibur, still sheathed in Invisible Air, tore through the air from behind.
Artoria had thrown it without prompt or command. She simply understood.
My fingers closed around Excalibur's hilt even as its form remained invisible to sight.
Perfected swordsmanship surged through my limbs—every stance, every parry, every killing intent compressed into a single fluid motion.
I swung Excalibur.
Clang. Ring. Shing.
Balmung was deflected.
Gram was tilted aside.
Ascalon was parried.
I continued toward Gilgamesh, my speed undiminished for even a fraction of a second.
"At least you can handle more than a single one of my treasures now, Mongrel." Gilgamesh didn't seem daunted by my advance in the slightest. His hands remained casually buried in his pockets, watching me like a monkey performing a trick.
I had closed half the distance between us when sixteen Noble Phantasms roared from his golden portals, hurling toward me with ruthless intent.
Every single one Anti-Dragon. Every single one lethal.
My heels dug in as I killed my momentum, my mind already concluding that pressing forward meant death.
I stopped just short of an axe burying itself into the ground ahead of me. I used it as a pivot, launching upward as a polearm and katana crisscrossed beneath my feet.
Mid-leap, a spear and broadsword closed in on me, no time to react.
My wrist turned in a slow, deliberate circle, tai chi applied to a killing moment, and the spear slid past my shoulder.
Simultaneously, sparks erupted as Excalibur met the broadsword, diverting it aside.
Four more weapons followed the earlier barrage. My empty hand did not pause as [Gradation Air] boomed to life.
Medusa's stake-chain from earlier materialized within my grip. I hurled it backward without looking, its chain rattling between my fingers.
Artoria behind me had already aligned herself perfectly. She snatched the stake-chain from mid-air and pulled.
I was forcefully jerked back, Gilgamesh's weapons missing me by mere millimeters.
Those weapons collided where I had been a moment ago, shearing away a layer of earth.
Gilgamesh glanced toward Tohsaka and her Servant for a moment.
"Faker... Don't you want to join them?" His voice dripped with idle amusement.
"No thanks." Archer raised an eyebrow, his gaze flickering toward me for a moment.
"Like hell we're helping them. Who told that idiot Master to sic a dragon on our backs? I'd have broken his nose myself if I could." Tohsaka scoffed, arms crossed.
Meanwhile... I landed beside Artoria and exchanged a look with her while handing her Excalibur back.
I then looked toward Lancer and Medusa, who had been watching for any openings, and spoke.
"Buy us five minutes."
Lancer and Rider didn't bother answering. They simply moved to intercept.
I turned, spotting R1 collapsed nearby and reached for it.
Artoria followed behind.
I hauled R1 upright and threw a leg over its frame, my hands locking onto the grips.
Its engine ignited in moments.
A deep rumble resonated alongside the first piston stroke.
It deepened into a screech as the fuel-air mixture compressed.
By the third stroke... a beast had awakened.
Its exhaust roar climbed into a vicious scream at the final stroke.
VROOOM!
Artoria settled herself behind me, her Excalibur pointed toward the ground.
I looked ahead at Gilgamesh and pulled its throttle fully.
R1 surged forward, straight toward the King of Heroes.
"Lancer."
Lancer heard me and hurled his spear onto my path, burying it into the ground ahead.
I micro-adjusted R1's trajectory and cranked the accelerator.
VROOOM!
R1's tires rolled, using Lancer's spear as a ramp to spring upward, becoming airborne.
Two golden portals tore open at our sides, Noble Phantasms emerging from within.
Clang. Clang.
One was blocked by Excalibur, another deflecting off one of the stake-chains Rider had thrown from our flank.
Yet more portals opened along our flanks. Eighteen total.
I ignored them, looking at Gilgamesh, who peered up at us with disdain.
Time ground to a halt in my perception once again. Every mental faculty focused on my surroundings.
R1's engine turning beneath us. Water droplets suspended around us. Lancer and Rider below.
It took less than two seconds for me to map the evasion vectors.
Time snapped back into motion.
I let go of R1's handlebars mid-air.
[Gradation Air] hummed to life once again. This time, what materialized in my hands was...
A pair of torches.
I flicked them on. Trajectories, diffraction angles, refractive indexes—computed before the beams fully stabilized.
I snapped the torches into position.
Their beams passed through and refracted across countless water droplets surrounding us, dissolving into a complex web of light that folded in on itself.
Seven colors of a rainbow divided and merged across the suspended droplets, swallowing our surroundings in a concentrated flash of shifting spectrum.
Everyone lost sight of us for a fraction.
Eighteen Noble Phantasms were still rushing toward us unimpeded.
So... from within that flash of seven-colored light came Artoria's voice.
"Strike Air: Hammer of the Wind King."
Her Excalibur unsheathed itself for a moment...a concentrated hammer of compressed wind that struck the ground beneath us like a piston.
BOOOOOM!
R1 was launched even higher, vaulting over the Noble Phantasms, over Gilgamesh, over everyone else.
While everyone was blindsided for a moment by my maneuver...
R1 had already landed some distance away, speeding off without looking back.
Above us—where we had been a heartbeat ago—more golden portals had already begun to open. Dozens of them.
But we were gone.
Gilgamesh's scoff wasn't disdain.
It was the sound of a man who had already deduced we would escape and was deciding whether it was worth his pride to chase.
Gilgamesh's gaze then shifted toward Rider, yet she had already made a run for it.
His eyes turned toward Lancer. He had put too much distance between them by now.
Then he looked toward where Heracles had been. He had taken his Master away at some point during the chaos.
Gilgamesh's expression went flat.
Finally, he looked toward Archer.
Archer looked back.
"Faker... This king is not in a good mood."
Countless golden portals diverted toward Archer now.
Kanshou and Bakuya traced into existence within Archer's grip in response.
"Wait... Wait... What are you both?" Rin asked, her expression bewildered.
Countless Noble Phantasms were trained on them.
BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM!
"Wuu... Wuu... Wuu... WHY ME!!!??"
Rin's desperate scream was swallowed by the relentless explosions behind her.
...
..
.
***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[5 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
Damn! Gil got done in by a flashlight of colours. Was it a high IQ move or something with no rhyme or logic?
I would appreciate your reviews.
As for any technicalities? Raindrops basically acted like suspended prisms mid air, which diffused light into different colours and reflected it on top of one another, acting like a precise and nigh impossible flash bang of seven colours. In reality, you'd probably need a quantum computer to even try something like this.
...
I was genuinely not about to upload any chapters today, but then I felt like it and did it. Just consider it as a bonus one.
Enjoy.