The glassed crater of Orleans was bathed in the fragile light of dawn, but the nightmare refused to end.
Bestia Avaritia, the Sin Dragon of Greed, was a horrifying husk of its former glory. Its invincible white scales were gone, its majestic theater-wings obliterated. It was reduced to a crawling, charred monstrosity of exposed muscle and leaking black mud. Yet, the dark blue Singularity Core embedded in its chest pulsed with a frantic, ravenous heartbeat.
It dragged itself toward Fujimaru and Mash, its melted jaws snapping at the air, desperate to consume their mana and rebuild its apocalyptic form.
"Senpai, stay behind me!" Mash shouted, her voice tight with exhaustion. Her legs trembled violently, her mana reserves practically empty from the grueling battles, but she slammed Lord Chaldeas into the scorched earth.
Fujimaru forced himself up, leaning heavily against his Demi-Servant's shoulder. He had no Command Spells left. His magic circuits ached. But his eyes remained locked on the Beast.
"Hey, kid. Don't think you get to hog the final curtain," a voice called out.
Cú Chulainn Caster strolled up beside them, his wooden staff resting casually on his shoulder. He looked battered from his fight with Francesca, but his crimson eyes were sharp. "The big lizard's armor is finally gone. That shiny blue rock in its chest is the core. But... even half-dead, breaking a Beast's core requires a ridiculous amount of conceptual density. Something that pierces space itself."
"Then it's a good thing I waited for the heavy lifting to be done."
The air high above the crater suddenly warped.
A piercing scream of tearing atmosphere echoed across the battlefield. A streak of blinding, crimson light descended from a jagged spire of glassed rock miles away. It moved faster than sound, striking the ground directly in front of the crawling Avaritia.
BOOOOOOM!
The localized explosion of sheer kinetic force threw the massive, mangled Beast backward. Avaritia shrieked, its advance violently halted.
Standing on the distant ridge, his red coat billowing in the morning wind, was the Archer. EMIYA lowered his black bow, his sharp silver eyes locked onto the Beast through the telescopic sight of his Magecraft.
"Archer!" Fujimaru yelled, a surge of relief flooding his exhausted body.
"You're late, faker," Cú Chulainn smirked, spinning his staff.
"I am a sniper, Caster. I strike when the target is most vulnerable," EMIYA's voice crackled clearly over Chaldea's comms. "And thanks to the sacrifices of the Saints and the Witch, the Beast's absolute defense is gone. The Core is exposed. But we only have one shot before it assimilates the ambient mana and regenerates."
Bestia Avaritia realized its peril. The cornered Beast let out a desperate, gurgling roar. The dark blue jewel on its chest flared with an unstable, blinding light. It was pooling every single drop of its remaining demonic energy—the last dregs of Fafnir's poison and Tarasque's heat—into a final, suicidal blast meant to vaporize the entire crater.
"It's going for a desperation attack! Mash, hold the line!" Fujimaru commanded.
"Understood, Master!" Mash planted her feet, her lavender eyes blazing with unwavering resolve. Her spiritual core resonated with her Master's sheer willpower. The cross on her massive shield glowed with a pure, brilliant light.
"That which heals all wounds and grudges, our glorious homeland... Manifest yourself! Lord Chaldeas!"
The spectral walls of Camelot erupted from the earth, forming a towering fortress of chalk-white light.
At that exact second, Avaritia unleashed its final breath—a torrential beam of corrupted, abyssal mud and black fire. The apocalyptic beam crashed into the walls of Camelot. The holy shield groaned, the ground beneath Mash's feet shattering under the kinetic weight, but the fortress held.
"Now, Caster! Cage it!" Fujimaru yelled over the deafening roar of the Beast's attack.
"Way ahead of you, Boss!" Cú Chulainn slammed the butt of his staff into the ground. He didn't just draw one rune; he drew an entire matrix of them.
"By the wisdom of the ancient gods, the roots of the world shall bind thee!"
Dozens of glowing blue Kenaz and Ansuz runes erupted from the earth directly beneath the Beast. They formed massive, spectral chains of primordial fire that violently wrapped around Avaritia's thrashing limbs, anchoring the Beast to the exact coordinates.
"Target locked. Coordinates secured," EMIYA stated coldly from his sniper perch.
The Archer raised his left hand. Mana surged through his circuits as he accessed his internal Reality Marble. He didn't need a barrage of swords; he needed one perfect, conceptual drill.
"I am the bone of my sword."
A massive, spiraling blade materialized in his grasp. It was Caladbolg, the legendary sword of Fergus mac Róich, modified by the Archer into a streamlined, aerodynamic arrow of mass destruction.
EMIYA nocked the spiraling greatsword onto his black bow. He pulled the string back, his muscles straining as he overloaded the Noble Phantasm with magical energy, turning it into a Broken Phantasm. The space around the arrow began to visually distort and tear, unable to handle the sheer density of the weapon.
"Mash, drop the shield!" Fujimaru roared.
"Yes, Senpai!"
Mash violently angled her shield downward, dropping the walls of Camelot for a split second.
The path was completely clear. Avaritia, bound by Cú's primordial chains, looked up through its single, melted eye. The Beast of Greed saw the blinding star of execution aimed directly at its heart.
"Caladbolg..." EMIYA released the bowstring. "...II!"
The spiraling Broken Phantasm crossed the miles in a fraction of a millisecond. It didn't just fly; it drilled through the very fabric of space.
Bestia Avaritia tried to close its chest, tried to summon a final barrier, but it was too late.
CRACK-SHATTER!
Caladbolg II struck the exact dead-center of the dark blue Singularity Core. The spatial distortion of the arrow acted like a conceptual wedge. The jewel, which had survived the triple-suicide attack, violently shattered into a million pieces of dark glass.
The spiraling energy detonated inside the Beast's chest cavity.
Avaritia's final scream was entirely silent. The apocalyptic density of the Beast's flesh folded inward, collapsing under the destruction of its own core. The black mud, the charred scales, and the corrupting malice of the Sin Dragon were instantly vaporized by a blinding explosion of pure, azure light.
When the light finally faded, the primordial chains vanished.
Bestia Avaritia was gone. Not even a single trace of ash remained. In its place, a gentle shower of golden, purifying particles drifted down over the glassed crater, signaling the true, final death of the demonic entity.
The rusted sky was completely gone. The morning sun bathed the restored landscape of France in a warm, golden glow.
Mash dropped to her knees, planting her shield in the dirt as she gasped for air, a weary but radiant smile spreading across her face. Cú Chulainn let out a long whistle, leaning on his staff.
Far away, EMIYA simply lowered his bow, turned his back to the rising sun, and vanished into spirit form, his job done.
Fujimaru Ritsuka stood in the center of the silent crater. He looked at the gentle shower of golden light, and then down at the single, splintered flagpole of Jeanne d'Arc resting on the earth nearby.
! Sub-Beast VI/S, Bestia Avaritia has been defeated !
The golden shower of purifying light drifted over the crater, a beautiful and serene end to the nightmare. Fujimaru let out a breath he felt he had been holding for hours.
Then, the golden particles rapidly darkened, violently turning into a sickly, pulsating crimson. The serene silence was shattered by a deafening squelch from beneath the glassed earth.
"Master!" Mash screamed, bringing her shield up as the ground heaved.
The epicenter where Bestia Avaritia had died erupted. Without a vessel to contain it, the sheer density of demonic energy and Fafnir's toxicity violently expanded, turning the earth into a carpet of highly unstable, explosive flesh. It moved like a tidal wave, instantly swallowing the crater and expanding toward the horizon.
"Ten kilometers! Fifteen!" Mash called out. "Senpai, the ambient mana density is critical! The flesh is acting as a massive explosive! If it reaches twenty kilometers and detonates, the chain reaction will blow a hole in the quantum time-lock of this Singularity!"
"Like hell I'm letting a dead lizard get the last laugh!" Cú Chulainn roared. He slammed his staff into the earth, his magic circuits flaring to maximum. "Wicker Man!"
A colossal giant of burning wood and flame erupted from the ice, stomping forward to incinerate the flesh. But the moment the giant stepped into the tide of meat, the corrupted biomass surged upward, smothering the flames in seconds. The Wicker Man was completely swallowed and dissolved.
"It's no use!" Cú cursed, stepping back as the fleshy tendrils lashed at him. "My Noble Phantasm doesn't have the area of effect! I can't burn twenty kilometers of this crap before it detonates!"
"Thirty seconds until critical mass!" Roman's voice panicked over the comms.
"Mash! Cú! Form a perimeter around me!" Fujimaru shouted, his voice suddenly terrifyingly calm. He didn't run. He stepped forward, raising his right hand toward the apocalyptic wave of flesh. "Do not let a single attack touch me! I'm handling this myself!"
"Senpai?! You don't have the mana for anything that big!" Mash cried out, even as she planted Lord Chaldeas firmly in front of him.
"I don't need mana," Fujimaru stated, his eyes narrowing.
Fujimaru closed his eyes and tapped into an anomalous authority—a power entirely foreign to the Mage's Association or the Throne of Heroes, obtained as a secret trick from a completely unknown origin.
A massive, incredibly complex three-dimensional magic circle—a glowing mandala of geometric runes—erupted around Fujimaru, expanding outward in concentric, rotating rings of pure white light.
It was Super-Tier Magic.
A power that went far beyond the absolute limits of the 10th-Tier. It didn't act like a conventional spell; it functioned more like a supreme special ability. Because of its nature, Fujimaru could unleash it without consuming a single drop of his own MP.
But it came with strict, absolute laws. A super-tier spell required a massive amount of casting time before it could be put into effect. During this activation period, Fujimaru's physical and magical defenses were completely lowered to zero. Furthermore, taking a certain amount of damage—whether from a teleportation ambush, bombardment, or long-range sniping—would instantly interrupt the casting.
"Protect him!" Cú yelled, realizing the boy was completely defenseless.
The explosive flesh sensed the terrifying gathering of power. The biomass surged, launching a bombardment of hardened bone-spikes and massive, squelching tentacles directly at the vulnerable Master.
"I won't let you pass!" Mash screamed, her shield flaring with absolute resolve as she deflected a barrage of spikes. Cú Chulainn blurred into motion, his staff a whirlwind as he smashed apart any tendrils that managed to slip past the Shielder. The basics of casting super-tier spells fundamentally required the caster to be protected by several friends, and his Servants were holding the line perfectly.
"Fifteen seconds!" Roman yelled. "The flesh is going critical!"
The casting time is too long. We won't make it! Fujimaru thought.
He reached into his void and pulled out a peculiar object—a small, transparent hourglass filled with glowing, ethereal golden sand. It was a "Cash Item," a premium artifact designed specifically to completely negate the activation period of Super-Tier spells.
Fujimaru held the transparent hourglass over the center of the magic array, and with a resolute grip, he crushed it.
Crack.
The glass shattered, but the golden sand did not fall to the earth. Instead, it dissolved instantly into the air, flooding the celestial clockwork of the Super-Tier array with absolute temporal authority. The magic circles spun up to an infinite velocity, the geometric runes aligning perfectly. The casting time was annihilated.
The rotating rings locked into place, emitting a pillar of divine, white light that pierced straight through the rusted clouds.
The concentric rings of the magic array locked into place, emitting a blinding, divine light that dwarfed the rising sun.
"Super-Tier Magic..." Fujimaru's voice echoed with the authority of a supreme being, absolute and undeniable. "...[Creation]!"
The spell activated.
Creation was a super-tier spell designed to fundamentally alter and rewrite the terrain itself, originally used to guard against the heat of volcanoes or the cold of freezing lands. Its area of effect was amazingly large—perfectly covering the entire 20-kilometer radius of the blast zone.
The white light from Fujimaru's array didn't explode; it washed over the world.
The moment the light touched the violently expanding, explosive demonic flesh, the terrain was instantly and absolutely overwritten. The squelching, corrupted biomass, the toxic mud, and the unstable demonic energy were forcibly converted into something else entirely.
In a single, breathtaking second, the entire 20-kilometer nightmare was transformed into a pristine, beautifully serene expanse of solid, freezing permafrost. The volatile, explosive properties of the flesh were entirely neutralized by the absolute, biting cold of the newly created land.
The countdown stopped. The world fell completely, perfectly silent.
Mash slowly lowered her shield. She stared out at the vast, glittering expanse of pristine snow and solid ice that now covered the crater, her breath visible in the suddenly freezing air.
"The... the demonic energy..." Roman stuttered over the comms, completely flabbergasted. "It's gone. The flesh is gone. The entire terrain has been completely rewritten. What on earth did you just do, Ritsuka?!"
Cú Chulainn dropped his splintered staff, staring at the teenage Master with a mix of absolute disbelief and genuine awe. "Beyond the Age of Gods... you just overwrote reality without spending a drop of mana."
Fujimaru lowered his hand, the magic circles dissipating into the freezing air. He let out a long, exhausted sigh, a tired smile crossing his face.
"Just a little trick I picked up," Fujimaru said, his breath pluming in the cold. "Though... I think my magic is on cooldown for a while."
Miles away from the newly formed, glittering expanse of permafrost, atop the ruined, glassed spire of what used to be a French cathedral, Alexandre Dumas was having the time of his life.
The boisterous Caster was perched dangerously close to the edge, a phantom bottle of heavy red wine in one hand and a ghostly, half-eaten turkey leg in the other. He let out a booming, roaring laugh that echoed into the freezing morning air, completely enraptured by the spectacle he had just witnessed.
"Magnifique! Absolutely glorious!" Dumas cheered, tossing the turkey bone over the edge. "A tragedy inverted! The absolute lowest point of despair, countered by a completely logic-defying Deus ex Machina! It's cheap, it's absurd, it breaks every rule of the foreshadowing I laid out—and yet, it is utterly, flawlessly entertaining! Bravo, Master of Chaldea! Bravo!"
He took a deep swig of his wine, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. As a writer, he couldn't have asked for a better climax. Francesca's script had been a pretentious, nihilistic bore. Fujimaru's script—messy, desperate, and ultimately triumphant—was exactly the kind of pulp adventure Dumas lived for.
"I must write this down immediately. The Count of Monte Cristo has nothing on 'The Boy Who Froze the Apocalypse'—"
"A rather crude resolution from a purely literary standpoint, wouldn't you agree, Monsieur Dumas? Though, I suppose when the fate of humanity is on the line, one cannot afford to be a strict traditionalist regarding plot structure."
Dumas froze. His booming laughter caught in his throat.
It wasn't the voice that put him on edge—it was the smell. A very distinct, rich blend of pipe tobacco drifting on the freezing wind. Along with it came the soft, rhythmic whirring of small brass gears and the sharp tap of a cane against the stone.
Dumas slowly turned around.
Standing in the shadows of the ruined belfry was a man who looked entirely out of place in a 15th-century apocalyptic wasteland. He was tall, lean, and exceptionally sharp-featured, dressed in a pristine white shirt and a dark, tailored vest.
But it was the bizarre, intricate contraption he wore that commanded attention. Bound tightly around his waist was a heavy, golden, corset-like device. Extending outward from it were several articulated, mechanical brass arms—like the legs of an elegant spider—each ending in a polished magnifying lens that twitched and adjusted as if possessing a life of its own.
The man took a slow drag from his pipe, his piercing, analytical green eyes locking onto the Caster. He leaned casually on a cane with a glowing, crystalline blue shaft.
Dumas let out a long, exaggerated groan, slapping a hand over his face.
"Oh, no. No, no, no. Anyone but you," Dumas complained, his celebratory mood instantly souring. "A writer's absolute worst nightmare. The man who walks into a perfectly good mystery, points out all the plot holes, explains the magic trick, and ruins the suspense for everyone. What in the world is the great Sherlock Holmes doing in a Singularity like this?"
Holmes offered a faint, polite smile, pulling the pipe from his lips. The mechanical magnifying glasses hovering around his waist shifted, a few of them tilting toward the distant, frozen wasteland where Fujimaru and his Servants were recovering.
"Merely observing, Monsieur Dumas. And investigating, as is my nature," Holmes replied, his voice calm, measured, and effortlessly cutting through the chill in the air. "The World's foundation here was subjected to a rather violent cocktail of anomalies. A mutated Dragon, a Beast of Revelations, a phantom Grimoire... and, of course, your own Noble Phantasm rewriting the parameters of the local heroes."
Holmes took a few steps forward, his cane tapping rhythmically against the stone. He stopped at the edge of the spire, looking out over the 20-kilometer expanse of permafrost. One of his mechanical lenses snapped forward, magnifying the distant, lingering traces of Fujimaru's anomalous spell.
"But I must admit," Holmes murmured, his eyes narrowing in genuine curiosity. "That final spell the young Master used. No incantation. No expenditure of internal magical energy. A fundamental overwriting of reality that bypassed the established rules of Magecraft entirely. That was not an art of this world."
"Hey, don't look at me," Dumas shrugged, taking another swig of wine. "I just gave them a stage. How the actors decided to flip the table is their business. I'm just here to enjoy the royalties."
Holmes chuckled softly, a dry, intellectual sound.
"Indeed. The Master of Chaldea holds many fascinating secrets. A mystery I look forward to unspooling in due time," Holmes said, turning his sharp gaze back to the Caster. "However, the primary anomaly of Orleans has been resolved. The Singularity is beginning to correct itself. Your stage is collapsing, Caster."
Dumas looked down at his own hands. The edges of his fingers were already beginning to break apart into glowing golden particles. His Spirit Origin was dissolving. With Francesca dead and the timeline righting itself, his presence here was no longer supported.
"Bah. Every curtain must fall eventually," Dumas said with a grand, theatrical sigh. He stood up, dusting off his coat, entirely unfazed by his impending disappearance. He pointed a finger at the detective. "Just do me a favor, Holmes. When you inevitably corner that kid and dissect whatever ridiculous powers he's hiding... make sure it's a good story. Don't bore the audience with pure logic."
"I shall endeavor to keep it entertaining, Monsieur," Holmes bowed slightly, tipping an imaginary hat. "Though the truth, I often find, is far stranger than any fiction you could pen."
"We'll see about that!" Dumas laughed, his voice booming one last time across the frozen ruins. "Adieu, detective! Adieu, Chaldea! It was a masterpiece!"
With a final, hearty chuckle, Alexandre Dumas dissolved completely into a flurry of golden light, leaving the ruined belfry empty.
Sherlock Holmes stood alone in the freezing wind. He took one last, long drag from his pipe, exhaling a plume of white smoke into the morning air. His mechanical lenses whirred, folding neatly back toward his golden corset as he turned his back on the recovering Singularity.
"Now then," the world's greatest detective murmured to the wind. "The game is afoot."
And with a quiet, spectral fade, Sherlock Holmes vanished from the spire, leaving the First Singularity to finally rest in peace.
High above the newly formed, glittering permafrost, hidden perfectly within a dimensional fold that separated them from the physical texture of the world, two towering monstrosities floated in absolute silence.
They did not have human shapes. They were colossal, fleshy pillars, covered entirely in writhing, unblinking red eyes and jagged, golden veins. They were the very anchors of the Grand Order's incineration plan—the terminals of the King of Demon Gods.
Demon God Zepar and Demon God Naberius.
From their hidden vantage point, their thousands of eyes had watched every single variable of the Orleans Singularity unfold. They watched Gilles de Rais's madness, the birth of the Dragon Witch, the catastrophic interference of Francesca Prelati, the paradoxical awakening of Bestia Avaritia, and finally... the inexplicable, reality-overwriting magic of the human boy.
"The foundation of the First Singularity is collapsing," Zepar's voice echoed. It did not speak through sound waves, but through a collective, psychic resonance that vibrated with cold, mechanical absolute logic. "The Holy Grail granted to the Caster Gilles de Rais has been neutralized. The Beast of the Capital of Sin, an unexpected variable, has been atomized. The era is correcting itself. As the designated overseer of this Singularity, Naberius, your experiment has concluded in failure."
The myriad eyes on Naberius's pillar blinked in a terrifying, synchronized wave.
"A failure of the objective, but a triumph of data," Naberius countered, his psychic voice dripping with a detached, scholarly arrogance. "My task was to observe if the sheer gravity of human grief and the draconic authority of the Witch could successfully sever this era from human history. It was a beautiful hypothesis. The King of Mages would have been pleased."
"And yet, it was hijacked. First by the rogue Caster, Prelati, who sought to turn our grand incineration into a theatrical comedy. And then, by the Beast of Greed." Zepar's eyes shifted downward, staring directly at the tiny, exhausted figure of Fujimaru Ritsuka resting on the ice below. "But neither of those anomalies are what concerns the collective. It is him."
Naberius's pillar thrummed with a dark, heavy energy.
"Indeed," Naberius agreed. "Chaldea's Last Master. He possesses a frail, remarkably pathetic biological vessel. His magical circuits are practically non-existent. Our initial calculations placed his threat level at absolute zero. And yet... what did we just witness, Zepar?"
"A contradiction," Zepar stated flatly. "He executed a grand ritual that perfectly rewrote twenty kilometers of physical terrain. It bypassed the need for leylines. It bypassed the need for internal mana generation. It bypassed the Foundation of Magecraft established by Solomon. It was not a Noble Phantasm from the Throne of Heroes. It was... something else. A logic from outside this universe's established texture."
"A 'cheat,' he called it," Naberius mused. The fleshy pillar contorted slightly, an eldritch equivalent of a frown. "To alter the world without paying the equivalent exchange... it is a dangerous, unpredictable variable. A human wielding a power that does not belong to human history."
"Shall we descend and eradicate him?" Zepar asked. "His defensive wall is down. His Servants are depleted. We could incinerate them before the Singularity fully ejects us."
Naberius remained silent for a long moment. Below, the golden light of the morning sun was expanding, washing away the last traces of the rusted, demonic sky. The quantum time-lock was finalizing.
"Negative," Naberius finally decreed. "Our primary directive is the incineration of human history, not petty assassination. The First Singularity is lost, but we have six more anchors successfully embedded across the timeline. We will report this anomaly—this 'Super-Tier Magic'—directly to the Throne of Time. The King of Demon Gods must be made aware that the Last Master is hiding fangs that do not belong to this world."
"Understood." Zepar's eyes began to close one by one, his massive form dissolving into dark, conceptual particles. "Let Chaldea celebrate their minor victory. They are merely delaying the inevitable ash."
"Enjoy the sunrise, Fujimaru Ritsuka," Naberius whispered, a sinister, echoing promise that only the wind could hear. "For the Grand Order has only just begun."
The dimensional fold collapsed. The two Demon God Pillars vanished entirely from the skies of France, retreating back to the Temple of Time, leaving the Last Master of Humanity to rest on the frozen battlefield he had created.